Everything’s bigger in Texas, my ass! Is this what passes for severe weather here?? I’ve experienced *mild* versions of blizzards, monsoons, earthquakes and freezing rain that have caused more disruption than this… and I have experienced severe versions of the above have shut cities down! This sad little hurricane didn’t even keep us in the house at all.

Well the hurricane has been downgraded to a category 1 hurricane and is as close to Austin as it’s going to get. No excitement at all! Not that it is a bad thing 🙂

Well, Ike made landfall in Galvaston at around midnight last night. The wind picked up periodically through the night and made some noise but no big deal. It has actually calmed down a fair bit here. Whenever the wind stills, a bunch of birds take off… fleeing Houston perhaps??

There is still no rain tho… I am looking forward to getting my lawn watered! The wind doesn’t help me at all!

Honestly I am wondering why people are freaking out so much about Ike. How strong can a hurricane remain 200 miles inland??

Doing some poking around, I found some maps at the National Weather Service. As you can see there is almost no chance of us experiencing hurricane force winds and only a 50% chance that we will hit a paltry 39 knot wind.

Anyways, we are almost 200 miles inland… this thing will almost definitely not have official hurricane status and have been downgraded to a tropical storm or angry drizzle or something like that by the time it hits us.

The WunderMap is one of the better maps I have seen, in part because you can actually see where the cities are.

This is kind of exciting… I think a hurricane remains the one major weather phenomena that I’ve never experienced at (somewhat) close range.

It’s official, we’re doomed.

Well, it looks like only one thing is for certain – the board of wood has won.

Well the big presidential election is coming up tomorrow… I view this as a choice between 2 planks of wood – one candidate with the personality of a board of wood and one with the brainpower of a board of wood.