Monday, 31 Oct 05      

Another Halloween and again no kids came to our door to trick-or-treat. We had even purchased candy, put out our holiday lawn skulls, and I had on my witches costume, but no takers. I thought that the new neighbors would have brought their child over possibly, or maybe some of the kids on the street behind us, but no-one. I think parents in our neighborhood must warn their kids to stay away from our house because that's where the mean man lives. Maybe not, but it's disappointing when we try to get into the spirit of the best holiday of the whole year. Maybe next year.

We did have a pretty busy weekend. Friday night we went out to Ocean Springs and had pizza at Mellow Mushroom, which is a great independent chain in the region that has crust made with spring water and some of the less standard toppings available (I had tempeh, fresh basil, and artichoke hearts on mine). We each got small pizzas so we'd have leftovers for later. After eating, we went to visit our friend Gary a bit further down the road to the east. He showed us his basement which he had gutted out after the storm (he had a few feet of water in the basement, but fortunately a strong structure that was surprisingly durable) and some of the photos they took of water all around their house. He also showed me a few of his new anime figures he pre-ordered quite a few months ago that recently arrived. Pretty nice. He and I seem to be sinking deeper in the otaku world. After a bit we left to go catch a movie. We went to see 'The Weather Man' featuring Nicolas Cage. It was a bit more serious than we had expected, but had a side of dark humor (some of which is seen in the trailers). It was pretty good, and even better it wasn't as crowded as I thought it might be. It seems that most patrons were going to see 'Saw II' that evening.

Saturday we woke up early and headed out towards New Orleans. Coffee in Slidell first on the way. Going over to New Orleans during the day put things in much greater perspective than our previous journey earlier in the week at night. The destruction of the broken levees was much more evident, especially in East New Orleans and the northern parts of the city near City Park and close to Lake Ponchartrain. Driving along and looking out on either side there were buildings that had been gutted out on the bottom floor and a very noticeable water line where the lake had flooded 4-5 feet above the ground. This line was on everything in the area, and considering how toxic the water was and how long it took for the water to drain out, most of these lower level buildings probably should be condemned. Some of the apartment buildings with residents on second and third floors may have fared better, but it was really difficult to tell since there weren't many people around at all. We wanted to take some photos, but it was too difficult to pull over on the side of the interstate to take photos at someone else's loss. As we got off the interstate on Canal Street, the water line wasn't as high, but it was still visible on the homes heading closer to downtown. We turned onto Carrolton Ave. and there seemed to be less water that had risen, but some buildings had some impressive wind (our assumption) damage. Amazingly, many of the businesses along the Mississippi River levee seemed to be in good shape, although there were a few that were destroyed by the winds.

The reason for the trip over was the scaled-down VoodooFest day one (day two following in Memphis on Sunday). The new site was Riverside Park, which is a small park located on the levee behind the New Orleans Zoo.  After crossing from the parking lot onto the levee (by foot) there was a small local stage, which we didn't really check out much, then a bit closer to the main field was a larger WWOZ stage with some of the local jazz/blues/heritage artists playing including the Rebirth Brass Band who were getting some attention from the arriving crowd at 11.30am. A little further was the main area which had a large stage set up at either end so when one band finished, the next band would start on the other side of the field which was flanked by some food/merchandise/information booths. The first band, Death from Above 1979, was one of the ones I had wanted to see. I know I kind of dissed them back in March when I went to SXSW in Austin and caught some of their set, but they had more of an impression on a larger stage. As Kelly said, 'it's godheadSilo!' Which indeed, with just a drummer and bassist, had notable similarities. This duo from Canada are a bit more metal, with the bass tuned high sounding more like a guitar at times than a bass. They made the funny comment asking if the arriving crowd knew what it was like to play before breakfast. Too bad for them, but still they put on a good set.

dfa1979

Next were the Dan Dyer Band, who were pretty bad. Locals World Leader Pretend, who seem to have made it up a step from local faves, were next and sounded good. We think they have a song which has been played on Sirius radio. Next were Supagroup, another local band with a big fucking ego and went over their alotted time playing schlocky cock-rock. Fuck them and their ego. One of the surprises of the day were The New York Dolls. Man, they sure are getting old, and looking it as well, especially David Johannsen (a/k/a Buster Poindexter), but they still glammed up the rock, or rocked the glam. Anyway, the crowd seemed to get into them somewhat and they were fun. After they played, the mayor of New Orleans came out on stage and thanked everyone for being there and showing that New Orleans is back. We were surprised he had the balls to show his face there, although he does get kudos for letting the promoters put the show on despite everything. A lot of the money was going to a restoration fund of the city, and it was also a thank you to the first responders who received free tickets to the show. We were heading to the other side of the field for the next act, but on the large screen it also kind of looked and sounded like Governor Kathleen Blanco had shown up as well briefly to thank everyone for being there, but I couldn't tell for sure. We were too far away.

