Far South of I-10

I'm back at the hotel after spending the night at the rig and I'm aghast at what daylight reveals of new orleans. Kenner where I grew up is flooded, downtown and the french quarter are flooding. Slidell and Chalmette are probably total losses. Fox just pointed out something that I've been thinking: No one has even heard from Placquemines Parish, and apparently the river has 'reclaimed' the lower portions of the delta. The national news people have no idea of the geography of the area, and they only show a few scenes where their cameras are, at the corner of bourbon and canal, and from up on the GNO bridge. But it looks unbelievable what we can see, who knows when or if this will all be rebuilt.

I spoke with my parents up in Picayune, everybody is fine, my sisters also spent the storm at my parent's house so they are ok too. Apparently all the trees are down around their houses, and one hit my sister's garage blocking in two cars, and they lost most of the shingles on the roof, but everyone is ok, which is most important. Who knows what happened to my sister's house in slidell. I checked on the web yesterday as the storm made landfall, and the eye was centered on slidell, so it doesn't look good. I'm glad she decided to spend the storm at my parents' place.

One of my coworkers just clued me in that we do have fox news, I have to reprogram the tv channels to get it though. Their news readers seem to have more of a clue, at least they have some idea of the geography of SE LA. Also they have good taste in Hotels, they are staying at the "W". One lady on CNN kept saying "the french quarters" which made me wince every time. On the other hand the fox guys just said "those old buildings in the french quarter are more suseptible to strong winds, unlike newer buildings". When the answer is just the opposite. Those buildings in the french quarter have stood the test of time, they've gone through other hurricanes through the 18th and 19th centuries when there was little or no levee system. At least I hope that is true, my dad just used the same argument to say they are staying in their house since it survived camile.

Over at Eye of the Storm , Charles points out that Kat is (may be) an Annular hurricane, instead of a normal spiral storm that can't maintain cat 5 for more than a few hours, annular storms (like Ivan) can remain cat 5 for 30 hours or more. So enough of the theory, what does this mean practically? It means that the situation has gotten even worse. If Katrina is indeed annular, then the chances of her retreating down to say category three status are nil. If we make the somewhat unlikely presumption that she has reached her maximum strength (and again if she is annular), then the averages of such hurricanes suggest that she would only weaken to 145 mph at landfall. That would be a storm with Charley-like intensity, but on a much larger scale as Charley was puny compared to the present size of Katrina. Steve Gregory over at wunderblogs says: This central pressure is very close to that recorded in Camille in 1969 - the most powerful land falling hurricane in U.S. history, with a storm...

Mary Landrieu just tore the CNN announcer a new asshole. The CNN people are so stupid, they tried to make a flippant/funny comment "what a funny place to build a city, between a lake and a river, why would they do that?" Senator Landrieu turned it around with the comment that without New Orleans in that location we wouldn't have had a United States, New Orleans is a center of commerce, and Louisiana is a producer of the nation's energy. "we aren't down here sunning ourselves on the beach". [The main reason New Orleans is where it is, it is a deepwater port that is mostly sheltered from storms, and compared to the land in the rest of SE LA has some fairly high spots. The french quarter and mid-city are above MSL] The announcer responded with "thanks for the historical perspective". Senator Landrieu made several other good points, that much of the coastal erosion has been caused by the energy industry, while almost all of the royalties have gone...

I'm watching CNN again and in the last 12 hours they've shown the anti-bush screed about bad intelligence 3 times! The approaching disaster in New Orleans could be just about as bad as the Tsunami was, but they've had 36 hours of warning about the story. Hopefully Governor Blanco's prayers are just as effective as Governor Foster's were for Hurricane Lily, because it looks like it's gonna be bad. It would be nice to see some urgency from the 24 hour news channel.

