Some of my friends won’t be able to read this blog post because they are still without power in parts of Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C. The storm that killed our power fueled this post, which I’m calling the “weather driven weekend.” Friday night, a storm called a derecho (which is actually a series of quick-moving, intense thunderstorms) blasted the DC area, knocking out power for an estimated 1.4 Million residents. Losing power at our house means more than just being inconvenienced and not being able to play the Wii, catch up on True Blood, or do some online gaming. Our house is on well water, so no power means no well pump, means no running water.
The storm came through late enough Friday that it was no big deal, so I gave the Virginia power folks the night and went to bed. On Saturday morning, power was still out, and so was phone service. Since we had a JWP show scheduled that day, I needed to get a hold of people, and check on my parents who live nearby. They had power and everything, so after a lot of emails and a few people driving around, we found out the show was on…in a heat index of 104.
The show was a private party for a local business owner, and it was a blast. Despite the heat, they kept us under some of the 10×15 soccer tents and we had fans and plenty of water. I can think of a few shows where we played a little better, but all things considered, it was a fun jam, and the party goers and the kids had fun.
After that, I got the good news that power was back on in our neighborhood. That’s good, because 3 of our 4 cats were inside, and the new kitten manages to get under the others’ nerves pretty quick. I got home. Danny and I loaded out all the gear from the show, and then I showered and hit the road. My destination: The Beach! Where family was waiting.
The drive down was interesting. Occasional storms and lightning strikes were rampant all the way down, with trees down on several occasions. To further the atmosphere, I was listening to Sirius XM Radio’s old-time radio channel, Radio Classics. This week, the channel was celebrating the birth week of Peter Lorre, the creepy actor known for appearances in “Casablanca”, “The Maltese Falcon”, “M”, and “The Man Who Knew Too Much”. Lorre was a talented radio voice also, known for his maniacal laugh and crazy demeanor. He was the star of a series called “Mystery in the Air”, which was being broadcast while I drove through the lightning storms. Naturally, I had to take some video.
So, I went from blackout to lightning storms with an all-time creepy radio announcer to…The Beach! I arrived early Sunday morning, and enjoyed the day with my family soaking up the sun, tossing the football, and eating some really good seafood. All in all, it was an interesting weekend that hit a whole bunch of different extremes, thanks to the weather. Click on the links in the post to check out some of these extremes.
One love,
nK
