tim and lisa cocking

We survived our first real tropical storm. We ended up getting about eight inches of rain, which seems like a lot until you consider the areas just southeast of us that got 33 inches. We had some wet carpet but no serious problems with the house. The kids missed two days of their first week of school–ironically, the days of better weather for us. The worst days, they were in school. School districts are county-wide here which means that the powers that be have a pretty wide area to consider when closing schools. Orange county has about the same area as Oakland county. Metro Detroiters, can you imagine if Ferndale schools had to close every time Holly schools had a snow day? That’s what they do down here. Crazy.

I saw some of the walking catfish for myself. Let me tell you, those things are freaky! I didn’t see them close up, though. I was driving home from a rehearsal at about 10:30 last Thursday night and came across a whole bunch of them in the road near our house. I didn’t come across them literally, though–I was able to dodge them. Running over a fish seemed like it could be really gross, not to mention slippery. If you don’t believe us about the walking catfish, watch this:

An interesting bit of trivia: Fay was the first tropical storm ever to affect every county in Florida. So there.

Now we’re watching the next system, currently called tropical depression seven (probably soon to be tropical storm Gustav). It’s too far out to track very accurately at this point, but forecasters are saying it could follow the same basic track as Fay did. Great.

….and the rain is still coming down sideways! I’m going to start building an ark in the morning if it hasn’t stopped.

It has been wet and windy and probably will be for another day with the way this storm is tracking. But apart from losing power for a couple of minutes it’s been pretty much a non-event. It has made these guys appear in the streets.

Our friend counted 27 of them in the sub while jogging this morning.

This is from the channel 13 news:

The walking catfish uses its pectoral fin to shuffle up the street and can breathe out of water as long as it stays moist.

Dianna Fernandez maintains the lawns in the area and drove up on the incredible sight.

“I was, like, ‘No way, there’s fish in the street.’ And I kept going further and further, seeing fish everywhere. In driveways. I’ve never seen anything like it,”

Paul Shafland, a scientist with Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission said walking catfish can travel short distances on land as long as they stay moist.

“Scientists say these walking catfish are pretty tough. They actually live in storm drains, and when it rains a lot they come up with the water and start walking around the streets….”

It has been raining a lot! Apparently they are quite edible. Dinner tonight?

Not quite sure what to think about this. We’re not too nervous, but we’ve battened down the hatches as best we can. We still have a day or so to watch and see where she goes.

This video was from another mountain hike, though this one was more of a climb, and a climb for which we were woefully unprepared! The mountain in the opening shots is the one we are climbing. It’s pretty vertical for many stretches and has warnings at the bottom trying to keep anyone off that doesn’t have the right equipment and preparation.

Equipment would be little things like hiking boots in place of my tennis shoes which are basically slicks. Or enough water. Preparation would be things like adjusting to high altitude. Like I said we were woefully unprepared.

Three hours up I got sick. Quite sick. I had to leave the group to find a place to get sick. Then I didn’t know if the group was above me or had descended past me. I waited, still sick and now without any water. Oh, and I discovered that stinging nettles can cling to the rock face of mountains. I won’t tell you how I made that discovery, though it was very uncomfortable for the next couple of days. I decided, very foolishly I knew even at the time, that I had to get down off the mountain. So I descended slowly to a little waterfall that had a horizontal spot to rest. (That was when I took the video of the waterfall you’ll see) I had a little drink from the stream and waited then noticed the black clouds rolling over the summit above me and felt a couple drops. And then, basically, I panicked. I knew I’d never make it down in my slick shoes if it was wet. So I went down the rest of the way myself. I was really dehydrated and it took about two hours. They caught up to me right when I reached the bottom.

I didn’t get much video of the climb because it was just too technical to have the camera out. This guy made a good video that shows the climb
Some other dude’s video

WARNING - He’s says one bad word in it!

Anyway - I felt a bit better after getting down and we decided to take the cable car to the top. I was assured that they had ‘facilities’ at the top. And we were told that it was a 15 min wait at the top to come down (it was over an hour wait to go up).

So we got to the top and the altitude (surprise, surprise) got me again (or maybe it was the bear, deer and wild boar I ate the night before). No facilities. Mob scene at the cable car to get down. Took over three hours to get back off the mountain.

I have not had a day where I’ve felt that bad for so long in a long time!

So here’s the video. I shot so little footage that I decided to use slo-mo as an effect to fit the music, but mostly just because I didn’t have much to work with.

If you click the video, pause it and click the picture again you will see it in higher quality.

The music for the video is Song For Waiting by The OaKs