Yeah, I'm going to need you to come in...

The headline pretty much sums up my day. I will have more when I leave work; there are legal issues that I want to work around when I write.

Enjoy the day off, if you have it.

Wind, Rain & Heartburn

This is the big bad Ernesto, for those out there who do not know where Boca Raton is, I am sitting in between West Palm Beach and Fort Lauderdale on the east coast... The portion of the state with just a little feeder band --- actually that band is directly over me right now.




So here is the 5AM map from NOAA. Hey, Ernesto finally made landfall.

It has just been some wind, and heavy rain at times, the heart burn is from the pepperoni pizza I had at 1:30 this morning; not from the horrible storm but the USA vs Germany game is not helping.

But as I sit here at roughly 7AM I have on ESPN 2 and am watching the US National Basketball Team play Germany. With 5:20 left in the second quarter, the Big Dirk was 1-6 from the floor then drained a long 2, but Heinrich drained a long 3 to counter. I really wish ESPN would just be honest with us about where the commentators are; it's pretty obvious that they are not in Japan. Seriously, every NBA telecast that I have ever seen has the play by play guys doing their opening from center court. Not the FIBA games, we have not seen the two announcers. ESPN must feel that we are all morons, I wish there was another sports channel sometimes. Just be honest with me and it'll be ok. I am not asking for a divorce like the Sports Frog did (still working out the kinks of hyperlinking), I just feel we could use some time apart, it might work out for us better in the long run.

This is a rough game for Team USA, Wade and Carmelo are a combined 2 for 16ish with under two minutes in the first half. Those filthy Germans now have a two point lead. One of the commentators just mentioned that their statistics don't match up with FIBA, gosh maybe if you weren't half a world away you would have matching statistics. Come on ESPN, you used to be better then this.

11 PM Advisory

So this is where I have set up camp, the good ole 33431 area code in rainy Boca Raton. Got about 2/3 of the handle of Captain for tomorrow. Went out to the bars instead of drinkin for free.



Thanks NOAA for the day off...



This fucker has not even made land fall yet. So tonight we ventured out into the drizzle and went to the bars... The and then to . Came back to Mike/Andrew/Bryen's house. There isn't shit on tv currently we are watching "Without a Paddle" and we are having a very hard time suspending our misbelief with some of the parts of the movie. But at least the storm should be here tomorrow.

I'm not really into typing; I have been drinking since 5ish. More updates tomorrow.

5-8 o'clock PM ADVISORY --- screw off, I've been drinking

The crib in Boca...


Say hi Marley...



Weather.com

NOAA

Ok, we are off to the Well, because the storm is not here and won't be here for a while. Thanks weather man.

2 PM ADVISORY -- T MINUS 6 HOURSish

Here is the 2 PM map from NOAA...



Well the hour is almost upon us, the storm is cycling and spinning through the Florida Straits churning in the warm ocean water gradually gaining strength to unleash is awesome power upon our insignificant south Florida population. I am a God fearing man; I do not go against Mother Nature. My boss however, could give two shits about the storm; he lives in a self sustained compound with enough propane to level half of Boca Raton and generators that can cool his 10,000 square foot castle for weeks. So we work, and work, he feels "the storm is not going to hit us", these are the words he spoke of these past two hurricane seasons. Our office was closed for just under two weeks each year due to hurricanes, "not hitting us". Last year, he went to Orlando, while the plebeians stayed and fought tooth and nail on FEMA lines and in gas station lines when someone would enter the wrong way and try to cut the 1/2 mile long line. Ah, it is good to own the multi-million dollar company.

I will be heading to Boca Raton with my cooler in tow about 6ish, they tell us Ernesto is going to make landfall between 8 and 10 pm, except they do not know where. Tropical Storms & Hurricanes tend to be like the cable company, they will be here between the hours of "x" and "y", and then they call you and reschedule.

11 AM ADVISORY

Thanks for the update NOAA



At this rate, Ernesto is going to over shoot south east Florida and go back to hitting Tampa again (I think that map is a few posts back). Seriously, if I cannot drink my handle of tonight, I'm going to be an angry office worker tomorrow because I will be at my desk working. Fucking Mother Nature.

8 AM ADVISORY

Nothing like watching the map change from hitting filthy, disgusting city of Midwest sin New Orleans. Please notice the sarcasm. I am the guy who will be at the football game drinking at 8AM or will make the 24-36+ hour run when I go to Vegas of debauchery.

