TD-10 Weekend

It was still relatively cool this morning, but with a slightly stronger wind out of the northeast thanks to the approaching "subtropical low" that, later in the day, was upgraded to an official Tropical Depression, now called "TD-10" unless and until it gets strong enough to be designated a Tropical Storm, at which point it would get a name. Depression indeed! Since it's looking like the whole weekend might be a wet one, it's certainly got me depressed. The tracking on this one seems to be rather ambiguous, so much will depend on whether its elusive center goes north or south of the city. Right now, though, the sun is out and the temperature is only 85F, and as long as we continue to get that nice northern air streaming in, it should remain fairly pleasant. Although the local government agencies are all excited at the opportunity to exercise their new improved disaster plans, I'm not really expecting this storm to cause much trouble. The University has already sent out a few email and telephone updates via its new emergency communication system, and the governor has declared a state of emergency and has evacuation busses at the ready (which might be needed down near the gulf coast if the tides get too high). Still, I think there's still a chance we could get in a ride in the morning if we're lucky, although I guess Yom Kippur will keep some folks at home where they'll be busy not eating. As a kid growing up in a predominantly Catholic town, I always found it funny that we were supposed to not eat meat on Fridays, but that fish had been officially declared "not meat." As a result, the Friday "fast" usually consisted of a big family, or multi-family trip to a local seafood restaurant where we stuffed ourselves with fried catfish and french fries, and played with the claw machines, while our parents feasted on raw oysters and Jax beer. Most of the smaller local restaurants in town still have special seafood dishes like seafood gumbo on Friday. Then there's also the traditional red beans and rice on Mondays because that was wash day and red beans and rice was cheap and easy to prepare and could simmer slowly for hours unattended. You can bet that virtually any little business lunch restaurant or cafeteria will have RB&R on Monday and Seafood Gumbo on Friday. But I digress...

Although there were just three or four of us on hand for this morning's levee ride, the speed somehow kept creeping up to 24 mph despite both the relentless crosswind and my best efforts to take it easy. It was OK, though, because with only three guys in the rotation it's easy to find a good draft in a crosswind, even on such a narrow strip of asphalt. Anyway, I'm guessing I might have a tough call to make in the morning about whether to head out to the lakefront or not for the Giro Ride.