The shaman gets blown away

[shaman]

Gee, this ain't Kansas anymore, Toto.

Last night, while sitting out on my deck, trying to cook dinner on the grill, I finally had enough.  I yelled to everyone within earshot:

"I'm sick of playing Amish.  I want my electricity back, NOW!"

Several neighbors came out and gave me a thumbs up, and there was quite a bit of applause.

I don't know if you guys know it, but Cincinnati got hit with the remnant of Hurricane Ike on Sunday afternoon.  I've been without power since about 1400 ET Sunday. We took 40MPH steady winds with 70 MPH gusts from about 1300 ET to 1800 ET.  We were driving back from the farm. We knew we were in trouble when big limbs started blowing across I-71.  Yow!

The regurgifreighter is ambient temperature, but the freezers are holding the cool in for now; looks like the venison is safe.  It probably won't be in another day.

Duke Energy had sent all their trucks to Huston, so all we had was a skeleton crew to address the outages-- about 90% of the town was without power and it's only coming back slowly.  

We lost 3 small trees. All the big ones held.  However, some roads are still seriously blocked up with downed trees, limbs, and lines.  5 are reported dead.

Anyhow, I just wanted to let you know the shaman, KYHillchick, Moose and Angus are okay. I hooked the laptop up to my trolling motor battery to check email and post this.   Don't expect any responses soon.  I'll check back after the lights come back on.

[JOEL]

get some dry ice for your freezer 

[Corey Graff]

I hooked the laptop up to my trolling motor battery to check email and post this.

Now THAT is dedication.

[Goose]

Great to hear from you. Your all in my prayers and Godspeed.

[shaman]

Fast update:

Duke Energy has restored service to within a mile of the shamanic hermitage.

I'm going out to scout for gas and take the kid to his bagpipe lesson. I'll be able to charge the laptop off the car's inverter while I'm out.

I know you guys who live with Hurricanes go through this on a regular basis. The problem with it being up here in Cincinnati is this is the worst Cincinnati has ever been hit, and nobody was ready for it. The radio was saying "Stay home. Hunker down." My silly neighbors all got bored with that plan by noon yesterday and went out driving all over town looking for an open gas station. I heard one driving out again last night looking for fresh yogurt. Cheese and Rice!

I finally gave up too, last night, and drove a mile up the road to a liquor store, but I had the sense to call ahead. It's amazing how much better the aftermath of a storm like this goes with a good single malt. I must remember to put a gallon or two in with my emergency provisions for next time.

Q: Is there anything worse than a power outage in the center of a major metroplex?

A:Yes, having an outage, and after all the debris has been carted out to the road, and your body is bloated from eating as much out of the regurgifreighter that you can, and all your aches and pains have been soothed from a nice strong scotch, and you're lying there awake, listening to the night noises wafting through the open bedroom window, waiting for sleep to overtake you, and beginning to think that this ain't so bad and that this has re-awakened your sense of neighborhood and that suburban living isn't such a drag after all. . . and the lousy neighbor cranks up his generator.

At this point, the shaman began considering exactly how many rounds of 30-06 AP it would require to take out the generator versus how many rounds it would take for the neighbor to start seeing the muzzle flash and begin returning fire.


Q: What's even better than that?
A: Hearing the neighbor's generator cough sputter and die after only a half hour. Either there is a just God out there listening to prayers, or somebody just forgot to fill the tank.


(pause to take a call on the cell phone)

KYHillChick just called. She was on her way home from work and found a gas station open with a short line. Across the street is a Popeye's.

There truly is a God.



More later.

[JPH]

I guess what I dont understand is why you aren't out smashing windows and looting department stores. Man, it's like folks don't even know how to react to a disaster anymore.
 
Seriously, good to know you are safe. It reminds us of how small we are, huh?

[OHhunter]

I know what what your going  through we got the same winds up here in ross county, I fared better than most my electric was only out for about 9 or 10 hours.  Still some folks at work with no power, news is saying it may be saturday or sunday before all is restored. 
 
Where were you when the winds came? I was out putting up my last few treestands when they started to blow, It only took a few widow makers blowing by before I gave up headed for the Jeep. 
 
I hope I can get my last couple up by this weekend, I spent the last couple days cleaning up the tree limbs and debris out of my yard. 

[charger295]

Sorry to hear that you folks up in Ohio and surrounding areas got as much of Ike as you did.  That was really a massive storm covering a lot of area.  We actually got our worst winds and rain on Saturday night here in North Louisiana...and I thought the hurricane was past by then!  We still have a lot of folks without power and some areas flooded, but things are looking a lot better.  We've sure had some beautiful weather the last couple of days..lows in 50's with highs in 70's...that's Fall for us (ha). 

[passin through]

Glad to here ya'll are gonna make it Shaman!  Popeyes sounds like my kinda supper!  As to what can be worse?  Well for me tonight it involved checking a camera with a mickey mouse flashlight and trying to live up to a "walk any where in the dark with NO light" reputation I got when in High School  (which now that I think about it Jose' Q probably earned that and not me).....As discovered tonight a five foot long cane brake rattler will ....a)  let you know when your alligator mouth has overloaded your jackrabbit rear end and b) teach you religion if you aint got it already....and even if you do the immediate effect is walking on water and speaking in tongues[:D]  All about the q beam and a machete for constant companions now.....  and that old feller can keep the flashlight[:D]!!!!

[shaman]

Ah! We came back from the bagpipe lesson, and . . .

drat. The lights were on all the way up from the pike to our street, but they stopped less than 100 yards from our house.

Then at 2356 the fan started running in our bedroom. I waited a few minutes and then started looking into the freezer. The sausage in the door was a little soft, but everything else was hard frozen.


I'll write more tomorrow, but just seeing y'all for a few minutes was a huge fix of just the right stuff.  Catch y'all in the morning.