Do not even get me started on how strip clubs objectify women, seriously who goes there. I only go to support the single mom's or to help that nice girl Candi pay for her Law School. Have you seen the prices of law school lately? She needs all the help she can get.
So getting back to the map, it is now supposed to hit south of Miami and go up the state wash away Belle Glade, where her soil is her wealth or whatever the sign says. In theory, Ernesto is to exit now by St. Augustine, again. The exit point has changed a bit in the past few days.

As I said before throwing darts at a board gets better results.

5 AM Advisory

I was asleep at 5 AM so fuck off. You wake up at 5 AM for a freakin update. Thanks NOAA for the pretty colors

Well it's official -- 8 PM Advisory

So it's now official, I/we are now in a tropical storm warning. This means that we should be feeling the effects of the storm (39-74 MPH sustained winds) within the next 24 hours. I will be working tomorrow for at least a portion of the day I imagine. You see the Owner/President of the company I work for does not believe that the storm is going to hit us. Everyone else on our block has put up their storm shutters. We worked a full day when Hurricane Katrina, funny story I met a stripper named Katrina at Matt's bachelor party, I think she was Brazilian they all look the same, Brazilians, not strippers...



Nothing like driving to Boca to drink & play poker in a hurricane.

Hurricane Item Checklist:

• Drink of choice -- for me its going to be Captain & coke (check)
• Propane for bbq (check)
• Frozen food to cook since power will be 50-50 (check)
• Tupper-wear filled with water to freeze (check)
• Ipod charged and new songs (check)
• Jump drive backed up (check)
• Laptop ready to go for blogging, other fun (check)

I'll pack a bag tomorrow



Be back later with more fancy NOAA pictures, maybe even some predications, I don't know what I will be predicting.

Also there is a lot of this all over the Boynton/Delray Beach area. And the stations are running out of the fuel. This is going to be fun!!

11 AM Hurricane Watch - 8/28/06

With this bit of information that the brilliant minds at the National Weather Service have said that Ernesto won’t hit until tomorrow night, which means no half day tomorrow and a full day off Wednesday. Which really means none of this delightful spirit . Who just wants to drink a few, I certainly DO NOT. When you have little responsibility, you are supposed to go out and get hammered during the Hurricane at Hurricane Parties.

I made the mistake last year of going to this chick's house (she will end up with her own post at a later date) at the time we were seeing each other. See there are two things that were learned that week I was stuck down in Cooper City...

1. If she live's with her parents, do not go, let me be crystal clear DO NOT GO!!!
2. There MUST be liquor, a sober hurricane is a boring hurricane. Because you are going to need something to do when the power goes out and if she lives at home, you won't be getting it on.
3. The final one, well everyone knows this already, women are crazy; so this really does not count.

Walk around when the eye passes over and then run inside and finish your hand of poker. You do not see married couples with children hosting them. Nope they are strictly forbidden by parental law; 20-30 something’s get to have hurricane parties, I think it is a man law.

This is a conversation Henry and I had earlier this morning regarding a hurricane party. Notice the differences in the words used... like "jack & shit" and "go to Mike/Andrew/Bryen's house"

HENRY [10:03 A.M.]: so who's having the hurricane party?
EPS [10:03 A.M.]: like you can go
EPS [10:03 A.M.]: you got a wife and kids to protect
HENRY [10:03 A.M.]: LOL
EPS [10:04 A.M.]: ill probably go to Mike/Andrew/Bryen's house
EPS [10:04 A.M.]: drink, play poker, blog the hurricane
HENRY [10:05 A.M.]: nice
EPS [10:06 A.M.]: how about you?
HENRY [10:07 A.M.]: i'm not doing jack shit
HENRY [10:07 A.M.]: it's just rain to me
EPS [10:07 A.M.]: what can you do
EPS [10:07 A.M.]: you dont drink
EPS [10:07 A.M.]: you have a wife and kids to protect

Here is your new map, thanks NOAA

5 AM Hurricane Watch - 8/28/06

So from what I hear, the brilliant weathermen on all of the local West Palm Stations kept saying Friday and Saturday that there was no way this storm was going to come here and lay down the pipe. Well isn't it funny what 36 hours makes?!??! As always, you have a better chance of predicting the weather by throwing darts at a board with different conditions.

Below is the 5AM forecast & track for August 28, 2006. And for purely my fun I am going to attempt to live blog or just plain old blog the hurricane and its aftermath, fancy pictures too!!

