Thanks to Bill for updating all y’all yesterday (see, I’m starting to pick up the local lingo here, except that it should actually be New Yorkese, not redneck).

I’ve a lot to tell, but not a lot of time to tell it, because we still don’t have power, or internet. I’m posting this from Patricia’s trailer at the Tri-Rail project, which obviously had higher priority for power restoration. Much of Boca Raton remains without electricity. As Bill said, the house is fine. We have telephone and water, but no power. I hooked up a power converter from the car to the DSL modem, and we don’t have connectivity to the net, else I’d be blogging from home via the car battery.

We lucked out, because the storm both weakened and hit north of us, eliminating any risk of flooding from the surge. We have a few shrubs broken, but are otherwise unscathed. However, we will keep most of the shutters and plywood up until we see what the ultimate disposition of Ivan will be.

In short, we dodged a bullet, but we may not be so lucky next time, and our hearts go out to those who were hit much harder to the north.

Much more when we get power and bandwidth.

Hi, I’m Bill Simon, webmaster of Transterrestrial Musing. I have just spoken with Rand and I want to let you know that Rand and Patricia are doing okay in the aftermath of Hurricane Frances. There was minimal wind damage to their home and no flooding. I am writing this because, as of this post, they are still without power and have no estimate as to when it will be back on. As such Rand’s computers are down. The house is still boarded up, however, as they keep an eye on Ivan.

That’s it for now. Rand will post as soon as he gets a chance.

We’ve got a room west of I-95 in Del Rey, for three nights. On the current track, the storm will be coming in late tomorrow and Saturday, though the initial bands will probably appear sometime tomorrow morning. Our biggest concern in the house is storm surge, so I’m packing up computers and other documents to take. There’s an 8 PM curfew, so we need to get everything over there before then.

I’ll check back as soon as I can.

We’ll probably be evacuating in the morning, the way things are looking. I hope we’ve buttoned up the house well enough. We’re only a hundred yards or so from the Intracoastal at the north end of Boca Raton, just south of Del Rey Beach, so we may get some flooding, if it keeps heading in the direction that it looks like. Palm Beach and Broward counties may be really plastered. It’s looking pretty scary out there. I hope that we’re not without power for too long, but the size and intensity of this storm looks like it could make Charley a spring shower in comparison, and this may be the new record holder for damage in dollar value if it hits here. Rush Limbaugh (who lives up the coast in Jupiter) may become homeless, at least in Florida.

I still have a few pieces of plywood to attach, but our storm shutters are up. Don’t know when I’ll be able to check in, but I will as soon as possible. I sure picked a heck of a week to move to Florida.

Blogging may be light–I moved to southeast Florida just in time to have a hurricane pointed straight at me (don’t know how long that link will be informative…). Out looking for storm shutters (or plywood) for the sliding-glass doors.

Probably until Monday, unless I check in from a wireless truck stop. I’m heading off to Florida from California.

Enjoy the convention.

At least until I can get the house ready to rent and head to Florida.

I didn’t get away as soon as I expected to, and hit some of the traffic coming back from Vegas. Perhaps more conference thoughts manana.

I’m off to the conference. I may post from there, but if not, I’ll be back Sunday evening.

The flight went as well as a red eye can, but I’m suffering from ASDD (Adult Sleep Deficit Disorder). As you can see, sometime this morning, the phone company fixed the line, and we now have not only voice, but a reasonable high-speed DSL connection.

More later.

Sigh…

Well, I see that Andrew has gone off on vacation without my permission. He can be sure that I’ll dock his pay nonetheless. Either that, or I may double it. Either way, his bank account won’t know the difference.

His only way out of this impotent punishment will be to provide some interesting posts on his visit to Woods Hole.

It’s particularly annoying because I’m too busy to post as well. I’m busy conjuring up affordable and sustainable architectures for exploring the solar system, made all the more difficult by innumerable (and probably incommensurable) political constraints. While I’m doing this more than full time, I’m also trying to get the California house ready to rent, and I’m going down to Florida in a couple days to help Patricia (who I haven’t seen since the beginning of the month) continue to unpack there and get the house ready to live in.

I’ll try to get up a post or two up in the next couple days, nonetheless. In the meantime, go over to Hobbyspace and RLV News (which still needs a new name), where Clark Lindsey always seems to have enough time to check out what’s going on.