Dragon Laffs

As many of you know, Lethal and family lost power at the end of his last update about 1500 EST.  It made several attempts to come back on, but ultimately failed.

Two and a half hours later (1730 EST) I got a quick text that said “Readi Kilowatt be praised! We have power again”

Rainfall rate has slowed considerably to about half an inch per hour now.  Still, we need basically no rain for flood waters to go down.

By 1800 he was saying that they were all going to nap and how much they needed it.  But before I could even wish him pleasant dreams, I got this.

Out again!

And back on

Scaring crap out of us now.

And that was last I heard two and a half hours ago.  Let’s continue to keep them all in our prayers.

Impish Dragon

I’d open by yelling “QUACK!” but honestly this weather isn’t even fit for ducks and I have serious doubt about it’s fitness for any other aquatic life as well.

First I’d like to take the opportunity to thank everyone for the comments of support and concern both here and in my Inbox. They has helped bolster my spirits which were already low before this hit.

Secondly, let me mention 2 things I should have yesterday:

1.) As of Sunday @ 1:40 PM it was reported that since Harvey had first started dumping rain on Houston that 419 Billion (no typo) gallons of water had fallen on us. We have not heard that figure updated and are having some difficulty with even determining how much rain our area has received as many of the rainfall sensors are either outright failing or malfunctioning. As a result of the massive accumulation of water the Army Corps of Engineers has been forced to start letting water out of two of our major reservoirs to prevent even greater problems. This of course doesn’t help the fact that the runoff channels are already at or above their capacity.

2.) Regarding the Ninja Kitties, Ginny thoughtfully inquired about them and I realized I had not mentioned them and how this was effecting them.

Neither are happy with Harvey at all. They are deprived of windows because the rain pelting them frightens them as does the wind when it slams into them. Additionally, the rain/ fogged up windows make it hard to see out of period for them.

Cats instinctively know when bad weather is approaching and this is apparently wreaking havoc with that sense of theirs. Chai has taken mostly to hiding (in some new and difficult to locate places) and sleeping, while SC pretty much just wants to be held and comforted all the time. I sat with Molly, on whom SC was laying just dozing, for about 3 hours watching the coverage and trying to read Sunday. When Molly attempted to make SC get down, SC crossed the small table between our loungers on to me.

When I would try to make her get down, she’d go right back to Molly. Usually if she is with me or on my chair, its across the top of the chair on a blanket we keep there for the purpose. I tried putting her up there because I felt bad for Molly who was trying to do something on her lap top. From SC’s reaction you’d have thought I was torturing her. I now have very clear nail patterns in my chest from all of SC’s toes from her desperately hanging to me.

When a Thunderstorm hits it’s even worse, especially when they come at night.

Moving on to our current situation:

Honestly in the last 12 hours things have gotten significantly more dicey around here.

We still have all essential services and are water tight safe and dry. Honestly, continuing to have power through out this has been one of the biggest factors in making the situation bearable. This has given us access to news and information and to the internet so we can view remotely what is happening locally as well as kept us comfortable.

However our area has also now lost it’s ability to evacuate and we are now essentially cut off.

Cypress creek @ I-45 that we’ve been watching is 12 feet above its banks and has flooded the highway forcing its closure. The “rear end” of our street about 1.5 – 2 miles away is flooded from what we can see on the local cameras and we think some of the complexes back there are likely flooding.

FM 1960, our “main drag” which we can access by going in the opposite direction is now flooded and a staging area for rescue boats. The underpass where it passes under the I-45 that you would have to travel to even access the highway to go North (away from the storm, the only logical direction to go) is completely under water and impassible.

I was going to write more but we just lost our power. Perhaps more later on

Update # 2: 27 Aug 2017 @ 5:00PM

Afternoon folks. Going to try and keep this one short as I’m sure you’ve all been watching the news.  I know that the national news as one person Molly talked with said “Has all of Texas Gulf Coast dying from Harvey”. While there have been only 3 fatalities that I am aware of so far.  I think as usual they are sensationalizing, over hyping the situation for ratings sake. While there are of a certainty places that are flooded and very bad not all of Houston is that way…yet anyway. We were just told we could expect up to another 15 to 20” of rain by Friday before all this is over.

