Tropical storms, hurricanes and football

Crazy last month and a half.

Our vacation with the Bowler family to St. George was a lot of fun as always. It's a great little island if you've never been. This year's trip, however, suffered two major interruptions (well, maybe three or four).

1 - Power went out on the island. A water spout had made an appearance across the bayside of St. George about 4 days before we left, killing power to the island. They set up generators for temporary power, but in the days leading up to our departure, they were still getting it fixed and not letting people onto the island unless they were residents. The affect on our stay was minimal, however, as they restored full power within 24 hours of our arrival. There was a 1 or 2 hour time period in the middle of the night where the power was completely out while they switched from generators to full power, but we were asleep and didn't really get bothered by it.

2 - I got sick, real bad sick. It kind of came on a little before we even left for the beach. It was a fever/cold kind of thing, and it pretty much lasted the first half of the week. It finally let up on me about the time...

3 - Tropical Storm Fay made an appearance. Fay zig-zagged all across the state of Florday, making its final pass clear across the panhandle where St. George is located. By the time it got to us, it was fairly weakened, but there was more wind than I had seen in my life (that I can remember. It only affected the last 2 or 3 days of the trip, but those were the days that I wasn't sick anymore so...ah well. What was very interesting was looking out the window one evening and seeing funnel clouds (yes, plural) forming over head, not more than a mile away. Scary, but not that scary (maybe we should have freaked out more...?). The Gilbert family was over, and Katie Niebes took a picture of the clouds. I got on the laptop and sent her pictures along to the Weather Channel. Whether or not they ever used them, who knows. I felt like a real field journalist. Woo!

4 - I had work to do. A handful of hours were occupied with editing a couple of commercials for a client that had a deadline in the middle of my vacation week. It wasn't a huge deal, but it took away time that I would have rather been on the beach (you know, before the tropical storm arrived).

Good trip overall...Jingles, who was a little bit shy of the ocean last year, apparently forgot all about that and went diving around in the waves without any real encouragement from any of us. At one point, she just laid down at the water line and the waves were coming in on her, like it was no big deal. Crazy doggie.

More recently, I took a trip to St. Louis, MO to shoot Kelley Gilbert's wedding. It was a good trip, never been there before. Spent the first 2 days doing tourist stuff with the wedding party...did the Anheuser-Busch Brewery Tour, took in a Cardinals game at Busch Stadium (game was against the Cubs, pretty good game), went to a couple of neat local restaurants, went to (and up inside) the St. Louis Arch (sidebar - apparently it's not the St. Louis Arch, but rather, it's the Gateway Memorial Arch. Also, it's not a state property, it's a federal development to commemorate the pioneers who went out west with Lewis and Clark...being federal, we should all be proud to know that our federal tax dollars built and maintain this place). Beautiful grounds on the property, very nice view of the Mississippi River and the city of St. Louis.

I will admit a little disappointment, as I was always under the impression that the arch spanned the Mississippi River, but it's actually all on one side of the river. Kind of like my visit to The Alamo 3 years ago. See, I always thought The Alamo was surrounded by mostly nothing, maybe some desert sand and a few trees. I was surprised to find out that it's right in the middle of the city of San Antonio, and the city has been built up around it - buildings, streets, tourism stuff. I just remember we were walking towards it, and we turned a corner and all of a sudden it was just there right in front of us, like it wasn't supposed to be there at all.

Disappointment aside, it was a great little arch, and the Alamo was cool, too.

The wedding was very nice and everyone had a good time. The DJ was wild...he really got out on the floor and interacted, teaching the crowd some crazy dance move stuff. Reception ended sometime around 1am, but the bride and groom were out of there shortly after midnight.

The next morning, what was left of Hurricane Ike made contact with the city (actually arrived around 2:30am). The next morning, it was real treat packing my equipment and luggage into the van. There was a portico we parked underneath - which was very helpful - but still, the wind and rain blew in under there pretty fiercely. I was riding with my in-laws, and as we made our way out of the city around 8 or 9 in the morning, there were huge pools of water on the interstates, road closures going the other way, poor visibility, gusts of wind pushing at the car and general horrible weather like you would expect from a previously category 3 hurricane.

