Almost two months have passed since our family’s house in Vilonia was destroyed by a tornado. That devastating whirlwind seems like a pleasant summer breeze (not that such a thing exists in Arkansas) compared to the storm of change that has become our life since that April 25th evening that at once seems so distant and at the same time seems to have happened yesterday. We have gone from being homeless, staying with family and briefly at a hotel, to buying a house in Conway. Our oldest son is finishing college; our youngest son graduated from Vilonia High School, started a job, and will soon leave for college. Along with my beautiful wife, Netta, they are the reason I live.

Zoey the cat who took refuge in the closet, and who I couldn’t find afterward was found safe and sound the next morning. Our cat, Kelly Pavlik who thought that riding out a tornado underneath a king sized bed was a good idea, was as he usually is when it comes to matters of survival, correct. Two days after the tornado our neighbors Harold and Paulette were paid a visit by Kelly, who decided to steal a bowl of food left out for their cats. Since then he has been visiting Sue, my mother in law, at her house next door to the now barren empty lot that was our little piece of heaven. He shows up every night just after dark to eat and have some fresh water, just like he did for the four years he chose to live with us. I went over to Sue’s to wait for him to appear the other night, and he showed up, looking just fine. When I carefully opened the screen door to go visit with him and catch up on things, he walked off, meowing all the way, cat cursing me under his breath. I can’t say that I blame him. Eventually he may let me near him, but I understand. That night changed little Kelly Pavlik, just as it changed everyone and everything that survived that terrible night in April. I don’t know how much I have changed; my family and friends might be better judges of that, but I know I have changed.

I was in a daze for the first few days after the storm. There were so many people that showed up at our ravaged house the day after the storm that I can’t even place them all. There were heroic acts of kindness that still bring tears to my eyes. The parents of my son Evan’s friend who showed up and gathered all the clothes they could, stuffing them in garbage bags and taking them home to wash and dry. There must have been sixty loads. Thanks to them we saved almost all of our clothing. Family, friends and strangers showed up to cut trees, salvage what they could, and put the rest in piles of rubble. We moved all we thought that was salvageable over to my mother in law’s carport to sort through. The tornado had spared Sue’s house save for some roof damage, and destruction of nearly every tree in her yard, while our house, only a hundred yards east of her had been shredded. There were times I did not want any of the stuff that was left, it seemed so unimportant; what were once things I had worked to save for and buy were now a burdensome pile of mangled and meaningless junk.

Our belongings were scattered over an acre. Bicycles and wheelbarrows had been flung 500 yards across Highway 64, along with a good chunk of our roof, into our neighbor’s yard. The master bedroom furniture had seemingly disappeared. The house itself had been picked up and moved twelve feet. The roof was gone, the shed was gone, the carport was gone. My new KIA was totally destroyed, having the misfortune of having not one, but two BBQ grills bounced off of it. My little BMW convertible was parked next to it and had very little damage. I’d like to say it was because of the fine German engineering, but like everything that either survived or was destroyed in this tornado, including me, it was just a matter of blind luck. Being in the right or wrong place at the time; no divine intervention; nothing but chance.

As much destruction that was wrought by the Vilonia tornado, it also bore a gift. It made me realize how important people are, and how powerful the bond of family, friends, and community truly is. Material possessions are meaningless. People are what matter most. We were given help from so many that I am hesitant putting names down on paper for fear of leaving one person off. We were overwhelmed with what people gave us. We were loaned a truck to use for a month. We were given food, shelter, gift certificates, money. Our son Mason was given a place to stay to finish the school year near Vilonia. People offered their homes for us to live in. Most importantly we were given hope, and a reason to fight our way out of the hole fate had dug for us. There will never be any way we can repay the friends, family and strangers that saw fit to rescue us. They are the most precious and special commodity. Thanks, Tornado, for pointing that out to me.