In the last 24 hours as of this posting we have received an additional 15.4” of rain. If you add that to what we’ve already received that’s about 19 to 20” total to date and its currently still raining.

Most of the heavy stuff occurs at night largely due to atmospherics and the sun’s heating the air. Once it starts cooling off what has gone up into the air from the Gulf must come back down. Overnight we had numerous Flash Flood Warnings and extensions plus several Tornado Warning. Fortunately none of the Tornado Warnings were near us but when you’re barely sleeping as it is and the NWS alerts go off on your phone 2 and 3 times an hour it makes an already long night even longer.

We are still dry, safe & secure.  So far, we’ve lost no services of any kind. Honestly there has been surprisingly little loss of power associated with Harvey for a storm of its type, magnitude and size.

We’ve had a couple heavy bands and T-storms push through today, from 10 AM – 12 PM we got 2.68” of rain alone.  I have in the last couple hours begun to notice a change, minor ponding in a couple places.  As the ground becomes heavily saturated it cannot drain the heavy rain fast enough so we have some small low laying areas that have formed small puddles.  If we continue to get enough breaks and lulls these shouldn’t be an issue.

The Houston area 911 system has been overwhelmed.  We are being advised to shelter in place even if we have water in our home (we don’t as of now).  Our evacuation options have been cut down to one route (the one we’d be taking anyway). Even that we’ll have to keep an eye on as Cypress Creek which crosses I-45, our evacuation route is 5.5’ above flood stage and forecasted to go higher yet.

Molly will be working from home at least tomorrow for sure as most of her coworkers who live near where she works are reporting a lot of flooding and in one case even 1 small tornado touching down near them.  I understand that the street leading to her place as well as it’s parking lot frequently flood but apparently the building does not.

All in all we continue to be very lucky with Harvey. Thank You all for your thoughts prayers and well wishes.  I will try to continue the 1 a day updates when/if/as I am able as we are still experiencing some quite understandable Internet issues intermittently.

On a side note in closing: I can report that we, or at least I for sure, am getting notices once again when you post comments for approval.  LOL, of course now I can’t see them in our blog control panel unless I go there via each individual email.

For what we are about to receive may we be truly thankful. – Old Naval Prayer.

Update 1:  25 Aug 2017 15:15 hrs.

Despite coming ashore as a Cat 4 hurricane in the area it made landfall, Rockport Texas between Port Aransas and Port O’Connor close to 10 PM last night to date there has been only a single death attributed to Harvey.

So far we’ve managed well. The heavy stuff started last night between 7 and 8 PM. Early on we had about a 2 minute period where we we’re worried about loosing power but that coincided with some strange noises outside not far away so I think the rain and wind drove a tree branch down into the power lines until it burnt through it.

While it rained more or less all night we had some breaks in between the heavier bands which I think helped us a lot. We did have one reported lighting event that was only 0.2 miles away according to my local weather app but that was it aside from some thunder.

Currently we are safe, dry and secure. All our services are still on and functioning well, though we are having some minor issues with our internet service, but that is to be expected from past experiences.

The wind has not been bad as yet for us though there are some reports as yet unconfirmed by the NWS of several tornados having touched down over night, again well South and East of us.  While we have a little minor debris on the ground, its not really any worse than the aftermath of a bad T-storm. We did get quite a bit of rain, around 5 inches of it. Currently we are in sort of a lull period that started somewhere around 11 Am where the majority of rain is South and West of us.

As of about 1 PM CST Harvey was downgraded to a Tropical Storm which is good news. The bad news is that it has slowed to from a turtle’s speed of 10 mph to a snails pace of 2 mph and is currently as of writing this in fact stationary about 60 mile E-SE of San Antonio. We are under a Tornado Watch until 2 AM Sunday and I expect that will likely be extended as the last one was extended and modified into the current one.

As we just received a Tornado Warning Alert in conjunction with the T-storm cell which is due to arrive shortly. I’m going to post this and shut things down here just in case.

I’ll post again if/when I can as things develop.

As you enter the normal campground where Impish usually does his Saturday thing, you notice the stage is bare, with a curtain across the back, covering a large video monitor.  As you take your seat, Ginny and Diaman come out from off stage left and right and draw back the curtains.  The monitor comes to life and there is Impish sitting in a relatively straight backed chair facing the camera.

