Love your kids? Prove it by beating them.

This is old skool, and I have to sort of agree. I got my ass kicked as a kid. today as an adult I still have flashbacks if I'm getting ready to screw up. Kids today are kicking their parents' asses, and that's just wrong! It's time today's kids start getting their own switches from that tree out back.....

The worse luck in the world

Apparently I need to get out more. My cable totally went out yesterday for no apparent reason. The TV I guess I can deal with, but no cable light on my modem sends me thru some changes. I went to work lastnite with no service. Then I come home this morning to find a cab wrapped around a pole in front of my complex, and my side of the complex had no power. Apparently he was run off the road by someone. I'm surprised I got power back so soon cause the pole looked split. I haven't gone back out to see exactly what was done. Guess I shouldnt complain. I have power and internet and the A/C is on :-P

Let us welcome Jeannie. Of course it's way too early to be worried, but us weary Floridians are watching it i'm sure. Tell you the truth I'm bloody sick of all the storms. The rain is welcome, but I don't want a skylite in my whole 2nd story apartment. We'll see how this one plays out

Well here's Ivan. After watching it for almost a week after Frances, it seems that we lucked out on this monster. I haven't heard from my friend in the Cayman Islands, but from all the reports it looks like he got hit pretty severly. But we're not out of the woods yet as there's something else to worry about :-(

From where I drove, the damage is sporadic. Parts of downtown were flooded earlier, but I think that has subsided. I wish I could say the same for my neighborhood. I stay a few blocks away from a major shopping mall, and it's under water. This is a pic from in front of the mall down the main 8 lane street that passes in front of it. The rest of the pics can be seen below.

Aftermath pictures

I survived my first hurricane....Hurricane Frances. Being in hurricane force winds is not fun but at the same time it's almost surreal. I lost power on Sunday about 12:50pm. At the time it really wasnt that windy when the transformer blew, but it didnt bother me, as there was an approaching hurricane. I spent most of the day sitting around. I tried to catch up on some reading assignments but just couldnt stay focused. I was totally exhaused but I couldnt sleep, so I listened to the radio. One call I just cant forget is a guy who didn't have power. He calls the radio station, states his area and he had no power for (at the time) about 4 hours or so. He also stated he drove around his neighborhood (bad idea), he saw no "major damage" and it was only raining. Then he goes into his rant and says "it's not fair". WTF??? Apparently his argument was that why wasnt the electric company out on a pole giving him his electricity in the 40mph+ sustained winds?? I had to LOL when the DJ quickly hung up on him, and spent about 10 minutes calling him different kinds of idiots.

Fast forward to about 8pm. With what was forcasted for the weather, it was already planned for me to be to work. At that time it was only raining with some gusts, but nothing we wouldnt see in an afternoon thunderstorm. My manager was running late, so I decided to drive around to avoid getting sleepy to see how things were. I was amazed that some gas stations were open. Those foreigners know when to cash in on opportunity, and each open station i passed was packed. Sporadic outages, I didnt see anything drastic, such as big trees down, but this is only about a 5 mile area i was in. We basically had a skeleton crew at work, two managers and five associates. Wasn't much to do, but I was able to maintain my weekly hours (these days I can't afford to miss any hours for ANYTHING).

About 11pm is when things got real ugly. Most of the day the worst thing I saw from my living room window was wind gusts, alot of foilage. Now things were looking like what you'd see on TV, horizontal rain. The front doors of the building was buckling under the pressure of the wind. I'm no meteorologist, but I could take a guess and say those were strong tropical storm winds, 50 or 60 miles per hour. It was wicked!!! At this point I feel like an idiot for being so dedicated to my job, but I didn't have power so I felt better to be at work anyway. In any case, we are getting the back end of the storm now, and it was totally different from what went on in the beginning. The rain was coming down in sheets, very very heavy and VERY VERY WINDY. You can hear it pounding the roof almost all nite. When I came home I made a beeline, and being it was still dark I was limited to what I can see. The pond across the street from work has started flowing in the street. Vulnerable flood areas are underwater by many feet.

I have to try and get rest, but I hope to get pictures if it isnt still too dangerous outside.

I'm still here. I haven't lost power, but a few times it made my APC beep, the CATV acted funny a couple of times. I have my A/C on full blast so if the power does go out it will be relatively cool in here. At the moment it's raining outside, a little bit of wind, but the worse of the storm is coming, as noted by my graphic. viewer call-ins from the Lake Wales area state that it's really deteriorating, alot of trees and power lines down, a lady had part of a tree come in her window. I really hoped this thing would weaken more before getting here, God help us

Hurricane Frances comes to visit

This storm is already causing problems, and i'm on the West coast of the state. The above link shows what just happened to my grandmother's house. This is not going to be a good weekend.....

The storm is moving in. This is a snapshot from CNN showing some boats being knocked around. I'm not sure exactly where they are, all i know this is West Palm Beach. They showed some pretty dramatic footage of a nice sized pleasure boat coming in, a lady ran from it, apparently this boat lost an engine, but the fact I cant understand, what were they doing out on the waters anyway? This storm has been public knowledge for days, so what is their excuse?

