I am decompressing tonight. For the first time in weeks and weeks (I think since early August) I turned on the TV to something other than CNN or TWC (my fav movie of all time was on, "Notorious"), and I thought, thank goodness Wilma is done. It was nice to relax.

And then I felt just awful. Why are we tracking these storms if we can't do something to improve the situation. We get caught up in it and try to understand it and predict it, and there are parts of it that we enjoy, or that facinate us, but how can that be reconciled with all of the misery these storms cause.

My brother...he's still trying to work extra shifts on all his days off, which is really not a good thing for a cop that's had a very stressful work environment for awhile, and has lost everything. Why? Because he told me that he wouldn't know what to do on his days off. After two months he's still homeless and only has a bed (that doesn't fit) to sleep in, and of course he's grateful for that, but he doesn't even have a place to sit down and relax (still rebuilding going on at my mom's). There isn't anything I can think of to do for him, short of stealing a MN ice fishing shack and hauling it down there on a truck (they fix those shacks up pretty fancy). And he's better off than most. Today my mother told me she can't imagine what's going to happen to all the folks in Jackson County who are sleeping in tents on their slabs, once it starts to get more towards wintertime (the cold snap probably put that on everyone's mind).

Are we spectators or participants, and is it wrong to be a "hobbyist" when it comes to hurricanes?