Carbon Credits Anyone?

A friend was kind enough to send me a couple seedlings to replace two of the tall pines I lost in the hurricane a couple years ago. Since everything grows like weeds here in East Podunk (it's the wet spot of Texas, after all), if they don't die in the first month, they'll be furiously sucking up carbon for the next forty years or so.

Since I have achieved a carbon-neutral lifestyle by other means, I have no need for the carbon offsets that these trees will provide. If anyone would like to buy the offsets, which I figure to be not less than five hundred pounds per year per tree, I will let the offsets go for £500 per tree per year. (The two trees should be worth about 20 minutes per year on a Gulfstream V, so if you know any earth-conscious celebs, please forward the link.)

I expect you may be wondering what "other means" I've found to become carbon-neutral. It's quite simple, really. As we all know, growing trees absorb gobs and gobs of carbon from the atmosphere, but that carbon is returned to the atmosphere when wood or wood products are burned or allowed to decay. However, when they're buried, that carbon is sequestered for all time.

So what I do is that when I shop, I always look for products with the most possible paper or cardboard packaging. And then, rather than recycle, which would just keep that carbon in circulation, I throw it away so that it can be hauled off to the local landfill where it will be buried and its carbon forever--or at least for the foreseeable future--removed from the atmosphere.

If we'd all just do little things like this to help the Earth, I'm sure the Global Warming catastrophe could be avoided. So please, do your part--buy my excess carbon credits and always buy the product with the most unnecessary packaging. The Earth and I are counting on you.

Happy (belated) Rita Day!

A year ago yesterday Rita blew through Southwest Louisiana and Southeast Texas. I knew the anniversary was coming, but I didn't even notice as it passed. I think it's time for a retrospective:



September 23, 2005: Gettin' the Hell Outta Dodge. Two hundred miles in ten and a half hours.

September 24, 2005: Saturday, September 24, 2005. Planning the return.

September 25, 2005: Where's my damn money? A rant before returning.

September 25, 2005: Still living like a refugee. Watching TV in Tyler.

September 25, 2005: Sunday, September 25, 2005. The long road home.

September 26, 2005: Monday, September 26, 2005. Surveying the damage.

September 27, 2005: Tuesday, September 27, 2005. Gettin' ripped off.

September 28, 2005: Wednesday, September 28, 2005. No news is good news (because it's all bad).

September 29, 2005: Thursday, September 29, 2005. Enjoying the hospital food.

September 30, 2005: Friday, September 30, 2005. An uneventful day.

October 7, 2005: Friday, October 7, 2005. Internet's back on at the office!

October 17, 2005: Monday, October 17, 2005. The power's back on!

October 18, 2005: Price Gouging. The hospital bill came. Ouch! That hurt way more than the fall.

November 4, 2005: What I learned form Rita. Some people just don't think I'm all that funny.

November 14, 2005: Price Gouging--Reprise. Just as I thought.

What I learned from Rita

You can always get new friends and family members, but reapiring the damage and replacing all that stuff is expensive as hell.

Monday, October 17, 2005.

Refrigeration!
Air conditioning!
Electric lights!

Yup. The power's back on. The phone and internet connection are supposed to be fixed by Thursday.

Friday, October 7, 2005.

Still no power or internet access at home, but the server's back at the office. I found that I can sit at a computer for almost 15 minutes at a time.

Friday, September 30, 2005.

Not doing much other than sitting around the house and keeping an eye on things.

Interesting week.

Thursday, September 29, 2005.

Breakfast at the hospital was good. The eggs had a bit of picante sauce mixed in, and just a hint of cilantro. Cilantro is a dangerous herb. Good in small amounts only.

They gave me lunch and sent me home with prescriptions for Vicodin and Soma.

Wednesday, September 28, 2005.

Another oppressively hot and mostly uneventful day. Got some gas for the generator, cleaned up the house and yard a bit. Helped a friend take care of some holes in her roof. Felt the ladder slip out from under me. Woke up in the hospital. Nothing much.