Probably my favorite act of the day, Digable Planets were next. I saw them with De La Soul back in Portland about 14 years ago and even with age they still made the jazzy rhymes flow. It was cool that they had a live band with them, although no live horns, but the keyboardist made up for that. They played all of their 'hits' since they've been touring the festival circuit in support of a greatest hits album in the stores, but did say that they are putting out a new record next year. Cool. One of their roadies was standing on the side of the stage tossing out promo postcards, but he also threw out some promo cd's and a video sampler dvd, which I managed to catch a copy of. Nice.

doodlebug       ladybug        butterfly

A 're-new wave' band that's been getting some radio/Sirius airplay, The Bravery, were next. They were decent, but not one of the better bands in that genre out right now. They were better than some of the other acts though. Which brings me to the next group, Cowboy Mouth. They are another band who's ego is too big for their own good and who manage to play almost every music festival in New Orleans somehow. I can't figure it out, do they harass the promoters so much to put them on the bill or what? They seem to have some following, although I have no idea why. They suck. Not as much as Supagroup, but close, and of course they went over their alotted 45 minutes as well, so the shitty local acts make everything run late. Fuckers. Queens of the Stone Age were next and put on a decent rock set. The lead singer made a comment about politicians and how everyone should write one letter or email about what's going on and what those local residents need in the city because that's how things get done, then he dedicated a song to the politicians saying he was having sex with their daughters. What a jokester! After QOTSA, another 're-new wave' group, The Secret Machines took the stage. They were actually really good and I enjoyed them quite a bit. Unfortunately for them, the main draw for the whole show was next on the other end so most of the crowd was already jockeying for position on the other side of the field, leaving a less than deserved crowd for this group. I would pay to see these guys by themselves sometime in a smaller venue. Finally, it was time for the major draw of Nine Inch Nails to take the stage. Even though the show was running over an hour late, it still took an extra 20 minutes or so for the ROCK STAR to come out and start playing at 7.30pm (originally scheduled to play from 6.30-8pm). He played a lot of older material at the beginning, which was good since he played all of Kelly's favorite songs first. We left about 40 minutes (halfway?) into the set so we could get out of the parking lot and hopefully find a restaurant still open to have dinner before driving home. I admit I'm not a huge fan of Nine Inch Nails. Trent Reznor is a good musician, and he had a large role in making this show happen being a former New Orleans resident himself, and although they sound good live, it doesn't seem like his music has really changed too much over the years. Not always a bad thing, but he can scream and be interesting only so much. Maybe I have rock star envy or something. Anyway, we left and beat the crowd and were lucky to find one of our favorite Indian restaurants on Magazine Street open. Nirvana was closing at 9.30pm, so when we walked in the door a little before 9pm we caught them as they were serving the last customers. They were only offering a buffet menu, but that worked out fine for us. They didn't have much left, but what they had tasted great and filled us up. We left with happy tummies and headed home.

Sunday was kind of a lazy day. I went to the coffee shop early and geeked for awhile then came back home. Kelly made some Halloween sugar cookies which I helped frost and we watched most of the programs we had recorded with Tivo earlier in the week. The only other time we went out was up to the grocery store at the front of Diamondhead to pick up a few groceries. Like I said, a lazy day to end a busy weekend.                        

-posted by Chris

Thursday, 27 Oct 05      

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 Quintron and Miss Pussycat- "Dream Captains" - Swamp Tech (Tigerbeat6 Records)

