Ok, I mentioned this once before, but the guest is still around. She spoke with my fiance this morning about her moving out... But, her desired move out date is October 1st. Of course when we talked to her last, it was set for September 1st.

I think we have been had here.

At this point, all I really want is for her to leave.

Yes, this is a truly pointless rant in my Slashdot Journal.

As I write this Frances is just a couple of hours from making landfall on Stuart, FL.

We have the whole house boarded up and tied down. Oddly enough, it seems we are the only ones in the neighborhood to have gone this far in preparations.

While walking around the outside of the house for a last minute check, the neighbors were coming out to walk their dog. They came over and asked how we were doing and made the comment "Are we expecting a storm?".

I wanted to bop her on the noggin, but held back on that. They even invited us over to their completely unprepared house.

Peoples indifference to nature never tends to surprise me. Hurricanes are nothing to play with, even well inland.

For now, we are just hanging tight and hoping for the best. Viva Storm Riding!

Geez, just when you thought it was safe to live in Florida... Here comes Frances. This is one deadset on Leesburg.

Gonna go through the Charley drill with the corporate data again. This time I think I will yank one of the mirrored drives from my server here at the house and take it in to the office for some added off-site data safety.

This storm reall has me rather worried. My fiance is quite freaked out about this one, some of her coworkers are actually high-tailing it outta here. Perhaps that is not that bad an idea, really. The HR Director at work is heading north with her mother... must be real nice to be able to jump ship at a moments notice. But of course my director wants us all close to the office, not to mention IN THE DOOR on Monday (Labor Day) morning.

Quite honestly, I think we will fair through this one safely. By the time it hits here, it should have winds in the 55-65 mile an hour range. That is not as bad as the coast will get it.

I will be doing the board-it-all-up process tomorrow evening. The local Lowes will be getting in a shipment of plywood at 7 tomorrow morning, and I intend to be there for it.

Better safe than sorry, you know.

I must say, with a great deal of happiness, that Charley turned and missed Lake County. Sadly, it really pounded South Florida. At the moment, the death toll sits at twenty.

Kinda makes you wander why? Everyone in the hurricanes path had ample warning of the danger.

Was there lack of communication, or was it just complacency?

At any rate, the damage done is very extensive. Many people are refugees in their own state. Thousands are without power, as well.

I, for one, am a very thankful person.

No! Put down the rifle and helmet... Not that kinda Charley - geez...

I am talking about Hurricane Charley. All is locked down at work - we even have made duped copies of our backups on to 250GB IDEs and sent them hope with the IT director and me.

The company is looking to have operations back up and running on Saturday. Sales and Marketing will be the first in the doors at the major locations. The construction crews will be out in the communities assessing and repairing.

At the moment, the hurricane will be passing almost directly over Orlando, well south of our location. We are advised to expect strong Tropical Stormy conditions, 40-50 mph winds, and about 8 inches of rain.

This looks much better than it COULD turn out.

Off to surf the web while riding out the storm.

Once the guest got rolling in her job and got her car running again, she is MUCH better to be around. Whew.

Still kinda stinks not having regular access to my music/computer room, but at least I installed EQ on the laptop. :-)

Sometimes you just want to have your home to yourself. The past few weeks have been that way around here.

Slowly going nutz. I beat the living crap out of my printer today... I just began wailing on it... After I knocked the control panel in I took it outside and threw it at the trash cans. It hit the wall and blew apart into about 15 pieces.

God, I hate houseguests.

Why are monkeys keeping me awake at night.

Insomnia sux. The mere act of trying to fall asleep just helps prevent it.

I am now going to TRY REALLY HARD to fall asleep. I will do my very best to try - REALLY HARD TO SLEEP.

Shit, I am tired now. Uh - G'nite.