Well, hello Dolly

Around 4:30am this morning, I was awakened by a bright flash of lightning and a roar of thunder. The bolt must have hit very close by. I lifted my head from the pillow and looked out the window at downtown and could see nothing. It was raining so hard, the window simply looked gray. Then another bright flash of light and BOOM!

Groggily remembering that Tropical Storm Dolly was inching its way towards South Texas (at least when we went to bed last night) and that a storm's path is truly unpredictable, the thought flashed in my head that Dolly could have taken a hard turn north and could be bearing down on us.

So I dragged my ass to the TV and turned on our newly-installed DISH satellite system (installed just yesterday), and, lo and behold, there was no signal. The satellite signal was lost. Sorta like this one...

Well, well, well. Welcome to the wonderful world of satellite TV. On the very first morning that we have DISH, we have a near-hurricane bearing down on us, and we're blind. How cosmically, comically....perfect.

Fortunately, the internet was still up and I could see that Dolly was still on a path towards South Padre Island. What we were experiencing in Houston was a big rain band that was spreading out from the storm.

The TV flickered back to life as the rain began to let up a little. I guess SOME of my friends were right. At least the ones that told me that I will lose the satellite signal in bad weather. Uh, isn't bad weather when you really WANT and NEED to keep up with the weather? If there is a hurricane bearing down on you (and they are known for spawning numerous tornadoes), isn't that a time you really NEED to keep in touch?

Thank goodness for the internet and good ol' fashioned radio. They DO love disasters, don't they? Keeps the ratings up. As long as you can get the signal, that is.