After Gustav

George Town from West Bay Public Beach afterwards

Grand Cayman made it through Gustav OK. Cayman Brac and Little Cayman got really whacked. He passed between the islands and the ones on Gustavs right side got it bad, and the one on his left got lucky.

I personally had no damage, I designed my house to be a hurricane bunker. I have 10 foot tall 12 inch thick concrete stilts. I have a concrete slab with 2 foot thick concrete crossmembers. My walls are 8 inch block, with every hole filled with concrete with steel in every other hole. My roof is flat concrete, 8 inches thick on the edges and 7 in the center. (for drainage) I have good, accordion style hurricane shutters on my windows and plywood cut and ready for the windows in the doors.
I lost almost everything in Hurricane Michelle and got flooded by Ivan and I was still scared as Gustav approached.

I wish comfort to those who get damage from Gustav

Battened Down

A cool video for you

Aw Crap

All of a sudden, this looks much worse than before.

Shebas On a Roll!

Sheba was incredibly well behaved yesterday and last night! I was awed. No accidents, no blatant acts of rebellion. Maybe something clicked for her! She spent the night before last and the night before that outside. Last night she stayed in and had a perfect performance record! Wow!

Here's a picture of my new aluminum spiral staircase, they started installing it in yesterday and hopefully they'll finish today! It's all shiny and beautiful! And it takes less room that the ladder that was there before. It really turned a lot better than I expected. All that's left to do is put the armrail on it! It was custom built by Caribbean Engineering (Phone 345 946 5000). Apparently they don't have a website.

click pik to enlarge

The storm is still coming. I have a new transmitter in Customs, the old one failed and I'm running on backup. We don't want to order the parts for the old one, so I'm going to try to get the ne one out of customs and installed today It may be an impossibly big job. Wish me luck!

Gustav

Here comes one, the track is more southerly than yesterday, if it swings any more south. . . .

Pyramid House

Heres a couple of pics I took on Cayman Brac of a pretty cool looking house, except it looked like it needed a little work. There's a postcard available of this house!

NBC is ruining it.

I am very disappointed by the NBC coverage of the Olympics. For the most part, they are showing only the Americans and not showing the other countries. I saw them fooling around for a half hour, the announcers playing badmittion with two members of the US Olympic Badmitton team.

A lot of time, they don't even show the judges score of the other countries athletes. They were interviewing someone who came in 8th place this morning.

I wish we had a decent BBC feed covering the games.

The view from my room

This is the view from my room on Cayman Brac. This is as close as I can get to the window, because there's a balcony.

Helllo From the Brac

I arrived on Cayman Brac Sunday, and I"ll be here till next Saturday. I'm here to work on my transmitters and also for the Dept of Youth and Sports Radio Camp.

I've been very busy and I'm having a lot of fun.

Extreme Anger

I've always had a problem dealing with anger. These past few days have been really bad. I wake up the next morning and feel like a different person than when I went to bed.
I wish I could quit getting angry like I quit drinking.

Sheba Got 'Fixed'

Broken is more like it. She went to the vet yesterday morning and came home in the afternoon. Groggy. Here's her new scar.



Don't be fooled by the cute pic, this dog has a drinking problem, she drinks excessively, and pees on the floor, then immediately goes and guzzles more water. Stubborn as a mule too.

Scientists alarmed by ocean dead-zone growth

Check out this link. Once I went diving in a harbor, and down deep was a 'dead zone' with no oxygen. It was freezinger and weird. Even with scuba gear, there was a strong urge to not proceed. It was almost like you could feel the nasty taste I checked it out, but barely, I went back up shallower. I think the de-oxygenated water is denser than oxygenated water, so it sinks and collects in pools in the low spots on the bottom, and they tend to remain until something stirs them up, which isn't easy.
This could be really bad, I bet we hear more of this.

Sheba and the Ceiling Fan

Last night, we had a power failure. About 5 minutes later, Sheba the Destroyer started freaking out, barking and looking up at the ceiling. We figured out that since we've had her, the fans have been running and she's never actually seen them. So last night, she saw this huge propellor like spider thing on the ceiling and went a little apey. She wouldn't walk under it, and she was giving the floor underneath a wide berth.
When the power came back on, she forgot all about it.

