Eric with Melanie Wasson of the M/V Spree

New Jersey

is a long way from sunny Bonaire.  But this is where I find myself today.  As I noted yesterday, “lost” is what people I know at the show, think of when they see me.  Perhaps I am a little lost because there is a lot of coverage of the New Jersey Wreck diving and I really have no first hand knowledge of it nor do I plan or learning more about it while being underwater – it is cold and dark with currents and potentially rough seas.  There seem to be so many more places to go in the world that I have decided to postpone my visit to these waters until I run out of places to see.

 

So what is this all about?  Well, Beneath the Sea is a consumer trade show in New Jersey.  It is well support, well attended and probably the largest retail show in the US.  There are booths from all aspects of the diving community – manufacturers, travel destinations, dive retailers, educational companies, certification agencies and the peripheral groups.  So who did I talk to at this show?

 

• Keith – Sunset House, Grand Cayman – Their year has been off but more importantly, their bookings have been different.  He said that people seem to be booking at the last minute.  They have gone into months with a 4% occupancy and then they are relatively full the last three weeks of the month.  Everyone seems to be looking for travel deals, is afraid to commit too far out and schedule things at the last minute.

 

• Frank & Melanie Wasson – This is a new show for them but it has been interesting.  There seems to be a lot of interest in their offering but no commitments yet.  Of course they sewed up some deals they were working on before arriving and they generated a lot of interest.  Frank said he felt it would be a week or so before they would know the net results of the show.  However, they did feel it had been a good show – good enough to try it again

 

• Evelyn Dudas – Dudas’ Diving Duds – Coming off her PFO reprair surgery last year, she has been taking it easy with her diving only doing a few one or two hour long dives with limited decompression.  So far she has had no symptoms.  She said they have been busy and Michael has a lot of travel in the works.  She has been traveling a lot, mostly to Florida for some diving and visiting her daughter.

 

• 

  Dave with Leon in Inner Space systems Booth

  Leon Scamerhorn & Jerry,  Inner Space Systems Corporation – They are in a good position right now since they have a number of new product offerings and customers wanting them;  Business has been steady and while they have seen some slowdown in rebreather sales, they are still getting new orders.  Both Leon and Jerry feel that this year will be a good year for ISC and that the economic problems will not impact their business too negatively.

 

• Kim Smith – Jetsam technologies – The KISS rebreathers remain in demand primarily because of the price point.  Kim said that they have been very busy assembling rebreathers since the first of the year.  They were busy at the show and in talking to Kim it would appear that she feels that 2009 will be a good year for rebreather sales.

 

• Tamara Thompson, Technology in Depth (VR Technologies) – Their booth was very busy and in talking to Tamara, she has been doing a lot of diving already this season and it seems others are diving a lot as well.  She indicated that the sales of a of the new VRx computers are doing well as are the rebreathers.

 

• Curt Bowen, Advanced Diver Magazine – Curt has been working hard integrating the operations of Advanced Diver Magazine and Rebreather World along with various diving expeditions.  He said it is funny, people keep asking him to do things forgetting that someone has to actually put the magazine together.  He seems to have a guarded optimistic outlook for the year.

 

• Mike Fowler, Silent Diving Systems – He indicated that things had slowed a little but that they were still busy and shipping rebreathers.  Their big seller is now the Evolution + which incorporates the Inspiration scrubber with the Evolution electronics and 2l bottles.  He feels that the year will be fine and they are looking for a good year.

 

• Tom Mount, IANTD – Tom realizes that this year will be difficult for some of their dealers but feels overall there will be a steady growth in the rebreather training, especially when the more recreational rebreathers (e.g. Poseidon)  come on line.  IANTD has been working on upgrading their training materials and creating some of the technical diving’s best courses.

 

• Joe Diuri, IANTD – Joe is very excited about the new materials that the agency is producing.  He is especially excited about the new instructor training materials that he has been working on.  According to Joe, they will “change how we train instructors” in the future.  He has a positive outlook for 2009.  He feels there will be some changes both positive and negative.

