That’s a difficult question to answer. I typically follow back those who follow me but I am always seeking new sources and interesting people to follow. I actively seek out subject matter experts regardless of their viewpoint and follow several people I disagree with on one or more issues. I have no interest in monitoring a stream that only reinforces my opinions. I use Twitter to learn more about these topics and to share that knowledge with others.

2. Why has Blogs of War added me to a list?

I have several lists. Some are public, some private. If I’ve added you it’s because you are geographically relevant to the topic, a subject matter expert, or comment frequently on the issue. If you think that you should be removed from a list let me know and I will be happy to take a look.

3. Why does Blogs of War have an Islam list?

Muslims are increasingly important demographic and are extremely relevant to the war on terror for obvious reasons. I do not consider this to be an enemies list. Rather, I use it as a window into this important (and wildly diverse) population.

4. Why did you just retweet THAT?

I retweet comments or links that are interesting – usually because I agree with them but sometimes not. I don’t always append my opinion to the retweet and this confuses some people. I offer the content up because it’s interesting and don’t always feel the need to force my opinion on my followers. My goal is to inform – not persuade.

5. I don’t agree with anything Blogs of War says. In fact, I’m a tofu eating anti-war pansy. Why are you following me?

Because you’ve probably said at least one thing that I found interesting. I may not generally agree with you either. In fact, I may be following you precisely because I don’t agree with your stance on one or more issues. I may even think that you’re a complete asshat but you can take solace in the fact that you’re probably an interesting or relevant asshat. I’m not looking for ideological conformity in my feed. I just want to learn something. Oh, I like tofu too. My girlfriend is Chinese. We eat tofu all the time – usually with pork.

6. I don’t like Blogs of War so will you please unfollow me?

Feel free to block me but please don’t ask me to actively participate in your stupidity.

7. What is the Blogs of War Watchlist?

This is a fairly large and diverse group but most of them have been added because the tweet consistently relevant content.

8. How do I contact you outside of Twitter?

Use the contact form on Blogs of War.

9. Who are you?

There’s an about page too. There’s not much on it but then there isn’t much you need to know. Blogs of War isn’t a self-promotion tool for me. I do take occasional interview requests (use the contact form or Twitter) but decline many as well. I won’t bite if you ask.

10. Will you connect with me on Linkedin or Facebook?

Maybe. Feel free to ask. In rare cases I may send people in my circle a request as well. This isn’t something that I do frequently so don’t be offended, or take it personally, if I decline.

11. How do I become a source for Blogs of War or get added to a list?

I’m constantly looking for new sources so just let me know that you’re out there – and why you think I should be watching.

The answer is still usually no unless you live on the West side of town. Anything along and East of I-45 took a pretty hard hit. Much of that area, especially parts South of the 610 Loop, will be without power until sometime late September or early October. Amazingly, power outages extend up to the Lufkin area and East past Baton Rouge Louisiana. The CenterPoint restoration map will give you a pretty good feel for Ike’s path.

My family in Clear Lake continues to live without power but they were well prepared. They bought a large generator, window unit air conditioner, and a supply of gas before the storm hit. I was well prepared as well but all of my services were restored quickly. One of the advantages of living downtown is that restoration of service to your area will be a relatively high priority.

Gas has been a major problem for many. Lines aren’t as long but they’re still there. I pass by many closed stations every day. I don’t know if a lack of fuel, power, or both is to blame. This issue hasn’t really been an impact for me either. I filled up my SUV before the storm and limited travel as much as possible to conserve fuel. I have been driving to work since Wednesday but I live within 5 miles of my office. I don’t know what people who commute long distances are doing but they must be pretty miserable.

Those of you in Houston, or surrounding areas, who’d like to help with the relief effort can find a list of places that need your help at one of the Houston Chronicle’s blogs. I hope the rest of you will consider making some kind of donation to the American Red Cross. They are going to have their hands full for a very long time. We all will.

Update:
Glenn Reynolds asks “Why do hurricanes that hit Texas get so much less attention than hurricanes that hit New Orleans?”

Also:

Houstonist rides along with CenterPoint.

I took this photo in the Heights about 3 blocks from were I rode out the storm.

My place did sustain some minor flooding damage. It looks like water came surging up a sink drain. The resulting mess clogged the sink and damaged some carpet. I did have to trash the contents of my fridge but the loss was not significant. My place is still very livable so I consider myself fortunate. I’m working hard to get everything cleaned up and to get ready for work in the morning.