Today's song is from the new Quintron & Miss Pussycat record that we picked up at their record release party this past Tuesday night in New Orleans. It was also our first chance to venture over into New Orleans since hurricane Katrina hit two months ago. Doors were to open at 9pm with the show starting at 10pm, but we wanted to go over a little early so we could explore a bit in the French Quarter. We left the house around 7pm and stopped on the way in Slidell to get coffee at the Starbucks there (caffeine!) as well as fill up the gas tank, just in case. The twin span bridge which links I-10 to New Orleans over Lake Ponchartrain was severely damaged during the storm, but a little over the week ago they managed to repair one side, so there was one lane in each direction (as opposed to the two lanes in each direction previously). That wasn't too bad, especially since even though there was some traffic there wasn't nearly as much as usual. After crossing over the lake and driving a few more miles one normally starts to see familar landmarks as entering the suburbs of East New Orleans. The eerie difference tonight was that we couldn't see anything. It was pitch black with no power at all, not even the streetlights were lit. On the access road that parallels I-10 I saw a military Hummer probably on patrol. Of all the homes and apartments in that area that can be viewed from the interstate as driving into the city we only saw one home that had a few lights on inside, and we guessed those were probably from their own personal generator. Near the mall there was one light on in the parking lot, possibly an emergency light. In the Sam's Club parking lot it was a tent/trailer city complete with a small bonfire. Judging from the location and how the military commandeered the Wal-Mart parking lot in Waveland, I'm guessing it was either military or other emergency responders. The next small patch of lights we encountered were in the railroad yard near the industrial canal. After that it was more darkness looking out to the sides off the interstate until we reached Esplanade Street where as we got closer to downtown from that point there were more lights in the residential areas and homes that we could see. We got off the interstate at the Canal Street exit and it was still dark north of Claiborne, but driving south on Canal there was power and light. Not all the hotels had power and there were many businesses noticeably closed, but those that were open are a start. Vehicles (mainly police) were parked all along the curb and in the center median where the streetcars usually run. We turned onto Peters Street near Canal Place and found a spot on the street to park near Tower Records. Many of the other vehicles in the area were police vehicles. We walked towards the Jax Brewery (which is across from the street that One Eyed Jacks is on) and the parking lot between the Hard Rock Cafe and Jax Brewery was fenced off with the entrance staffed by 3 or 4 police officials. Covering the lot was a large tent canopy and underneath were some food vendors and cafeteria-style dining areas. This was one of the emergency responder relief/dining areas. Even at 8.30pm there were quite a few workers eating or taking a break to chat with others. We walked down past the club which was open with a few people at the bar. We wanted to stroll down Bourbon Street a few blocks up and see how much it was 'back in business'. There were more people than we expected to see wandering along. Mostly off duty military and other emergency crews, but there were also some tourists. Of course Bourbon Street had quite a few of it's bars featuring cheesy cover bands and strip clubs open. Some restaurants were also open and right in the middle was the Royal Sonesta hotel which is currently the headquarters for the New Orleans Police Department. Needless to say, the police presence was visible, but we didn't see anyone getting a beatdown by the cops.

Around 9.15 we walked back up to the club and sat inside near the door where we could watch people at the bar, listen to the hip jukebox tunes, and view people coming in the door. Our friend Alex showed up after about 20 minutes, so we were chatting with him for another 15 minutes before we all went inside the venue area and sat towards the front. The show started right on time at 10pm (so people could get home before the 2am New Orleans curfew) with the premier of Miss Pussycat's puppetshow movie 'Electric Swamp' (which comes as a bonus dvd disc when purchasing their new cd). It's the story of an alligator from New Orleans named Cinnamon who owns a snoball stand that gets destroyed by formosan termites, then she and her friend Lolly Crawfish take an adventure to a termite rave, on a ship with Captain Dreamweaver, and ending up at the Mother-in-Law Lounge to visit Ernie and Antoinette K-Doe and dealing with the termites. Pretty crazy, but really original and lots of fun. One of the best parts is the dream sequence Cinnamon has on the ship which features a live Quintron casting his spell and Miss Pussycat and some of the Spellcaster 'dancers' passing around a chocolate drum buddy. Too bizarre! It's only 30 minutes, and I could watch it over and over. Oh, before that there was actually a short 10 minute 'film' of someone who came back to their flooded residence in New Orleans (9th Ward?) right after the storm and had shot footage of the contaminated water and some other damage. Slow but mildly interesting.

Next, was the opening act from Rotterdam, Holland who was going on tour with them for the next few weeks around the country, Hairy Merry. More like scary Hairy Merry. This guy was a one-man band playing organ with a drum machine and singing. Some of his songs were slightly amusing, but mostly it was pretty annoying. Fortunately he only played for about half an hour.

Finally, a little after midnight Quintron and Miss Pussycat took the stage. Quintron always gets into his playing and he lays into his organ while at the same time almost swallowing the microphone and making the magic sounds that come out of the drum buddy. Miss Pussycat puts her heart into her singing and shaking the maracas. They are quite a pair and always put on a fun show that even the most uncool, awkward, and unrhythmic person can dance to. One can't help but to shake at least their hips or tap their toes when listening to their music.

quintron

And that's what most of the crowd in the packed club were doing. It looks like quite a few of the local hipsters were back in town, whether it was temporary or permanent didn't really matter, at least they were able to see Quintron & Miss Pussycat get the groove going. It was good to see that many people come out for a show, even if it was free, but it gives hope that maybe as more shows start to hit town there will be people to support them. At least it's a sign that New Orleans is starting to slowly rebuild. A bonus for us was that a woman was giving out tickets to the 'invitation only' rescheduled VoodooFest this Saturday. Originally a two-day fest, then unknown status after Katrina hit, then moved to Memphis, now being held in two cities (New Orleans and Memphis) on two days, but the New Orleans show set to be a recovery show free for emergency responders and others rebuilding the city of New Orleans. Maybe there weren't enough tickets being given away to the emergency responders, so we ended up being some of the fortunate recipients of free tickets to the New Orleans show this Saturday. Not all of the acts originally scheduled will be appearing, but big draws like Nine Inch Nails and Queens of the Stone Age are playing. Other notables are The New York Dolls, Digable Planets, and Death from Above 1979. Should be a fun day, plus we'll get a chance to see what New Orleans looks like during the daytime.

