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Back in the Heart of Dixie

Well, things are slowly returning back to “normal” … I was greeted this morning with 600+ emails in my work Inbox, 100+ in my personal, and ~3000 feed entries waiting to be read.

LOL! Miss me much did they?

I see that WordPress has released 2.6 finally. The blogosphere is all a-buzz with the news. Suggested reading: Doug Campbell, Keith Dsouza, and Ryan Boren. So now I’ll have to update all my blogs, themes, and plugins.

Yay … I’ll get around to it (hopefully!) this week …

We had a great time in NOLA. The drive down and back was pretty pleasant. We took the “scenic route” passing through Montgomery, stopping by Jim’s mom’s both ways (she kept Jessie for us). I was reminded why I love living in Alabama. I remember thinking to myself, “My God, we live in a beautiful state!”

We stopped briefly in Waveland, Mississippi, and in upper Louisiana. It’s been nearly 10 years since I’ve been down there … everything I remember is gone. Katrina and Rita really kicked the collective asses of coastal cities in lower AL, MS, and LA.

Otherwise the drive down to New Orleans was nice. We had great weather (outside of the heat and OPPRESSIVE humidity!) I took the time while in New Orleans to see some sights, have some great food, partake in local (and interesting) spirits, and just enjoy myself in general. The reunion was a lot of fun, and it was interesting to see the people Jim grew up with.

I was lucky enough to meet up and have lunch with two of my Cotillion sisters: Greta Perry and Conservative Belle. I would have liked to have spent more time with them, but the heat royally kicked my butt and Jim and I had so much planned, LOL!

Hopefully I’ll be making another trip down that way pretty soon!

We stopped by so many shops in the French Quarters that I loved! Many had beautiful clothing and jewelry that I could have easily gone “ga-ga” over. We stopped in one vampire shoppe that had many cute novelties and some interesting books covering local and Southern folklore. The shop owner had a BEAUTIFUL German Sheppard (the “head of security” LOL!) that was just as sweet as he could be!

I want another dog!

We also stopped by a local mall to pick up a few amenities that were forgotten in the hurried packing process. It was pretty much like what we have here back at home. I checked out one store that sold a lot of cell gear, drooled over some bluetooth cell phone headsets and considered getting another micro sd card for my Helio Ocean. (nah, will wait and get them cheaper online! LOL)

One thing that really sticks out in my memory is how “available” alcohol is down there. I kid you not, we walked into a Wal-mart and there was a HUGE section with every type of liquor and beer I could ever want! And you can’t walk 50 feet without coming across a daiquiri shop!

There’s so much more to tell, but we’ll leave it at this for now …

It’s good to be home!

Kickin’ weekend

Had a full weekend. Jessie’s karate school had a “Kick-a-thon” benefit for St. Jude’s early Saturday. She did pretty well for her first time. She made 300 kicks, but then had to drop out because she had gotten overheated and was about to be sick. (that room was SO HOT!) It’s a wonder nobody passed out. The winner was a little girl about Jessie’s age who had been taking karate since she could walk; she won with 3400 kicks.

That’s impressive, I don’t care who you are!

Afterwards, there was a potluck breakfast. We had a good time hanging out with the senseis and other parents. We left directly from there to head to Montgomery to see Jim’s mom and his brother’s family. The ride down was a bit of a pain — the out-of-town traffic was IMMENSE! Seriously, I haven’t seen traffic like that since Jim and I were stuck in the Hurricane Ivan evacuation.

Otherwise the ride down was nice. Jessie and I pointed out the state tags on cars that we passed and giggled at funny exit signs. There was one exit sign that was particularly funny (and not very work friendly, LOL!) … if Jim’s snapshot came out, I’ll share on here.

We went out to lunch at a nice Chinese place once we were down there and stopped by a farmer’s market on the way back. I LOVE going to places like that. Just smelling all the fresh fruit and veggies brings back memories. I told Jim’s mother, “This smells like home.” Or rather, it reminds me of Corner (the way it was when I was little).

Once we were back at the house, Jim’s mom showed me several art projects that she’s been working on. We sat and caught each other up on work and general family gossip. Jim helped my sister-in-law put together a plasma tv mount in the guest room. All in all, it was a very good time. We left early that evening because some pretty heavy storms were coming through that area. I had a horrible headache Saturday night because of it, and woke up with another yesterday.

