The Old South:::::::::::::::::::::::::::

The Old South::::::::::::::::::::;

So went to this Ante Bellum Plantation house (pre civil war is what all that means) to attend a kind of festival that was on the news and advertised in town. It was interesting, guides in the “Big House” in period dress, the grounds and all… there were lots of booths set up that reminded me of A Taste of Colorado with lots of food and such. Was there perhaps half an hour before I realized, there were no black people there. Ok.. Louisiana is about 60% black and I had not been in a nearly all white crowd in forever… it actually set me back a bit thinking.. “Did the Klan advertise this?... am I somehow contributing to a bad element here?” So the Plantation is a perfectly touristy place………. But as I got to thinking about it, I guess I realized it is not the sort of place the Blacks in this part of the world would ever go for food and fun… So you do not have to think long to see why… they have the old slave quarters, and the sharecroppers housing all that and it is impossible to not notice the comparison to the Big House which was very luxurious no matter what time frame you compare it to. It drew thousands of people this little festival…still part of the things that make you go Hmmmmmm.. down here though..

I have also decided that Louisiana is the home of four breasted women. Saw a comedy special where one of the comedians was talking about this phenomenon in a funny way so I immediately connected to this part of the world. Four breasted women have the regular breasts.. then.. another sort of set that pooches out the top of the bra leaving a kind of bulge up there….I have not decided if this is a local fashion statement as I have also been mystified by other clothing choices I have seen.

There was an all hands meeting here today with some big wigs from Washington trying to give a pep talk, exhorting people to “stay the course” and “never give up….. never surrender”…. About our new plan for this year which all things new seem to begin on June 1 (first day of hurricane season) or all projects are complete by June 1. It is interesting that one of the new initiatives here (due to be complete by June 1) is an evacuation plan for the 100,000 plus people in FEMA trailers that must be evacuated even in a tropical storm due to the fragile nature of the FEMA trailers. For some reason these big wigs felt obliged to do a planning exercise with the state over this issue as if they did not have confidence that Louisiana could organize an evacuation for these people… hmmmmmmmm…

They announced the Morgue they built at Carville is going to be a permanent FEMA COOP… (Continuity Of Operations) location.. essentially a disaster planning place for something that happens in a disaster. If a hurricane comes on shore and drowns New Orleans again then the AFO there moves essential operations to this COOP and work continues…. This I gotta see…. It also is a staging area for hurricanes hitting anywhere in the region 6 gulf area.. pretty close to the action and large enough to work for everyone

ETA One Month!! :::::::::::::::::::

So I managed an entire week in Maryland with no pictures on a former campus of an all Catholic womens college/Nun repository. FEMA for some reason has classes there and it is Labeled as the "National Firefighters Memorial" and a place where they train firefighters in Leadership.

Campus is over a hundred years old, massive brick buildings.. lots of Catholic imagry. The class was not what I imagined, and I did not quite get out of it what I wanted, however..... I did get some surprising depth out of some things I had not anticipated and am better able to manage in the field in the future because of the experiences. The group was a combination of headquarters weenies, MERS crews (these guys are Daniel Boone kinda folk.. driving huge trucks of satellite gear into the teeth of a disaster the first day to provide communications... rough tough tobbacco chewin' mens men. ) It weenies like me and a couple of odd folk that had nothing at all to do with IT at all. We talked more about phones than is comfy for me (if you need a Merlin PBX hooked up, you better find someone else)................

Anyway.. this disaster ends for me on April 25.. I am flying out to Andrews that day. They are cutting the JFO down to half days Saturday and Sunday off so the hours are hardly worth it and the work gets pretty boring when the hours go down that way. My plans again are to return to Colorado Springs, set up a residence there in a place bigger than my last one and stay at least through Sept 1. We will see what the hurricane season brings this year.

I highly recomend you visit NOAA's website and look at the forecast for this hurricane season. There are imbedded there maps so you can track your own hurricane.. and a map that shows landfall for every hurricane that has made landfall in the US in the last 50 years.. (there are some surprises in that data).... I want to do a poll (if I could figure out how to DO one CHERYL) about where the first hurricane of the year is going to strike and the closest date to the first Cat 5 Hurricane of the season in this hemisphere and where it is going to hit. I also recommend a book by John Barnes called "Mother of all Storms" or something very near that for a Sci Fi book about weather (and humanity) beyond our control.,........... anyone know why hurricanes appear not to hit the Middle east? The new Zombie film has the Pilot (Malcom) from Serenity and for that reason alone I will be attending this weekend.....I am wondering if he can play another character.

Here is the NOAA hurricane site.. ::: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/

I have a new rental car.. it sucks.. it came from a dedicated smoker.. ick.

Trains::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

This morning one of the peculiar things to Baton Rouge or Louisiana happened. For whatever reason, this town allows trains to just park in town. So a mile long train of boxcars and tankers will just be idle on a line that crosses every east/west access to downtown or out of town no matter where you are. One such track runs within 15 or 20 feet of the JFO. this morning at 7:05 am this train pulled into a slot that blocked every entry street to the JFO from the west. So the vast bulk of the 2,000 people in the JFO could not get to work. Now comes the fun part. Dozens of people went crazy..... it is the only way I can describe it.. simply they drove down the wrong way on the bumper to bumper street.. pulled down the railroad right of way and parked.. then.. either climbed through the train at a coupling or... crawled UNDER the damn thing between the wheels. This has taken southern idiocy to new heights... in my own mind it is a case of evolution in action.. if the train moves, there are fewer in the breeding pool to pass along those genes............


