D. Lee Jackson

Words and Music

Tornado Wrap-Up, Plus Health Slightly on the Uptick

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This will be one of my last posts about the tornado outbreak that hit North Texas the day after Christmas, 2015, including the deadly EF-4 that hit near our neighborhood in Garland and continued on into Rowlett. According to a report posted on the CBSDFW website, the bulldozers are about to move in for at least one business damaged beyond repair—that business being a storage complex. From my point of view, this marks the beginning of the serious clean-up. Crews have gone through the damaged areas, are wrapping up their determination of what can be repaired and what must be condemned to demolition, and are about to signal the beginning of the tear-down phase. (Those who were directly affected by the tornado may have a different point of view—please Contact me and correct me if I’m wrong about this.)

My heart goes out to anyone affected by the storm, whether you merely lost power, had your property totally destroyed, or lost loved ones. We choose to live with these risks when we move to the area (or when we decide to stay put, for that matter). Everyone in “Tornado Alley” is at risk, and our city learned that lesson first-hand on the day after Christmas. I sincerely hope no one decides that we need another seminar.

In other news, I believe the Augmentin has finally kicked in. I’ve managed to do some real writing over the past two days, something I was unable to do for most of the previous week. I say this in hopes that the medicine has finished its job, since I took my last horse-tablet of it tonight. 😉

Questions? Comments? Please feel free to use the Contact page!

Tornado Death Toll Rises

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According to a report on the local NBC affiliate’s web site, the death toll from the post-Christmas Day North Texas tornadoes now stands at 13. The latest report comes from Rowlett, a city that was struck by the same EF-4 tornado that killed eight people on a main highway interchange in Garland. Rowlett Mayor Todd Gottel has now confirmed that a person who had been pulled from the rubble left by the storm in his city died in Dallas’s Parkland Hospital last week.

I hope that this is the last fatality to be connected to the December 26 outbreak. Who knows how many others are still recuperating from injuries they sustained? No official count has been released on that figure—at least, not one that I can find. I can only hope that their conditions all improve.

Makes my ongoing sinus infection pale by comparison. I freely admit this.

Questions? Comments? Please feel free to use the Contact page.

Still Here, Still Sick, but Cats Found

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I’m still fighting off the sinus infection that I was diagnosed with on Tuesday. I guess I didn’t catch it early enough on in order to knock it out quickly. Usually, I feel better after a couple of days on Augmentin. Not this time—I feel well and truly bleh, and the pain medicine I was given for it isn’t helping much.

At least my wife has had better luck. Her group, Garland Pawsibilities, has finally rounded up the last missing cat from the apartment complex that was destroyed by the post-Christmas Garland EF-4 tornado. She was ecstatic when she got the call that “Tiger Sue” had finally been trapped. I got a very happy phone call from her immediately afterward.

They’ve now switched back to more-or-less normal operations at Garland Pawsibilities, but now they need help to replace some of the supplies that went into their massive effort. If you can spare some change, please click on the link in the previous paragraph and donate what you can.

In the meantime, I’m headed back to bed. Kindly leave any comments or questions on the Contact page. Thank you for reading!

More Writing, More Cats

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I’m starting to get a couple of reviews of chapters from book two of my science fiction series on Scribophile, and I’m happy to say they’re better than the first few reviews that I got from book one. 😉  Mind you, book one has been through seven revisions, so IMHO it’s now at the same (if not better) quality level as book two. I simply have a head start, skill-wise, when it comes to constructing a new novel now.

In other news, Garland Pawsibilities reported that they finally caught the cat mentioned in my last post and reunited it with its owner. My wife’s first thought? “Yay, we’re done!”

Not so fast. More reports are coming in of owners without their cats and of cats with no owners. She may have to go out any do more trapping. Rain is coming into the D/FW Metroplex, so it might be more difficult this time. I don’t know—they could wait until Friday, when a break in the rain is forecast.

Questions? Comments? Please feel free to use the Contact page!