so close, so far

All the hullaballoo over Hurricane Rita has died down in Austin now that Louisiana has turned its storm magnet back on. Surely parts of the Texas coast will still suffer nature's wrath, but it looks increasingly unlikely that the interior of the state will get much more than some showers ... if that, even. Does that mean we get full refunds on the hastily-horded bottled water?

What a turnaround from Katrina. Instead of ignored warnings and delayed reactions, we have hyper-sensitivity and pre-emptive declarations of disaster from Governor Goodhair. Better safe than sorry, of course, and there's no telling what still might happen, but it's at least slightly amusing watching officials show everyone how well they learned the lessons of Katrina, only to be foiled by the fickelness of nature.

In a marginally related metaphor, Rachel ran by Chris Martin on the Town Lake trail tonight. If we have to leave town, it's some consolation to have a random brush with greatness (although X&Y brings it down to a brush with pretty-goodness) on our way out.

Happy ACL Fest everybody.