"Batten Down The Hatches Captain..."

...And Full Speed Ahead...


I'm sitting here in the dark in my basement shop this evening working on the Old HP Laptop computer running on batteries...

by the light of a flashlight...

...fortunately with the internet Cable modem and router powered by my UPS in the upstairs office.

Right now I'm surrounded by a puddle of water about 1" deep in places around my feet.

You see, we have been POUNDED not once...but TWICE this evening with powerful thunderstorms which I'm sure at one time or other each contained a tornado, and while we missed the tornadic winds we did get excellent examples of pingpong ball to golf ball sized hail for five or ten minutes in each storm.

Then the second storm finally managed to inundate my gutters with torn leaves and other debris, and pile a two foot high dam of hailstones up against my basement door causing my floor drain to stop up and inundate half of my basement including my shop and storage area with about an inch of standing water in some places.

Now the problem is that there is more rain I can see coming on the internet radar, but it's still raining and lightening so much I'm afraid to go outside and try to stand on a ladder and to clear the gutters in the dark.

Maybe I'll get a new shingled roof out of this adventure, else go the path I'm taking with my bank and fire the insurance company and find someone that actually gives a damn in the process.

I knew I should have been working on the roof cleaning gutters rather than chasing a lawn tiller around the back yard last weekend.

Am I getting too old for this crap, or is it just me being lazy?