Meet Pete.

Pete sits at at the bus stop on the corner of 8th Avenue and 2nd Street in my St. Pete neighborhood. I pass him nearly every evening when I'm walking the pug.

He's always pounding cans of Natural Ice, wearing a blue Dilmah Tea cap and white tee-shirt.

I walked past Pete today at 7 p.m. and I asked him, "Do you think we're gonna get this hurricane?"

And Pete said, "Nahhh. Ain't even gonna rain."

"They say it's calmest just before the storm."

"Yeah," said Pete. "I heard that before."

"Are you waiting for the bus?"

"Nahhh. Just drinking beer."

"So this is your hangout?"

"Yeah. I'm not allowed to drink at home."

Pete is very smiley and loves my pug. He likes to alert me to the fact that there are several pugs in the neighborhood.

He lives at a halfway house on 2nd Street, where he's not allowed to drink. So he sits at the bus stop around the corner with two 4-packs of Natty Ice from CVS.

He said he likes Natty Ice because, "it has the most amount of alcohol," - 5.9 percent to be exact, a figure he repeated twice for effect. 

There's a Bucs game on tonight. He said he was pre-gaming. 

On the subject of hurricanes ...

I'll be in Sarascrotum Monday night covering Fay. The last time I covered a hurricane the only property damage I could find was an overturned port-a-potty. Stay tuned for spillage and storm surge.