The web host I’ve been using for the last seven years has been hacked multiple times in the last couple of weeks. Unfortunately, they didn’t bother to tell any of their resellers or account holders about the security breach.

After having cleaned out the malware, etc. from my sites just last week before I could get the sites moved they were hacked again.

While I used the exporter to try and get all of my blog posts out it appears to have not exported any posts since 2005.

Fortunately, I did do a database export so I’m hoping to be able to recover at least some of the earlier posts.

The have arrested the first looters in Galveston who were breaking into houses that have been boarded up in Galveston. One guy who is staying on the island said one reason he wasn’t leaving is because of the looters. He’s keepign an eye on his property and that of friends. He said Weds. night he chased someone off from his backyard. Last night he let his 120lb rottweiller “found” someone in his neghbor’s yard.

Some people are just idiots. I’ll stick around for a cat 4 hurricane in a place with a 21% chance of a direct hit and a 100% chance of high storm surge, hurricane force winds and major flooding so I can break into a few expensive houses and steal something. When they get killed in the storm then the local, state and national officials get blamed for not evacuating the idiots.

BTW, one thing they learned from Katrina is that to get maximum cooperation for evacuation let people take their pets on the buses. In addition they let the homeless take their shopping carts. All that was left yesterday in Galveston were the ones who refused to evacuate and emergency personnel who will be riding the storm out in the strongest building on the island.

Surfers

They arrested a surfer in the wee hours of the morning in Galveston today. He thought the surfing would be worth the risk He was told to leave the water as they couldn’t risk emergency personel having to go after him and he refused and apparently decided to argue. That ended with his arrest. Ejeets!

BTW, they are reportingthe first street flooding in the Jamacia Beach area of Galveston. Not one drop of rain yet but water is over the main road there being pushed by the wind that is still not up to tropical wind strength.

As of yesterday they think that Rita is moving east. If that holds she’ll make landfall in Chambers County instead of Galveston. We’ll still get a significant storm surge in Galveston Bay, Clear Lake and the ship channel. That’s the good news. The bad news for us is that she is slowing down.

The slower she goes the more rain we get. I’m personally more concerned if she stalls out and dumps like Allison than the strong winds. They have fixed the storm drain problem that was largely resposible for the 4-5″ of flood water we got with Allison so we should stay dry but you never know. Later today I’ll be dropping the water in the swimming pool at least a foot. Dropping it too low can cause pools to “pop” out of the ground with the high water table and clay soil in the Houston area.

We’ve spent the last few days cleaning out our yard, putting away patio furniture, plants, etc. I had intended to move the koi and goldfish inside the house from the pond but now that the forecast is for winds 100mph or less I decided to leave them outside. I did pick up another preformed pond which is sitting above ground. At 100 mph or less I’m not worried about the wind picking it up when it is full of water. So the koi and goldfish are now swimming around in it right next to the house. I used a bucket to transfer maybe 15 gallos from the in-ground pond to the new above ground pond and added treated water to fill it up. The spare pump is currently running a sprinkler to aerate it. If we lose power as long as it is raining the areaation of staken care of. I’ve got a marine live bait well aereator to take over if the power goes out and it quits raining.

From what we’ve been seeing on the local television stations the water is rising in Galveston Bay and waves are starting to come into Clear Lake. We have an entertainment area in Kemah which is on the south side of the bridge that spans the opening from Clear Lake to Galveston Bay. They are showing waves spalshing over the boardwalk.

They have the Houston Mayor and County Judge on TV right now. Every Metro bus, City of Houston trucks, Sherriff, DPS and Police vehicle is out looking for people stranded on roads. Picking them up and moving them to shelters if their vehicles are incapacitated and supplying gasoline if that is the only issue. They are also thanking the people who have rsponded for requests to provide assistance.

Last night they had broadcast a call for 200 volunteers to help distribute gasoline from Metro buses. It is good to see people pulling together. Gas and water relief is being send along the evac routes in both directions. Conroe 40 miles north of Houston has gas stations open. 200 people on I-45 alone have had gas provided to them. So for those in the evac traffic mess have hope.

As of 8 p.m. Weds. we have decided to stay in Houston despite the forecast that Rita may make landfall in Galveston as a category 4. Right now it is a category 5 but itis expected to be a bit weaker by the time it makes landfall.

We’ve got plenty of camping gear and we’ve stocked up on fuel, water, etc. so we are as ready as we are going to get. We can’t board up windows because there is no plywood to be had and our vulnerable windows are on the second floor. We do have a window film on the east facing window and windows on the south side of the house so I expect we’ll be fine.

According to the worst case senario on the local news our area should have winds no greater than 100 mph and that in the event of a direct hit on Galveston. Personally I’m routing for the other likely possiblity which is down southwest of us, making landfall at Matagorda Bay.

