Charlie's Rants & Raves

Rita came and went like nothing happened. OK, that's my perspective from my house. I drove around looking for a place to eat. It looked like McD's was open because there was a line of cars. Well, drove up to the drive thru and one of the guys working there said that they were closed and would open today. I was thinking, man they could make a killing, being one of the only places open in the area. I guess a lot of stores/restaurants will open today. Our friend Christine had to go to work today. Ana's brother had to go in as well. My buddy John has to go and check on his store. I don't know if he'll be opening the store since all of his workers fled town (that's what they say).

Damage around the area that I drove around ranged from peeled shingles, downed tree limbs, and blown down fences. The big wooden sign to the subdivision broke off its posts and is laying on the ground.

But like I said, the fun begins. I started clearing out the garage. Did I mention that it is frickin' hot? Man, it was so much nicer yesterday. Now we're going back to our normal weather. 96 degrees and 94% humidity. Crap. Since we didn't get much rain, guess I'll still have to water.

Putting stuff out of the garage shouldn't take that long. Then the process of taking all the stuff from upstairs back downstairs. One of the things I don't look forward to is re-hooking up the computer from where it initially was. But I guess this is better than the house flooding or damaged.

Hurricane Rita has come ashore. Nothing much has happened. Some wind, very little rain.

I checked the outside weather around 2:30 AM. It was windy and rainy. There was a decent light show. Mainly transformers blowing up. A nice hue of blue, green, and orange every few seconds. I tried to catch pictures of it, but no luck. As you can tell, we still have power. However, my friend 5 miles to the north of us doesn't. Luckily, it's cool outside and a there is still a decent breeze to keep his house cool.

I checked outside this morning around 10 AM. It's overcast, windy, and even less rain (well, non-existent at this point). I checked around for some damage. None to the house. Our banana trees didn't fare so well, but everything else is OK. Luckily, the banana trees will likely recover. I was hoping for more rain than we got. I didn't water the new grass for almost a week, expecting enough (well, more than enough) rain from Rita. But you never know, we could still get some rain out of it.

I checked around the neighborhood. The only damage came from some wind. A couple of the new houses they are building suffered some shingle damage. Other than that, nothing. No broken tree limbs, no downed power lines, nada.

My mom told my wife not to let me out because mom knew that I would go outside and check stuff out. That didn't stop me so here are some pictures.



The picture above is from one of the new houses they are building. Notice the shingles.
Image of the sky to the west of my house.



Poor, poor banana trees.

OK, it's dark now. We are definitely getting the outer bands of the storm now. It's gotten windier and it has started raining. Not raining much, but it's wind driven rain so it hits pretty hard. We saw several flashes of blue and orange to the south of us. I'm guessing it was power transformers or something like that. We won't have that problem because our power transformers are on the ground. The clouds and sunset were equally impressive. Here are some pictures.

This is the red maple. It's got a bit of a lean to it, but not this much.

Here's the guava tree. Normally it stands straight up.

Here's an update from the border of Houston and Katy. Well, Hurricane Rita is making her way up to the coast. Looks like a Beaumont hit.

Weather here isn't too bad yet. It has definitely changed since this morning and even my last post 2 hours ago.

There is no more direct sunshine. Clouds have begun moving in, looks like from the east. Sustained winds have picked up a bit more. Before, there would be small gusts of wind. Now, it's almost a constant breeze. No idea how fast the wind is going, but it's rattling a screen on my upstairs window (maybe about 18-20 mph).

Well, that's it for now. Oh yeah, I watched the Lost episode I recorded. Damn it. I didn't know that they showed it at 8:00 PM on Wednesday. I started recording shortly before 7:00 PM. So I got to watch almost all of the episode before the tape stopped. I missed maybe about the last 3 minutes. I got to the part where the guy in the underground bunker got behind Locke and kept telling Jack to lower his weapon. I missed the rest and the preview for next week. Stupid VCRs.

OK, all the prep that could be done is done. Ran out of tape for a couple windows. Everything that needed to be in is now in. I'll upload photos later.