The drive home was pretty uneventful. There was a great view of the reddish moon very low in the sky coming up as we were leaving the city at 1am. We had the road pretty much to ourselves, so it was a nice drive.

Not much else to report the past few days. I've been working at this trailer in Gulfport where another agency is allowing us to use their computer hook-up. We've set up one of our laptop computers and have been registering and processing some of the applications we've taken at the FEMA sites after the hurricane. It's not too bad, but it sure isn't our office. I did that Mon, Tues, and Wed, this week and went up briefly this morning, but then took some cases home to do manual requests for information and wait for another roofing contractor to come out and give us another estimate. They were supposed to be here at 1.30pm, but when no-one had shown up by 3pm I said forget it and went up to the gym and the coffee shop to get on the internet. We've pretty much decided who we'll go with to replace our roof, but it all depends on how much our insurance is going to pay. I actually ended up calling our company today (USAA) to find out the status since it's been 5 weeks since our adjuster came out. I was a bit short with them because the adjuster said he had finished everything up and that we should be hearing from the company within a few days, but then the company said in the documented notes that it had to be sent back to the supervisor on Oct. 21 because the photo of the roof wasn't close enough to show the damage (the damage was covered by tarps before the adjuster came to inspect our house). I then called the supervisor over our adjuster to find out the status and why hadn't we been contacted if they needed to come back out. I also told him that if he needed any pictures of the damage that I'd be happy to email the photos we took with our digital camera before we put the tarps on to him. He told me that the adjuster had given him 25 or 30 claims today and that he would look over ours if he came across it today in those claims and would contact us within a couple of days if anything else was needed. I don't like to be such an ass because I know they are swamped, but we want to get the work started on our roof soon while the weather is still decent. It's been pleasantly cool all this past week, but still sunny out during the day and perfect weather for being outside with no rain. Winter is coming soon and the weather may take a turn for the worst though and if we get the roof done then it will make it better for getting someone to come do the interior ceiling work. Patience. I have to keep reminding myself that we're better off than many, but the whole situation is trying and worst of all is traffic, which seems to make everyone's tempers boil. Driving offensively (which for me includes shooting the middle finger off sometimes, which I was surprised to find that in a poll recently only 13% of drivers admitted to doing it) is an understatement.

Tomorrow I have a few errands to run in Gulfport, but tomorrow night we're hoping to go out to eat and catch a movie with Jason and Ellen. Nothing too late since we'll want to get an early start on Saturday for our trip to New Orleans and Voodoofest which starts early (and ends early) for an all day event. We're planning to take the camera in for that and hope to have some good photos of the bands as well as New Orleans photos.

-posted by Chris

Sunday, 23 Oct 05      

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Chris Isaak - "Don't Make Me Dream About You" - Heart Shaped World (Reprise Records)

Well...another week has flown by without us updating this here blog. Shame on us. We're still without DSL at home, so we have to hang out at the local coffee shop (Jumpin' Bean) with WIFI to upload. They have good coffee there & are really nice...so it works out ok.

