Where the Sidewalk Begins ...

RIP, Jerry Juhl

So much of the humor, irreverence, caring and heart that has been central to our work for 50 years began with Jerry Juhl. He was – in many ways – the real voice of The Muppets and of every project from The Jim Henson Company.
        - Lisa Henson, The Jim Henson Company

This makes me so sad. Jerry Juhl is one of those folks you have appreciated for years, but you never knew his name. I only recently learned his name while reading the Muppet Morsels on the Muppets, Season 1 DVD. Jerry was head writer for The Muppet Show, as well as co-writing the majority of the Muppets feature-length movies. Through his writing, Jerry helped give the Muppets the personalities that we know and love.
Jerry Juhl passed away this past Monday from cancer.

Remembering Jerry Juhl: Henson.com
Wikipedia entry
IGN.com: Juhl in the Crown

A Pet for Shel and Kev

I'm always on the lookout for some sort of pet that Kevin can live with due to his severe allergies. Maybe we should go this route ...

FSM Flotsam

More Flying Spaghetti Monsterism, this time from Jason. I couldn't have said it better myself: easier just to link.

Bork! Bork! Bork!

A random Muppet fact that I learned from the tasty Muppet Morsels on the Season 1 DVD:

Apparently Jim Henson operated the head/voice of the Swedish Chef. Frank Oz operated the hands. Remember the Swedish Chef? His hands are always doing crazy things. Apparently Frank was always trying to throw Jim off, making for some crazy and unexpected moments. When they did improv together, they were apparently at their best. So next time you see the Swedish Chef, think of the two crazy guys who brought him to life during the Muppet Show. Bork Bork Bork!

The Corpse Bride & Comic Book

I had acquired passes last week to go see a preview of "The Corpse Bride" on Wednesday, before it was released. So Kevin & I went.
I should preface this with these things: I love Tim Burton, I love animation, I love Johnny Depp, and I love Danny Elfman. That said, I was aware that the Hollywood-ites I love do occasionally disappoint.  Not this time. All my favorites came through for me. The story is incredibly upbeat and romantic - at least for Tim Burton. It's very much a fairy tale, and since I sort of "collect" fairy tales, it was right up my alley. The music - especially an animated piano duet between the groom and the corpse bride - was fantastic. I was also very intrigued that the land of the dead is much brighter and much more entertaining than the land of the living. I was incredibly enamoured with Scraps, the skeletal dog. (This should come as no surprise to those of you who know me - my favorite character in "Nightmare Before Christmas" is Zero, the ghost dog.) There is one caveat. This movie was painstaking to create, so it's only 76 minutes. I would have been sort of peeved had we paid $10/piece for a 76-minute film. Go catch it at the matinee, but definitely go catch it.
Now, "Comic Book: The Movie". I checked this out of my local library - it's a mockumentary by Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker) on ComicCon. There are two sets of reasons to see this movie: 1) you understand or routinely witness the denizens of the comic geek subculture or you know the guys who own or routinely hang out at your local comic book store; OR 2) you love and worship all cartoons and have noticed a similarity in the names of those involved in all the Cartoon Network Cartoons, and so on. I fit into both categories. I know the geeks well, and I worship the 'toons.
Here's the thing. The film is a love letter, of sorts, to comic book geeks and subculture. While making fun of it, the film also shows some respect. It's a fine line, and often hilarious. If you love the 'toons, this film is amazing. Even more amazing are the DVD extras. It's fair to say that the film stars the voices of The Joker, SpongeBob Squarepants, the Mayor of Townsville, Yakko, Wakko, Pinky, the Brain, Tigger, and Winnie the Pooh. And that's just the beginning. Mark Hamill, who does a lot of voice work (the Joker), put the folks who provide all these voices in front of the camera this time, and they're hilarious. Even funnier though, is a ComicCon Panel on voiceover work that is included in the DVD extras. It's so strange, and wonderful, to watch these guys talk normally, and then launch into 4 or 5 different characters in one paragraph. I don't know why they aren't all schizophrenic - they have so many characters in their heads!
Anyway, "Comic Book: The Movie" is a little slow in the beginning, but begins to pick up once Kevin Smith shows up. That's the other thing - EVERYONE in the industry has a cameo: JJ Abrahms, Bruce Campbell, Chewbacca & Darth Vader (I forget the actors' names), Kevin Smith, Stan Lee, folks involved in Babylon 5, and more, more, more. Mark Hamill knows effin' everybody. Both the Kevin Smith and Bruce Campbell interviews are hilarious.
I wondered, throughout the movie, if being a fanboy icon had eventually just turned Mark Hamill into a geek or if he started out that way before Luke Skywalker. He revealed in that panel later that he was always a comic book geek.