Looks like the outer rain bands are about to come ashore in Galveston. It's getting a bit windier, but it's not too bad yet.

We'll see. Now I'm going to watch the season 2 premiere of Lost, since I missed it prepping for the hurricane the other night.

It's actually a nice day outside. Moderate temperatures with a nice breeze from the east. You wouldn't think that 250+ miles southeast of here churns a massive hurricane.

Well, I've done some work around the house some more. Took a couple more items from the backyard and put them in the garage. Taped and cardboarded up some windows. Still some to do.

They forecast the eye to make landfall near beaumont. They estimate that winds in my area (Katy) will be right around hurricane force (70-75 mph). This will last for a few hours. So we are OK for now, hopefully completely prepared for the worst, but hoping for the best.

Roads in and around Houston are clear. Most everyone that wanted to get out has gotten out. No long lines on the freeway. But that's in Houston. No telling how it is in Dallas / Austin / San Antonio.

There was a fire on a bus taking elderly people from Bellaire to Dallas. Unfortunately, 24 people aboard the bus (of 45) perished.

I'll write more as time goes by. Right now, must continue prepping the house.

Well, well, here we are in sunny and hot Houston, Texas. There's a major storm a brewin out in the gulf. You may have heard of it. Hurricane Rita. 3rd strongest hurricane ever recorded. Right now shes 350 miles away from Galveston. I'm about 80 miles from Galveston. I'm kind of safe as long as she keeps drifting towards the east.

What a hectic past couple days. Yesterday, I spent all afternoon preping for the hurricane. I took out all of the items in the backyard that could become airborne missles. Cleaned out the garage to stuff the cars into if needed.

So I get an email at work stating that they expect us at work today. Forget that the mayor and governor said that all businesses should let their employees get the next couple days off to prep or evacuate in wake of this potential disaster.

I go in to work, grumbling for the most part. I was thinking, why am I the only one going in to town, while everyone else is going out of town. What kind of idiot am I? Well, i finally make it to work. All the outbound lanes are packed and not moving. Yet my travel in was pretty easy.

I get to work and I'm not the only insane person that went in. After a while people start trickling in. The people that work in the cafeteria didn't show so we had no lunch. We were told to get outside lunch. Great, only thing is that nothing was open. Fan-frickin-tastic.

Well, they finally let us go at 1:30 PM. Traffic hasn't moved much in that time. Lots of cars are dying on the road from a lack of gas. When you are sitting idle in traffic for, I don't know, 14 hours or so, your car will probably die.

I was going to evacuate to the Austin area where my sister lives. Problem is 290 sucks, I10 sucks, it just sucks all around. If I was to evacuate, I should have done it Wednesday morning.

I spent the morning at work mapping out alternative routes for my wife to take. Since I couldn't find gas for her car, I suggested that she pack the kids and take off in my car. I would ride the storm out. I thought 1093 to 36 to 10. Yeah, I'm sure alot of other people thought that too.

So, alas, here I am. Still have some work to do. Wish me luck. I'll write more later. Hopefully we'll have power.

Oh boy...this one is aimed at Texas...we'll see how it goes (or if I'll end up splittin' town).

OK, I know that her TV show didn't last that long. She was pretty funny in Monster in Law. But her bit on Leno was priceless.

Jay: "But President Bush took responsibility."

Wanda: "I don’t think the President should have taken responsibility…. I don’t blame the President. I blame the American people. Y’all knew the man was slow when you voted him in. You can’t blame the blind man for wrecking your car when you’re the one who gave him the keys."

Directions:Go to Google google.comtype in the word "failure"look at the first hit. =)Notice that this pops up BEFORE the definition of the word and anything on Heart Failure. Ha ha!

Like the title says, screw the NY Times!!! I take particular offense to an article they released the other day. The article is titled "Houston Finds Business Boon After Katrina".

The article portrays Houston as taking advantage of the situation that affected lots and lots of New Orleans residents. I mean, yeah, there may be some, but probably very, very few. What I have learned from this tragedy is that there are a lot of caring Houstonians. Screw the NY Times!!!

