Category: General

I don’t know if it’s bird flu and Captain Trips that has been kicking my arse since late last night, but no more blogging tonight. It’s back to Therazombie land.

October 13, 2004.

I miss you, Dad. More than I’ll ever let show in the real world.

I am glad that she had the opportunity to meet you.

Thank you for so very, very much.

Not to make light, but I wonder if pigs flew.

Police now say at least one person has died, and 14 are injured, in this afternoon’s explosion at a pork processing plant under construction in St. Joseph.

Police Chief Mike Hirter says in addition to the death one person is critically injured. But the chief also says that rescue workers believe they have accounted for everyone inside the Triumph Foods plant.

Hirter says the explosion might have been caused by a welding torch. The blast ripped a 150-foot hole in the roof.

Do go read the original. It’s not too often that a major news site gives its readers one-click search capability for the phrase “pork processing plant.”

The Big Easy is slowly progressing to rise from its knees as post-Katrina efforts continue.

President Bush got a taste of some of New Orleans’ finest attractions Monday in an effort to showcase progress in a hurricane-battered city. The president dined at a French Quarter restaurant before spending the night in a famed luxury hotel.

The president’s effort to show New Orleans is making progress came even as much of the city remains in ruins.

The historic French Quarter was mostly spared by the storm and is showing increasing signs of normalcy with lights back on and establishments re-opened.

Still, many of New Orleans’ stores and businesses remain closed, relatively few people are on the streets and many areas remain uninhabitable, even if mostly dry.

While I hope for the best for all of the city and all of its residents, I understand the stance of those questioning the value of federal rebuilding efforts of a city so geographically endangered. That said, my selfish personal concerns lie with a handful of restaurants and other establishments I greatly enjoyed during my one visit there to date. Chief among these is the Cigar Factory New Orleans, whose web site has remained unchanged since well before the storm, leaving one hopeful but uncertain of the shop’s true status. Another favorite was Aunt Sally’s Praline Shop. According to the Aunt Sally’s site, they are again open for business, though one is kept from joy at this by the following message:

All Aunt Sally’s displaced employees …we are looking for you.

Contact: Cathy Appling at : 504 349 0950

My best wishes those displaced. Order either the chocolate pralines (abso-freakin’-lutely amazing!) or a combo of chocolate and original pralines. You can rationalize the delicious calories by considering them a personal sacrifice for the New Orleans economy.

Autumn has finally reached the DFW region.

After high temperatures last week hovered around the hundred-degree mark, a front is currently sweeping through with the first fall weather of the season. Tonight’s low is predicted to be only 63 degrees, tomorrow’s high won’t even hit eighty and tomorrow night will bring the fall’s first fifties.

Ah, now we’re creeping up on chili season, and once again I’d like to point you towards my recipe for Target Centermass Texas Chili (one update to the recipe post, as “fiancee” should be substituted for “girlfriend” in the opening rambling). I’m telling y’all now, this is some damned fine grub.

Chili is very important to Texans, but all too often it brings forth the old debate — beans or no beans. Now, I’m not quite the purist on the matter that others can be. I have no problem with adding beans or rice or Fritos to my chili; however, please realize at that point it ceases to be chili and instead morphs into chili with beans, chili with rice or frito pie, respectively. As flexible as I may be, I do have my limits. Scott at The Fat Guy has the news of a collection of chili abominations, including for-the-love-of-Pete!-pineapples. Scott, I so did not need this info.

I’ll hopefully be back at it tomorrow.

Good night, y’all.

Well, this certainly isn’t good news for my hometown of Angleton, Texas.

Gaining strength with frightening speed, Hurricane Rita swirled toward the Gulf Coast a Category 5, 175-mph monster today as more than 1.3 million people in Texas and Louisiana were sent packing on orders from authorities who learned a bitter lesson from Katrina.

“It’s scary. It’s really scary,” Shalonda Dunn said as she and her 5- and 9-year-old daughters waited to board a bus arranged by emergency authorities in Galveston. “I’m glad we’ve got the opportunity to leave. … You never know what can happen.”

With Rita projected to hit Texas by Saturday, Gov. Rick Perry urged residents along the state’s entire coast to begin evacuating. And New Orleans braced for the possibility that the storm could swamp the misery-stricken city all over again.

Galveston, low-lying parts of Corpus Christi and Houston, and mostly emptied-out New Orleans were under mandatory evacuation orders as Rita sideswiped the Florida Keys and began drawing energy with terrifying efficiency from the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Between 2 a.m. and 10 p.m., it went from a 115-mph Category 2 to a 175-mph Category 5.

Forecasters said Rita could be the most intense hurricane on record ever to hit Texas, and easily one of the most powerful ever to plow into the U.S. mainland. Category 5 is the highest on the scale, and only three Category 5 hurricanes are known to have hit the U.S. mainland — most recently, Andrew, which smashed South Florida in 1992.

Government officials eager to show they had learned their lessons from the sluggish response to Katrina sent in hundreds of buses to evacuate the poor, moved out hospital and nursing home patients, dispatched truckloads of water, ice and ready-made meals, and put rescue and medical teams on standby. An Army general in Texas was told to be ready to assume control of a military task force in Rita’s wake.

“We hope and pray that Hurricane Rita will not be a devastating storm, but we got to be ready for the worst,” President Bush said in Washington.

By this evening, Rita was centered about 575 miles east-southeast of Galveston and about 670 miles east-southeast of Corpus Christi. Forecasters predicted it would come ashore along the central Texas coast between Galveston and Corpus Christi.

I’ve just found out that Angleton is under mandatory evacuation.

Angleton Mayor Matt Sebesta has ordered a mandatory evacuation for the city at 6 p.m. Wednesday.

“People need to be out of town no later than noon Thursday,” Sebesta said.

Angleton Police Lt. Mike Jones, the city’s emergency management coordinator, said people do not need to wait until the evacuation goes into effect. County officials said trailers will not be restricted on evacuation routes.

Hey, Russ, Hollis, et al., head my way if you need digs to ride out the storm. The fiancee and I have you covered. Sure, we’re expected to get some major wind and rain in north Dallas on Saturday night, but I just bought season one of Battlestar Galactica. We’ll make the best of it. And, after all, as Phil points out at Shades of Gray, hotel space is already problematic for much of Texas thanks to Katrina.