Touchdown Jesus

It's very rare that I have a story of "local boy does good". Coming from Erie, PA means that you are usually way off the map. I was pleasantly surprised today to find out that a guy from Erie who is an old friend of the Senator just published his first book. His name is Scott Eden and he now lives in Chicago. While the name rings a bell, I can't say that I remember him personally. Here is a link to Barnes and Noble in case anyone is a Notre Dame/ College Football fan: Link

Back to Normal?

On a typical Sunday Night, by thoughts are filled with dread of going back to work on Monday. Thoughts on why weekends aren't three days long and how weekends are never long enough. This week things are a little different. After four days without power and the mild chaos of trying to navigate without traffic lights, power, or gas, I am ready for the return of anything "normal".

From what I can guess, it's going to be at least a month before all the traffic lights are operational. Last year it was mostly about fixing the broken lights. This year the lights are completely gone or smashed to pieces. The grocery stores are just starting to get the perishables back in stock and the gas lines are dwindling as more stations get their power back. Hey...the Dolphins even won today...things are looking up!

Now, all I have to do is get used to sunset an hour earlier and the fact that I turn 32 tomorrow. For all of you that didn't know...yes I was a Halloween baby!

Wilma Pictures

Below you will find some pictures from Wilma. I took 40 pictures and these were the ones that made the cut. The Margarita Lounge got power back about 8pm on Thursday Night but internet just came up a few hours ago. As of today there are still over a million people in South Florida without power, but things are slowly becoming a little more "normal" and work will start on Monday as scheduled. If you click on the pictures, you should be able to see a larger view.

Front View

The front of the Margarita Lounge post-Wilma. Needless the say the Palm tree isn't going to make it. Since the eye passed directly over us, there was a strange, almost unsettling calm for about 45 minutes before the backside hammered us.

Front View 2

A closer view of the front. The branches were a bitch to cut up, but Tracy and Cheryl were very helpful. Thanks to both of them for pitching in all week to help me out.

Tile Shower

This is my neighbor's driveway after the storm. If you can't make them out, those are broken roof tiles all over the place. Unfortunately, my truck and Tracy's car were parked in that driveway and we both have cracked windshields and scratches to our paint.

Tree Troubles

This is a picture from another of my neighbors. Good thing the tree fell sideways and not onto the house.

Roof Damage

Cheryl took this picture on Wednesday at her office. Wilma tore the roof off part of the building and this was the result.

Nice Try, Wilma

Just a quick post to let everyone know that the Margarita Lounge is OK. We are still out of power, as is about 90% of Palm Beach County. Cheryl's co-worker Jen was kind enough to let us take a warm shower this evening since she just got power back. Needless to say, Wilma was stronger than many people here expected. I will have some pictures posted as soon as we get power back. In general we did OK...I lost about 20 roof tiles, lost a palm tree out front, and have a cracked windshield and some dents in the paint on my Explorer. Still no power at work and we are hoping for a return to "normal" life in the next few days. According to FPL, there are still over 2 million houses and businesses on the east coast without power and all are expected to be restored by the middle of November. More as things develop. Hoping everyone else made it through OK.

Bracing for the worst...

Cheryl, Tracy and I just got back from Grandma's place where we helped her celebrate her 86th birthday. All the plywood is up, the batteries and candles ready and we've settled in for what is destined to be a rough 24 hours. Looking at the computer models and tracks, it looks like Wilma will come ashore tomorrow morning near Naples and head right over us during the day tomorrow. I think it will hit the coast with winds in the 110-115 mph area. With the speed it's moving, we are definitely going to see 75-80 mph winds here and may see gusts up near 100 mph. I am sure we will lose power, hopefully only for a day or two. At least the worst will be during the day tomorrow, opposed to last year when Frances and Jeanne came through at night.

