Thursday, October 6th

Our program manager got word today that his dad died. Please pray for him and his family, and for his dad. It’s sad to see how many people are experiencing deaths of family members since the hurricane. I wonder how much is a direct result of all the stress that people are under with the loss of homes, the displacement of families and the uncertainty of what the future holds.

As more and more people go home to assess the damage, the utter devastation that people have experienced becomes more and more evident. One guy I work with talked of taking a flatboat to his home in the Lakeview area of New Orleans and climbing on his roof to get into his house! Another coworker went home after the waters had receeded in Chalmette (St. Bernard) to find that almost all of her family photos and movies were lost. Kids are struggling to adjust to new school environments and fitting in with their classmates, and dealing with the emotional separation from their old school and friends.

It’s Thursday evening. We’re heading back to New Orleans tomorrow for a meeting with the insurance adjustor on Saturday. Hopefully it’ll be a nice trip. A cold front passed through Memphis earlier today so it’s breezy and quite cool right now. Should be a nice, BRISK morning to start our journey. Linda and I just finished eating Taco Bell takeout. I’m not so sure that was a smart move…. Taco Bell the night before we spend 7 hours together in a confined space?

We found our workstations!! They were all shipped to Millington, including those that should have gone to Ft. Worth and Pensacola. So now we wait while NMCI people sort through and isolate all of our equipment, then deliver it to our building. We need about 60 PCs out of 750. I can hardly wait to see how long that will take.

Last night was “Wednesday Night Supper” at Holy Spirit Church. Beef brisket! Dee-licious! So far we have not been disappointed with the dinners they serve. Sarah, the lady who honchos the dinners, is doing an incredible job. The parish continues to impress us. Did we mention that they have two handbell choirs? An adult choir and a youth choir. After hearing the singing, Linda and I are eagerly waiting to hear the handbell choirs perform.

The new suite is not without a few glitches. The a/c in the bedroom apparently froze up so it stopped cooling and began dripping onto the carpet. Today the toilet started gurgling, then soap bubbles appeared in the bowl. The maintenance person said he’d never seen anything like it and really didn’t know what to do about it. I hope it’s a short-lived problem.

My friend, Young Wade, just bought a new Ford F-150 Super Crew 4x4. I’m s-o-o-o green with envy!! I don’t need the 4x4, but a Super Crew would be a great ride. Our ’97 Grand Marquis is showing it’s age, but we’ve had such good luck with them, we’ll probably get another when we finally get rid of this one. Besides, I don’t think I can handle 10 miles per gallon these days. And, we seem to always need a large storage area, so the huge trunk in the Grand Marquis is a big plus.

Guess I’d better wrap this up, CSI is on. We wish you all a wonderful weekend, and may God bless you.

Dean

Lagniappe - A picture of the storm surge.