New Apartment

Hello All! Long time no new posts. I see from my guestbook that some people are still visiting. Thank you. Even if you do it just to criticize either me or eachother, my door is "always open" for entertainment from the public at large.

In case anyone was wondering, the reason for my brief disappearance from blogging-world was that I moved. I now live a whole 200 yards down the road from my old place. Thanks to my friends April and Bob, I was able to get moved in by my deadline date Sep. 17th.

I am feeling fine and dandy about the new apartment. Finally, I have a two room apartment! It's funny, that what they call a "One Bedroom" apartment in America actually contains two rooms: one "living room" and one (in this case) equally large, or slightly smaller, "bedroom". In Germany, this would be called a "Zweizimmerwohnung" ("two-room apartment"). While living over there from 2000-2004, I always was in an "Einzimmerwohnung". That's "one room". I bet you are all just fascinated by this lingoism. In any case, after so many years of living within 4 walls, I am now feeling like I have arrived in the lap of luxury. And I am now paying less rent than before!




Above is a picture of the living room. As you can see, things are still somewhat "in flux". That couch-thing you see on the left is the futon, on which I still sleep. I have yet to purchase a decent bed. I expect that, until I get visitors, perhaps from among those that frequent this site, it will stay like this.

Another important event also occurred since last time I posted. At 4.25 local time last Saturday morning, I was jolted awake by shaking. At first, I thought it was my sometimes rambunctious new neighbor upstairs, doing something I didn't want to know about. This was just my first instinct. But then when I started processing brain signals, and sounds, like my TV cabinet creaking from moving back and forth, I put two and two together and realized I'd experienced .... my first California earthquake! It was only a 3.2 magnitude tremor (epicenter was only a couple miles from my house, and 6 km beneath the earth's surface). Several local people I talked to didn't even feel it at all! That means I must be a pretty scared, naive Midwesterner.

It does make me wonder what could happen if I experience the "big one" that the experts are predicting to happen here in the next 60 years (with 90% likelihood). If it's at night again, will the roof over my head keep intact? Or will I be crushed under a load of drywall and concrete? Will I still have any possessions left? Will my job still exist? Thoughts like these do lend a certain kind of perspective. At least now, I understand why people around here don't bother spending as much as other people I know in Wisconsin getting their houses all up to snuff. Why bother investing that much when it will likely get destroyed by an earthquake anyways? I don't know what earthquake insurance costs around here for homeowners. I do know, however, that at both places I've rented, I had to sign a form acknowleging that there is no legal protection if my stuff all gets destroyed in my apartment by an earthquake. And, my auto insurer, State Farm, told me it would cost much more than my property is worth to buy such insurance. So, am I living "on the edge" ... or what?

Sierra Club Activities

Last weekend was the first-ever Sierra Club national summit in San Francisco, held in one of the city's convention centers (the Moscone Center). I guess attendance was fairly good - judging by reports I heard at the conference, and my own impression from attending the conference on Sunday. The only reason I was there was because I volunteered and got in for free. They assigned me a cushy job as a "pass checker" at one of the meeting rooms. You see, the Sierra Club charged something like $160 for people to attend all of the 3 day conference, which gave them access to all the "forums" and speakers in the individual rooms. To be fair to the Club, the conference did cost quite a bit to put together, so I suppose some kind of fee is necessary. Anyways, those who either couldn't afford the $160, or were just too cheap to pay, like me, could either pay just $15, which let them visit the exhibit hall, or volunteer. My job as pass checker was keeping the "cheapskates" apart from the "faithful", who ponied up their money to attend. And I even got free lunch. Not bad! Naturally, I was rather lax on the "cheapskates", for whom I have sympathy.

The highlight of the conference for me was listening to Marine General Lehnert from Camp Pendelton talk about being an environmenalist and a marine at the same time. He made some great points. People clapped politely when he was done, but I think he deserved a "standing O".

Too bad though I missed Al Gore's speech on Friday. I guess he really socked it to Bush. Where was that spirit when you ran for president in 2000, Al?

As long as we're talking about (elected and un-elected) presidents, I was emailed this picture by a friend in Milwaukee. If it weren't such a sad situation, I would say it's hilarious.



NEWS: I will be moving this weekend. Knowing my own tendency to procrastinate, I decided the best thing I could do to expedite this process is to take apart and disassemble my computer to limit my tendency to surf endlessly and do all sorts of other useless activities on this infernal machine. So hasta la semana proxima, everybody...

Bagdad in New Orleans

I turned on the computer after getting home today and read the news on MyWay, as is my custom. The first picture I saw from New Orleans was this.



