Ready for Katrina

Hurricane Katrina is on her way.. Normally I don't worry a whole lot about hurricanes, but this one is very large and powerful.. I live in Hattiesburg, about an hour from the coast of Mississippi.





As of Sunday evening, it is heading right for us.. My parents live about an hour south of me toward New Orleans in Picayune, much closer to the coast than I am.. My younger brother Andrew lives in the Kiln (birthplace of Brett Favre, although he lives in Hattiesburg on the other side of town from me) which is right on the coast.. My older brother Joey and wife Lori live outside of Picayune, but they have already evacuated to Florida. I also have a grandmother who lives in Lumberton, about 20 miles south of me.. Andrew is staying with my parents at their house in Picayune to ride it out. My grandmother is staying at her house. Janet's parents (who are an hour west of Hattiesburg) are going to McComb to ride it out at a motel. I will ride it out here with my own family and keep touch with everyone else.

To prepare, I purchased water, food, a gas powered chain saw (in case trees fall), and a generator. Dadgumit, I forgot duct (duck?) tape! Oh well. The generator is big enough for all my houses (three) to use at once, provided they don't pull too much of a load. I topped off all the vehicle tanks with gas, and also have 15 gals of gas for the generator which should last about three days. I can cook on my grill if I have to, and use the generator for microwave/refrigerator/freezer use..


I've completely cleared our yards and put everything in the shed or tied it down.

Lets hope everything goes OK, I'll take plenty of pics and video (of course!).

-Matthew

Snake!

We have been hounded for quite some time with a snake that lives under our house.. Well, no more! Janet was walking by the new lawnmower while it was sunning on the cover.. She startled it (and that startled her!) and she came in and told me.. I've been trying to kill it now for about a year.. I went out and finally got it out from under the lawnmower, pinned it with the shovel (with help from Janet) and chopped it's head off with an axe..








It will bother us no more.

(hopefully a movie to come soon)

-Matthew

Slideshow

Testing new software for flash slideshow of random pics (you need Macromedia Flash, obviously):

http://www.trinitifx.com/pics/slideshow_test1.swf

-Matthew

Happy Birthday!

Yesterday was my good friend Philip's birthday!
I bought him a steak supper at Applebees. He cleaned his plate.

-Matthew

Good links

I'll eventually get this website up the way I want it, but in the meantime here are a couple of interesting links I heard about today.

http://www.binbacon.com

"Anti-Jihadist gun lubricant" Lubricant with just a hint of bacon, so each shot will guarantee no virgins for the terrorists!


http://www.operation-helmet.org/

A much better helmet liner for our soldiers! Buy some and donate them to our troops!

-Matthew

New Floor!

Recently I've been overwhelemed with work (the paying kind), but last week I managed to get a new laminate wood flooring put down in the dining room..

Step 1: Strip your floor and lay down the insulation/padding. This is my younger brother Andrew's behind:

Step 2: Start in the corner. This is a floating floor, nothing is actually glued down or attached to the flooring at all (other than quarter-round on the baseboards). Everything is tongue-and-groove, so you start with the groove in the corner and a tongue hanging out for the next piece. I decided to go at a 45 degree angle to make it look nicer, and to make sure we never had a problem with seams getting walked on and working themselves loose.

Step 2.5: Once you are in the large, middle part of the room, things go fast.. You only have to cut the ends.. It was raining outside, so I quickly brought my skil-saw into the bathroom. (note the combustion shirt!)

Step 3: New floor! This pic has no quarter-round or thresholds, but the floor is down. It really locks into place so well, you can't see any seams. It turns water, so hopefully will accomidate our two dogs and three children well. We've since put down the quarter round and that really locks the floor down and gives it a finished look.. I'll add more pics later. (Pictured is Abby on the left, Emily in the center, Keighly in the back, and myself on the right)

Now, back to work. No rest for the weary.

I promise I'll get this whole website up and going soon. Bear with me!

-Matthew