I don’t know why I do it, but I always volunteer to help friends move cross-country. After a day of rest & laundry from the SF trip I took off for New Orleans. We stopped in Memphis for a night to drink on Beale Street, which wasn’t very busy but decent nonetheless. 2100 miles later I’ve seen roller derbies and mind erasers, my Jeep needs an oil change, a new throttle position sensor, and a new window motor (it finally died… wide open, of course), and I know what the destruction looks and feels like, thanks to my friend Maitri’s tour of the decimation of Lakeview and the lower 9th ward. It’s a ghost town in those parts, and odd to be in a city where all that remains are the rotting frames of houses. Not even a house, sometimes, as the areas by the canal breaches were swept clean by the force of the water, leaving only a field now.
I find it hard to classify the experience. I don’t feel depressed but awed and stunned at the force of nature, by the shortsightedness and arrogance of people, by the experience of standing alone in the middle of the most modern ghost town, and by the feeling I had when I saw the first ‘X’ with a number in the bottom.
It’s two more days until I head to the Twin Cities to see friends, family, and just generally chill. I told my friend Melissa the other day that I long for January 2nd because it means I can stay home for a couple of months. I never thought I’d say it but I’m beat. 🙂
In other news, my early New Year’s resolution is to write at least one system administration or virtualization-related post per week next year. I realize I’ve been slacking off, and I’m hoping I can get back to why I started writing this in the first place. Thank you to all of you that come here and read, link, and comment on what I say. My world grows smaller because of you folks (in a good way, not like that warp bubble that Dr. Crusher was caught in that time in ST:TNG). 🙂
Glad to have been of service with the roller derby, mind erasers and the “misery tour.” I hope the rest of America realizes that the shortsightedness and arrogance takes on many forms here – Lakeview was human hubris, but lots of the rest of NO should never have flooded had the Army Corps of Engineers done their job, which was to protect the city from just such damage. Come back soon (Mardi Gras!) – there goes your two months of doing nothing.