Katrina Clean-up at Slidell, LA

This is just one photo from those taken by Zack Perry while he was at Slidell, LA helping his family out dig out of all the rubble and mud.

More photos can be found at his flickr page at Zack Perry.

I am now 33.

I am now.

Nano, Nano, my name is Mork from Orkin

If you read this post about a week ago, I mentined that I was really wanting an ipod. Well, I finally got one and the Nano to boot. I was prepared. I signed up for itunes about a week ago and even started converting my mp3s and uploading my cd collection. Now if Apple were prepared and had the accesories it has for all their other products.

One thing I would like is the Otter Box. Hopefully it will be available soon.

Here are some shots of my Nano.

September 11, 2005

Here are some images from the Healing Fields at Shelby Farms in Memphis, TN near the Agricenter. These were all taken on September 11th, 2005.

More photos can be found at the below link.

Healing Fields

Are we ready to rumble?

There has been a lot running through my mind ever since Hurricane Katrina and the response time to save the survivors and how most of this could have been avoided.

Is Memphis, TN ready to react to the dangers of an earthquake or even that of a massive tornado? Is any city ready or even prepared to respond if something were to happen to their city? Would you trust Willie Herrington with your life? I am guessing not.

It seems that the evacuation process in New Orleans was flawed. To have a near perfect evacuation process I believe the following needs to be taken into account prior to a natural disaster.

• Every city in the US needs to have a back-up city or more that can accommodate the people evacuating.
• We have rails systems that can be use to evacuate large numbers of people if there is advance notice. Even if there is not advance notice it could still be an option. New Orleans could have had shuttles to the Local Amtrak station and evacuated people via rail prior to Katrina.
• We have numerous military bases closing daily that need to be reopened with special troops to handle emergency that happen on our own soil not in Iraq. This based needs to have special housing sections in case people need to be transported there.
• Each city needs to have emergency warehouses scattered throughout the city with emergency supplies so we do not have to wait days for food and water.
• Emergency personnel need to have a better form of communication. Katrina wiped out every form of communication, so those in the field could not be told where to go.
• When there is a mandatory evacuation, everyone needs to get out.

I even believe people could have been evacuated after the Hurricane much quicker. Rescuing people by chopper is great, but you can only rescue 2 people at a time. The military could have brought in any amphibious vehicles use to transport military personnel and driven them through the streets. Taken all the people to the nearest working rail terminal and evacuated people via rail cars. When New Orleans get back to where they once were they need to invest in amphibious transport and park them outside the city in case a disaster like this were to ever happen again.

I hope this get all cities in the US to start thinking of evacuation procedure now before it is too late. I hope Memphis has a back up plan in case we have the massive earthquake people are predicting will hit here sometime in the future.

Itsy Bitsy Spider

I was checking the pool out this evening making sure the skimmers were all clean from all the debri from Katrina. Finished that and started making my way to the pool pump to backwash and rinse. Two more steps and I would have walked into a spider web you would have only seen in the movies. The web was taller than me and as wide as my car. I jumped so far back that I almost landed on the pool.

If you are afraid of spider you might not want to scroll any lower.

Click on the image for a larger picture..

I got a hole in my pocket…..

After listening to various rumors regarding gas prices and gas availability in the near future. I took my car which was running on fumes to the closest and cheapest gas station. I glanced in the distance and saw a sign that said $2.79. I figured that this is the cheapest I would find as rumors were floating around that gas was $3.09 in some places. I pulled up the pump and here is what I saw.

While pumping my $2.89 gas instead of my $2.79 gas I noticed the pump across the parking lot. Looks like gas at this location was not going to last long, especially since there was cars waiting behind me and probably the same at each pump.

A little more and I would not have gotten any more change from the Grant Bill. Grant would be rolling over in his grave at gas prices like this. This is the most I have ever paid for Gas. It even beat Perry’s all time high he reached last week.

When will something be done to make us less dependable on fossil fuels? Why don’t we use technology independent people are using to get better gas mileage on their cars? One made modified his Suburban to get over 250 miles per gallon. Yes, a suburban at 250 miles a gallon. If independent people can do it, why don’t the car manufacturers start doing this? My guess is that by the time something is really done, gas prices will be near 5 bucks.