Bunnies!

• A bunny for your desk (via Boing Boing), which I have got to acquire. It's the perfect hairless pet in my pet-free home.

• A bunny for the world, because you seriously can't have enough giant pink bunnies. I'm all for it!  Imagine how Buffy's Anya would have reacted if she saw that?

Yay Bunnies!

Project Mgmt Software

Basecamp, it turns out, is currently too rich for my blood for the items I require. This makes me sad.
So I'm currently sitting here with a library book called Microsoft Project 2003 for Dummies and a 60-day trial edition of Project. I'm not investing in it until I'm positive it fulfills my needs. My guess is that it won't and I'll have to work something else out ... Perhaps after 2 months with Project I'll be willing to pay around $50/month for Basecamp. We'll see. I do like that it's monthly - no contract. In the meantime, it's a fully functional trial of Project.
Oh, and tomorrow I head back to Indiana to the under-budgeted client that is a 3-hour+ drive away. I get to tour the first manufacturing facility tomorrow; this is the facility for which I will bid on creating eLearning. I think tomorrow I'll bring up my medium trumping the message concern and see exactly how computer literate these folks are. I guess I also need to add student computer literacy into my project assumptions in the proposal I've put together.
I'm still shocked that I am a successful small business, all on my own. I learned everything business-related from either my first real corporate job or my last real corporate job. To be honest, I also learned more about my field from those two jobs than any of the others.

Email Etiquette

I'm particularly bad at this - esp using the Subject Line effectively. Sometimes I even forget to enter the subject. Anyway, this email primer on How to Effectively Write Emails That Someone Will Answer is a handy-dandy guide for me and the tons of folks just like me. (Of course, it's from my organization gurus at 43 Folders, via Boing Boing.)

Clueless

I'm re-watching Clueless. I haven't seen it in years, but I remember it as sort of edgy for its time. Okay, I also remember longingly wanting her robotic closet.  But in general, it's not edgy. I'm disappointed. For some reason, I was remembering Clueless as the predecessor to "Mean Girls." I love Mean Girls, and I remember high school being very much as it is portrayed in that movie. (I even forgive the movie for Lindsay Lohan, whom I can't stand.)

Talk Like a Pirate

Thanks to Jason for reminding me that it's Talk Like a Pirate Day (a day that is extra special for those who follow the teachings of the Flying Spaghetti Monster).
What's your pirate name?  Here's mine (which is pretty accurate):

 

    My pirate name is:    

 

    Dread Pirate  Bonney    

   

   

Like the famous Dread Pirate Roberts, you have a keen head for how to make a profit. You can be a little bit unpredictable, but a pirate's life is far from full of certainties, so that fits in pretty well.    Arr!    

  Get your own pirate name from fidius.org.  

In honor of Talk Like a Pirate Day (Arrr!), here's a clickable photo of me from last Halloween as the Dread Pirate Bonney. I just didn't know my pirate name yet...

