the godfather has arrived.

arriven? either way, he is here and things are happening. we've already filled a bag with - what else? - plaster chunks, filled a can with wood lath strips, and taken out one, make that two, wall studs. and by "we," i mean "he". but i helped clean and carry things!

we should have some update pics later today. and by "we," i mean "me," in the royal "we" kind of way. hee!

poor manus

he tries and tries and tries to get stella to be his friend. and every time, she rebuffs his efforts. this is a shot of him just after his latest attempt. what he doesn't know that i know is that he is making progress. each time he walks up to her, tail wagging, and drops down in front of her, she waits a little longer before ettin up and walking away. that disgusted walk of hers is why she isn't in the pic. have i mentioned how she has to ruin everything?

if you are looking for me in the next 8 weeks, just know that we hit the busy cycle at work, so we'll all be putting in long hours at the office and at home. i'm still loving it there and happy to have such a great place to work, but i will be grumpier for a little while due to lack of sleep and downtime. :)

I am OK and so is my family

The house is fine, too. It was really crazy how fast everything happened. I mean, at the time we all went inside and went to bed, I said, “4 hours ago, this was a street, 2 hours ago, it was a lake, and now, it’s a street again”. I was actually just as surprised at how quickly the water went back down. I am going to post pictures on my flickr page but they are all photos of the day after.

Sadly, a 12-year-old boy died after being swept into a storm drain. If you are a parent, please keep in mind that even if your child is 12, (s)he is not capable of making intelligent decisions about situations such as flash flooding. The kids were playing near the storm drain and when the water surged, the boy was swept in and carried out to a crop field. This actually happened to a couple of kids when I was in high school, my friend’s brother Mike and his friend Ernie, I think they were 10 or 11 at the time and were lucky not to have been killed. The storm drain took them all the way across town and I’m sure it happened so fast that they couldn’t even react. I know it’s hard to keep track of them at that age, but kids should really be inside if there is a flash flood warning in the area.

live from beautiful dowtown urbana

i have never seen anything like this in my life. you can't tell from this pic, but the entire street of my dad's house is flooded. there was a huge storm that dropped 3 inches of rain in an hour and with the ground already saturated from the earlier 2 inches, the storm sewers overflowed and now there are cars trapped in the street. there is an SUV with 5 guys standing on it just not even wanting to hop into the water. there was a transformer explosion on the corner that resulted in a fire followed by a series of on-loud pop-off cycles and now there is no power on the street. we are across from the police and fire station so we still have lights powered by their generator but the rest of the street is dark and scary.

i've never experienced this kind of fear, which is a slow creeping worry that heightens as the water rises.

part 2

you can't tell, but this is a man on his john deere mower, driving around the high ground asking people if they need any help.
as for the general flooding, we were all shocked when we first came outside to this sight. when the power went out, we could hear people outside shouting "get out of the car!" and I naturally assumed they were filming COPS outside. my dad and i raced to the front and side doors, respectively, and while i came away saying "i can't see anything," he was saying "oh my god, you have to come see this" in a tone far too grave for any COPS episode, and as i walked outside to cars and people littering the front yard, we were all stunned silent. my dad has lived in this very house for almost 30 years and there has never been flooding. the meanest part of the night has to be when one man on the phone with his roadside assistance asked what's the name of the street and we all answered in chorus "water". he only thought it was a joke.

PSA Post: An Open Letter to All Airline Customers

You’d think after decades of hearing about pork bellies and corn syrup, we as a nation would learn our lesson about the negative effects of market speculation, but we never seem to actually take it to heart. I had heard a bit on NPR about the initiative below roughly paraphrased as, “they want to make a rule that says, ‘if you aren’t prepared to actually take delivery of 60 million barrels of crude, then you can’t play in our money-swapping sandbox’”. At this point, I whole-heartedly agree. I used to be all laissez-faire, blah, blah, but the markets are too complicated now as proven by bubble and scandal after bubble and scandal to be left unsupervised. I mean, you wouldn’t leave millions of toddlers to play on their own in the sandbox, and sorry if anyone reading this is a trader or loves a trader, but many of those guys are just as focused on instant gratification as your typical 2-year-old.

 

As I said to my friend Kim who sent this to me, this is totally going on my blog

 

(sidebar to Delta: I hope posting this isn’t a violation of your copyrights and in the event it is I will gladly remove from my tiny blog with a readership of 12).

 

Love,

Erin

 

---

From: Delta Air Lines [mailto:DeltaAirLines@delta.com]
Sent: Wednesday, July 09, 2008 8:20 PM
To: [The World]
Subject: An Open Letter to All Airline Customers

 

		delta.com |

 

	AN OPEN LETTER TO ALL AIRLINE CUSTOMERS From 12 Airline CEOs.

Our country is facing a possible sharp economic downturn because of skyrocketing oil and fuel prices, but by pulling together, we can all do something to help now. For airlines, ultra-expensive fuel means thousands of lost jobs and severe reductions in air service to both large and small communities. To the broader economy, oil prices mean slower activity and widespread economic pain. This pain can be alleviated, and that is why we are taking the extraordinary step of writing this joint letter to our customers. Since high oil prices are partly a response to normal market forces, the nation needs to focus on increased energy supplies and conservation. However, there is another side to this story because normal market forces are being dangerously amplified by poorly regulated market speculation. Twenty years ago, 21 percent of oil contracts were purchased by speculators who trade oil on paper with no intention of ever taking delivery. Today, oil speculators purchase 66 percent of all oil futures contracts, and that reflects just the transactions that are known. Speculators buy up large amounts of oil and then sell it to each other again and again. A barrel of oil may trade 20-plus times before it is delivered and used; the price goes up with each trade and consumers pick up the final tab. Some market experts estimate that current prices reflect as much as $30 to $60 per barrel in unnecessary speculative costs. Over seventy years ago, Congress established regulations to control excessive, largely unchecked market speculation and manipulation. However, over the past two decades, these regulatory limits have been weakened or removed. We believe that restoring and enforcing these limits, along with several other modest measures, will provide more disclosure, transparency and sound market oversight. Together, these reforms will help cool the over-heated oil market and permit the economy to prosper. The nation needs to pull together to reform the oil markets and solve this growing problem. We need your help. Get more information and contact Congress by visiting www.StopOilSpeculationNow.com.

	Richard Anderson CEO Delta Air Lines, Inc.   Gerard J. Arpey Chairman, President and CEO American Airlines, Inc.         Bill Ayer Chairman, President and CEO Alaska Airlines, Inc.   Dave Barger CEO JetBlue Airways Corporation         Mark B. Dunkerley President and CEO Hawaiian Airlines, Inc.   Robert Fornaro Chairman, President and CEO AirTran Airways         Timothy E. Hoeksema Chairman, President and CEO Midwest Airlines   Lawrence W. Kellner Chairman and CEO Continental Airlines, Inc.         Gary Kelly Chairman and CEO Southwest Airlines Co.   Douglas Parker Chairman and CEO US Airways Group, Inc.         Douglas M. Steenland President and CEO Northwest Airlines, Inc.   Glenn F. Tilton Chairman, President and CEO United Airlines, Inc.

Copyright Information This email message and its content are copyrighted and are proprietary products of Delta Air Lines, Inc. Any unauthorized use, reproduction, or transfer of this message or its contents, in any medium, is strictly prohibited. Delta Air Lines, Inc. Delta Blvd. P.O. Box 20706 Atlanta, GA 30320-6001 USA This is a post only email. Please do not respond to this message.