Wha'?

I was a few blocks away from home driving when I saw this truck, eerily familiar to the one I owned for years, dripping large pieces of burning goop underneath the front end. I turned around, stopped, and ran towards the store right in front of it because at that time there wasn't very much smoke at all and I thought they might not have seen it. By the time I got on the sidewalk the owner of the truck was heading towards the drivers side door and we had to yell at him not to try to get in the truck. Then it was quickly engulfed in flames and everyone went across the street. Totally weird. I would have been freaking out but he just stood there on his cell phone.

'Bout head height

Wow-ee. Things are so super busy at work I can hardly even breathe there. There's no way to get caught up. No way. This is the kind of busy that makes you unable to do anything except walk around with your head reeling, searching for the starting line. I'm going into work tomorrow since I went home with a migrane Thursday afternoon which made me even further behind. There were 2 meetings that morning that I had to attend and I just barely made it through, squinting and in a foul humor. This must be similiar to how it was for people when they came back into this city after the great engineering failure and saw what their life had become - how...where to even start? I'm not equating the 2 experiences, just saying I might know a little bit of what was going through some heads right around then.

I decided to drop my price considerably for the spare room and advertise for 2 roommates, particularly for Americorps volunteers who are coming into town for the year. They pull in a cool 800 a month before taxes (!) so I would need two of those suckers to get any kind of help with the rent. So - I've got TWO roommates now which kind of blows in a way since I'm a serious loner but it will also drag me into the land of the living so it ain't all bad I suppose.

How about those 2 disqualifications in the 200 m races? That was close to the only Olympics I've watched and it was unbelievable. All that training, all that sweat, all those years, and then to step over the line, more than once?? Just blows me away. I decided to get cable (or a dish, actually) after all. I've been without a TV since May and if you saw me before that you wouldn't have believed it since that's about all I did. Now I've had it since Sunday and I've watched about an hour total. Without TV I don't miss it at all but if it's here, I will most likely watch the hell out of it. I've surprised myself so far in not being pulled that way, let's hope it lasts.

That photo above is at one of my sites. See the water line? Look up...up...there, right under the fans. See it? It's about at head height. Well, the height of my head I guess. That is the settling line, that's not the highest the water was, that's where it settled and stayed for weeks and weeks. I heard that sharks were found on the lawns here, this area is directly south of Lake Ponchartrain and water stayed in this area for some of the longest time in the city. Thing is this structure was about 95% complete when the failure happened, but anything that wasn't submerged (like ceiling fans) is still likely completely shot because of the heat and humidity it endured hovering over stagnant toxic water in an enclosed area for weeks. So the entire structure is a goner, most likely. It's a CMU wall structure, but if they're reinforced the steel was most likely inundated and compromised. We have to look into the walls to really figure it out, break some of the blocks open.

It's only 9:30 but I'm ready for bed. Goodnight.

Take it back, please

My 'PODS' got delivered yesterday, and boy is it mostly extemporaneous stuff. I have lived just fine here since early May here with 3 suitcases full of stuff and my 2 dogs, which was what I could fit in my car when I drove here. I've bought some stuff since being here, mostly from thrift stores, so with that additional stuff I have more than enough. Now I have so much more, which is even less than I had in California...I got rid of a large amount of things before moving, including almost all my furniture. I swear I just want to put everything back in the container and have someone come pick it up and take it all for a donation somewhere. Except for my printer, photos, and shoes. Those I missed.

I still haven't found a roommate, I decided to get a place larger than I needed but that had all the bells and whistles because I was certain I could find a roommate easily. Well, it hasn't been easy, and that kind of sucks as it's more expensive here in some ways than I anticipated. Like car insurance. It's almost the same amount as my lease payment on a 2008 car. Crazy, right? Seriously crazy. It's time to take a good hard look at my finances, something that I haaaaaaaaate doing.

In the meantime things are moving very quickly at work, I'm having to take work home to keep up and I felt pretty overwhelmed one day last week. I had one of those days that you just have to get through so you can be happy about getting through it. Someone said to me once that they like to say in the morning, "What do I GET to do today?", not "what do I have to do today.." and that really does make a difference, if I could remember it more.

