What I Did On My Evacuation, by Joe, Aged (mumble).

So, with Hurricane Ike bearing down on Houston, I made the wise decision to get out of town, and went to Round Rock to spend what I thought was going to be a weekend with my sister and brother-in-law.

Finally met quixotic and xgray for lunch, and thoroughly enjoyed it. quixotic is quieter than I thought she would be. (I suppose people say that about me too.)

I figured out the problem sis & b-i-l were having with their 46" HDTV. And I'm not even sure they realized it was a problem. They had the HD cable box hooked to the set with... coax! Meaning no HD pictures. Fry's had an HDMI cable for $10, so I bought it and hooked the cable box to the set via HDMI and voilà, beautiful HDTV! You should have seen my b-i-l's jaw drop when I showed him the comparison between what they had been watching and what they could now see. His reaction to the Jeopardy! set in HD was "Holy shit! Look at the floor! And look at the podiums!"

So with that problem solved, I realized I had become an enabler when two days later, b-i-l brought home a PS3 and a half dozen Blu-Ray movies. (My sister got an iPod out of the deal.) I now have serious HDTV envy after watching the pilot of Pushing Daisies on Blu-ray.

I was able to work out of our Austin office for the time I was there, and so got to experience Austin traffic. I-35 carries the bulk of the Austin area's traffic. On a good day it can be a very frustrating drive. I got to experience several rush hours going all the way from north Round Rock to south Austin (about a 28 mile commute each way). The verdict: Not as bad as Houston, but more trucks need to start using the new 130 toll road. Hopefully they will once the 45 SE connector opens next year.

And on the 12th day... my power was restored and I went home. Lots of folks still have no power. Heck, lots of folks have nothing.