Wednesday 8:30pm

Selfless Acts!

I continue to be amazed at the outpouring of God's love being expressed by so many. Several families from our church family have volunteered their homes as shelters to take in refugees. Incredible that they are so eager and willing to take in complete strangers but then why should I be surprised. Now is the time for our Christian light to shine in the midst of the darkness.

The message;
Matthew 25:40 "..I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine you did for me."

The warning;
Matthew 25:43 "I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me."

Tuesday 8:00pm

So that others may live.

Tuesday 3:15pm

It has certainly been an emotional day for me. I have talked with friends from Kenner, La and family from Metairie, La. For all of them it does not bode well for their return home any time soon. One thought that keeps creeping back into my mind was here it is a year after Ivan and the Pensacola area is still rebuilding and recovering and that the sheer damage to the infrastructure & community in the greater NOLA area from Katrina far exceeds what Ivan did.

God be with us all.

Tuesday 6:30AM

As I watch & listen to the news coverage I continue to be amazed at the level of the damage. I have been listening to WWL 870AM out of New Orleans and I hear the same conversations that I heard about a year ago on our own 1370AM after Ivan the major difference beign the magnitude. I listened to Jefferson Parish president Arron Broussard talk on 870AM this morning. He is hoping to open up the parish by Monday the 5th at 0600. All those returning will have to be self-sufficent upon there return. Water, food, gas, shelter, tools, waste disposal, etc.

I-10 East - major damage
I-10 West - major flooding & damage
Crescent City connection to the West Bank Expressway to Hwy-90 to Baton Rouge is the only wat out of New Orleans.

Monday PM 6:45pm

Courtesy of AP Photo/Bill Haber


Well, power has been off and on at the house the past hour. I had been listening to the radio coverage concerning New Orleans but when I finally saw some video from New Orleans I was speechless. The sheer magnitude of the devastation in the greater New Orleans area is incredible.

May God's love be revealed through the actions of His children in response to the devastation.

Monday 11:45AM

Well, my house lost power around 0830 this morning. My parents house in Pensacola, where Tammy & the girls are staying, still has power. I have been listening to the radio and it does not sound good in the greater New Orleans area. God be with them all.

I finally powered up my laptop and connected to the Internet by dialing into Eglin's 1-800 number and then launched a Terminal Server session. 24K connections are pretty slow but I will take it. I am so addicted to fast instant access to information by either cable TV or high speed connectivity to the Internet that I feel lost when I lose those information paths. e.g. A Borg seperated from the collective.

Monday 0800 - Katrina Arrives

Well, hurricane Katrina is working her way ashore in Southeast Louisiana as a cat 4 level hurricane. A Fox news reporter just stated that the City of New Orleans was reporting 130 mph winds in the city. News reports are showing that New Orleans still has power to large portions of the city including the Superdome. Power at the house here in Gulf Breeze has gone off briefly a couple times this morning. The wind is blowing steadily out of the East with little to no rain.

Keep praying.

Sunday 7:30pm

I took another ride to the Oriole Beach boat launch. The water does not seem to have risen much since my visit around lunch time today.

Katrina's closing

Tammy and I went down to the boat launch 3 blocks south of our house around 2:00pm this afternoon. The water is already pretty high and the local authorities are informing everyone to prepare for storm surges equivalent to Ivan.

I am sending Tammy & the girls to my parents house in Pensacola, Fl. They are not very happy with my decision since they all wanted to stay.

Keep praying!

Quieting a Storm

Psalm 107: 23-32

23 Some went down to the sea in ships,
doing business on the mighty waters;
24 they saw the deeds of the LORD,
his wondrous works in the deep.
25 For he commanded and raised the stormy wind,
which lifted up the waves of the sea.
26 They mounted up to heaven, they went down to the depths;
their courage melted away in their calamity;
27 they reeled and staggered like drunkards,
and were at their wits' end.
28 Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble,
and he brought them out from their distress;
29 he made the storm be still,
and the waves of the sea were hushed.
30 Then they were glad because they had quiet,
and he brought them to their desired haven.
31 Let them thank the LORD for his steadfast love,
for his wonderful works to humankind.
32 Let them extol him in the congregation of the people,
and praise him in the assembly of the elders.

Saturday AM - Hurricane Katrina

Well Katrina is going to continue to keep folks along the Gulf Coast guessing. This morning it looks like Southeast Louisiana is where Katrina will make landfall. New Orleans and hurricanes definitley do not mix well.

I found a fairly interesting bit of information related to New Orleans and hurricanes.

Here we go again!

Well, nothing like another hurricane to get everyone excited. Weather Underground is showing hurricane Katrina's path threatening Northwest Florida. Lines at local gas stations are already long with some stations already out of gas. Time to start praying for a patch of cold water in the Gulf of Mexico to take the punch out of Katrina.

On a side note, in the course of surfing NOAA's web site for hurricane information I stumbled across an interesting site called Global Earth Observations that highlights an effort to globalize efforts to monitor various aspects of the earth. Talk about a complex system. Pretty neat concept and probably a lot of fun to work on.

LSU Football 2005 (13 days and counting)

I was just checking out some LSU sporting news and noticed that the LSU football team is ranked 5th in the preseason AP poll. Should be a pretty interesting season. A lot of good talent and a brand new head coach Les Miles. Time will tell.

Back to School

Well, Amanda & Ashley have finished their 2nd week of school already. I certainly do not remember ever going back to school as early as they have. Tammy has been enjoying the challenges of being an the school secretary at Oriole Beach Elementary and I continue to be overwhelmed at work.

It is certainly hard to imagine that this is Amanda's senior year at Gulf Breeze High school. It seems like just a short while ago we moved to Gulf Breeze and Amanda was starting 3rd grade. Now Amanda is applying to LSU. Wow!