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Hurricane info and links
Entered: 2008-09-12
Edited: 2008-09-12
Type: journal
Some real good info on Hurricane Ike and his expected effects on Houston: Can you spare a piece of your mind? Post and view user comments here! (0)
National Weather Service official forecast - This is for my zipcode, 77096, and is currently giving the expected max wind predictions. At the moment 55-75mph with 90mph gusts. Which is below the level expected to damage most homes.
National Hurricane Center The official forecast for Ike's track and additional information. It's coming right for Houston which is actually slightly better than yesterday's track of 60 miles west of here since the eastern half of the storm is nastier.
Houston Chronicle's Science Blog The best part of our local paper is Eric Berger's science blog. For three years running he's had the best information about tropical systems heading into the gulf, and what they mean to the Houston area. He's a little strung out right now from lack of sleep but still putting out great stuff. Keep in mind that I live well outside the storm surge zone so discussion about it's affects don't apply to me.
Stormpulse.com - Another good tracking site that let's you look at the computer models that go into the forecast track. HWRF and GFDL are the NHC's two homegrown models and get the most weight in the official track.
Houston Hide From the Wind A great zip code map of predicted wind speeds in the Houston area. For my fans click on the 77096. The values listed here are a bit higher than the NWS forecast numbers and don't list the gusts but it's still a good resource.
If you have a twitter account you can follow my storm status on twitter.com I'll try to post "I'm alive" notes here during the storm if I can still access the 'net from home or from my iPhone.
OMG!!!!!1 Hurricane! It
Entered: 2008-09-11
Edited: 2008-09-11
Type: journal
Can you spare a piece of your mind? Post and view user comments here! (0) 
This is a live image on the NHC's site so at some point this will change and look silly in the archives. Deal.
On the bright side... I don't live in a storm surge zone, don't have to evacuate and don't have much to worry about. Ike is looking like it it'll make landfall as a Cat2 now, and while we might get some 80mph winds (and some 100mph gusts) that's not really enough to do more than minor damage to the house. Only thing I'm worried about at this point is losing power and my friends and family in AK getting worried about me. Oh and losing the A/C would suck but the cars are all gassed up and we can charge cellphones and laptops in them while taking an A/C break if it comes to that.
Also I don't have to go to work tomorrow! Since we got out early today Becca and I have already finished getting supplies and doing what prep to the house we can. While waiting for the hurricane show to start tomorrow I get to hang out in the shop working on this:
The top to my new workbench - a 120#, two foot by six foot slab of solid Ash. It's going to be an 18th century, French style workbench, as discussed in Andre Roubo's L'ART DU MENUISIER (THE ART OF THE JOINER)
Being an inveterate handtool user I can keep working even if we lose power. Hell I can work by lamplight if I need to ;-)
Visit from Fast Eddie
Entered: 2008-08-05
Edited: 2008-08-05
Type: journal
Thanks to this guy:
Can you spare a piece of your mind? Post and view user comments here! (0)
Coming into town uninvited I get the day off from work today! Yippee!
The best part is that late last night it took a slight turn to the north before making landfall, which means we're getting lots of rain but not much wind from it. So we're just hanging out enjoying the heavy rain and not going to work. So far we haven't had much wind but it is supposed to pick up in our part of town around 1pm this afternoon and get into the 30mph range. Less than we saw from the glancing blow from Rita a couple summers ago.
I'll be spending the day working on this:
With any luck we'll have some flooding in the low intersections around our neighborhood and have to stay home again tomorrow ;-)
Final pictures of empire high chest
Entered: 2008-07-10
Edited: 2008-07-10
Type: woodworking
We actually finished this up in May but I forgot to post pictures because a few days later we went back up to Anchorage for a week. Just got distracted. Can you spare a piece of your mind? Post and view user comments here! (0)
Anyway here's how it came out:
Forgive the picture quality it's hard enough to take photos of something so damn shiny under the best of circumstances and my camera is getting a bit tired.
Empire High Chest
Entered: 2008-05-08
Edited: 2008-05-08
Type: woodworking
I have a few more pictures of the chest of drawers we're restoring: Can you spare a piece of your mind? Post and view user comments here! (271)
The big top drawer has had the finish repaired and polished, the others are all still in progress. The lighting in the shop sucks for pictures so it's hard to see but the surface of the drawer has a mirror polish, you can literally see your reflection when you walk up to it now. We're nearly done with the small drawers and the other large ones will take some more time they've only been cleaned.
We found the key!
