It's not the heat...

In New Orleans, you complete the sentence with "it's the stupidity." After 48 hours of rain, though, I suspect humidity is right. Can you imagine getting 25" of rain?

Earlier this week I exchanged emails with my former SF landlord. In one email, I mentioned how New Orleans was all atwitter about Isidore and the Saints. She replied asking who's Isidore and what're the Saints. And I thought New Yorkers were provincial...

I'd hoped to sleep in today; where was I going to go with a tropical storm bearing down on us? But the first call came at 7:18AM ("How's it going?"), the second at 8:30AM (sales call), and the third at 9:30AM ("How're you doing?"). The rain had stopped by the third call, I was unsure whether it had stopped for good or that we were in the storm's eye. Turned out it had stopped.

So now we slowly return to what passes for normal in New Orleans.

Dropsy

Can you imagine what it's like to hear rain for 48 hours straight?

You folks from Seattle are excluded from answering that question, BTW.

Isadunkin'

I don't know where Isidore is, but it has started to pour.

Shutter the Mansions

New Orleans is probably as prepared as it can be for Isidore. Fortunately, this looks to be at "best" a Category One hurricane although right now it's still a tropical storm. Hurricane Alicia in Houston in '83 was the last hurricane I experienced and, in an insomniac moment at 5AM last night, I did some Googling and quickly found that Alicia was a Category Three. If I can go through a Three, a One will be a breeze. Hell, I got a parquet floor thanks to Alicia - maybe I'll get functioning cold water from the kitchen tap out of Isidore!

When he returns, I'll have to taunt Mae-Z for skedaddling to Shreveport to avoid a hard rain storm.

In other news, I finally retrieved my web server (Sun Cobalt Qube3) from storage and re-established my little wireless network. Web server, DSL 'modem', Apple Airport, and two laptops (IBM and Apple). One happy network nestled in a little room in the Garden District.

BTW, those IBM commercials pushing wireless-equipped laptops. Don't believe them. No, believe them, it is fantastic and it does work, in an insecure kind of way. However, wireless cards will drain a laptop's battery like Corn Liquor Lloyd going after a bottle of Jack Daniel's (I'd take you to their site, but it was built by the same guy who music/Flash enables all the New Orleans web sites).

Isidore Dunkin'

The bastard's headed our way.

We've had rain all day today. I made a quick trip to Sav-A-Center to get a few things, including enough 7-Up for my vodka and Zap's potato chips (salt and vinegar flavor) to ease enduring the storm when it hits Thursday. Canned tuna. Canned turkey. Can opener. Distilled water. We're OK on toilet paper. A fresh supply of ground (for a cone) Starbucks coffee. Thankfully, our stove is gas.

I'm staying here. Getting out would be a forty mile traffic jam, ditto getting back. Anywhere you can go that's within a few hours drive is going to feel some part of the hurricane, so why bother to leave? I'll have to go through this by myself, D will be at the hospital since he's been deemed "essential personnel". Just me and BeBe. I just hope the mansion behind us stays in one piece - they haven't boarded or shuttered anything.

The laptops and digital camera are fully charged so, as your blogger on the scene, I'll post pictures as the storm crosses New Orleans.

Now if only I could find a place to park my Miata that isn't in the path of a potentially fallen pine or oak tree.