I had to relocate in a real hurry from Boston, MA to San Francisco, CA in 2007. This Blog was started to share my experiences for the cross-country drive and an East-Coasters impressions of San Francisco.
I'm in Albuquerque, New Mexico for a few days closing a deal for my company. I wasn't supposed to stay for more than a day-trip, but was forced to stay three days. I'm getting my christmas shopping done...lots of of cool navite american art & jewelery is available here. It's really nice here, the people are very nice, the native american architecture is really cool.
Another cool thing is that 'Route 66' slices right through downtown Albuquerque. It's straddled by a cool nightlife district. Lots of neon, I'll be flying back to Boston Sunday night. Now that this deal is done, I may extend my stay back in Boston for more than the planned 72 hours.
This week I was sent a PBS news report about the group I worked with in Mississippi.
This week featured the Oracle OpenWorld show - the biggest technology show I have ever been to.
There were some big names performing at the Wednesday night concert: Billy Joel, Stevie Nicks,
Lenny Kravitz, En Vogue, The Smithereens
Stevie Nicks and Mick Fleetwood
The Smithereens
Last week I went to see my new ski house(s) for the first time.
Yup, there are two ski houses. One north of Lake Tahoe in Truckee and another in the town of South Lake Tahoe, about an hour away. I'll be managing the north house primarily.
The ski house I'm managing is a Geodesic Dome structure. Its really strange inside, I predict I'll be banging my head on the ceiling a lot.
I carpooled with the interim South cabin manager for another event she was managing: a 'spelunking' expedition, we went caving through old gold mines in Angel Creek. This was really cool.
We were fooling around making a 'Blair Witch Project' style video.
After thinking the trip over for a bit, I began to see the situation in Mississippi fall into a pattern of behavior (US Gov policy) that I first started to notice when I was in college.
I sent the following to Ella and co. a few days after I got back from the Gulf Coast: One thing that I forgot to share with Ed and Irene was a story I had, very relevant (I think) to the source of the problems of fixing coastal Mississippi: I was overseas for a year in college and had a fascinating conversation with an Australian who was a medic in Viet Nam. He helped me understand the way that war played out by asking a mind-blowing question: “Why win a war, when you make more money by losing?” That one question snapped 50 years of modern US Policy into instant focus for me. In this context, one can start to see a pattern of behavior in the decision making of our current administration; just ask yourself that question about Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2007 Mississippi, you can ask yourself: If there is no profit motive in dealing with these towns on the GulfCoast, will our government bother? FROM ELLA: This is the political side of the trailer situation here. Although my documentary focuses one positive side of the recovery efforts, I have met too many people who are suffering ill health to ignore the trouble with trailers. A volunteer who is an engineering professor from the University of Washington can no longer stand idly by waiting for the government to do something.
She has been writing and calling FEMA, CDC and NIOSH to offer her professional help. They have not committed to a plan (as evidenced by the articles below) so Denise is coming to the Gulf Coast at the end of November to test trailers for formaldehyde. I am going to work with her to connect her to residents who are in trailers. We are doing this because the window of opportunity for data collection is closing. Health of the residents who are already under stress is deteriorating.
Chet sent me an eloquent email the other day about how Policy is managed in our country. It resonated for me with an entry in my journal shortly after my first trip here:
WHO DOES INACTION SERVE?
At first, I thought that it was ignorance that was causing the delays in distributing grant money that is essential in getting people home again. Then I thought it was ineptitude in managing such a huge program administratively. Turns out it may be fiscal in nature - in this case concerns about legal liability when the test results for the trailers are in. Sierra Club was talking about this story for 18 months before our government held Congressional hearings in July. There was a lot of talk at that time about Doing Something...and now another delay.
Just one more reason for more volunteer trips - getting people out of the trailers faster!
So, my friend Jen has been making a couple of trips a year for the past two years to D'Iberville, Mississippi, since shortly after Hurricane Katrina. She has been asking me for the past year and a half at least to go with her on one of her 1/2 week of full-week trips. I promised her in 2006 I'd go, but the timing didn't work out until now.
I flew from SF to Dallas on Wednesday, Oct 31. From Dallas I was to get onto a small regional jet and fly to Gulfport, Mississippi. The nearest city of any size is Biloxi, known for its beaches and casinos. The Economic pillars of this area are:
Tourism
Fishing
Shipbuilding
Military
Post-Hurricane Katrina, residential and commercial construction and re-construction have now been added to this list. While in Dallas I figured out what I had forgotten at home: my camera. Hence, all pics and videos on this blog are from my Treo.
