Eight Feet Deep

Tropical Storm Rita is not quite a hurricane yet. The National Weather Service isn’t quite sure yet which direction it might travel once it becomes a hurricane. Well, welcome to life on the Gulf Coast.

The National Hurricane Center’s “Five-day Cone” pictured here guestimates a landfall that is a bit north of what it was earlier today. Here is what the weather people said in their 8 p.m. discussion:

“THE NOGAPS AND GFDN FORECAST A STRAIGHT WESTWARD TRACK INTO SOUTHERN TEXAS…WHILE THE GFS AND GFDL FORECAST A NORTHWARD BEND TOWARD THE TEXAS/LOUISIANA BORDER REGION. GIVEN THIS UNCERTAINTY…IT MUST AGAIN BE EMPHASIZED THAT FORECAST ERRORS CAN BE QUITE LARGE AT THESE LONGER LEAD TIMES.”

Just what NOGAPS and GFDNs and GFSes and GFDLs are I haven’t a clue nor do I think it is particularly germane unless you are some kind of science/weather/meteorology freak and if so, I can’t quite figure why the hell you’d want to waste your time reading my lame ass blog. What is important is the last sentence. It says: “We don’t really know. We’ll get back to you.” That’s okay though. We’re not dealing with a left-handed batter who bats .345 against a left-handed pitcher with an ERA of 0.1 who always wins at home and when the humidity is below 70 percent. We’re dealing with nature and these people at the hurricane center really have gotten pretty good at predicting this stuff, regardless of what kind of garbage you have been reading lately.

I think the only person you may have heard faulting the National Weather Service during Katrina is U.S. Sen. “Righteous Rick” Santorum, R-Pa., who would run over his mother to privatize the weather service because private weather firm AccuWeather has its headquarters in Pennsylvania.

Of course, I am keeping an eye on the storm. Even if it were to hit where the five-day cone projects we could still see some rough stuff here near the Texas-Louisiana border. It could go south of there, it could go north, or it could just stop right where it is and go in an entirely different direction entirely.

Locally, the TV stations are talking about preparations for the storm. Local officials will probably be making a decision by Wednesday whether we need to evacuate. If, and a big if, that takes place then I will have a range of options dependent on how bad the storm is and whether some publication will pay me to write about the storm.

Until then I guess I’ll just twist in the wind.

These were the largest alligators I saw Sunday at the Texas Gator Fest in Anahuac, Texas. I saw some baby alligators which the parks people were letting the kids pet (since the little gators’ snouts were taped shut). But I don’t know where they were keeping the big gators.

This annual celebration of the alligator is due to the fact that Anahuac rests among the marshes bordering Trinity Bay. The official Texas Gator Fest Web site pointed out that the Texas Legislature named Anahuac the “Alligator Capital of Texas” because gators “outnumbered humans 3-to-1.” It also was probably the last time the Legislature turned out a notable accomplishment.

Of course, the festival provided ample opportunities to buy some delicacies such as fried gator on a stick, boiled gator on a fork and gator gravy in a ladle. The latter two I just kind of made up, but I bet they don’t taste anything like chicken.

The real reason my friend Sarah and I made the trip to Gator Fest in Anahuac, located off I-10 between Houston and Beaumont, was really less about alligators and more about hearing Robert Earl Keen (below) play.

Truthfully, I don’t know how popular Robert Earl is outside of Texas but he has a very loyal and hardcore following here especially among his fellow Texas Aggies. He has not achieved the stature of his college pal Lyle Lovett. But I have the feeling he does okay for himself. Keen, who is part story-teller-troubadour-bullshitter, put on a great show despite it being so hot people were on the verge of spontaneous combustion.

Robert Earl also looked as if he was enjoying himself. That’s usually a good sign for the audience. I know I had a good time.

Don’t shake hands with Fred Clewer. Static electricity from the Australian man burned a hole in the carpet of a local business in Warrnambool, Victoria, more than 3/4 of an inch in diameter, according to Associated Press.

“It sounded almost like a firecracker or something like that,” Clewer told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. about his entering the business. “Within say around five minutes the carpet started to erupt.”

Fire officials said Clewer had built up about 30,000 volts of electricity in his jacket during a walk around town. He reportedly scorched a piece of plastic in his car after he left the building whose carpet he burned.

This alarms me somewhat because I used to have a bad static electricity problem. It was more pronounced when I lived in the drier climate of Central Texas. But during the less humid times of the year I would shock the crap out of myself getting in and out of cars or opening the door at work. I used to spray myself with some kind of anti-static spray that helped somewhat. I also grounded myself with my vehicle key before touching something metallic that might shock me. I’ve had bright, lightning-like sparks fly between the key and the door that were probably 1/8 of an inch long.

I’d really hate to walk into someone’s home and start a fire on their rug. Wouldn’t that be embarrassing?

I can’t help but wonder just how much of a letdown this blog must be sometimes for readers who find it through a search engine. My StatCounter page tells me the referring page of those visiting my site. I noticed one visitor today from Egypt who found my blog through a MSN search. That reader was seeking:

“very sexy feet”

Now one would think that with a blog named eight feet deep I would have some decent feet shots, wouldn’t one? Actually, no. My apologies to all those out there with a fetfootish who wander into EFD.