Dolly Hits The Valley

It’s been strange, to say the least, seeing people I know (community leaders) from South Texas appear on television talking about the impact of Hurricane Dolly.

I may be just as strange to see landmarks I remember from living there underwater or damaged.

I’m glad to report my friends are safe and there is minimal damage to their homes. From my view, Dolly did a lot more damage to the Valley than Emily.

I talked to my friend, Phil, this morning. He was up around 5am CDT, looking for a cup of coffee. He doesn’t have power at his place. I felt like I had to talk fast because not having power means not being able to charge your cell phone. Phil doesn’t have a car charger either. I get one every time I get a new phone. Dang those Samsung people for making the Instinct with a proprietary connector and not USB. I have about a thousand USB wall chargers around my house.

Phil told me Harlingen for the most part weathered the storm. He said he saw a lot of palm tree fronds on the ground. The apartment building near his place sustained some damage to the roof. Part of the fence around my friend, Beau’s apartment suffered some damage. KGBT is reporting more than 150,000 customers in the Valley are without power. I know everyone at my former station did a lot of work and worked a lot of hours covering Hurricane Dolly. They have a lot of work ahead of them with the coverage of the aftermath.

Dolly was the real deal with winds strong enought to make the storm a Category 2 when it hit the Texas coast. I’ve tried to get through to Phil several times today. I’m sure he’s okay but his cell phone battery may not be charged. I hope he found a place to get a car charger.

I’m just glad everyone I know is okay,

Take Two Guesses What This Is…

They will just about fry anything. I’ve heard of Snickers and oreos, but bananas? That was one of the foods they served at RioFest. It was good. It tasted like Banana pudding.

I was a little disappointed by the festival. They removed the carnival rides. Apparently, this move came last year. I don’t know if it was a budget deal or what. I also wonder if the festival might be struggling.

I don’t know why I randomly picked festival weekends to visit. Ain’t that a coincidence?

Groundhog Day

Yeah, I know it’s in February but I feel like I’m living the movie. If you’ve seen “Groundhog Day”, you know how Bill Murray’s character repeats the day each morning he gets out of bed. I feel that’s what I’m doing working this overnight shift.

Each night around 12:30am, I get a call from the station to talk about what we’ll cover that morning. I go back to sleep (or take a nap) until I get up around 2:15am. I stumble into work around 3am (thank God for the short commute). I’m very busy until around 8am in the morning. That’s when we have a conference call to set-up the rest of the day. After that, I work on the next day’s newscast or station projects. That work takes me until around Noon when I leave to go home.

I try to take another nap around 1pm. For some reason my body wakes me up from sleep around 4pm or 5pm. It’s working out, working around the house or getting “to-do’s” done. By 9pm or 10pm, it’s back to sleep again for what I call my actual sleep time even though it’s only about 2 hours long. Then it’s back up for the conference call again.

Thankfully this week, I’m only working four days. I’m going to South Texas again, don’t ask why. I get to see my friends again. Last time I was down there it was Borderfest and Charro Days weekend. This time, it’s RioFest, Harlingen’s spring festival. The problem with that is most of my friends work at a television station there and they have obligations at the festival. Hopefully, they’re going to have some time to spend with me. I can’t wait to get down there again and see them. It’s only been a couple of weeks ago but I miss them already!

Of course, I’ll be mobile blogging throughout my trip. It’ll be fun. Stay tuned right here!