hurricane, Hurricanes!

It's been a busy couple of days. Of course the big news has been Alberto, the hurricane that wasn't. Alberto has typified what it means to live in Florida in the latter half of the year. As of this weekend, Alberto was supposed to be nothing more than a mild tropical storm that did nothing more than bring much needed rain to an area that has been unusually dry and struggling with wild fires. Conditions quickly changed yesterday. In a matter of hours, Alberto's wind speed had increased to near hurricane strength. As I was walking to my car yesterday afternoon, I was surprised to see someone putting up plywood. I came home to find all of the 24 hour news networks talking about Alberto and the network news shows led their evening broadcasts with Alberto. Alberto, which had been poorly organized, was getting more organized and was certain to become a hurricane overnight. The good news was the storm track. The first predictions had Gainevsille squarely in the potential path. This was no concern if the storm remained a mild tropical strom. Fortunately, the storm track moved north as the storm intensified, making a direct hit on Gainesville less likely. However, many of the news shows had stationed their reporters in Cedar Key. This is a tourist island community about an hour southwest of Gainesville. Julie and I actually took a drive over there in the fall. Despite the change in the storm track, I was getting nervous. Throughout the evening, the rain and the wind were getting stronger, much like the other storms I've been through so far. By the time I went to bed, it had been raining for a couple of hours straight and was very strong with no signs of letting up. Everything had a really ominous feeling as I went to bed.
I was very surprised when I woke up. There was no rain, no wind and there was actually some sunshine breaking through the clouds. It seemed as if it was a typical morning following routine, overnight thunderstorms. According to the weather channel, the storm never reached hurricane status and had actually become disorganized and weakened from the night before. What a relief. Throughout the day, there were some quick squalls and some periodic strong gusts of wind. Gainesville hardly felt the effects other than a bunch of leaves on the ground and a few small, broken limbs. And I think most of the areas in the storm's path have fared well, other than some localized flooding. Of course, coastal areas have issues, even with a minor storm. But certainly no widespread damage.

There was another kind of storm brewing last night. The Miami Hurricane baseball team won a very exciting game to get to the College World Series. This was quite a surprise. Miami wasn't expected to do much in the playoffs this year. This is a team that got swept, AT HOME, by the Florida Gators early in the year. Florida ended up being the worst team in the SEC. Miami also lost 20 games in a season for the first time in many years. In fact, they have struggled with the move into the ACC for the last couple of years. Prior to the last two years, Miami was a baseball independent and did not have to play many games on the road and did not have to worry about a conference tournament at the end of the year. It has been quite an adjustment. But they got to the CWS anyway and it is quite an accomplishment. What is even more impressive is four of the eight teams in Omaha are from the ACC. That makes me feel a little better about the struggles in the ACC, knowing the ACC is a far superior baseball conference, at least for this year. And it also feels good that Miami beat Ole Miss, an SEC team, on the way to Omaha. Beating an SEC team always makes an accomplishment feel better.
The baseball game was a great end to my birthday. My family showed me extreme generosity, as always, and I had a lot of well-wishes. It felt really nice and I appreciate the attention.

Of course, all was not perfect yesterday. The U.S. soccer team got spanked by the Czechs, 3-0. Im not a soccer expert, so I can't really talk intelligently about the game. But it is hard to accept after all the hype. For several months, people have been talking about how much the team has improved. Well, they didn't live up to it and may be on their way to a repeat of 1998 (or worse, pulling a flop like France did in 2002, 0-3 with no goals scored). I would like to see soccer be more accepted in the U.S. and see our national team have some success on the international level. But laying an egg like they did yesterday will not accomplish these goals.