Lundy Says-Amusing Info from Lundy Wilder

Some neighbors from across the lagoon borrowed my pedal boat to sneak onto West Beach to get a look at their house--they took some photos that I should be able to add to this blog tomorrow. First is my neighbor, Mary Louise Brush's yard---she lives about a mile down from me. Ivan broke out all her southern windows and trashed her house interior, so this is a small deal compared to that. None of her windows broke. She had plywood on them. Then a photo of a street a mile or so down towards Hwy 59 (G.S.), as you can see, the houses have water in the lower foors. Next is the pool next door to me once the water receeded. Shown here are some various photos. I drove to Orange Beach today and found several over turned trailers, one smashed by a crane, and a good bit of road errosion near the state park area. The streets are nearly deserted. I couldn't get on Beach Blvd in Gulf Shores today. Thankfully, our Silver Beach condo in O.B. is a-ok and the pool was not destroyed. The newly rep...

Hwy 59 and Beach Blvd GULF SHORES — Hurricane Katrina played havoc with Alabama's coastal playgrounds Monday as Gulf waters churned across beaches and flooded resort roads, but wind damage appeared minimal, at least compared to Ivan. On Mobile Bay's eastern shore, however, stately homes of the well-to-do were awash in brown baywater storming over docks and porches, and into ground-floor rooms. "I've been here 25 years, and this is the worst I've ever seen the water," said Fred Wright, watching muddy waves of Mobile Bay breaking over a seawall and hitting the back of his big, brick home. Homes were flooded up and down the shaded, normally tranquil bayside, and a lot of limbs had fallen from the oak trees that line the bay and have long made the area attractive for the affluent. "There are lots of homes through here worth a million dollars. At least they were yesterday," Wright said. Surging waters Across Baldwin County at the beach resort...

These are just a few shots of Little Lagoon & our yard taken today. Couldn't get down into G.S. --curfew--police ran us off, I plan to sneak in on bicycle tomorrow w/ camera. Phone started working but my back-up dial-up account isn't, sooooooooooooo this is where it pays off to jot down the log-in info when your friends get you to help you with their computer problems, so you can use their accounts w/ other carriers in a pinch--ditto for the log-in and pass for Holiday Inn's etc....you just never know when it might come in handy !! Still no electricity or cable, so laptop is operating on generator power. I reduced the size of these photos so they'd upload on slow dial-up, but you can still click for a bit larger version. Two shots are the neighborhood of the Granny House in the little subdivision on Ft. Morgan and the tall skinny trees it backs up to during the storm. G.S. is pretty badly under water, so we just don't know how bad the beqach errosion will be, or...

Hello all of you in cyberspace- this is Cary, Lundy's sister, reporting to you from Lundy's satellite office in Knoxville, TN. It's about 2 p.m. Central Time and I just spoke to Lundy on her cell phone. They do not have power, cable, or telephone. The rain just let up to almost none so she and Harry ventured out in Harry's little close-to-the-ground Neon to check on the hurricane-proof Italian villa. They have no flooding in Mrs. Wilder's subdivision, or at least the part they are in, and they saw a Police car drive by so they went. The closer they got to the beach front, the windier it got. They were amazed at the how much worse the storm was there. The newly re-built boat dock next door to them is destroyed. That development has ocean water over the swimming pool. There were 3 foot waves at the base of their house with the water up to the bottom step. The part of the new fence close to the lagoon is down and they have new lawn-art of bales of straw, unid...

Well, it is 7 am and we still have electricity and cable tv . I just got up. I was semi-conscious for a while, I could hear the storm and windows making poping noises. We are to expect 10 inches of rain today the local forecast says. Pretty amazing, but the light poles are still standing here and they got bent over during Ivan on this street. More later if I still can get online. Pascagoula has reports of 113 MPH winds. this morning, but we are about an hour away from there. Mike Slidel on tv says we are not near the worst period of wind yet.

