If you follow the news, you might have noticed that we had a fairly unwelcome and ill-mannered guest down here in Houston a few weeks ago. Guy named Ike...

Like most of Houston I spent the days before the storm preparing and the night of the storm keeping my head down, hoping the plywood over the windows held and listening to branches and debris skitter across the roof. Every so often I stuck my head out the south door, where the building was blocking the storm, and tried to shoot video of the trees whipping in the wind. I didn't expect much luck with that, and I was right -- it was just too dark.

About 2330 I lost power, which made reading and writing by candlelight tedious. Eventually I stretched out on the floor away from the windows and fell asleep.

When I woke up a few hours later, the wind had shifted, and slacked off a bit (though not entirely, as I discovered when I stuck my head out the front door and caught a face full of cold water!) A couple of hours later yet, I pulled on poncho and cameras and went wadeabout.