I still have plenty of cash on hand and the gas tank is 3/4 full. I filled up before the storm and tried hard to minimize driving so I haven’t had to wait in a fuel line. I hope to make the gas last long enough to avoid that altogether.

Again, please consider making a donation to the Red Cross. They will be assisting our region for a long time to come.

I-45 South was mostly clear. Few of the businesses that lined the freeway were open but those that were had enormously long lines. Clear lake itself was a mess but most of the damage, along Bay Area, seemed tree related. Brook Forest and neighborhoods surrounding it seemed particularly hard with with massive trees down in huge numbers.

My family lives in the Brookwood subdivision and it looked horrible. Most of the homes were structurally sound but many, including my parent’s home, suffered minor damage from fallen limbs and trees. A contractor with heavy equipment was working his way up and down the streets removing fallen trees and patching damaged roofs. He was doing a lot of business and will likely continue to do so for weeks.

My place is still without power so I continue to stay with a friend. We’re the lucky ones though. We have power and we prepared well with plenty of food, water, and gas. We’ve both lived through many hurricanes and tropical storms, Including hurricane Alicia, and knew what the aftermath would be like. We’ve turned most of our attention to supporting family and friends

Updates dropped off the night during the worst part of the storm as we dealt with the worst Ike had to dish out. I’ve spent the remaining time dealing with recovery efforts for myself, friends, and family. I’ll try to recap the highlights.

As the eye neared we moved to the fourth floor. There was a hallway with a sheltered balcony that faced I-10 and we moved there, with a few others, to watch the central portion of Ike pass.

Initially the winds were probably 50-60 mph sustained. It was enough to blow some leaves around but damage was minimal. However, we soon moved into the more intense part of the storm near the eye wall. Sustained winds moved up into the 80 mph range and we were surprised to see extreme gusts that easily exceeded 100 mph. Transformers were cooking off throughout the city and filled the sky with intense blue-green flashes of light. It looked like shock and awe over Baghdad for a while.

Tree limbs, and sometimes entire trees, were snapping with explosive pops during this period. It wasn’t too frightening until a huge gust moved the large exterior wall I was leaning against about a foot. That got my attention and ushered in a period of increasingly intense wind gusts. We could hear aluminum siding and other building materials being ripped free from the structures around us. Some small trees were completely uprooted.

By this point we’d had hours and hours of wind and intense rain. The complex we were in sits about 40 feet above White Oak Bayou so we decided to move to the other side of the complex and check the water level. Our view was severely restricted by the wind and sheets of rain even though the bayou was only 30 yards away but it didn’t look good. In fact, it looked like the bayou was about to top its banks. This left us pretty worried since hours of rain and wind remained. We decided that we’d rather risk a short walk to the bayou and determine the severity of the flooding than risk being taken by surprise.

We donned wind breakers (better than nothing) and flashlights and started to head out. We made it perhaps 30 feet when a huge explosion to our right forced me to grab my friend by the arm and pull him behind a nearby wall. We were shocked by the noise, bright explosion, and sparks. We ducked and took cover behind the wall – stunned. A transformer across the street had finally given in.

We made our way down the feeder to the bridge over the bayou and were shocked by the volume of water flowing by. The bayou was over 100 feet across, perhaps 40 feet deep, and flowing at an incredible speed. With hours of Ike still ahead of us we thought flooding of our apartment complex was inevitable.

It was then that the weirdest event of the long night occurred. We noticed a lone figure walking headfirst into 90 mph winds directly up the centerline of the feeder road. He was leaning into the wind and trying to cover his face with his shirt to ward off the painful sting of wind-driven rain. Amazingly, he was also barefoot.

I assumed that the guy walking towards us was a homeless man who had been chased from his underpass by the rising waters – who else would walk down an interstate feeder road shoeless in a hurricane? As he approached I screamed “Are you ok?” He walked up to me and told me that his car was flooded. He’d been trapped and was running back home. “Did you leave your shoes in the car?” I screamed. We were a foot from each other but had to scream over 90 mph winds. “Nah, I was just running out for smokes.” I was stunned. “You went driving in a hurricane without your fucking shoes?” I asked. He laughed. He seemed to realize the stupidity of this but was still stupid enough to find it amusing. He closed with “Dude, I have to go to 16th street!” We wished him luck and he leaned back into the wind and trudged forward.