I spent most of the week in Washington, DC. Flew out on Monday...our Congressman, Gene Taylor, was on the same flight. Lots of people went up and talked to him, but I couldn't figure out what to say. When we were getting on our connecting flight to DC he was right behind me in line. I was going to turn around and say "You know, I've never actually voted for you, but I really admired the way you laid in to (FEMA ex) Michael Brown." But when I turned around he was looking very much like he didn't want to be bothered. Oh well...  My first night in DC I met up with one of my best friends from college, Amy. We went to the Cheesecake Factory and ate way too much (I guess it was ok, since I skipped lunch as our flight out of Gulfport was an hour late and we had to run to catch the next flight). We had these awesome avocado eggrolls and I had a romano chicken dish. Then for dessert of course we had to get a slice of cheesecake...we split a lemon raspberry flavored one - Yummy! Tuesday morning I had a meeting...met up at the Metro station with my 2-levels up boss and 2 contractors. The meeting was very successful and lasted until about 1:30. So I spent the rest of the day shopping in Pentagon City. It was nice to go shopping again, even if I didn't really buy anything. I was hesitant to try on many tops, since my smallpox vaccination is still not 100% healed. I went back to the hotel and Amy came over to give me a ride to another shopping area where there was a movie theater. I ate at Don Pablo's, shopped a little at Old Navy, and then went to see 40 Year Old Virgin. The movie was pretty funny at times, overall just ok. The next day was another early meeting. I was supposed to take a cab to get to my boss' hotel in Crystal City. I had the front desk call a cab, or so I thought, and he said that it would take ~25 minutes to get there. I went down to wait after 15 minutes and asked the desk guy if they had come...he said no. So I waited...at some point I overhead the front desk guy on the phone with the cab company. I suspect he never called one for me in the first place. I tried calling my boss & contractors, but my phone wasn't working in DC (it kept disconnecting after a few seconds). It was a real hassle, but they finally came and got me. That's the last time I'm staying at that Comfort Inn. We were 15 minutes late to our meeting (which was all the way outside the Beltway in Sterling). It was no big deal being late...the rest of the meeting was over after a couple of hours. Then we headed back to Crystal City and ate lunch at a Thai restaurant. Yum! After that I went back to my hotel and tried to rest up...as Amy and I were going to see Chris Isaak in concert at the 9:30 club. Amy came and got me, we went to Arlington and picked up some kabobs to go and then headed back to her place. There we got on the internet and she showed me her entry to Match.com. She's gotten several replies, but hasn't felt like responding to any of them. Then I thought, my borther-in-law is probably listed on here. So we found him and I "winked" at him using Amy's account. Pretty funny. He's probably thinking "Why is this woman in Virginia winking at me?!"  After awhile we caught the Metro to DC. Got to the 9:30 club a little before the first band started. The band was Brandy Carlisle (and band)...she's got a strong voice, kind of country-twinged like Chris Isaak's. They were fron Seattle...pretty decent, although not entirely my cup of tea. Shortly before 9:30, Chris Isaak came out. He was wearking a purplish suit with sequins on it. He and his band played many songs including several covers. He interspersed songs with lots of funny dialog (he's a bit of a cheeseball). They then played about 30 minutes semi-acoustic, sitting on stools towards the front of the stage. They went back to more of the rocking sound for several more songs...including one where he went upstairs and walked around the balcony, breezing just past us, while playing guitar. They played for a full hour and a half...then came back and played a 20 minute encore. When he came back, he had changed into a suit with mirrors all over it, he was like a giant disco ball. He told the crowd that he didn't know what else he'd be doing if he wasn't touring..."the only other thing I'm good for is roofing." At which point I yelled out "Come to my house". I could really use a new roof. It was a great show & I am glad I finally got to see him in concert!

I got back on Thursday afternoon and went to work on Friday. That evening we played poked with the gang. I did horribly...not winning a single hand. It just wasn't my night. Chris did better, but went out just shy of making any money. Oh well... Last night we went to Christy & Dwayne's wedding shower. It was really nice...ate a little, drank a little, chatted with everyone. The wedding is in 2 weeks... So today we are planning to go to Mobile. Do some shopping (including wedding present), maybe see a movie, get a bite to eat, go grocery shopping. So I'd better wrap this up so we can get going soon.

Song for today is from Chris Isaak of course. I had it stuck in my head the day of the show. Unfortunately, he did not play it... Of course, he did play Wicked Game...and that more than makes up for all the other songs he didn't play.

-posted by Kelly

Friday , 14 Oct 05      

Just another day in the ongoing rebuilding of the coast. It hasn't been too busy of a week (for me at least), but we still manage to keep our weekends pretty full. Last Saturday it was still relatively cool in the morning, so I took a bike ride around the golf cart paths in Diamondhead. Total mileage I went about 15 miles and was able to see parts of Diamondhead I never had. There were some homes that had trees on them still, but mostly it was just piles of debris everywhere. Kelly stayed home and made a banana cream pie thing from one of Emeril's cookbooks then we watched some college football. Later in the afternoon I baked cookies, then we went over to Jason and Ellen's to play cards. It wasn't our night for poker. I ended up being the first one out by foolishly going all in with my pocket aces early in the game and lost to Dwayne who had pocket queens, but tripped up on the flop. Kelly stayed in longer than I did, but neither of us managed to place and win money. It was still fun though and we're looking forward to future games with more of the regulars showing up.

On Sunday we got up early and headed out to Mobile. We first went to Best Buy and went on a mini-shopping spree. Actually, Kelly purchased a 60GB Ipod which she had wanted for her upcoming survey at sea next month. We also purchased a Toshiba laptop computer which I had been considering for a while. It's a pretty nice machine with 100GB hard drive space, 512MB sdram, a dvd/cd read/write drive, and a built-in LAN interface, which means that anyplace that offers wireless internet access (WiFi), I can log into. And we're fortunate that there is a coffeeshop just around the corner from our house that has that service. After that stop, we went to Barnes and Noble to get coffee and a snack before heading to the movie theatre. The Barnes and Noble in Gulfport apparently sustained quite a bit of water damage from the creek that runs behind it during Hurricane Katrina and won't be re-opening anytime soon (we've heard maybe before Christmas, but just rumors). The movie we went to see was 'Wallace and Grommitt and the Curse of the Wererabbit'. We had seen the trailers in the past few months and it looked pretty funny. First there was a short film preceding the main feature that starred the penguins from the animated film 'Madagascar'. That itself was hilarious and both of us decided that we now want to rent 'Madagascar' since we hadn't seen it in the theaters. The main feature was also quite a hoot, and although kind of geared towards kids, there were some 'hidden' jokes that were aimed at the adult audience. Nothing too risque, but noticeable, and undeniably British humor. After the movie we went to fax some of Kelly's transcripts to jobs she had applied for. We ended up getting way overcharged at Office Depot, but they seemed to be the only place we could find that offered fax services. We had a late lunch/early dinner next at Outback. It was nice to go to a restaurant and not have to wait two hours in line to be seated. We also ran into friends Gary and Laurine and chatted with them briefly. Our last stop before heading home was the newly opened Super Target store to buy groceries. When we were in Des Moines staying at my sister's we went shopping at one there and were impressed by the variety in the grocery section, so we thought we'd check out the one closest to us. Of course it's similar to other box stores like Walmart, etc., but there were items that we just can't get at the Super Walmart stores. One of them being Einstein Brothers bagels in the bakery section which were freshly made. Needless to say, it's probably good we don't have one closer because we'd be spending more money, although at least the prices aren't as high as Whole Foods, which was one of our favorite places in New Orleans that hasn't re-opened yet.  It was a full day, but a successful one.