Thanks for the map NOAA

Ok, I have to go institute the Company Hurricane Prep Plan.

Hurricane Warning

Just doing my part to help out the people. Remember they have no idea where it is going to go, well except last year when they said Katrina is going to hit New Orleans. If you are in the path, leave. Take your shit, load your cars and get the fuck out of dodge.

Maps & images courtesy NOAA.

Mom, if you are reading, I would suggest packing and going somewhere else besides Sarasota. I do not have any idea where that safer location would be because everywhere is covered inside the cone.

And on a lighter note, I just want a few days off of work with no power to get drunk again and play some poker.

Whatever happened to the hottie stewardess'? Part II

So yeah, about that whole having to update because of my return trip. Well, what do you know we are here again, I wrote and you read.

A quick refresher for our old friends and a our new ones... I ventured up to visit the Brock's in Richmond a few days ago and I wrote about how Hollywood has lied to us about the faces of the stewardesses’ on the plane.

Well I flew back down to West Palm --- on the first leg of the adventure, we were blessed with a MAN, and a married man was the steward. Are you fucking kidding me?!!!! Seriously, how do you decide that you want to be a steward, I mean come on, why not aim a little higher for Navigator? How do you tell a woman what you do and not have her laugh at you and walk away? Let alone have her marry you. And the fucker did not even serve drinks; they said no beverage serious, WTF, I fucking paid for my 6oz of soda and my tiny ass bag of pretzels. If you are going to be paid to be "Martha Stewart" fucking do it, don’t half ass your job.

So yes, it can get worse. We had two more grandmas and some dude from Charlotte to WPB. At least I got my pretzels and 6oz soda.

Urban White Water Rafting

Do you have your tickets? Yeah, the tickets to the GUN SHOW!

Before I went to visit Matt/Jamie up in Richmond it was decided by me that we would go river rafting on the James River --- the only river with class 5 rapids within city limits. Well usually there are class 4 and 5 rapids unless of course you go rafting when the river is low.

See picture:

So before we left on the bus to go up river, I was walking around the dock -- which turns out to be across the James River from where the ships brought in the slaves. And the actual dock I was standing on was where President Lincoln gave the emancipation proclimation or something.

Yeah, so I was screwing around on the dock wasting time with Matt/Jamie and I found these crab claws, so of course, I picked them up and was playing with them. They ended up in my ears, but at least I wasn't attacked by birds. I took them out and put them in my floatation device, but sadly I had to rid myself of them while we were rafting because I almost cut myself and poked out an eye. That would have been embarassing.

Our guide Zoe, a 4th grade school teacher by trade is on her second summer as a river rafting guide on the James River. After conversing with Matt/Jamie it was agreed upon that all cute read heads look like Alyson Hannigan, you know the red head from the American Pie movies as well as How I met Your Mother, currently airing on CBS Monday Nights. Really, it's not up for discussion.


Oh, I fell out of the raft on the first rapid, the lady paddiling across from me lied, she didn't know what the hell she was doing.

This was taken when you can jump down in between the rapids and ride the underwater flow about 10 yds down river. Pretty cool.

Yep, rugged aren't I?

Aren't they cute newlyweds?

Slashes & spear guns

Yep, you read that title correctly, I, yours truely was playing with a spear gun in my office one afteroon before lunch. For those of you who have never had the pleasure of viewing one or holding one within the grasps of your hands let me tell you, it feels pretty freakin cool. Knowing that with the touch of a button you can end the life of an animal thats charging at you while you invade its habitat. Or of course, the ability to shoot it in the warehouse and pray that you go not shoot youreself while screwing around in the warhouse.

I had the opportunity for the latter. I walked toward the open warehouse door facing the tree and grassy knoll area. With JC looking on from 40 feet behind me crouched behind a door. I fired what I thought would be a fatal blow into the palm tree. I was immediatly wrong. The spear was teathered to the gun with what I figured was a decent amount... then I fired the gun and as quickly as it was fired I noticed it flying back towards me. I did what any former division I athlete would have done, jumped the fuck out of the way and thanked God that I did not have a spear inside my knee.

Believe me, it looked a whole lot worse in person.

Grading on a curve

Whatever happened to the hottie stewardess'?