You know, I'd tell them that I volunteered (which I did) at the Astrodome. It was the height of activity here so there were thousands of evacuees here. Tell me, what has the NY Times done for the evacuees??? Have they donated any money??? Not any that I could find. All they did is what every other media outlet does, take pictures. They didn't do shit.

I volunteered my time. Two shifts in less than two days. To be exact, 16 hours volunteered in a span of 27 hours. I didn't get paid for it. I definitely didn't make any money out of it. In fact, I had to spend money. You know that gas has been high. It was about $2.99 in the Houston area. I drove 120 miles total (two trips to and from Katy to the Astrodome). That's about half a tank of gas. So it cost me about $21.00 to go volunteer...FOR FREE!!!!!

So screw the NY Times. Their article does not reflect what's really going on in Houston. WTF does the NY Times know about Houston anyway??? Damn Yankees.

Looks like there may not be much more of a need to volunteer at the Astrodome. Last week, 24000 people at the Astrodome area. Today, around 8000 remain. I'm sure that they'll still need some assistance, but not as much. They've implemented a curfew, so volunteers can't work later than 11:00 PM. I'll check what is needed later in the week to determine if I'll go back.

Well, I've at least helped/volunteered previously.

From Domeblog:

Houston's Unified Command today announced that there's a "zoning plan" for what they're calling "Reliant City," which consists of four locations:
. Dome City 17,500 residents. Center City 3,800 residents. Arena City 2,300 residents. George R. Brown City 1,300 residents
They say that with 24,900 total residents, the Reliant Park Complex is now the largest evacuation shelter in U.S. history.
They are planning to set up typical neighborhood amenities such as a Welcome Center, Banking Center, Reliant Town Square Park, Reliant City Medical Center, a Transit Center with Metro Transit Authority and HISD school bus stops.
The Reliant Town Square will include a playground, sports field and laundry facilities. The Salvation Army will construct several refreshment centers east of Dome City.
Construction completion goal is Friday.
According to the Harris County Department of Education, more than 4,000 school-aged children are expected to register this week and will start classes Sept. 12.
The Reliant City Medical Center will take 100,000 square feet of empty warehouse space, with 70 patient treatment spaces open 24 hours a day. The clinic is seeing an average of 1,400 patients per day, and has treated more than 5,100 patients in the past four days.

This should help relieve some of the tension over there. After being there myself volunteering, I know that I would go apeshit without having something to do. Imagine just sitting on your cot all frickin day. How boring is that? Sure you could roam around the complex and outside the facility, but without any money, what can you do?

Well, I decided to go back to the Astrodome to help out after Ana came home yesterday. As we last left off, I came back from the 'Dome at 2:00PM. Ana went to work and came back. I was out the door going back to the 'Dome at midnight. Well, here's what happened.

First of all, the number of volunteers dropped significantly. They said that there were around 2600 volunteers on Saturday. When I went back at midnight, there were about 30. Still a decent number considering what time it was.

Well, our first task was to move 20 unused cots/blankets/pillows from the Reliant Center to Reliant Arena. OK, no problem. Did I mention that there were failures of communications between people there? We get to Reliant Center. They don't know what we're talking about. After about half an hour, they tell us which ones to take. OK. Now the long trek. Reliant Arena is on the whole other side of the Reliant park complex. It was a nice long walk. OK, we get there and we were instructed to put the stuff in the "Isolation" area. Where the hell was that? No one at Reliant Arena knew. We wandered a bit before someone finally said to take it upstairs. Geez, use your walkie talkie once in a while. And once done, begin the trek back to Reliant Center again.

Well, our next assignment was to go back to help clean up before breakfast at Reliant Arena. Yeah, the place we just came back from. So another long trek over there. This is where I met Marthe (pronounced Martha). She worked for the Museum of Health and Medical Science. This was her first time volunteering for the Hurricane Katrina evacuees. She asked about my experiences and things like that. She was quite cheery. She told me that her and her friend were trying to volunteer the day before (Saturday), but traffic was insane. She said she may have came at the time of the most activity in the area. Probably so.

