That is a sort of what it sounded like at about 8am this morning in our backyard, there was some swearing that followed that as well.

The red mark is the aftermath of a tree limb thwacking me in the forehead this morning. The storm that blew through town last night and had us hunkered down in the guest bathroom has claimed one of the dead trees in the backyard. It had fallen over on the fence and I wanted to move it before it had a chance to sit there all day, potentially breaking the fence as they day went on.

The red mark was much more pronounced this morning, but I didn’t have a chance to mess with my laptop webcam until lunch.

BEFORE

As you can see the tree has fallen back onto the fence, those green leaves you see on the left are from a younger tree (maybe 2 years old) that got tangled up in the dead tree as it fell. I speculate that the younger tree’s limb was being thrown about by the strong winds into the dead tree and finally knocked it over.

You can also see, where the one root has been pulled up. From looks of it the tree twisted counter-clockwise while it fell as the root was actually sitting in the sort of dark line that starts at the left edge of the pic frame and moves on a jagged diagonal up to the hole where the tree once stood.

AFTER

I managed to push tree up and off the fence and push it towards the shed. The picture below that is of the empty hole and what remains of the stump in that hole. (additional tree pics)

I will need to grease up the chain saw and cut this bad boy into much smaller pieces, bundle it all up and leave it on the curb this weekend. I hope that I can get it done early in the morning, else I might die, given that it is supposed to be 100+ degree out this weekend.

Back to the grind.

Laterz

bdbenner nature cedar park, fallen tree, storms, wind damage

The tough economy hit home this week, there were some layoffs in the office this past Wednesday. I won’t get into the particulars, but needless to say I will definitely miss a couple of the folks around the office. It is a tough fact of life and business.

At the previous company I managed to survive several, several rounds of layoffs. Early on, I could be heard on occasion responding to the question of “What is your goal here?” with “To be the longest running Simplified employee.”

As it turned out, that was not the case. I was hired by my current employer before the rest of the folks that they hired out of Simplified. But in regards to my immediate department, I was the last. I have to say that the week has been a bit of a blah one. I fairly certain that I will be back to my normal self next week.

On a side note, Gina and I were out shopping (oblivous to the BAD storm that was rolling into the area) and were suprised that the store was closing at 8pm. Normally shops are open to 9pms on weekdays. One of the other shoppers was also QUITE surprised as well and inquired as to when this change (and subtley asking WHY).

So rather than cut staff, the retail chain took the approach of closing all the stores an hour earlier. While the folks that get paid hourly will feel the crunch in their paycheck, the positive aspect is that they are still receiving a paycheck.

I really need to do a longer post on this, definitely will as I get more details, but I am going to be volunteering my time with TechRanch as they help to promote Entreprenurship in Cedar Park. I am excited (and a little nervous) about the opportunity, I definitely will have the chance to learn some new tricks and finally get out and about into the community. I also volunteered to be the Volunteer Team lead for the upcoming ProductCamp:Austin.

Ok, well looks like it might be safe to vacate the bathroom (storm has died down).

Keep you posted.

laterz

bdbenner economy cedar park, economics, layoffs, produt camp, storm, tech ranch

So the weather here in Cedar Park is no bueno at the moment.

Gina has rounded up all the animals, the two rabbits (Nortbert and Zoe), the bird (Jasper) and the pups (Buddy, Emma, Curly and Basil). To be honest, the guest bathroom is feeling a bit like Noah’s ark. We heard some nasty sounding hail about 10 minutes ago. We had a quick dip in the power for a second, not enough for everything to actually go dark.

The radar is showing that there is likely a funnel cloud up there in the general area, hence the fact that we have hunkered down in the bathroom (being the interior room with no windows). I am going to contact a roofer after this and see if the roof has been damaged.

The radio just made an announcement about the storm, from the sound of the announcement the storm is south of us now. I just checked the Weather Underground and it looks like the storm is pretty much south of us right now.

We are going to hang out for at least another 20 minutes and then see venture out, see if there is any damage. All the animals are taking the little field trip here fairly well, with the exception of Basil who is always a little tweaked.

bdbenner weather animals, cedar park, weather