Tuesday, August 5, 2008

The Best Thing about a Tropical Storm

Many of you may have heard that a tropical storm (Edouard) quickly formed in the Gulf and hit Houston this week. (I don't know where people learned how to spell. It's pronounced "Edward".)

Many people went nuts preparing for the storm. All the grocery stores had a run and you couldn't find bread or bottled water anywhere. I guess we have lived in Houston so long that we don't get excited about little storms. I had to pick up some ice cream (on sale for $1.99) and some pickle relish for our hot dogs last night, so I stopped at the local HEB. It was a mad house with every cashier lane open and people waiting six deep at every lane. My ice cream almost melted!

It must have been a slow news day. The television stations really played the storm up with their reporters dressed in rain slickers and standing in front of the ocean. Only problem was, it wasn't much of a storm. The surf was flat. I actually heard one reporter saying, "We've had constant wind speeds of 4 to 5 miles per hour, even gusting up to 6 mph".

I have seen what a big storm can do, and I respect them. But this was just a little bit of nothing. Here is the radar shot of what hit us. We got a total of 2.5 inches of rain out of the storm and no wind to speak of. The Houston area is over 5 inches behind in rainfall this year, so we welcome the moisture.

The best thing about the Tropical Storm is that I got to work from home. ExxonMobil didn't want employees on the road in case we got heavy rainfall and flooding. So if our job didn't require it, we could work from home. I could get use to that! I could sleep in a little longer. I wore my jeans and t-shirt. I didn't have to fight traffic to and from work. I got to eat lunch with Anne/Mom.

I set up the card table in the bedroom and turned on the satellite XM radio. We have wireless so the computer worked fine. I have a cell phone so I talked to India and Europe, as well as a number of people here in Houston. The worse thing about working from home is that I probably got more work done than if I was at the office. No one stopped by to chit-chat. All I had to do was work.

Anne/Mom doesn't believe that I worked very hard. "All you do is sit there and type on the computer!". But I think she liked me being around. (She's got this thing for me . . .)

4 comments:

Jon said...

Yeah, I'm pretty sure she has a thing for you :)

I just sit at a computer all day and type, too. It's like we're doing the same thing! Can I get paid like you?

bethany said...

Mom's just comparing your job to the one that she's had to do for the last 28 years-sitting at a computer typing has got nothing on the kind of work that she's had to do.
And in case you are wondering...I am up this late because I'm having contractions. Maybe your fake hurricane was just enough to change the pressure for me to have this baby. Fingers crossed!

Jefferson said...

You mean you don't work everyday in jeans and t-shirt?

Unknown said...

I always enjoy reading what you write--it is so humorous the way you say things.