Well, we finally make it to Reliant Arena where we are met by a Red Cross employee. She informs us what we will probably doing (which was clean the area before breakfast). She told us what was going on there. There were about 6000 people in Reliant Arena. We were instructed to wear gloves (which we weren't instructed to do yesterday). While waiting for the go ahead to do anything, I looked at the message boards placed on the wall. Then I thought, well, these people are placing messages on the message board searching for people that may be in another location (i.e. Astrodome or Reliant Center). I don't think that there was any coordination to get all of the information together so that people could easily locate one another if they were in separate buildings. Only people that went to Reliant Arena would see messages posted by other Reliant Arena evacuees.

We were informed that the cleaning crew cleaned the breakfast area for us. Well, then we were given the task of roaming the three locations within Reliant Arena where people were situated. They suggested that we team up, guy/girl for safety reasons. Since I had talked a bit with Marthe, we both decided to team up together. We took the arena area itself (floor and stadium seating). The other 2 areas were long hallways. Well, all we had to do was walk up and down the aisles and see if we could clean up a bit (pick up loose trash). We encountered several people that were still awake, some kids just laying there with their eyes opened, and things of that sort. Well, our area had maybe 1500 people. Four of us were roaming the area. Marthe and I chit chatted a while to pass the time while walking up and down the aisles, over and over. Did I mention that it was frickin' cold in there? I don't know why the kept the thermostat on like 50, but it was cold. Marthe and I covered a couple people up with their blankets and things like that. After a while, Marthe said she was thirsty and was going to get a drink and asked if I needed one. I told her that I was OK, and that was pretty much the last I saw of her. Not that she went home or anything, she just hung out with the guy serving drinks.

Well, I continued trolling the aisles and found a lady that needed assistance to get to the bathroom. She needed a wheelchair and in times like this, wheelchairs are a commodity. I found one that had the initials HCHD (Harris County Hospital District) painted on it, so I knew that no one there owned it. Well, I began taking it and this lady started yelling at me (well, not loudly). She was like "What the fuck are you doing? That wheelchair is for my mother!" Well, didn't know that it was hers. Her name wasn't on it or anything like that. I put the wheelchair back and found one that nobody fussed at me about (maybe because they were still all asleep). Well, I helped the lady to the bathroom and that's all she needed.

Next thing that happened was that Lucian (the Red Cross head guy from Connecticut) called me over to take a cot out. The person that was in it had, um soiled it. So a UH-Downtown cadet and I lifted the cot and took it outside, disassembled it, and trashed it. Wasn't too bad except it stunk, and I was trailing the smell. Bleyuch!!!

Well after that, Marthe returned. This time with a lost child in tow. She asked if I could carry this 6/7 year old girl so she could see if she could find her cot. You didn't see too many heads because they were under the covers (as I mentioned, it was frickin cold). Well, the kid was getting really heavy. I sat her down as a couple people searched to see if they could locate her mother. She started falling asleep in the chair and almost fell out of it. That scared her so I put her on my leg. She leaned on me and fell right asleep. OK, I'm not a hypochondriac or anything, but stuff went through my mind. What might this kid have after being stuck in the Superdome this whole time. Just as I was pondering that, she went into a fit of coughing. I was thinking, shit she has something. Maybe not. Maybe she just choked on her spit while sleeping. Well, it sounded like she wanted to puke and that's the last thing I wanted to happen. She didn't and a Red Cross person came by later to take her to a lost kids section.

So back to trolling the aisles. Nothing new there, picking up trash, getting blankets for some people, and thing of the sort. That's when I met volunteer nurse from Nacogdoches. She was surprised when I mentioned SFA. A guy I work with went to SFA and talks about Nacogdoches all the time. She told me that the guy who plays the lumberjack mascot was a totally flaming homosexual. I'll have to let the guy at work know that. His axe handle has purple streamers tied to the end of it.

