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The sweetest of Reagan's world ... Life in the PINK!

Wednesday, September 28, 2005

My puppy is finally perfect!

Enzo 09.24.05
Enzo 09.24.05,
originally uploaded by sweetreagan.
Finally, good news ... As of 1 week ago, Enzo has not peed in the house! I think my puppy is officially housebroken! YIPPIE! It seems like a small thing, but we've had him since July. Sure, he has the occassional excited dribble on my leg or boyfriend's chest, and that's more funny than irritating. If you talk to him in the certain high-pitched happy voice, he get's excited and pees a tiny bit. If he happens to be sitting on your chest or laying on your lap, guess what, you might want to go change your clothes. We got him a doggie door a few weeks ago, and it has finally worked and I couldn't be happier.

Tuesday, September 27, 2005

New website and personal updates.

I started another Yahoo group (go figure). It's for Hurricane Rita victims, more specifically Louisiana residents. I think the reason is obvious but if you need some clarification, that's where I'm from and where my family still lives. I was going insane trying to find them and find out what is going on there. So I started this group so that I could get more information from others who evacuated and have seen or heard about what's going on. In my efforts of reacting more selflessly, I'm also posting a lot of helpful links and phone numbers for those who will now have to recover and rebuild their lives and homes. I'm also inviting people who can to post pictures and questions about their area. A few residents do have power and some have phone service in which they are calling relatives around the country to let them know what's going on. So it's working out well. If you live in Louisiana and have evacuated and you want to know about your home or a friend's home, this is a good website. If someone here can't help you, there are links to websites and phone numbers to organizations that may be able to help you.

For those who have sent kind words and said prayers for my family, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart. I got a voicemail around 5PM yesterday from my stepmother. It had been left on Sunday night around 10 PM, but for whatever reason didn't show up on my phone or in my voicemail box until yesterday afternoon. At any rate, they ended up staying in Toledo Bend where they had evacuated to because they had heard from my step-brother, DJ. DJ had stayed in Sulphur with his boss and rode out the storm. He is now there helping to clean up the city. He is working from dawn until very late hours every night helping. He had called my step-mother to tell her that the National Gaurd is there and they are not letting anyone in the city. So they decided to wait to return to Sulphur until later this week. He also went by my dad's house and it seems to have been miraculously untouched by Hurricane Rita. However, the damage on their street is spotty at best. Their neighbors, on either side, homes are both fine and undamaged. But, a neighbor's home two doors down is completely flattened. I'm getting reports of the same kind of damage all over the city. The mayor says it looks like a bomb hit the city. They should be allowing residents back in, with the proper ID of course, starting Wednesday or Thursday. But they are warning that you enter at your own risk. There are police patrols and National Gaurdsmen everywhere. But it will take a while to get infrastructure and utilities back in place.

Hopefully, I can post something more positive and light-hearted tomorrow. Until then God speed to those affected by the Hurricane.

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Monday, September 26, 2005

The calm after the storm.

Well now that Rita has left the state, I think I'm the only person in the whole city who was dumb enough to come to work. There was almost no traffic on the freeways. Half the city evacuated and now they all have to return. The mayor has split the city into 4 quadrins and is asking Houstonians to return on different days to avoid the chaos that was the evacuation. He is also asking all non-essential businesses to excuse their employees from work until Wednesday. Schools are also closed until Wednesday.

I would post pics but there really isn't anything to post. Nothing happened here. There were winds around 45 mph. I saw some minor damage around town (a few broken windows), and there was a fire in Galveston, but that's really it.

Port Arthur, Cameron and Lake Charles got the brunt of the storm. My parents called me yesterday around 10 AM to tell me they were headed home to assess the damages. They promised they would call as soon as they could since they didn't even know if they have a house yet or not. And to my dismay, I haven't heard from them and haven't been able to reach them when I call. So now, it's a waiting game.

To make matters worse, my cable was out last night for some weird reason. 2 days after the storm passes and my cable goes out. SO I MISSED DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES!!! WTF!!! So, if anyone knows what happened, please update me.

