Another One

I was up until 1 a.m. last night and then got up early this morning to work on our supplemental funding request for the National Science Foundation. It started out around $2M and ended up closer to $9M. I don't know exactly how it will fly, of couse, but considering how long some of the big expensive and sensitive research equipment has been subjected to 100% relative humidity, it may turn out that a lot of it will need to be replaced. Anyway, it was all finally done and approved and sent out by about noon, and after running a couple of little errands in the heat, I just couldn't make myself go out for a ride in the heat. Candy went into B.R. again today to look at some space that the department may need to use for one of its units. They came back with another computer for me to set up for one of the faculty members. It's amazing that you can get a brand new computer and find that they have Adobe Acrobat 5.0 installed (current version is 7.x) and that there are a bunch of windows updates to install.

One thing I did do first thing this morning, after being frustrated last night trying to juggle a bunch of email via the Yahoo website, was to spring for the $20 annual upgrade so I can retreve my yahoo mail via their popmail server. Then I downloaded and installed Eudora, set it up to get mail from yahoo, set up a few filters, and the quality of my life improved dramatically. Yes, yes, I know that gmail has free popmail access, but changing what has now become my primary email ID is just not feasible right now, so I'll stick with yahoo and save my gmail account as a backup account. I could also get Eudora a little cheaper and not pay the sales tax, but you can't do that via the online purchase and at this point it just ain't worth it.

So there's another hurricane entering the Gulf of Mexico. The projected tracks all take it into east Texas, but that will mean some strong east and southeast winds for N.O., which will cause a storm surge and raise the level in the lake. Ordinarily that wouldn't be a big deal, but with two key floodwalls in important drainage canals currently patched up with sandbags, plus a drainage system that is functioning at perhaps only 25% of what it should, it could be bad. If it looks like there will be a big storm surge, the Corps of Engineers is planning on driving sheet pilings across the mouths of both of the canals which will keep the storm surge out but will mean that those pumping stations will not be able to operate. So if it rains a lot, guess what will happen. Anyway, I am hoping that the computer models are accurate and that we miss most of this one. Even if we do, it would be a real twist of the knife if Houston got hit with a hurricane, considering that's where Tulane's central administration is currently operating in exile. Now the mayor is backing away from officially letting people back into my part of the city on Friday. Damn. I really really wanted to spend the weekend cleaning out the basement before the mold takes over completely.

Definitely need to get on the bike tomorrow morning! One thing that I brought back from the house was my trusty Silca pump, which I had put up on a table in the basement just in case there was some flooding. It will be nice to have normal tire pressure again!

I checked the LAMBRA website today, and it was sad to see a big "Cancelled" next to all of the rest of this season's races. I had really been looking forward to the September and October races this year.