Monday Kelly was off, but she went to get her haircut in the morning in Gulfport. I was supposed to meet a person from Service Master at our office at noon, but he ended up not being able to make it due to another job taking longer than expected. A wasted drive in for me, which was more of a pain in the ass because traffic was (is) horrible. I came home and after eating Kelly and I decided to drive down to Waveland and take some photos of the destruction from Katrina. We first drove by our old rental house which was just north of the railroad tracks. The structure was still standing (it wasn't washed away surprisingly), but we couldn't tell how much wind damage it had received because there were trees down all over the yard that obstructed most of the view of the home from the street. We then drove to what used to be the main street of Waveland with the post office, library, city hall, a few restaurants, and some apartment complexes. Basically everything was destroyed. These photos show what once was a pretty nice apartment complex (first photo) and in front of Rickey's restaurant which had a pretty good local food menu. It shows that even steel beams were no match for the force of water.

           apts.            beams

After driving down main street we went one street over to where Kelly's friend Allison had a home. Unbelievably, her home was one of the only structures on the whole street that was still somewhat intact (left photo). Except for maybe one or two more north of hers, all the rest of the houses had been reduced to rubble and debris. The stench on this street that had yet to have any clean-up started was gagging. We left and drove down Beach Road, which used to be a quiet, pleasant drive with gorgeous 'mansions' and plantation style homes all along the whole coastline overlooking the Gulf. We used to walk along this road at night when we lived in Waveland because it was so hot during the day that the nights were nice to take a stroll the mile down to the beach from our house. It's so sad that none of those homes survived and was quite a shock. Most were completely destroyed with nothing left but a slab, but a few had some of the pilings or 'stilts' underneath that the houses were built upon (these were steel beams) and one house had some of the beams and the front stairway leading up to nothingness left suspended in the air. As we got closer to downtown Bay St. Louis, some of the roadway had cracked like an earthquake ripping it apart, so there was a temporary fix of dirt filling it in. We turned off Beach north just past St. Stanislaus Catholic Academy which was still standing, but even this brick building received some noticeable damage. Our final stop was the drawbridge span that crossed from Bay St. Louis over the Bay (of St. Louis) to Pass Christian and connected Hwy 90 from one side to the other. The photo on the right shows how it was broken apart and fell right off into the water. They say it will take 18 months or so to rebuild, although the positive news is that the plan is to widen it to three lanes on each side and make it a high rise instead of a drawbridge and possibly add a bicycle lane. The only pathway from Gulfport/Biloxi to Bay St. Louis/Waveland right now is via I-10. Not as convenient by any means.

                  allison          baybridge

After touring Waveland, Kelly dropped me off at The Jumping Bean (the coffee shop near the house) so I could try out our new toy. It worked pretty well and it was nice to have internet access again. Even if I do have to leave the house. After about an hour I walked on back to the house. We watched Colorado beat Calgary in their home opener 7-3.

Tuesday I actually did meet with Service Master at the office and he walked through taking measurements so they could start the job Friday. After that, I ran a couple other errands then came home for the afternoon. I went to the new gym we joined next to the coffee shop and had a half hour workout. Not too bad since it's been awhile, but I'll go back more often. Wed. was pretty uneventful. I did get our new tag sticker at the tax office in Kiln and stopped by the library there to take advantage of their wireless internet access. Our friend Neal came over for lunch so I grilled Boca Burgers. That evening we watched the Avs lose 5-4 after starting off well with a 3-0 lead over Nashville, then take stupid penalties which cost them the game. Yesterday (Thur), I drove up to Hattiesburg with Kim and Joann, other supervisors in our office, for a brief supervisor meeting. It wasn't too long and there was a bit of new useful information. We went to lunch with Gary and his asst. supervisors from Pascagoula at Sho-Ya. Mmm...Japanese food was good. When I got home in the afternoon I went over to the coffee shop to look up a couple of things then came home.