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Friday, September 23, 2005

Margaritas are the only good Ritas. III

It's 10 PM. Not much change here. My major concern now is Sulphur, Louisiana. My parents live there in a trailer no less. And my grandmother lives in Cameron, Louisiana in a moderately constructed home. The eye is likely to pass directly over that area some time tonight. The eye is 60 miles out now and winds there are already up to 90 mph. Which means my grandmother's and my parent's house are both probably very close to being flattened right about now. If not yet, I'm sure it's close since the winds will likely get up to 120 mph before the night's end. They have all moved inland as of 3 AM this morning. So hopefully they are at least safe and out of harm's way. Although I haven't been able to reach them by phone since 6 PM this afternoon, which was expected. But it's still nerve racking. I don't think I'm going to be able to stand a whole week without knowing what's going on there. My stomach is in knots.

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Margaritas are the only good Ritas. II

It's almost 8 PM. There are a few rain drops here and there but the serious rain hasn't begun yet. It's dark so I can't see how thick the clouds are anymore. But I got some pretty good pics right at dusk. It's getting more windy. The news says there are 35 mph winds right now and that sounds about right. The bigger trees are showing it.

About 30 minutes ago, I saw a caravan of about 20 moving trucks, buses, police cars/SUV's, and 18 wheelers hauling ass down I45S. Because they all have police lights in their windows, I'm assuming they are involved with the rescue efforts and are possibly headed towards Galveston or back from the chaos that was I45N evacuation efforts. We also see a few of the pass in the same direction every half hour or so.

I'll keep posting updates until the power goes out. I just poured some vodka in my Frost Glacier Freeze Gatorade. I'm going to try to stay up as long as I can since the storm isn't supposed to really hit until 3 AM.

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Margaritas are the only good Ritas.

Well, it's 2 PM and it looks like Rita is going to make landfall more to our east. It's also been downgraded to a category 3 and they are expecting the winds not to exceed 80 mph. The wind has picked up here slightly in the past couple of hours. The weather is actually tollerable at the moment. We've done a walk around the neighborhood and taken pictures of everything to post along with after pictures next week. A friend of boyfriend's is staying here with us. But we really don't think it's going to get very bad here afterall. I feel really bad for the millions of people who left yesterday and the day before and spent hours and hours in traffic. I've heard reports of people spending 15 hours in their cars and only traveling 27 miles, people's pets died of heat exhaustion in their cars, and a bus full of senior living residents from Bellaire did not survive when the bus pulled over for mechanical problems and blew up in flames.

The storm hasn't hit us yet, but I'm already counting my blessings. Now I'm more worried about my own family in southwest Louisiana. Prayers to everyone.

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Wednesday, September 21, 2005

Are you running or hiding?

This may be the last time I get to post before the storm. My office will be closed tomorrow and Friday. And for the next couple of days, I'll be getting my house ready for the storm. There's really not much I can do, since boyfriend has so stubbornly refused to purchase any plywood, bottled water, battery operated radio, canned foods, or batteries. And now most of the city is sold out of all these items. So I guess the best we can do is move everything indoors, and move some valueables to the 2nd floor and towards the middle of the house. I live right across the street from downtown, but also less than 1 mile from Buffalo Bayou, which is notorious for flooding with more than 1 1/2 days of consistant light rain. So my only concerns with regard to our home are flooding of the 1st floor and broken windows, neither of which I can do anything about. I'd personally prefer to stay in our house knowing that any anxiety I'd feel would be from not knowing what's happened to my house. But I have a feeling we'll be hiding at boyfriend's parents' house north of Houston just to be safe. Plus if we don't, boyfriend's parents will be checking on us every 5 seconds, so we might as well go hang out with them to ease their anxiety a tiny bit.

Sooooo, everyone please be careful and stay safe. I'll be photographically documenting EVERYTHING so hopefully we'll all meet back here as usual next week!

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Tuesday, September 20, 2005

Rita update I

Family Flood Preparedness Plan



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Monday, September 19, 2005

Rita ~ Not cool!

There's major concern that Tropical Storm Rita is headed our way! That sucks major ass! And I'm a little worried about it. I feel really bad for the Hurricane Katrina evacuees who have just started to settle in new apartments and homes. They are probably really freaking out that they may have to evacuate again so soon.