The days after the tornado were a blur of never-ending trips to the old house, each one dredging up good and bad memories. We were and are alternately grateful, angry, sad, happy. As the weeks have flashed by we have replaced, bought, and sold vehicles. The week after the storm as we contemplated life without a house, we were inundated with offers of places to stay. With a Great Dane and a cat though we did not want to turn an act of kindness into an ordeal for anyone. We looked at a couple of rent houses, and then got a call from two dear friends. Their friends were selling a house in Conway; they had just finished painting it and getting it ready for sale: would we like to live there until it sold, rent free? Let me think….Heck yes! It was the perfect house in the perfect neighborhood. Friends and family started bring over furniture. Cat and dog beds, household items, furniture, food, and lots and lots of love.

We loved the house so much, we ended up buying it. We closed on it barely three weeks after losing our other place. We have begun furnishing our new home. The insurance folks were a pleasure to deal with and have made an unbearable situation bearable. We still continue to sort through the remains of our old house, always hopeful that the next plastic container we go through will yield some unbroken treasure from our past, alternately surprised that a Christmas ornament survived, and disappointed that some keepsake is missing or has been damaged beyond repair. Sorting through those plastic containers is exhilarating and heartbreaking. It seems like a never ending process.

We go shopping to replace things. Every decision seems monumental, and oft times we end up not buying anything. For everything we contemplate buying we think “How will t his look when it gets destroyed by the next tornado”? Nothing is permanent, nothing endures. As Stephen King said, “Everything’s eventual”. Through it all though, we press on. We have hope, we have friends; we are alive, and we are thankful. We love, and we are loved.

Note from konagod: Wilf has contributed to my blog several times in the past. He and his wife, Netta, had a rather large loss recently. I asked Wilf if he would mind posting a diary of the event, and this is his submission. They are both very lucky people and I'm so happy they are a part of my life.




April 25, 2011 at 7:18 PM. My wife has left our house in Vilonia to go to her Nephew’s house down Highway 64 because of the impending severe storm. My son has already left the house to go stay at his friend Cody’s house who has a safe room. Nothing left in the 108 year old house at 945 Main Street but me, my dog Daisy, and my two cats, Zoey and Kelly Pavlik. Kelly has spent the day in the house, as he usually does, but has decided not to foray outside, as is his nightly routine, likely because of the stormy weather; he has the good cat sense not totry to brave this storm!. Unknown to me, Zoey has decided that hiding in the master bedroom bathroom walk-in closet is a good idea, and she is safely nestled in my wife Netta’s side of the closet, in amongst some shoes.

I have decide to stay behind because frankly I hate having to go and spend time in a dark, damp basement for what inevitably turns out to be a non- event. Severe storms with possible tornadoes have come through this area since I moved here from Canada in May of 1999, and I have steadfastly refused to budge out of what I imagined to be my safe little home regardless of how bad things are predicted to be. “What are the chances of a tornado hitting this exact house”? I often joked, just before my family, often at the insistence of Netta’s mother, lit out to take cover. At first Netta would get upset that I refused to take these storms very seriously, despite having seen what damage a tornado can wreak. Eventually she became resigned to the fact that I did not have the good sense to realize that the low odds of a tornado hitting our house did not mean zero odds, and that despite her pleading, I would always stay behind. I was probably a little smug even when the family returned and once again, I had escaped the big bad weather bogeyman.

April 25, 2011 was no different. At 7:00 PM, before Netta left in her truck to go to her Nephews she asked, with her usually silly sense of humor, “If something does happen, is this double indemnity”? “Nope” , I quipped, ” I think a tornado is considered an act of God”. We kissed, and I told her to be careful driving, and to call me when she got there. Mason, our 17 year old had already left to ride out the storm at his friends house, west of where we live.

At 7:05, I post on facebook “”All of the family off to shelters. Ill ride this out with the animals. I’ll take snow over this crap any day!” Netta posts back at 7:10 “Love you Wilf”, follow immediately by “Its almost like we are together” I respond at 7:18 with “Love you too, Netta”. Lots of lightning. Worst storm I’ve ever seen.”