This morning I met with Service Master again at the office to give them a key so they can start work. They estimate about two weeks to finish the job of cleaning/removing mold, so we're hoping that we'll be up and running again on Nov. 1. I haven't done too much else today, but have been trying to find some contractors to come in and give us an estimate on how much it will cost to repair our ceilings. Not much luck so far. I did line up a third roofer to give us an estimate, which will give us three options after they do an estimate on Monday. Still don't know how much the insurance will pay, so that's another waiting game. It's just tiresome. I'll probably go to the coffee shop in a while so I can find shows to update the show list with and get some more travel info about the trip we're taking to the northeast in January. Maybe by the next update I'll know how much insurance is going to pay and have some contractors lined up to repair our home.

-posted by Chris

Friday , 07 Oct 05      

Just a quickie....I need to go out to Gulfport, meet up with Chris and hopefully upload this blog entry from Jason & Ellen's house. I'm home today, because it's my holiday. Even though I could go to work and have plenty to do, I really want to take the day off and be a bum. I got up this morning and weeded the front flower beds. It was nice and cool out. Could it be that fall is upon us? That would be lovely. Chris pretty much mentioned most of the highlights from the past week. I saw Serenity on Sunday with some friends...it was definitely worth checking out for anyone who likes sci-fi. Even if you hadn't seen the Firefly series...you could easily catch up to the plot. I think maybe some of the intricacies of relationships might be harder to come by...but possibly not. (I've been watching Firefly re-runs on the SciFi channel...it's been entertaining). I'm kind of biased in favor of anything Joss Whedon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel) does.

In other news...it has been very busy at work. I got a small pox vaccination on Monday for an upcoming trip. It made me kind of queasy the first day, sore arm and head-achey after that, and now it just itches like a mothertucker. But I shall not scratch. I do not want big sores all over the place. I just changed the bandage this morning and so far it looks like a couple of pimples. Ugh!

Ok...here's a picture that Chris left off. It's the home of the guy that used to live across the street from me when I was growing up, Mr. Prince. Mom wanted to see it...so here it is. The first home that Chris and I stayed at when we moved down here (rather than staying in an empty rental waiting for our goods to arrive).
Mr Prince's house
-posted by Kelly

Thursday , 06 Oct 05      

Hockey is back! We were so excited last night to watch all 30 teams in action on opening night. We (of course) have the DirecTV Center Ice Package, so throughout the whole season we'll pretty much get to see all of the games which are broadcast on the various local sports networks throughout the U.S. and Canada. We started flipping around channels beginning at 6pm and I didn't shut off the television until midnight. Thumbs up for the new rules. Play was much faster and flowed so much better. There weren't as many stoppages in play and the games were that much more thrilling. Seeing players starting to get in sync with their new teams was also exciting. We must be pretty sad to be that excited about hockey, but after last season the NHL was canceled, then this season the Seawolves had to suspend operations due to Hurricane Katrina, if there wasn't an NHL season we'd be pretty bummed out. We can rejoice though because the 'new' NHL is back in action. The Avalanche started off with an away game against their division rivals, the Edmonton Oilers. Both teams looked a little sloppy in the first period and were tied 2-2 going into the second. In the second they looked a little better, although Colorado needs to work some on it's defense. In the third period Edmonton scored a power play goal to go ahead 3-2, but with less than five minutes left Colorado scored again to tie it at 3-3. Unfortunately, not too much longer Edmonton came back and scored again with the eventual game winner making it a 4-3 loss for the Avalanche. It was pretty disappointing, but considering they only had 15 shots to the 32 Edmonton put on goal, it could have been much worse. It's the same problem the Avs had last season though, which is scoring goals. Maybe new coach Joel Quennville will have to work on that some more. They have 81 games left in the regular season to improve, and hopefully it will be soon. I'm still glad they're back and enjoyed watching.

We finally had a roof contractor come out yesterday and give us an estimate on our roof repairs. It seemed reasonable, although we're still planning to get at least 1-2 more before we make our decision. Of course we're still waiting to hear back from the insurance adjuster. It's been about two weeks since they came by and inspected our home, although we should probably consider ourselves lucky that they have even made it to our house already. Patience is the key.

My office still isn't usable yet, but we did meet with ServiceMaster yesterday at the office, and the rep that came by checked out the damage and gave us an idea of what they would have to do (basically cut out the sheet rock three feet up on any areas that had mold, clean the carpet and other areas, then new drywall and ceiling tiles would be put in). He was going to contact one of the bureau directors in Jackson next who handles those kinds of contracts and maybe we could get back into our office sometime in November. The FEMA sites we're working at are set up pretty well, but not being able to look up cases on our computers or process any applications (all applications for our office, the Picayune regional office, and Pascagoula regional office have been sent up to Jackson to be distributed to the other offices throughout the state for processing) is tedious.