Running the Numbers

So, remember I had that giant meeting on Friday? In the end the potential client wanted a whole lot of effort hours for very little money. As a lump sum, it's an impressive number. Once you add in the effort hours, the hourly wage comes out to little more than that of a McDonald's employee.  So today I had to call them and tell them that there is no way they could have all of training created that they wanted for their current budget. I suggested that I do the first two locations and then they bring on an intern for the final 13 locations, with my editing at a much lower hourly rate.
In the end, it looks like I'll bid on just the first location, which eats roughly 50% of their current budget. However, there is a learning curve on the entire project. By the third location, the cost per course is roughly half of what it was for the first location. I front-loaded the bid. Anyway, they'll probably accept my bid and have me do just location #1, which requires a 6 hour r/t drive, but no other travel expenses.
In theory, the training will have a significant ROI, proving to the corporate HQ that its worth implementing at 14 other locations. At that point, the budget might get approved for a much higher number.  It all comes down to a company's return on investment for their training.
In this case, the industry is manufacturing. I worry that the audience is unfamiliar with eLearning/self-delivered training and that the medium will scare them off, thus obscuring the message.
We'll cross that bridge when we come to it though. 
If my contact can convince the engineers to spend 50% of their current budget on my services, then I'm heading back up there on Thursday to tour the first location and get some more specific thoughts in my head before submitting a bid.
This brings me to a question for all you Project Management folks out there:
I need some sort of software program, low-cost, that will track my hours per project. I fill out all these different time sheets for different client - some in Word, some in Excel.  It's whatever the client gives me. However, I'd like to be filling out one for myself that tracks my total amount of hours so that I know how many hours I'm giving overall, as well as how much is devoted to info gathering, needs analysis, development, storyboarding, etc.  Does that make sense? But it needs to be affordable.

Apple Packrats

Those of us who own Macs knew this already - Apple packaging rocks. It's hard to throw away because, well, it rocks. I have boxes for three difference iBooks in our shed. Why? Well, they are really well-made boxes with strong handles. These are just useful items. In addition, they are rather sleek and smooth and, well, hard-to-throw away. I've used these boxes countless times to tote books and/or CDs in one of my once-frequent moves.
Under my desk I have the smaller boxes for my iPod and my Mighty Mouse. Again, for some reason, hard to throw away. When we sold my old iPod, I simply packaged it back into its original packaging.
Wired News now has an article on this very phenomenon. These folks take it a lot farther than I do though.
A simple fact of life - whether it's inside the box or the box itself, Apple knows how to communicate through its packaging.

Radio Silence

Sorry for the lack of entries over the last few days. I had to lead my now-monthly software training sessions on Monday and Tuesday. That tends to exhaust me to such a point that I can't fathom moving when I get home, let alone look at a computer again.
I spent yesterday lining up the biggest deal of my career (well, thus far). It's a massively huge contract, if I land it. I can't even express how huge the dollar signs are. I'm rather nervous and scared that I can't pull it off. I drive out to the company's corporate headquarters tomorrow (about 3 hours away) for a morning meeting with their engineers. After that, I submit my bid (although I'm pretty much the only one submitting). I'm excited and scared all at once.
On top of that there's the monthly (and occasionally bi-monthly) training sessions and two previous clients that constantly need updating, as they update their products.
Finally, I expect my financial client to finally get their ball rolling with 20 hours per week come October. Remember last year how I worked my butt off, non-stop, from October through February? Well, it's happening again. I used to always believe that no one wanted to hire people in October. I was wrong. If they have money left over for the year, they want to spend it before they lose it in their budgets.
I'm not complaining, but at some point, I may have to hire help. I hate to do that, as I hate to turn over any of my control over the quality of the product. But I will have to sleep as well.  So we'll see.
Anyway, starting in October, expect a lot more radio silence. It's a good thing. I haven't really seen a paycheck since July.

Google Toys

Toys ... fairly useful technological tidbits ... call them whatever you want. Regardless of the name, Google has created some incredible innovations for our everyday life.
A few weeks ago, Google introduced Google Talk. I played around with it and discovered that not only is it an easy-to-use IM program, it's also an easy to use telephone. A microphone (even that mic built into your laptop will suffice) and speakers are all you need to talk to anyone across the planet. For free. Who needs a telephone?
Yesterday, Google introduced an innovative new search engine tool for blogs. Google Blog Search differs from others, such as Technorati. Google Blog Search displays results based on relevance. Technorati, and others, display information based on most recent postings. Both of these search engines have their strong points. If I want to know how many people are posting on a given topic - such as Hurricane Katrina - I can easily pull that information from Technorati. But if I want to know what's going on with bloggers who have been directly hit by the hurricane, Google Blog Search might be a better tool.
Today I stumbled across Google College Life. It's basically a list of some of the greatest of Google Tools, as easy access for college students. It has links to GMail (which I think requires a secondary email address with a .edu extension but does not require an invite), Picasa (photo management), SMS (Google's SMS tools are amazing and if I could better cope with text messaging on my phone, I'd be all over it), Google Talk, Google Maps, and of course, Google Scholar, which I've mentioned in the past.
Finally, Google added another treat today. Many people, myself included, have a personalized MyYahoo! page.  Now you can have a personalized Google page as your home page.