Lighting strikes close to the house, thunder follows immediately, followed by more lightning and more thunder.. The lights flicker, then go out. My IPAD from which I have been posting to facebook loses the WIFI connection. I am really alone. The lights briefly flicker back on and almost as quickly the house is once again pitched into near darkness as the electricity to 945 Main Street, Vilonia Arkansas is cut off for ever. As I sit in the double recliner my in my bedroom, a recliner Netta and I have spent hours on, with Daisy, our Great Dane, snuggled between us, in our bedroom with the perfect bed, in our house that we have poured years of love, sweat, and tear into fixing up, remodeling, entertaining our friends and family in, raising two fine sons, and numerous pets, at times loving, at times laughing, and at times arguing, and at times making up, I realize that I may have made the final mistake of my life.

A tree limb, or possible an entire tree, crashes on the deck out side the French doors of our bedroom. I know this is no ordinary storm.. The rain is beating on our tin roof and the wind is screaming. I know that something very bad is going to happen. Daisy is in the bedroom with me. I grab her by the collar, pulling her with me towards the bathroom door, and towards the one place in the house my dear and beautiful wife has told me to go if I need shelter against a tornado. The one place surrounded by four walls none of which are on an outside wall. The closet in our master bedroom. I run into the closet with Daisy, close the door, and lay down with my arms around here, and then notice that our sweet little rescue cat, Zoey, is peering up at me from the corner of the closet. Kelly Pavlik, the cat who showed up as a scared kitten four years ago and who Daisy the Great Dane carried around like her puppy, is in the bedroom under the bed.

Then hell comes to 945 Main Street, Vilonia Arkansas. The wind is furiously ripping at the house, wanting it gone. Unknown things are hitting the house, wood is creaking, glass is breaking, the entire house is shaking. I look up to the ceiling as it disappears and is replaced by a view of a putrid yellow sky. It is now raining plaster and debris on me and the two animals I am sure are going to die with me on this terrible night. I hold on to Daisy, the rescued Great Dane from Mississippi who survived being abandoned, brought to Arkansas, and being adopted , only to end up here in a closet with a stupid, stubborn old man clutching her and trying to protect her from this cruel attack from mother nature I think of my wife and my sons, and I think what an idiot I am to be dying this way. I know that I will die, and am strangely resigned to that. I am wondering, though how exactly it is going to happen.. A tree on my head, or worse yet trapping me? Will I be sucked out of the closet and end up impaled on something? Will it be painful, or quick? There is no life flashing before my eyes, no panic, just the thought that if I have to die, please make it merciful.

Then it is over. Somehow, I am alive. How can that be? I stand up in the debris filled closet. I grab Daisy by the collar. I look around for Zoey but cannot see her. .. I open the door, not knowing what to expect. The bathroom is destroyed, except for the two closets. My wife has saved my life. I grab a jacket and some shoes. Outside the bathroom, all that is left in the bedroom is the floor. Both outside walls have vanished. The king sized bed is gone. I notice a TV set on the floor as I make my way to step out onto the deck. The deck is no longer there. I jump three feet down in mud and debris. I gingerly make my way along the side of the grass by the house and notice the Catawba tree the one that used to shade our front porch and was the place Netta always took a picture of the boys on their first days of the school year, was completely uprooted, and now lay across the walkway to what was left of our heavenly littlie home. I make a mental note that my carport is gone. Of the two cars that were parked under it, the convertible seems to have fared better than the new KIA. The KIA looks as if some giant has stepped on it, crushing it, while the BMW with its cloth top and plastic rear window seems unscathed.

I start running down highway 64 towards where my wife had sought shelter. I hoped the thing that had tried it’s best to kill me had spared my nephew’s house and she and her family were safe. There are trees, all manner of debris, power lines and telephone pole all over the highway. I run a quarter mile until I get to the Captain’s Carwash” where I see two trucks and people. I make my way into the carwash, and immediately hug a stranger who suddenly not a stranger, but a brother. A brother survivor. That was the first time I actually cried that night.