Alexander the Buckeye

Gunther and Xan came over this afternoon for a little football on TV. As you can see, Xan is quite the Buckeye fan and the good news is the Buckeyes whooped Indiana'a ass pretty good today. The Senator should be making his appearance at the Margarita Lounge soon for a little pre-hurricane get-together tonight. It's loking like Wilma is finally heading our way...the plywood goes up tomorrow morning. While I hope we don't lose power, the reality is that we probably will and the Lounge could be silent for a while. I'll keep everyone updated as much as possible.

Get it over with already!

Gunther and I are in the same boat on this beyatch Wilma...just get it over with. First she was coming through on Saturday...then Sunday...now Monday. Some models say it will only be a strong Tropical Storm and others show a Category 3. Talk about frustrating.

This is obviously going to make a difference in whether I board up or not. The weather sucks so bad that I can't even cut the damn grass...I guess I'll just have to sit around all day and watch college football games. Problem is I don't have any beer in the house. I guess I'll have to go to the store today.

Gunther's New Creation

I encourage all of my Margarita Lounge readers interested in the stock market or the economy to read Gunther's new MagneCarte blog. He set it up a few months ago and forgot his password, but I guess he just remembered it, so he's up and running. The address is http://www.frotuss.blogspot.com. Since Gunther and I both work in the same business, I am sure I will post some of my thoughts over there from time to time.

The Cheeseburger Bill

I was very glad to see the House pass the "Cheeseburger Bill" on Wednesday. In case you are not familiar with it, the bill would block lawsuits by people who blame fast-food restaurants for being overweight. Here is the article:

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/10/20/cheeseburger.bill/index.html

As you can tell, I am 100% behind this bill. Just because someone stuffs their face with Big Macs every day doesn't mean they should be able to sue McDonalds when they get fat. I mean, this isn't rocket science...if you eat shitty food all the time you will get fat. It reminds me of these lawsuits people file against Budweiser after they drink 25 beers and wrap their car around a telephone pole. It wasn't the beer company's fault that you are a dumbass.

People just love to blame others for their problems. And if they can get money for it, look out. Whatever happened to taking responsibility for your actions? I see that the California Democrat Bob Filner disagrees with the bill. If Bob and his buddies had their way, everyone could sue any company at any time for any amount of money and without any reason. Companies would then have to pay outrageous legal bills to deal with the lawsuits. Companies would pass on this expense in the form of higher prices for beer and cheeseburgers...just simple economics. That would suck, because I like beer and cheeseburgers.

WILMA!!!!!

It seems that the only subject on everyone's mind these days in Boynton Beach is Hurricane Wilma. I have just spent the most miserable hour of my life up in my attic. After a good sized tree branch fell on my roof last year during Hurricane Frances, I found a small leak in the roof. It wasn't a big deal and I was able to seal it pretty simply myself. Well, of course it re-appears a few days before Wilma is expected to go right over us. I sealed it again about two hours ago and (of course) it just RAINED. Murphy's Law at it's finest, huh?

In any case, we have begun the waiting game... sitting around, watching the weather stations, filling up the cars with gas, and getting extra water. Luckily I went out last night around 9pm and took care of anything we needed. Being through this drill a few times in the last year makes you very calculating and rational about things. I mean...there isn't anything I can do to change the storm's track, so you do your best to prepare to ride things out. Sure things might get windy...we might lose power...my roof might start leaking. Shit happens...you get through it and you get on with life the best you can.

Unfortunately, there always have to be those people who panic about things four days before they might (or might not) happen. I have one of these "panic" people in my office and she drives me nuts. To protect the innocent, we will call her Phyllis. The storm is 600 miles away and might not even come close to us, but Phyllis thinks that trees are going to fall on her house. She feels the need to cancel her week-long vacation to Georgia on Friday (an area that is considered much safer than South Florida) so she can "make sure nothing happens to the house". Does this make sense to anyone? Let's stay in our house (that will probably lose power) for a few days instead of going on vacation to a beautiful mountain cabin and relax while this thing blows through. That's a pretty simple decision if it were me.