I hated having to leave so soon, but we’ll be back down there in a couple of weeks. Jessie is staying down there this week and next week — though her mother is none too happy about it. She showed her ass a bit Saturday, especially when it came time for us to leave to head to Montgomery. She wouldn’t speak to any of us, and said not a word to Jessie. :roll:

One of these days, that woman is going to realize that the world does not revolve around HER.

So today it’s back to work. I’m waiting to call my insurance company to chew them out for delaying my migraine medicine’s refill AGAIN. They do this about every 6 months or so, and I’m getting pretty sick of it. They will be lucky if I don’t just reach through the phone and choke them! ??:

Vividly tsunamic

Had a weird dream last night. For whatever reason, I was living in the home I grew up in on the outskirts of Mt. Olive, Corner, that area. I remember that there was some sort of catastrophic event and somehow the house was suddenly near the sea (maybe Gulf Coast?) — things and people have an odd habit of changing places in my dreams. Something caused a flood, but it was no normal flood. It was more like a tsunami. I remember that the waves would creep up, then recede outward, then come rushing in again very quickly. I remember being inside the house and seeing the water level rising, covering the windows. (which is odd in itself because this was a two-story house!)

I distinctly remember the color and smell of the water. It was dirty, almost muddy. (think Mississippi River banks in New Orleans, pre-Katrina) In my dream, I was trapped inside the house for some reason and remember panicking when the water broke through each of the windows and started pouring into the house. I don’t remember much else, except that towards the end of the dream I was standing at the water’s edge on the shore and someone was explaining some new anti-wave barrier mechanism to me that had just been put in place. I remember telling them “it’s not enough, they will still come.”

Weird.

I’m not sure what it signifies, but it’s one of the first dreams I’ve been able to remember being that vivid since going on the Amitriptyline. Usually I’ve forgotten my dreams by the time I wake up.

I’ve thought about it off and on all day. Something that struck me was when I was watching the water cover the land in my dream, I thought about how odd that it was covering that amount of real estate so quickly! However highly unlikely that we’d ever experience this kind of event up here in B’ham, it was still kind of creepy.

Red Cross puts social networking and online tools to good use

I’d like to introduce you guys to someone: Ike Pigott. He’s a local blogger that I ran across on Twitter some time ago. I’ve been following his blog, Occam’s RazR, for a while now. He works for Red Cross and has an extensive background in communications.

He’s recently set himself upon a personal quest to utilize the online tools and social media for disaster relief and aid. He’s created the Red Cross Online Disaster Portal and opened the Red Cross Twitter Channel.

The idea is that people in evacuation zones could “follow” the Red Cross Twitter feed from their cell phones, and find out about shelter locations and service delivery sites.

I think it’s a great idea, and I’m personally excited to be able to see first-hand the mediums that we have available to us today being put to use for such a great cause. This will be especially handy for us locally with hurricane season coming up, as well as tornado season!

If you are interested in helping out or would like more information, please contact Ike. I’m sure that he’d love to hear from you and could use any and all help sent his way! :grin:

HAH!! Take that, Al Gore!

It’s nice to finally see it in print.

Ocean currents to blame for warming: expert

The United States’ leading hurricane forecaster says global ocean currents, not human-produced carbon dioxide, are responsible for global warming. William Gray, a Colorado State University researcher, also said the Earth may begin to cool on its own in five to 10 years.

Speaking to a group of Republican MPs, Dr Gray had harsh words for researchers and politicians who said man-made greenhouse gases were responsible for global warming.

“They are blaming it all on humans, which is crazy,” he said. “We’re not the cause of it.”

Dr Gray said in the past 40 years the number of serious hurricanes making landfall on the US Atlantic coast had declined even though carbon dioxide levels had risen. He said increasing levels of carbon dioxide would not produce more, or stronger, hurricanes.

Dr Gray, 77, has long criticised the theory that heat-trapping gases generated by human activity are causing the world to warm.

Earlier this month, he dubbed former US vice-president and 2000 Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore “a gross alarmist” for making the Oscar-winning documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, which helped focus media attention on global warming.

Yesterday, Dr Gray said that politics and research into global warming had created “almost an industry” that had frightened the public and overwhelmed dissenting voices.

He said research arguing that humans were causing global warming was “mush” based on unreliable computer models that could not possibly take into account the hundreds of factors that influenced the weather.