 

• Pete Nawrocky, Dive Rite – Talk about a guy who is high on diving.  Pete is traveling with the Dive Rite booth to consumer shows all over the US as well as traveling with the Dive Rite Tech Tour.  Wherever he goes, Pete is talking diving, from the cold dark dives of the New Jersey shore to the gin clear caves of Florida, Pete will tell anyone who will listen that they should be diving!  Of course, Pete will also tell them that they should be diving in Dive Rite equipment!  As far as this year goes, Pete will tell you that it will be whatever you want it to be.  You just have to get out and go diving and take people with you.

 

• Big Wave Dave, DEMA – It is always nice to visit with Big Wave Dave; he loves the scuba industry and his energy in contagious.  He said they have had the pool out working at various shows and there still seems to be a lot of interest in scuba.  The hardest part is for the retailers to capture the interest and turn it into a committed diver.

 

So what else did we do?  Well other than shocking people by being in New York, Dave and I attended a few seminars, looked at a portable recompression chamber, dreamed about going diving in Komodo, ate some fabulous meals in the City, and talked about diving and what we wanted to accomplish this year.

 

The 2009 diving season will be an interesting year, full of scary points, disappointments and really cool moments.  While the economy will influence our business, Ann, Dave, Ashton and I as well as our entire staff have elected not to participate in the downturn, instead we are focusing on the 90%+ people who are still working and need hobbies, diversions and fun things to do.

Lost – at least that is what the people I knew thought when they saw me at this year’s Beneath the Sea show in New Jersey.  It was common to hear “what are you doing here?”  I had a number of reasons for coming to this show this year, among them were to try and find some connections to some students for our Expedition Trimix Course in Grand Cayman this summer.

 

Friday evening found Dave and I in a presentation by Dr. Gozum about Personal Decompression Strategies.  He has been looking at a number of Decompression & Doppler Bubble studies all the way back to the 1940’s.  In looking at the raw data, he found that there three groups of divers in these studies:

• Divers who never got bent, no matter what was done to them
• Divers who sometimes got bent and
• Divers who always got bent

 

His theory is that were individuals that are resistant to DCS.  In looking at their Doppler readings, even when they showed a high number of bubbles, they exhibited no signs of DCI.  While this population represents a small part of the study, he felt that it is an important finding.

 

One of the things he advocates is performing Doppler studies on yourself to determine a safer decompression routine for yourself.  Since the actual Doppler devices are $400+, a baby ultrasound device ($100) can be used.  These less expensive devices have a larger head and are not generally reparable but give reasonable readings to begin a study.

 

Another point he made is that studies have shown that post dive exertion has lead to DCI.  After a dive a diver may show no signs of DCI, and after doing something strenuous, i.e. pulling up an anchor, moving equipment, etc the suddenly developed DCI.  For this reason he recommends refraining from strenuous exertion after a decompression dive.  I have seen this exact situation in a diver who because of pride issues moved equipment and immediately began showing signs of DCI.  It took a table 6 ride in the chamber to confirm the hit and eliminate the pain.

 

In talking about this with Larry Elsevier later that evening, he felt that the results could be skewed by the individual diver’s metabolism.  According to Larry, in a study at the university of Southern California (he thought) it was shown that DCS was not detected in divers who had 7-8 glasses of water 24 hours before diving but DCI was noted in divers who did not consume water the prior day.  The study concluded that an individual’s metabolism, affected by dehydration, played a significant role in the incidence of DCI.

 

Further, he noted that in some studies while some people did not note any of the traditional signs of DCI, some reported feeling funny.  In some cases, this funny feeling was a precursor to more serious DCI symptoms.

