Tornadic

The storm on Friday wasn’t nearly as bad near my office as it was near our house. Apparent tornadoes my ass.

There was, in fact, an actual tornado that hit about a mile and a half from our home. Fortunately, no one was hurt, although a lot of people sustained damage to their property and houses.

We are friends with a family whose land was right in the middle of the tornado’s worst damage. Their house has a little bit of damage, but it is mostly okay. They did, however, lose almost every tree on their several acres of property (and they have a lot of trees – they estimate more than a thousand were lost). Their livelihood comes from a tree service they own and operate, so it’s lucky in that they already have a lot of the equipment they’ll need to clean up, but because their livelihood comes from trees, losing their trees is more upsetting to them than it might be to some people. Their yard looks awful, and last I heard they still didn’t have power or running water.

My family went over there to help with the beginning stages of the cleanup on Saturday, and Sammi meant to take pictures for me to post but forgot. I’ll try to get some up here later. As for me, I did hold the workshop on Saturday as planned and everything went very smoothly. I’m so relieved that it’s over.

Annoyances/Bad Things:

  • The engine in my parents’ Jeep blew up today. The minivan was already out of commission, so now they are down to one vehicle (Ginny’s truck) between them. Why does everything have to break at once, and always between pay periods when no one has any spare money? I hate that.
  • After being on the mailing list for nearly the entire time it was being developed, I finally got The Sims 2 yesterday. I rushed home with it, all excited about parking my ass in front of the computer and controlling simulated lives for hours, but it ended up taking forever and two days to get it installed. It took three tries to get DirectX 9.0c installed, and I had to do some technical somethingorother with the cryptographic somethingorother which I did correctly but can’t possibly explain to you. Once I finally got that all done, it took two hours and three tries to get the game itself installed. The CD-ROM kept freezing up and messing up the installation. After all of THAT, Jamie and I sat like kids on Christmas morning in front of the monitor and loaded up the game – only to find that the graphics card on our PC isn’t compatible with DirectX 9.0 – a fact I never would have figured out on my own, since there isn’t a lot of info about required graphics cards on the game box.
  • It turned out mildly okay, though, as my laptop does have a compatible graphics card for the game, so after another hour of installation, I got to spend about thirty minutes playing before I had to go to bed. That whole saga began at 6:30 and ended after midnight. Oy.

  • We had a power outage in the office this morning at about 9:30, and sat around Swiffering our desks and putting things in the shredding box until 11 when the power was restored. That sucked.
  • Also, SOMEONE STOLE THE KERRY-EDWARDS BUMPER STICKER OFF MY CAR. Motherfuckers.
  • I think it must have happened yesterday, but I didn’t notice it until today at lunch. I was in a very Republican area of town and noticed another car with a Kerry-Edwards sticker and thought, “Cool, I’m not the only Democrat up in this joint.” Then I glanced out the other window at my car – and there was no sticker.

    I immediately tore out to the parking lot, because after my initial rage came an overwhelming fear that whoever took the sticker had also vandalized my car in some way. I checked all over for signs of keying or other sabotage and didn’t see anything, so I guess I’m lucky there.

    When I got the sticker and put it on my car, I immediately worried that someone would vandalize it. That kind of stuff happens around here. When I stopped in at the Democratic headquarters last week to pick up some campaign material, they were keeping a three-ring notebook with pages and pages of people whose yard signs had been stolen. That’s really sad. And the thing is, around here I see three times as many Bush-Cheney promotional materials as Kerry-Edwards ones. I guess it could be because the Kerry-Edwards ones keep getting stolen, but honestly I just think there are more Bush suppporters in my area.

    We’re already outnumbered, so what in the hell do people think they’ll accomplish? If they steal all the signs, will we forget that Kerry and Edwards are running and just vote for Bush because there’s no other option? Am I going to change my vote because some asshole TOUCHED MY CAR and took a sticker off of it? Hell no. And luckily I have a spare at home, but I’m still furious about it.

