Guilty Gas Guzzler?

I pulled into the QuikTrip and found myself at least 10 cars away from an available gas pump. Although it was nightime, there was a neon glare all around me. The night was red from tailights, and it was dusky from the smell of gasoline.

I remember loving the smell of gasoline as a little girl, and being amazed, as I got older, to learn that some couldn't stand the odor.

After about 20 minutes of waiting in line - which I'm not complaining about given the news reports of hour long wait times - I approached the pump, unlike I had ever approached it before. The anticipation fo the smell of gasoline, that cheap thrill of odor anticipation that honestly has nothing to do with an addiction (I swear!), was, for the first time, clouded with guilt.

Why am I not finding more ways to conserve gas? Do I really need to fill up my car? Why not fill it to half a tank instead of a full tank? Is there any way I can utilize public transportation more?

Amidst a gas shortage, it appears that everyone, including myself, is not making any effort to conserve. I always thought it was a situation like this that would finally make us, as a society, more conscious about energy consumption, but it has not. And it will clearly take more. More, as in to completely run out of gas.

Maybe this is because we simply do not have good options. Our options are to 1) stay at home all the time 2) take public transportation, and of course, not all parts of Decatur/Atlanta have easy or even safe access to public transportation 3) ride a bike or 4) carpool.

I like all of these choices. Why can't we all just try and choose one? It's easy for me to say that I'm a resident and that because of my lifestyle and work hours, that I can't make any of these choices. But then, I guess all of us can come up with excuses. Maybe I'll work on choosing #4. I'll let you know how it goes. These are my very simple thoughts...

Hurricane Ike

The eyewall of Ike is pushing through, and I'm sitting in a hotel room in Washington DC. I think that when you're in a situation that's competely helpless, you try and exert as much control as you can. For me, right now, this takes the form of spending $11 to access WiFi and doing frantic searches on the internet to check the windspeeds of my parents home. And blogging.

Right now, the eye is passing over Galveston and Stephanie Abrams is speaking in front of stationery palm trees. I can barely see them moving.

I'm scared. My parents are out, which saves me a lot of worry, but I am thinking of my home. I love Houston. It's my home and it has brought me so much good in my life.

I don't even know what else to say. I think it's amazing that nature has created such an amazing storm called a Hurricane, that has so much power and fury, that humans, with all intellect and technology, is reduced to a mere four limbed creature that has to flee.

I can't believe this storm has hit where I am from. I have been somewhat fascinated by powerful weather all my life. At one point in high school, I wanted to be a meteorologist - I got 100's on countless Earth Science tests in high school (wasn't really that hard of a class though!). I grew up one of those really erally weird kids who liked to watch the weather channel. I've watched these weather dudes from all part of the country, report from the center of these storms. And now they're in my home and I'm feeling lost.

I would like to take a moment to recognize my former Baylor classmates, who are now residents, who are taking indefinitely long calls in the hospital until the storm passes, and to recognize those who will be relieving those who are riding out the storm in the hospital.