 

In talking with Tom Mount in our Expedition Trimix course, his experience has been that especially on deep dives, what works is not necessarily what the formulas say to do.  “You have to listed to your body” and be aware of signs that tell you things are not quite right.  By being in tune with yourself, you can modify your schedule to try and get things back in balance before continuing.  He calls this Intuitive Decompression.  I have been on dives when I felt that I needed to elongate a stop beyond what the computers were telling me to do.  I also know that Ann has felt the same way on some of her dives.  She will even tell you she “feels the nitrogen” and gets an overwhelming feeling that she needs to pause and spend more time at her current depth.

 

What does this mean to divers?  The first thing we should know is that decompression is not an exact science. There seem to be a number of factors influencing the elimination of inert gasses and the possibility of developing symptoms of DCI.  The importance of proper diet and hydration play a major role in preventing DCI as does individual physiology.  While there are some individuals who are resistant to DCI, there appears to be a far larger number of diver’s susceptible to DCI.  Prevention of symptoms may include using Intuitive Decompression, to modify your decompression schedule depending on how you feel underwater.  Additionally, if is important to avoid post dive exercise when possible, especially if you “feel funny.”

Here we are in the middle of the cold weather season, Dave’s favorite time to escape New York.  Dave tries to tell Martha that he has been bad and that she should banish him to Texas for a few months.  It never really works.  However, I was able to arrange for a few weeks off to spend some time in sunny Florida.  Of course, winter seems to have followed us as it was cold in Florida.

 

We had an ambitions schedule planned.  We contacted Tom Mount to help us accomplish a few goals for the year.  Dave needed to finish his Meg Instructor course so I volunteered to be his student and I needed to complete my OC/CCR Trimix Instructor Trainer Certification so Dave volunteered to be my candidate for the session.

 

Tom set up two weeks worth of training and diving for us.  We planned to do a lot of wreck diving while we were in the area as part of our course.  Our plans called for dives on a variety of wrecks at various depths.

 

During the next few days the winds built and came from the wrong direction.  What this meant for us was more time at Tom’s house in lectures and in pools.  In fact it meant a lot of extra lecture time and discussions about new training materials.

 

During our dive on the Speigel Grove, my training dive on the Meg, I had two instructors, Dave and another instructor candidate along wit Tom.  Since I was the student, I was anticipating a lot of drills with my instructors.  What happened was not at all what I expected.  During the descent it became apparent that the other instructor candidate was having problems with buoyancy and we found that his jacket was having trouble holding air.  Of course while Dave was helping him sort it out, Tom, who had grown impatient with the lack of attention to me, the student quickly appeased himself by giving me a “boom scenario” to deal with.  Having successfully accomplished the procedure for dealing with the “problem” our other instructor candidate signaled he was ok and ready to continue.  Tom started on the dive. 

 

Dave soon realized  that this other person was not in the proper space for the dive and was having trouble maintaining buoyancy.  So rather than focus on me “the student” he decided that he needed to watch the other candidate.  As Tom approached a wide opening that traverses the wreck, everyone apparently signaled ok and in he went.  I have to admit I was really laughing at myself in the passageway.  I kept getting stuck.  This was not my normal configuration!  Imagine a Wreck Instructor getting stuck on a simple dive.  I soon realigned myself and pulled my way out into the opening, under Tom’s watchful eyes.  As I turned around there was no one behind me.  Tom and I waited and still there were no divers behind us.  I looked back down the passage and there was no one there.  I communicated this to Tom and then after a little more of a delay the other candidate entered the passage creating a cloud of silt for Dave to swim through.  Dave later told us that he had a difficult time getting the other person to follow.

 

It was at this point, we all noticed how poor his buoyancy was and that he appeared to be struggling to stay afloat in the water column.  Further, Dave was signaling Tom that the diver was low on dil.  Tom, immediately terminated the dive leading us to the mooring line.  After our safety stop, we exited the water to a surprised crew.  We were supposed to be go for 2 hours and we were surfacing before the other recreational divers.

