Best Kitty Ever

Halloween

It's Halloween.

I'm on call.

We aren't trick or treating.

That's okay.

The city has moved the Halloween festivities to Saturday.  I am not pleased that we got our asses kicked by a massive hurricane, but it's nice that one of the results was that trick or treating will take place at a time when I am not driving home, and I am not on call, and Nana and Papa can come and see the kids in their costumes, and maybe we might have a shot at carving up a pumpkin.

Happy Halloween, everyone!

BOO!

Still a Mess

This road was open yesterday. Today it's a mile long backup.

MLB Predictions Recap

So... ummm... The Giants won.  In four games.  Two of them were shutouts.  The Yankees couldn't score in the AL championship series and the Tiggers beat them soundly.  Then the Tiggers turned into the Yankees and couldn't score in the World Series and the Giants beat them soundly.

It was over so fast that I missed it.  I caught about three innings of game three on the radio.  That was it.  It was over before I knew it.

So the question then is, did I get the pick right or not?  I picked the Tiggers, but when I did I guaranteed a Giants victory.  Naw, I can't fudge the numbers that way.  I picked the Tiggers, the Tiggers lost.  I went four out of nine in my post season predictions.  That's probably the worst I've ever done in any sport.

Can we just put this pathetic baseball season behind us and get back to what's important... bashing the NHL for their unimaginable lock out stupidity?  Word on the street is that the Winter Classic will be cancelled tomorrow.  GOOD!  The NHL does not deserve a feel good (ie, money machine) event like the Winter Classic.  They only deserve one thing and that it to cease to exist so a real top level professional hockey league can be created to replace them.




(Oh, and I am aware that I misspelled the name of the American League Champions.  I did it on purpose.  Learn your Winnie the Pooh.)

Work Continues

I saw quite a few of these on the drive home. Many a neighborhood I travelled through had no power.

The cleanup has just begun.

Back Roads

Taking a back roads route home. Look at all the downed trees.

One Obstruction

This is the only obstruction I encountered on my whole drive to work.

Casualty #2

This one is still hanging there, caught on another branch, right over the driveway.

Hurricane Sandy Recap

Hurricane Sandy has come and gone.  In our house it ended up being more stressful than painful.  Our power flashed out once yesterday afternoon, but only for a second or two.  Other than that we were fine.  I took a drive around the block this morning to make sure we could at least get to the highway.  The roads had a lot of debris, but were otherwise fine.  There was one spot where a large bush had uprooted and was blocking one lane, but there were no trees, branches, or power lines down.

We were lucky.  The Methuen Police Department used Facebook to keep us up to date yesterday.  All road closures, downed trees and lines, and flood spots were immediately reported.  It was far and away the best news source available yesterday and I thank them most sincerely.

I said we were lucky. Last night I spent a couple of hours on twitter and listening to police scanners to follow what was happening in lower Manhattan and Brooklyn.  By the sound of it, things were unbelievably awful.  The subways and bridges and roads were all flooded out.  One description mentioned cars floating down the street.  My heart goes out to the people of New York.  Be safe, you Yankee loving pukes.

Beach Ball

It seems our neighbors received a gift from Sandy. A very large, partially deflated beach ball.

Yup.

Anti-Hurricane-Measures

The best way to combat a hurricane is to have bacon.

Sandy Looked Like This

This is a couple of hours old now. It's what Sandy looked like from our front door.

Who Knew

We lost power for a few seconds. When it came back our home security system went nuts.

Nice to know that it works, eh?

Fail

I failed to consider the whole opening the window aspect of the drive through.

Casualty #1

So here is branch casualty #1. It hit the driveway and shattered. Some of it hit the car. The car is now in the garage. Not that it can't get smashed in there too.

Sandy is a Bitch

The Governor declared a statewide state of emergency.  The President declares a state of emergency for a region that includes all of my state.

My company posts to its internal website that they do not expect any disruptions, and things should run normally.  In other words, come in to the office.  

Urgh.  Now I'm going to feel like a tool for calling in.

Methuen Police - Sandy Update

The Methuen police department posted the following notice on Facebook.  I'm copying it here on the off chance that someone in the city does not use Facebook.  Like that would ever happen.

