36 Hours and counting...

Well, in less than 36 hours I should be on a jet and on my way to Beijing. At the moment there are a couple of hurricanes (Hanna and Ike) in the Atlantic that could delay my departure from Florida on Thursday morning, but I feel like I'm going to get out of town before they arrive. Hurricanes seem to plan their South Florida attacks around my international travels... Back in 2004, I was 2 days away from leaving for Athens for the Paralympic's when hurricane Francis blasted into my area, damaged my house, and delayed my departure by 3 days. If that wasn't enough, about 16 days later while I was still in Greece, I got word that hurricane Jeanne came ashore just north of my area and further damaged my house. When I got home I had no power for about 2 weeks, and spent the next 12 months doing repairs and renovations. After living in Florida for 15 years at that point, I figured my area was good for another 20 years or so.

Back in October of 2005, I jet off to Middlefart, Denmark for the European Wheelchair Rugby Championships. A few days before I'm to fly home I get word from someone that there is a category 4 hurricane tracking towards my area. Yea right, very funny, ha ha... "No seriously, check the web!" So I do, and sure enough there it is, hurricane Wilma barreling towards South Florida. Oh Crap, it will miss us, it's got to!! Long story short, Wilma (thanks Bob) hit 50 miles north of where I live as a category 2 on the day that I was supposed to arrive home. As a result I had to stay in Atlanta for a day and night, then fly into Orlando, which is 2.5 hours north of where I live (S. FL airports were all closed). Fortunately when I finally got home my new roof held up to most of the wind, and the damage that I did have wasn't worth filing an insurance claim for.

Okay, so here it is 3 years later and I'm teasing the weather gods again as I prepare to leave the USA. If all goes well, I'll arrive in Beijing about 2PM (China time) on Friday, September 5th, and then once I recover from the flight I'll try to do regular updates to this blog. Until then, keep an eye on the Atlantic while I'm away, and if by chance a hurricane does hit my house while I'm gone, keep it to yourself.