Thank you, Crystal. It's very kind of you to say that!

That's right, Crystal. I didn't play that game where you borrow against equity to pay the mortgage but I did do quite well turning around houses until I had enough to buy the house I have now.

That's good to hear, Bucky!

You might be amused to know that even now they are still cleaning up the debris after Ike. At least the stoplights are working now.

Darn, I think they've even managed to remove the damaged awning I saw here shortly after the storm.

Everyone had little stacks of branches and leaves at the curb right after the storm, but even those are gone now (or are mixed with the normal fall leaves for pickup). The two really badly damaged nearby trees have had their damaged parts cut out and hauled away, and the related property damage has been repaired.

Down here, it's just a matter of the sheer volume of stuff that has to be done. A boat dealer down on NASA Road One that I drive by every day was completely wrecked by all the boats that were dropped on their building. My guess is that the storm surge lifted the boats and the wind piled them up against the bank of Clear Lake.

The roofers still need to fix quite few roofs that are still covered with blue tarps and one house in my neighborhood had to be gutted. Other than that, it's mostly just stumps and tree trunks with the occasional brush pile.

I can imagine that Greg with the water lifting the boats and they crash down on the boat dealers place. I hope they had insurance. Do you know them?

No, I don't know them. I don't own a boat. Once upon a time I bought a truck configured so that it could tow a boat, but after I bought the truck, I couldn't afford a boat! :laugh:

Its good they're getting things cleaned up though!! We don't own a boat right now but Jeff thought we might get a bass boat. We already got the truck.

I noticed that Jeff has a trailer hitch but I never thought to ask why.

That's to tie up the people who hit on his wife...

Angelita, he's got a trailer hitch. Don't hit on Crystal either!

I have a trailer hitch on my ol' Taurus, too, but I never thought of it as dangerous! :laugh:

hehe I have one too :) on my contour:laugh:

In my case, the trailer hitch is there to tow a U-Haul trailer. It's an artifact from a previous cross-country move. I'd probably use it to tow a boat but (a) I can't afford a boat and (b) I haven't been successful in getting Melva interested in boats.

Of course a trailer hitch is dangerous. Imagine Jeff driving around with some idjit tied to it.

This is getting to be a big gruesome, y'know. Maybe we could find something more pleasant to talk about.

Yeah Jeff would never do that.

So... does anybody around here own a boat?

No but we talk about it alot!

I think the important lesson learned from my experience is to figure out how much the whole package will cost--boat, trailer, and towing vehicle--before committing to any part of it.