Posted on

A one-day to and from riding the ‘dog’

Top o’ the morning to you! That’s right, morning. Well, speaking of blowing it, I blew it in that I wrote my post on the bus from Beaumont to Houston this morning and forgot to publish it. My memory is shot. Speaking of shot, I am passing by Minute Maid Park in Houston as I write this. Shot being the word because the Houston Astros are about to play its last game as a National League team. Let’s hope the Lastros get a little better next year in its debut season as an American League product, like losses only in the double digits.

Incredible how I made it to this bus. I finished my appointment at the VA in time to take a jam-packed bus to a stop near the Houston Metro Rail line. Then I rode to the Downtown Transit Center, just a couple of blocks from Greyhound. My ticket was for a 6:05 p.m. bus that supposedly gets back to “Beaumont-Vidor” around 8 o’clock. More on Vidor in a moment. But I made it just as the gate locked on the 4 o’clock bus that allegedly arrives at 5:30 p.m. That’s not going to happen with all the stop-n-go with the bus heading toward I-10 at the beginning of rush hour. Hopefully, I will be back a bit earlier than I had planned.

My truck is parked in Rose City. That is a freeway truck stop spot on I-10 just across the Orange County line headed toward Louisiana. That is where the Beaumont Greyhound station is now located, having moved several months ago from its long-time stretch downtown on Magnolia Street. It is considered by Greyhound as the “Beaumont-Vidor” bus station now although its closer to downtown Beaumont than Vidor. I guess downtown “revitalization” is like the weather. People do a lot of talking about it but do nothing. The bus station is but one piece of downtown moved out into the nether lands. First Baptist Church, which takes up a whole city block between Calder and Broadway avenues, is being moved out to the West End. It makes me wonder if the great work the church does for our less fortunate brothers and sisters will be continued once it moves out into the land of milk and honey. I hope so, one never knows when one is going to need that help one day.

Traveling by bus isn’t quite the adventure it was during the days of my youth. I guess that’s a good thing, for me. Why the bus even has electrical outlets and WiFi. And the WiFi works.

Bus stations are certainly fewer and farther in between nowadays. Why I can remember in the old days — time to roll your eyes boys and girls — when every little mud hole and town that was big enough for a city limit sign had a bus station. Of course, there were more bus companies than just Greyhound back then as well. Let’s consider my trip today to the VA hospital in Houston.

The bus route from Beaumont to Houston — a straight shot west on Interstate 10 — now travels to Port Arthur on U.S. 69/96/287 where it stops at some Latino bodega on Gulfway Drive a.k.a. State Highway 87. The bus then picks up Texas 73 to Winnie, which is not named after Winnie the Pooh, or at least I don’t believe that is the case. The route jumps back on I-10 and makes another stop at a convenience store on the north side of the interstate in Baytown before heading downtown to the Houston bus station.

On the bus I’m now riding it is “an express” to Rose City as this puppy’s major destination is New Orleans and, perhaps even Miami, or Cuba.

We just now passed a traffic SNAFU that held us up for awhile. It looks as if three Army trucks were somehow involved. It looked more like a breakdown than an accident. One certainly hopes so. It is already 5:30 and we are at least 30 or so miles from Beaumont. If I make it back by the time I intended to depart Houston I will feel lucky indeed. I really better quit while I’m ahead now. Or as one of my old hippie friends used to say: “Better quit while I’m a head.”

 

Posted on

Of “cold fronts,” lovebugs and sanity

The hint of a declining summer — I hesitate in using the word “fall” for describing early September weather in Southeast Texan — has produced a bit of excitement. It is not the type of excitement that makes one go naked and running down the avenue screaming. Nonetheless, several people I encountered today expressed enthusiasm for the “cool” Canadian air that is forecast for the beginning of a new week. Lows in the 60s and high temperatures in the mid-80s are enough for even the most petulant Southeast Texan to “turn that frown upside down.” Jeez, you don’t know how long I’ve been waiting to use that term, that hokey, bromidic saying that I also despise.

Being September the hope of generally cooler temps sometime by November isn’t all that fills the air around the southeastern corner of Texas. And I think I can speak for most who live in or are visiting this area when I say that of what I speak is not the least bit a cause for elation. I give you the lovebug or as we like to say around here: “Thuh luuuv-buggg.”

