He's alive! He's safe! And he saved the beer!

Steve has now been heard from. He's posting from Man Camp, where Val has hooked up to a neighbors generator, and Steve's supplying badly needed labor and nutrients. (LIQUID nutrients, what did you think I meant?)

Among his thoughts on the current 'cane aftermath are that it's hard to get in a 'Oh my God!' frame of mind when you're sitting on the patio drinking homebrew, smoking a cigar, listening to music on the boombox and have a cockatoo for company. And how some people are freaking out, even though they don't live below sea level and have 'neighbors' floating their valuables away. And how some people in Broward County are comparing Wilma to Andrew; as he puts it:"So SHUT UP. Anyone up there who compares this storm to Andrew should be punished by having one leg of his walker glued to the floor so all he can do is shuffle in circles."

And think of being in a place where everything is electric, the lines are all down, and they tell you to boil your drinking water. As Steve says, a nicely mixed message. What to do, what to do... Aside from grabbing the nearest bureaucrat(assuming you can catch one out of his natural habitat of behind a counter with a security guard handy) and gently asking 'how?' as you choke him, that is. I'd say it's a good thing all those trees are down, except green wood doesn't burn worth a damn, and if it's been that long since a really nasty storm probably only 10% of the people around own an axe and have some idea how to use it without amputating body parts.

We've got tornados here, but at least they're a: at worst a mile wide, b: only travel about 20-30 miles in most cases and c: even though they can have winds over 300mph, they pass by in a few minutes, as opposed to a hurricane which only has 150mph winds but is a couple of hundred miles across("Wilma, you bitch, go on a diet!") and takes hours to pass by. Although we've had ice storms and wind storms that took down lines and poles and left some people without power for more than a month.

In any case, we have heard from Hog-Boy, and he is well. Maybe we can get him a laurel wreath to wear, with a sign that says 'Pig Power'.