Yesterday, NOAA issued a test alert of their system, and a news agency in New Orleans (can't blame em for being gunshy) missed the "this is a test" part of the message and published it. According to the alert, TS#1, Arlene (I think) was forming in the NW Caribbean, ironically 230 miles southwest of Grand Cayman. Someone forwarded it to someone here in Cayman and I bet you could have seen the "network utilization" LEDs light up with the amount of FWD'd emails that went on yesterday afternoon.

The hurricane committee met at work this week to go over stuff, and within our department, we had a mini-meeting. My boss asked me what my plans were, and seeing as how I was up to my armpits in alligators and didn't hear the beginning of the sentence I answered "well I dunno, Im going to be 34 this year... I dont have any definite plans, but I'd like to have a family some day..." Yeah, it was pretty funny(to me).

This weekend I'll head out to the warehouse where all my stuff is stored, pull it out and inventory it and make a shopping list of things I need to put in there. Im not actually going to drag it out until we have an alert, because there's not a lot of space in the Playboy Mansion (as some of my friends have taken to calling my new apt on the beach).

Food supplies and water can wait til next payday, too. Usually I start to buy a few things every week or so. That way I don't have to deal with the mad rush after an alert is issued, and I end up with my year's supply of supplies not all hitting one paycheck, which is nice, too.

Things I'd like to make in case we have to go without power again:

A solar powered stirling engine to keep bee-I mean water cool when there's no refrigeration. There were instructions on how to make one that ran off of 3AA batteries on hackaday.com which had linked to Make which linked it from the dude's blog who made it. Shouldnt take much more to use a solar panel instead of some AA batteries.

Some sort of block & tackle lash-up to hoist my scooter up and out of any flooding. It only weighs 325lbs, so I should be able to rig something that will hold that weight and not be too hard to operate by myself. It's kind of a double-edged sword though, as I don't want this 350lb cannonball swinging around the top of a tree if the winds are howling at 100+mph

Im sure there's others, and when I think of them, I'll post em up here along with any links I find on "how to make one"