Adopt a Puppy

The PetSmart in Cincinnati (Western Hills location) has animal refugees from Katrina. These cuddly pets are up for adoption.  Kevin is deathly allergic to all furry friends, or else I'd be at PetSmart in a second. I want so badly to help these poor animals who have lost their people (or who were abandoned by their people). If you're not in the Cincinnati area, check with your local PetSmart or Humane Society. They may also have Katrina Pet Refugees, who are being sent all over the country due to lack of space in the Gulf Coast. See if you can't adopt a new friend, or even just help out the Humane Society by fostering a pet or two until they can be returned to their appropriate owner or a permanent home is found.

Armageddon

Did you wonder why the administration was so slow to respond to Katrina? Because it was scripted! I pulled this quote from a Boing Boing post.

What everyone fails to understand about the Bush Administration response to Katrina is the underlying reasoning. My wife (who is an Evangelical Christian) explained to me that this is the beginning of the 'End Times'. Katrina is just one of the portents. Bush et al are just marking time until Rapture. God smote the modern Sodom as a sign of his might (on this Dr. Dobson and Bin Laden agree). This event in just another sign of the Second Coming. By controlling the press, freedom of movement, etc. Bush is help people to get ready for the Rapture. None of the problems are the fault of Bush, they are controlled by God. So do not blame Bush, it is not his fault, God made him do it.

This disturbs me so deeply that I can't accurately articulate my feelings.

Oh, and Bush has now declared a National Day of Prayer for Katrina Victims (Sept 16). I have no problem sending my good wishes and hope for a better tomorrow into the ether, hopefully to benefit those in need, but can he do that? Can he create a National Day of Prayer? What, oh what, ever happened to the separation of church and state?

Nano Nano

Isn't that what Mork used to say?
Apple has introduced the iPod Nano - in other words, razor thin, super tiny. I do believe it is replacing the iPod mini, which is a shame. I liked all the iPod mini colors. But the iPod Nano is definitely high on the cool list.
They've also released the Motorola ROKR phone, which is a cell phone that incorporates iTunes and holds up to 100 songs. Heck, so does my Palm Pilot. I'm still leaning towards a Blackberry. If I'm going to replace one of the three e-items I wander around with (phone, Palm, iPod), it's not going to be my iPod. It's going to be my Palm or my phone. Okay, so I don't want it, but I appreciate the implications for the cell phone industry.
Finally, they updated iTunes again. iTunes now has available two big items - the entire Madonna catalog and the entire Harry Potter collection on audiobook. If you buy the Harry Potter collection, you can get a deal on a special Harry Potter iPod engraved with the Hogwart's crest. Kinda cool.
Okay - the new stuff is cool. For once though, I don't feel the need to run out and purchase any of it. I love my 40 GB iPod Photo. I know it's bulky, but it still fits in a purse and it's got all my photos on it as well as music. I don't need the phone due to my pining away for a Blackberry (my Sprint contract is up in the spring) and I don't need the Harry Potter iPod. After all, my iPod spends a lot of time in its case. I don't need a special engraving. Cool ideas though, as usual.