Our home phone seems to have been reconnected, much faster than their original estimate, however they connected us with the wrong telephone number. Our line has been cross-connected with someone else's so while we can call out, we still don't have DSL service and we can't receive our own incoming calls. We called Bell South about this problem on Monday morning and it still hasn't been resolved yet. Of course they had tried to bill us for service when we were told that 'you'll receive a credit on your bill since you were affected by the hurricane and are without service'. When Kelly told me about the Bell South bill sent to us via email last week I was furious and immediately called Bell South. I tried hard not to be an ass to the rep on the phone, but when he told me that 'well, you should make a payment so the system doesn't charge you a late fee,'  to which I replied that I definitely was not going to pay for service we had been without for almost a month and that since we had already made a payment in the beginning of Sept. for a month of service we didn't have since our bills are paid for a month ahead, why should I pay for another month of service we weren't going to have? The rep told me he could see where I was coming from and put me on hold so he could talk to his supervisor. After a few minutes he came back and told me that he would waive any late charges and that when we did receive service again to pay our bill and then a credit would show up on our account for the months we had been without service. I'm not holding my breath, and I'm still not paying those jerks until they get our correct line re-installed. I hate Bell South. If it weren't for the fact that we use them for DSL service, I'd just as soon get rid of them completely.

Let's see, what else has happened in the past week. Last Saturday, we went and saw 'The Corpse Bride' at the movie theater, which Kelly didn't enjoy as much as I did, but I still thought it was a lot of fun. There was also a great new trailer for the latest Harry Potter film coming out in November. After the movie we went to take some photos of Kevin's place as well as another friend who lived one street over from Kevin, both close to the back bay of Biloxi and which flooded homes. As you can see from the pictures of Kevin's place and neighboring homes. The golden arches twisted by the wind also was amusing to see, in a sick, destructive way.

          kevin's home               katrina damage

                                                             arches

After taking some photos and driving around some of the damaged areas, we headed to Jason and Ellen's house where they were hosting a night of pizza and games (no poker this night so everyone could participate). Kelly had made an apple cake earlier in the morning and we had dropped it off at their place before going to the movie. It was a good-sized group and we had fun talking and munching on pizza, then we all played Scattegories. There were twelve of us, so it was pretty challenging to come up with words that someone else in the room didn't come up with, but that made it more interesting as well. I ended up doing quite well and had one of the highest scores of the evening (brag, brag). We didn't stay too terribly late since we still have a curfew in effect here in Hancock County. It was 10pm-6am, but now it's scaled back to 11pm-5am.

Sunday morning I made waffles for breakfast then headed down to work at the FEMA site. It was pretty uneventful and although I did have six inquiries about Medicaid, I spent most of the afternoon reading, writing a letter, or talking to some of the volunteers who had come down from around the country. The two I spoke with were from Missouri and Indiana. After working from noon-6pm, I stopped by Walmart to pick up some groceries. Talk about a zoo. It was pretty crowded, but the checkout lines were the worst. It took me over an hour just to purchase about 8 items. That's just going to be another change to deal with as the coast starts to rebuild its infrastructure. It was bad before, but with limited roadways and reduced businesses and hours of operation, it'll be worse for quite awhile. Kelly went to see the movie 'Serenity' while I was at work and said it was really good, but I'll let her talk about that more later. My friend Gary also said it was a good film and that I would probably enjoy it.

The rest of the week has been spent waiting for contractors, making phone calls, or running errands. Today I'm getting my haircut this afternoon and running a few other errands. Tomorrow I'm taking the Element in for a 25000 mile tune-up (we put quite a few miles on it driving from here to Atlanta to Des Moines, home, then up to Arkansas and back) before going to work. Another roofing contractor called and is going to come by tomorrow and do an estimate for us, so I am pleased by that. The weather is supposed to cool off this weekend with a cold front moving down tonight or tomorrow, so I'll probably get a little bit more biking in. Kelly and I also plan to go up to Hattiesburg so she can purchase an Ipod for her upcoming trip out to sea and we may also purchase a laptop computer for future trips as well as something to use locally at businesses that offer internet access while we are still without DSL service at our home.

Things are slowly getting better. The state legislature passed a bill that the governor said he'll sign which allows casinos to build on land (previously they were required to be built on the water), which will help to kick start the rebuilding of the economy on the coast. It may be up to a year or more before the casinos come back, but when they do they'll have more to offer including many job opportunities for those who are currently displaced or unemployed. News of some roads opening within the next month or so should also help relieve some of the traffic problems. The mountains of debris alongside the roads is starting to disappear slowly (making larger mountains elsewhere) and the cleanup has begun, so it's possible that the coast may partially recover in time. Time is what will tell in the long run.

-posted by Chris