Dig Cindy, Dig!

I think Cindy Sheehan is slowly digging her own grave and nobody could be happier than me. I just saw a story where Cindy was trashing Hillary Clinton about her stance on Iraq. Indeed...today is a good day! Nobody on the right has liked Cindy for months, and now that she has trashed Hillary, nobody on the left likes her either. I'm sure I can find an extra shovel around here to help Cindy dig that hole....

Moonfest

Hi all. Is anyone up for Moonfest (http://www.moonfest.org/BOO.htm) down on Clematis this year? Todd and I are heading there to celebrate his 32nd birthday and Halloween on Saturday, October 29th!! Let me know if you're interested and I'll call you when we make the plans.

Cheryl

Some Flooding Humor

As many of you know, the northeast has had quite a bit of flooding the past two weeks. On Friday, one of the Today Show reporters decided to slightly embellish the true state of affairs in one particular area. The reporter, Michelle Kosinski, was paddling a canoe down a street and telling the story of the terrible flooding when two men walked in between the reporter and the cameraman. What's so funny about that you ask? Well, the water the guys were walking through was about ankle-deep. I guess that Matt Lauer and Katie Couric had problems keeping a straight face and even made a few jokes about the "miracle men" who walked on water. I posted the picture above and have been laughing my ass off for a few minutes. Ah, the wonders of live TV....

More rude people

According to a recent study, Americans are getting more rude. This is something that I have personally noticed over the past 5-10 years. With the world becoming more and more hectic and the need for everyone to know everything about everyone at anytime, manners seem to have gone out the window. Rude kids, rude parents, even rude grandparents seem to be the norm these days, especially here in South Florida.

I had a particularly rude person show up at Barnes and Noble the other night. I decided to run over there for about an hour to relax and see if anything struck me as interesting. Right in the middle of the store was a young kid (maybe 18 years old) on his cell phone. For some reason, he and his buddy decided that talking into their cell phones wasn't good enough, they needed to yell into them. After hanging up, they proceeded to yell a conversation that I could hear at least halfway across the store. I just can't understand why people can't go outside if they want to have a loud conversation on a cell phone. Not necessarily in the grocery store at a bar, but in a book store I would consider it common courtesy. Maybe I am getting too old and crotchety, but shit like that really bothers me. Am I way off base on this or not? I'm interested to see everyone's opinion. Please let me know in the comments section if you can. Below is the link to the story in case you want to read the article. Thanks.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/10/14/poll.rude.ap/index.html

Ghost town

AG Edwards was like a ghost town today. With a large Jewish population in Palm Beach County and today being Yom Kippur, things were very quiet. I think I only talked to two clients all day, but got a chance to hold Pimpbling's clients hands all day. I did get a chance to have lunch with Mr. Hickman and JC over at Brus and had a colbeer after work with Mr. Golden. Not much new around the Margarita Lounge this week. I am still drooling over my HD, which I have been watching pretty much non-stop since Monday Night....

HD Arrives at the Lounge!

I finally broke down and put in the call to Adelphia yesterday. After waiting for a year and a half, I finally pulled the trigger and got an HD box for my television. The only phrase I can now utter is "Holy Shit!"...thats it. I can't imagine how I ever owned a widescreen for so long without it. All is good with the world. And do you know what the best thing about it is? I got to watch the Yankees get their asses kicked last night in High Definition! I must now return to my shrine....

The Dolphins blow...

Thats really the easiest way to say it. When you turn the ball over 5 times and have 18 penalties, you are bound to lose a game in the NFL. On the other hand, if you do this and you have a chance to win the game in the last few minutes, all isn't lost...there is always next week. The good news is that Cheryl went with me to watch the game today...a first for her. We ended up having a few more beers than scheduled and will probably pay for it tomorrow, but it was a lot of fun and I hope she wants to go next week.