He said little-understood ocean currents were behind a decades-long warming cycle, and disputed assertions that greenhouse gases could raise global temperatures as much as some scientists predicted.

“There’s no way that doubling CO2 is going to cause that amount of warming,” he said.

Dr Gray also said warming and cooling trends could not go on indefinitely and believed temperatures were beginning to level out after a very warm year in 1998.

Location, location, location!

One of my cousins was reading an earlier blog entry here and emailed me, wanting me to check out a a link to a realtor where a friend of hers works: Cary NC Real Estate. One of my mom’s sisters lives in North Carolina, and has a house in the mountains (very swank!) so I’ve been up that way a few times before. They’ve got a few nice listings, but to be honest I’ve never considered moving out and over to “one of The Carolina’s.”

I’m not saying the listings aren’t nice … but if I were to consider moving out that way, it would have to be up in the mountains. If I wanted to live in a suburb, I could do that here (and for a lot less). And on the beach is out of the freakin’ question. (Hellooooooooo! HURRICANES!!)

Jim says I’m too picky … I just feel like I haven’t found a place yet that feels more like home than “home” does.

My week so far …

Welp, Monday was pretty short. Work closed early, because Katrina had not yet ‘landed’ or rather had not reached us yet. We kept Jessie out of school that day because we weren’t sure what they were going to do about the weather, and rough weather really REALLY scares her.

We had a lot of wind, some power and internet outage, and some leaves, grass, and trash flittered about but no real damage. Jessie’s school stayed closed, so Jim stayed home with her while I went to work. When I left that morning, several trees and power lines were down in the road … honestly, I was amazed that we had power! Work was pretty light, several people still didn’t have power. (neither did my parents)

Wednesday Jessie’s school was still closed so it was my turn to stay home (not that I minded, because I hadn’t slept much in two days and I was exhausted). So Jessie and I vegged out and watched old sci-fi movies all day.

Jason and the Argonauts, Clash of the Titans (my fav), White Zombie, Godzilla vs. Mothra, and a little 5th Element for humor.

Today Jess went back to school, and Jim and I stayed a full day at work. Thank God tomorrow is Friday.

Descent into a living Hell

That’s what I’d call what’s going on in New Orleans right now. :cry:

In a sense they were lucky because the storm moved downshore just before reaching land, so it was not hit dead on. Honestly, it was like the Hand of God moved the hurricane a few miles east. But the Gulf Coast was still devastated.

New Orleans is almost completely underwater. Mississippi’s coastline and southern inland areas are demolished. Mobile has been ravaged and scarred as well. I’m seeing beaches, cities, places I’ve known and loved completely obliterated.

I sat earlier tonight looking at old pictures I had of Dauphin Island (AL), Waveland (MS), and New Orleans (LA). All gone.

On the news, I see people barely living, desparing, with little hope. I find it hard to believe that this could happen HERE, in AMERICA. We’re fucking AMERICA! I want to scream “Where was the evacuation plan? Where’s the mayor? Where’s the local Army Reserves? Why isn’t more being done?”

I know it’s hard down there. Very few can get in or out. And now a bunch of numbnuts are shooting at (and wounding/killing) relief workers and rescuers.

All so surreal, it’s literally a descent into a living Hell for people living in, around, or on our coastlines. And I feel a sense of loss for places and people that I’ve known, loved, and now lost.

There are still several people living in Mississippi and Louisianna that I still have not heard from. I pray and hope for the best, but fear the worst.

I have watched the news every night and cried, I can’t watch it anymore. What pains me is that I’m certain someone, somewhere, is taking notes … just imagine if a 9-11 like attack were staged on this kind of scale …

There’s a lot of fingerpointing, but luckily there’s more helping … we have several relief benefits going on here locally. Jessie’s school is having a fundraiser so we’re involved with that. Plus, I have been working on getting information to several Coven visitors who have misplaced family/friends, and have posted the following information in the hopes that it may help someone else:

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FINDING A LOVED ONE:

Telephone Numbers:

• American Red Cross – 1-800-621-FEMA (621-3362) Lost, 1-866-GET-INFO (438-4636) Other Info
• Bureau of Naval Personnel – 1-877-414-5358 (For status of Navy Family members)

Text Messages: Phone lines are often jammed and it is hard to connect. Another suggestion is to send your loved one a text message on their cell phone. It might be easier for them get a line out to call you back.