It didn't let up until around Kentucky, but at that point the damage was done. We were heading around Paducah, KY when the interstate was closed off, routing us along some side roads for a few miles. As it turns out, we arrived only a short while after a tornado came through. This was apparent from the damage we saw going through these towns. At one point we were going through a Wal-Mart/Home Depot parking lot where carts had been blown around and the little aluminum cart corrals were all twisted up and blown around. The giant interstate-visibility signage was torn off the pole and lying twisted and destroyed on the ground over to the side of us. The power was out for the most part, and the traffic lights were out as a result, so it was a relief to finally get back on the interstate and continue our escape from the storm remnants.

The rest of the trip home was pretty uneventful (thankfully) aside from a few small storms coming through Tennessee and north Georgia. Gotta say, that was the absolute worst weather I have ever experienced in my life. Even though I wasn't genuinely freaked out, there were moments when I wondered whether or not we would make it out of town that day, or at least make it out without being in some kind of car accident.

Fall is usually the time of year when I see my business slow down, but this fall has been extremely busy for me...and it seems to be getting busier. I've been shooting the weekly meetings for the Touchdown Club of Atlanta. That's been a lot of fun, getting to hear people talk football for an hour. We're shooting it for the website, and we're actually going out live during the meetings. Very cool. This coming week, Mark Richt is the guest speaker, so assuming that UGA beats Alabama this weekend, it should be a packed house. Well, it'll probably be packed regardless.

Speaking of football...UGA is looking a lot better than I think people realize. They haven't really had to do a lot of fancy stuff yet, since all their competition has been pretty minimal. South Carolina wasn't a huge test...it was a close game, but it's not like you're going to see UGA throwing all they've got out on the field for 4 quarters at the beginning of the season, especially when you're closer to winning than you are losing. Arizona State should have been more of a test, but I think that even though Arizona State may be the 2nd best team in the Pac 10, they're a distant 2nd from USC. Georgia played well, and Knowshon looked like a Heisman candidate alright, but it wasn't a big test of skill.

Penalties are gonna lose a game for us sooner or later if that doesn't get figured out. Giving up a full field (over a 100 yards) in penalties to Arizona State is a bad move...it only really cost the dawgs 3 points in the end, but it could have been much worse. Against a better team, like Alabama or Florida...that sort of stuff loses you the game.

Speaking of Bama...I'm excited. It's a BLACKOUT game, and ESPN GameDay is going to be there. I'll probably be showing up just in time for the game (gotta work a shoot from 9a-5p on Saturday). No matter, though...the game's the main thing. I think Alabama has built a good team so far this year, but I'm not buying into the hype quite yet. At this point, they've played a clearly struggling Clemson team, two teams with no real chance (Tulane and Western Kentucky) and Arkansas, which never even threatened in a year where nothing is likely to go their way. Georgia's opponents haven't been much more impressive, but my point here is that Alabama's win over those much lesser opponents have catapulted them from unranked in the preseason to #8 currently, whereas Georgia's wins have dropped them from #1 to #3. If Alabama beats Georgia, they'll deserve their ranking. But that's not going to happen. Georgia has two wide receiver threats in Mohamed Massaquoi and AJ Green, and two running back threats in Knowshon Moreno and Caleb King (three threats, if you count Richard Samuel). It's an awful lot to try to defend such powerful running and passing offensive options, especially with a quarterback like Matthew Stafford who can change it up on the fly when the defense lines up against the play.

Alabama's got a guy on special teams who likes to run the ball back for big yardage and good field position. That's probably Georgia's biggest weakness - special teams - for both punting and receiving units. If they can shut down Alabama's punt returns, I think that'll be all Georgia needs to do to ensure a win. To ensure a BIG win, however, Georgia will need to make sure that Stafford has plenty of time to get the play off, and I'm not sure the offensive line can hold off Bama for very long.

Alright, that's probably more than enough for now. I've posted on Caleb's blog, so you can check that out, too.