I'm watching CNN here in Barbados, and I'm amazed that Jefferson Parish president Aaron Broussard is giving detailed driving instructions to an international audience. He was mayor of Kenner when I was growing up, now he's a bejowled power broker telling an international audience not to take the Huey P. Long bridge; but he didn't say which way to go. Whew, I'm glad I'm not a resident of the west bank of Jefferson Parish...they've got to take a drive on Highway 90 to lafayette, which is a 2 1/2 hour drive over swampy causeways with no traffic, add 200,000 people and it will be a 6 hour bataan death- drive just to Lafayette. (or risk a one-lane merge from I-310 to I-10...bleh) Once you're in lafayette I'd definitely keep going to Houston. I already suggested to my wife that she call our friends in Lafayette to invite them over tonight. The projected path has been steadily marching west since yesterday, if it moves any further west I'd leave lafa...

This week four years ago my wife and I just got back from a trip to Washington and New York. When we went to the world trade center, it was rainy so we couldn't go on the roof, I thought, oh well we'll see that next time we come to New York. Or maybe we won't. I'm watching Inside 9-11 on National Geographic and I'm furious all over again. I can almost understand the policy of not showing these scenes over and over again. We'd be demanding real war, war to the knife. "The following segment contains footage of people jumping from the twin towere, viewer discretion is advised." (The coverage on american television never did show people jumping to their deaths, I only saw it on Telemundo in spanish, where they can show things with a third person detachment as things happen to the Norte Americanos.) I thought I'd try and live blog this show, but without my DVR I can't keep track of the heros who left safety to return to rescue more people, or f...

Peggy Noonan has a column in the opinion journal that says we shouldn't be so quick to shut down so many military bases: The federal government is doing something right now that is exactly the opposite of what it should be doing. It is forgetting to think dark. It is forgetting to imagine the unimaginable. Governments deal in data. People in government see a collection of data as something to be used, manipulated or ignored, but whatever they do with it, it's real. It's numbers on a page. You can point to them. To think dark, on the other hand, takes imagination--and something more. ....... But they're wrong. What they ought to do, and what the commission reviewing the Pentagon's plan ought to do, is sit down and think dark. In the rough future our country faces, bad things will happen. We all know this. It's hard to imagine some of those things on a beautiful day with the sun shining and the markets full, but let's imagine anyway. ...

Here's the view from my hotel during a brief downpour yesterday. It rains every day here someplace on the island, it rains up at the office every day at 2:30 pm, you can almost set your watch by this. Hopefully this will be the only type of rain I'll see on this island, if there is a hurricane the only place to run here is to the room on the next floor up. The hotel I'm staying at isn't exactly a deluxe resort, there's no beach in front of it, I've got to creep on to the beach of the resort next door where they all get free drinks and fresh fruit delivered by waiters. (other guys offshore are saying "cry me a river, bitch") The waves actually crash on a wall just beyond those palm trees, and with the stronger wind blowing this week a frequent crash, crash, crash can be heard all the time. Kind of nice, but I'd rather go home.

I'm watching Schindler's List on TNT right now. I've seen this movie before and I know that it ends with Raph Fiennes' character being hung, and the people doing the hanging kicking the box underneath him to pieces, The horror of the story makes be want to go back in time to help kick the box out from under that fucker. (Amon Goethe) They did just announce during a commercial break that Steven Spielberg didn't take a salary for making this movie, that it would be "blood money". Good for him.

here's a story my brother sent that might bring a tear to your eye: >>>> Here's a truly heartwarming story about the bond formed between a >>>> little 5 year old girl and some construction workers that makes you >>>> believe that we CAN make a difference when we give a child the gift of >>>> our time... >>>> >>>> A young family moved into a house, next door to a vacant lot. One day >>>> a construction crew turned up to start building a house on the empty >>>> lot. >>>> >>>> The young family's 5-year-old daughter naturally took an interest in >>>> all the activity going on next door and spent much of each day >>>> observing the workers. >>>> >>>> Eventually the construction crew, all of them gems-in-the-rough, more >>>> or less adopted her as a kind of project mascot. They chatted with...

