ShowMeBlog

New Orleans Events

  I had to call and change the date and time of the cable TV install to Friday afternoon.  I can not find news on the "cable" TV service that I have now.  Sure they have news at 5 pm or around that time but they just do not do a good job on the national and international news.  I am looking forward to getting CNN so I can see news at any time and follow it. 
  I have been going to the CNN web site for news.  I have also been watching live streaming video from WWL. Those people have been doing an excellent job.  Their web site has been up 90% of the time and I am sure they must have lots of people watching.

  I saw Bush on TV today making his speech.  You all know how I feel about him.  So no need to go into that now.
  Reports are that 965 died in the Baghdad stampede.  Wow.  It would be much bigger news here if it were not for the Katrina problems in the New Orleans area.  How sad that people out for their religion and too die for no reason.  I fear this is a sign.  They are going to want to blame someone for the death and loss and pain. 
  CNN says that experts are saying $4.00 a gallon for gas soon.  I do not see how people can afford to pay that amount of money for gas.  Ken got his new job just at the right time.  The job is very close and he is using very little gas. 

 

Con Job or Snow Job or Truth

 

OK your going to think that I am a very very bad man.  But I have worked security for about 30 years.  I have seen and heard a great deal.  I have learned a good deal about people over those many years.
  Now let me say I KNOW that bad things have taken place  in Katrina.  Many things that we will never know.  There are many heroes that we will never know about. 
  Much has taken place and it is very sad.
  But there are also many people out there that are going to try and pull a scam and will try and rip someone off or give them a snow job.  I have seen it.

  Many of you have seen the story about the man that lost his wife.  You have seen his photo on web sites and seen his video on CNN and I am sure other places.  The guy that tells the story about being on the roof of his house and holding his wife and she is pulled from him and he is holding her hand and she tells him that she knows he can't hold her and she tells him "take care of the kids" and then the water pulls her away and she is lost. 

 

  It would not surprise me if this guy is a hoax.  I could be wrong.  But I would not take what he says at face value. 
  There are people around that wait for things like this and they can come up with the best stories.  I have seen it first hand.  If I am wrong about this guy.. well then I am a very bad man. 
But we all need to be on guard.  We all need to help the people that have lost so much from Katrina.  But let us do it in the correct way.  And if we find out that some people are trying to cheat or steal or something we do not want to let that stop us from helping the ones that need or help.

Katrina Video

  I got an Email asking if I could fix the bad Katrina video link.  No that is out of my hands.  I will edit it out when I get time.  But someone put up some video and right away there was a message that they had exceeded their band width.  Now the link is just dead.
  Just in case you wonder about bandwidth I am using 27% of the bandwidth I am allowed.  I suspect that the person that posted that video link did not pay for much bandwidth. I have been using TypePad for this blog since July 2003.  I have the "Pro" account and I pay $119.60 a  year.  I am glad I did some checking on that just now because I see that I need to pay them in about 10 days.
Oh in the last 24 hours I have got 1528 hits here.  If I could just find some way to collect one dollar for each hit.  I would not have to work.  Smile

  I just went to the CNN web site and they are saying tensions rising in New Orleans...bodies being pushed to the side...looting and shootings reported in New Orleans.  Wow.
  There is not much that any of us can do right now.  Help is on the way.
 
 

New Tree Down

I feel funny to even mention this after what is going on in New Orleans but after all blogs are local views of the world and life.. 
  So here it is...  we had a little rain here an hour or two ago and a new tree came down in our parking lot.

 

  I still can not get any decent news on TV.  The local TV stations will send their news guy to some place, like New Orleans, and they can only see a very small circle..most of the time out side their hotel or something.. I just hate local news...well local news that attempts to report on something outside of their own local area.
  I have been listening to NPR, National Public Radio, and I think one of the big news items is what is going to happen to the cost of gas.  They are saying that a gallon of gas may go up in the next few days 25 or 30 cents a gallon.
MSNBC
Newsday
Chicago Sun-Times
  You know we are being push along like a bunch of sheep.  We need to take some action at some point.  I know lots of people have to drive to work and other places but how much of that is MUST drive.  If every American decided to only drive for say the next month were they have to drive.  I bet that would do it.  I bet the price of gas would not be $2.50 a gallon but would go to $2.00 a gallon. Again.. I am not talking about the must drive..to work or school or hospital ..but just cut out all the trips that do not need to be made.
  When I worked at Dadeland Mall each day from about 7 am to 9 am they had a patrol car sitting on the garage ramp with the motor going and with the air conditioner going... A lot of things like that take place.  If we all looked around and took some steps and I am saying do it for one month and see the effect that it has and then review things.
  Very odd that with Bush and his oil buddies in office that we have gas prices going to hit $3.00 a gallon. 