    I am sure that there are just as many Democratic assholes out there stealing Bush-Cheney material as there are Republicans. I’m certainly not the kind of person who’s going to be all, “See, you damn conservatives are all the same.” But somehow I suspect that the out-of-control conservatives greatly outnumber the out-of-control liberals around here. I do work less than a mile from Jerry Falwell’s fucking church, after all, in a neighborhood where a concerted effort was made by his congregants to force a prominent gay rights activist out of town. It is sometimes as difficult to be a liberal in this area as it is to be a conservative in others. But really, that’s not the point.

    The point is that I parked my car in a public lot and someone found it appropriate and acceptable to remove something from that car. I don’t care if it’s a two dollar bumper sticker, a fifty dollar hood ornament, or a three hundred dollar stereo. It belonged to me, and someone took it, and that’s bullshit.

    I hope the week doesn’t turn out to be as long and annoying as today has been so far.

    7 Replies to “Tornadic”

    1. Man, I would be SO FUCKING PISSED (as you are) about the missing sticker. That is rigoddamndiculous. I suspect if my car wasn't parked in a spot where I could see it all day, mine would be gone too. America is about choices. I wish I could go out and deface every Bush/Cheney lawn sign I see, but do I do it? No. Because those (stupid) people have the same rights I do. It also seems like there are no Kerry/Edwards signs out where there used to be Kerry/Edwards signs out – I think people are stealing them, sadly. We have a spare at home just in case anyone rips ours off. Gah. Also, I thought about you on Saturday and I'm glad you got to hold your workshop! Stupid “meteorologists.” They never know what they're talking about.

    2. My fear about about putting the sticker on my scooter is that some a$$ here in TX might have no problem trying to run me off the road.
      I have no qualms about wearing my politpunk shirt though. (<a href=”http://www.politipunk.com/

    3. That is infuriating, Lorie! I've heard similar stories from friends on both sides. It's amazing how folks who would never touch any other aspect of your property feel justified in this.

      Glad you survived the hurricanes. Again.

    4. After a 23 hour download I got the Sims 2, too. But now I don't have time to play it. I feel your pain. I did, however, get to write an article on it. Sorry about the Kerry sticker too. I've decided to forego them both and vote for somebody else, but I'd be pissed if someone stole my “I [heart] LINUX” sticker, so I can sort of sympathize.

    5. the election has just brought me to new lowness-i never thought i'd find such childish behavior humorous, but after a week in new york and seeing nothing but extreme anti-bush propoganda everywhere, the fact that some republican in your town is as low and immature as all those “someone should drop a bomb on bush” zealots, your story made me laugh. though now, i feel bad.

    6. Man, that really sux about the Sims 2. I bought the DVD version on friday, but it wouldn't work… it just kept making this weird clicking sound. So I returned it and got the CDROM version. The thing runs, but it laaaaags horribly. And in order for it to run well on my machine, I need to set the graphics so low that it gives me a headache to look at all the jagged-edges. I think I'm just gonna buy back all my old sims games, since they're dirt cheap. Also, sorry about your sticker. As a Bush Supporter myself, I'd never steal a sticker off your car. I'd do it the American way and just have it towed, but thats a topic for another time. (just kiddin) People who need to do things like that are 1. Dumbasses and 2. Don't have the balls to research their side and debate their views in the arena of ideas. A couple friends of mine have had Bush/Cheney stickers ripped from their cars too. Screwballs.;)

    7. Dude, I've been so tempted to carry little red strips of sticker with me for applying diagonally over the “W” sticker adorning many vehicles here. The red-strip could be easily removed, of course, but if it took them a while to notice, I'd be doing my part at a little culture-jamming.
      There: I admit it. I haven't done it yet but, really, it's because I'm a slacker. I also mean to put a sticker on my Vespa that reads, “Kicking the oil habit, what are you doing?”

    Leave a Reply

    Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

    This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.