The End Of Rita...

Well, it's Friday and the last of Hurricane Rita has gone...
Yesterday our company held an appreciation lunch for all the employees that were on property durring the week of Hurricane Rita. The food was awsome, there were some good speaches, and our HR manager almost broke out in tears...
I do want to say that I found a little "something" in a card signed by the owner and the president of our company. I wasn't expecting anything, but it was nice that they gave me something.
My boss sent me a Dell Axim handheld that rocks! I can do all sorts of stuff with it... it's got built in wireless and bluetoot. I'm still figuring out what it can do, but that's half the fun...
So ends the saga of Rita... We'll be back to boring stuff for now.
Enjoy all the photo's below!!!

The Appreciation Lunch: Waitin' in the lobby
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The Appreciation Lunch: In the H2 on the way...
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The Appreciation Lunch: In the H2 on the way...
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The Appreciation Lunch: Waiting in the lobby for the bus.
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The Appreciation Lunch: Waiting in the lobby for the bus.
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The Appreciation Lunch: Waiting in the lobby for the bus.
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The Appreciation Lunch: Waiting in the lobby for the bus.
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The Appreciation Lunch: Waiting in the lobby.
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The Appreciation Lunch: Waitin' on the bus..
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The Appreciation Lunch: On our way in an H2 being driven by a crazy man!!! (Just kidding)
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The Appreciation Lunch: Leigh Hitz, our president giving a speach.
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The Appreciation Lunch:
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The Appreciation Lunch:
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The Appreciation Lunch:
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The Appreciation Lunch:
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The Appreciation Lunch:
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The Appreciation Lunch:
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The Appreciation Lunch: Mike looking at his gift.
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BEST $40 I'VE SPENT! (in a while anyway)
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Driving around Houston on Sunday afternoon. As I drove by the Astrodome I tried to get a good photo. Everything is leaning because I have a crappy camera and because I'm moving in the truck. The leaning effect is NOT wind damage.
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Driving around Houston: It was very surreal, at the same time invigorating! This is heading down Fannin St. approaching the Astrodome and Reliant Stadium.
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The Last Buffet: Sheila and Ira dishing out the food. The night seemed to go smoothly, as we had less crowds.
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The Last Buffet: Richard, Dora and Jackie serving up some Shrimp Ettoufe, rice and salad that was out of this world!
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Sat Night Buffet: Alicia and Omar prepare to plate out dinner for our guests. Supplies were getting a little low, luckily we had half the turn out as we did from prior nights. Tomorrow promises to bring a major breakfast... Or so the rumor goes. I might actualy make it down for that one :)
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Sat Night Buffet: Deshonda and Corey come up for some dinner.
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Sat night buffet: Royce wanted to sample the fare... Sorry about the flash but he had a leaf of spinich salad, two black beans and ONE piece of pasta.
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The group that conquered Rita!!! Hotel Staff on our roof 23 floors up as Rita wafts away to the north.
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Another shot of the Magnolia Houston Hurricane crew.
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Adios Seno-RITA! Well I wasn't awake when this was taken, but I'll guess that it was a fond farwell they were giving "Rita" as she floated north to Dallas and Shreveport... This is the Hurricane crew.
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Irony after Hurricane Rita

So around 11am I'm fast asleep. I get a call from Neal, our F&B manager... The Point of Sale system is down. "How can that be?" I think as I rub the crusty's out of my eyes.
I've been asleep for about 5 hours although it felt like 5 minutes.
I throw on the same funky clothes I wore all day yesterday and head downstairs.
As I walk into the server room in the basement, I see that half of the machines are powered off. The hum that is normaly permeating the room is cut in half.
Yelling a few un-publishable words, I procede to power everything up again.
Turns out "someone" came downstairs to fix thier credit card problems and decided to hit the power button on the switch that shuts down power to half the server rack.
Way to go kids!!!
I came down here to secure our network from a power outage, flooding, etc and someone stupidly shuts down the power to half the rack...
It's 1pm and all is well. (for now)

My Baby: The reason I flew into Houston on Thursday morning when Rita was still a Cat. 5 Hurricane. This photo is when I was bringing the server back online after a 3 hour rest.
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Looking up Texas Ave toward the Hard Rock Cafe. 6am. 3 hours or so after the eye came ashore.
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Looking down Texas Ave from Fannin St. at 6am. It was calm, slight rain and big fluffy clouds (haha).
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6am and all is well. I think I was blown a little by the biggest gust right after I took this photo. Although there are reports of power outages and damage, downtown Houston around our hotel was very very mild. Worse I've seen is trash blowing down the street.
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4am update:

Well if any of you have been keeping up. It's very quiet right now. At 3am or so, Hurricane Rita made landfall in Lousianna officialy. While that was going on, a great prank on some of our F&B employees was made. Tami our Night Auditor had finished her audit BEFORE Dallas and Denver, HA HA! What a trooper!
I've downed ALL the interfaces and the server down in the basement. Not much rain has fallen downtown, and the breezes have been light with small strong gusts down Texas Ave. I dont anticipate any flooding so I've decided to come up here for a 2 hour nap.
I've poured myself a small drink and sat here uploading more photos.
I've got to say... I've been through 4 hurricanes in a hotel and this is one of the hardest working crew I've seen in any of them. Most hotels I've been with had closed down and opened only to Media and law enforcement and employees. This is the first time i've had a hotel FULL of guests everything ran like clockwork during uncomfortable times...
It's almost over and more work is ahead... Now we have to get back to normal (lots of clean up) and get life back to normal.
Before I bore y'all to death I'm going to sign off now and get a 2 hour nap. I have a Network to bring up and get running in a few hours.
Thanks for keeping up with the events :)

3am in front of the Houston Magnolia: Royce in front of the hotel. Minutes later we talked to the police who were walking around the streets... We had them play a GREAT prank on some employees... keep scrolling down for the fun!!!
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3am at the Magnolia: Reda guarding the door to the hotel.
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3am in front of the Magnolia. Looking up Texas and Fannin. All's quiet here.
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Reda hard at work around 3am. We let a couple of news crews into the locked garage to retrieve thier cars...
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Alicia and Richard outside checking out the "gusts".
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After Hours! A Hugh Heffner look alike joins the party after a grand entrance!
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After Hours! Some of Magnolia's finest from F&B quietly (HA) haveing a few libations...
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After Hours! Some of our employee's and friends letting loose in one of our rooms. (That's Royce's dog)
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Busted!!! Ok here's the deal... There was a party up in the room with some of our employees. after a hard day they were letting loose. Royce and I met to of Houston's finest walking around. Started talking to them and they asked why no one was partying. Well one thing led to another and we got them to go in and scare the HELL out of the party goers! After the first knock I heard in a high voice "is anyone here under age?" HA HA ! We got them gooooooood!!!
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BUSTED!!! The cops ask for Benny! This was the funniest thing all night!!!
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Talking to Mac Daddy from California. Saying Hi to everyone on the postwhore forum! Hi Y'all!!! All is good so far! More pics to come!
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the roof top door sandbaged and taped up. The wind was blowing thru the door pretty hard. I dont know if it will hold...
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Mike, Richard and Lonnie right before we sandbaged the roof door.
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Up on the roof. I have no idea why I put that damn pic on there
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Mike getting blown yet again!!! On the roof right as the slightly higher winds came in...
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Benito and Flor :)
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Bill and Mike getting blown by Rita ;)
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