 

Tom started to talk to Dave about the lack of drills for his “student” during the dive but quickly changed his focus when the entire situation became known.  Then his attention switched to the other diver/candidate. 

 

In the end, Dave and I did accomplish our goals.  Dave received his Meg Instructor and his CCR Normoxic Trimix Instructor credentials and I received my OC/CCR Trimix Instructor credentials.  We also decided that January was not the best time to travel to Florida for diving.  The winds are unpredictable and the diving is likely to get blown out.  Something Tom knew and tried to tell us but who said we ever listen.

 

Oh well, live and learn…

Platinium Pro Winners - Jess Stark, Eric Keibler, Gary Taylor

Several members of the Oceanic Ventures Staff have just returned from DEMA, the diving industry trade show.  The purpose of the show is for retailers to preview equipment, training products and travel locations so they can bring new things back to their clients at home.  The training agencies host parties and meetings to showcase their offerings and to thank members for their support in the previous year and in the upcoming year.

 

 

 

SSI is no different, hosting its annual dealer social at the Rivera hotel.  It was great to see friends from all over the country – many of whom we only see at these events.  Julie Footman was on hand to shake her head but to also offer her support to Ann for her 2009 Cold Water Diving Program to help her Antarctica divers gain some diving experience.  We will be joining Julie in Maine after the group completes their Ice Diving Course, at Lake Winipasakui, New Hampshire in February (there is still room for interested people).  Julie is the owner of Aqua Diving Academy in Portland Maine and has been a great source of information for a number of things including dry suits and repairs.  She is also a good friend. 

 

During the dealer social, I was awarded my Platinum Pro 5000 Instructor Award.  This means that I am old and have been teaching a long time.  The award is based on points made up of a number of things from Instructor Ratings to Number of years diving; but, primarily, it the points are the number of students I have taught over the eighteen years (see what I mean about being old).  [Find out more about Eric and this award by pressing here or going to www.oceanicventures.com].

 

Jess Stark and Gary Taylor (a member of our adjunct faculty) were both honoured during DEMA this year.  Both of these men have been diving a long time and have accumulated in excess of 5000 dives (Gary has in excess of 10,000 dives).  They were among this year’s recipients of the Platinum Pro 500 divers award, given by SSI.  They join a very exclusive club of divers representing the who’s who of divng.  We were fortunate to have been able to nominate both of these people as well as two other designees – Lamar Hires, CEO of Dive Rite and Ron Carlo, manufacturer’s representative for a number of lines including Dive Rite.  Congratulations to all of you!

 

Another party we attended was hosted by the Cayman Islands Department of Tourism.  They always throw great parties!  Of course it is even more fun since the Houston office is full of our students!  It was quite an evening full of free drinks, horśderves and good company.  Carl Griffing joined us at the party as did Robert Hew and Ian McKnight.  Of course, Carl and Ashton seemed to have a better time than most of us – at least their evening lasted longer.  I guess I’m getting too old!

 

Of course we did much more than party.  The group attended Risk Management seminars hosted by IANTD and another by SSI.  There were seminars on selling & teaching technical diving, recruiting, marketing, new camera systems, improving your client’s photographs, dealer product updates and new course offerings.  We all had meetings with manufacturers and manufacturers representatives, destination representatives and a host of other meetings.  Through it all, we also had some goals of things we needed to accomplish and some new products we needed to find.

 

And we did come back with some really cool things.  Here are a few of the things we brought back to Oceanic Ventures:

 