The rest of my Boston group arrived at Dallas the same time I did. I was thrilled to see my friends Jen, Charlie, Dean and Lisa.
I also met Chris, who knows Jen and was also recruited to rebuild houses in D'Iberville. We had lunch, killing time waiting for the American Eagle flight connection, making guesses about how small the plane would be.
Wednesday afternoon we all arrive at the brand-new Gulfport airport. From the air we can see some ruined structures, but mostly re-build commercial buildings. Buildings are either in ruins or they are gleaming-new 'post-Katrina' construction.
Jen has a new item to add to our agenda. We were diverting to a Boys and Girls club and will volunteer our support to running some kind of halloween festival. Te were told to go hang out with these kids and do various things, like read books to them or art projects. I was sent into the gym to coach basketball drills.
The rest of their night was going to be devoted to 'Trunk'r'Treating' Because many of the residents didn't have houses for kids to go trick'r'treating around town post-katrina, they started a tradition where the parents show up in the school parking lot, each with boxes of candy in the trunks of their cars. The kids now walk around the parking lot in costume going from car to car. This is the third year they've done it & it may continue even after everyone is in proper housing again.
Jen wanted up to see a nearby town that doesn't have a volunteer group, 'Waveland' where whole neighborhoods were completely wiped off the land and little reconstruction has taken place. We were looking at things forensically. "That used to be a gas station...that used to be a retail store...that was a residential street..." ...just by looking at the foundations that were left behind. The residents were gone & not coming back.
We had a little time to kill waiting for 'Pipes' to arrive at the airport and we were hungry, so we stopped at the ultimate 'southern' eating establishment: 'Waffle House' All I could think of was that 'Bloodhound Gang' song and smile while I had some covered, smothered waffle house hash browns.
Thursday: Maria Ralph's house - Roofing
Thursday night: "Red letter night" Biloxi re-opened a major bridge that was destroyed by Katrina. We saw fireworks & After Katherine was carded at teh Casino, we took off & had beers in Ocean Springs. We were completely beat by 9PM and called it a night.
I gradually figured out that D'Iberville has no city center to speak of. Its a rather quiet place, a suburb of a resort town and an Air Force Base. The schools and town offices half-occupy their old buildings and the rest are in temporary structures. The commercial areas are new-construction strip-malls. The only civic life I felt was the mayors gas station/restaurant/convenience store at the end of the street where some of the reconstruction projects were.
Friday:
Met Rusty, the Mayor of D'Iberville
Friday Night:
Interview with Ella.
'Devotional' meeting with Honors for Jen.
Cheap drinks and apps at Beef O'Bradys. This is a sports bar & hey has the NBA opening night games on: we watched the Celts playing Wizards, lots of Boston fans in the bar.
Saturday: Gloria's House, Marie's house in PM.
Visited patty's finished house across town.
Saturday night: Packed up, drove to New Orleans. Went to Frenchmans area, hit the DBA Bar, then Bourbon Street until 4 AM.
Sunday: Toured New Orleans. This city agrees with me: It's all about eating well, drinking well and having fun. Sunday night: On the flight back to California, I was sitting next to a woman from Dallas & we started chatting about things & asked if I was from Dallas or San Francisco. I told her about the D'Iberville trip & she was very interested in learning all about it while I bought a $5 Heineken for myself from the stewardess. I settled into a nap later while the woman next to me started chatting with the stewardess. When she learned the stewardess was from Mississippi, they woke me up and said: ''Thank you SO MUCH for that work you were doing in Misiissippi...here, do you want another beer?" She said this as she was already handing Heineken #2 to me with the tone of 'I'm giving you this beer, mister.' and a minute later she handed back to me the $5 I paid for the first beer. That wasn't enough, of course: She pulled out sandwiches & snacks & then, spotting an empty beer cup, said "We're out of Heineken, would you like a Bud or a Miller lite?" ...as she's already handing me beer #3, no payment required or asked for.
Karma... Sunday night, 11PM. As I in my comfortable San Francisco apartment overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge & the bay, I'm still trying to process all of this. The 'how' and 'why' of this situation on the Gulf Coast is rather complex & I haven't sorted it all out yet. I can say that I cannot have any real dialog about this with others until you have gone there, picked up a hammer or a nailgun or paint brush and have actively worked to solve this yourself. I can't talk to someone about this who themselves is not going to do anything, but only ready to just talk about it.