Well, here we go again ! What is this, our 7th hurricane this year ??????????? Edit--staying in Gulf Shores for now....canceled Holiday Inn for Sunday nite., traffic is all tyed up and besides, if i am gonna be miserable, rather be miserable w/ something exciting to photograph other than road rage....will ck weather tv at 2 a.m. and f Katrina turns back this way, we will jump in car and head towards Columbus GA. Staying at the granny house in subdivision across the st from Little Lagoon. Car loaded w/ computer stuff is in the garage. Fridge full of beer ! 10:30 p.m., weather prediciton on TV downgraded here from wind at 130 MPH to 100 MPH, so maybe we'll live thru it. So weird to hear the local report say, in it's automated voice, 'rain likely, wind gusting to 100 MPH. " High water predicted to be about 12 or so ft, and that will be close to the door here at the 'granny house' . Went over to my lagoon house few minutes ago and water is over the seawall about ...

Do not fall for this, it is a scam! Let all your loved ones know about this. This is a medical scam. Sent to me by alert friend Marti Choate who did not say if she was taken in by this quackery.....

Amazon's A9 is still in Beta, but you can see storefronts just like you are bicycling down the road !!! I do not know how they have amassed so much data or how they have gotten it all uploaded and properly indexed, can't imagine the work involved. Depending on your monitor, you might need to scroll to see both sides of the street. You can move the little magnifying glass, or type in an address. Have a look at the Blockview Photos of the following cities: New York, NY Los Angeles, CA Dallas, TX San Francisco, CA San Jose, CA Boston, MA Seattle, WA Portland, OR Denver, CO Atlanta, GA Chicago, IL Washington, DC Phoenix, AZ Houston, TX Miami, FL Fargo, ND Austin, TX Philadelphia, PA San Diego, CA Detroit, MI Salt Lake City, UT Sacramento, CA Long Beach, CA Reno, NV http://maps.a9.com

Subway has dropped the stamps w/ purchase for free sandwiches program. Seems people were counterfiting them and selling the stamps on eBay....empty those pockets and purses....hurry if you have any partially filled cards. They are suppose to be getting a special code or something from headquarters to enter into the registers to use to help regular customers make use of any partially filled cards they have on-hand.

Back in June, Tropical Storm Arlene was headed directly here--predicted to hit between Mobile and P'cola (that would be Gulf Shores !!) as a T.S. or a Hurricane and Russ Conn, my web helper, Heather's husband was helping me get my peddle boat up out of the water. We were down in the lagoon battling against bad wind and rain trying to lift that thing to safety...I ended up using a rope hooked to the back of my car to drag it to the north side of the house once we got it up on the lawn. Anyway---in the process, soon as I put foot in the lagoon, I lost my flip-flops in the waves. The second they came off I looked down grabbed the only one I saw and flipped it up in the yard, they were some favorites---never saw it's mate again, (we both looked and looked)---until today. Now, almost three months later, I went down on our mini beach in front of the house to see what was 'happin' (never know what those hermit crabs might be up to) and low and behold, there was my long los...

Well, I had to send this photo up big because this is a big blow up pool. I spotted it at Tuesday Morning way back in something like April. Talk about impulse sale. Well, here it is August and I am just now getting time to get it out of the box and play in it. It is perfect !! About 12 ft across and came with one of those rechargable little pumps that blows this thing up in something like a minute and a half--no kidding. The instructions say--stick it in the valve of your air bed. So obviously , same co that makes those instant matress things. The detachable , floating beer holders are stuck on velcro tabs on the rim in the photo. I loll around reading and tanning. It is wonderful. When my friend Carol Mc flies in we can take turns taking photos of each other reading and relaxing in repose. I tried to put it on the porch, but the porch is just way too narrow--didn't work out--on second day, as I was half asleep, I heard a big swwwwwwoooooosh. The rim dipped over the edge and water ...

Saw this on the Today show--FedEx is none too happy. Don't think they have too much to worry about. Most people are either too lazy or too un-creative to make their own apt furniture out of free FedEx boxes, but a few might--he tells you how. This guy got a new job as a software engineer and writes : "Using FedEx boxes and packaging materials, I constructed a desk, bed, couch, dining table and chairs out of the boxes. I'm currently stuck with double rent (both my new and old apartments), and can not afford real furniture. FedEx Furniture is furniture put together by empty FedEx Boxes, and held together by fedex packaging supplies. All of the furniture seen here is 100% functional." See his house full of white/orange/purple decor at FedExFurniture till they swap him some real stuff in exhange for his taking the site down !

www.BlogBinders.com Can create a bound book out of any English, Spanish, French, German, or Russian blog. They offer three different forms of binding and the prices really are not expensive considering it is a custom order deal. I have a friend w/ no internet access but he can get books and I had already printed out the blog about our trip (after I added the photos) to mail him or I might have used this service instead. And speaking of printing from the web to print the blog, I use a great piece of shareware that I have used for years called FinePrint which allows you to print 2 pages per sheet, 4 pages per sheet, etc...the free version will let you do it free as long as it prints a little line of ad across the bottom of the page. Their other nice little program the PDF Factory makes great pdf files and costs a mere fraction of what the Adobe software to create them does. Plus, when I tested it, the files it made were a smaller file size than the ones Adobe made.