Methuen City officials convened tonight to review emergency preparedness plans. During the meeting they participated in a MEMA conference call where they received up to date storm information.

Based on this information the Mayor has closed

 City hall for Monday 10/29/12. 

The Superintendent had determined it warrant closing the Methuen public schools earlier in the day.

Police, Fire and DPW officials briefed the mayor on the state of preparedness.

Sandy update for our area:

The storm should arrive in Methuen in the morning around 9 AM and it should have a duration of approximately 12 - 18 hours. The storm impaction will consist of on and off rain and sustained winds in the area of 30 - 40 MPH with wind gusts in the area of 50 -60 MPH.The heavier winds should arrive around Noon. The models show increased wind gust speed around sunset.

The rain should continue on and off through Friday night. It is possible that Wednesday night #Halloween may be postponed based on wind damage and on going rain. This decision will be made on Tuesday when a better understanding of the storm effects are known.

STORM SAFETY TIPS:

1. If residents who lose power choose to utilize a generator please remember to place it outside of the house and/or closed in spaces. The generator should be placed a safe distance from the residence and should be in an area that is well ventilated.

2. Please remember to check on elderly family members and neighbors during and after the storm.

3. Residents who suffer power outage may contact National 

Grid at the following storm central hotline and social media sites:

National Grid Electric

National Grid electric customer to our 24-hour customer service center – power outage calls to 1-800-465-1212 and any other calls to 1-800-322-3223. For those who are able to access the internet during a storm/emergency, outages may be reported and additional information may be found on our website at the following link:http://www1.nationalgridus.com/masselectric/stormcenter/ 

National Grid Gas

National Grid natural gas customers should call 1-800-233-532

As always you can follow Methuen Emergency News at these sites:

• Social media sites:

o Twitter https://twitter.com/MPDBlotter

o Blog http://www.methuenpoliceblotter.blogspot.com/

o Facebook http://www.facebook.com/MethuenPolice

o Google+https://plus.google.com/u/0/106665405700116019537/posts

o Nixel http://local.nixle.com/methuen-police-department/

My Problems are Important Too

I don't like to get personal when I bitch about things.  When something is bothering me, I don't like to air it out here.  Back in the ol' myspace blogging days I did that from time to time, but only when I reached a major boiling point and just had to yell and scream at some one but there was no one to yell and scream at.  Since moving to Blogger, I don't believe I've done that.  At least not about things going on in my life.  I keep that hidden from blogger, and facebook, and twitter, and google+, and flickr, and so on and so on.

But I have problems too.  I don't live in a friggin vacuum.  You can lay your problems at my feet all you want, but don't think that just because I don't share my problems here that I don't have problems of my own.  Someone who knows me really, really well might have stitched together that something was seriously wrong over the last seven days or so simply because I was gushing over my anticipation of an upcoming Rush concert, and then that concert came and went without me gushing over how great it was.  If you are observant enough to piece together that I, Robert, failed to attend a Rush concert that I already had tickets for, then you could probably figure out that something was seriously bothering me this week.  I was having problems.  Big problems.

Last week was a bad week.  Last week was the worst week I've had, maybe ever.  The ship has been righted and all is well now, but last week was bad.

Things can be bad with you and I will always be sympathetic.  I will always try to help.  I will always do whatever I can do.  I will always do my best.  But if you aren't even willing to consider the fact that I might be having problems too, and if you're going to throw the tiniest shit back at me when I come out of it then the hell with you.

It's a two way street.  If you want me to be sympathetic to your problems, then you have to be sympathetic toward mine.  I'm not going to ask for help, because I can fix these things myself, but if you won't even give me the benefit of a little decency, then to hell with you.

Birthday Party

We are at a birthday party for my four year old niece and two year old nephew. The noise is amazing.

It's seriously fun.

Small Successes

The minimum goal was to clear the leaves from the area to the left of the driveway. I also managed to get the area to the right of the driveway. The grass to the left of the center walkway will have to wait until tomorrow.

I took these pictures because when my step son comes back on Wednesday and the grass is buried under leaves again I will have proof that I could see the grass today.