Well, we chatted for a while. One of her patients walked by she let me know about him. Non-compliant schizophrenic (violent schizophrenic). I told her if he started something I would be going the other way quickly. She mentioned that dysentery had begun its course throughout the evacuees, but would probably would end soon because a lot of medicine had arrived.

We talked some more about things. She let me know what some ambulance personnel do if people get beligerent with them when trying to transport people to the hospital. Well, you know how the mobilize patients in the ambulance with tape, well, if you act up, they'll run the tape right over your eyebrows. The stuff used is stronger than duct tape. Ouch.

Well, it was getting light outside and I had been replaced by a group from ExxonMobil, you could see the sea of red shirts with logos. Yeah, that was around 6:00 AM (just in time for the morning news). Yeah, you won't find me on the news because all of the reporters were sleeping while I was working. ExxonMobil, show up and take all the glory...fuckers.

Someone handed me one of the people that slept in my section. He couldn't remember where his cot was. I didn't know so we walked the entire thing twice and finally found it. He really only wanted to find it so he could get a smoke. I told him where he could go smoke, but he insisted that I take him out so I could show him where his cot was. I propped his blankets up and made a teepee shape out of them so it would be easy to find. I took him outside and we talked for a bit. He was a bit difficult to understand (Louisiana accent and stroke victim). Well, after he had his smoke, I showed him back to his cot.

Well, I decided to get some Krispy Kreme donuts (fritters actually). Just as I finished my 3rd, an HISD truck showed up with lots of food items (more donouts, cereal, cinnamon rolls, danish pastries, and apples. They called for volunteers to unload the truck in the assembly line fashion (people a few feet apart and just hand the stuff down the line). We got done with that truck pretty quick. Another one came with the milk for the cereal.

That was it. It was about 8:15 AM now and I was tired. I hadn't slept since 4:30 AM on Saturday morning. So that's 16 hours total volunteered over a 28 hour period, with no sleep. Well, I did catch a nap while driving. I found myself in the middle of the intersection of Barker Cypress and Saums, and woke up. I was like, "Fuck...doo dee doo dee doo".

Now I've got 2 hours of sleep under my belt. Ana had to go to work and if you know my kids, they're not gonna let me sleep. Well, today wasn't the most fun. Lots of walking around. My feet hurt, the tendons behind my knee hurt, yeah, it does. I hope I don't get sick from helping all of those people out. In total I had to help 2 people to the bathroom. Oh yeah, this was the first time I operated a wheelchair. I don't drive those things very well. I nudged 3 cots with people sleeping in them (my bad).

Well, I'll have to see when I would be able to go back again. Walter (my brother in law) wants to go on Friday. That would be the first day I'm available again. We'll see.

Well, I went to the Astrodome today to volunteer in assisting any way I could those that were displaced by Hurricane Katrina. As most everyone knows, these people were evacuated from the Superdome and transferred to the Astrodome.

Here's how my day went.

I arrived a bit before 6:00 AM. To my surprise, there were several volunteers already waiting. Well, we had to sign up and get our colored bracelet. There were different ones, but the main thing is that the pink bracelets were for evacuees. Mine was beige. I saw others that were yellow and white. Later in the day, so many volunteers arrived, that the Red Cross ran out of the bracelets to hand out. The wrote "V" in marker on volunteers hands. There were numerous people with Shell (oil) shirts. Lots of younger folk, my age, probably younger. You'll have to excuse the quality of the photos in this blog entry. They were taken from my camera phone. Since I haven't been able to pay off my cell phone bill, I took a picture of the picture on my phone using my digital camera.
I got called to my first assignment, which was to serve breakfast. Here's a photo of our arrival inside the Astrodome.
I didn't really feel like serving breakfast because I thought it would be similar to the lunch lines in school. The lunch lady gave you your food. I didn't want to deal with people saying that I didn't give them enough. Thankfully, all we had to do was set up the tables with the food items. Those that woke up were able to get the food themselves. Several of us were sent throughout the Astrodome to hand out breakfast to those that couldn't make it to the breakfast area (the breakfast area was in the concourse section on the 4th floor).

