408 - Bob Dylan - Time Out of Mind

I still haven't had a moment while listening to Bob Dylan that has made me go - "NOW I get it! He really IS a genius!" If Clapton's 461 Ocean Boulevard was polished blues for a backyard get together, then Time Out of Mind is what that person listens to when it's rainy and his friends can't come over. The album is slow and plodding. The atmosphere is great at showcasing the loneliness of the songs, but over the course of the album, it became too monotonous. Just when I got tired of the songs, what happens? Bob goes into a 16:30 song utilizing the same riffs and story-telling style of vocal delivery that had already made many of the songs sound the same to me. Way to hammer in what I disliked about the album by the final track, Bob.

There are songs on the album that I enjoyed, but I occasionally thought I'd like more it if the instrumentation was quirkier and was performed by Tom Waits. I can see how this album was a nice present to Dylan fans that had become frustrated with his more recent albums. But I don't see how this album will woo non-Dylan fans into the fold.

Songs I knew I liked: None.

Songs I didn't know but now like: "Love Sick," "Standing in the Doorway," and "Make You Feel My Love"

Songs I can go the rest of my life without hearing again: "Highlands" (the 16 minute song lamented above)

Eventful past week

Last Wednesday morning I was up early because the weather radio was sending out alerts like crazy overnight and throughout the day. Things were seemingly going well. None of the tornadoes seemed aimed for the south side of town. They were all going to the north of us or really far south.

But you don't have to get hit directly to be affected. Around 5:20pm last Wednesday, a storm/tornado finally made a big, wide-reaching impact. The line of external power to the local nuclear plant and the three main lines that run from the plant to the various cities of North Alabama were knocked out. As in...the HUGE metal towers were now scrap. Essentially power between Florence (in NW AL) all the way across the northern portion of the state to the Georgia border was knocked out. The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) would have to completely rebuild the towers for those three feed lines before anyone in the north portion of the state could get power.

There was one exception to this. A town just north of the plant (for some reason) has a direct power link to the plant and their electricity was still flowing. Come Thursday, Athens, Alabama was the hub of emergency commerce. It was the only city that citizens of Huntsville, Decatur, and their surrounding metro areas could go for gas and other supplies.

On Thursday, JD and I weren't certain how long the power was going to be off. What we learned via FB and the radio was it would be somewhere between 2 and 7 days before TVA could build replacement towers to send power to the cities and then have the power restored to our house. We decided to go ahead and trash all of the food that we didn't think we could keep cool or wouldn't otherwise use in the next 3 days. We threw as much of the meat and other frozen items we could into a cooler, packed up suitcases with 4 or 5 days worth of clothes, and headed to JD's parents' house. They didn't have power, but they have a gas stove and a propane grill. Thursday was spent making that move and doing our best to make certain nothing was on or going to spoil or stink if we were out of our house for 3+ days.

My fil and I were already scheduled to attend a learning conference in Nashville on Saturday. I had planned on staying Friday night with my brother. With the power outage, my fil decided that he was willing to pay for two hotel rooms for a couple of nights so we could all go to Nashville. On Friday morning, a couple of nearby gas stations got generators and were pumping gas...for those willing to wait 45+ minutes in line. I ensured I had enough gas to get into TN and returned home to pack up the family.

We spent Friday afternoon through Sunday afternoon in Nashville. Shortlegs got to see us for a few hours each day we were there. While I and my fil were at the conference on Saturday, JD and my mil took the kids to the zoo. On Sunday, we visited the kids science center. We returned to Huntsville just before sunset on Sunday. News was that power from TVA was starting to flow and that it should be available to residences some time Tuesday afternoon.

However...around 9pm, the power came on at my in-law's house. Yeah, it was quite a surprise and we kept expecting the power to go back off. But it didn't. As I lay on the floor browsing the internet Sunday night, I started to see little announcements that the president was planning on addressing America on TV. It didn't take long for word that it was an announcement of Osama Bin Laden's death to get out. I walked to the steps, saw my in-laws were in bed reading and let them know of the situation. My fil came downstairs and joined me in waiting for and then watching the president's announcement. Sunday was quite an adventure.

On Monday morning, we packed everything up of ours and headed for the house. After dealing with a faulty outlet that kept the circuit for both the kitchen fridge and the computers/modem in the "dining room," things started to slip into a minor task of putting away everything we brought back and doing some minor straightening.

Utilities and the city have been asking for folks to conserve water and energy as everything gets running again, so I have yet to do laundry, but otherwise have the house back to normal. One thing that happened during the power outage was that I pulled out the Settlers of Catan game I got for Christmas. JD bought it for me after reading about it via some of her friends. Thankfully, the boys were interested in playing and then completely got into the game. The only caveat being that the boys don't have the attention span for a full game yet, so they end up taking turns playing one player every few minutes. But I got to play the game 3 or 4 times in a couple of days.