I decide to continue east, and flag down an SUV, that somehow is making its way down the obstacle course that used to be Highway 64. Two women let an old man with a Great Dane into their SUV. I am soaking wet, I am exhausted, and it is the best truck I have ever ridden in. We make our way through a maze of destruction: a semi tractor rig is overturned, on the side of the road, it’s under side facing the highway, the cab wrapped around a tree. Power lines criss-cross the highway. The destruction seems utterly complete. Houses are without roofs, trailers have disappeared, every tree seems uprooted, and everywhere there is debris form a hundred people’s lives. As we drive further into Vilonia, the damage lessens, but is extensive. After what seems like an eternity, but is actually probably 30 minutes we arrive at my nephew’s house. I get out of the truck, and am greeted by the most beautiful woman in the world. My wife Netta is safe. I cry for the second time that night. It is April 25, 2011, 7:54 PM, and my life has changed forever.

It's 21° as I type this, and with an unprecedented 72 hours of sub-freezing weather under our belts, we end the week with snow!





The good news is that snow never hangs around as long as our sub-freezing temperatures have this week, and I suspect that by noon there will be no trace of it. Sunshine is in the forecast! And the weekend should be near 60° finally!

I was checking out Canadian weather this morning at The Weather Network website. That's the Canadian version of The Weather Channel. Anyhoo, I ran across this poll and was curious to see how my northern buds define "too cold."



Keep in mind these numbers are celsius. Needless to say, I voted for 0° because that's freezing and when water turns to ice, that's pretty damn cold in my book. I'm happy to see I would not be alone as 8% of Canadians seem to agree with my assessment. (I can't help but wonder how many of those are immigrants from warmer nations.)

The clear winner is definitely a chilly -4°F.

At least, the few that remain.


Earlier this week, txrad purged the yard of most sunflowers. The entire backyard was full of them and by now they would all be in bloom. However, it was a necessary procedure as they are horrendous to clear out after they die off leaving hard woody stalks behind.



A few weeks ago I took one of those Family Feudish quizzes on Facebook. One of the questions was, "Name a sport that is played in summer," and I incorrectly answered football.

Chalk that one up to my geographic upbringing and current locale. Well, actually it is partially true as I pointed out in Facebook comments. Summer doesn't officially end until mid-September and football season starts beforehand. So I was essentially correct.

But here in Texas it can feel like summer well into fall. It is not until the wild sunflowers bloom in our yard that I start to realize summer is ending and a change in seasons is forthcoming.

Soon we'll have our first cold front of the season blast through here which will bring daytime temperatures down into the 40s. November will roll around, mid-term elections will provide a brief distraction from the upcoming frenzy of holiday activity, and before you know it, we'll be making those damned New Year's resolutions again.

Three months from today we'll be well into January, 2011. But for now, I can focus on the stillness of time from the sunflowers, enjoying their swaying in the gentle afternoon October breeze.

The few that remain.

I'm such a weather geek. I'm loving my new weather station which sends data directly to my PC. It is particularly useful in monitoring the wind chill this time of year. If this was a speedometer I'd be in violation of the law.

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I wouldn't go so far as to say snow is rare in Austin. We average about an inch per year. That being said, we can go 5 years without any and then get a rare 5-inches. What is unusual is seeing it fall during the day! Most of the snows I've seen here happen at night and you see it when you wake up in the morning.

This winter I've seen it snow during the day twice: some flurries back in December and today. The flakes today were very large and it has snowed off and on for about 3 hours now. This shit should be ending by around 2pm. That should make the commuters very happy.

It was one for the record books.

By 9 p.m. Thursday, a record 9.4 inches of snow had fallen at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, smashing the area’s previous record for one calendar day of 7.8 inches, set in 1917 and matched in 1964.

“This has been an absolute amazing event,” said Jesse Moore, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Fort Worth.

