Lion or Lamb?
Thursday, September 22, 2005You know that whole spring thing, the In/out Lion/Lamb thing? Is there anything like that for the end of summer?
I know that for spring, if it's in like a lion and out like a lamb, it's supposed to be a good season. If the opposite is true then it's supposed to be a not so good season.
Well here in Minnesota, Summer went out like one mean ass Lion. Now granted, this wasn't as bad as Katrina, or as bad as Rita is probably going to be, but considering we're land-locked, this was bad.
The storm last night on the last day of summer ended up being quite a doozy. Since everyone has hurricane on the brain lately, the strength of the storm would equate to a Category 1 Hurricane if we had been a coastal city. Instead we just got tornadoes, hail the size of golf balls and baseballs, and in some places over 8 inches of rain. Several houses lost chunks of their structure, garages completely disappeared, and countless numbers of trees are now at about a 90 degree angle from how they should be standing. Luckily so far only one death has been reported, and that was a guy who was walking in the storm, and had an encounter with a large tree branch.
I had the experience of being out in the very beginning of the storm and let me tell ya, it wasn't fun. I was going to make some Hamburger Helper for dinner, opened the freezer where on Monday there were two and a half pounds of ground beef to find only the little 1/2 pound package left. I found out later that apparently Big Mike made himself Hamburger Helper with TWO POUNDS of hamburger and ate IT ALL. That's just freakishly wrong. At least he got pelted with Hail on the way to his car after work, God paid him back for me ;O) Anyway, I ran to the little market by me, as I walked in the tornado sirens were going off and the wind was going nuts. When I was paying the clerk commented with the nasty weather he might have to sleep there. Just as I'm walking out, the skies opened up and the car was across the street (The market may have been 4 blocks away, but I wasn't chancing it).
So I run out and just barely miss the light to cross and decided to start going anyway, but the guy coming through the intersection decided to gun it. Yeah fuck you buddy and the three people who kept going right behind you. Be an asshole in your dry SUV while I'm getting drenched (considering the rain was going horizontal and from three different directions in the 30 seconds I was out there) and don't bother to slow down and let me cross. I hope you're the guy the tree branch fell on.
Yeah, the storm sucked, but luckily my neighborhood came out fine. Our houses were built in the 1880's when the builders took their time and didn't slap up a home in 3 days. One of our buildings here at work was without power (The Two new ones are on two city circuits, while the original building is only on one) so that means all the engineers I'm doing work for got the day off. If that's not a license to slack, I don't know what is! :O)
Anyway, I'll leave you with a picture of the storm. I hop you are all having a good week and I hope none of you are in the path of Katrina's evil bitch of a sister, Rita.
posted by Chief Slacker @ 12:35 PM,
10 Comments:
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At Thu Sep 22, 02:14:00 PM,
Amber said...
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Yikes. Glad you made it home without catching pneumonia (yet) or getting run over by people more concerned with what the hail will do to their cars than what their cars will do to the pedestrians. It's chilly here today, but we haven't seen any "weather" as yet.
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At Thu Sep 22, 06:25:00 PM,
OzzyC said...
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Sounds like the weekend I came up for RenFest :)
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At Thu Sep 22, 06:50:00 PM,
Kira said...
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How does a person eat TWO POUNDS OF MEAT in one sitting?????
Oh wait...
*ponders an ex bf*
Never mind :) -
At Thu Sep 22, 08:15:00 PM,
FINY said...
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I love how non-chalant you were about the tornado sirens. Like "eh, whatever". Dude. Tornado. Sirens. Bad thing. But clearly the beef was just that impportant :)
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At Fri Sep 23, 12:40:00 PM,
Chief Slacker said...
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Amber - Yeah I made it fine. And it wasn't even hailing yet at that point, so they were just plain assholes. Hope you don't get any "Weather" either!
OzzyC - Similar, but worse. Hundreds of trees weren't topped that weekend...
Kira - I can eat one whole hamburger helper with one pound of meat, but TWO?? Have an oinker for an ex? ;O)
FINY - I'm the guy who would stand there with a video camera until a cow flys by. And yes, I wanted food :O) -
At Fri Sep 23, 01:46:00 PM,
Marie said...
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I think I would have a mild panic attack if I heard tornado sirens...having no clue what to do or where to go. lol
I'm glad you made it home okay. Wow, that sounded extreme as far as weather goes. And here I'm whining about small earthquakes. ;) -
At Fri Sep 23, 03:11:00 PM,
jlybn123 said...
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We got to celebrate the last day of summer pretty much in the same way. Was kinda nice though. Nothing like a good thunderstorm every now and then.
And by the way, tell Big Mike I said...eeeewwwwwwww, about him finishing off all that hamburger all by himself! -
At Fri Sep 23, 05:34:00 PM,
said...
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We got that shit last night...it was insane. I made some pretty cruel Hurricane Katrina jokes.
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At Sat Sep 24, 11:02:00 PM,
said...
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Glad you made it through that okay! We haven't had any rain in awhile, so I've almost forgotten that feeling of being completely and totally drenched... Go make yourself some hot chocolate with buttershots schnapps! (And whipped cream too!)
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At Sun Sep 25, 11:30:00 AM,
NWJR said...
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Beef. It's what's for dinner.