Props to Enjanerd for the recommendation to use XnView to upload my pictures from Gulfport. (Make sure you left-right scroll on the first pane to see all the thumbnails.) I've added some cellphone pics (see the bottom of the page) of the flood-damaged synagogue we went to.
I'll cover two topics today: FEMA and my fellow students. On Thursday night, three speakers from FEMA came to talk to us. Generally, they defended the organization. Actually, I take that back: generally, they avoided the topic of blame. Instead, they spouted number after number, acronym after acronym, scenario after scenario; as in: if your house was 47% damaged, you had hurricane insurance, but not flood insurance and you had $2,000 dollars in a savings account, then (after filling out the appropriate paperwork) you would be entitled to X amount from FEMA. When they did mention the general belief that FEMA did a terrible job, they said that most of the news stories were 90% to completely wrong. (Which I guess is possible.) However, after an excellent question from Princeton's JCSC, they readily admitted that having the extra, DHS layer of bureaucracy cost them 4-5 months in decision turnaround time in some cases. And they sidestepped my follow-up question about whether they had broken through that bureaucratic layer in preparation for the 2006 hurricane season. Not exactly confidence building.
As for my fellow students on the trip, they were all undergrads save one. Compared to my 2003 ASB trip to rural Mexico, these kids were less motivated to work. Though, we were not challenged to push our bodies to the limit in terms of labor. (Who can really tell how hard the staff could push before student rebellion?) Most people were fun, state-school types (note: I don't mean that in any sort of derogatory fashion--form your own mental picture), but there were some standouts. The entire crew from Vermont was awesome. There was a guy who led us in wonderful songs, including a fabulous Nigun which I can't get out of my head. As present was a true ultimate frisbee player, though I captained my team past his, 11-8, on the Shabbas Showdown game (see pic). And the females well outnumbered the males, so I flirted with quite a number of undergrads ;)
Briefly returning to my real world life: this weekend included Woody Woo Jewish cultural night and a Dar Williams concert at Sarah Lawrence. For Jewish cultural night, Roomie and I made absolutely fabulous potato kugel, which was a huge hit. And Dar Williams was fabulous as always--I'm grateful to Chicklet for thinking to invite me.
But for now it's back to coding and reading. And sleep (hopefully).
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