Riding into a storm

Yesterday, we decided to try a new bike route. We decided to head west using the Crewe Road bypass and go by the Sports Complex and through some residential neighborhoods. When we pulled out from our house, the sun was shining and there was no real hint of bad weather. About 20 minutes into our ride though we could see the clouds gathering and the wind picking up. This was one of those fast moving Caribbean storms and it blew in very quickly. Suddenly, we were dealing with 30-40 mile an hour winds and a driving rain. We had to start aiming our bikes into traffic to combat the wind which was blowing us off the road. At first, the sand from the beaches was stinging our legs but once the rain started that stopped. Of course that meant we got soaked and our glasses (my real one's, Katie's sunglasses) suddenly needed wipers. At one point Katie called back to me that we were like a Nike commercial braving any elements to get our exercise in. This mini storm is not unusual here in the winter in fact our students call them the Christmas winds which come every year starting in December. As we pulled back into home, the rain slacked and the wind died down. We both started laughing as it seemed like it had been a test just for us.

Katie has started scrap booking our Keys trip from November with the scrap booking supplies we bought in Miami two weeks ago. She has also made contact with some scrap booking enthusiasts here on the Island. We went to a book store in George Town yesterday afternoon and she found some more supplies though they are much more expensive than the States. Gypsy loves to sleep on the scrap booking pages and we are constantly having to move her as she wants to participate in the process. We are watching season one of Heroes having finished season one of Grey's Anatomy. We figured out how to hook up the mini DVD player to the TV and watch the DVD's on the large television which has been nice.

The stores and newspapers are starting to put up signs for the 2008 Hurricane season which begins June 1. Although we had the huge scare with Dean last year, 2007 was a very quiet season with far less storms and hurricanes than predicted. 2006 was similarly quiet. Whatever global warming may be doing elsewhere it hasn't increased the number of hurricanes though there is some debate about whether it has increased their intensity. Down here some of the weather people talk about the false debate on global warming and hurricanes, saying that since we really couldn't accurately measure hurricanes its hard to say that they are "more intense" now than they were in the past. That isn't to say they discount global warming just the premise that global warming is affecting hurricanes here in the Caribbean basin. Some people want so desperately to argue the affects of global warming they see it in everything even when there is a real question whether it is having a particular affect. Its too bad since you can see global warming in many other things, why blow your credibility trying to link it to everything?

We don't get to follow US politics much down here but at least one candidate is doing the right things to make a play for Scott's vote. See the link at

http://mackbrown-texasfootball.com/index.php?s=&url_channel_id=40&url_article_id=3626&url_subchannel_id=&change_well_id=2

and the video posted at:

http://mfile.akamai.com/39650/wmv/univtexas.download.akamai.com/39650/2008/02/022108_fb_obama.asx

That is if we can figure out how to vote and not lose our tax status of having permanent residence abroad and therefore being exempt from income taxes. To vote absentee in Texas you have to have a permanent residence in Texas so we are trying to figure out how to do that. We may end up just passing all together since we would probably just be cancelling each others votes out anyway.