Hurricane Frances

I'm getting impatient now with this storm. I know that sounds crazy, but the watching and waiting is killing me. I'm already impatient when it comes to waiting, but this is just too much. Apparently I'm not the only one, as the lady on the news just said the exact same thing. I wish it would speed up for this reason, and for the simple fact that it's moving so slow and the rains along with it, the flooding is going to be a major issue, especially in my neighborhood. a quick 10 minute storm puts a few of the roads under water, even though it takes a few hours to drain. With this storm, it could take days or even weeks to clear out. I guess the term "up the creek without a paddle" wont sound too stupid right now.

Ahh the joy of being a college student. For the last hour I've been doing some assigned reading from The Wadsworth Handbook and I just had to find a break after reading 6 chapters. I guess that means I need to stop procrastinating. I still havent completed my reading for my Sociology class, and haven't even begun reading for my Management class (waiting on my book). I've managed to avoid having to do a Thesis on anything, but my number has been called. This actually might be fun!

Here we go again. The Orlando area doesn't need another hit, and neither does the Polk County area (Lakeland). It's still too early to say as this storm track has been updated a few times, but it's still too close to me :-(

Classes have begun

At the last minute I decided not to take the Fall term on hiatus. What is interesting is that I've enrolled in all distance learning classes. I'm familiar with webcourses, but I'm taking a telecourse. I get to watch a lecture for an hour once a week sitting in my living room (or in my world, in front of my pc, tv tuner cards are great).

The subjects?

• Freshman English/English Composition


• Sociology


• Principles of Management

I dont know what I've gotten myself into. The english class will involve alot of reading, and apparently alot of writing. That should be most interesting. The management class I hope to gain some good knowledge to use at work if I get into management training. I don't know why I took the sociology class (perhaps it was the only other class of any lukewarm interest listed as distance learning, other classes i wanted were either closed or cancelled).

We'll see how well this goes I guess....

Comedy

I laughed for about 10 minutes on this one

http://www.karolzyk.com/pee/castin.mov

Lawd Have Mercy

Over the years I've come to love and cherish my broadband connection, currently getting 3mbps. Well Verizon has fiber being laid for FIOS, at speeds up to 15mbps for the same price I pay now. I'm drooling uncontrollably. It states my area may have it available by the end of the year. I've been cell only for years, but it seems now I need to reconnect with verizon home phone service to get this. I'll leave roadrunner forever!!!


Verizon FIOS Home


Verizon FTTP Deployment Center Florida Fiber Deployment

losing one's mind

it's 10:24am in the morning, just got out the shower, i have a mad headache because i'm too stupid to take my blood pressure medication, my feet are killing me and i'm very mad. I've missed 24 minutes of ER already, that's not cool. I'm the only one living here, but yet I can't find my tank tops I just bought last week. I wore one, and the other two were still rolled up in the pack. they were next to my desk. I picked them up and they went somewhere between BFE and oblivion. I've just spent 30 minutes searching 500 sq ft of apartment only to still be nekked from the waist up. I really wanted to wear the second one out of the pack, but this has only worsened the headache that wont go away for another two days anyway. damn this high blood pressure.

I'm still here

As we all know, the storm made a little detour at the last minute. Being this would have been my first hurricane every having to personally experience, I was very scared, but felt blessed as the storm changed its track. But I realized how bad it was for the citizens of Punta Gorda and Charlotte County, as they were less prepared for the storm as we were. There was simply no time for people to evacuate. The damage is breathtaking. And this storm was really a monster!! After making landfall as a category 4, it still had enough punch that it cause major damage in Polk County and the city of Orlando!! Meaning it was on land for about 6 hours or so (and i'm guestimating) and still was strong. At a certain point I feel so guilty and seeing all this incredible damage in other places, when in fact it was supposed to be my home, my neighborhood, my city. I shouldn't have power right now. But we're really not out the woods yet as there are two more storms brewing out in the Atlantic.

I pray for a speedy recovery for all those affected by Hurricane Charley

Hurricane Charley

Well looks like I will be experiencing a direct hit from this hurricane. It is expected to be a category 2. Pictures of it right now are impressive. Traffic leaving Pinellas county (west of me, right on the gulf) is a total nightmare crossing the bridge into Tampa. Businesses are boarding up, I'm actually a little scared now. As it stands we still have to work tomorrow nite!!! We are getting a few rain bands from Bonnie, nothing major, windy and a little rain. I'm having a horrible feeling about this :-(

The weatherman says not to panic, but this thing has a 2 on it and it's like almost on top of Tampa!! Man, when I goto work tomorrow nite, it's going to be hectic to the power of eternity. I don't even want to think about it....

bored

Nothing else to do, havent posted in a while. I'm tired, I've finally reached my weekend, it's raining outside, and I think I'll go back to sleep...