Earlier this afternoon I was waiting in the grocery store aisle to buy some cooking spray. Yes, I use it most of the time to cook something in a pan. No, I need not explain. A lady was examining the various cooking sprays — used to there was only Pam, lovely young thing — and she asked: “Is this the kind you use on your car for lovebugs?” She went on to explain that if you spray it on your car the love bugs will come right off when washing it. I had never heard that, or if I did, I don’t remember it.

Perusing the Internet, where you get the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth including half-truths and non-truths, a number of sites attest to the abilities of cooking spray — to spray on a pan before cooking. Yes, it seems from several quick looks online that Pam, or other cooking sprays, can help facilitate lovebug removal when washing your car. Unfortunately, it also can fry you up a mess of baked Plecia nearctica. Had I known this, I would have thrown myself down on the grocery store deck and would have prevented that lady from continuing about her business until she promised to only apply Pam for its intended uses.

Or not.

The late John A. Jackman, a professor and entemologist at Texas A & M University, said perhaps the sanest way to deal with the amorous insects was, well, to deal with them:

 “There is no easy solution to lovebug problems. It may be necessary to learn to cope with lovebugs with a variety of methods for a few weeks each year.”

Sane is as sane does, especially when it is your own sanity.

 

Posted on

Help is on its way

Well, unless a freak wind accident causes an upset in my world overnight this hopefully will be my last Isaac post. I am sick of this storm mainly because it makes me ache. As I’ve said in this space many times before, low barometric pressure has a habit of doing that. Right now a very narrow outer rain band from what is once again Tropical Storm Isaac showed up on radar about 25 miles to the east of where I am. Right along the Texas-Louisiana border.

It is funny how geographic borders have a propensity for stopping weather. One of the local TV weather guys said we would get no rain out of this storm. But it seems to be crossing the border. Go back, you damn tropical rain! Your kind isn’t allowed in our partially-drought-ridden state! Egos.

I stepped outside and was hit by one little drop of rain. I don’t know if that will be it for our experience with Isaac, other than some pretty good breezes. But we may get some rain tonight. Or we may not.

But more importantly, at least for the folks who actually got hit by the storm, I counted more than two dozen of those big Asplundh bucket trucks parked outside the MCM Elegante’ Hotel here on the outskirts of Beaumont. Asplundh — pronounced “AH-splund, the ‘h’ is silent” — is the big tree trimming company. The trucks and its crews are waiting for conditions to allow them into areas hit by Isaac so they can cut trees blown into all types of precarious conditions by the storm. Believe me when I say, if you got hit by a hurricane, or ice storm or large tornado, you want as many of those tree-trimming trucks as well utility repair trucks, there and you want them there yesterday. That is because the sooner they get there, the sooner your electricity is restored.

So, help is on its way. Good news. From Texas.

 

Posted on

No Eddie Munster today. We are still pre-empted by Isaac.

What? Is he talking about that damned storm again?

Why yes. What else is there to talk about except the weather? I mean, I sure as hell don’t see a future in talking about the Republican National Convention. The giant infomercial. And just to be totally fair, the Democratic convention will be the same only with people wearing less expensive clothes. That is except for the movie stars and entertainers.

So yes, Big Boy, the weather is making my joints hurt. A hurricane as nearby as Isaac certainly does cause my arthritis to -itis. Or is it to arth? See the doctored GOES satellite picture below which showed now Hurricane Isaac about 30 minutes ago. Obviously, one can see the hurricane. At the left, bottom is a little triangle I made to, sort of, represent “The Golden Triangle.” Why didn’t I make it golden? I didn’t think about it. Beside, golden might be difficult to spot with the surrounding color. It’s called The Golden Triangle because the location of the cities Beaumont, Port Arthur and Orange, Texas, all make a triangle when viewed geographically. The golden part had to do with the prosperity from the “oil bidness,” much of which started in this area upon the gushing of Spindletop in January 1901. Either that or it was from what color the skies were from smog until it was eventually cleaned up somewhat.

