Our Week

Here's how our week has gone so far:

Earthquake on Tuesday

Both Kelly and I were at work and we definitely felt the quake. My building was shaking side to side, the lights were swinging and the pictures on the wall were shaking. We evacuated our building and went home early because they didn't clear our building for re-entry until about 7:30 that night. Kelly felt the quake, looked around at her co-workers, watched some of them flee the building (they're from Afghanistan and this wasn't their first rodeo), and then turned back to her computer and kept working. Phone systems were pretty jammed up and I didn't get any messages until about an hour and a half later when a whole bunch of text and voice messages came through. No major damage was reported around town. The Washington Monument has a few cracks in it, the National Cathedral sustained some damage, and the tops of 4 of the spires on the Temple broke off.

Hurricane Irene

We weren't quite sure what to expect from the Hurricane, but we were pretty sure it wouldn't be too bad here. We got a few cases of water and some food and settled in the house on Saturday afternoon. I rained pretty good all afternoon and night and we lost power about 3 am. I got up in the morning and surveyed the damage and it didn't look too bad. Our house didn't have any damage, but there were a few branches and trees down around the neighborhood. We got our power back on about one this afternoon and the city looks to be just about cleaned up. We did see a small fire burning in a front yard near the Temple because there was a live power line laying in the grass. As the storm left DC, about 1 o'clock this afternoon, you could see a definite line of clouds in the sky as the storm moved north and left blue sky behind it.

Next Week

Kelly starts teaching her first class at Georgetown this week. Like usual, she's excited for a new semester to start, but nervous/apprehensive about the first day, new school, etc.

Next Saturday I'm flying to Utah to wrap up some loose ends and gather up our belongings. I'll be driving them out here to DC (probably with a stop in Denver) and then we'll settle in to our new place.

This Week

It's been a fairly eventful week:

• Tuesday morning on the way to the University Inn Best Western in Moscow to have breakfast with a contractor I hear on the radio that there is a police standoff in one of the rooms and they are lobbing tear gas into the room to flush out the suspected murderer. We have breakfast while all this is going on. About the time I was finishing my breakfast they break in and find the person deceased by his own accord. He was a U of I asst. prof. and had a love relationship go bad so he stalked the girl for months and finally shot and killer her at her apartment and then barricaded himself in a motel room and took his own life. It is a real sad situation for all involved.


• When I got home from our vacation I found that my ham radio was dead. I sent it to California for repairs. It cost $35 labor and $1.03 for the part. I have it back and it is working again.


• We had the back to school ward social last night at Lena Whitmore park. There were lots of old and new ward members. We all had a good time.


• Mom is back in school as of Friday. This Wednesday the kids start. Summer is over and back to the grind.


• We hope Travis and Kelly are safe and sound. They had an earthquake and hurricane last week. I texted Travis on Friday and all was well but he has not answered my texts from yesterday or today. Are you still out there?


• The weather is in the mid 90's but is expected to cool to the low 70's by Thursday.

Be good and blog when you can.