13-XI-2009.

00:18:21 me:
we finally have a house on the coast. The water is just a few meters from the door. About 40cm higher and we'll have to start caulking the doors and hope the walls won't leak.

00:19:52 David
Jeez, had no idea... Batten the hatches indeed!

00:22:16 me
hatches... to the basement? No basements here, we're 3m above (regular) sea level.

00:22:40 David
I see video of Virginia Beach---

00:23:22 me
link?

00:24:45 David
weather channel... (link)... "Raw: Assault on Virginia Beach"

00:45:01 me
wow... it's already covered all the sand on the beach, and that's roughly 2m. This also means all the puddles around the place are equally higher and not draining the streets... the sidewalk outside is already about 15cm deep. No school today, none tomorrow. We were smart to get a house in this area where the cables are dug in :)

01:23:17 me
water already in back yard... I guess we have maybe 20cm before the cable box on the curb gets flooded. So far so good so online.

01:27:52 David
Hope you've got some sandbags (if that helps...)

01:28:06 David
Where's the military when you need them? [Bet they're on the job though, eh]

01:28:42 me
last time (Isabel, 2003) they flew away three days in advance and returned three days after it was all over. ... I'm on the job :) ... and mail was delivered today... well, while it was still possible to drive.

04:14:06 me
25cm to the door... and still online :) ... lifted all the cables, all electronics and the guinea pig off the floor... fingers crossed. Fingers crossed for tomorrow. Should stop by saturday.

15:02:12 me
the water is subsiding slowly, after having rearranged our garden in a special way.

16:13:45 Jan
Are your feet stil dry ??

16:14:10 me
Yes... the highest was about 25cm below floor level :)

16:14:43 Jan
BTW, image is loading very, very slowly

16:16:08 me
though I got one foot wet yesterday, taking a picture of daughter's car from the backyard. A truck passed and sent a wave. I use free hosting at doteasy.com somewhere around Guelph in Canada or thereabouts (Evan DeLaY said they were his neighbors), and the pic is 2.9 megs, so it isn't fast.

All the car windows are foggy. The carpets are soaked. We didn't even try to start the corolla. Used Verizon's phone directory (two tomes of 1500 pages each) to soak as much water as I could. Open it anywhere, lay flat on the floor, when the pages get soggy, tear them and throw into garbage, repeat with dry pages. It would use perhaps a dozen sheets per round. Verizon is blacklisted for me, can't see them after the experience 2003-2004. And they ran an optical cable under our patio without even asking for a permission. The workers didn't have a clue, didn't even speak english, being Mexicans all.

In Nina's car, a little plant sprouted from under the right seat. (... 12 words...)

On UA

>>http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2355644,00.asp ...dead-end investments. Remember WebTV?, m$-Bob? m$ Home? m$at Work? FoxPro? m$ Money?

Do all those really belong together? :o)

Belong to whom?

(I never quite got around the concept that "to belong" doesn't necessarily imply ownership)

But, what Frank said - it was money M$ threw away without any serious intention to make money on it. The acquisition of Rushmore, and keeping up with the Joneses (A-T, then Borland) were tactical business moves, not a long-term investment that would bring profit in the future. Once it served the purpose (outclassed dBase IV, Rushmore extracted and retrofitted into SQL, ADO, Jet or wherever), came the morning after - a product with fundamentalist disobedient believers which maybe sells more Windows and SQL and is a pet of certain military and govemmental important customers, but... do we really need to be seen with it in public?

(... 25 words...)

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Mentions: David Berton, Jan Brenkelen, Majkrosoft (m$), Nevena Sredljević (Nina), UbiquAgora (UA), in serbian