They did a bunch of x-rays and scans and stuff. I heard one and then later two fractured vertebrae, and one broken rib, although the doctor said there were likely more that didn't show up. It was only a total of about a 20 foot fall (in two 10 foot segments with a bounce of a first floor roof to make it interesting).

Tuesday, September 27, 2005.

An uneventful day. I had the tree removed from the house yesterday, and today the guy came around to grind the stump. That little project (tree removal and stump grinding) came to $4000. I decided to wait to have the other trees taken care of.

I seem to have lost my glasses.

Monday, September 26, 2005.

Today I secured a generator and surveyed the damage.

Here's a picture of the tree on my roof:



Here's the one that damaged the water and/or sewer line when it fell (the root ball is eight or nine feet tall):



Here's the one that took out the breaker box and phone lines:



And here's the detached breaker box:



And here's one of both the tree that took out the power and the one that damaged the water and/or sewer line:

Sunday, September 25, 2005.

Word was that the new Lowes in Lindale had gas cans. I headed out at about 10:00 a.m. and hit paydirt. Six two-gallon cans (and plenty left for those who came later). But I forgot to get the chain saw. Home Depot in Tyler had a few left.

I filled the gas tank and the cans and got out at around four in the afternoon. Traffic wasn't a problem as far as Lufkin, but that's where the gas dried up.

The plan was to go to Beaumont, or, if we couldn't get in, go on to Galveston. When we got to Lufkin, the sign said that the road to Beaumont (US69) was closed ahead. So we took 59 to 146 (the road to Galveston). Power was out everywhere past Lufkin.

59 was lined with hundreds, if not thousands, of abandoned cars. 146 was clear of abandoned vehicles, but traffic was slow-going. Then came the intersection with 105. The signs, and the DPS troopers, said 146 was closed, and forced all traffic west on 105.

Since we were obviously being steered away from any of the places we wanted to go, we cut off on a mostly southbound farm road. We made our way to Dayton where we eventually found our way to 90, which at a bit after 10:00 p.m., took us to the outskirts of Beaumont, where police cars blocked the road.

A driver's license with a Beaumont address was sufficient to get through, and the deputies (I think they were with the Sheriff's department) let us through, cautioning us to be careful of the downed power lines and advising us of the dusk-to-dawn curfew.

The main roads into town were relatively clear, but it took some doing to navigate the neighborhoods.

We stopped first at my ex-wife's house and found that she'd been looted. Bastards.

We'd been worried that a big oak tree next to her house would end up on top of it, but it fell to the side, with only one branch poking through the living room window.

And there were a few holes in the roof. More about that later.

We went on to my house and found the streets impassable. It looked something like this (camera phones aren't exactly the best):



My house is the second one down the block. I had to climb over three big pine trees that had fallen across the road to get to it. One of these trees had pulled up a water line when it fell, and at one point I ended up knee-deep in muddy water.

The neighbor with the tree on her roof (as seen on FoxNews) saw the flashlights and asked who we were. When I told her, she said she had some water if we needed any, and that her house had been looted too.

When I finally got to my house, I found one of those 100+ foot pine trees on the roof. The front door wouldn't open, but the back door would. It was still locked. None of the windows had been broken out (although a couple were cracked. Nothing was stolen. Probably one of the advantages of an impassable street.

Although the pre-storm forecast had called for cooler weather after the storm passed through, it was a miserable, sweltering night. I tried to sleep on the front porch, but ended up having a couple lukewarm beers and watching the crew clear the street.

They had started down the street before we arrived, and they got to my house at about 1:00 a.m. When they got there, I brought my truck around and parked in the front yard. Several hours later, they'd finishing clearing the street and I went to bed.

Saturday, September 24, 2005.

The storm, such as it was, blew threw Tyler, but it had shifted to the east and moved faster than projected. It knocked down a few trees, but didn't do much damage.

I saw on FoxNews that the house next to mine had a tree on the roof. The news also said that several looters had been arrested in Beaumont. Sounded like time to get back. Sounded more like I never should have left.

Gas was going to be a problem. I'd heard that they had gas cans at WalMart, but when I got there, the power was out. I went to the other WalMart, but they were sold out. It was after 9:00 p.m., so Home Depot and Lowes were out.