Good Morning Campers,

I have to state first and foremost, right up front and center, in the beginning without any preamble, with no pause or…

Come on fat boy, get on with it!

Um… yeah …. ah ….. damn it!  Now I lost my place!  I have to state first and foremost, right up front and …

The sound of a gun shot rings out!

Hey!  That was too close.  That must’ve been one of you Marines out there!  Get that close without actually hitting me or anything else of value.  Now look.  I’m just trying to say thanks to all of you well-wishers who’ve sent comments via the blog, sent me emails and text messages and even a couple of phone calls, but as you can imagine, the phone calls are the hardest with trying to recover.  I spend a lot of time napping on and off and you are just as likely to catch me awake at 3 am as you are at 3 pm.

But thank you.  It means so very, very much to me.

Well, let’s get you all caught up. 

Last Saturday-you got my last issue prior to my surgery.  It was a busy day.  My last work day for a while, so there was a lot to do to make sure that o matter how long I was gone, there was going to be an office to come back to and all that goes along with preparing for taking several months off work.  I taught my last CBRN Defense Survival Skills Class for a little while and set everything up so that I can work from home as soon as my doctor releases me for home-work (“telework” is what they call it in the Air Force) which Should be after about 2 weeks post surgery.

Sunday-was a day of relaxing and getting things ready around the house.  Yeah, the relaxing part didn’t go over very well, and …I guess I’m as ready as I’m going to be.

Monday-showed up at the hospital about 0615 hrs.  I had some paperwork and such to fill out, they gave me some really cool looking clothes to wear, with this awesome silver heat hat to wear.  Made me look like I had a jiffy pop popcorn container on my head.

 

 

 

Then they wheeled me down the hall, which seemed to happen much too quickly, they got me positioned on the cutting board operating table and the anesthesiologist gave me oxygen and told me to take deep breaths, so I did.  Once my blood oxygen level was up to 100% He said I was going to take a little nap and that I would get a little metallic taste in my mouth and my arm that had the IV in it would start to get cold.

I’ve always been very intrigued with that time, that micro-second when you know you are going unconscious and you suddenly flip from being awake to being asleep.  No matter how hard you try, you are going to sleep.  Well, of course I had to try this time, too, so just as I started to feel my arm start to get cold I thought, “here it g……” and I woke up in the recovery room four hours later. 

I found out later that my surgeon had come out right after the surgery and talked to Mary, Mrs. Dragon, and told her that everything went fine,but it was a hard surgery.  I have a lot of arthritis and have very tight hips, so I’ll ask him when I see him at my first post-op appointment on the 5th of September.

They had me up and walking that afternoon, which I think is a bit much, but they seem to know what it is they are doing.

Tuesday-They had me up and walking again in the morning (where’s all this rest and relaxation that everyone tells me I’m supposed to get?) And then sent me home in the early afternoon.  Just a bit more than 24 hours after I got out of the operating room.

Well, that leads us to Wednesday and my first Physical Therapy appointment.  That was pretty easy.  The PT Lady gave me some home exercises t do, which I have been doing just like I’m supposed to. 

That brings us to today, Thursday. where I had my second physical therapy appointment and graduated to a cane.  I’m not using the walker anymore and everyone is astounded at the progress I’m making.  Well, everyone that is except Mary, who says she wouldn’t expect anything less.  She knows me too well.

So, now that I’m caught up, let’s laugh for a bit and as the next couple of days go through my fingers, onto the keyboard, I’ll let you know what else is happening in the world of Impish of the Borg!

How to make a simple Soda Bottle Humane Mousetrap (that actually works!)  This is actually a pretty cool idea using a little bit of physics and some bits and bobs you have lying around the house.

Ten things you didn’t know about a deck of cards…

As the camera draws back from Impish, you can now see in the background the workings of, what appears to be, a real “Star Trek Style” bridge occupied by Borg crew members.

I have to say that I’m quite pleased with the way today’s header turned out.  It all stems from a comment made by my bestest bud, Lethal Leprechaun in a text message where I had made a personal comment that we don’t need to go into here and he replied:
Good!  Very happy to hear it…Impish of Borg. 
Nice!
$6K Dragon? (HMO wouldn’t pay more for your upgrades.  Went with lowest bidder)
Yeah.  I like Impish of The Borg better.

