I’ve always thought that people who are constantly connected, via their computer PDA and cellphones, are overdoing it. After all, why would you want to do that? You could always wait a few more minutes to get home to your PC and look information up. However, in the last few days I’ve had the opportunity to become one such person. I bought a Blackberry and I now understand why it’s sometimes called ‘CrackBerry’.  Since it has push email, I always know when a new email has been sent to me on Yahoo or GMail. And it’s nearly impossible at times to resist the urge to open up the device and do one of the following things: check your email, check your calendar, install nifty apps, write tasks and reminders, organize your contacts, browse the web (I like Opera Mini). It’s like a black hole (or berry) that sucks you in. The only thing I can’t do so far is sync my contacts, neither with my PC (since my USB driver is broken) nor with Yahoo or GMail (why in the world isn’t there any way to sync contacts over the air for BB?????).                                If that’s not bad enough… I also bought an Iphone 3G, with the unlimited data package….

I don’t know how those guys do it during Ramadhan — the Muslim brothers who work in Tyson’s food packing meat, those who do field work in the heat of the sun.. I tried working for about 2 hours doing a little lifting and I’m exhausted. It didn’t help that the place I was working at had no AC.. luckily there were some big trees providing shade.

I tried buying some ice in Downtown Houston today, they were almost out but I managed to get 3 bags. The place was crowded but I found a short queue. However, the guy in front of me didn’t have enough money, so he had to give back some of the merchandise that was already packed. I think it took about 5 minutes for him to sort it all out. Meanwhile, my bags of ice were melting. In hindsight, I should’ve help paid the difference to the guy although I’m not obliged to.. this being the last ten days of Ramadhan — so I’m kicking myself right now for not doing that.

Tau

Here are some pics that Almy sent to me from Indonesia. My little girl is growing up fast — she can actually count to ten!

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Quick recap of events of the past week:

-Ike made landfall on Friday PM, and really messed up Galveston. I actually have a pic of us in Galveston playing by the seawall. The seawall was completely engulfed by the storm surge during the Hurricane — you couldn’t see it at all!

- A few hours afterwards, Ike moved up to Clear Lake — the reporter who was there got knocked off his feet. He was amazaed because it was the first time a hurricane did that to him.

-After that, it was on to Houston.. those skyscrapers had their windows shattered. Transformers blew up, areas flooded. Meanwhile, the hurricane eye was over Galveston, bringing a false sense of calm.. and a lot of summer bugs.

-Ike kept moving up north, close to College Station. I heard the winds howling, but nothing major happened.

-As daylight came, the extensive damage to Galveston could be seen on TV. Highways flooded in Houston. And millions of people were without power and water. Gas became a rare commodity.

-Today I just found out that my zipcode won’t get power on Monday 22 Sep.. Innalillahi. Oh well, I just gotta press on with my life.

Tau

This time it’s real.. unlike Gustav, Ike is actually set up and ready to go to ravage Houston as a Cat 3 hurricane. After my zipcode was told evacuate, I packed my documents and important data, some clothes and food and fleed to College Station. The Rita nightmare, where evacuees were stranded for 36 hours on the highway, thankfully did not happen. I only spent 4 hours on the road on the way to CS. All hotels were booked, it was a miracle that I actually got 4 nights reserved at a hotel.

Can’t understand why people wouldn’t evacuate, even after told that Ike is ‘certain death’ for those who don’t.. I hope we’ll be able to recover from this.

Tonight, the show begins as Ike makes landfall at Galveston. A few hours later, Houston will get hit as us evacuees keep a close eye on any hurricane news.

Tau