A homebuilder's observation of the US hurricane season to date

Being a "weatherholic" I've watched hurricane Harvey and Irma coverage wall-to-wall.  The builder in me quickly picked up on the fact that the buildings on the Texas coast fared much worse than the buildings in Florida, at least those built after the building code changes prompted by hurricane Andrew in 1992.  It just goes to show that we CAN build homes that will stand up well to storms, short of storms of absolutely Biblical proportions, if we'll just embrace building codes as friends and not foes to be stonewalled.

The fact is, the prevalent mindset of most builders (in Texas at least) is to lobby against stricter codes as they cost money, and builders would rather spend money on shiny amenities like granite and stainless steel to entice buyers than on structural integrity.  "Sell the sizzle, not the steak" they say.  They do this because homebuyers are influenced by Pinterest and Houzz and other online sites, and "pretties" are all they care about.

It's increasingly rare to find an informed buyer who understands that if his/her house has a foundation broken in half, or is spread out in pieces over half the county after a storm, having pretty granite and stainless steel are meaningless.  This is how shallow we've become.

And zoning....how were places like Marco Island, FL, with a population of 18,000 and an elevation of 0, that's ZERO, ever allowed to be developed?  Politics!  With the availability of Federal Flood Insurance there's really little downside to the flooding they're now seeing there with hurricane Irma.  The city/county expanded their tax base dramatically, and developers and builders made bank.  Sure, homeowners will have to deal with the hassle of making claims and doing clean up, but they will eventually be made whole.

You do realize Federal Flood Insurance means the taxpayers are potentially on the hook for this, right?  Older developments already there, and in other coastal cities, sure, they should be extended Federal Flood Insurance, but why should we knowingly approve zoning for new developments, especially high-end luxury developments catering to the wealthy, that we KNOW will flood? It's really pretty easy to foresee using modern hydrological mapping.

My point is, much of the damage we're seeing now is caused by poor planning as much as by Mother Nature.  We should have known better.

S

The world's most expensive sauce pan

Our old pots and pans, or as K calls them, our "cookware", were pretty much crap.  We had been talking about buying some good quality replacements, but it seemed to just stay on our (my) back burner.  Until yesterday.

We received one of Bed, Bath, and Beyond's coupons in the mail and figured we'd might as well take advantage of it....20% off is nothing to sneeze at.

 

See that sauce pan on the right, above the griddle?  I went in thinking we'd just buy that for a start, but instead we came out with the whole set.

But wait....there's MORE!

They had a special promo going on:  if you buy enough Calphalon products they give you (maybe "give" is the wrong word) a $50 gift card, too.  20% off PLUS $50.  Sweet!

But looking back on our shopping experience I think I came up on the short end.  I mean, K got some new pots and pans cookware AND a $50 gift card, but she wouldn't let me buy anything I wanted. 

K made me put her back.  How fair is that?  *pout*

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I read an interesting article in the paper that said yellow, orange, teal, and green cars, in that order, had the highest resale values, on average about $1,500 more than similar cars in the more common white (21% market share), black (19%), gray (17%) or silver (15%) colors.

 

Maybe by the time I buy my next car (no time soon) VW will bring back their Fahrenheit Edition GTI.  I dunno....you think it would be a cop magnet?  The last thing I need is to drive a cop magnet.  I thought it interesting that red wasn't on either list.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I did NOT see this coming!

We had a gray drizzly day yesterday, which was rather nice as it kept the temps down.  But last night when I took the dog out the skies were clear.  I just assumed (yes, I know) that we were back to "hot and dry".

Instead, this ^ is what I woke up to.  Yikes!  No complaints here....we desperately need the rain.

It's been pretty intense so far this morning.  Lightning, thunder, 60-70 mph winds....luckily I had just enough warning to get my outdoor furniture safely inside.

We're currently under Stage 3 water restrictions:  Lawn watering only one day every other week, limits on car washing, swimming pool filling, etc.  And it's just the START of summer.  

They say unless we get lots of rain soon we'll go to Stage 4 restrictions....no lawn watering at all.  Imagine how this will impact lawn maintenance crews, landscape contractors, car washes, etc.

Meanwhile, less than 100 miles south it's flooding.  Go figure.

S

Do I dare hope?....and a good Thursday giggle, too.

While we can argue until the cows come home about the causes of climate change, I think we can all agree the climate IS changing.  Unless you've been holed up in mama's basement since the Clinton administration without access to a window, you know something isn't right.

Right now, for example, it's already hot and dry....very un-spring-like....in the west.  The weatherguessers say the wildfire season might start early; the ingredients are already in place.

And right here where I am near Dallas the temps are dropping like a rock, with wind chills expected to be in the upper-teens on Friday morning.  It could be worse*....our cold goes right up America's mid-section bringing record snows further north on May 1!  What the....?  And for those in the south and east....man the sandbags....it's flooding.

     *I'm not complaining.  I can always slip on jeans and a jacket and be toasty.  I'm lovin' this last bit of cool weather!

Always trying to put lipstick on a pig, here's what I'm selfishly hoping for:  Where Texas summers are usually unbearably HOT (all caps), I'm hoping this summer might be abnormally cool.  This would be right in character with the upside-down weather we've had recently.  Do I dare hope?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Have y'all seen this new Kmart ad announcing their free shipping?  To some it's offensive, to me it's just freakin' hilarious.  You decide:

With that, I'll let you get on with your business.  ;)

S