A historic storm is bearing down on Southeast Virginia and the Outer Banks of North Carolina.

Don't know what a nor'easter is? ...look it up...or move to the east coast.

Anyways, the past couple of days the Hampton Roads area has been POUNDED with a very powerful nor'easter. It was spawned up from the remnants of Hurricane/Tropical Storm Ida.

The storm has wreaked havoc to the entire area. Down towards Nags Head, the beaches there have practically eroded away. Which has led to damage to houses along the coast. Even instances where entire houses have floated away. Farther north, Virginia Beach took a hard hit. The beach there has washed over, and roads everywhere have flooded.

In Norfolk, where I am supposed to be seeing Brand New with Thrice and Crime in Stereo Friday night, many on-ramps leading into the city have been closed. There has been widespread tidal flooding in addition to the flooding from the rain. Norfolk has also received the full force of the winds which have came from this storm, gusting up to 70mph!

Where I live, York County, the effects from flooding have been less, but no less potent. The winds at about 5pm Thursday were so terrible, I was worried that a tree would fall on my house at any point. Due to the weather, school has been closed Thursday and Friday. Our hillbilly neighbors to the north of us in Poquoson received probably the worst of the tidal flooding throughout Hampton Roads. Flood levels in some places reaching over 7 1/2 feet!

I'm very lucky, over 150,000 people have lost power in Hampton Roads, and fortunately, I am not one of them. If I go to my window now, the wind is still howling, and the rain is still coming down. This has been going on for the past 2 days. And in case you're worried, I'm actually in an area that is relatively safe from any kind of flooding.

Check out some photos I took this afternoon from my backyard just before it got dark.
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RIP birdhouse:
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(Note, this damage/flooding is insignificant compared to what's going on across the rest of the area)

To get a real idea of how bad this storm is check out these photos (Not by me.): [link]

That's it for tonight. Look for another update tomorrow with more photos.

Sup guys. Sorry about the inactivity, school caught up with me, and now I'm busy as shit. I was think about posting some of the stuff I've been doing in Art III & Graphic, but I still have yet to sneak some of that stuff out of the school.

This year in art, my teacher is challenging us by forcing us to do a concentration, or 10 different artworks that each revolve around a central theme. We will use this theme all year. After a recent bought of nostalgia, the theme I have chosen will be the Guardians of Ga'Hoole book series. (One of the few book series that I actually enjoy.) So in other words, I get to draw owls all year. (Yay?)

Since I always seem to be talking about it, I'm going to talk about music now. A little over a week ago (October 21st) I went with =burnettekd to see The Gaslight Anthem in Richmond. They were fucking brilliant. =burnettekd will tell you I danced, a lot. Until, during the encore, out of the blue, some girl stage dived. (I had to catch her.) Then the dancing and jumping turned into moshing and jumping. But it lots of fun. One of the openers, The Loved Ones, were really good too.

So, not this Friday, but the Friday after that (November 13th), my brother, and I are heading to the NorVA to see Thrice and Crime in Stereo. Oh, and Brand New is headlining, but to tell you the truth, I couldn't get behind them, so yeah, THRICE!

And! Since I always have to bring up future concerts I'm going to. Rise Against, which should be the highlight of my fall concert series is happening December 4th. And now I'm going to a new show with my brother (He insisted that I go.), which is Thursday, The Dillinger Escape Plan, Fake Problems, and Endless Hallway. I think I figured out that he mainly wants to DEP, but Thursday is a welcome bonus.

And my Halloween was boring. I played guitar on the porch and told the little shits to take their candy.

...and personally, I don't give a damn. (Did that make sense?)

Ok, so lately my music intrests have expanded like crazy. I think I've discovered and fell in love with 10 different bands in the past 3 days. This comes after I received Polar Bear Club's brilliant new album, "Chasing Hamburg." With the album I ordered a t-shirt and a poster with the album cover. But a ended also getting Bridge 9's Summer Compilation ablum, "Give 'em the Boot VII" from Hellcat Records, a poster for Bridge 9's tour, 2 Ruiner stickers, and 3 sets of PETA2 stickers. (LOL at that last one.) What I think happened was that Bridge 9 sent me extra stuff, because they were really late shipping it out.

Oh and here's a little something that I'm excited about: RISE AGAINST IS COMING TO RICHMOND! Just when I thought they would never come to Virginia. I need to get my tickets quick, because this event will sell out.

Lately I've been annoyed by something. Blink-182 is coming to Virginia Beach tomorrow night, and it's all people are talking about. Blink is shit. Their lyrics are so uninspired and are delivered so badly that...ugh. There is absolutely nothing special about them, and yet people are treating them as if they actually have skill. Oh and UMG, fuck you.

