Going Though a Drought

Almost all my life I have lived in an area where I have never had to deal with drought. While in Bowling Green and Toledo, Lake Erie is right there. As a kid I grew up along the Ohio river. Every year there was more concern over flooding than drought. The worst I could ever drought conditions was during two months where there was no rain, but it wasn't that bad, all the local farmers had OK years.



For the entire month of August North Carolina has had only one day below 90. and we have actually had at least ten days over 100. Then we also set a record for average temperature in a month. August beat the old record by two degrees (old record 82.5 and the new record is 84.5). To compound matters we have had very little rain in that same time. Of hand I think Fried Chicken Drive has had two rain storms and only one lasted more than 10 minutes. This has led to the state calling for stage 1 drought measures. Mostly this means you can only water you lawn one day a week, but if you get caught watering on any other day you will receive a $200 fine for the first offense and you will have you water shut off for a second. Also the Governor is asking people to cut back on their water usage by 20%.

Most people here are use to droughts, North Carolina has one every year, but this time every one is a little worried. With no real rain in sight it's a little scary. I hope we get a some rain soon, I'm afraid to see what stage 2 of a drought is.

My Car Hates North Carolina

For the last two weeks I started to notice every time I turn my steering wheel to the left I would hear a little grinding and over time it kept getting worse. Since we are going to be making the usual three Ohio City tour (Ironton, Columbus, Dayton) I thought it would be a good idea to make sure you know a wheel won't fall off and we go over the side of one of the mountains in West Virginia.

I was hoping for just the alignment to be off, but of course not it had to be something else. I get a call at 8:30 this morning, I stagger to find my cell phone and find out that it is the wheel bearing and it is completely worn out. What the hell! Since we have been in North Carolina I have had to replace my breaks, spark plugs (twice) and now the driver side wheel bearings. There could be another thing. They thought the axle was OK, but they would have to check it out. Great an axle replacement! Well if the axle is fine we will only have to pay a little less than $300. I just have to be thankful that we have a credit card that we keep fairly empty. A year ago I would never have been able to do any of the repairs without going into horrible horrible debt and owing a lot more than we do now. I just hope this is the end of repairs for the year.

Leaving on a Jet Plane

Well Yesterday (Thursday) I had a chance to visit a couple of friends in Raleigh, NC for the day. I had a free plane ride so what the hell, I went down. The flight out was early (6:15AM) but hey I slept most of the way there. I arrive and had a good time, but that is not why I am writing this post. I've been to North Carolina twice via airplane and both times the return flight was a little bit of a problem.

In 2001 (pre-9-11) I had a job interview in Ashville, NC. I enjoyed the two day interview liked the station and was sent on my way back to Toledo with a 3 hour lay over in Atlanta. I get into Atlanta eat dinner wait around listen to my CD player and watched the time creep by. It's getting within an hour of my flight when I hear of the PA system that our plane may have a flat tire and they need to fix it and this may take an hour. Bum Bum Buuuuuuuuuuum!!! Dark clouds slowly start to creep around the airport and a nasty storm surges in. The one hour delay is now a two hour delay then three and then four hours. Flights are being cancelled left and right. Everyone panics, and hears of a flight going to Detroit and Delta will drive you to Toledo airport from there. We scurry over to the next terminal get on that flight. Ten minutes later it is cancelled. So we go back to the Toledo flight and some how get back on. I've now been at the Atlanta airport for eight hours. My flight was suppose to be back in Toledo at 7:30; I got back at 1:00am.

Yesterday I arrive at the Raleigh airport the prescribed two hours in advance for my 7:40 flight and wait till my flight is ready to board. Guess what? My plane is broken in Washington D.C. and they need to fix it. Guess what again? A storm front is moving in! Deja Vu all over again. They are cancelling flights again, but there is nothing going Close to Columbus except a flight in another airlines to Detroit. I decide to wait it out and avoid Detroit like its... well... Detroit. It's now almost 7:40 when we hear "We have found another plane for the flight to Columbus, we are doing security... blah blah blah... you will be boarding in 30 minutes. AWESOME!30 minutes later due to lighting we will not be boarding for another 20 minutes. DAMN IT! This goes on for the next two hours.

I was starting to go insane, I've been up since 3:30am and all I want to do is go home and sleep. "Attention passengers going to Columbus the new plane is smaller than the old one. We right now have 40 people with 36 seats. If 4 people do not come up and receive a voucher for $150 and fly out tomorrow we will bump the last 4 people to book their flight." DAMN IT! My ticket was bought just last we, I am so screwed. The next flight to Columbus is 1:00pm and I have to be at work at 1:00pm. Somehow the math is not working with that one, or I can flight to Dulles International at 6:00am and make a connecting flight to Columbus and "be home by 11:00" considering my luck I'm not doing that. I sit around for another hour and it's almost 10 now and I go and take that lovely picture up in the left corner. That's how bad it was getting. I started taking pictures of myself in the Raleigh airport bathroom!

Finally we get to board the plane, I call The Wife and tell her I should at the airport at midnight unless I get bumped. I walk-up near the ticket counter and I hear a guy mentioned that he got bumped and unless somehow there is another seat he has to wait till everyone boards and then find out if he has to fly out the next day. I feel sorry for him, but I just found out I'm on the plane. YES!We finally take off and we get to Columbus just before midnight. I've been up nearly a full day and I am exhausted. I call The Wife and get her voice mail. I call the house and there is no answer. I'm ready to call her cell again when she calls out of breath and tells me she is just now leaving the house and will be there in 10 minutes. FYI it takes longer than 10 minutes to get to the airport. 20 minutes later at 12:15 the next day she pulls up. She was sorry and wasn't for sure if we would actually be in on time. I was upset, but didn't care. I was almost home and wanted to see our bed. I think this is a bad trend for me. Maybe I should never flight out of North Carolina again.

PS Something is wrong with my firewall Internet dully-magiger and I can't put a picture up right now. Trust me I look tired and started to look a little disheveled.