Evita

Last night we saw Evita as part of the Broadway Series in Cincinnati. I was so excited - I love the story of Evita and the music is quite catchy (esp in the second act).
I was so disappointed.
First off, we had an understudy for the understudy (yep!) as Eva. Now, having been an understudy, I felt for her, and rooted for her, despite the fact that when her name was announced as the replacement, the whole theatre groaned. As well they should have. She was not very good. She was a very angry Evita. Eva Peron was an ambiguous, self-confident, dignified woman who walked a very fine line between Woman of the People and Total Bitch. She did that so well because she was so confident. The actress last night mistook anger for confidence. There is a very important difference in how you portray those emotions.
Last night's Eva yelled a lot. When you yell and sing at the same time, it doesn't sound very pretty. Try it, or just trust me. Last night's Eva was also only about 5 ft tall and a natural brunette. When she had on the blonde wig and stylish dresses, she looked like a little girl playing dress-up. I didn't buy her as Eva at all, and I really wanted to. (From the photos I've seen of the primary Eva, I guess that she is a tall blonde who wears a brunette wig in the beginning, which would work much better than what we saw last night.)
I thought the guy who played Juan Peron had the appropriate arrogance and a lovely voice. Che, the narrator/revolutionary, also had a great voice and presence.
In the end, Eva dies of cancer. I thought I would be sad, and even decided to forego mascara in case I cried. Nope - I was happy that she died. That meant she wouldn't have to sing anymore.
I didn't feel any sympathy towards Eva. But I didn't feel any sympathy towards the repressed Argentinian people either. The performance lacked heart.

The Cincinnati Enquirer is a wishy-washy paper that never commits to anything other than George Bush. They blamed the poor show on - get this - Andrew Lloyd Weber and Tim Rice, the great duo who wrote it back in the '70's. This is a show that won a Tony for Best Musical and a slew of other awards, and the Enquirer blames the writers.

The Cincinnati Post is more honest - they blame everybody, including the primary Eva, whom we did not get to see.

Labor Day Weekend

We had a fairly low-key weekend. Three different friends got married on Saturday night - we went to my cousin's wedding. It was a very pretty wedding, about as traditional as you can get. Sometimes that's just really nice though.
I broke down a couple times this weekend over the plight of pets in New Orleans. Suffice it to say I came across a site where people were posting about how they had to leave their pets behind and so on and so forth. I won't post the link to the site because not only am I a glutton for punishment, but so are some of my friends. You all don't need to have the crying jags I had this weekend over the furries. I cried enough for all of us - maybe.
To distract me, we watched more of the Muppets Season 1 DVD, which is truly awesome. We also cleaned out the garage on Sunday and the shed on Monday. Not too fun, but definitely needed. Also, things like that give me a sense of accomplishment. Besides, you always find things you forgot and get rid of things you no longer need. My ability to get rid of everything except stuffed animals gets better every time I do a big cleaning like that.

Hospitality

One of our favorite things to do in New Orleans is eat. Commander's Palace, Arnaud's, the Camellia Grill, the Trolley Stop. Diners and upscale fine dining. We love it. One of the best things about those restaurants is the people. We've learned about so many great places and things by talking to our servers at our favorite restaurants. Now those people, who have paid us such great hospitality, need our help as well. I found this info via the Commander's Palace web site:

New Orleans Hospitality Workers Disaster Relief Fund
A fund has been established to benefit employees of the hospitality industry of the Greater New Orleans area who have experienced hardships because of the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina. Contributions may be sent to:

New Orleans Hospitality Workers Disaster Relief Fund
                                      Greater Houston Community Foundation
                                      4550 Post Oak Place, Suite 100
                                      Houston, TX  77027
Call 713-333-2200 for additional information.

The Media Does Its Job

Most of the time I'm irritated with the national news media for one reason or another. Right now though, I'm pretty darn proud of them, esp the folks at CNN. The reporters have actually reported and they're working hard to expose the truth of the situation in the Hurricane-affected areas. I mentioned this the other night, in my rant, after watching Scarborough Country. Joe Scarborough had become the voice of the people, because someone had to do it.

Here's some of the what the reporters are doing:

Anderson Cooper ripping into Senator Mary Landrieu. Transcript, Video Truly, it makes you want to cheer for Anderson Cooper. She pulls such vague, political answers and he doesn't let her.

