Do you ever feel blessed......

I feel so fortunate to know the people that I know, I love the people I work with. I spend six months a year with the people I work with. When you take into consideration that we work a minimum of twelve hours a day, I think I spend more time with these guys than I do my own family. So anytime someone has a personal crisis our whole group pulls together to help and support them, and I am glad to be a part of it.

Shannon Marler is one of the people I am fortunate enough to know and work with. Shannon lives in Sulfur, Louisiana and is going home tomorrow to see if he still has a house. Last night we sat up and watched hurricane Rita head directly for Sulfur on CNN. Unfortunately we can't have any alcohol up here so I went to the chow hall and snagged a couple of Miller Sharps (that's near beer for those of you lucky enough to never have had it) so at least we could say we had a beer and watched the hurricane that demolished western Louisiana and eastern Texas. He doesn't know for sure yet if his house made it through. His family was safe but they aren't allowed back into the city to find out yet.
All of us up here were hoping and praying that his house survived. I personally feel that it did. Today we looked up the meaning of his name and if was a little erie...

Shannon Lee Marler
Shannon- "Wise little owl"
(I don't think he was as amused with this meaning as the rest of the crew was)
Lee- "sheltered from the storm"

What are the odds! Either that means his house was sheltered or it means exactly what it says; that he was smart to be 4000 miles away and he was in fact sheltered from the storm because of it.
I am leaning towards the first one.

My friend Rob who was stuck in Houston (with nothing inside of the new house he signed the paperson two days before Rita hit) decided since there was no plywood or duct tape he would do the next obvious thing.
He bought a new TV and a 12 pack. He said his neighbor looked at him like he was crazy so he told him "hey, I'm from Canada, maybe there's a hockey game on".

I don't know about material possessions, but everyone I know from the gulf coast area came out unharmed.