• Komodo, Indonesia live aboard – The crew of the Archipelago Explorer II are excited about the potential of rebreather diving and with the help of Oceanic Ventures and Silent Diving Systems they are hosting the first live-aboard, all rebreather dive adventure in Indonesia!  This trip promises to be and extra special experience and a real treat for rebreather divers!  The trip will be 22 July 2009 to 2 August 2009, give or take a few days (Dive Mom is finalizing the air schedule)
• Cool New Lights – We found some really cool new LED lights that are more affordable than anything we have had in the past.  These new lights, which come in a flood versin and a spot version use Lithium batteries and are rated to 400 ft.
• Inexpensive back-up Light – When you need an inexpensive back-up light that fits in your pocket or on your BCD, we have a suggestion.  A 5 LED light for $9.95.  Pretty cool find!
• Camera Spotting Light – This light is different from anything we have seen before.  It is a spotting light with an sensor that shuts-off the light when your electronic strobe fires, keeping the different temperature lights out of your photograph.
• 8 megapixel Camera & Housing for $199.95 – What a find!  As Dave said when he was telling us abut this at one of our morning staff meetings during the show, this makes photography affordable for everyone.  New divers and experienced divers can start taking underwater photographs almost from the start.  And, you can always add an external strobe later to improve your photography even more.  We are so excited about this new starter camera that we have put one in the pool for our students to try during dive class!
• New Training Options – The new buzzword in dive training is on-line training.  Ann, Dave and I have been watching this for several years and we believe that now there is a good product that will meet the needs of some divers.  Beginning in 2009, Oceanic Ventures will begin offering On-line education as a part of its training program.  Keep an eye out for more details on this program.

 

We believe that DEMA was very successful for us this season.  We appreciate all of the staff’s help during the show (Ashton, Dave, Barney & Barbara at the show and Zaide in the office).  I hope you will come by and let me show you these way cool things!  If you can’t make it by, send me an message and I’ll tell you more about them.

Dive Divas in Grand Cayman, photo courtsey of Dora Valdez

As the hurricane becomes more of a past event, a group of ladies joined Ann in Grand Cayman.  Affectionately known as the Dive Diva group, these ladies left Houston in recovery and escaped the usual Houstonian question “so did you have any damage?”  The plan was 5 days of diving with other activities including massages, reflexology, a rum tasting featuring Grand Cayman’s own Seven Fathoms Rum and of course one of Arie’s  famous wine and cheese parties.  Word from Grand Cayman is that the island will never be the same again!

 

Polo anyone?  Did you know that Houston has one of the oldest Polo clubs in the South?  The Houston Polo Club is celebrating its 80^th Anniversary this year and has been voted as one of the top polo clubs in the United States according to the Robb Report.  

 We were the guests of the Elizabeth Himes with the Cayman Islands Department of Tourism, sponsors for the club this year.  After a little white wine the first match started.  Who would have thought Ashton was such polo fan – he kept an active score sheet and was familiar with some of the players.  In looking through the guide, we found that several of our clients actively played polo at the club and others were supporters.  It is always fun to find out what other activities your clients are involved in outside of Scuba.

Ann & Cindy Thompson Enjoying a Glass of Wine

Between the two matches, we were treated to wine from a small California winery, a tour of two Jaguar convertibles and a Rang Rover all mid-field.  The wine was nice and the cars were beautiful.  Ann really wants a Jaguar convertible so this did not really help squash that desire…

 We followed the Polo match with dinner and drinks (mostly Iced Tea).  It was a fun day and definitely different from what we normally do – Polo anyone?

Tonight our monthly Club Aquarius meeting was a little different, the guests were also the speakers because we held a “Fish Tale” open mike event.  Everyone was encouraged to tell a “fish tale” about diving or travel.  It was also a little different because we had the meeting over at the Fedora Lounge because the store was still in disarray after the storm, flood and the subsequent drying efforts.

 Kelly, the bartender took great care of our group and kept the tabs for twenty-five people straight.  Ann was drinking Martinis all evening as were a number of other guests.  All the while we had a series of tales being told both about the storm – When did you get your power back?  Did you have any damage? Are you alright?, and of course the Fish Tales.  Ann and I had a hard time deciding who had the best tale so we had a drawing for the grand prize, a Fish in My Heart Book, featuring the work of Rogest.