SEN. MARY LANDRIEU (D), LOUISIANA: <snip> Let me just say a few things. Thank President Clinton and former President Bush for their strong statements of support and comfort today. I thank all the leaders that are coming to Louisiana, and Mississippi, and Alabama to our help and rescue. We are grateful for the military assets that are being brought to bear. I want to thank Senator Frist and Senator Reid for their extraordinary efforts.
Anderson, tonight, I don't know if you've heard -- maybe you all have announced it -- but Congress is going to an unprecedented session to pass a $10 billion supplemental bill tonight to keep FEMA and the Red Cross up and operating.
COOPER: Excuse me, Senator, I'm sorry for interrupting. I haven't heard that, because, for the last four days, I've been seeing dead bodies in the streets here in Mississippi. And to listen to politicians thanking each other and complimenting each other, you know, I got to tell you, there are a lot of people here who are very upset, and very angry, and very frustrated.
And when they hear politicians slap -- you know, thanking one another, it just, you know, it kind of cuts them the wrong way right now, because literally there was a body on the streets of this town yesterday being eaten by rats because this woman had been laying in the street for 48 hours. And there's not enough facilities to take her up.
Do you get the anger that is out here?

It continues from there. Then there is Soledad O'Brien, normally a mild-mannered anchor who I tend to think of as a fluff reporter.

On the up side ...

how can this not make you smile? (Esp the downloads page.)

We're still good people

On the heels of that little liberal rant, I felt I should post some positive things. Here's the thing - I'm having trouble finding positive news stories about Hurricane Katrina. I know that rescue workers are out there tirelessly saving people, aid workers are working to find food and shelter for thousands. Those people are heros. No one is really writing about any miraculous things that are happening though. I'm sure they're out there, but lost in the negative press. Sad - sometimes it's life's littlest miracles that can get us through the day.
Some things that show the positive side of human nature:

Political Fallout

Allow me a break from worrying about people, animals, and history for a moment to have a small rant:

Do you think there will be lasting political fallout from this? Americans have short memories when it comes to President Bush. I doubt the Gulf Coast States will forget, and you know, that might actually swing things in the Democrats favor - if they leverage the disaster correctly and tactfully. I have no doubt that those states will still be rebuilding when 2007-8 roll around.

There should be political fallout. There deserves to be political fallout, from the Mayor on up to the President. The federal gov't was clearly not ready to take care of an urban disaster such as this. Apparently, all the Homeland Security we've paid for and heard about only exists to take care of a one-time, localized event, such as 9/11. I"m glad that we're ready to take care of events like that. But did we forget to prepare for Mother Nature? This is not localized. This is a national disaster - it encompasses more than one state. Entire towns have been completely wiped out - removed from the map. FEMA has been virtually nonexistent, according to all reports. FEMA is a part of the Dep't of Homeland Security. They had no trouble at all responding to Jeb Bush's Florida 4 times last year. Why is it so difficult to respond to Mississippi and Louisiana?

I was watching a bit of Scarborough Country on MSNBC tonite (just flipping by and caught it). He was in Biloxi. He and his wife came to Biloxi and were so shocked at the conditions that they went and gathered supplies and came back to distribute food and water. Residents told him, on camera, that the Scarboroughs were the first aide workers they had seen since the hurricane. These people have nothing left - no homes, no food, no water, no cars to leave. Everything was destroyed. FEMA has not been to Biloxi. The residents asked questions along the lines of "Why can we send help to Iraq but we can't help our own people. We're supposed to be the most powerful country on Earth." Good point, and good question. Scarborough was shocked, appalled, and angry - kudos to him. (Interestingly, they don't mention his reaction on their web site.)