It was 88 degrees over the weekend a couple days. This prompted a walk along the levee and a discussion of spring flowers. I counted over 40 species flowering including escapees. Over my head are some morning glories.. but there were also Lantana and a couple of trees with huge clumps of Wysteria in them. Behind me the Mississippi, it just keeps rolling along. The barges are interesting to watch..... smashed cars going north and construction materials going south. I would wish everyone could see the Azaelas blooming as this area is a riot of those colors of whites and pinks and flaming reds.

My class begins monday with a travel day on sunday and friday. The trip has turned into a paperwork nightmare with regualtions I was not aware of for checking out of a disaster, checking into class, being redeployed both places (first class then disaster) and then checking back in when I get here... what a mess.. took most of the morning and will take me a large part of saturday to check out as I have to turn in all my equipment and you cannot imagine how much hardware has gone under my signature between the morgue and the JFO..........

Summer::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Hi guys.. sorry for the long absences here.... the change of scenery to the JFO have limited my time a bit with a different work situation... But I had some time this afternoon ahead of a day off and put this together. Happy Weekend everyone!!


Today was 88 degrees… wind straight off the gulf of Mexico and muggy like a moist towelette on your face. I can remember summers nearly this far south… I know why I do not want to spend a summer here for sure.. beyond any hurricane things, it is freakin hot and oh so humid.. plus the mosquitoes… and chiggers and roaches.. ewwwwwww…

I am working on a case that is a piece of malicious vandalism on the network. A group of people create a share folder on the network and all of them but no one outside the group has access to the folder. Someone within one of these groups that is pretty sophisticated made hash out of one of these folders inside a share and made it not accessible to anyone. It has taken two days to try to find and return all the files this messed up and it looks like a situation where the people that did it performed a criminal act in order to play this joke. I think it is a rivalry within the group that got out of hand and created a real mess for us and of course the people in the group that were denied work tools for a couple days. We have arranged a surprise for anyone else in that group trying it again though.

Everything is on track for out of here on April 25th it seems. Class on the 20th in Maryland. So week after next and then home for three or four weeks and then out of here. Still plan on being in the springs before May 1 to find a place and get settled again. I am looking forward to my shopping spree… I need a TV and some furniture for sure.. maybe a new mattress as I am thinking about one of those fancy foam mattresses…Thinking about a couple of consumer electronics purchases and maybe a bicycle upgrade plus a couple adders for my BIKE to make me more roadworthy. So I am going to be BUSY getting all that stuff… and the fun of buying it.. as you know I have been not buying anything here so that I would not have to take it home.. so I have been many months without buying anything at all.. :-D

Summer is a coming.. this is a great year to avoid the gulf states from July through September cause of the hurricane threat.

Friday Again::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

This is Dan Queen as I most Remember him.. went through my pictures to see and this is one of only three pics O have of him.. the main one is on his blog.....
This has been a good week except for Dan.... FEMA is predicting at least as bad a storm season as we had last year. The water temp in the gulf is ten degrees hotter than this time last year and they are predicting an extensive gulf storm season. I am sure there is no escaping this. I am going back to colorado before it starts, at the end of april...... In the JFO, planning has begun working on storm season 2006, we have already been given evacuation plans for the JFO and I am pretty sure most of my DAE and regular FEMA folk will be out of town by early May and certainly before June one. I for one intend to screw off all summer in colorado springs and be a motorcycle bum with a tan and coffee every day.

The Passing of CandymanDan ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Sometimes sad things happen during your times away. On Tuesday of this week a good and loyal friend of mine from Denver was killed in a freak traffic accident in Wyoming. I have never had a forum such as this to eulogize someone close as I have been blessed again by losing very few people close to me in life by having them die.

Dan was 42 when he died, a kid really. He drove a truck and was good at it. He had a checkered past including prison but it never seemed to dim the character behind the smile of my friend. He was very active in his chosen AOL community. I expect he danced with every woman in AOL Denver at one time or another. His passion was ball room dancing and It was common to see him in his custom ZOOT suit with the 4 ft watch chain at every social function with a dance floor. Dan always carried hard candy in his coat pockets, and liked to style himself as a candyman. He was lonely and spent a lot of his energy looking for the perfect woman for his life. I think he always felt his personal life was not good enough for someone else cause he always had problems with money and his past, but he was a very good man and one this world will surely miss.

Dan and I rode motorcycles together on occasion. He drove an old Kawasaki beater of 750 cc’s that he spent more time under than riding. He was an awesome companion for lunch or sitting on a sunny patio eating ice cream and ogling the passing women at cold stone with me. He encouraged me at my lowest points and let me sit with him on a couple of his. In the end, you can call him one of those rare people in your life that, if he called, I would have come. I miss him terribly.