I really cannot wait to watch the debate tonight and I am very happy it's still a go.

Of course the Democrats will proclaim Obama wins, and Republicans will claim McCain wins. Honestly there's no point in even asking each side afterwards since we already know their answers.

I am still not convinced that having either Obama or McCain in D.C. this week mattered one iota. Neither one are on the banking committees and really did not NEED to be in Washington to hash out the details of our US banking bailout.

The funnier thing is that even in principal, President Bush's plan along with Henry Paulson seems to have created quite a bit of animosity in the Republican party.

I had a gut feeling all along that John McCain would be at Ole Miss tonight. There was no way he was really going to skip it, especially with Obama planning to be there.

I suspect they'll both head back to D.C. after the debate, sometime this weekend.

Now, who will perform better tonight? Well that's hard to say. Obama's a good orator, but usually that's only when he has a teleprompter or written speech in front of him. McCain usually seems to like to use cards with notes, and has in the past needed to refer to a card in order to thow a zinger Obama's direction.

It is going to be interesting, it is going to be fun, and I can't wait.

Well we missed Ike, or rather he missed us. Ike is heading to Texas now it seems, Cat 3 most likely. Time to get prepared if you're on the Texas coast.

Meanwhile, I am off to the last flyaway race of the year for me, MotoGP in Indy. Pit walkabout today, meet up with some friends this afternoon...should be a good weekend.

Over the last 24 hours, the projected track for Ike has shifted quite a bit from what was forecast yesterday.

Now, most of the models show Ike heading through the Southern Bahamas, north of Haiti (although they're likely to get more rain, which they seriously do not need), and then making landfall at Cuba's coast as a category 4 storm.

From there, the consensus of tracks have the storm over most of Cuba's length, which in turn weakens Ike to a category 2 storm and possibly a category 1 storm as it exits Cuba around 2pm Tuesday.

From there, Ike will enter the favorable waters of the Gulf of Mexico, potentially strenghening once again to at least s category 3 storm.

Needless to say everyone in the Gulf Coast needs to continue to watch Ike, as he's quite far from being finished.

For us here in South Florida, we also need to pay attention to each update to see where Ike may go, just in case it makes an unexpected turn.

So here we are just a few days before the midway point of hurricane season and we have Hurricane Ike heading our way.

The track has shifted South since yesterday. That's good for us, but we're vary far from being out of the woods on this one. By the looks of things right now, Ike is heading for the Florida Straights, possibly as a Category 4 storm, which is very bad news for the Keys.

Logically extending the track line forward, and the Panhandle, Mississippi and yes folks, Louisiana are in it's gunsights. The track could move more North, which takes LA & MS out of the mix somewhat. We'll see. The three day track, which is much more reliable than a 5 day, ends 2pm Monday between Cuba and the Bahamas.



Some models show it going farther South yet and interacting more with Cuba. If this is the case then the mountains there will likely knock the storm down somewhat.

Here's a nice Google maps overlay of the track with our location marked with the pin....the image shows the end of the 3 day "cone of discontent" as I call it...the pros say cone of uncertainty..but really, come on. The cone essentially means anything in the shaded region is fair game.



If you're interested in following along at home, here are a couple of sites we visit for tracks and advisories:

* The National Hurricane Center, Miami
* Weather Underground