Rebuilding New Orleans

There hasn't been a great deal to write about in the past couple of weeks. So let's discuss the topic of rebuilding New Orleans. I don't know about you, but I've had many fun times in that city. There's really not any place like it in the world. But as we all know now, New Orleans is seriously below sea level. The Gulf is held back by a system of pumps and levees, both of which failed. So one of the big concerns is how to fix this system so that it doesn't fail again. Right after I first got here, I heard on the radio that they were flying in experts from Holland and some other European countries to consult. At first glance, that might sound like a good idea. But then I was trying to remember when was the last time that a Cat. 5 hurricane hit Amsterdam? Just because these experts are familiar with a levee system doesn't mean that they are going to be able to help in New Orleans very much. That's like bringing in experts from the Sahara desert to consult on beach erosion. After all, sand is sand. Maybe the question is "Should New Orleans be rebuilt?" A Native American friend passed on some tribal wisdom: 1. Do not whip a dead horse. 2. Do not build beneath a great mountain because it has avalances and mudslides. and 3. Do not build upon marshland because it is a natural bowl waiting to be filled with water. Makes more sense to me than the European experts. Now it does appear that this basic flaw with New Orleans has been known for a long time and this really shouldn't have been an unexpected event. And apparently federal money has been available in the past to come up with some sort of plan to prepare for hurricane/flooding problems. But I guess that money was shifted to fund more pressing needs, like making certain all of the shops in New Orleans had plenty of plasma televisions to steal when people got hungry. Which brings me to another subject...looting. (By the way, for whatever reason, this site is not letting me start new paragraphs. So you will just have to keep up when I change topics because it's not my ADD out of control). Ok, now back to looting. When people came back to their flooded homes, the first and most natural thing to do was to get all of the flooded stuff out. So anywhere you go, there are still mountains of sheetrock, appliances, smelly refrigerators, clothes and everything else thrown out into the front yard. And people would come at night and go through the trash and steal the flooded items. Now why do you think people would do that? If the appliance worked, would it be out on the front yard? The only thing I could come up with is that the looters were making aquariums...you know, taking the guts out of the tv and putting in a fish tank. (I saw that on Trading Spaces or one of those other decorating shows). But I don't think that's going to work either because the tv cabinet was soaked in water also and it's just a matter of time until it collapses. Poor fish. Anyway, that was just at first. Now, they are driving around neighbors during the day and just going through the trash. So I guess they don't qualify as looters now because nobody cares what they haul off. In fact, it would be better if these people could be hired as trash pick-up and do this professionally. It would get the area cleaned up faster. Ok, my last topic. I have noticed that the complaints come in when I don't write on the blog, but there is a serious lack of email coming in my direction. I'm not going to start naming names yet....but if you read, you better write! With that, have a nice day.

Home

I must admit surprise at the number of people that asked to know about my weekend at home. So I wanted to let you know that it was great to be home, even if for only a short time. I did bring back yellow corn tortillas, 116 to be exact. Not that I counted them, but I bought a pack of 80 and then a pack of 36. Couldn’t find the proper brand of jalapenos, but Lana’s brother is sending her some of those. Probably it is interesting the things I did bring back with me, besides the tortillas. I have discovered that when you are “living” away from home, it’s amazing the things that you miss. Like the top thing on my list of things to bring back was my back-scratcher. I hate not being able to scratch between my shoulder-blades, and I get tired of using door frames. So now I am able to scratch away.

What did I do while at home? I guess the normal things that you would expect. I bought 20 pounds of dry cat food, 96 cans of cat food, 24 plastic cat box liners, and 40 pounds of litter. I also went to 3 doctor’s appointments with my Mom (as she says “four ears are better than two”), and worked in trips to Hurbert’s (Mexican food) and Mochas Javas (chai tea chino). Anyway, you know, the normal things.

There was one thing that Mom was a little disappointed about. Last year when Lana went to work the storms in Florida, she dropped over 20 pounds. I think that Mom was expecting a slimmer me to walk in the door. When I had only lost a few pounds, she said “Oh well, I guess you are at that age when it’s hard to lose”. I feel a need to clear this up. Any age I’ve been, my body has resisted losing weight. If I even look at a frozen Lean Cuisine package, a general alarm sounds throughout my body…”Warning, Warning…hang on to all fat…She’s thinking about cutting calories”. I know that it’s probably psychological. I think that the rest of my body has abandonment issues if even one pound of fat gets lost. So when I regain that pound, it feels like a homecoming in there. Nevertheless, in the interest of my health and the need to climb more roofs, I continue to try to get some pounds off. Just don’t tell me that it’s because of my “age”.

It’s time to head for the swamps. Happy mid week to everyone.

TMI

Hello All. As soon as I returned back to Louisiana, it seems like I’ve been in double-time. Lots of work to do, and so I haven’t had a lot of time to write.

One of the main things that I’m doing right now is preparing PPIF’s for submission. That stands for Personal Property Inventory Forms. These are the forms that the insured fills out to tell what they lost in the flood. It’s really pretty simple: description of the item, serial numbers of major appliances, age of each item, and replacement cost. Four little items. But I have decided that filling out these forms can be the newest thing in psychological testing, or at least being able to tell a lot about the lives of these people.

First there are the people that don’t listen to the instructions you give them when they get the forms. So you get multiple calls from these folks asking for more instructions. First call goes like this, “Now on the description of the item, am I supposed to write down the size and color and serial number and other details of each item?” No, I told you just to write down a detailed description like “Laundry Basket”…not a green laundry basket, size 1x3x1, made by a 5’4” woman in Peking. The next phone call is “I’ve been writing down when I purchased all these things, like the radio I bought on March 5, 1990 at 11:45 am. But I can’t remember when I bought a bunch of this stuff”. Ok, you idiot, I told you to just write down the approximate age of each item in either single or double digits…as in, that item is 15 YEARS OLD and I don’t care what time you bought it!.

When I finally get the forms, it doesn’t get any better. Some people write down everything. And I mean EVERYTHING! One woman listed “1 box of tampons”. Think that’s compulsive? What about the woman that put every one of her spices as a single line item!

For the most part, it seems to be the women that go overboard on the lists. Although I did have one guy that filled out 26 pages of the items he had in his workshop, down to the number and type of nails he had. But when the men are in charge of the forms, it normally is different. One man didn’t want to bother his wife with the list, so he did it. They’ve been in this house for about 15 years, and had 4 feet of water in the house. So pretty much everything was destroyed. He filled out 2 pages…approximately 28 items. He looked so blank when I told him that it was amazing that his wife could go to work without shoes (there were no shoes on the form which lead me to believe that she didn’t lose any since I knew their closet was flooded). I ended up going with him room by room and suggesting things he might want to add. The best one yet is the guy who listed $20,000 of “lots of tools”. I’m certain that State Farm is not going to accept that one!

So the PPIF’s range from not enough listing to over the top. But there are some that I classify as “too much information”. I would just as soon not know that that senior couple who are so conservative appearing in the outside world apparently have a more …active….life in the bedroom. But hey, my job is just to get the forms ready for submission.

I do have one last word of advice. . Be careful what you own that you are willing to list, because somewhere, there is a person just like me that actually reads and thinks about your list.