There will be quiet, after the storm

I can honestly say that having Hurricane Sandy downgraded to Hurricane Drizzle was a bit of a relief.

Hurricane Sandy rears its ugly head over New York Harbor. More or less vicious than bad-tempered, 12-year old Siamese cat Sandy?  News at 11.

In truth, this storm messed up the shore points and NYC pretty bad, which is a real shame. Luckily, the monster-themed storm did not turn out to be as destructive as originally projected.

"Meterologists": 99% wrong, 1% right

Back on the Occupy site, we enjoyed just a bit of basement water and acute power outages of only a few seconds each.  We are very thankful that the only real inconvenience was that I moved every tool and piece of lumber into basement Saturday for the bank appraisal, only to find out after the appraiser left, that there was a hurricane coming.   So I spent the whole day moving everything up to higher ground considering we have the potential to get a little water in the basement on hurricane occasions.  After all, South Philly is built on a swamp.  What were they thinking??

Anyway, we got lucky. Let's take a moment to reflect:

Saturday night was our first official night in the new master bedroom.  With the Hurricane coming the next morning, I was thinking about why I had renovated this room in the first place:  Hurricane Irene.

Stormin' through

Irene totally decimated Vermont, and along that path to destruction it put a hole in our roof.   Once I was getting water in the master bedroom, I sort of "bumped up" the priority of renovating the upstairs. With a full re-wire of half of the upstairs, new electric panel, re-framing a ceiling, and new walls, new built-ins, and new (excessive) trim... this became a big project. Especially when confined to nights and weekends.

Stock bedroom image: day after Hurricane Irene (2011)

I know what you're thinking: with that wallpaper, I should be sending Irene a thank you letter.  Regardless, I am thankful that in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, the just-finished bedroom remained intact.

Stock bedroom image: day after Hurricane Sandy (2012), same angle as previous photo

I told my wife that if the new bedroom gets damaged after our first night in it, I will willfully walk myself into the mental institution.  She told me, "you won't have to walk, I'll give you a ride."

We are a good pair.