Maybe tomorrow.

Still living like a refugee.

I saw my neighbor's house on FoxNews. It had a pine tree on the roof. They didn't show my house.

Where's my damn money?

They're saying that Beaumont's closed. There's a dusk to dawn curfew for those who are there, and they're going to try to remove them, and no one gets back in. Damn them. Who the hell are they to tell me I can't go home to my own house? So what if there's no electricity or drinkable water? I have propane for the grill. I'm picking up a generator tomorrow morning. I have a sufficient supply of gasoline. I have plenty of food and water and bourbon and candles and tequila. I have everything I need there (assuming the house is still there). I can take care of myself just fine. I don't need their damn "services." I don't need them to make things "safe" for me before I'm allowed to go home. I don't need them to take care of me and make it all better. I live there, damnit. I should be there attending to my own house and my own neighborhood, not sitting here in Tyler without a damn thing to do. It's a dry county, for chrissake! There's not even a liquor store within 20 miles!

But if they're going to make me a refugee, what I want to know is when they're going to give me MY $2000 debit card? Damn it, I want my money, and I want it now!

I knew I never should have left town. I'll never listen to those bastards again.

Never again.

Gettin' the hell outta Dodge.

We left Beaumont at about 9:30 last night. There are about 300,000 people in the Beaumont-Port Arthur area, and only one hurricane evacuation route. And it narrows to one lane each way in places. Sometime Thursday someone at TexDOT realized that it might be a good idea to make both lanes run north (southbound folks got to use the shoulder).

By 10:00, we had almost reached the mall, which is about 3 miles from my house. 2:30 a.m. found us approaching Woodville, about 50 miles from home. But the reports on TV said traffic started moving once you got past Woodville. And it did. For a while.

It seems that a lot of people couldn't find a gas station with anything to sell and set off with less than full tanks. There were a lot of gas stations along the way that still had gas, but where ever one was, traffic slowed to a crawl for miles. And that was pretty much the story of the trip from Woodville to Lufkin.

Lufkin is about a hundred miles from home, and about half way to Tyler, which is where we were going. That was another huge bottleneck. That's where the road I was taking--Route 69--meets up with I-59, and I-59 was full of people leaving Houston. I finally got through at about 6:00 a.m.

Once past Lufkin, things got a lot better. The gas station bottlenecks were fewer and fewer, and traffic actually started to go speeds resembling the speed limit. But for some reason, after spending so long going so slow, people seemed to have forgotten how to drive normal speeds. All along the way, even where the speed limit was 65, there were lots of people who couldn't seem to bring themselves to go above 40.

Anyway, the sun rose somewhere around Jacksonville, and we arrived in Tyler in time to catch the morning rush hour. We reached our destination at 8:00 a.m.

Now here's the good part: compared to other people I've talked to, we made unbelievably good time. A friend who left for Dallas at 1 o'clock yesterday afternoon called this morning. She had only made it as far as Livingston. Livingston is mostly north and a bit to the east of Houston. It's 87 miles from Beaumont. She was almost out of gas and there was no gas to be had anywhere. And, of course, the roads are packed with tens of thousands of other people who have been on the road for 18 hours and are out of, or nearly out of gas. And this was one of the official evacuation routes. TexDOT is supposed to be sending fuel trucks.

And here's the bad part: This morning's storm tracks predict that Rita will make landfall at Port Arthur as a Category 3 storm. The eye should pass over Beaumont early Saturday morning. Beaumont is only about 30 miles inland, and it's still supposed to be a strong Category 3 at that time. Unless the storm makes some last minute adjustments, the storm surge will flood all of Port Arthur and a good bit of Beaumont.

The storm surge shouldn't make it to my house (the maps say it would take a Category 5 storm for that to happen), and even with the storm surge and backed up bayous, it probably won't dump enough rain to flood my house, but there are lots of tall pines in the yard that I've heard are prone to breaking in half when the winds get above 80mph. There are nine of them in my yard, and similar numbers in the neighbors' yards.

I wonder what I'm going to come home to.

I'm starting to get a little worried about this.