After breakfast was done, we were given the task of walking the Astrodome floor and being courteous to the people, see if they needed anything, and things of that nature. I got teamed up with a guy named Chris from Rosenberg, TX (I would run into him later in the day as well). We walked, up and down the floor, but most people were still sleeping. It didn't seem like I was doing anything to be helpful, just courteous to those that were awake. It was amazing to see all of these people of all types, old, young, really young, several white people, a couple hispanics, but the majority black. That didn't matter to me though. They were situated in these cramped, yet air conditioned areas. Cot right next to cot. There were breaks in the cots so they could get up and walk around. It was nice to see some of the kids, you know, being kids. Some were playing Yugi-Oh, another tied a string to a car to drag it around. The adults, well, some were pretty despondent, some angry, but most just thankful.

I talked with one of the evacuees who was ready to start over again. He was kind of upset that people were being lazy and still sleeping (it was around 8:15AM). He said, if people want to succeed, that they'll have to get up and go do something. I agreed and we talked for a few minutes. I then left and had to pee really bad. The bathroom kind of stunk. What do you expect a bathroom to smell like. It wasn't anything out of the ordinary though (other than seeing people brush their teeth in there). It was surprising how warm it was in the morning on the Astrodome floor. Luckily, the A/C kicked in later and made it much more tolerable. I saw the ever-growing message board, you know people searching for people. This was remniscent of the message boards that popped up after 9-11 and the Dec. 26 tsunami.

Here are some of the pictures I took while walking the Astrodome floor.

See, cot right next to cot. After my stint on the Astrodome floor, I went back to the volunteer staging area. My next assignment was to move something. Didn't know at the time what it was...turned out to be copy machines for the logistical team (red cross, sbc, etc). Well, while waiting for the truck driver to show back up, I got a picture of a couple of ambulances that went down the ramp in the Astrodome close to the floor of the arena. They loaded a couple people up. One lady was getting checked on the floor close to the ambulances as well. The medical triage center was in the same area.

Well, the copy machine guy got there and we had to move 3 copy machines to the 5th floor in the Astrodome. We got to go within the bowels of the Astrodome. We made it to the elevator which was heavily used. There was a sewage backup in the area so that stunk pretty bad. Well, we finally made it on the elevator and got the copy machines to the 5th floor. Problem was that nobody up there really knew what to do with them. So after a few minutes they decided to place them in several areas on the 5th floor. Here's an image of the Astrodome floor from where I was.

All of the white dots were the cots/blankets that people were in.

Well, once that was done, I think I did the most charitable, hospitable, courteous thing I've ever done. As were were going back down on the elevator, two elderly black women (sisters) got on the elevator. They wanted to go to the second floor. They were carrying garbage bags of items (which may have been the only things that they had left). I and another guy, Ron, decided to help carry their bags. It wasn't light, and I was surprised that these 2 ladies were able to carry the bags with them all around the Astrodome. There was an announcement that people should go to section 262 for something (they thought it was for busses outta Houston and I thought I heard it was for free flights to Denver (courtesy of some airline that I don't remember)). Well we got there and there wasn't anything there. We decided to walk around some more. If you don't know the 'Dome, you get around between levels by going up/down ramps. They wanted to get out of the 'Dome and see if they could call/catch a cab. Well, neither Ron or myself knew our way around the 'Dome. We walked around carrying these ladies belongings for maybe an hour or so. We finally made it outside. They thanked us profusely and even wanted to give us something. Both of us refused saying that the only thing we wanted to do was help. That's enough gratification for us. Well, I got chance to talk with Ron after that. He's from Sugar Land.

