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So here we are. Katrina refugee update.


Gabriel E.

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Just dropping in to say hi.

 

My wife, baby, 2 dogs and 3 cats left Houston on Thursday and arrived in Irvington, NY on Sunday after a 1900 mile trip. It was slow going (I think we visited every rest stop) but actually pretty enjoyable.

 

We drove up through Texas and Oklahoma, then across Missouri, Southern Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, NJ and into NY. Felt like wrong-way Okies.

 

Hyacinth was a real trooper and the dogs seemed to like it. The cats were tolerant which is all we could ask for from them.

 

We're now staying with my in-laws. My wife is looking for a job and I'm caring for Hyacinth until it's safe for me to return to N.O. and assess the damage. We'll probably move our belongings up here and sell the house or, worst case, collect the insurance and try to pay off the mortgage.

 

Looked at a sattelite image of my house this morning and it appears to still have a roof. The trees are still standing and the carport is still there. On 8/31 (when the image was taken) the hood of my neighbor's car was visible above the water. If that's as high as the water got, then my house did not flood since it's elevated about 4 feet off the ground (the area where I live is slightly above sea level). If the water got any higher, well. . .

 

My car's toast but it was paid for and insured. My telecaster is up high in a closet so it should be ok as long as the house didn't get ransacked. Same goes for my heads, a couple of acoustic guitars and the prototype amplifier that I was building. Art should be ok too. Worried about my PRS and the rest of my guitars since they were on end in a closet.

 

That material stuff is all trivial, however. My family is safe. All my friends and co-workers are safe. We didn't spend a week in the Superdome of on a roof in the baking sun with no food or water. We didn't drown.

 

The footage of Katrina's aftermath has been heartbreaking. Thousands of people died only miles from my home in a most horrendous way. The city that I've loved for the last ten years is a rotting wasteland, cut off from the rest of civilization. People talk about it in the past tense.

 

[WARNING - POLITICAL CONTENT AHEAD]

 

I feel pretty strongly that most of the deaths could have been prevented had the federal and state governments done their job and made arrangements to evacuate the city's poorer residents.

 

Help didn't start arriving until 3 days after the hurricane hit. Where the fuck was FEMA? Where the fuck was the Dept. of Homeland Security? Where was the National Guard? (Hint: the National Guard was "guarding" a nation that starts with an "I" and ends with "raq").

 

These agencies are supposed to be proactive! You don't wait until 3 days after a disaster (especially a Hurricane that's been churning in the ocean for 5 days) and then make the excuse that "it took you by surprise".

 

The top officials at FEMA need to go to jail for gross negligence causing death. Everyone else needs to resign or get fired. Same for everyone at the much lauded "Department of Homeland Security" which has done jack shit since it's inception. If this is how they handle a disaster that everyone saw coming for 5 days, I can't see them dealing effectively with a large-scale terrorist attack.

 

Bush should resign too. He's obviously not capable of commanding his subordinates. His administration has proven without a doubt that they simply do not care about the country's poor. What a douchebag!

 

End of rant. Whew! ;)

 

On a brighter note, my dogs have been enjoying chasing squirrels and deer. Today they made the mistake of chasing a new kind of black and white "squirrel" that didn't run. Tomato juice baths for both of them!

 

I'll drop by here more frequently as things settle down. Hope everyone else is doing ok.

 

Gabriel

"You never can vouch for your own consciousness." - Norman Mailer
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glad your doin good, and you couldnt be more right about the thing with the national gaurd, a buddy of mine left to finish his ait training today and after that guess where hes gettin shipped? iraq....i dont think thats under the description of what he enlisted for and it pisses me off...anyway hope you stay safe.

 

ryan

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Hey, I'm glad that you and your family are doing well overall, and I hope that you find New York State to your liking! (Irvington looks to be a really nice place, as well; you could've wound up in lots worse of a place, that's for sure!) Here's hoping that your home is remarkably unscathed by the elements, both natural and criminal; and that your stay here is a good and enjoyable one, skunks not withstanding! (At least it wasn't one of those monsterously huge Missouri skunks!)

 

Gabriel, if you care to take the drive upstate to Watkins Glen, I'll loan you a Les Paul and a Carvin Vintage 33 1x12 combo-amp (and a cable) for the duration of your stay here in NY. Might seem trivial to many folks, but I understand how it can be to not have a guitar within reach for too long, especially with loads of other stress weighing in... PM me if you need further info.

 

If I could, I'd drive down there to deliver it! Sorry if this isn't much of an offer...

Ask yourself- What Would Ren and Stimpy Do?

 

~ Caevan James-Michael Miller-O'Shite ~

_ ___ _ Leprechaun, Esquire _ ___ _

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Glad you and your family are safe and the trip to NY was enjoable to some degree. Hope you can get back and collect your gear, and that it is all still there when you do, aloing with all of your family's possessions.

