Power-less

So about 50% of my state is without power right now and I am going crazy. We lost power late Sunday night while I was on the phone with my collaborator trying to finalize a grant submission for a Mon deadline. It is still off and we are being told that it may be off until Sunday. All of this precipitated from the remains of hurricane Ike. We knew that it would be coming through, but we did not expect such high winds, nearly hurricane force (up to 80 mph), and pretty much everyone was taken unawares. I am a weather-fiend (love the Weather channel) and probably had about the best warning that anyone could have and was still shocked. Fortunately, my husband is from Florida and lived through hurricane Andrew, so our house is stocked with loads of bottled water, 3 mo of MREs (meals ready to eat), candles, batteries, flashlights (including handcrank), and radios at all times. I would encourage everyone to have supplies ready as these have been a great help.

The worst part of the whole thing isn't that I am without power, it is that I am without power. There is nothing that I can do to make the electricity come back on faster and I have no idea when it will return. My kids have been out of school (no power) for two days and it may go all week. My food is rotting in my refrigerator. I just got some dry ice for the freezer. I just feel so helpless.

We do have power at my university, so that is a blessing, and I have been able to take showers there (*and to get my proposal out on time*). But I am crazy busy and just don't need this. Well, if anyone knows how to string electric feel free to come on down.

To Federal Agencies: Please Give Me $$$

Not really sure what to write this week. It was pretty boring here. I am feverishly working on a grant for a Sept 15 deadline with a clinical collaborator who is crazy busy. We desperately need money so virtually all my efforts are going into grant writing. On a positive note, a local company is interested in collaboration and may give us some research $$, which will help, and I have drafts of our first two lab manuscripts sitting in my inbox, so a pretty good week, I guess. But truth is no matter how many papers I put out in the next few months, if more money doesn't come in we will be broke. Guess I should get back to writing.