Stay Away Fay: Part 2

The latest 3-day track from the National Hurricane Center has Tropical Storm Fay doing a boomerang, coming back across Florida and briefly back into the Gulf of Mexico before she comes right over Mobile. Are you kidding me! This sounds like the Warren Commission’s magic bullet theory.

Fay dumped over 30 inches of rain in Melbourne, Florida. Heavy rain and a leaky roof are a bad combo.

Sarah and I are supposed to move into our new house this weekend. Instead, it looks like I’ll be stuck at work while Sarah dumps bucket after bucket of rain water in an effort to keep our bedroom from flooding.

Pray for Fay to go north. Mobile is the wettest city in the country. We get plenty of rain without help from the tropics. North Georgia is dealing with its worst drought in 115 years. Lake Lanier, the main water supply for Atlanta, is near a record low. 30 inches of rain would be a Godsend.

RIP LeRoi Moore

One good thing about working in news is you get the scoop first. Sometimes, that’s also the bad part about working in news.

Tonight, my stomach dropped and my heart skipped a beat when I read the following alert from the Associated Press: 
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Dave Matthews Band says sax player LeRoi Moore dies of injuries suffered in June accident.

We knew Leroi would miss the rest of this year’s tour when he fell off an ATV in June, suffering broken ribs and a punctured lung (both of which are especially bad for someone who earns a living playing the saxophone). But he was expected to be okay and had recently returned to his home in LA to begin an intensive rehab program. Even Leroi’s “temporary” replacement (Jeff Coffin of Bela Fleck and the Flecktones) posted on his website “Jeff is subbing for Leroi Moore, who was involved in a bad ATV accident, and will be with the band for the remainder of the 2008 touring year. Thankfully, Leroi is expected to make a full recovery.”

So today’s news came as a BIG shock.

Sarah and I definately missed hearing LeRoi’s killer sax when we saw DMB earlier this month in Memphis. Coffin was good but he doesn’t hold a candle to LeRoi.

The band will never be the same.

Rest in Peace Big Fella. I know heaven is jamming tonight!

House Hunters: The Hunt Is Over!!!!

Sarah and I finally sat down at the closing table around 4:00 this afternoon.

We were originally scheduled to close on/before Thursday. Everything looked good for a Monday closing, but Monday quickly turned into Thursday.

Thursday came and went and it looked like the deal may not get done until next week. (Slight problem with that - Sarah is traveling on business M-W). Well, our Realtor and mortgage broker pulled off a small miracle. We signed all the paperwork and got the keys just after 5:00 p.m. Whew! (That was about as close as Michael Phelps win in the 100m Butterfly - Gold Medal #7)

Now begins the race to move by August 31st, the last day of our lease. That’s two weeks from Sunday. Hopefully Tropical Storm Fay will stay out of the Gulf.

Stay Away Fay

We don’t condone forecasts by hurricane experts who project Fay to hit West of the Destin, FL area.  I’ve added my commentary to this spaghetti model to illustrate what would be a more acceptable storm path.

(Click the image for a larger view.)

House Hunters: Closing Set For Friday

Sarah and I began looking for a house one month ago today.

It’s been a very quick process from start to finish.

The mortgage went to the title company & HUD today. Three days from now (Friday), we will close on our new home!

Facebook Fanatic

Sarah has created a monster. She introduced me to a website called facebook. It’s a social networking site similar to MySpace. The majority of the people who use it are in high school or college (ya know, kids), so I feel like an old fart.

In just one day, I’ve become addicted. That’s not a good thing. I can see facebook eating up hours of valuable time that I should be spending doing something productive.

They Cheated!

Aggie Code Of Honor: An Aggie does not lie, cheat, or steal or tolerate those who do.

That means I can no longer tolerate Alabama fans. They created a program to help them win last week’s Helmet Clash and then shared it on a Crimson Tide message board for the masses to download.

from Tidesports.com
“As you may or may not know, we are currently getting hammered by the Texas A&M fans in ESPN’s helmet clash.

I have spent the last several hours writing a very simple Windows program that interacts directly with ESPN’s website, and submits votes for the Bama helmet as fast as your Internet connection will allow.”

Shame on you Bama!

(In the interest of full disclosure, an Aggie created a similar program. Looks like the Alabama nerd was the BIGGER nerd.)