Be careful Ben.

I sympathize with the back. Mine's doing the same thing. Don't push it unless you absolutely have to.

Hope y'all stay safe.

Today (Monday) - the first day back to school here in Volusia County, Fl - a complete disaster and display of incompetence - Just got a call "School closed Tuesday and Wednesday in anticipation of storm" - no rain yet - everyone be safe - I know that everyone here is prepared - by the way Hello - I am a long time voyeur and a new member - BillyO Daytona Beach

good luck with the storm and your back.

Just finished my hurricane prep....brought in all the plants from the porch. Yup that about covers it. Me an the Misses just went shopping sat. nite, so were pretty good there. Should have bought the water storage containers but didn't. Will next week, won't help now but here in Tampa im not too concerned, expect heavy rain and some nice kite flying weather....
Wife is panicy, but then all her family and friends live in Gulfport, Miss and she has hurricane katrina burned in her memory. Can't say I blame her, I went up there for Christmas and the damage was still wide spread and impressive. If it hits with any authority she will finally concede needing a better hurricane kit. If not I'll keep nickle and diming to slowly build one.

-Bill Liptak

I'm in Orlando and were set, I wouldn't worry about the storm, just the twisters on the front right quadrant, that means toward your way Izzy so be carefully. Where waterproof to 300 feet with back ups to backups and a 12.5 KW generator and lots of beer........Bring it on!!!!!!!!!!

Re the back, I feel your pain. And have the scars to prove it. Do not let them cut on you unless you are living flat on your back and not eating...

Well, if the weather report I heard this morning is to be trusted, tropical storm Fay came ashore @ 4:30 round the everglades. This means Tampa should see a couple inches of rain and some breeze, possibly some wind gusts....
Good luck to those south of here, especially those in the probable tornado spawns...

-Bill Liptak

Yeah, I think this storm is showing mercy on us. It could just as easily have built up to a Cat 2, but now looks to be a weak tropical storm by the time it gets to Orlando. I am real glad the track is moving east of our pos now, as it means the tornado threat is also diminished. Now it is just going to take it's sweet time moving north, so we will get a lot of rain over the next 48, but everyone here's been complaining about not having enough anyways.

The back is doing better. I got the rest of the boards up in the windows yesterday so I wouldn't have to worry about it. I just cut the boards to fit the recessed windows then stuck the boards in using plylox. They come out real easy with finger pressure on the catches, so should be a snap to remove tomorrow. the nice thing is now my landlord has custom fit boards with the clips on them, and no more holes in the stucco. That ought to earn some gratitude. They agreed to reimburse me for the materials, so that's fine, and I got to spend some more quality time with the daughter teaching her some basic carpentry stuff, so that is a big plus.

The back has been a bane for me since my twenties. Every so often it will tweak out right in that same spot, and I have a regimen to follow to recover. Basically it requires a lot of heat and some ibuprofren for about 24 hours, followed by some cardio work. Funny, but if I don't do the cardio or some sort of unloaded exercise that will work those muscles, it won't recover. In any case, I am feeling pretty good today, but still aware of the condition if I try to move funny. It will be like that for another week.

To keep that much water, I have two bathtubs (one of them an oversized jet tub) that I filled, plus 4 big rubbermaid containers that I filled halfway (at least 25 gallons in each of those. The tub water will be used to keep the toilets going and to bath with, the rubbermaid will be for cooking and kitchen duty. I was also prepared to load up two ice chests at work today (we have an industrial sized ice maker), but it doesn't look like that will be needed now.

We finished off our bug out bags last night. One full change of clothing, 6 liters+ of water between the two of us, knives, lighters, matches, 6 flashlights, 4 am/fm/shortwave/wx radios(all hand crank capable), energy bars, zip fizz drink mixes, meds, two MP3 players fully loaded, a pair of two way fmrs radios and spare batteries, my laptop, two multitools, a digital multimeter, electrical tape, gorilla tape, dacron kite/fishing string, whistles, bivy bags, etc...... my two packs weigh a total of 60 lbs, the kid's weighs 25. Then there was all the goodies in the pickup, too many to mention I reckon. Rope, tarps, tools, more food, more water, etc.....

It gets to be a question of inventory control after a bit. Suffice it to say, I reckon we were more than ready this time. A good drill maybe for the next big one. By the time I went to bed last night, I was pretty satisfied at our readiness level. The only thing I didn't have was a big generator in case we lost power. The heat and humidity would've made sleep at home impossible.

"...plylox..."

I learn something new here every day. Interesting little gizmo.

Glad the back is morebetter...

Today at 9am, seminole county decided to NOT open any shelters. Its a non issue now.