EmmonsNet

Even though the official start of the 2009 Hurricane Season is still a few days away, it looks like the Atlantic just had to jump the gun.

We now have a first tropical depression.  These depressions, if they get organized, have the potential to turn into tropical storms and hurricanes when the conditions are right.

The National Hurricane Center gives this first depression of the season and incredible small chance of developing any further. Even if it did, it is not predicted to make landfall anywhere in North America. Good news for us land lubbers, but not so good news for anybody who works on any patch of sea within the 'cone of uncertainty'. You sailors better have your rain gear ready.

I grew up watching Star Trek and I watched most of their series and movies that have came out since. But, I don't think that defines me as a 'trekkie'. I never created my own trek costume, spent money on a 'technical manuals' for a spaceship that does not exist or salivated like dog when William Shatner walked out onto stage.

I have friends that are trekkies. They are some of the brightest and warm people that I know. My life has been the better for knowing them. It's just that sometimes, I just don't get them.

I have always loved science fiction movies, books and TV shows, especially Star Trek. To me it's great entertainment and in some ways, the inspiration for the career that I have today. But it's not a lifestyle for me. It's not the social glue that bonds me to many of my friends. It does not hold such a close piece of real estate in my heart that I am offended or insulted when a particular trek episode or movie was poorly written or just so bad that Bruce Campbell would walk away saying, 'Now that was a big steaming pile of poop'.

I just don't understand the need to engage in the idolatry that surrounds the original crew of the Enterprise. I don't care if George Takai likes men and I did not cate when William Shatner did not get an invite to George's wedding. I did not shed a tear when James Doohan past away. I have never learned a word of Klingon and it hurts when I try to split my fingers the way Leonard Nimoy did whenever he said 'Live long and prosper'.

I watch the shows and movies simply because I am entertained by them - it's fun. Not a religion or way of life.

Fun is what I wanted to have when I payed ten bucks to see this latest Star Trek movie. And, fun is what I had. I walked out of the theater feeling like I had received my money's worth. I can't help feeling that some of my trekkie friends set themselves up to feel like they got ripped off holding onto the expectations that this movie would be a complete mirror image of the original Trek and it's crew.

At the risk of offending my dear trekkie friends: The original Captain Kirk is old and bloated. Scotty and Bones are dead. Sulu is gay. Hollywood has always owned those characters will do whatever it wants with them.

It's time to move on and learn how to have some fun if you are going to pay for it.

If you live in South Florida or the Gulf South, then you are aware of the significance of the dates June 1st and November 30th. Those happen to be the dates the mark the official beginning and end of hurricane season in the Atlantic Ocean.

Being just over halfway through the month of May and I a have compiled my list of hurricane supplies. It's something I learned to do over twenty years ago when I started living so near the Gulf of Mexico in Lousisiana. In the years since I became a real procrastenator about gathering my supplies. I usually waited until a storm was less than forty eight hours from landfall before I got all the batteries, water, non-perishable foods, first aid kits, candles, gasoline, etc.

On this issue, I no longer have the luxury of being a slacker until the last minute. Being a father - I now think about the well being of my two children and their mother.

When Hurricane Wilma knocked all of here in Broward County FL back to the stone age for two weeks, it was my wake up call. We made it through alright - but it was far from easy. As a father I won't be letting that happen again.

So this week I will be walking into the local wholesale club and pushing out carts of supplies. Sure, it will cost me a few bucks to bring all this home and store it in the closet. But, I sure don't want to pay the price for not being prepared again.

If you live in Florida or within a hundred miles of water near the Gulf South, then you really might want to making sure you have the following list of items and enough of them to last for two weeks if needed.

If anybody knows who and what Google is, they probably think that the monster of internet search and web technology is miles ahead of everybody else.

While in the market of internet search, that may be true - but as far as a more down to earth application of green techniques to manage the local environment they lag miles and millennia behind the rest of humanity.

I just read a blog entry about the big G's new fangled endeavor to handle yard work in a more environmentally friendly manner.  It turns out that the powers that be at their Mountain View headquarters hate the idea of listening to the mechanical droning of lawn mowers while they burn gasoline to chop away at the overgrown acreage. So they elected to have goats trucked in and set loose with their ravenous appetites and iron guts upon the brush and weeds.

People all over the web are applauding Google for taking this environmentally chummy solution. Google fan bois and girlz are drooling all over themselves to get their own personal goats to usurp the John Deer they keep in the garage to drive over the neatly short patch of sod in front of the suburban homes.

Well, not that I am trying to pee in their pools here, but I have to tell you that on this one Google is far behind my family and millions of other families .