What's "Up Chuck"?

What a weekend this has been! We had a kick ass storm here early Saturday morning. Major damage, but more on that later. Friday night Susan, the kids and I hung out doing not much of anything. Although there was not much to write home about, one thing was certain…my left heel was hurting like a mofo. I stayed up in bed till 3am watching the biography of Simon Cowel, Paula Abdul and that Army guy from Ft. Campbell, Ky who was murdered in his sleep because he was thought to be a homosexual. While I was watching TV I took this picture. Sure I know I shouldn’t be wearing X-Mas boxer shorts in April, but they were only $1.99 at Old Navy. We were awoken at 5am by my daughter and son telling us that the lights had gone out and there could be a tornado heading our way. I had been asleep about two hours at this point and was not too happy to be jerked from a solid sleep! But we all checked out the situation…found that the electricity was indeed out and I encouraged everyone to go back to bed. If there was a tornado coming we would surely hear the warning siren. Turns out there was, but it was a class zero. There wasn’t much hope for any solid sleep after that. Around eight o’clock Susan got up and went to McDonald’s to get some breakfast for everyone since we still had no power and I laid in bed for another hour till I too gave up and got my butt up. Once we had eaten I went outside to survey the damage. Susan had mentioned she had seen a lot of damage as she drove out of the neighborhood. We only had some limbs down in our yard, but many others in the neighborhood we not as lucky. The kids and I got in the car and drove around a little to see. It was weird, in about every other yard there were trees down, some very large. We saw one house where a backyard metal outbuilding was now twisted and sitting in the front yard. People were out cleaning debris everywhere and many others were out walking or driving around seeing the distruction like us. In a way it reminded me of how people will drive slowing through the streets on December nights, looking at Christmas lights. I took some pictures of course and have them in my “random pics” photo album in my gallery. You can click here to see the first photo, then click the arrow at the top right of that one to see the others. We worked around the house for a while and I was able to get all the down branches dragged to the road for pick up. By one in the afternoon we were still without electricity, so we decided we would take a drive and join the YMCA. April 30th was the last day you could join without any sign up fee, so we wanted to get in on the special before it was too late. After that we drove to visit the new home of one of Susan’s work colleagues. This lady, Tonya, is a single mother with three kids and this was the first home she had ever purchased. Tonya knows nothing about painting and had asked if folks would swing by and give her a hand. Some how I found myself offering to strip the wall paper in her kitchen and then paint. Don’t know what came over me, but that is where I will be all day tomorrow…doing something I hate. Ain’t I a nice guy? lol Later that afternoon we all went to our favorite Mexican restaurant and had dinner and frozen margarita’s. Well, Susan and I had margs, the kids had diet coke! When we got home we were happy to find the power back on. Based on the blinking time on the digital clocks we were without electricity for ten and a half hours. Luckily nothing in our freezers had time enough to thaw out and ruin. Yesterday was spent relaxing and having good family time. The kids and I played PS2 games and watched Star Wars Episode One for the millionth time. In the evening I grilled out steaks and we had a nice dinner while watching Extreme Home Makeover on television. I will be gone much of this week, just so you know. Wednesday morning I have to leave for work in Destin, Florida. Not sure if I will be able to write from there. I return home Friday night, then we leave early Saturday morning for Tennessee. My sister is graduating from UT, so we will be there for the graduation and her party that evening. I hope I don’t have too much blogging withdrawal! Hope you all have a nice and productive week! divider