After reading WIRED Magazine's article: The Man Who Shot Sin City --How Robert Rodriguez, the one-man digital army behind El Mariachi and Spy Kids, brought an "unfilmable" cult comic to the big screen, I knew I wanted to see it. OUTSTANDING...esp considering that it is pretty much a one man digital production, done in Austin, TX. If you have a pretty strong stomach--or can look away when necessary , as I did, then by all means, rent or go to the theater to see Sin City. The DVD has a short bit of extra technical info about shooting this ultra-graphic which of course is way interesting. I had read additional articles about the technical side of the production and I think that is more reason I enjoyed it. Not for little kids...... that is for sure. Wanna read folks reviews on Amazon? Sin City

Funny T-Shirts, some of them anyway, esp for 11 yr olds or those who like potty jokes. http://www.sackwear.com

Ever wondered what creative things can be made from old bicycle tubes? Stefanie Mihoulides makes belts and wallets by hand. Ck 'em out.

takes on new meaning when you look at the website of My SweetPee, a new product that facilitates women being able to stand and pee in places like porta-potties or yucky bathrooms. Invented and marketed by two sisters from Texas. Sorta interesting...... www.mysweetpee.com

Our TV show aired !!! We almost missed it...the coffee shop that had satellite TV and had agreed to let us come watch it there let us down. We met w/ friends from Mobile and Perdido Bay at 8 pm for our 8:30 show, and we were next door having some drinks first when we found out that the coffee shop was closing at 8 p.m. ! Luckily, Ted Dial's girlfriend, Rene's brother lives in Peninsula on Ft. Morgan Rd and also has satellite TV and she called him real-fast......we zoooooomed over to his place and got there just in the nick of time. A most excellent job on editing . I was so glad that they actually used all of the old construction photos that I spent so long digging thru my hard drives for or re-scanning prints in high res. just for them. They used shots of the house in previous storms when talking about Ivan, but who would know except me. I watched the show with one of my friends who is a professional model and does TV commercials all the time, so that was tough....she is very,...

techie stuff : I will add additional info to this post later, but I am putting this here in hopes that others will find this info if they do a seach for it, and save themselves hours of frustration. Upon the advice of Google engineers at the Webmaster World Conference in New Orleans in June and stated on the Google website, etc...I left instructions in July with my web helper for her to work on changing our .htaccess files on our servers to include a few lines of code that would cause anyone accessing my sites without the www. to be automatically redirected to the www. version. Little did I know that changing the .htaccess file on a site that uses Frontpage extensions would totally screw up things. On the surface it appeared that things were working well, the http://mydomain.com did an auto-redirect quickly to the http://www.mydomain.com version and everything seemed fine. But I couldn't update any sites. It often looked like they were updating on my end...but not to the viewer. I ...

Don't know why they'd do it--unless they figure you are gonna like it so much that you re-fund it somehow. Anyway--this week, Rite-Aid Drug Stores are offering a $9.95 Green Dot Pre-Paid MasterCard, less 5 bucks, less $4.95 online rebate, so that equals free. Limit one... I do their online rebate thingie frequently, and it does work, they actually do mail the checks, but it is one per month I think, so read the instructions, you might want to bundle all purchases in one month together.

Just got an email from Judy Dorsey, the station manager at my old alma mater WEVL FM90 Volunteer Radio and you can now listen online. This is GREAT NEWS !!! Still in 'beta' no link on the official website yet. "Using Winamp:File -->> Play URL---> Cut & paste this URL into the box: http://peace.str3am.com:6030/listen.pls , click Open and enjoy. Download the latest at http://www.winamp.com/player/ Using Windows Media Player:File --->> Open URL---->> Cut & paste this URL into the box: http://peace.str3am.com:6030/listen.pls , then click OK & enjoy. Some listeners using Windows 98 and/or Windows Media Player version 6.4 may experience difficulty connecting to the stream. If your Windows Media Player has trouble connecting to the stream, upgrade your player to the most current version that is recommended for your computer. Download latest at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/default.aspx Using Itunes:Advanced ---> Open Stream or O...