I recognize your anger at being displaced, and I'm sympathetic to your feelings, but this is a guitar forum, not a political forum. So, rather than rebutting your political statements, I'm going to ask the moderators to consider deleting the political part of your post and leave the matter in their hands. And, I politely ask that, if you have further to say about you grevances, would you please take it over to Harmony Central? The political forum is over there now.

Believe it or not, Massengill douche solution is better than tomato juice for getting out the skunk smell, or so I am told by a guy who found out the hard way.

Always remember that you are unique. Just like everyone else.

 

 

 

 

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Glad your family is doing good as well...everything else can be replaced.

 

As far as the political aspect of it and from what I have gathered from friends that were down in the mix if it all...I feel really bad that anyone suffered...but...blaming Bush for the hurricane or the failure of flood control systems is a little emotional over reacting IMHO.

 

Here is a link to what I consider one of the most insightful articles I have read about this disaster...Your milage may vary...

 

http://realclearpolitics.com/Commentary/com-9_4_05_RT.html

 

 

I'm glad you and your family heeded the warnings to get out i feel bad for those who didnt.

Mix of Rock, Metal & Heavy Fusion

http://www.visualcliff.net

 

My new band...Melodic Hard Rock

http://www.fallofechoes.com

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Hey Gabriel, I'm really glad you and your family are OK!

 

Picker, you've posted your share of political content in this guitar forum. You're being a jerk if you're really asking the mod to delete it. You'll have to ask them to delete this too then, or just "ban" me. If he were praising your hero you'd be just fine with it. So you're not asking the mods to delete it because it is "political" but because you disagree with it.

 

Hey Robue, I find the article to be kinda bogus. Here is why:

 

1) the "natural disaster" part of the problem was not only predicted on two levels, but the full range of the impact was understood by scientists years and years in advance. It was well known that a large hurricane hitting the city directly-- accounting for the wind direction of the storm-- would flood the "bowl". There was even a "Discovery Channel" type program at least a year ago on it my daughter and I watched. Research is generally 6 months to a year "ahead" of such shows in that it takes time to put a show together after they gather their information, where as the scientists just keep working, so the information was out there about: the the flooding, the damage, the sewers and the contamiation, the graves and the bodies, and more. Secondly, we all saw the strom coming and knew it had the power to do this kind of damage. There was ample time for an effective effort to be planned and staged in the region just outside of the range of the effect of the storm to go in immediately after it.

 

2) The "man-made" aspect of it-- the looting-- is being overblown to confuse the simple fact that this was a failure of poltical leadership. The old facsist slogan was "out of chaos: order" but everyone knows now that the Italian facsists created the chaos they wished to rescue people from. Waiting days to go in, not realizing the "state of emergency" was already set, and all the other failures created the environment for looting. The entire perception of looting is skewed anyway: the AP had to photos of of two different families with food wading through water where they said the white family had "found" food, while they said the black family had "looted" stores. What ever crime there was was increased by the lack of response. This is taking a "result" and pretending it is the cause.

 

3) He uses this misuse of "cause and effect" to say the feds did realize they needed to send in troops before food. Their own failure created the chaos they then use as an excuse.

 

4) anyway, after many more myths and errors he ends up attacking the "welfare state". Civilization is built on emergency response. In the bible when Joesph tells the Pharoh to store grain for a coming famine, was that the welfare state or an effective use of government? In times of emergency government is supposed to be prepared to step in. With all the natural diasters that hit Florida and the one in particular that hit right before the election, he had no such failures. To take this failure and hang it on the welfare state is just plain ignorant of the history of FEMA and such events in the past at best and opportunistic on the part of the writer at worst.

 

5) Rather than a failure of the "welfare state" it is an indictment of cronyism. The head of FEMA had no experience in anything that would help him understand the job he took. Being "buds" with the president is not a qualification to anyone but this fool in the white house. People spend their lives in all sorts of fields that relate to FEMA: Red Cross, HAZ Mat response teams, many career paths in the millitary, police and fire chiefs, the list gets longer when looking at state and federal branches of government and the UN. The following feilds of study also would lead to the kinds of expertise that would be useful as the head of FEMA: Urban Planning, Geography, and Civil Engineering. These are all "related" feilds in the way that they lead to a "Fema" type gig are areas where they overlap.

 

What doesn't seem realted is "Arabian Race Horses". Only a fool would think a horse guy could run FEMA. Only a callous bastard would put a guy fired from his "Arabian Race Horse" gig in charge of FEMA. Only some very insulated fool from some think tank could write an article about this failure of leadership and skip over it.

 

It is not "hindsight" to say they should have had food and people to keep order and keep things running in the Superdome, it is "planning" and only the luckiest and ths stupidest among us fail to see the value in good planning.