Snow began falling at D/FW Airport at 3:53 a.m. and never let up throughout the day, Moore said. Alliance Airport in Fort Worth had piled up nearly 10 inches by 8 p.m.

Lots of folks are going to have a Friday off from work and classes!

What else can I say except it's weird Austin and it's been one crazy weather week.

Interesting...

Source: Hamweather Climate Center and NOAA/NWS

Record Events for Sat Oct 10, 2009 through Fri Oct 16, 2009

Total Records: 6257
Rainfall: 859
Snowfall: 297
High Temperatures: 369
Low Temperatures: 785
Lowest Max Temperatures: 3473
Highest Min Temperatures: 474

It's another very wet and rainy day on Austin, Texas. No excuses for avoiding house cleaning today! Check out those totals just to our north in Jarrell which resulted in I-35 being closed for two hours.


The total thus far at kona ranch (indicated inappropriately by the sun icon) is nearly 3 1/2 inches.

We all like to complain about our fucking jobs from time to time. I may cut back on my complaints now that I realize the occupational hazards of my work are basically limited to headaches and carpel tunnel syndrome. At least I don't need to wear a condom to do my job. And it's only a figure of speech when I say my work is a pain in the ass.

I love sex and I used to joke back in the 80s that I wanted to do porn because...well, it was work I could enjoy. And I heard the pay was even decent. What's not to love?

HIV for starters.

"I don't think there's a problem right now," said actor, producer and director Jules Jordan. "It's like people who do stunts in Hollywood. There's a risk in anything you do."

Jordan said he does not use condoms in filming because "it takes away the whole fantasy."

Some fantasy.

There's absolutely nothing funny about this. It's sad and tragic that 22 cases of HIV infection have been detected in the porn industry since 2004. That we know of.

And yet, I was initially amused when I saw a related piece in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette today. It had something to do with the headline.

I'm not sure if the writer of this deserves a bonus for creativity or the boot for insensitivity:



Seeing the words porn, probe and spurs in the headline of a family newspaper is quite possibly a once-in-a-lifetime event.

The visuals in my mind came about instantly and instinctively. Sometimes my own warped mind makes me uncomfortable. It's my adolescent problem and I suppose I need to work on it.

In the meantime, damn those triggers! I'm now feeling kinky, and it's too damn hot in Texas for leather!


In the same paper today there was a story about a mayor in a small town who just resigned during a "probe." I didn't bother to read that piece for details.

SXSW kicks in this week and I feel sorry for anyone who is flying in dressed for weather we were having at the beginning of this week! You just know somebody stepped off a plane between Wednesday and today wearing a t-shirt and shorts without checking the weather online before packing. Oh well, they'll only suffer for a couple of days.

Let the music begin!

Speaking of weather and music, I am thrilled to see Jack White has a 3rd band going. Dead Weather has Jack on drums.

Mr. White seemed energized by returning to an instrument he played in his youth. “For years I’ve been playing guitar like a drummer,” he said. “Now I want to play drums like a producer and see what happens. Looking at a song from that seat is a whole different ballgame, and it makes me reinvest in writing and producing music again.”

Album coming in June. Single available on iTunes now. I want.

I've been complaining because our temperature went from around 90 on Friday to the 50s over the weekend, with ghastly gusting winds, and we're sitting in the upper 20s this morning. But none of this white stuff, thankfully.

In fact, our week is looking pretty good! I hereby proclaim the arrival of SPRING!

So sayeth the ugly marmot.

On the contrary, our 10-day forecast has LOTS of 60s and 70s.

Damn it was cold today. We topped out at 34° and are now under 30.



I got one thing on my mind and that's a plate of collard greens and .... summer.

And of course I always have something else on my mind since we are trying to warm things up.


What is your favorite foreplay activity that does not involve genitalia?

I love being touched all over, but nothing quite pleases me as much as when txrad licks his index finger and runs it up my leg. Oh yeah.

The official high in Austin yesterday was 81° and I was happily walking around in shorts and barefoot.

This morning I was able to write a word on top of the garbage dumpster.