This post is directed to all of those out there who take to the air to travel over long distances. Hollywood continues to feed the lies to us the hottie stewardesses, just like the hot lesbians in porn. When you find real live carpet munchers, they are not the lipstick lesbians that the TV and movie studios portray them as; you find two biker chicks... hot stewardesses do not exist, if they ever did they have become extinct. I was flying from West Palm to Richmond with a nice little layover in Charlotte (FYI US Air was 40 minutes late arriving at West Palm), leaving me 15 minutes to travel across the airport from concourse B to concourse E in Charlotte instead of 1 hour and 10 minutes.

I love my Nana and my Grandmother very much, but I do not need them serving me my mother fuckin drinks on the mother fuckin plane. We had three stewards; I had to change the word because there was one male steward. Do you know why this happened? ****EDUCATION ALERT***There are male stewards working now because these activist judges feel that being a woman is not a Bona Fide Occupational Quotient or BFOQ; work on an airplane and serve me my freakin drink. It all started when some homo decided he wanted to work at Hooters, but not work in the kitchen and gawk at the servers like the rest of the patrons, no, not this MOFO, he wanted to wear the fucking

or

Seriously go work at Johnny’s in Fort Lauderdale you fucking homo, the chicken wings aren't great, but we all go their for the atmosphere. Go take your twig and berries somewhere else, you fucking grape smuggler. I don't want you to ruin my experience.

So like I was saying, I am on a plane ride with two grandmas and a dude serving drinks, very uncool. However I still had hope that my connecting flight would be easy on the eyes. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH ... Fate, you are a bitch, you spit on me. Well, it wasn’t that bad on the twenty-six seat plane we had a stewardess. Yes a woman, who appeared to be in her mid twenties -- the only issue was her lack of feminine clothing. She could have been confused with a pilot if she wore wings. She was a four on the normal 1-10 sober scale. Could have been a 5+ or higher if drinking was involved if she was wearing a skirt, you know like what they wear in the movies or on TV. Well I have two more flights on Sunday, we shall see if I must update.

Dude you got goats you live in the sticks

Travel Day...

So I am off to visit the Brock's my newlywed friends at their palatial estate and/or plantation in suburban Richmond, Virginia. Yes the same Richmond that was the capital of the Confederacy during the Civil War but what was the need to have a national capital if they were a loose confederacy of states, not a national union like they succeded from? We can discuss that another time.

My plane ride that is leaving West Palm appears to be a rather large ...

yes that picture is supposed to translate to sausage, as in sausage fest. The numbers are partially skewered due to the Florida Atlantic Soccer team.
Of course, those would be pictures of ooops, wrong file, hold please. These are the breasts I was looking for... .

I have an uncanny ability to get the fugly waitress or the gay guy to be the server. It's not even funny anymore, its pretty fucking sad. So that being said, it's not a surprise to see the MEN'S soccer team sitting here as opposed to the women's.

I am connecting in Charlotte and then coasting into Richmond on a glider I think.

I am the last one

Well, it is official; I am the last one, the other two musketeers have gone off to whatever it is that the Musketeers did when they retired.
I am now the lone wolf of this tripod out stalking his prey and looking for a new pack to run with. Peter Pan has grown and shall never come back to Neverland -- were there enough metaphors in that paragraph for you?

You ask why I pine poetically? I shall tell you, Matt was married on May 27th, and now Henry was married just two short weeks later (my Mother has a cruel joke she throws out to me, perhaps I will share it one day). They are out of the wild, now they must live vicariously through me... Yet they found women who compliment them in those special ways that people need and that they conversely compliment as well.

Too bad we did not make the bet that they did in the movie “Tomcats”, even though it would only have had $500 total in it. It was expected, nay, foreseen by them that I would end up some how being the first to go. HOWEVA, Matt was #1 on hit list, followed by Henry who no one thought would ever be tamed. I shall look at Henry in a few years as the lion in the zoo. You know the one, he is the one who when you gaze into his eyes he remembers how it felt to catch his food in the wild... to run through the savannah in Africa and to rule the wild. Now he is a caged beast, a shell of himself. Matt lost that wild fire years ago...

On an unrelated note, it is now football season; I am watching the Hall of Fame Game live from Canton, Ohio.

Sincerely, the Lone Wolf

Up next time on EPS Knows… How to be a solid Wingman, unlike our boy Henry or a perhaps a story of some of the off kilter women I have come across in my years.

And coming in the end of August, EPS' adventures to Richmond. And November sweeps will include Fantasy Fest items.