Update just to lighten it up: Houston: Hurricane Evacuation

Here, from city and county officials, is the latest evacuation plan in case a hurricane comes in from the Gulf of Mexico:

Hispanics use I-10 West to San Antonio
Cajuns use I-10 East to Lafayette
Rednecks use 59 North to East Texas
Yankees use 45 South to Galveston
Longhorns use 290 West to Austin
Aggies use 610 Loop

There are those who will receive this message, and not understand ... If you have questions, ask some of the other folks on 610.

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Friday, September 16, 2005

Nothing to complain about.

I love, love, love my new job! Did I say I love my new job? And my boss is absolutely FABULOUS! That's my new word by the way. She's really funny and completely neegativity-free. She is so impressed with almost everything I do. And she always explains every detail of everything going on in the office and why something is done the way it is. That's really helpful since I want to train for a management position sometime in the near future. I'm learning so much from her.



Speaking of work, we started a football squares game in the building. I'm a huge Houston Texans fan so this will be a fun season. And the tenants seem like they are really interested in it. So, I'm excited about it.



Enzo and I will be doing the Kidney walk this weekend. If anyone wants to donate, you still can. The link for the donation page is in the menu to the right of this entry. If anyone wants to come walk with me, feel free.

Not much else going on in my world. Pretty boring stuff, huh? Life is good and I'm really happy right now. Have a great weekend everyone!

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Tuesday, September 13, 2005

Mayor of New Orleans Ray Nagin

I got this email yesterday and thought it was interesting enough to post ...

The picture below shows 206 school buses sitting in a flooded parking lot in New Orleans. When the order came to 'evacuate' - "Get Out of Dodge" thousands of people flooded the streets complaining that they had not car, gas, etc to leave. Each of these 206 buses holds 65 people. Mayor Ray Nagin could have used these buses to haul people out of NEW ORLEANS. 13,000 people per trip. They had two days warning. How many trips could they have made to Baton Rouge? If you figure on loading and return taking 6 hours total, each bus could have made a total of 8 trips X 13,000 = 104,000 people that could have been moved from harms way. Instead, Mayor Ray Nagin left this enormously valuable resource sitting in a parking lot. He, being on the scene, knew what the situation was better than anyone in Washington D.C. After all he is the Mayor of New Orleans!! In other parking lots New Orleans has many more school buses than just the ones shown in this picture. In addition New Orleans has over 500 City and Tour buses that could have been use for evacuation.


Mayor of New Orleans Ray Nagin
blamed the federal government for slow response in evacuating people. TYPICAL!!!!

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Monday, September 12, 2005

9/11 remeberance.

I cried a lot this weekend. I spent most of the weekend watching footage and re-enactments on the Discovery Channel of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the crash of Flight 93. In case you live in a hole and you forgot, Sunday was the anniversary. It broke my heart to pieces all over again. It also gave me renewed inspiration with regard to the United States’ stance on the War Against Terror. For what it’s worth, I could care less how much or if I get any flack for this entry. The passengers of Flight 93 risked and lost their lives to fight the terrorists on their flight. I’m certain their main intention was to simply make it home for dinner that night. However, there was obviously an underlying motive; to stop the terrorists from reaching their goal and completing that leg of their attack on the U.S. No matter how you slice it, 2,700+ Americans were killed on U.S. soil that day for a senseless cause, in my opinion. The U.S. has never taken a passive approach on terroristic behavior and I, for one, am very much in favor of almost any retaliation not only for those lives lost, but also as an example of what will happen to those who ever have a thought of doing something like this again.

I won’t get into the “who’s right” and “who’s wrong” with regard to what the terrorists are trying to prove because everyone is entitled to his own opinions and beliefs, including them. But I will say that suicide killings of any sort, in any country, are simply wrong and accomplish nothing except killing innocent people, pissing people off, and starting wars. I guess if that’s what they are going for, mission accomplished. But I doubt it.

If there is anyone out there reading this that falls in the same belief system as these sociopaths-with-a-death-wish, here’s my message to you: You are scum and the biggest cowards to walk this Earth. You think you will be blessed by killing innocent people for the sake of your cause? What kind of God are you worshipping that would reward you for taking innocent lives and then killing yourselves in the process to avoid facing those you have victimized? An evil one! Believe what you want about your rewards and blessings, but know this: when your family is killed in the line of fire because a war was sent to your country, you have no one to blame but yourself. Rot in Hell!

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