 It was a fun evening and it was great to see everyone.  One thing I heard a lot from everyone was that they had read one of my email messages and had been thinking about their last dive trip; it was nice to hear people read the email and applied its message as a way to cope with the aftermath of the storm.  It was also nice to hear that everyone was alright and that their damage was limited.  We know that some were not so lucky and our thoughts and prayers go out to them.

Looking at the store right now it seems like a bad dream.  Only two weeks ago we had everything in its place and operations were normal.  A week ago, a little weather caused havoc and disrupted our little world.  But, we are luckier than a lot of people.

Yesterday I spoke with a gentleman from Surfside, a small town on the coast, and he said that his roof was gone and everything was wet but he was lucky – he still had a house.  Many of his neighbors were not so fortunate.  There were pilings (homes in this area are built on stilts) where houses used to sit and piles of debris that represented years of hard work sitting in the road.  These people had truly lost everything they had.

When you hear stories like these, I feel guilty about the depression I feel when looking at the store.  For our part, the majority of what we had is still there and only a little of it is totally lost.  And we have insurance to help replace what was lost.  More than anything, we are all fine. 

Our staff seemed to have weathered the storm and are coping with the changes the storm has brought.  Wade has no power and is maintaining his freezers and sanity with two generators.  Their hurricane plans called for the installation of two small window units to help keep the moisture down in their home for the month or two it takes to get power restored in their neighborhood.  Steve  still has no power and is using a generator to keep the food, beer, and wine cold while using fans to keep cool.  Vernon is getting more help from his Mother-in-Law since her home is in Galveston which is only open during daylight hours.  Fortunately, here home came through the storm in reasonably good condition.  Chuck finally got power back as did Mike. 

Barney suffered some damage at his home but found his boat safely tied in its slip.  For his part, procrastination paid off since their plans were to move the boat to the cannal behind their new home, but he had gotten around to adding the pylon he needed t secure it properly.  This probably kept his boat from being one of those that greets you on the highway on the way into Galveston.

Some of the staff are still feeling like vagabonds or summer campers.  They are still waiting for power to be restored.  According to the news, Centerpoint Energy has restored power to 66% of their customers (thankfully we are one of the ones with power both at the store and at home).

 The piles of drywall in front of the store have been removed.  The dehumidifiers were silenced yesterday and the few remaining fans noisily running throughout the morning were cut-off and pulled front he store.  The Steam Team, our flood recovery specialists, ended their siege of our space and removed the last vestiges of their encampment.  Our space has been pronounced “dry.”

 While the specialists were crawling around the office, Oceanic Ventures restarted business in full swing, with classes resuming last evening.  Ann and Ashton are still staged at the western office (our house) and I am manning the store while working with the building management and our insurance carrier to resolve the situation and revamp the piles back into an operational facility.  We have a lot of work to do but we also have a lot of support from our friends, staff and clients.  The hard part is deciding where to start and what needs to be done next.

 As I suggested in an email message, when things get too rough, remember your last dive trip and focus on the underwater beauty.  I for one have been spending a lot of time in Cayman and the Pacific.  These images continue to remind me of why I do what I do; and they serve as a catalyst to move on so I can continue to introduce others to the wonders that await them underwater.

Ahh the hum of generators and air conditioning, this is the sound of Houston in the aftermath of Ike.  Like most of our neighbors, we have power back as well as phone and Internet service.  However, we have several neighbors with damaged power lines who remain off the city grid and are using generators or borrowed power to fuel their homes.  Thankfully, it is still cool here in Houston this evening.

 

There is still a lot to do to clean-up after Ike.  Some of the traffic lights are coming back on line which is creating some confusion since some are out, some a blinking and others are fully functional.  Over the past few days, a number of our clients and friends have checked-in and thankfully most have had only minimal damage to their homes and are safe.  Some are still out of town while others have returned to start putting things back together

 

Stan Watowich was able to get onto Galveston island to accesses his lab at UTMB.  He felt that things were in reasonable shape and they could recover quickly as soon as power was restored.  While most of his graduate students are unable to get back to the island, he did check their homes and found that most were in reasonable shape but a few of their homes were destroyed.  

