I lost count of the number of hurricanes I have been through. Isabel was the worst. Now another with a female name beginning in "I". How about that for sinister meaning? Especially coming after the earthquake a few days ago. Someone asked: why do hurricanes have names and earthquakes don't? My wife is the only one who knows. It is because hurricanes are more frequent. I guess I am lucky then. I was an only child and still got a name. I wonder if someone will write a diary showing why this storm is due to fracking. Someone was fracking Irene? Anything is possible these days. I find that now that we have thrown reason away completely anything and nothing makes sense. The surrealism of American politics today is beyond reality. Who needs health care, jobs, retirement income, food, shelter, or anything for that matter. Ask Clarence Thomas. He doesn't speak much though according to Mark Crispin Miller.Partners: Will Clarence and Virginia Thomas succeed in killing Obama’s health-care plan? by Jeffrey Toobin Aug 29, 2011 For more incoherent thoughts read on.
I am writing this diary to see if I can figure out whether or not I am really loosing my mind. I used to think that if you were really loosing your mind you would not ask such a question. Now I am am not even sure about that. The article about Clarence Thomas says things about his great intellect. I have really lost touch with the meaning of words. I also lost touch with how to get a generator to run after you let it sit a few years without draining the gas out of the tank and forgetting to turn off the shut off valve. My son-in law came to my rescue and got the dirty carburator/gas line functioning again. I remember when I got a new 1957 Chevy because the guards at the Marine Corps Schools at Quantico would not let us bring the wreck we were driving on to the base. I learned to do everything for maintaining that car. I never took it into a shop. I sold it when I went to do my post doc in Israel in 1963. Now I look under the hood and shudder. I can write wonderful computer simulation programs, but do what I need to do to survive a hurricane? I do not know.
I said Isabel was the worst I experienced but actually I was in a worse one in 1954 during my freshman midshipman cruise. We were off the Azores and I was on the Worcester, a light cruiser. It took a 45 degree role. They served us greasy pork chops in the mess hall that day and we had to eat sitting on the floor. I know it is a deck not a floor. I still have the photos I took. We had cables all over topside so we would not get swept away. I have some neat pics of the waves crashing down on us from above. I took some of a destroyer near us in the convoy. One minute you saw it on top of a huge swell and it looks like a toy. The next minute it was no where to be seen. Spooky business hurricanes at sea.
So we have Irene paying a visit tomorrow. Just think how bad things might be if we scientists were telling the truth about global warming. Somehow I was never able to get grant money even though, as a thermodynamics expert, I was showing how the global warming thing had to be true. Maybe Perry can arrange for me to get some?
The yard is cleaned up, the car is gassed up, I have the generator ready, we have food and water. It would have to be a class three direct hit for us to be flooded (Famous last words?). So why am I so nervous? Maybe it has to do with being 75? Any way writing this made feel a bit better. I hope reading it did something for you. Good luck to all of you tomorrow and Sunday. All these prayers being said may be contributing to global warming as well.