So, just a little tiny bit of insight into the actual workings of our company’s inner sanctum.  I hope you enjoyed it.  Trust me.  It gets a lot scarier than that!

A couple of years ago, I was asked to arbitrate when our usual judge/arbitrator had to have some time off.  Some sort of breakdown is all I was told at the time, but after working with these two guys to try and come up with a solution to their problem, I understand EXACTLY what kind of a breakdown it was.  I am proud to say that I did come up with an equitable solution to almost all parties involved, but I figured you can’t please all the people all the time.  I am kind of surprised the Courts system never did invite me back for more substitution work.

Okay so … moving on….oh!  I’m sorry, is there a question in the back?

What kind of a solution did I work out?  Well, it was a very complex situation involving property that both men believed they held a very strong title to.  Ginny and Diaman, why are you whispering and shaking your heads?  I’m going to tell it the way it …

…yes I will.

…yes – I – will.

Okay, so…I’m sorry, you in the back, as to your question, “what kind of a solution did I work out? Anyway, as I was saying.  It was a complex situation involving something that both men deemed they owned.  A lovely work of art that was the pride of the county.  My first two solutions were turned down.  One, that they share it, switching back and forth every week or month or however they decided.  They said that they had tried that and whomever had possession of it when it came time to switch, didn’t want to give it up.  It has some magical properties that makes the owner want to keep it.  So, my second solution was reminiscent of King Solomon and I offered to split the painting in half giving each of them half the painting.  They were BOTH against that one and I must admit, I didn’t care for that solution myself since it would not only lose it’s magical properties, some of which were quite potent, but could, in the act of cutting it in half, let loose all that magic with quite a physical reaction.

So, in the end, I enacted the only viable solution left available.  I ate the two men.  Which was quite satisfactory to me and the townspeople who were happy to have a finish to the endless squabbling.

Where is the painting now? 

Well, it’s hanging in my office.  They didn’t need it any longer and my modest fee had never been paid, so….

Diaman and Ginny?  Why are you still shaking your head?

Well, I certainly thought it was a satisfactory solution!

It just goes to show you that no matter how hard you try, you can’t please everyone.

 

To my children:
Never make fun of having to help me with computer stuff.  I had to teach you how to use a spoon!

 

Vegetarians live up to 9 years longer than meat-eaters.  Nine horrible, worthless, baconless years!

 

 

Another of our role-playing game nights.  I’ll let you try to figure out who everyone is.

It’s the bar they walked into!  It’s not only the wrong type, it’s way too low!

Yes, I know I’m overstating the obvious.  No more gun shots from you guys!

So, let’s move on to another fascinating video.  This one is really neat.

It doesn’t matter what species they are, kids just don’t listen!

 

This is quite interesting and answers a question that I had about why some of my emojis from my phone (samsung) didn’t translate correctly to Mrs. Dragon’s phone (iphone)

And since we’re doing the hell out of videos today, how about this amazing guy!

A union boss walks into a bar next door to the factory and is about to order a drink, when he sees a guy close by wearing a TRUMP tee shirt, and two beers in front of him.

He does not have to be an Einstein, to know that this guy is a Republican.

So, he shouts over to the bartender so loudly that everyone can hear, “Drinks for everyone in here, bartender, but not for the Republican.”

Soon after the drinks have been handed out, the Republican gives him a big smile, waves at him then says, “Thank you!” in an equally loud voice.  This infuriates the union boss.

The union boss once again loudly orders drinks for everyone except the Republican.  As before, this does not seem to bother the Republican.  He continues to smile, and again yells, “Thank you!”

The union boss once again, loudly orders drinks for, everyone except the Republican.

As before, this STILL doesn’t seem to bother the Republican who continues to smile, and again yells, “Thank you!”

The union boss asks the bartender, “What the hell is the matter, with that Republican?  I have ordered three rounds of drinks for everyone in the bar but him, and all the silly ass does, is smile and thanks me. Is he nuts?”

“Nope,” replies the bartender, “he owns the place.”

Well, I have a lot more I’d love to share with you, but I’m not sure this monster of an issue is going to upload as it is now.

So, let me just say that I deeply appreciate all of you and You’ll get more updates from me over the next couple of weeks.

Cheers!

Impish