Home again. It’s been since April, I think, that I’ve been home. I made it out for the family reunion in DFW, which I think was the last time I saw everyone. I’m flying out in the morning and will be in Canyon through the weekend, flying back Monday evening. I’ll probably have to work at least a day while I’m there, but shouldn’t be too bad, and I know my parents won’t mind too much.

I rode 15.25 miles yesterday, and it almost killed me. Well, really only mile 8. I woke up feeling pretty good, so since I hadn’t ridden in quite a while, I felt like going out. And, to my undoing, I thought I’d stretch my normal ride from 8 miles to 15. Not the best decision in hindsight. In mile 8 I was just dieing so I stopped and proceeded to puke up all of the undigested Dr Pepper I’d had that morning. I do not recall the last time I puked. It must be like college or maybe even high school. A long time. Anyway, after I cooled off for some number of minutes, I got back on and rode home. Interestingly enough the rest of the ride, while I took extremely slow, was pretty uneventful. When I made it home, I really wasn’t nearly as tired as I could have been given the circumstances. I felt it the rest of the day, though. My sternum still feels a little sore, and since the ride was twice as long (over an hour), my butt and arms weren’t feeling so hot. But, I did it, and it didn’t kill me, so that’s not nothing.

For a good part of Monday, sitting for any length of time would induce a feeling of still being on the boat and rocking. I’d say for at least half of the day it was like that, and even still today I’m feeling it some.

I want pop-up video for news and speeches so badly…

Did I forget to mention that I’ll be going on an Alaskan Cruise? Oops. :) Anyway, I’m back.

The past three or so weeks have really flown by. I’m not even really sure why. I guess lots to do at work makes the days go quickly, and long days lead to short evenings.

One week down in Mountain View, and one week to go (unless I extend my stay an extra few days). I didn’t do anything this weekend, just lounged around, keeping tabs on the storms and trying some to catch up on the politics.

I did manage to see several flicks this weekend that I’ve never seen before. I’ve had African Queen on my to-see list for quite some time, and finally saw it on AMC. It was a surprise to me that it was in color, but overall it was good; the quality you’d expect from Bogey and Hepburn. Just before I left I watched Transformers, which was really good. I never was particularly interested in watching it, but I think Drew’s comment on Facebook made me revisit it. My next to last batch of Netflix included 21, which was really good, Vince Vaughn’s Wild West Comedy Show, which was also good, and the first disc from Carrier, which is pretty interesting. I currently have out Semi Pro, which wasn’t as funny as I would have liked, but still enjoyable, Fool’s Gold, which was passable, and A Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash, which was ok, and semi-educational. Tonight I also saw for the first time Dirty Harry, which is a classic I’ll likely have to watch again, and this afternoon I saw License to Wed, which was better than I was expecting. I guess having John Krasinski (and some very large majority of the cast of The Office) really did it for me. Had they all had not been in it, I dunno how I would have felt.

I finally managed to do some laundry tonight, which is good, because I would have been out of clothes after today. :) I also managed to trim my nails, which I tend to put off all too much. Much like the haircut I am really in need of (even though it’s only been like a month and a half since I got one at Sallie’s wedding). I had to spend several days in a hotel before the corp apartment was available, so that was a little different that usual, and as always it’s nice to get into the apartment, where it’s a little more like home (even equipped with an empty refrigerator :) ). It’s been good to see the people here face to face, but I am half already looking forward to getting back to Atlanta and even more ready to take some time off. The time off kind of sucks, though, because it’s hard enough to keep up with work in real time, let alone keeping up with everything that’s going on after being out of the loop for 5 business days (and even more calendar days).

I guess that counts as a real update, but basically things are chugging along and the days are passing at an unbelievable (and I do mean unbelievable) clip.

As the major news media is want to do, they have been constantly repeating themselves. They really should have a channel that’s just a loop of a 5 minute segment that changes only every 30 minutes (I think Headline News does this somewhat, but it’s more for airports and the like, where people aren’t watching it for extended periods). That way everyone who’s just tuning in would likely get an update and people aren’t under any uncertain expectation that what they are doing is breaking “news” and not just repeating themselves with slight variations. “Well the eye has moved about 1584 feet since we last updated you” isn’t really much of an update (as I can just do the math thank you very much). “The estimate is still that there are about 10k people left in New Orleans.”

As I happened to watch Fox News after watching a bunch of Discovery about squids, I happened upon 2 bits of new and actual information, relating to levies and to the evacuation. I only caught a bit about the first, but it was in relation to something about the design of the levies changing. Actually, I don’t know what they changed or how it is better, but I’d personally like to hear more. Also, another reporter said something about Amtrak trains and barcoded bracelets being used in the evacuations. News to me. So, instead of just repeating the same of when it’s supposed to hit landfall, that everyone’s evacuated, that the French Quarter is vacant, that everyone’s playing nice, etc, it might be nice to step away from the fact it’s basically in the same place it was 5 minutes ago and delve into some of the more technical things. What has the Army Corps done over the past 3 years to improve things? What legislation was passed (or not) to help with the storm? What were the evacuation plans? Why has it gone so much better? How are these barcodes being used? Where are the people going? What do the FEMA towns look like 3 years later? Why are they still around? Does boarding up your house really help? What are the major preparations people have to make? What sorts of things do people have to clean up and fix after the storm? Do most people have insurance that covers these incidents?

Why haven’t we heard about how much better it’s being handled with regard to the Bush administration. They’ve been saying over and over how much better everyone’s prepared, but I hear this deafening silence of any attribution of the preparation to Bush. Maybe I’ve just missed it, but it seems to me that at this stage of the game that he was solely responsible for Katrina, but now no one seems to give him any credit for the success up until this point.