I took a long bike ride yesterday morning and found a park by the river that I wasn't aware of, I put up a couple of pics from there including one of a couple of tug boats pushing what looks like part of an oil derrick. This park was upstream from the barge accident, so no oil to speak of that I could see, or smell. Some people at work said they could smell the oil/gassy fumes after the spill for days, I couldn't but a lot of smells here are pretty new to me.

There are so many graveyards around town, there are 3 within a quarter mile of where I'm living, 2 of which are right next to each other. You can see one of them is adjacent to a school, check out the school buses and the field lights.

Next Presidential Library

The George W Bush Presidential Library is now in the planning stages.

The Library will include:

The Hurricane Katrina Room , which will always be under construction.

The Alberto Gonzales Room, where you won't be able to remember anything.

The Texas Air National Guard Room, where you won't even have to show up.

The Walter Reed Hospital Room, where they won't let you in.

The Guantanamo Bay Room, where they won't let you out.

The Weapons of Mass Destruction Room, which no one will be able to find.

The National Debt room which will be huge and have no ceiling.

The "Tax Cut" Room with entry only to the wealthy.

The "Economy Room" which will be in the toilet.

The Iraq War Room. After you complete your first tour, you will have to go back for a second, third, fourth, and sometimes fifth tour.

The Dick Cheney Room, in an undisclosed location, complete with shotgun gallery.

The Environmental Conservation Room, which will remain empty.

The Supremes Gift Shop, where you'll be able to buy an election.

The Airport Men's Room, where you will meet some of your favorite Republican Senators.

The 'Decider Room' complete with dart board, magic 8-ball, Ouija board, dice, coins, and straws.

The museum will have an electron microscope to help you locate the President's accomplishments.

Admission: Republicans: free; Democrats: $1000 or 3 Euros

(the above from my uber-democrat uncle outside of D.C)

A few more good ones:

http://www.theonion.com/content/video/bush_tours_america_to_survey

Keep an eye on the news tape at the bottom of the screen too...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieK1PTXmopE&feature=user

Can you see this?

I'm trying this for the first time, uploading a little video I shot at Blake's birthday party the other week. I also need to figure out how to embed a video short or similar so all you'll have to do is click on the symbol and not have to actually open up another webpage.

In the meantime another tropical storm just passed us by on the way to Texas, that's 2x they came awwwwwfully close in the last 2 months and those odds aren't the best. I still haven't gotten my hurricane kit together, basically I'm thinking I'll have to pack my car up with all sorts of stuff to be truly hurricane prepared. I'm always near my car and I won't leave anywhere without the 2 dogs so my car should really be a mobile hurricane kit until the season ends, I suppose.

This 'pattypan' squash sure is neat-lookin', but it's nothing special to eat. I cooked it up this eve. in kind of a casserole with ground beef, onions and fresh creole tomatoes (I know I know...I am not any kind of a cook) and it was all very blah, I must say. It will still be my lunch for the next few days, though, regardless.

Forgotten, but not gone

We still have the tanker here folks, or the barge, or what's left of it. I only saw about 6 people out there looking at it when I went out today. I finally went poking around on both sides of the river to find it, I wasn't sure where to go to get the best view. I'm talking about the oil spill here on the river, for future posterity, due to an unlicensed skipper's run-in with a tanker. First I went on the west bank (which is south of the city) since I really like that view of the bridges but I realized when I got there that I should have stayed on the city side of the river to see it better. There is still welding going on, they're welding plates onto the barge so they can hoist what's left of it easier. I could not see any oil in the water but I wasn't all that close. You can still see the drag nets they've got in the water to try and help stop the oil travelling to the banks of the river. I saw some photos online somewhere showing air cannons they've got set up along the river to scare off the birds so they don't land and get coated in oil. That's a smart idea, huh? I went for a drink with an architect from work last week and he said some guys there that night he heard talking were workers who had come in to do that barge work, specialists of some sort. It has been raining pretty much every day, at least some, and most days way more than some. I wonder what that's doing for the spill....making it better or worse?