A fairly early start to finish sorting what will stay with Steve for his trip up to Aberdeen to teach a class and meet with a few clients and what will go home with us. Took a shuttle service out to Heathrow followed by all the joy of getting home. The boys and I said goodbye to Steve and passed through customs to depart from the UK.

While I found there was wireless access in the international departure area but there wasn’t that much time after dealing with the boys and customs. The trip was fairly uneventful though Michael didn’t get much writing done in his journal. He had a some issues with reading/writing on airplanes inducing nausea. So we watched the “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” but not both movies. Ryan finished up his essay but still had the vocabulary to finish up on the next flight.

Customs was interesting in Canada. First we had to go through the Canadian customs, then upstairs to pick up our bags and check them back in after going through US customs. With 3 rolling bags in addition to Michael’s rolling backpack was a bit difficult to handle but we managed. The flight between Toronto and the US allowed all of us to get a bit of sleep. It was hard to wake the kids enough to get off the plane and get our stuff out to the car.

Seems to have taken quite a bit of time to get the bags from the Canadian flight. By the time we got to the car it was nearly 10:10 (even though our flight arrived at 9:05) only to find that the car battery was dead. One advantage of arriving that late is that there is little traffic. I expected to get a full 8 hours sleep only to have the phone start ringing at 5:07 a.m. Seems Steve put the phone in his pocket without locking the keypad. So I was treated to the sounds of travel, sounded like a train but I couldn’t be sure. The phone kept calling and calling. I’ve sent Steve a text message and asked him to hang up and lock the keypad but I suspect he’ll be running through all the money on the UK account before it stops calling, sigh.

With all the walking yesterday I was not up to much today. Steve and the boys planned to visit the Tower of London and Tower Bridge then go to te Science Museum. Turned out they spent over 5 hours at the Tower and they never made it to the museum. I met them at Tower Bridge where we walked down the Thames until we stopped at a Greek restaurant and had souvlaki for dinner. Ryan decided it was the best food he had eaten in the UK! His runner up was the pasta he ate at the Italian place the night before. I must agree that the food in London on the whole is much better than in the other places we ate in the UK. In most places the primary seasoning was salt which I thought was too generously used.

The boys of course wanted to ride the London Eye. Since I’ve already been upon it I decided to save the £12.50 and have a decent coffee (the hotel coffee is vile) at the cafe there while Steve and the boys went up. The day was nice and sunny but the wind on the Thames was fierce and cold. Still, it was pleasant enough sitting in the sun, reading a book with a cuppacino and occasionally watching the London by go round.

After their return we decided to go to the cabinet war rooms. I’m so glad didn’t go on my last visit in 2003. In Feb. of this year they opened the Winston Churchill Museum inside the war rooms. That was something well worth seeing. So much of the history of WW II is bound up in his speaches that it was a wonderful addition. The photos and audio of his speeches really made it come alive. The interactive displays were amazing ranging from simple touch screens to read the speeches, interactive displays where you try to complete some of the speeches to a grant timeline you could expand and contract to reveal documents, photographs and other bits of history from Churchill’s life. We spent several hours there and still didn’t see it all. The physical size of the museum isn’t that large but the volume of information and exhibits are amazing.

Later we met up with Jonathan and his daughter to visit the current British military. Our timing was right for the open days where the various branches of the service let visitors inside the barracks to see what they do. Ranging from submarine simulators to real tanks and helicopters (you can go in and even push buttons but they are not running or have live amo) it was pretty impressive in its own way.The boys climbed a rock wall, even Micheal with a lot of encouragement (and a boost in the beginning) made it to the top and pushed the red button.They even built a bridge with Phoebe’s help (Jonathan’s daughter) at the Royal Engineers section – engineering being near and dear to Steve’s heart. All too soon they were closing up for the night. I think by the time Phoebe, Ryan and Michael left the shooting range we were the last ones out.

Dinner at the Italian place I liked near the Glouchester tube station then Steve wanted to take the boys to Picadilly Circus, more like Times Square that a real circus but more cleaned up than the last time I was there over 20 years ago.

I met with Julie Ray. the Microsoft EUMA MVP lead. We had a nice coffee and pastry before going up to the Microsoft office. Quite a nice view she has even if she doesn’t have a private office, Julie said when the Eiffel Tower has 3 cycles of its lights she knows she’s at the office too late and it is past time to go home. When I get a chance I’ll see of the clip of one of the light show turned out. If it did I’ll post it in the album section.