The DIY Network on Cable TV--sister station to HGTV Clickable Link to DIY Site: BE YOUR OWN CONTRACTOR: VACATION HOMES Gulf Shores: Dac Art Home - AIR TIMES August 18, 2005 9:30 PM Eastern August 19, 2005 12:30 AM Eastern August 21, 2005 1:00 PM Eastern On this episode of Be Your Own Contractor: Vacation Homes you'll meet Lundy and Harry Wilder They acted as their own contractors on their unique waterfront home in Gulf Shores, AL. They share why they decided to be their own contractors and why the wanted to build an Italian Architecture style house. And you'll find out all about the unique concrete block construction that they used to achieve that look and to withstand the seacoast elements. Like hurricanes. Find out how the house made it through Hurricane Ivan with little damage -- and how the major hurricane made a direct hit on Gulf Shores, causing major damage to the area.

My new site is online www.MagnetGlasses.com Spread the word !! Everyone who saw my cool Clic front magnet closure reading glasses in Europe wanted to know how to get some....so here it is. They're cheap, they're great, come in several colors. Some come as sunglasses.

WOW:EDIT: Looks like they have pulled it from the web--giving only server errors as of 7:50 p.m. CDT 8/12/05--see edit note below. 8/13/05 a.m. --Google server error fixed New, in Beta: Google Print go to http://print.google.com and enter any book you want to read. You might need to log-in, use your Gmail info. Don't have a Google log-in, then get one so you can access Usenet from anywhere and do research, but I digress. I tried The Tipping Point : How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell they seemed to have this book but not the newer one by Gladwell, "Blink" (both great books, IMHO), anyway--put 'introduction' or 'table of contents' into the 'search within the book' search box on left. Most books are going to say that you can read certain pages but no where near all of them...if you search for say, "Page 12"..it might say "this page is restricted"....BUT The trick to getting to read every page is to us...

I read recently that Jorn Barger of www.RobotWisdom.com fame--he coined the term weblog which became Blog--might have moved from homeless in San Francisco to Memphis. You Memphians be on the look-out for him....possible scruffy blonde hair, possible Google cap, beard, mid 50's. A web celebrity, albiet a slightly underground one.

Watch Paste Magazine really take off....I see they have bought a full page ad in WIRED Magazine, The ad says "The music and film magazine for thinking adults". Since every issue comes with at least one music CD and a DVD of stuff like music videos, indie short films, off beat ads, and interesting stuff in general, I'd say it is a pretty good value. I even have a hard time reading it cover to cover as it includes so much good text. The illustrations sometimes bug me, they like the messy looking, ink spill art a lot, but the info in it is good. I picked up my first copy in a bookstore on the Memphis-Gulf Shores route where I stopped for coffee and bathroom. After that, I subscribed. I can say that I have bought CDs of musicians that I had never heard of after hearing them/reading about them in Paste. It has also turned me on to some interesting movies. Paste Magazine

For those who don't know, Google has made available a satellite image service-- Google Maps/Satellite -- online whereby you can have a birdseye look from above at a lot of the globe from satellite images. Several new websites have popped up as off-shoots of this new service. www.GoogleGlobetrotting.com is a hub for people who have located interesting landmarks, homes of the famous or infamous, etc...see what others have found and identified and submit what you know about. A Yahoo company--Flickr, try http://www.flickr.com/groups/memorymaps/pool/ for a look at your old high school Scavengeroogle - Google Maps Scavenger Hunt Scavengeroogle: a scavenger hunt type of game where you use Google maps to find a graphical clue. Looks like Big Brother really is watching, and his name is Googlebot.

I have created this blog for general comments and posts about this and that. My other active blog is all about mine and Sara O'Dell's trip to Europe and it seemed a shame to get it all mixed up with other off topic information. This new Lundini blog (couldn't get 'lundy') will do things like give advice on movies to rent and which hair conditioners work best---bet you can't wait ! L.