Maybe "love" is a bit strong, but I am trying to avoid getting caught up in the pre-hurricane hype. Once again our city is on the edge of the "cone of woe", that is, the funnel-shaped projected storm track, this time for Hurricane Dennis. This means there are people swarming the grocery stores buying bottled water, ice, canned soup, and peanut butter. As opposed to last season, I am only occasionally tuning into the Weather Channel. I know where that storm is, but I'm not going to get all plugged in to the widespread panic that induces wild-eyed battery buying. However, we do need a few things from the Home Despot and the grocery store, two places that are sure to be filled with people who have been watching too much Jim Cantore.

Potentially interesting sidebar: I used to work with a guy named Dennis. He was one of those guys who is maybe 1/16th American Indian, and constantly wears Indian jewelry. He had a penchant for sharks, so we would play a kind of Dennis tag - when we would see him engaging a helpless fellow cow-orker in conversation, we would join the conversation long enough to bring up the subject of sharks, and then disengage from the convo, thus ensuring the cow-orker would be trapped talking to Dennis for at least another hour. Good times.