From our local Yahoo Freecycle group in the Beaumont, Texas, area, someone wanting to give away their refrigerator after Hurricane Rita took its toll:
“It works but it stinks, has bugs in it (fruit flies) and I have given up on cleaning it. Father-in-law loaned us money for a new one.”
Oh yes, I’ll be right over to pick it up!
This really has nothing to do with the Counting Crows. It is just that “Counting” is in their name. Plus I like Counting Crows and Adam’s hair is like, well, I’d probably have do my hair like that if I wasn’t bald.
What I am referring to is counting as in StatCounter. I noticed my counter has more than 5,100 page visits, which isn’t a lot. I get the stats e-mailed every week and lately I’ve been averaging about 50 visits (not unique visitors) a day. That’s not a lot either. But that’s not why I’m writing about this.
I continue to think StatCounter is a rather interesting fixture for my blog. It doesn’t tell me all I’d like to know. But it tells me more than I would otherwise know. If that makes sense.
What I know, for instance, is from where certain visitors come. Some I recognize over time as friends. Others I have no clue why they are visiting or why they are return visitors. I also don’t know why people in certain foreign countries visit my page. At one time I had quite a few visitors who were Portuguese or from Brazil, where Portuguese is spoken. I haven’t a clue why. Within the last 12 hours or so I’ve had visitors from, in addition to those from the U.S., Canada, Singapore, Norway, Chile and the United Kingdom. Why, I ask? Do they think I’m going to buy them all a Coke and we can live in perfect harmony? Oh, I guess that reference is a little too 60s for some of you.
I do find it entertaining that a few people from all over the globe may read something I write. I wish I knew more about the blogosphere and why certain readers read certain pages. I get an unusual amount of page loads at different occasions, for instance. Yesterday was Sunday and I had some 70 page loads, which for me on a Sunday is very high. I have no idea whether this activity has anything to do with RSS, luck or whatthehell. But it really doesn’t matter. I’m glad for you to stop by. Now give me a dollar.
Just kidding, kind of.
Piles of chain-sawed trees make Beaumont, Texas, neighborhoods look like log yards.
The above photo was taken today, a good 23 days after Hurricane Rita came calling like a scorned, drunken aunt bent on mayhem. Big piles of brush and debris line curbsides all over town even though contractors removing it for the city are pretty efficient.
Most area schools kids are back in class today reading, writing and being their obnoxious little selves while many of their dads and moms are back at work.
“Normalcy.” That’s a word you hear a lot on TV news and read in the local paper. People are seeking normalcy in their lives. It is the most overused word around here since “closure.” But it is a perfectly accurate description of what many desperately crave after the storm interrupted the hell out of their lives.
Now there is a Tropical Storm Wilma out there headed for Yucatan or the Gulf of Mexico or wherever. It’s way too early to get a bead on it. As many of you will recall it was difficult to figure exactly where Rita was going to make landfall. First the weather forecasters thought some 250 miles southwest of me near Corpus Christi. Then each day the prediction seemed to bring it closer to the Upper Texas Coast where I live. It was only the day before the storm made landfall that there was confidence enough in where Rita would come ashore for local officials to order a mandatory evacuation. When it finally made landfall it turned out that where the eye came ashore was only part of the equation because the storm was so large.
It was ferocious as well. And the storm itself was really the only cool part of the entire experience.
Now I know how that must sound, that the hurricane was cool. A friend of mine who stayed here in Beaumont because of work and I had this conversation after I returned. And I pretty much agreed with her that the actual storm was quite exhilarating. My friend even characterized the experience as “fun.”
I actually slept for a few hours at my brother’s home before the most intense part of the hurricane made its way to us, 80 or so miles away from the coast. I think specifically it were the three electric transformers somewhere in the neighborhood exploding in quick succession that roused me from sleep.
Watching from inside the house the trees swaying and falling amid the driving rain was mesmerizing. We had a radio on but I couldn’t tell you what was said during those entire early morning hours. The constant roar of the wind also was most memorable. “I don’t think I ever have been so tired of hearing the wind blow,” my brother told me that morning.
As difficult as it was to see the damage just after the storm and even a couple of weeks later, I can only describe those visions as “awesome,” as in “shock and awe.”
We were visited by a force of nature that lets mortal man know he isn’t the only entity that can wreck large portions of the Earth. Whether you see it unleashed by God, or a higher power or just the cosmos itself, it’s one hell of a show. It’s like visiting nature’s amusement park for the thrill ride of your life.
Fun though it was, I still hope Wilma will go elsewhere. I think most of us along the Gulf coast have had about all the fun we can take for this year.
If you will look to the blogroll, stage right, you will notice I organized my links somewhat. I will add more or take away as the mood strikes me.
I no longer have the link for this blog’s comments. The reason is that I was getting too few comments so I couldn’t see a reason for having a whole separate blog dedicated for that purpose. If you want to comment, you still may e-mail me at the address above the Saline Soldier, and we might just discuss whatever it is that’s got your knickers in a bunch. Or we might not. You just can’t tell about me these days.
Another reason for discontinuing the comments blog is that I am considering doing something with it. Perhaps using it for a serious blog, or as serious as I can get. Great, just what the world needs, eh?
