\t\t\t\tAfter following the Florida storm coverage for much of the last 2 days I went outside here today expecting stiff winds and pelting rain. Nothing of the kind. A beautiful day. Still a little worried about that old house in Tampa (and the people in it) but all we can do now is wait.Talked to Diane yesterday and again today. They all seem confident. It looks like that area might get a Category 3 blast, which sounds tame but it is not. Cat 3 winds are anywhere from 50- to 110-mph, and they say the storm should engulf Tampa for as long as 24 hours. That\u2019s a broad range of wind speed and a long time to submit to it.<\/p>\n
\nTECO is turning off electricity all over the region starting at 8pm tonight. Diane has gas powered generators but no one there has ever used them. Might be time to make sure they even work. She says TECO turns off the power ahead of time because it makes it significantly easier to turn it back on after the storm has passed. That sounds like new disaster-planning strategy. New since the 1990s, that is.<\/p>\n
\nI remember when Charley threatened to annihilate Tampa in 2004. I called my mother to see if she was prepared. She said she was \u201cTERRIFIED\u201d and then started crying and saying things in a panicked whisper so fast that I could not understand anything else she said.<\/p>\n
\nIt reminded me how profoundly influenced she was by television news. She always had been.<\/p>\n
\nCharley turned away from Tampa and dumped on Punta Gorda. I don\u2019t think a drop of rain landed on our house. Alas the spaghetti models have improved alot since 2004 and this storm looks certain to have an impact.<\/p>\n
\nNormally I avoid all media on 9\/11 and the days before and after. With Irma and then Jos\u00e9 coming next that might not be possible this year. <\/p>\n
\n\u2026<\/p>\n
\nIn unrelated thoughts one success to report is that I seem finally to have arrived at a windscreen solution for the 3D\/binaural headphones I\u2019ve used for so long, but with enough wind noise to make a lot of the recordings unlistenable. I walked around and recorded myself talking into the new field recorder, which was stuffed in a small messenger bag. There was no wind noise whatsoever in the recording, despite reasonably stiff winds. Yay.<\/p>\n
\nAt the Windmill for the first time in weeks. I passed by a few days ago and the crowd here looked mighty different from the homeless women who normally sit here. I am guessing they were from the Flux Factory, or just hippies from wherever. Today it is gardeners, including the older guy I\u2019ve seen before who I think is IN CHARGE of the garden. Then there is a man and a woman, both probably early 30s.<\/p>\n
\nSleep was an adventure last night. My head hurt as if I\u2019d been drinking, but I had not. I think I screwed up taking the Benzos too early in the day. Alcohol, it seems, has a half life just like the benzos. So me taking a pill within the 12 hour half life of the booze was not smart. It was nothing compared to the time I had three very strong beers within 24 hours of taking a Clonozapan, which has a 24-hour half life. The day after that screwup was among the worst I can remember.<\/p>\n
\nTrying not to worry about Irma, as I posted last night. Looking up my step-nieces on FB revealed some family in\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After following the Florida storm coverage for much of the last 2 days I went outside here today expecting stiff winds and pelting rain. Nothing of the kind. A beautiful day. Still a little worried about that old house in Tampa (and the people in it) but all we can do now is wait.Talked to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-text","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paumAn-1Xp","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7527"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7527\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}