MondayNotes

 It's been a wild weekend.  Belle got home late Friday afternoon. Her brother survived surgery and is doing well in recovery.  We hosted a club practice on Saturday. One of our oldest friends was there to shoot.

Bill is a founding member of the club.  If the doors are open, he is there.  He had a scare with prostate cancer a couple of years ago, but beat it with treatment.  It slowed his draw down a lot and he has been working on his speed. On Saturday, he was showing his old style, and making hits in the high 4s.  About one o'clock he took off his revolver and went home.

Bill's wife called on Sunday morning. Saturday night, Bill had a heart attack and died.  Just like that. Gone. It's been two days and I'm still processing the news.

It was a cray weekend.  I need to take my suit to the cleaners, and I'll do that tomorrow.  I'll soon have a funeral to attend.

Execution Date Set

 I'm only going to use his name once, so listen up.  Do you remember Nidal Hassan? He was a US Army officer and psychologist who perpetrated a mass casualty event at Fort Hood in 2009.  He killed 13 people and injured 32 before he was captured.

Yeahh, this is the asshole who abrogated his oath both as an officer and as a physician and decided to go all Aloha Snackbar at the Fort Hood reediness center, a place where soldiers and dependents get ID cards and register vehicles. So, he brought a pistol and started shooting people, because Aloha.

Well, it seems that the War Department has decided to Aloha his ass by firing squad at Fort Hood on December 3rd.  Rumors are that it is going to be a public execution. We're talking livestream here.

If they are thinking about a good old-fashioned stand-him-up- and-shoot-him, that is too good for him. I'd get a bit more creative.  Maybe a couple of kneecap shots just to start the party.  Or, maybe after a quick coup de grace, feed him to a herd of hogs. They could stake him out somewhere and eh would be gone in three days.

A standard killing and burial is too good for this asshole.

Coming Ashore

 Isaias is hammering Fort Walton/Destin/Pensacola right now.  I'm watching Ryan Hall, who does a great weather channel on YouTube,

I shared texts with Termite, a frequent commenter and good personal friend, who is currently on an offshore rig riding it out.  They couldn't leave the rig yesterday at shift change, so they are drawing overtime pay until the helicopters can get out to pick them up. Probably tomorrow.  Termite is fine, eating well, and drawing overtime.  Hopefully, he will drop by next week, drink a beer, and tell me all about it.

Cooler

 Awoke this morning, got coffee started then walked outside to the patio to let the dawg get his morning constitutional.  Chilly outside, almost brisk. Checked the thermometer, 57F.  Clear skies, low humidity.

Florida and Alabama are bracing for what looks to be a major hurricane. This thing has shifted east enough that I expect no impact from it at all.  That is fine with me.  While I don't wish disaster on anyone, it is okay with me if hurricanes go somewhere else.  I've lived through mine, some worse than others.

Belle has been out of town for the past two days helping her older brother.  She is due back this afternoon, so the dawg and I have been batching it here on the acre.  The dawg has not starved, but he is a bit concerned, wondering where she went.  He will be quite excited when she pulls into the driveway. I can't say that I blame him.

Isaias

 As Thursday morning begins, all the weather watchers are focused on that unpronounceable storm in the Gulf.  It's coming ashore tomorrow, that is for sure, the question is where it will make landfall.  Current models put it making landfall at Pensacola, but that is subject to change.

The other question is how much of the SEC is it going to disrupt?  Will it take out Georgia at Alabama, will it disrupt LSU at Kentucky? The big question is timing. And power outages.  There are plenty of smaller schools in the path of the storm and many of them have games scheduled in lesser conferences.

The weather falls on everyone equally.  The rich and the poor, the strong and the feeble.  It simply seems to hurt the poor and feeble more often.  If I lived in Mobile or Pensacola, I would be considering a weekend trip.  Somewhere west and away from the coast.

Isaias?

 Yesterday while posting, I blindly asked Copilot what the next storm name might be, and it told me Cristobal.  Imagine my surprise when I awakened this morning and find that the tropical depression has been named Isaias.  So much for AI, I suppose. I need todo better research.

At any rate, we have another named storm, and this one is predicted to become a hurricane. Which means we have a cone.

That is an interesting cone, if only for the prediction that it is headed for the Gret Lakes.  It appears that this one is headed for the Mississippi coast, but as always this is subject to change.

Late Season

 This hurricane season has been mild, to say the least.  This is the first year I can remember when we have gotten into October without a hurricane.  Maybe that is about to change, as we are watching a storm that everyone is convinced will soon organize into something bigger.  The tracks I've seen has it coming ashore this weekend, somewhere between southeast Louisiana and Pensacola, FL.

At this point, everything is subject to change and we will have to keep an eye on it.    If this thing organizes, it will become Cristobal.

Weather Change

 We didn't get as much rain as expected this weekend, but it is cooling off. Overcast this morning with drizzle before daylight.

Shortly after daylight, I watched a teal make a low pass over the pond.  He decided against it and headed toward Catahoula lake. Teal are a harbinger, being the first ducks to make the trip.

The shop is cool this morning, with one A/C unit running, and it has cycled off.

A lot less hummingbird traffic around the feeders this morning. The smart ones left yesterday, riding the northerly breeze southward.

It's not time to break the flannel out, quite yet, but it won't be long.

** UPDATE TO ADD:  After a few minutes, I decided to make a test run on the propane heaters in the shop.  Both Belle's big heater and my small one passed the initial start-up.