Hurricane Ike Update #1

Welcome to my site! I'm Lach Mullen, and I'm glad to see you here. Please feel free to click around, read what you will, check the "About Lach" page, and leave a comment or message. I'm so glad you're here! If you have any ideas of suggestions, let me know!

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Hurricane Ike status update

Hi friends and family! As you know, Hurricane Ike is presently set to make landfall here in Houston sometime Friday night / Saturday morning.

At this time, mandatory evacuations have been ordered for much of the city, but Kari ad I are safely outside the surge zone, and out of a flood area. We are subject to the wind and rain however, and are preparing for infrastructure loss. We can’t do much during the storm, but we have duct-tape and tarp for covering windows afterwords if needed.

We have friends we can stay with as needed, and I can work from TranStar once we lose power/connectivity.

Just be warned that our cell phones are already acting up, and we’ll probably leave them powered off to conserve battery life for when we may need it.

To get more information about us, keep coming back here. To get more info about the storm, check out the links below:

StormPulse
Weather Underground
Harris County Office of Emergency Management
CW 39 (Video Clips)

Keep us in your prayers!

Hurricane Ike

I’m nervous, and watching this thing closely…

Genesis 3 - The Fall of Mullens

The Craigslist Scammer tricks the woman into riding a Chinese scooter, which she gives to her husband, bringing sin and scooter death unto the world.

Genesis 3

1 Now the Craigslist Scammer was more cunning than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, “Yea, hath God said, ‘Ye shall not ride every scooter of Asia?’”

2 And the woman said unto the serpent, “We may ride the scooters of Asia, Honda, Yamaha, and Genuine Scooter Company, which the LORD God had made: (3) But of the scooter of Craigslist which is of China, God hath said, Ye shall not buy of it, neither shall ye ride it, lest it die.”

4 And the Craigslist Scammer said unto the woman, “It shall not surely die: (5) For God doth know that in the day ye ride thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing Chinese good. Ye shall possess disc brakes, remote start, and engineering similar to the Honda scooters, which the LORD God also had made.”

6 And when the woman saw that the Scooter was good for features, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a 150cc water-cooled engine to be desired to make one fast and quiet, she took of the scooter thereof, and did ride, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did buy it.

7 And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were foolish and broke; and they changed the fluids, and made themselves new gaskets.

8 And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garage in the dry afternoon: and Lach and Kari hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the cars of the garage. (9) And the LORD God called unto Lach, and said unto him, “Where art thou?” (10) And Lach said, “I heard thy voice in the garage, and I was afraid, because I was poor; and my feet are sore from walking.” (11) And God said, “Why were you walking from Montrose, Hast thou ridden the scooter, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not buy?” (12) And the man said, “The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the Craigslist Scammer, and I did buy the scooter.” (13) And the LORD God said unto the woman, “What is this that thou hast done?” And the woman said, “The Craigslist Scammer beguiled me, and I did ride.”

14 And the LORD God said unto the Craigslist Scammer, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all Craigslist, and above every angry blogger; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life: (15) And I will put enmity between thee and the Mullens, but you will not be punished in this life, because Christians aren’t to sue one another.”

16 Unto the woman he said, “I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy transportation; in sorrow thou shalt go to work; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, but he shall be without a vehicle.”

17 And unto Lach he said, “Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of Kari, and hast purchased the scooter of China, of which I commanded thee, saying, ‘Thou shalt not purchase of it:’ cursed is the pavement for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou walk of it all the days of thy life, upon thy four-wheeled contraptions shalt thou go, and gas shalt thou buy all the days of thy life. (18) Pollution also and gas prices shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt drive alone with three empty seats; (19) In the ache of thy muscles shalt thou walk home, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.

20 And Lach called his wife’s name Kari; because he had to carry everything wherever he walked now.

21 Unto Lach also and to his wife did the LORD God make Lance run well, and be inexpensive to repair.

22 And the LORD God said, “Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know Chinese good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the Japanese brands, and ride, and smile for ever:”

23 Therefore the LORD God sent the Mullens forth from Craigslist, to walk and drive the four wheeled vehicles.

24 So he drove out the man; and he placed at the top of his bank account zeroes, and a broken scooter which could not even be driven to the shop, to keep the way of the Japanese brands.

Abstinence is the only way… should we let nature run it’s course, or sell the fry?

Kari and I recently added to our fish family with 5 Platies (Xiphophorus maculatus [pic and details]). They’re bright colored goldfish-like critters, than like to hang out together and are livebearing fishes. That last part is key. I minsunderstood the pet store guy who said Swordtails (Xiphophorus hellerii [pic, no details]) are “male Platies.” While they’re similar to Platies (and the males are the ones with the sword tails), a male Platy does not have a sword tail. Shoot. Well, we brought home what we thought were a bunch of girl fish (we even call them “the girls”), and now one’s pregnant: evidently we have at least one male in that mix, and they had some little fishy “bow chika bow bow” in the dark corner of the crab’s cave (sounds dangerous to me).

The real problem here is that Platies give birth to between 10 and 100 young, and have a tendancy to eat their babies (yeah, I know they’re called “fry,” bite me) after giving birth. Our filter’s also not ready for babies, and there’s Gouramis and a Betta in the tank too, and I think they will be prone to devour the baby Platies. My attitude has always been “they’re just fish,” but now that they’re baby fish I’m having this huge moral quandary. On one hand nature is cruel, and the other fish would have an honest shot at eating the babies in the wild; on the other hand they’re babies for goodness’ sake!

I need your help, as a faithful reader of my blog (hi mom). Should I try to protect and raise the fry, or let nature run it’s course? If I choose option 2 (nature) should I get the tank ready for nature by putting a screen over the filter inlet? Vote below

[poll id="2"]

UPDATE: DARN IT ALL! Turns out we have 2 boys and 3 girls! Oh noes! Apparently you can sex Platies fairly easily: a male Platy has a skinny anal fin and a female Platy has a fanned anal fin. It might be my imagination, but I think I can already see the darkening spot above her anal fin that would be the fry’s eyes. I might be taking the boys back to the pet store to avoid this problem in the future…