Tornadoes of 2011

The past three days have been like a surreal dream or nightmare.  On Wednesday morning at about 4:00 a line of severe storms began to roll through our area.  We knew Wednesday was going to be stormy but we had NO idea how bad it would be.  By the time I left for work at 6:45 it had quit storming at the house and was moving off.  We did not know why we were not delayed from starting school.  At about 10:30 we received the call at school that we would be dismissed at 1:00 that afternoon.    We were flying blind at school.  The early morning storms had knocked out our internet and cable so we had no way of knowing what the weather was like.  We were finally able to  cobble together enough of a signal to watch one of the local stations and saw the next line of storms heading in.  We dismissed our students and headed home.  Throughout the day we watched and listened to the weather ( lost power at 5:30 p.m.).  All around us there were tornadoes touching down.  Reports were spotty and no one could say what was happening.  Cell phone coverage was up and down but I was in contact with most of my co-workers and finding out from them the areas of damage.  At about 10:00 on Wednesday night we finally passed out of the final tornado warning.  We had no idea what it would be like.  400,000 people without power.  Cullman, AL destroyed.  Parts of Huntsville, destroyed.  Mt. Hope, destroyed.  It was so dark and silent that night.  NONE of us had lights.  We lit some candles and opened some windows and finally fell into bed exhausted about 9:00.  On Thursday it was like a scene out of a movie.  We drove 2 hours to get gas just South of Nashville.  All around we saw homes leveled and debris scattered everywhere.  Then we had to drive and hour South to fill up our other car with gas.  Same story there.  We were lucky in that we got our power back on Thursday night.  But thousands still do not have power and they are saying it will be up to 9 more days before they are back up.  I made it to school on Friday to check on things and we worked up there for a couple of hours, helping and cleaning to make the shelter as comfortable as possible for the families who have nothing left.  Today we drove out to Michael's uncle's house.  His is the only house standing in their area.  All around it is just completely devastated.  Nothing is left standing.  There are washing machines tangled up in trees and houses standing with the entire front missing.  One of the most astounding things we saw was a house that had been torn in half.  The refrigerator was standing open in the kitchen and the stuff in the fridge was still inside.  I have never seen such utter chaos and epic loss.  People are missing.  People we know are dead.  It is just the most awful thing I have ever seen.  But through it all, we are blessed because we are alive and safe.

The Almost True Story of Ryan Fisher

Hmmmmm....not the worst but not the best thing I have ever read.  It aggravated me quite a bit as it did not have any real resolution at the end.  Also, it tended to jump from topic ot topic.  One moment I would be reading about something Ryan was doing and then I was reading about Katherine in the same breath doing something completely different.  Now that could have been due to the way it was formatted on my Kindle. 

Like another review I read, I did not realize this was "Christian" fiction until I was well into the book and decided to do a little research on the author.  It ws not terrible but I just felt it was either too shallow or not researched well enough.  But it was a clean book with no bad language, no sex scenes, no gratuitous violence.  It was refreshing for a change.


All in all, it was a quick read and it amused me a little bit.
[book:The Almost True Story of Ryan Fisher|2642470]

Falling off the book wagon

I have fallen off the reading wagon.  I go for several weeks where I suck down book after book and cannot get enough.  Then I go for several weeks where I don't pick up a book.  So I am going to try to get back on the reading again today.  It looks like a slow day at work for me paperwork wise and unless the phone goes crazy or 14 different people need something from me, I will be sitting again today like I did yesterday.  I am going to get my Kindle out and see what I want to start on first.  I am thinking I need to read something sort of serious for a change as I have not been as diligent in that regard as I should be.  But we will see.  I may have a short story collection to finish.  Those are easy to read at work because I do get interrupted from time to time.  Will upate later.

Work

Well tonight is the night they will have the community meeting to discuss closing my school.  Oh what fun!  The parents are coming up here fully loaded to beg and plead for the school to stay open.  The school board and the superintendent are only planning to discuss WHY it is financially expedient to close us.  One side is wanting to tell them how much the school means to them and the community and the other side is planning to tell people they don't care how emotional it is, they are doing what they feel has to be done.  What a mess!  So I will stay up here after school today to be here for the meeting and hopefully, there will not be any fights or bloodshed.  But I am not optimistic on that count.  I imagine the whole thing will dissolve into a drunken brawl among our parents and someone is likely to lose an eye or teeth before the night is over.  We will just see what happens.  Either way, the board will vote on May 12 to shut us down and I will be jobless after June 30 unless something miraculous happens.  Will keep on posting as more information comes available.

Been a while

It has been a while since I sat down to post.  Not much has happened.  That about sums it up.  We had Spring Break and we were able to get away for a couple of days.  That was nice but I was ready to get home when it was time to come home.  I did read a couple of short things but they were not really worth blogging about.  One was a short story/novella thingy. Horror, gruesome, gore....pretty good. It was the continuation of two short stories I had read earlier.  The other was a collection of odd short stories that was pretty good.  So that is it for now.  Nothing new is going on and that is okay too.

How To Rescue a Dead Princess

Well I finally finally finally finished reading this one.  It was pretty good but I will admit, a little tedious in a funny, sarcastic sort of way.  Once I set my mind on the fact that it was in no way a serious book I enjoyed it.  But I could only take it in small doses.  The good thing was that I enjoyed it every time I picked it up to read it and never felt like I had to re-read page after page to reaquaint myself with the story.  I like Randall the Squire very much and his adventures on his quest had me chuckling more than once.  I would reccommend this to anyone who is not looking for a serious read and someone who can handle plenty of sarcasm, humor, and silliness above all else.
 [book:How to Rescue a Dead Princess|362864]