 

Hey Picker, ask for this to be deleted too-- after you go through your own posts in this guitar forum and make the same requests for your own political content here.

check out some comedy I've done:

http://louhasspoken.tumblr.com/

My Unitarian Jihad Name: Brother Broadsword of Enlightened Compassion.

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Glad to hear you and your family survived and are well.

 

Hopefully your gear survived, too. Yeah, it's just "stuff", but some stuff has a lot of memories and sentiment attached to it (especially pictures -- hope you took those with you). It's a shame to lose things like that.

Born on the Bayou

 

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Glad to year you're ok Gabriel. I recall a couple of weeks ago when you boarded up the the house and high-tailed it out of there, family in tow. I couldn't remember where you went and I was concerned that you were still in the path of that bitch...The focus is on N.O. right now but there's plenty of other places upriver that got wiped out too.

 

Having your family together is the most important, yes, but losing everything else that it's taken you years/decades to acquire and put together for yourself isn't exactly trivial. You've got a hard road ahead no matter what and I'm sorry it happened to such a good guy :(

 

Keep your chin up though, nothing is forever. Just don't name your prototype amplifier The Hurricane ;)

 

I agree with you on your Political Rant. Many people are targeting the guy on top but I think it is a great failure of proaction from top to bottom. I'm sorry that this had to happen but i hope it wakes up and shakes up a lot of people.

 

P.S., Don't know about guitars submerged in water, but I had a guitar once that sat in a leaky corner of an old house and got basically rained on for 3 days straight before I realised it. Opened the gig bag and a half-gallon of water poured out, take the pickguard off and the pickup cavity was a lake. I let it dry out naturally over a week's time and it was fine. Maybe your PRS will be so lucky.

Dr. Seuss: The Original White Rapper

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WWND?

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Originally posted by Funk Jazz:

the important thing here is that Gabriels family is okay.

Yes, amen.

 

Originally posted by Funk Jazz:

political opinions won't change what happened ~ so let's try to be civil in here, please.

That was my point....

Always remember that you are unique. Just like everyone else.

 

 

 

 

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I would like to apologize for making a political rant here in the guitar forum. I realize that was not appropriate and I will refrain from doing so again. I definitely didn't want to start a pissing match. Sorry everyone.

 

Caevan,

 

I appreciate the offer! I may very well take you up on it. It would be cool to finally meet you in person too!

"You never can vouch for your own consciousness." - Norman Mailer
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Glad you're safe, Gabriel.

 

As it stands...we have a vacant home here in Missouri that's been for sale for a year and a half. It's a nice home in a comfy neighborhood. We've decided to open it up to evacuees...with a preference for the elderly and/or families with young children.

 

If anyone else is so moved...go to www.hurricanehousing.org

 

 

It might not be much, but it's something.

"Cisco Kid, was a friend of mine"
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God Bless you Ted....Gabe glad to see your o.k

and if you happen to lose your gear I'd be more

then happy to give you something to start you back off.

The story of life is quicker then the blink of an eye, the story of love is hello, goodbye.
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Originally posted by Gabriel E.:

"Caevan,

 

I appreciate the offer! I may very well take you up on it. It would be cool to finally meet you in person too!"

"It would be cool to finally meet you in person too!"

 

-meet you in person-

 

-in person-

 

-meet you in person too!"

 

-in person too!"

 

-too!"

 

-too!"

 

Mois? In person? :freak:

 

Oh, man, are you in for some dissapointment there! ;):D

 

Maybe I'll just leave the guitar under the doormat... yeah, that's the ticket... :thu:

 

Bring a camera, this may turn out like some Bigfoot sighting or something... :D:thu:

 

Seriously, for real, just PM me ahead of time if you're going to make the trip up! :cool:

Ask yourself- What Would Ren and Stimpy Do?

 

~ Caevan James-Michael Miller-O'Shite ~

_ ___ _ Leprechaun, Esquire _ ___ _

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Originally posted by Gabriel E.:

I would like to apologize for making a political rant here in the guitar forum. I realize that was not appropriate and I will refrain from doing so again. I definitely didn't want to start a pissing match. Sorry everyone.

 

Caevan,

 

I appreciate the offer! I may very well take you up on it. It would be cool to finally meet you in person too!

no need to apologize. you have been under some stress. rant all you want. considering the situation i would have been angry too.
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Gabriel, let me add my good wishes and "glad you're o.k.". I've been telling everybody your story about your dogs' run-in with Pepe Lepew!

 

It occurred to me tonight to mention that, like here in Maine, it might be illegal to let your dogs chase deer there in NY. It's SO against the law here that a game warden can shoot a dog out of hand if he sees the dog running a deer. You might want to check. Just FYI...

 

 

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