Hurricane Ike, at last

The big story in Texas, and of interest across the land, was Hurricane Ike, which finally made landfall (right into Galveston) around 2:00 am on Saturday morning. It was a Category 2, strong but not dreadnought, but the sheer size of the thing made it very dangerous -- the ocean swell was huge, both due to Ike's size and how long it had been poking along over the Gulf of Mexico.

It's breaking up now, as always happens once these things reach land.

Austin was reasonably well prepared -- plenty of evacuees from the coastal regions in town. Schools let out early on Friday, which I thought was an overreaction but not badly so. I never expected us to get more than wind and rain on Saturday.

Wind, we got -- nothing lashing, just consistent blowing all day, the trees shaking continuously.

But rain? Ha! It was to laff! Not a drop, though we were overcast most of the day. On toward evening, the clouds began breaking up, and we enjoyed the nearly-full moon for a while.

About 20 minutes ago, 11:30-ish pm, the rains finally fell, a good soaking but not fierce. I'm not even sure if this was some lagging outskirts of Ike, or a completely separate system, as rains are falling all over.

So glad I finally got the lawn cut.