Atlantic Broadband Wins

I hate to give into Atlantic Broadband but they win.  In the past we had everything from them.  We cut back to their basic limited service.  Then they made changes to that service and removed CNN
I was not going to let them fuck me over ...but I am going to lay back and let them fuck me.  I give up. 
I heard today, on the radio, that now New Orleans is a city under water.  All sorts of bad news and things happening and I can not see any of it on TV.  With the "Limited Service", boy they named that correct, I just have local stations and a bunch of stations in Spanish and a lot of religion stations..a lot of crap.
  I called Atlantic Broadband and am going to pay $23.00 to them on Thursday when they come and and get us setup with "Value Service."  We will get about 50 more stations.  Here are a few of the new stations we will get;  USA, TNT, Comedy Central, CNN, Headline News, A&E, History Channel, TV Land, Sci-Fi Channel and others.
  I will just have to tell myself that it is worth the extra $30.00 plus a month to see again "The Daily Show."
  I can't even see TV now in my room.  So, right now, Russ, Ken and I will have to share the TV in the living room. 
and a bunch of other stations.  I guess too many people had picked the basic service. 

Hurricane Katrina Hits

  There is a report on Yahoo News that "Hurricane Katrina overwhelms weather Web sites."  I am sure that is true.  People been using a search site to find my blog.  Before Katrina I was getting 400 or 500 hits each day.  In the last 24 hours I got 1066 hits.  People that did a search for "Katrina + video" found that we were number 6 on the Google list.  I am sure that is why we got so much traffic.
  This is a case were I am sure those that came here did not stay and look around.  They were looking for information on Katrina and we did not have very much.

  We are still getting hits.  For those people who do find us... I am in Miami Florida and Katrina did visit us.  She was a 1 storm when she hit here and we just had a lot of trees down and we lost power here at 8 pm on Thursday and got it back at 1 pm on Saturday.  The Miami area had lots of people without power and lots of flooding.
  After you find the information about Katrina please come back and visit ShowMeBlog. 
 
 

Brown Outs

  They must be hooking up people around us that have not had power.  Today the power has been going down on us and even off for a second.  I do not have good protection on the computers here.  Cross your fingers that something does not get fried here.  I sure can not afford to replace a computer at this time.  Yes I know I need to get a UPS system.  I will get a couple as soon as I can afford it.
  I ordered from Amazon the other day.  I always get excellent service from them.  I ordered study guide for the Amateur Radio General Class license.  I got that for me.  I plan to take the test in a month or two.  I ordered the tech guide for Russell and Ken.  I would like to see them get their license.  Ken said he would when he had time.  Russell said no way ..he is not going to study for a ham license.
  It would be a big help if they were hams.  We could keep in contact with each other via ham radio.  Right now I leave my cell phone home with Russell so he has a telephone.  So I am without a phone often and often I would like to check with him on what he wants me to bring him to eat or something and I can not do it.  I would have to find a pay phone and call him.  Plus I don't even know what my phone number is. 
  Also ham radio is very educational plus all hams perform lots of public service help to the community.  I wish Russ would study and become a ham.  It is not hard.  I think it would be good for him.
  The other thing I got was business cards from VistaPrint.  They do an excellent job.  I also got some of the cards with a magnet back on them.  I got them all over our ice box door right now.  I wanted to save some money and I did not pay for fast shipment on the cards.  I got them very fast.  They sent them Airborne Express.
  I ordered ink for my printer.  I have not put it in yet.  I hate the process of putting ink in these cheap printers.

  I made a change to the web cam.  Yes again.  New URL for it: ShowMeCAM
  We will see how it works out.  Give me some feed back on it:  jhoward@hnbbs.net

  Oh why do I need business cards?  It is for the domain and hosting:  Show Me Domains. If someone ask you were they can buy a domain or find someone to host their web site or something like that you can tell them:  www.hnbbs.net and that will kick them over to the Show Me Domains.

  This blog has got 500 hits in the last 24 hours.  I think people are doing a lot of searching on "Katrina" and finding ShowMeBlog.  Now if I could just get a photo of Colin Farrell's penis as he stands in the rain of Katrina then I could get 1000 hits each day.
  Remember I can see what the person entered in the search page to find this page...DO NOT worry I can not connect it to a person or even a place.  Someone just found this site by using Google and doing a search for "hurricane+katrina+cotton+prices." 