My mood is not sunny. It's many different things, happy, annoyed, and yeah.

Lately I've been out of town in OBX, away from my scanner and my usual computer. Which sort of explains my recent absence in art.

I've also found myself in the middle of a campaign to save a roller coaster at my hometown theme park from being retired. Busch Gardens wants to remove the suspended roller coaster, The Big Bad Wolf, from the park for good. Their reason being that it has reached the end of it's "service life". When the truth is that it costs too much to maintain it, and it has become a burden upon the park. Luckily, they have guaranteed that something will replace it. We just don't know what. Big Bad closes Labor Day, and I'll be there.

In concert news: Thrice, Brand New, and Crime in Stereo have announced they will tour together in November. And one of their stops is the NorVA not too far from where I live in Norfolk, VA. Thank god it's on a Friday. Which means I don't have to worry about school getting in the way.

Speaking of school. It's getting closer, and I still readings...and outlines...fuck.

In FlyerMiles central news: I'm working on developing another new character. Hopefully this one will stick around and not die out.

It is 2:45am, and I was booted out of my room, because my cousin and his son are sleeping in there right now. So I'm going to take a bit of time to review the experience I had July 22nd at Warped Tour in Virginia Beach.

The adventure started with the traffic getting in. We (My brother and I) sat in a line for 15-20 min. just to get in the parking lot. And then we had to get in a line to get in the venue. (Verizon Wireless Virginia Beach Amphitheater) Then, apparently we had to wait for the gates to open to get into the huge area where the stages and tents are set up. It was supposed to open at 11am, but it was held off until 11:30am, because one of the band's trailers on the back of their tour bus came unhitched on the road and it tumbled off the road. That caused a big back up of people at the gate.

Once we were finally in, Anti-Flag was already playing on the main stage, but we skipped them and headed over to the Hurley stage to catch Bayside. These guys are pretty good, their sound was pretty typical, but they played nice energetic set. Somehow the mosh pit managed to get from one side of the crowd to our side, putting me on the wall for most of the set. After them I hooked up with one of my friends and we stayed at the same stage to catch Saosin. Another good set, but found myself on the wall once again.

Then came one of the best acts of the day, Gallows. During 90% of the set, their lead singer is literally in the pit. He creates a stage in the crowd, in hot ass weather, with hardcore dancers and moshers all around him, and still manages to pull off kickass vocals. At a point during the set he spoke the truth about all the shit that Warped Tour is attracting. He attacked groups like Brokencyde, Millionares, and Jeffere Star. (Truthfully, all of them really do suck.) The most kick ass moment came when he asked for a circle pit, and seeing all these people running around the lead was awesome. He also ordered a wall of death too. And if you turned around (Because I was in the very front facing the singer who was on the other side of me in the pit.) you could see the rest of the band was still going crazy, even without him. Gallows is amazing live, a must see.

I broke off from my brother and headed with my friend to the main stage to see Less Than Jake, a ska band. Their fans are crazy, a think I saw a wig on the ground and a glass bottle went flying at some point (I don't know how that got in.) There was lots of skanking (look it up.) going on. I became involved in a HUGE circle pit they had going around the soundboard to top a fued they had going on with All Time Low about who could make the biggest circle pit. (Less Than Jake won.) We left in the middle of their performance to grab a bite to eat and catch the end of Senses Fail.

We walked around for a while, unable to get a good spot for A Day to Remember. Lots of t-shirts at various tents managed to use the word fuck. After my friend got his t-shirt signed by Senses Fail, we walked over to main stage to get in a good spot for The Bouncing Souls. These guys put on a good show. And being up front had it's perks. The singer jumped on the barrier a lot and I found myself standing under him at one point. Not as much bouncing as I had hoped for, but there was plenty of pushing.

As the day winded down I ditched my friend for my brother again and chilled in the amphitheater to see Westbound Train. These ska guys make some great music, and deserve a little more exposure than what they have. Right after them was Forever the Sickest Kids who I really didn't care for. (Way too many scene kids around that part.) Then came probably my favorite show of the day (behind Gallows.), Streetlight Manifesto. Their vocalist surprised me when he came out with a sling around his arm, but that didn't stop him. Brilliant show from these guys, there were lots of people who wouldn't stop dancing/skanking/moshing. I finally grew a pair and jumped in the pit and had a blast. At the end of their set the crowd kept chanting "one more song!", but unfortunately, they did not deliver.

Warped Tour was surprisingly awesome. If you manage to avoid all the crap on tour, then you can have a great time. Don't forget to drink shitloads of water (even it costs you $5), then throw your bottle into a crowd when you're done.

It is now 3:32am and I am going to bed.