 

OVI World-Wide Headquarters at Pat Croll

As for us, we have now moved the Oceanic Ventures command central from its temporary location in Katy to its newest point – our house, where Ann and Ashton are having a bonding experience around our diving room table.  We now have the email server, data servers, individual computers all running here – imagine having an entire office worth of computers crammed under your diving room table with cables running everywhere.  By Saturday our new credit card machine will be on hand so we can process your purchases and trip deposits

This week we have met with the water removal specialists from the Steam Team (a very impressive group from Austin), our insurance adjuster and our landlord.  At this point, we are still unsure about what we will be doing with the store.  We still have no power there, the dehumidifiers and fans are running on generators, the computer system has been relocated, and the phones have been rolled.  We are looking at moving to some temporary space either elsewhere in the complex or nearby.  The major problem right now is power – most places, including our building do not have any.

 

We are operating with repairs being done off-site and equipment purchases being delivered by appointment.  The Fedora Lounge across the street from the store has been popular with cold beer and mixed drinks to keep everyone relaxed and happy.

 

It has been interesting to see how people are dealing with the storm and the aftermath.  Yesterday, the owner of a Republic Mortgage, a fellow tenant, hosted a luncheon for his staff and anyone who was around at the time.  We saw other tenants as well as the generator delivery crew and the Steam Team members joining with the mortgage staff for some fun and great Mexican food out in front of our buildings.

 

In talking to the office manager of Semark pest control, when she returned home she found that she had had water in her house.  But her attitude was that all of her family was safe and in passing she said she told her husband “I have wanted some new things, now we have the opportunity!”  She has a great attitude and a warm thankful smile.  We even joked with Kim, who had most of her nail polish bottles crash onto her hardwood floor and break, that maybe she could put a piece of glass over the polish and create an are piece on the floor.  Of course she did not think much of the suggestions but enjoyed the humor in the thought.

 

It is important to keep injecting some humor in our days right now.  Things are a little awkward and they certainly do not run as efficiently as we would like them to.  As many merchants are saying right now, “thank you for your patience.”  With some patience and laughter we will get through this!

Ike in the Gulf

As many of you probably know and may have experienced, we were visited by hurricane Ike in the early morning hours on Saturday. We were lucky in that the main force of the storm moved a little east of its original path which put us more on the dry side with slower winds and less rain. Still, we had at least 90 mile an hour winds and at least 10 inches of rain.

On the face of it, our house came through without allot of damage. Ann and I came through the storm fine. Luckily, our house received little damage and all of our trees survived the storm. It was a good thing Ashton and Jeremy helped Ann trim the tree. Some of our neighbors were not so lucky.

We have no power, the water pressure is low and there are leaves and small branches everywhere. The fish are swimming in green water with leaves floating on top and the street looks like a war zone.

The store did not fare as well. The storm lifted the corner of the roof on our building and broke it up allowing the water to enter the store. The sheetrock just outside the store fell down and the sheetrock in the store sagged with the weight of the water. Since friends called us to alert us, I came in and relieved the pressure by punching holes in the ceiling. Of course it was too late to abate some of the damage. The store is a total mess with all of the carpets, electronics and paperwork wet.

Houston too is a mess with blocked streets, trees down and over 90% of the residents without power. Driving is an adventure with lanes and entire streets blocked by 100 year old trees and traffic lights dangling from their wires. At the larger intersections, the fixed traffic poles are twisted with the lights facing in incorrect directions.

Things will be a little disjointed over the next month but we are up and running. I am thankful; no one we know of was hurt and the damage we received was minimal compared to others. Our friends are safe and while we have a lot of work to do, we are keeping a positive outlook, trying to remember that things usually turn out for the best. We have some exciting things happening but we have some challenges to work through as well.

Ike in the Gulf