We watched the bayou for a minute to see how fast it was rising and decided to head back. Walking into the wind and rain was incredibly painful. It felt like we were being stung by a swarm of bees. Looking forward was impossible. We walked, leaning into the wind, with our heads down and our arms and hands held in front of us to block the pain. To make maters worse we were constantly pummeled by branches from the small trees nearby. Had those trees been larger the trip would have been impossibly dangerous but they were only about ten feet high. It still seemed to take forever. At one point I took some bad hits from the wind and went to the ground next to a concrete wall to take cover. I briefly considered rolling into the fetal position and riding out the storm there but jumped up and nearly ran the rest of the way back.

The bayou was moving so quickly that structural damage would have almost surely resulted and it’s unlikely that even the upper floors would have been safe. We spent the rest of the night and early morning watching it nervously. The bayou finally reached its peak a few feet above flood stage but stopped just short of our property. The relief was immense. For a few hours we faced the possibility of having to quickly abandon our shelter – in the middle of hurricane Ike.

The interstate in front of us looks like a 100 foot wide river. I’m hearing that I-45 south is similarly flooded and sealed off. It’s going to get worse too. Radar shows much more rain on the way.

We need to reach a friend’s family with some supplies. Unfortunately, they’re in Clear Lake which means that we’ll have to skirt a lot of flooded highways, We’re leaving in about a hlf hour and expect this to take several hours. Hopefully, we’ll make it back before the city-wide curfew goes into effect.

More updates to follow.

Update:
Mayor White is asking people to stay off the streets. That’s great advice. We’re only traveling out of necessity. We’re both locals and have decades of experience dealing with these kinds of situations.

My family’s place is a couple of miles from this hotel. They returned home today to find a tree on the house, a broken skylight, and quite a bit of water and leaves in their home. Power and water may not be restored for weeks,

This is all still better than the outcome that we all expected. We thought the home would be lost for sure.

Trees have been ripped apart, parts of the building’s siding have been ripped off, and the bayou next to us (I-10 and Studemont) is rising to frightening levels. I think we are in for some severe flooding. Yet somehow, through all of this, electricity and internet remain functional.

My personal safety isn’t an issue. I can go up several floors if catastrophic flooding occurs and I have to say that I can’t imagine it not occurring at the moment. I hope that the rain lets up.

We’re hearing reports on the police scanner of a large fire near Smith and Brazos. Twitter is full of reports that the historic Brennan’s Restaurant has burned to the ground. It sounds like the same fire.

It’s getting pretty hairy around here.

We have generators and car batteries with power inverters so we’ll just have to see how it goes. I may also be able to post Twitter updates via my Blackberry. I’ll do whatever I can to keep the updates flowing.

Update:
HPD is reporting power lines down across the Southwest Freeway at the Loop.

We’re starting to see really strong gusts. They’re moving the trees around quite a bit and you can hear the big ones coming for 30 seconds or so before they hit you. Stuff isn’t coming apart yet but that is almost certainly going to happen as the eye nears us early in the morning.

Thankfully, we still have power and satellite TV despite brief flickers. I don’t have much hope that we’ll maintain this luck through the early morning hours.

Stay tuned.

Ike is closing in on Galveston and the video making it out looks pretty horrific. We’ll probably take a real turn for the worse after midnight here. That’s been the case for every hurricane I’ve been in for some reason.

It still looks like we’re in line to pass through the eye of the storm. More updates to come – as long as I can anyway.

We’re getting some strong gusts now but the real weather is still on the way. It’s pretty amazing to watch the cloud bands circle by at high speed. Unfortunately, the bad stuff is going to hit us just as it gets dark. Riding out a major hurricane in the dark – probably without electricity – can be slightly unpleasant.

I’ll be up capturing video and photos, monitoring the police scanner, and posting upates throught the night and early morning – at least as long as the Red Bull and broadband hold out.

2 laptops, 1 desktop, 2 video cameras, 3 phones, 1 Blackberry, and a 1,000 channel police scanner, all powered by Red Bull and a generator. I just hope that the broadband holds out.

I’m now settled in and ready to ride out the storm. We took one last quick trip to Christian’s to grab a hot meal. It may be our last for quite a while if power is lost.