Tomorrow she's going to the vets to get spayed.

Junk Cars

My neighbor on the next block has junk cars on the street behind his house, which is in front of mine.
Yesterday another car showed up and it's starting to look like a junkyard.
I don't want to be the bad guy, new kid on the block and all, but I wish he's park his junk cars in front of his house, not mine.
I'm going to have to talk to the guy, call the cops, or something.
I can't empathize with the guy, I'd never do that to someone else!

It's Monday, after a good weekend. I have a lot to do this week as next week I'm supposed to go to Cayman Brac for a week. I hope the OI Girl can handle Sheba while I'm gone. Sheba's starting to listen to me but not her. That dawg is stubborn as a mule!
I just hung out Saturday, except I bought some plywood and made some hurricane shutters for the windows in our doors, and we're covered now I hope.
Went diving Sunday and went out for lunch.

Saturday

It's Saturday, The OI Girl is working and I'm hanging at the house.
With the Dawgs.

Ripe Mangos

There is nothing better than a ripe mango.
As I've mentioned before, I usually stop by the grocery store in the mornings and get fruit at the salad bar. It is aways very good because I'm close to the first one there. If you go back later, the salad bar is all dug through and kind of unsavory.
Most of the people I have met around here like mango's kind of green, with salt on them. I like them that way too, but mostly, I like them ripe and sweet. The past couple of days they have been just the way I like them.
Lucky me

A Good Night

Well, the new Dawg, I call her Sheba The Destroyer, didn't wreck anything last night, didn't get in the garbage, apparently was a perfect little angel. Amazing. Yesterday in my post, I didn't mean to say I wanted to get rid of her, just the thought was criss-crossing my mind. I told the OI Girl I was thinking about it but we wouldn't unless it was unanimous. And I'm sure we won't, yesterday was just venting frustration. Before we went to bed, I told her to not forget and be good. I guess she remembered. We'll see about tonight.

Here's a pic of 'The Destroyer'.

So educated looking.

Bad Dog

The new dog is eating the wooden things in the house.
I am ALMOST ready to get rid of her. Her objective is not to stop doing the things she's not supposed to do, her objective is not to get caught. She just does them quietly and when nobody is around. She's missing the point.

Andrea Doria

A friend of mine, Terry DeWolf, died on the Andrea Doria last week, he was my dive buddy from Inner Space. I made a video of us going through the tunnels at Funky Town, and was supposed to send it to him, but it was a borrowed camera and I still haven't received a copy of the video.
I'm saddened by his death and send my condolences to his family and friends.

ugly font color

Every Monday, it seems like the weekend is getting shorter and shorter.
Last night the OI Girl and I had a few people over for a cookout. I was sure it was Saturday night, not Sunday. I grilled these ribeye steaks that were a full 2 inches thick. Two steaks weighed 3.7 pounds! They were good!
It was a good weekend even though it was short. Saturday, we worked around the house. OI Girl painted the doors and I hung some plywood holders for the glass in the doors. (We had accordion style hurricane shutters installed last week.) So if I actually buy the sheet of plywood and cut it to fit, we should be fairly well prepared in case there's ever a hurricane.
Sunday, I went diving and had a pretty good dive except for cell warnings on my rebreather. Beep beep beeping.
Maybe that new dawg is straightening out, maybe.

DogBlog

Is this going to turn into a dog blog? It seems so, at least for a while.

I took 'em to the vet yesterday. He has an ear infection and she just needed a new dog checkup.

I thought she had been fixed, but she hasn't, so she's going back on the 15th for a little overnight stay.

Hope it mellows her out a bit. This morning, I saw her coming downstairs, I went down and found she'd been using the foyer as her own little bathroom. I rolled her in her pee and tied her up outside. Hope I'm not cruel. I want her to stop peeing in the house!
Dammit!

It's Saturday, I'm diving I hope today and tomorrow too!