Today, far too long after the hurricane hit, the Bush Administration decided to send in troops. New Orleans never should have descended into anarchy and chaos. Rape, murder, looting, starvation ... it never should have been allowed to happen. The hurricane was projected to hit New Orleans. Why weren't federal disaster teams prepared to respond? Prepared to rush in keep the city in order?  Prepared to rush in and rescue people with helicopters? Instead, helicopters had to be asked for. Today, doctors from two hospitals in NOLA called the Associated Press out of desperation. They were out of supplies, they had no power, no water, and were trying to keep looters at bay. There was constant promised help from the National Guard, but none ever came. They needed to get their patients to safety. Out of desperation, they issued a cry for help to the Associated Press. Also today, the Mayor of New Orleans, at the Convention Center where there were 7 dead bodies and riotous citizens with guns, issued a plea for help to CNN (also picked up by the BBC and others).  He issued a "desperate SOS" to the world.

So tell me, why are these people turning to the media for help? Why isn't their own gov't - our gov't - there to help them? Isn't that part of the President's job description? To give us comfort and to lead the troops.

Ideally, the troops that have finally been ordered to New Orleans will help restore order out of the chaos. And the $10B aid package will help in providing relief. But could so much of this have been prevented if it had been promptly responded to like Florida?

Oh, and don't get me started on how that levee might never have collapsed and flooded New Orleans if the funding for its completion hadn't been diverted to Iraq.

And now, I'm going to go watch something non-news related for a while.

NOLA-Katrina Wiki

The bright folks at Wikipedia have set up an area for, well -

This wiki was setup to factor the tons of random bits of information flowing out of New Orleans in totally disorganized chunks, and being repeated around the internet in various forms. Blogs are not up to the task of distilling this info in a useful way, so we've setup this ad-hoc project at nola-intel.org to try and keep track of all of this.

So there you go. You can access it here.

I'm way too emotionally involved in this disaster, considering how far away from it I really am. The human suffering, the animals, the destruction of not just a city, but a place and a feeling - an ambience, has really shaken me to the core. I ran some errands today, listening to the news coverage. I remember feeling like this after 9/11 - I couldn't understand how any of us in the areas that weren't physically affected could go on with our lives. I feel as if we should all drop everything and do something to help. Anything.

Everyone is donating to the Red Cross, but I also suggest some important, but overlooked charities directly involved in the recovery efforts:

The Houston Food Bank is supplying the food for the next 14 weeks to the refugees in the Astrodome. They're going to need food and supplies. Or better -they're going to need money. http://www.houstonfoodbank.org/   The Houston Food Bank is sponsored by America's Second Harvest, which is also sponsoring food banks in Louisiana and Mississippi. They will also need your monetary donations. http://www.secondharvest.org/

Habitat for Humanity is going to have their work cut out for them once everything settles down. HforH will be busy across Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana. If you can't be there to lend a hand, help them in other ways. http://www.habitat-nola.org/

And please please please don't forget our furry friends. Many people who evacuated were unable to take their pets and left the pets at a shelter temporarily. Many of the shelters are now overcrowded. I have friends in dry portions of Louisiana who are providing foster care for some of these poor animals. Many other pets are being rescued after being abandoned by their owners. The shelters need help, physically or monetarily, caring for all the extra animals. Noah's Wish and the Humane Society need donations to support their disaster recovery teams. These folks are wading/swimming/boating in to find the poor animals left behind. Donate to the Humane Society http://www.hsus.org/ or Noah's Wish http://www.noahswish.org/.

I know gas prices are stupid high and money is tight. But as least we have gas stations to go to and cars to fill up. Homes to return to. These people have lost everything. I'm simply torn to pieces about all this.

DirectNic NOLA

I purchased my write-tech.com domain name via directnic. Little did I know they were based out of New Orleans, right around the corner from my favorite hotel in the CBD. Here's the thing - they are keeping their data center and servers up and running through everything. Why? Because so many people depend on their services on the Internet. A lot of people actually park their domain name at DirectNic or even use hosting services offered. If they go down, those people lose their sites.
The folks at DirectNic are liveblogging their experiences holed up in their office building via a LiveJournal blog. It's fantastic reading, both to understand what is happening in New Orleans and to see the outpouring of support for the 5 people inside the building. I suspect they have enough supplies, and now fuel, to last them a while. They also have a web cam poised at the street outside, as well as digital photos. Sadly, most of the current images are of looters. Happily, the Central Business District at St Charles and Poydras does not appear to be waterlogged. 
Check it out!