Things Ike taught me
Coffee and frozen pizzas can be made on a BBQ grill.

I can walk a lot farther than I thought.

A skateboard and a sheet make a great “sailboat” before the rain starts.

You can never have too many gas cans!

If you fill the bathtubs with water, the water will not go off.

Neighbors are much more sociable when they are sharing a generator.

Two-year-old canned beets taste better than you’d think.

Just because it is dark and you are in the privacy of your bedroom doesn’t mean we can’t hear what you are doing in there because our windows are open too.

What looks acceptable by candlelight in your bathroom will scare you when you look at yourself in the mirror at the office. 

Coffee is possible without Starbucks. 

Rather than campfires, you find families huddled about tiny battery-operated televisions to watch The Simpsons. 

Peanut butter and jelly is a perfectly acceptable meal for breakfast, lunch and dinner in the same day. 

That neighbor who knows how to use a chainsaw is your new best friend. 

You run out of things to barbecue after Day 2. 

Hair can dry without a blow dryer, but it may not look the way you planned. 

The storm treasures your kids are finding really belong to your neighbors. 

Baseball caps go with any post-hurricane ensemble. 

Grapes taste better in the dark. 

You can’t train yourself not to flip on light switches when entering a room. 

Lukewarm is the new cold. 

You have neighbors. 

A new opening phrase when seeing someone: “Got lights yet?”

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1. Hurricane Ike teaches us a few things – Thank You Plywood!

I’ve been a resident of Houston, Texas for 40 plus years and I have to say that Hurricane Ike was the worst I’ve ever been through personally.

My family was extremely fortunate.  No damage or injuries to speak of.  Most of my SalesNexus colleagues came through fine too.  A few of us have even had power since Saturday or Sunday!

When there are 80, 90, 100 mph gusts of wind sweeping around your home in the dead of night, there is only one thing to do.  I did a lot of it.  It works.

For the citizens of Houston and all of southeast Texas, here’s a little treat that I’m sure you’ll enjoy! We’ve all had our hands on some plywood in the last few days – putting it up, taking it down and most of all, hiding behind it praying for our lives. Yesterday evening, a nice neighbor named Loreta Kovacic stopped by as our kids were playing outside. She recorded “Plywood Love Song” a few month ago. It sure is timely today! Enjoy!

I have to give credit to Houston Mayor Bill White, Harris County Judge Ed Emmit and the various state and federal officials for managing the preparations for the storm extremely well.  We avoided the traffic nightmare of Hurricane Rita and it appears that people were as safe as they could be.

The aftermath is teaching us a few things about distribution of food, water, ice, fuel and restoration of electricity.  There will be those who cast judgement on various authorites but, from my comfortable position in my office, with AC and Internet, I see success.

Mostly I see a community coming together to help each other rather than waiting for help from outside.  That makes me proud to make Houston my home.  People contributing what they have to contribute to others in need.  For some its ice, for some its help with a downed tree, for others its just a hot cooked meal with friends and neighbors.

At SalesNexus, we had some nice comments from customers about how our online contact management system allowed them to relocate their personnel for safety but, continue to operate their businesses.  That’s been nice to hear.

I may be a touch early on this but, my sense this morning is that the city is trying to get back to work.  I’m glad to know that our customers can sit down where ever it is that they’ve found a place to work today and pick up right where they left off.  No servers to replace, no software to re-install, etc.  I’m proud of our team for maintaining our service and our support presence at normal levels throughout.

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1. The Operative Word in “Customer Service”