Category: Uncategorized

Sandy is a Bitch

The Governor declared a statewide state of emergency.  The President declares a state of emergency for a region that includes all of my state.

My company posts to its internal website that they do not expect any disruptions, and things should run normally.  In other words, come in to the office.  
Urgh.  Now I’m going to feel like a tool for calling in.

Methuen Police – Sandy Update

The Methuen police department posted the following notice on Facebook.  I’m copying it here on the off chance that someone in the city does not use Facebook.  Like that would ever happen.

Methuen City officials convened tonight to review emergency preparedness plans. During the meeting they participated in a MEMA conference call where they received up to date storm information.

Based on this information the Mayor has closed

 City hall for Monday 10/29/12. 

The Superintendent had determined it warrant closing the Methuen public schools earlier in the day.
Police, Fire and DPW officials briefed the mayor on the state of preparedness.
Sandy update for our area:
The storm should arrive in Methuen in the morning around 9 AM and it should have a duration of approximately 12 – 18 hours. The storm impaction will consist of on and off rain and sustained winds in the area of 30 – 40 MPH with wind gusts in the area of 50 -60 MPH.The heavier winds should arrive around Noon. The models show increased wind gust speed around sunset.
The rain should continue on and off through Friday night. It is possible that Wednesday night #Halloween may be postponed based on wind damage and on going rain. This decision will be made on Tuesday when a better understanding of the storm effects are known.
STORM SAFETY TIPS:
1. If residents who lose power choose to utilize a generator please remember to place it outside of the house and/or closed in spaces. The generator should be placed a safe distance from the residence and should be in an area that is well ventilated.
2. Please remember to check on elderly family members and neighbors during and after the storm.
3. Residents who suffer power outage may contact National 
Grid at the following storm central hotline and social media sites:
National Grid Electric
National Grid electric customer to our 24-hour customer service center – power outage calls to 1-800-465-1212 and any other calls to 1-800-322-3223. For those who are able to access the internet during a storm/emergency, outages may be reported and additional information may be found on our website at the following link:http://www1.nationalgridus.com/masselectric/stormcenter/ 
National Grid Gas
National Grid natural gas customers should call 1-800-233-532
As always you can follow Methuen Emergency News at these sites:
• Social media sites:

My Problems are Important Too

I don’t like to get personal when I bitch about things.  When something is bothering me, I don’t like to air it out here.  Back in the ol’ myspace blogging days I did that from time to time, but only when I reached a major boiling point and just had to yell and scream at some one but there was no one to yell and scream at.  Since moving to Blogger, I don’t believe I’ve done that.  At least not about things going on in my life.  I keep that hidden from blogger, and facebook, and twitter, and google+, and flickr, and so on and so on.

But I have problems too.  I don’t live in a friggin vacuum.  You can lay your problems at my feet all you want, but don’t think that just because I don’t share my problems here that I don’t have problems of my own.  Someone who knows me really, really well might have stitched together that something was seriously wrong over the last seven days or so simply because I was gushing over my anticipation of an upcoming Rush concert, and then that concert came and went without me gushing over how great it was.  If you are observant enough to piece together that I, Robert, failed to attend a Rush concert that I already had tickets for, then you could probably figure out that something was seriously bothering me this week.  I was having problems.  Big problems.

Last week was a bad week.  Last week was the worst week I’ve had, maybe ever.  The ship has been righted and all is well now, but last week was bad.

Things can be bad with you and I will always be sympathetic.  I will always try to help.  I will always do whatever I can do.  I will always do my best.  But if you aren’t even willing to consider the fact that I might be having problems too, and if you’re going to throw the tiniest shit back at me when I come out of it then the hell with you.

It’s a two way street.  If you want me to be sympathetic to your problems, then you have to be sympathetic toward mine.  I’m not going to ask for help, because I can fix these things myself, but if you won’t even give me the benefit of a little decency, then to hell with you.

Small Successes

The minimum goal was to clear the leaves from the area to the left of the driveway. I also managed to get the area to the right of the driveway. The grass to the left of the center walkway will have to wait until tomorrow.

I took these pictures because when my step son comes back on Wednesday and the grass is buried under leaves again I will have proof that I could see the grass today.