Well, I just spent the past 5 days working 2o hours a day on a rig in the middle of an island paradise. Now I've got a free day to go and sample the local rum, or maybe I should just sleep. I've got to say that the locals are probably the nicest people I've ever worked for in the oilfield. Problems that would have a Texan company man jumping up and down with anger just make the locals shrug and ask for a better effort. The locals are known as "Bajan", not barbadans. They say y'all like a US southerner, and call loved ones "boo" like people from the south too. When a Bajan walks into a room and it is night time, he'll say 'good night' as he walks in, like in spanish people say buenas noches, but it sounds jarring to my ears, like walking into a room and saying 'goodbye'. Anyway, nice place, nice people but I'd rather be here on vacation. Now, off to drink a cuba libre or maybe a local Banks Beer.

Here's the view at the end of the St. Lawrence gap here in Barbados. I'm still enjoying the Bajan cooking (macaroni pie), and I'm working pretty hard, but it's still better than being offshore.

I've never driven on the left side of the road before, in England I've taken taxis, buses and subways, but I declined to drive a car when it was offered because riding on the left side of the road was scary enough. Here in Barbados, I really have no choice, if I'm going to make it to work I have to drive, and I did so for the first time on Monday. Scared shitless at first, narrow roads with high cane on both sides. When cars approach in the other direction, it is difficult to judge; should I go into the cane or keep going. The wap wap wap of the cane hitting the passenger mirror told me I'm too close to the edge. Pedestrians are everywhere, and the dark skin/dark clothes of the locals fade to invisibility when the sun goes down. My wife was shouting "humano!" when my headlights would light upon someone, and we'd swerve around them. I was glad we made it make to the hotel without dying or killing anyone. Oh well, I should be used to this before I leav...

I'll bet most of my readers (Hi Bob!) didn't even know that they drill oil wells in Barbados, but apparently they do, 'cause I'm down here at work blogging about 150' away from the beach at the Bean n Bagle internet cafe. Of course once I'm at work on the rig I could just as well be in west texas on an oil rig, thus proving that wherever you go, there you are. Of course the clients here are probably the nicest in the world, and it's unusual to be in such a nice place at work. Typically I'm in someplace like Oklahome in december, having to take a dump in a portalet when its 25 degrees outside....shivering like a dog passing a peach pit while passing a peach pit. Anyway, pictures soon, beautiful, sunset, water, Banks beer...yada yada.

Jerry Pournelle points to a Fred on Everything column that describes the descent of the US into anarchotyranny. Where easily enforceable rules are enforced (searching granny at the airport because she might be a terrorist), but real killers are set free or not pursued because of fear and political correctness. Here's Fred: “Yahoo News, Fri Apr 29: “CLOVIS, N.M. - A call about a possible weapon at a middle school prompted police to put armed officers on rooftops, close nearby streets and lock down the school. All over a giant burrito. Someone called authorities Thursday after seeing a boy carrying something long and wrapped into Marshall Junior High.” Yeah. The kid, one Michael Morrissey, had made a thirty-inch burrito for some sort of assigned project, presumably of preternatural stupidity and unrelated to the purposes of school. Anyway, jalapeños, tomatoes, things like that. Scary things. Armed officers on rooftops? Snipers? I imagine the ...

Since I'm bored and offshore, I've been reading the jokes on orsm.net , (not work safe) my favorite one is: This JellyBean walks into a bar and gets talking to a Smartie. After a few beers the Smartie says "Ere, do you fancy going to that new club in town?" JellyBean says "No mate, I'm a soft centre, I always end up getting my head kicked in." So Smartie says "Don't worry about it, I'm a bit of a hard case, I'll look after you." So JellyBean says "Fair enough, as long as you'll look after me." and off they went. After a few more beers in the club, three Vapour Drops walk in. As soon as he sees them, Smartie hides under a table, the Vapour Drops take one look at JellyBean and start kicking him, punching him and generally having a laugh. After a while they get bored and ...