In the same boat today with the Dolphins are John Daly and the Atlanta Braves. JD missed a 3 footer on the 17th hole which would have won him the American Express Championship. He then missed a shorter putt on the second playoff hole to choke it to Tiger. I have nothing against Eldrick, but JD is so much more fun to watch play golf. As for the Braves, they again proved they are a great regular-season team. They were up by five runs with two innings left and blew it. I think they have won the NL East 14 years in a row and only have one World Series title to show for it. In football that might not be so bad, but only 8 teams make the playoffs in baseball. That sucks no matter how you slice it.

Penn State pulls the upset in Happy Valley

I am sure Gunther is crying in his scotch (or wine) tonight and I feel for him. The mightly Buckeyes were just beaten by Penn State in somewhat of a surprise. I don't think many people gave Penn State a chance in this one, even after winning their first five games against "lesser" opponents. To beat a quality team like the Buckeyes will make more beleivers of many people. While not good enough to win the National Championship, I am sure some sports reporters will be kissing Joe Paterno's ass tomorrow and saying how great he is. And hey...the guy is about 150 years old and still coaching in big time college football...more power to him.

Tonight will be absolutely nuts in State College. I haven't been there since my college days, but I can't imagine things have changed that much in 10-12 years. I'm sure they still party like rock stars and puke all over College Ave. Ah...the good old days.

A Quiet Night Out

Cheryl and I decided to go out to a quiet dinner last night at Josie's. With all the day-to-day stresses in the world, it's always enjoyable to have a nice relaxing dinner at a local Italian place...eat pasta, drink wine, and just chill. We followed dinner with a trip to one of my favorite places in the world, Coldstone.

We are on our way to meet Francisco shortly for lunch. Cheryl used to work with him up in Raleigh and we haven't seen him since our wedding two years ago. After that we are heading to Gary and Sue's briefly. We have been throwing around the idea of going to the Lake Worth drive-in tonight with a few people. I have many fond memories of getting drunk at the drive-in growing up. Unfortunately, there are very few of them left these days.

As for sports, tomorrow is (obviously) devoted to the Dolphins game. We've even convinced Cheryl to go to Brus with us to watch the game. It was nice to see the White Sox sweep Boston last night. They are for real this year. And with the way the Yankees are playing, it very well could be the Angels and White Sox in the AL Championship game. My World Series projection is Chicago and St. Louis with the Cardinals pulling it out in 6 games.

My apologies

I have been a little lazy recently and I apologize to my faithful readers. Unlike the Senator, I like to update my blog more often than every two weeks. Work has been good the past month, I just scheduled vacation in the Keys for November, and all is well around the house. Well...we still have a house guest we can't seem to get rid of, but that's another story. The baseball playoffs are underway and we are in the heart of college football season. The Dolphins are actually leading their division, which is really crazy. I had lunch with my mom today, which is always fun. Life is good and I really can't complain too much about things. Sorry...that's it for today. No ranting, no raving, just happy thoughts. Bob Ross would be proud...you all remember Bob Ross:
http://www.hofcraft.com/images/BobRossLogo.GIF

Rain Delay

So, the Marlins won last night in pretty dramatic fashion with a late game rally. The actual game was great, but the 3 hour rain delay kinda sucked. The game was delayed at 6:30 only half way through the first inning. Things didn't resume until 9:30. The good news was that there was no traffic after the game because there was nobody left in the ninth inning. We still didn't get home until about 12:30, which is late for an old man like me.

It's looking like my Indians have choked their way out of the playoffs this year. Unless they win today and Boston loses, they are done and will have to sit it out until next year. The good news is that they seem to be up-and-comers in the AL and will hopefully challenge the White Sox next year for the division title.

Cheryl and I also booked our November vacation to Key West this morning. We haven't been there in two years (since our wedding) and the trip is long over-due. If you are remotely interested, you can check out the website for the guesthouse we are staying at: www.artisthousekeywest.com. I'm already counting the days until departure!