I guess there are people with guns down there shooting at cellular tower repair people. So the Sheriff's department gets to "play Army".

Can you just imagine, a little old lady, stranded for days in her apartment, opens the window to ask for help and sees these Sheriffs. "Hey Billybob down there, would ya help out an old lady?" "Close your window and stay inside! We busy hunting snipers!"

Despite all of the catastrophe news, when I see pictures like this I see how ridiculous America can be. Call me upatriotic.

Let me put it this way, for all pro-handgun advocates: is it better that we have guys like this with M-16s patrolling the streets of our cities, or would it not be better if there were serious gun laws and the cops could keep their guns holstered, and give some real meaningful help?

On a related subject, the latest I heard from Texas is they are sheltering 13,000 hurricane victims in a shopping mall in San Antonio. Well, hey, those people won't have to go far to spend their $2,000 government vouchers!

The Salvation Army and American Red Cross appear to be doing a lot of good work, and are asking for donations...

And yes, I did finally get around to posting pictures from my trip to the Sierra Nevada the weekend before last.

One last thing: everybody please sign my guestbook! Call me a moron if you want! Or should I go on strike to test the faith of my readership?

Email from San Antonio

This week I'm not going to do much creative work in blogging. I thought it would be inappropriate to talk about my hike in the Sierra Mountains and show you all the nice pictures. I'll do that next week.

Instead I'm posting an email that was forwarded to me by a friend. It is written by Nancy Daniels, Lt. Col. US Army (ret.) She is part of the psychological counseling team set up in San Antonio TX to support arriving refugees from the Gulf Coast.

"Experience from Hurricane Andrew in the 1990’s was that several whole cities were knocked out. New middle class homes had not been built to code and fell on their occupants. It was hard to get assistance in because there were no phones, no electricity, no water, no roads. Storms have a way of wrecking road systems through flooding and debris. Also, if there is enough wind and water, the road bed gets taken right out of the ground.

New Orleans set up the Super Dome and Convention Center as a refuge of last resort for the sick and crippled who couldn’t evacuate. By Saturday night there was enough wind that the airport closed. People who could buy tickets went out on Trailways, but they didn’t really know where to go. Lots of people didn’t have money for more than a few days in a hotel. There were some evacuee centers in Baton Rouge and all around the state. Lots of people couldn’t evacuate because they couldn’t buy a bus ticket and didn’t have a car. There wasn’t any public transport for evacuation near as I can tell. So people went to the superdome. Still others stayed in their homes and rode out the storm. They were just fine for a while after the storm. There was no water, no phone, no electricity by Monday after the storm passed. Then it got sort of hot and sunny and things were looking up by Monday afternoon. People were willing to stay in their homes and endure the hardship until the power and water were back for a few weeks. Then Monday night the levees broke. Tuesday morning people woke up and washed out of their beds. I mean the water just sort of rose up during the night and took people by surprise.

Amtrak tracks are under water. They only run a few trains in and out of there each day. I think the schedule is two trains a day going east and two going west.

Only one route on I-10 was passable. It was hard to get to. Finally they got more roads open.

Yesterday I was at the evacuee center. I heard the stories. Life is kind of messy and chaotic anyway. Disaster preparedness is not foremost on the minds of people who live kind of hand to mouth anyway. One man said he pulled a woman out of the water into a boat. She died in his arms, but it looked like there was really nothing wrong with her. He thought she was just overwhelmed. He was asking for some new clothes since he had been handling dead bodies.

Walmart brought out some clothes and diapers. Everybody needs clothes and we haven’t got laundry facilities. Things run out real fast because there are about 5000 in the shelter in various states of chaos. There are plenty of volunteers, but as with any operation communication is very difficult. Well organized refugee efforts have to unfold over time. It’s not possible to have emergency situations quickly organized. Communication is really a very fragile commodity.

This is a triple decker disaster. First was the grinding poverty. Then there was the Category 5 hurricane that took out 6000 square miles and along with it all infrastructure—(water, sewer, roads, power, phones). Then the levees broke and flooded 80 % of New Orleans. So that’s why things are such a mess.

Buses were coming in every 5 minutes with about 50 passengers each. There are second and third evacuation centers opening all over this city and many others. Everything is overflowing. These people are sick, too. There is a federal agency-NMDS that is coordinating sending folks to hospitals. Only the sickest can be sent to hospitals. They’re full, too.

I have been in disaster planning for many years. It is hard to imagine the reality of something like this. We have never anticipated or planned to manage anything of this magnitude. Ordinarily something this big wouldn’t necessarily have this many survivors.

I am going back to the evacuee center today.

Love,

Nancy"