Holy gale force winds batman! I woke up friday morning to what sounded like hail hitting my window. I threw on my glasses and looked out to see the tree in front of Kate's apartment bent over at a 90 degree angle and the roof panels of the house next door tearing off. It sounded like a freight train was coming through. Figuring it was just a quick front passing through I climbed back in bed but it wouldn't stop. I tried working on my computer for 30 minutes before the power started to flicker killing my computer. Everytime the power would go back on our electronic dartboard would go off blaring electronic trumpets! While the dart board was going off I got a call from Professor Yang Shen at URI saying I had full funding for next fall. Yeah! - although I could barely hear him over the damn dart board!
I decided to drive to my parents and Glens Falls for a much needed haircut... bad idea.... the wind was so bad on the Northway trucks were pulling over, and I was almost getting blown off the road. I counted about 40 trees down along the Northway on my way. When I got to 19 there was a long line of traffic because the signal had gone out so I kept going to exit 20... where there was a huge pine tree down across all 3 lanes, so I had to wait there. Glen Lake Road was closed off as well. I barely made it down 149 and onto Bay road to go the long way around to Tee Hill. When I got to my parents it looked like a hurricane had come through, branches everywhere and the pool fence destroyed. I looked up the street and could see a tree had taken out the transformer by the Britton's. Amazingly my parents still had power. I walked around the back yard to take 
pictures and as soon as I had come in half of our giant pine tree in the backyard broke off and crushed the bird feeder I had just walked under! I made the trip to A Cut Above to see if they had power but they didn't. When I got home I walked out to pick up the pool fence panels by the road and saw a large pine tree snap at the base and fall over the south entrance of Sherwood Acres, slicing through the power lines. Unfortunately for me those powerlines were also the ones directly above my head that started to fall on top of me so I quickly jumped out of the way. 
Thankfully they only sagged a deal and actually didn't land on my head! So now both the south and north directions out of Sherwood Acres were blocked off by downed trees and yet... my parents still had power for some reason. Wierd... While outside NIMO workers were asking me how the hell to get out of there and I heard that most of the major roads in the area were closed due to downed trees. The wind just wouldn't stop! I watched as a bearded man who looked like Santa Claus chainsawed the tree apart before a large front end loader pushed it out of the road. It had crushed our neighbors garbage can but missed his mailbox by less than a foot. When I walked back into the house the power was finally off and stayed off for the next 4 hours. We ordered Chinese and I picked it up (waiting in a line of almost 20 people desperate for food as well). As we ate it my parents power went back on and stayed on.
After dinner I drove back to Toga to find my apartment pitch black. You'd think that living with 
people that smoke I'd find a lighter... nope. I had to dig around to find an old pack of Coach House matches I'd saved. Then I used all of Josh & Jess's romantic V-Day candles to light the place. Josh and Jess came home soon after and Mike stopped by. I called my mom to have her look up the news online and was shocked to hear the damage - tornadoes touching down, 100mph winds at the
airport, most of warren and saratoga county without power and reports saying that power wouldn't be back to most until monday night!!! What was 
going on!! Rick showed up around 11 and Megan showed up shortly after. Mike and I made a desperate trip for beer to the only place open - Price Chopper and picked up some delicious Newcastle. We then had a little "lights out" party by candle light. Mike had brought over his portable speaker so combined with my ipod we even had music to listen to. We remembered Rick 
had brought over his portable grill earlier in the summer so we set it up in the kitchen and I put on some delicious steaks. Although the kitchen and
apartment smelled like meat - sorry Josh - the grill helped to keep the heat in (today was to be the coldest day in the winter). We played cards for a bit and
drank ourselves silly in the darkness. Check out the picture of Jessica - Dahli Lhama? Rick crashed on 
the couch with about 8
blankets and I pulled out my 20 degree bag for myself to keep warm. The apartment held the heat well and only got to about 56 degrees before the power came at 11am this morning. What a crazy 24 hours! Hopefully the power will stay on.
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