Final Irene Ramblings

-Made it through the storm mostly unscathed in these parts. A few branches down and one section of a tree to cut up, but for the most part I can't complain. The only major hassle came when the power went out. First it flickered and went out for a second. Then a minute later it went out for an hour. Then it came for 3 minutes (or just long enough to reset all the clocks in my bedroom) before going back out. Honestly, I don't care about losing power but if it's gonna happen I would prefer it stay off until it's ready to come all the way back. To tease me like that is just cruel.

-I couldn't help but laugh at all the Massachusetts "surfers" who were interviewed on the news during the storm. It seems like they were all acting like how they thought surfers should act - as though they were trying out for an 80s surfer movie. Because you know real surfers probably are nothing like that. I imagine it's the same way people who claim to be gang members in places like Kansas act - doing what they think is right, but in reality is just a caricature. Sure, technically, they're in a gang, but you know damn well that if they were ever in South Central Los Angeles they'd be calling the cops every time they heard a gunshot.

-This morning was filled with people on television, second-guessing all the weathermen and women about how much they had built up the storm (especially in New York city). People were complaining they had fed some kind of hype machine and blown the storm way out of proportion and made people unnecessarily panic. Now, sure, I will agree that some coverage got out of hand and that we really didn't need 10 guys standing on a beach getting whipped with sand in the face to let us know the storm was picking up (4 would have been more than enough). Still, this really bugs me for the simple reason that if the story was reversed and the weather people told everyone it was going to be OK only to see the storm picked up in intensity then those same people would have been on TV screaming about how the weathermen failed to tell us it was going to be so bad and why didn't they warn us more? You can't have it both ways.

-Drove down to Wareham this morning to see if the beach house was still standing. I'm happy to report that while the place has no power, it still has all its windows, siding, doors and shingles. Also it did not gain any addition high water lines on the walls, which was a concern when they started mentioning astronomical high tides on top of the hurricane storm surge which allegedly could have been as high as 11 feet. Not having any power sucks, but considering I vividly remember what the place looked like after hurricane Bob, I'll take it.

-The downside was that we had to get rid of everything in the refrigerator, which sounds like it would be quite a task. And normally it is, until you remember that the only things in the fridge in Wareham are beer, soda and ice cream. Hey, it's a vacation house - were you expecting healthy food?

-It was a weird destruction pattern down in Wareham, as some street just had a few tree limbs down, while the next street over had huge trees that had snapped in half. I'll tell you one thing I did notice: the church on the way to the beach house had a huge tree snap right in half and another church in Onset had its steeple blown off. You would have thought those would have been better protected. I mean, I'm just saying...

-Here's one from the "work smarter, not harder" files: Wareham had a place in the town yard where you could drop off your sticks and leaves, free of charge. When we got there we saw two older gentlemen about halfway through unloading a trailer full of debris. Now, my father and I are very good at clearing this kind of mess. We've worked out a system in which we put the largest branches on the bottom and slowly build from largest to smallest. The result is almost like a bird's nest in the pick-up's bed. So while it takes us a little longer to get loaded up it all comes out in one solid clump and we can dump our stuff much faster. We pulled up, had the truck bed empty in roughly 20 seconds (that is not an exaggeration) and were on our way while these guys were barely halfway through emptying their trailer. Amateurs.