Hunker Down

To my son Tommy,

Well the storm is here and slowly picking up more and more.  TV and government officials telling everyone to stay inside and the phrase of the day is "Hunker Down".  The Downey's still surprisingly have power but I don't want to jinx anything, but I figured I'd post while we have power and internet.

The basement is more dry than I figured it would be at this point.  I guess some of the jury rigged water proofing worked.  Unfortunately we also found another place in the basement that is leaking and we have decided that we just have to have our basement torn up and redone and professionally waterproofed.  Hopefully we can scrape the funds for that soon.  We also found one attic window sill that is soaked and leaking and have to have that redone and the water damage fixed from that.  Owning a house is expensive and a pain in the rear.  They say it is an asset but when I took economics assets made you money and liabilities cost you money.  Thus a house that you live in is a liability and remains a liability except at the point you finally sell.  Some houses are bigger liabilities than others.

As I was typing before, we lost power.  Getting the generator running and hooking us up and the the neighbors too was kind of like a pig on roller skates but we got it done.  This storm reminds me of hot sauce.  When you take your first taste of a killer hot sauce you say, "It's not so bad" and then it grows and gets worse and grows and worsens.  You were a bit scared and kept apologizing for turning off the lights.  So we sat there and read four books by flashlight and that calmed you down.  Surprisingly we got electric back a couple minutes ago.  Glad to have the extra linemen out there working hard and risking life and limb and fighting the extreme weather for our behalf.  We pray for them and we pray for us, the rest of our family, our neighbors and friends, and all those in the track of this storm.  Going to be another hairy 24 hours, hopefully I will post when we are done hunkering down.

Sincerely with love from your dad,
Leo