We left Paris for London, flying from Charles de Gaule is much easier them arriving at Beauvais.The shuttle bus in from Luton was okay but we did hit traffic so it took longer then I expected. Our hotel in London is the least expensive of the lot we’ve stayed in on this trip. On the whole London has been less expensive than the other parts of the UK we visited and the food is much better! I think I forgot to mention it but when we were at Warwick Castle there was a new food experience for me. The boys had a kid’s meal that included “chips” or fries but to get catsup to go with the fries required 15p or 30¢. It was bad enough that every place we went in England required the purchase of bread even if you wanted it even those with fixed price plates of the day that were the equivilent of $30-$40.

Checked in at the hotel which is rather plain but the price is good (average £50 a night including a continental breakfast) and its near the Bayswater tube stop. Public transport in London is pretty good but there were a few times when the tube would stop without out any explaination. None of the stops were for long but it was a bit disconcerting.

After spending most of the day doing homework and lunch at the mall near La Defenseé we went to Charles de Gaulle – Etoile for dinner. That’s where I had more escargot and duck in a slightly was slightly sweet sauce but not overpoweringly sweet. it had very a good flavor. I gave each of the boysa taste of escargot. Michael said, “not bad” while is Michael speak for “its not gross or disgusting but I don’t want it again” while I wish Steve had got a picture of Ryan’s face. He obviously did not like the taste at all put I suspect it was because he figured out what it was. Ryan also tried a bit of my L’eau de Vie. He said “it tastes like hand sanatizer”. I don’t think that kid will take to alcohol anytime soon.

After dinner we strolled over to the Are de Tromphe and looked of all the campaigns of Napoleon and the memorials added in bronze plaques for later wars. I ended up translating some of the plaques and engravings, not only for my guys but for another American there with family from a town named in the Army of the East. There was one too worn to be able to read well enough for me to translate but the ones for WW I and WW I I were very touching.

Wednesday Night – Sept 14th

This was our last night in Paris. We went back to Notre Dame and ate again in the Latin Quarter. This time Steve was with us. After dinner we strolled quite a ways down along the Seine. We started on the left bank but crossed on a pedestrian bridge full of students in groups talking, singing and playing music. I don’t remember seeing anything quite like it 20 years ago. We did the same sort of thing they were doing just not on the pedestrian bridges. At Cleopatra’s Needle we picked-up the metro back to the apartment.

Our next destination was without Steve. After a morning doing homework we hopped on the metro for Sacré Coeur. Once there we rode the funicular to the top of Montmartre where it sits. I found it a bit annoying that it took a full metro ticket each for the 30 second ride but my joints were not up to climbing all the stairs. Sacré Coeur has had some changes since the last time I was there including a ban on any sort of photography inside. I can understand no flash but a total ban when no services are being held was rather annoying. Then again the big projection screen off to the side of the pulpit also seemed out of place.

They had cleaned and restored the magnificent ceiling painting above the main alter in the domed area since my last visit. Unfortunately, I couldn’t take a picture to show you. The view from the top of to steps and even the lower landing was stunning as usual. I wish the day had been a bit clearer. We didn’t stay there long since the neighborhood around Sacré Coeur is not the best.

Our next stop was Notre Dame but first a bit of lunch in the Quartier Latin or student section. This is the are I usually stayed in on previous visits. On my first visit I had a hotel room on the seventh floor with the bathroom on the half landing (shared) but the price was right at $7 a night. By the time of my last visit I’d graduated to a room in a 2 star hotel with"en suite" facilities. That room was quite large on a relatively quiet side street the Rue des Ecoles or Street of Schools in English. Lunch was a Salad Niçoise and beer for me while the boys stuck with pate (pasta)carbonari.

Notre Dame

A short walk across the Place St. Michael and over the Seine we were on the Ile de la Citè where Notre Dame is located. The famous bell towers an the first thing you see though Ryan was looking for the flying buttresses. this time there was some scaffolding on the Right Bank side of Notre Dome there was none inside. On my last visit so much of the inside was covered in scaffolding it was hand to see the cathedral.This time it was clear inside and other than one chapel no restoration work was in progress. While we didn’t climb the bell tower as the boys wanted to do bet we did visit the "treasure room". Most of the treasures related to Saint’s bones and other religious artifacts but there was a scale model of Note Dame I found fascinating. Ryan on the other hand was taken by an almost life size crucifix in the Catholic style with Christ on the cross. We took a fair number of pictures at least some of which will make it to the photo albums.

That night we stayed close to apartment with Chinese food in the plaza behind the hotel.

Homework

Turned out that both boys had exaggerated how much homework they had finished. So we spent a good portion of the day working on homework. While working on the photos I managed to spill some diet coke on my tablet. As a result my keyboard is on the fritz. Some keys work sporadically and others not at all. For some reason when I open PowerPoint to try and get Steve’s presentation by on the web it goes into a crash cycle opening and closing PowerPoint repeatedly. Guess it’s into the shop first thing Monday morning after a complete back-up. I am not a happy camper.