 
   
 
 

My Kingdom for a TV

  I do not know very much about the news.  I can not get television on my computer now.  We have one 19 inch TV in the living room.  When I can afford it I am going to get a TV for my room.  I am not sure if I should just get a small 13 inch TV for my room for get something bigger.  What do you think?  Any recommendations?  We have a BestBuy store close.
  I am thinking something with headphone jack for private listening.  I have not checked to see if they have something, in my price range, that can be run off a battery.  I hope we do not have any more storms this year.  I hope we do not lose power again.  But it would be nice to have a TV set if we lose power.  Maybe something with low power drain and I could run it off of a  back up system of some sort.
  Maybe I should just forget the external power for the TV.  You can get now for less than $50.00 small TV sets that also pick up AM and  FM radio and will run off of a battery.  BestBuy has a Sylvania  for $30 and it will run off of 3 power sources including 8 D batteries.  I may just buy one and make sure it works and put it back in the box and put it away until we lose power again.
  So that would make it more easy to find a TV for my room if I do not have to worry about battery power for it.  (Is "more easy" correct English?)

FPL - Storm Restoration

  Ken, Russell, LaDawna and I were out looking for something to eat.  We had to end up eating at Taco Bell.  There are still a large number of places here in Miami-Dade and Broward that do not have power on yet.  I was surprised.  I am also very happy that we got power.
  You can find out how things are going and see a map and get current numbers at the FPL site.
 
  I posted that Urgent Weather Message here because I have never seen a weather message like it. It sounds like this is going to be a very bad hurricane. 
  I heard something on the news about the Louisiana National Guard being on duty over in Iraq.  If this storm is as bad as it looks right now...I think they should look into pulling those guys out and let them get back to their own state.  I understand you would have to cover all the bases and do it in an orderly manner..but if they can.. I think they should get the LA National Guard home.

Urgent Weather Message

WWUS74 KLIX 281550 AUG 05
NPWLIX

URGENT - WEATHER MESSAGE
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE NEW ORLEANS LA
1011 AM CDT SUN AUG 28 2005

....DEVASTATING DAMAGE EXPECTED...

..HURRICANE KATRINA...A MOST POWERFUL HURRICANE WITH UNPRECEDENTED
STRENGTH...RIVALING THE INTENSITY OF HURRICANE CAMILLE OF 1969.

MOST OF THE AREA WILL BE UNINHABITABLE FOR WEEKS...PERHAPS LONGER. AT
LEAST ONE HALF OF WELL CONSTRUCTED HOMES WILL HAVE ROOF AND WALL
FAILURE. ALL GABLED ROOFS WILL FAIL...LEAVING THOSE HOMES SEVERELY
DAMAGED OR DESTROYED.

THE MAJORITY OF INDUSTRIAL BUILDINGS WILL BECOME NON FUNCTIONAL.
PARTIAL TO COMPLETE WALL AND ROOF FAILURE IS EXPECTED. ALL WOOD
FRAMED LOW RISING APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL BE DESTROYED. CONCRETE
BLOCK LOW RISE APARTMENTS WILL SUSTAIN MAJOR DAMAGE...INCLUDING SOME
WALL AND ROOF FAILURE.

HIGH RISE OFFICE AND APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL SWAY DANGEROUSLY...A
FEW TO THE POINT OF TOTAL COLLAPSE. ALL WINDOWS WILL BLOW OUT.

AIRBORNE DEBRIS WILL BE WIDESPREAD...AND MAY INCLUDE HEAVY ITEMS SUCH
AS HOUSEHOLD APPLIANCES AND EVEN LIGHT VEHICLES. SPORT UTILITY
VEHICLES AND LIGHT TRUCKS WILL BE MOVED. THE BLOWN DEBRIS WILL CREATE
ADDITIONAL DESTRUCTION. PERSONS...PETS...AND LIVESTOCK EXPOSED TO THE
WINDS WILL FACE CERTAIN DEATH IF STRUCK.

POWER OUTAGES WILL LAST FOR WEEKS...AS MOST POWER POLES WILL BE DOWN
AND TRANSFORMERS DESTROYED. WATER SHORTAGES WILL MAKE HUMAN SUFFERING
INCREDIBLE BY MODERN STANDARDS.

THE VAST MAJORITY OF NATIVE TREES WILL BE SNAPPED OR UPROOTED. ONLY
THE HEARTIEST WILL REMAIN STANDING...BUT BE TOTALLY DEFOLIATED. FEW
CROPS WILL REMAIN. LIVESTOCK LEFT EXPOSED TO THE WINDS WILL BE
KILLED.

AN INLAND HURRICANE WIND WARNING IS ISSUED WHEN SUSTAINED WINDS NEAR
HURRICANE FORCE...OR FREQUENT GUSTS AT OR ABOVE HURRICANE FORCE...ARE
CERTAIN WITHIN THE NEXT 12 TO 24 HOURS.

ONCE TROPICAL STORM AND HURRICANE FORCE WINDS ONSET...DO NOT VENTURE
OUTSIDE!