It seems I’m taking longer and longer to update this thing. News is coming slower and slower now. Or maybe I’m just becoming lazier and lazier. Or a little of both. Either way, I have a lot to cover.
Friday (after Thanksgiving since I was off of work) my parents, my brother and his friend, and myself went to the house. We really started cleaning up. We threw out the computer I built in 1999 and did a major upgrade in 2001 (AMD Athlon Thunderbird 1 GHz, ATI Radeon ALl in Wonder, Sound Blaster Live) including over five years worth of things saved on several hard drives (which were coroded and beyond any hope of recovery), along with the original Nintendo Enterainment System, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, N64, and Sega Genisys. We also threw out TV’s and Stereo and other Home Audio / Video equipment. Found some CDs and DVDs that may or may not be usable. Too early to tell. In all we probably threw out $20,000 worth of stuff (obviously the pre-Katrina value for all of you smart asses). As much as we lost, we are lucky to have saved three beds and most of our clothes since we did not get water in the second floor. We have running water already, so I was able to take a piss in my own toilet and it felt quite good. As Thanksgiving just passed, we are thankful to be alive and to have been able to save any of our possessions.
We still have other things that need to be thrown out. Not counting vehicles, probably another $10,000 or so. Since we live in a no-flood zone (according to the insurance companies), my parents did not purchase flood insurance. So we only got $7000. I have spent a lot of time wondering since the insurance companies gave us incorrect information, does that make them liable? On the other hand, if the levees had not breached or there was no MRGO, would we have even gotten any flooding. There is already a report of design flaws in the levees. Does that meam whoever designed this is liable? Or am I just looking for money from someone?
Robin and I will be getting married at St. Anne in Metairie, around the corner from her grandma’s house (on July 15, 2006 as planned). Now we need to get a reception hall.
Fr. Adrian, who was at Our Lady of Lourdes from 1987 – 1992 (when I was 9 to 14 years old) is down in Louisiana visiting for about two weeks. We saw him at Mass on Sunday at OLOL in Slidell (which is different from OLOL in Violet). Robin and I had dinner with him Monday night. It felt good to talk to him for a while. Robin and I learned a few things from him (such as the four ingrediants of love – sacrifice, respect, forgiveness, communication). My parents were planning on coming but my dad was sick. (He has been feeling bad off and on since his surgery for his torn rotator cuff which happened from moving Katrina related debris.)
My grandparents house had minimal damage. The roof guys are there this week fixing the roof (and making a lot of noise). My parents have been there since early October. I have been there since late October. (I am working from there now.) The Camp in Slidell made out in good shape and almost all services are up and running. Only thing not working is the Cable Internet. After that is fixed, we can move there since my mom and I both need Internet Access for work. My grandparents house is not very big and we have been having five of us living there (six when Robin visits). The camp is not much bigger but would only be 3 of us living there (four when Robin visits).
Archbishop Hannan High was listed to be demolished and re-opened on the Northshore. I have recently read now that it will be rebuilt in St. Bernard. That is great news, though it could take a while to re-open which I think everyone understands. Hannan is having their Senior Retreat this weekend even though they are not having classes this year. Also school related, St. Bernard Parish opened up a Unified School and there are already 800+ students there. No doubt there is a lot of desire to go back, but we need hurricane protection ([i]or else, we won’t be in a no flood zone – sarcasm[/i]).
Not much to say about politics. If you live in California CD-48, I am officially endorsing Jim Gilchrist http://www.jimgilchrist.com/ . Like my endorsement means anything to you. This could be the next (I guess second if you consider Bernie Sanders from Vermont) step in taking out the Republi-crat Mon-(or Du-)opoly. Gilchrist is the founder of the Minuteman Project http://www.minutemanhq.com/ .
Also Cynthia McKinney (Democrat – Georgia – CD-4) has introduced a bill HR 4209 that would punish Jefferson Parish for not letting people from New Orleans cross the Mississippi River bridge shortly after Katrina. While JPPD may have been out of their jurisdiction (the parish line is well past the bridge), I don’t blame them one bit for not letting anyone in or out of the parish at that point. She is in a safe seat so I am wasting my time here, but would you people in her district please vote her out of office next year? (I will update the info above once I get it.)
Also lost on my computer were lots of digital music files. (I lost a lot before when putting a new hard drive in. I moved (instead of copied) the files to the new Hard Drive and then the New Hard Drive disappeared and had to be re-formatted. Weird. But they were RIAA music, so it was not loss.) Mostly non-RIAA or Christian Music (which was mostly RIAA, but they don’t care about that because that is not where the money is). One of the P2P networks shutdown due to RIAA pressure but will re-open with RIAA approval (like Napster did. Nuff Said). Sony BMG was discover to have placed some sort of trojan horse on their CDs which installs on your computer when placed in the CD Drive. The purpose of this is to violate Fair Use and also stops the CD from meeting the standard specification of being a CD. Being as Sony BMG (along with EMI, Universal, and Warner) have been suing music lovers and now Sony BMG is being sued by the state of Texas and soon a class action law suit by its customers, I would like to ask Sony BMG what are their feelings on the roles being reversed. This is one of the reasons why we need the Digital Media Consumers Rights Act to pass.
Whoever is reading this, I hope you are doing well and that you have a lot to be Thankful for on Thanksgiving and have a Merry Christmas if I don’t post before then.
[i]edit – March 8, 2006[/i]