National Disaster Take 3

So as many of you have probably heard, there is yet another hurricane heading into the Gulf. Hurricane Wilma jumped from a category 2 to a category 5 in only a few hours today. Right now they're expecting it to hit western Florida, so I probably won't be affected here, but as with all hurricanes, she could end up pretty much anywhere, so the whole Gulf area is on alert.

No matter where she hits, this one has the potential to be as bad as both Katrina and Rita were, so thoughts and prayers for everyone in the Gulf would be appreciated.

A month and a half left in hurricane season. I'm getting really sick of this.

Meme, again

Yes, I'm avoiding work. Ganked from adellyna

( Nosy meme )

Ganked from ewin

This makes me very angry. Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty? I thought they needed more proof than one scientist's on faulty statistics to convict someone of murder.

SQUEEEEE!!!

My MA thesis is in WorldCat. WorldCat is the public face of OCLC, the main library clearinghouse, and includes all catalogued materials from OCLC member libraries, which is pretty much everyone in the US and Canada, and many overseas. This makes sense, as USC is a member library and so my MA thesis, which I knew would be in their library catalog, is also in WorldCat.

But here comes the library geek squee part: They had to create at a new Library of Congress Subject Heading for my thesis. The heading "Carter, Angela, 1940 - Bloody Chamber - Bibliography" did not exist until my book was catalogued. I have my own subject heading. You have no idea how excited this makes me.

More on Wilma

I admit it. Ever since Katrina, I'm hurricane obssessed. As soon as I hear about a new one, I'm tracking it, checking size, windspeed etc. I'm compulsive about it. Because I never truly appreciated before how destructive these storms could be. It was always something that happend to Someone Else. In a sense, Katrina and Rita both happened to Someone Else as well, at least in terms of major damage. But they happened much closer to home. I was on the fringes of both hurricanes, and all I could think was if it's this nasty here on the fringes, how much more horrible must it be to those truly in the path.

So yeah. Now I watch, and I want to talk about. Share information and speculation and plans. Because there's not really anything I can do about it one way or another, but keeping up to date makes me feel like I'm doing something. Some small comforting illusion of control. It can be misinterpreted sometimes -- and it has -- as excitement. But it's not really that. I certainly don't *want* the hurricane to come here. I don't want it to come anywhere. I'd be thrilled if it just up and vanished. But it's here, and it's going to stay here, and the least I can do is make sure I know all about it, and am as prepared as possible. I didn't know about Katrina until the Saturday before she struck. I don't want that to happen again.

The thing about Wilma is that she's *huge*. She's literally (I measured it) the width of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama combined. In short, even if she continues her projected path and hits Florida, if she doesn't diminish in size some, we'll still feel it over here. Lovely. I remember watching the satellite images of Katrina and Rita. They were about half her size (ok, maybe 60%). Still, this is one huge-ass monster storm. And right now, she's pointed this way.

I know they're saying she'll turn east. And they're saying she'll downgrade before she hits. But they don't know. She could hit western Florida as a category 3 and be no worse than any other storm that's hit in previous years (which are bad enough). Or she could stay a category 5 and hit just about anywhere on the Gulf coast. The problem is, no one really knows. So until they do, I'm going to keep hitting the refresh button on the satellite image. I'm going to keep checking CNN and weather.com every half hour. And I'll keep you posted.

Florida people -- If you're in the projected path, *please* leave. If anyone needs crash space for a few days you're welcome to come here. No guarantee here will be safe, but it's got a better chance. Stay safe and let me know where you are and what preparations you're making.

Two things

1) My bread has a grain. And yes, I'm aware of the punnish nature of that sentence. But really. You know how wood has a grain? My bread has a grain. All the little bread molecules are lined up in a swirly pattern. It is very disconcerting. Tastes normal, though.

2) One of the big disadvantages to living alone is that there is no one to help when you can't get the applebutter jar open. My fingers feel like they're about to twist off and my palm is sore. The jar is still vacuum sealed for my protection, however.