 

One of the cloud bands, whatever it might be called, from the storm passed over earlier when I was at work. The wind whipped up and whistled like a 50-foot tea kettle. Guessing from what the local wind readings were, I’d say maybe the sustained winds were maybe 20 mph, whipping up to almost 30 mph. Perhaps the winds weren’t that strong.

Even with those winds blowing by it is hot ‘n humid. Perhaps I need a trademark “Hot ‘N Humid ™ :” It will make you sweat, and how!”

I have been watching The Weather Channel, at least when the sound is off, and when the sound is off and a torso shot is visible of meteorologist Stephanie Abrams. Seriously, I have come to respect Stephanie as a broadcaster. She yaps a lot but she is multi-talented and seems to pretty much know here stuff. The Weather Channel has pulled out all the stops for Isaac. That is, unless it hits somewhere other than Florida, Alabama or Louisiana, and as I have mentioned before, especially New Orleans. If it hits far western Louisiana or far southeastern Texas, no biggie. Nobody lives there. I mean, I do, as does several hundred thousand people.

The storm coming on almost the anniversary of Katrina in 2005 has made-for-TV-drama written all over it. Plus, isn’t it always about New Orleans? Oh well, I’ve gone down that road before. My neighbors, thankfully, didn’t experience the many deaths of Katrina. In some way, though, people often feel a little of themselves die when they suffer losses as they did with their lives uprooted by first Hurricane Rita and later Ike.

Issac will probably bring more suffering to the north when the storm makes its way inland, however far it goes. And such systems can travel a long ways. I hope the wind we have seen today here in Southeast Texas is about the gist of Hurricane Isaac. I wouldn’t be surprised if that was not the case. I wouldn’t mind if it clouded up or even rained a bit. But a bit is something that one only sees a bit of when it comes to tropical cyclones.

So maybe tomorrow I can talk about Mitt Romney’s stretch blue jeans or his cloned-looking kids, or how Veep candidate Paul Ryan bears an eerie resemblance to Eddie Munster. But once again today, this space has been hijacked by Isaac.

Posted on

TS-almost-Hurricane Isaac: Where it goes nobody knows

Yes, I am still here. I am still keeping an eye on Tropical Storm-Almost-Hurricane Isaac.

Look on TV and you will see that everyone and their special porpoise says the storm will hit New Orleans. Well, of course it will hit New Orleans. I’ve said it many times before and with good reason: The media want to go to New Orleans. Not Cameron, La., or Orange, Texas, or Hardtime, Miss.

The truth is no one knows where the hurricane will hit. Oh, they — various agencies and colleges and the National Hurricane Center — all have an idea. Between them all they say the storm will hit somewhere between here in Jefferson County, Texas, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast.  Maybe not exactly. Maybe the forecasters have it down to a 250-mile radius of New Orleans. All three hurricanes I have experienced — well to be honest I slept through Cat 1 Hurricane Humberto and it sneaked up on just about everyone — during the past seven years here in deepest, darkest Southeast Texas were all predicted to land elsewhere. Sometimes, a couple of times and a couple of places elsewhere.

It was only the day before Hurricanes Rita and Ike that I decided what I would do. Rita — leave. Ike — stay. Both times I woke up about 6 o’clock in the morning to the news of “Guess what? There’s a mandatory evacuation.”  I kind of make calculated guesses about whether I should go or stay based on factors like, the speed and direction of the wind, storm surge, rain, what kind of shelter I have and do I have any reason to stay. As to the last question, the answer was yes, because I would be paid to write about the storm. But I questioned my shelter during Rita and as it turned out, the storm was as fierce where I “evacuated” to my brother’s home 60 miles away as it was at my apartment in Beaumont.

I am no hurricane expert by any means. My guessing as to evacuating might be dangerous, but I think I err on the side of caution, relatively speaking. If you know my life in total like some of my friends, then you would know why I put the “relatively speaking” proviso.

If I were to guess, I’d have to say the storm center of Isaac will land as a Cat 1.5 somewhere between Venice “The End of the World” Louisiana, and Lafayette, La. Why do I say that? Is that because of my adroit knowledge of hurricane modelling and tracking? No, I am operating on what is known in science and other sectors of society as a WAG, for “wild ass guess.”

Wherever it lands, I hope it doesn’t cause a whole lot of damage and that no one is harmed from this act of nature gone wild.