Randoms

Just a few random notes and thoughts before I run out for the day....

--I still have a storage unit full of donated furniture in Maryland that I collected with my brother when I was there in January. Since I'm re-starting the nonprofit program, I currently do not have the web site to refer people to, business cards to disperse. Word of mouth still works, of course, and so why not the blog, too? I'm looking to help a half dozen families in St. Bernard Parish who are very close to moving back into their rebuilt homes, and who need things. I really want to get this stuff down here soon! Any help, suggestions, fundraising, etc., that anyone can give towards this would be greatly appreciated.

--From the "This is how things work down here sometimes" department: On Tuesday, I was going to a house that another nonprofit is working to rebuild to talk to some volunteers. I went to the wrong house (happens a lot in a community where street signs are more a luxury than a necessity) by mistake, and while knocking on the door, the homeowner, 55 year old David Pell, came around the side of the house asking "can I help you?" His tone was more of the who the heck are you? variety, very understandable when you consider that stuff is stolen from homes here all the time. All the time! Anyway, I told him what happened, that I had the wrong house, and we just started chatting. Well, a good 50 minutes later, I'm walking out telling him I'll call him by the end of the week as I should be able to get some volunteers over to help him. He and his wife are living in a FEMA Trailer in the front yard and have been doing most of the work to rebuild (save the electrical) pretty much on their own. They've actually made great progress, and clearly have been working hard. Some of his stories were amazing. Anyway, he has a bad back, and could use help putting in the insulation and hanging sheetrock. Considering it's March and there are hundreds of volunteers on college spring break just in St. Bernard alone, we should be able to muster him up some help. Just the gratitude he showed when shaking my hand goodbye, seeing what that kind of help would mean to him, was worth the trip.

--I'm living in a different house for March and April, in Uptown (sort of the trendy part of New Orleans, where the natives, locals and college students all hang out, not tourists). Last night I went out to Magazine Street to find a coffee shop to do some job research and found one. It was like walking into a computer lab, though. All I saw as I stepped through the door was a line of tables with people and their laptops, mostly Macs, opened up, iPod like earphones in their ears. I was lucky to get a spot, someone closed up shop just as I walked in. It stayed that way the entire two hours I was there. I like a change of scenery from my attic room and the cat in the house. Why is everyone else there? Why have coffee shops replaced libraries as places to work, read, research? This isn't new, I know (two years in San Francisco earlier this decade taught me that. You couldn't go near a coffee shop without feeling like you were at an iMac Convention!). I still wonder what the infatuation is, though.

--Rush Limbaugh does nothing good for this country. Nothing. Think about it... a man sits behind a microphone for 3, 4 hours a day, berating and belittling people, igniting controversy, inciting people to "hate" this person or rally against that person. Rush, what do you DO? What action do you take to better the world, to better this country? I always think of the quote from my historical hero, Theodore Roosevelt, who once said, "It's not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by blood and sweat and dust."
Something tells me that if TR were alive today, he would be disgusted at the mere sight of Rush and other radio blabbermouths like him. Get off your ass and do something besides talk!!!

Finally, I can't resist a few sports related blurbs....
--Zero sympathy for Kelvin Sampson. He is 100% responsible for his own actions, he deserved to be fired, and whatever happens to this year's Indiana team if they do in fact come up short, whatever those players are going through, it all lies on the shoulders of Sampson. That's what you get when you blatantly break rules, no matter how petty they may seem.

--Good radio voices to listen to: Doug Gottlieb of ESPN Radio, Boomer Esiason of WFAN NY, Mike & Murray (Sirius 123). Tim Brando (Sirius 122) Why? Because they tell it like is. Horrible to listen to: Mike & Mike on ESPN. Along with pretty much anyone else on ESPN Radio. Why? Because they're nothing but soft corporate shills who pander and kiss ass.
Mike Tirico's show (he took over the time slot formerly held by Dan Patrick) is horrible, by the way. Tirico has such a busy schedule, he's missing half the week. Michelle Tafoya, a regular co-host and fill-in, is unbearable, both in tone of voice and her takes, and their guest list is nothing like Patrick's used to be (Hate DP all you want, his guest list was unmatched).