We waited around in the docking area in the 'Dome to see if there was anything else to help with. There were 5 Wal-Mart trucks getting ready to unload. With my experience in being a box monkey for a toy store, I figured that I would be able to help. Well, they didn't need me as they sent stockers from all over the place. Ron and I departed our separate ways. I decided to go back on the Astrodome floor and walk around and see if anyone needed any assistance. It was pretty much lunch time at that moment, so I know there was a slight rush to the 4th floor concourse where lunch was being served. Here's a picture before I went up to the concourse

Well, I decided to make my way up to the 4th floor concourse to help out with the distribution of lunch. I ran into a couple of the guys that helped move the copy machines with me. One of them actually went to high school with me. I knew he looked familiar. Greg's his name and he lived right around the corner from the 'Dome. Well, I ended up on the drink line. The drink area consisted of large, deep coolers, filled with ice and canned sodas and bottled water. Well, if you have ever kept your hands (arms up to your shoulders) submerged in ice filled waters, then you'll know how I felt. My hands started burning (frostbite maybe). But I persisted. When there was a lull in the food distribution, I took a box and filled it with cold water/sodas. I walked around the concourse and the stadium seating offering drinks. Here's a picture from the stadium seats.
Did I mention that people slept in three areas, the Astrodome floor, stadium seats, and concourse/hallways? Well, they did. not the best arrangements, but from what I heard, better than from where they came from.

This is where I ran into Chris again as well (the guy I walked the Astrodome floor with much earlier in the day). He was re-assigned to deliver items to the various tables serving food/drinks. I also met another guy named Chris, however, this one was one of the evacuees. He was only 11 but he decided to help out and hand out drinks. I think it was great that he was helping. We goofed off a bit (I'm a big kid myself) to take his mind off things. He was very helpful. I wish that everything turns out alright for him and his family.

I continued to serve drinks even as my hands became numb. People were asking mainly for Coke, which we ran out of quickly. The often settled for orange or strawberry Fanta. Although I was able to dig real deep into the cooler (that's why I came home wet up to my shoulders) and occasionally find a Coke. I got a bit hungry and had one of the hand out ham sandwiches. It was actually really good. There were plenty of them, so no one was not getting served. There was actually a lot of items we put on the table (bagles, donut holes, twinkies, zingers, croissants, cinnamon rolls, all kind of stuff). Some people actually brought some of the food back that their kids may have picked up. Unselfish. It was amazing. Here, they had free reign on any/all of the food that they could get, but returned it feeling that others may need it. I doubt it as more and more trucks of food/drinks arrived. But still, unselfish.

A little boy came up to me later asking if he could have a peanut butter sandwich. Problem was we didn't have any bread. I decided to take one of those good ham sandwiches and take the ham out. I made him the peanut butter sandwich and went off happily. Since there was extra ham, I figured I'd have a double ham sandwich (yummy).

Well, as quickly as I got there (6:00 AM), I had to leave (2:00 PM). My wife had to work today at 5:00 PM. I initially wanted to go volunteer later in the day (you know sleep in on my day off), but decided since she worked at 5, I would go in the earliest I could.

It was amazing to see it all. A lot of the people were courteous, thankful to be alive. They seemed like they were over the frustration of being left there at the Superdome without any assistance. Many thanked me as they came to get drinks, not thank me for the drink, but thank me for being there to help them out. Granted, there were the few (very, very few) that were angry, but overall, seems like everyone is much happier being here than there. The outpouring of Houston area residents was amazing. There was a line to get in to the building to volunteer, which I would imagine to be several hundred if not thousand deep.

To wrap it up, I can look back on this experience and finally know that I have done something worthwhile. I haven't volunteered for anything outside of work before. I felt compelled to do it. Maybe because these people are our neighbors. Maybe I wanted to help the city look good (probably not the case). Maybe I wanted to help those less fortunate. Maybe I wanted to help myself feel better about the situation. Maybe it's a culmination of all of what I said.

Well, that's it. Thanks for reading the blog. I know it was long, but here's a final piece of information. As some of the evacuees were moving about, some were crossing the street from the Astrodome to Reliant Center. A cameraman was crouched, taking video looking up at the people. He caught the guy right in front of me who was carrying a bag of items. I don't think that he was an evacuee since he didn't have the pink bracelet. Well, anyway, as the cameraman was following this guy walking, he smacked his camera right into a concrete pillar. It made a noise that sounded like a crack, but not a whole break. Well, I laughed, as did the guy in front of me.