Websites:

• Salvation Army Team ERN – http://www.qso.com/satern411/
• Biloxi Sun-Herald – http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/
• New Orleans Times-Picayune – http://www.nola.com/
• Craig’s List – http://neworleans.craigslist.org/about/help/katrina
• Katrina Check-In – http://www.katrinacheckin.com/

When posting “In Search of …” ads, please remember to include as much information as possible for sighting reports! (you never know who might have seen your friend or loved one and could let you know that he or she is alright)

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HELPING OUT:

• American Red Cross, also call 1-800-HELP-NOW (435-7669), (800) 257-7575 para espanol, (800) 220-4095 for TDD operator.
• Salvation Army, or call 1-800-SAL-ARMY (725-2769)
• Feed the Children
• NBA player and News Orleans-area native Chris Duhon’s Stand Tall Foundation, or call (312) 329-0687
• United Methodist Church, or call (800) 554-8583, mail to UMCOR, PO Box 9068, New York, NY 10087-9068, memo checks to “UMCOR Advance #982523, Hurricanes 2005 Global”
• Catholic Charities USA, or call (800) 919-9338, mail to Catholic Charities USA, 2005 Hurricane Relief Fund, PO Box 25168, Alexandria, VA 22313-9788
• United Jewish Communities, to mail a check: United Jewish Communities, P.O. Box 30, Old Chelsea Station, New York, NY 10113, Attention: Hurricane Katrina; or contact your local federation
• Christian Disaster Response, or call (941) 956-5183 or (941) 551-9554
• Episcopal Relief & Development, or call 1-800-334-7626
• Louisiana Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals – call (504) 944-7445
• American Humane Society, or mail to American Humane Association, 63 Inverness Drive East, Denver, CO 80112

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Weather concerns …

I was surprised yesterday when I saw the reports on FoxNews that Hurricane Katrina had turned and headed into the Gulf. In doing so, turned it from a Category 1 to a Category 5 hurricane. This morning they are saying that Katrina is well over Cat 5 standards, as 5 is the highest level on the scale.

They’re saying now that it should hit New Orleans head on, and is expected to completely bury the city under water, then continue inland over Mississippi and Alabama. Oh, great.

It seems that we may finally lose our NOLA. :cry:

The mayor was shown this morning ordering a mandatory evacuation, but most of those who could get out already have. Pretty much anyone left there is riding it out, and most plan on partying anyways. One guy being interviewed said “We can’t get out, so we might as well have fun.”

Esper, DaV, Pearl, Sam, and the rest of you swamp rats dear to me: Please be careful and stay safe! Drop me a line later this week letting me know how y’all are doing!!

Jim and I will be preparing work to ride out another line of storms, so unfortunately I probably won’t be online much this week. Stay safe everyone.

So far, so good …

Lucky for us, Hurricane Dennis took a surprise turn and so we are getting loads of rain, but so far are faring well. We’ve lost power a few times, but UPS kept our machines and LAN online so all’s cool. The only worry remaining is the rain, we live in a flood zone; although not as bad as other parts of B’ham, it still collects a lot of water so if/when we go to work tomorrow, it will be interesting. ??:

I worked some more on my blog, just adding minor changes really. Added a syndication link in the footer. Also updated the credits and added links to my plugins authors’ websites.

I’ve been going through my coppermine gallery reading some of the comments left by friends and random visitors. Apparently some lugnut thought it would be funny to give every freakin’ image a 0 rating … so I removed access to the rating for all users.

Got a call from Mysfyt today … God, it seems like I retired from the Scene so long ago. Seems almost like a different lifetime. It was fun gabbing and catching up with her on everything that’s gone on since I left. (Plst, my deepest condolences!)

It’s kind of funny though, one of the things I was talking to her about was that I was just thinking the other night about people I had met … some nearly 10 years ago … one of which was BluDragN. He and I met on alt.2600.warez years prior to my joining PC. A likeable guy, very kind-hearted. He died suddenly of an aneurysm late March of 2002. His parents used to have a memorial page with his obituary on it. They’ve since taken it down and just have pictures up. I’ve really missed him.

It’s funny … I have plenty of acquaintances, but my true friends are mostly people I have met online, whom I will most likely never meet face to face. A very select few whom I considered to be more like family. Rich was one of them, as was Bobbi. I still miss her too.

Anyways, it’s getting late and I’ve got to get up early. I think I might play a little Vtm:Bloodlines for a bit, then try to finish Who Am I?

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