Christian’s is the place to eat at times like this. They never close and have been known to deliver burgers to the city emergency officials in downtown during crisis periods such as this. They even stayed open during the hurricane Rita evacuation which practically cleared out the city. Midtown residents, cops, and other public service types love the place.

We’re being told that hurricane force winds will be impacting our area within two hours. I’ll provide updates as long as possible.

I took this on my last trip to the small market in my building. The winds are picking up but are still minor in downtown Houston. You can certainly tell that a storm is coming though.

A convoy of Houston police officers sped by just after this shot was taken. Everyone is getting ready to (as we say in Texas) hunker down.

My prep work is done and I’ve confirmed that my family is safe. However, they do expect water up to the roof of their evacuated house if the current forecasts hold. I have some friends to check up on now while we can still communicate.

In about an hour I’m going to relocate to a friend’s place about a mile away. He has a generator. Hopefully I’ll be able to update through this blog and Twitter well into the storm.

More updates soon.

I also need coffee – badly.

I was hoping to wake up this morning to a forecast that would be more favorable to our area but it’s actually looking worse:

THE SHIPS MODEL DIAGNOSTICS AND ANALYSES FROM CIMMS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN SUGGEST THAT IKE IS UNDERGOING ABOUT 15 KT OF NORTHERLY WIND SHEAR. THE SHIPS MODEL FORECASTS SOME NORTHERLY SHEAR TO PERSIST UNTIL LANDFALL. THAT…COMBINED WITH THE LACK OF AN INNER CORE…SUGGESTS SLOW STRENGTHENING AT BEST. HOWEVER…IKE IS PRODUCING ABUNDANT STRONG CONVECTION NEAR AND SOUTH OF THE CENTER…AND THE SHEAR HAS NOT STOPPED THE STORM FROM STRENGTHENING THIS MORNING. THE GFDL AND HWRF MODELS FORECAST SOME MODEST STRENGTHENING BEFORE LANDFALL…WITH THE GFDL FORECASTING AN INTENSITY OF JUST OVER 100 KT. BASED ON THIS…THE INTENSITY FORECAST CALLS FOR IKE TO BECOME A MAJOR HURRICANE IN ABOUT 24 HR. IKE SHOULD WEAKEN AFTER LANDFALL…AND IT IS FORECAST TO LOSE TROPICAL CHARACTERISTICS IN ABOUT 72 HR AS IT MERGES WITH A FRONTAL SYSTEM.

I was on Galveston most of the evening to help a friend with business on the island and Ike’s presence could definitely be seen and felt. Tides were high and the sea was quite rough.

The drive to Galveston was eerie. There were few cars heading South and many heading North. Occasionally, we’d seen long convoys of ambulances speeding North with lights and sirens blazing. Hospital evacuations were still underway.

Arriving on the island it looked, initially at least, deserted. Most business were boarded up and there was little traffic on the street. We made our way to Seawall Boulevard (map) and found it lined with media and satellite trucks.

Camera crews were shining bright lights into the rough surf to illuminate the dramatic background for reporter standups and a few, two dozen at most, locals and tourists were watching the media. We parked and stepped out to view the surf and were almost immediately greeted by a local screaming that Ike was out for blood, the city was corrupt, and that Ike was God’s wrath for this corruption. He cited a the city’s unwillingness to install handrails on the sea wall as evidence. God must be holding Galveston to a pretty high standard if overlooking handrails is enough to justify complete destruction of the city.

We were approached by the crazy man’s handler who told us that he was a local who planned to ride out the storm in an older two-story building. Surprisingly, he expressed concern about the number of locals who were planning to ride out the storm on the island. We clearly weren’t running into Galveston’s brightest residents. Those folks were well North of the island.

I used to live in Galveston and know that many local BOI (Born on the island) types think that any building that survived the 1900 storm will serve as adequate shelter for any storm that will follow. That logic is deeply flawed in the face of the kind of sea wall topping surge that we may see with Ike. We encouraged the man and his insane friend to leave. I have no doubt that they’ll stay.

We left Seawall and drove around the East side of the island. It was clear that most people had evacuated but there were still hundreds, possibly even a few thousand, people still on the island. It’s possible that many of them are waiting until the last minute to leave. I suspect that many of the remaining residents will bug out this morning since Ike is still dialed in on our area. I fear the worst for those who stay.