Hats::::::::::::;

Hard to live long in this country and not notice the racial overtones of this place. I certainly work in a more racially diverse climate than I have ever been before. The mall is full of differences, there are black sales people and Hispanic mangers and professional people. Two of the MD’s here at FEMA are both black and women, so they are double dippers in that regard. I have seen no mixed race couples at all here, but I commonly sit in restaurants in the middle of families of a variety of backgrounds winding down their days. There is a pressing need for Vietnamese translators here in Louisiana for disaster relief. I cannot wait to hear Cajun incorporate Vietnamese in it’s patois.

I want to talk about fashion though. I am sure this will perk up the ears of at least one of my readers. First is a comparison. There is a Bennigans on Mississippi and I 270 in Aurora. Once upon a time we used to have an AOL luncheon there on Sunday afternoons. This place is very close to a Black gospel church and I had the opportunity to watch many many of these stylish women exit church and come to the Bennigans for Sunday Dinner. I was always delighted to see the amazing hats these women wore and the elaborate hair styling under the hats that they wore. They are hard to describe from memory but they were intricate, very very matched with the rest of the wardrobe (I decided they bought the hat, and then bought an outfit to go with it, cause I am sure it was not accidental in those colors) The hair was also amazing.. swooping curves, impossible balance, perfect ringlets.. quite amazing… Actually I bet that show still goes on every Sunday……. Ok.. fast forward…..this past Sunday I was eating in the golden corral. It was 12:30 ish and right after church.. and there were a number of families in this place a preponderance of which were black. Clearly these folk were just coming from church, the men were dressed in ties and slacks… the women in nice dresses on balance, but not one hat.. and.. not one seriously interesting hair style. Do you suppose it is regional?

There is going to be a big announcement tomorrow about staffing in the JFO and other FEMA locations …massive hiring… they are putting more local hires on the payroll and letting contractors go… lots of them coming up to terminate December one. So this is a good time to be hired into FEMA here if you have certain skills. Lots of people will draw a pretty decent pay check for quite a while here. FEMA apparently leased this building for three years so a long time for some people.

This is a picture of some of the water available. Likely this is from one of the brewers… it IS water.. but is more like a chlorine cocktail than something fun to drink. I am positive it is safe, but it is also something you could use to fumigate an apartment with. Makes your eyes water.









This is a partial project plan up on the wall about removal of debris... the FEMA part of the plan runs into 3Q of 07 and is the solid dark line in the middle.. these are sites in every declared parish. This is a very simple project plan, each limb is very clean and has no real dependencies, but the sheer volume would be a very challenging project to manage.