Ok, I’m back. Hopefully you weren’t all in too much suspense. So New Orleans. Here’s what I’ve been able to ascertain from talking to various people "in the know." First off, like I’ve pointed out several times, NO didn’t suffer from direct hurricane damage. They suffered from flood damage. They have a pretty different set of problems. Like needing to fix the levees. We don’t have those problems here in MS. Speaking of the levees, I hear two sides of the story. One is that they have been asking for money to fix them for several years, warning that this would happen, but they were denied. The OTHER is that they were allocated vast sums of money to fix them, but the local government decided to spend the money on other things. I honestly do not know which one of these is more accurate than the other. I have a feeling that, to some degree, both apply.
Another big issue I hear a lot on is the way the local level responded. I’m sure you all heard on the news of how NO’s mayor went on and on trying about how no one was there to help. His incessant whining to the media didn’t do much to set up the first responders in a very good light. And the way he acted recently in trying to get people back in when it wasn’t safe - just terrible. The local opinion is that he’s been hogging the media spotlight more than he’s been helping. Like the relief groups I mentioned in the last post, he seems to have fallen victim to the curse of media attention. Next we move on to the governor. Apparently Louisiana has this thing about their independence - almost like Texas. They like to do things their own way and don’t really want anyone interfering. The OTHER thing you should know is that there are many laws protecting state’s rights. Because of this, any federal-level entity, be it the military, FEMA, etc., can’t just come in and start working. They have to be REQUESTED by the state. This is generally done through the process of "declaring a state of emergency," which allows for federal assistance. More importantly, this relinquishes the incident command from the governor’s office to whatever federal entity is taking over. The idea is that they are more equipped to handle the situation. In this case, the governor did NOT declare a state of emergency for WEEKS after Katrina hit. This kept thousands of national guard troops which were at the border out of the state. The governor was convinced that the 300 NO police officers would be able to sufficiently secure the crowds. When things started getting out of hand, she wanted the national guardsmen to come, but to be under the state’s emergency control. That’s not the way it works. The laws are written in an all-or-nothing manner. It was totally naive and political for her to think that the state had the resources/expertise to handle the situation on their own. Because of this, critical help was kept out of the state for much longer than it should have and many people died. In MS, they handled things differently, and things really went better. The biggest problem is that BECAUSE of the mess in NO, the media was completely sidetracked. No one reports on MS. No one seems to care. Their damage is far worse, but very few are doing anything about it. All attention has been focused on NO, so that’s where the help goes. The thinking is that if they can "fix" things there, it will get out of the news and everyone looks better. But it leaves serious problems open in MS.
Finally, and I don’t know a good way to say this, the people of NO added to the mess. I’m sure you heard the news reports where residents were SHOOTING at relief helicopters. They somehow thought this would make them come pick them up. Instead, it scared all relief workers out of the area until the military showed up. These weren’t gangs, these were regular people. Then there were those who refused to leave. I’ve HEARD this has something to do with the schedule for issuing welfare checks - which large portions of the city were on. Last, from what the locals tell me, residents of NO have a strong sense of entitlement. They wanted someone to come in and fix it because they deserve it. They weren’t willing, like MS, to WORK towards that. They wanted the handout. Like I said, there’s no good way to put this, but it sounds like the people were their own worst enemy. I don’t know any of this firsthand, but I have no reason to disbelieve those who have lived in this area for generations and know how things work better than I. I will tell you what PISSES ME OFF more than just about anything else: when people who aren’t there and know NOTHING about the way things are going try to talk like they have all the answers. When they give me their "this is how I would have handled it" speech. You know what, it’s SO DIFFERENT there from what you see on the news. I don’t know how anyone could be so arrogant to think they know how to fix a disaster of this scale. Did people make mistakes? Oh, yeah. But we haven’t had anything like this in the past to "practice" on. If you don’t know what you’re talking about, it’s best to stay quiet. I think that wraps up this bit of news. I’ll get more out about the work later. Just wanted to finish that thought when I had the time.
- Matt (currently in: Orlando, FL)
Friday, September 30, 2005
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
Southern Comfort
Well, I’m starting to get ready to head out of here. Joe Raviele from the Berklee College of Music will be taking my place down here, at least in the short term. Actually, we’re starting to lose more and more people, so if any of you out there were thinking about coming down, it’s a great time to! Today was pretty productive. We got the link to Long Beach/Pass Christian put up, which reaches our west-most boundary. There’s still a little more work to be done on the tower, but it should be wrapped up by the weekend. That and our link out west to Mobile will hopefully be up then as well, bringing us another 6-10 MB of bandwidth. Joe and I worked a little more on the Cisco stuff. Apparently they really WANT to help us out, we just have to jump through the requisite hoops. They’ve expedited their grant process for us. The application was 15 pages, down from the normal 50. Guess it usually takes them a couple months to process, but we’ve been promised a decision within 24 hours. They’ve been very helpful, and we’re grateful for whatever assistance we can get. Now if Trango would just come through with the radios..... Also was able to finalize my travel arrangements, which was entirely too stressful. Apparently all three airports in this area (Gulfport, MS, New Orleans, and Mobile, AL) are completely booked for the next week. Looking online, I could see tickets for around $120, but after clicking on them it would either give me the "not found" error or the price would jump to $500. Ok, Plan B: rent a car. It looked to be only $300 or so, which was only about $200 more than I was needing to spend on the car anyway. BUT, after "taxes and fees," back up to $500. Not to mention the fact that they ALSO had no cars. Ended up being able to find a flight a flight out of Jackson, about 3 hours north, for only $140....on SOUTHWEST. I died a little inside. Let’s see if they don’t manage to utterly ruin this trip.
But on to what I really wanted to write a little about: the South. Things are different here. And that’s an understatement. For starters, EVERYONE smokes. And I do mean everyone. A Reverend just came into the shop, smoking. You go to someone’s house, they smoke. And, unlike Oregon, you can do it just about anywhere here. The whole state smells like a bar. But not an Oregon bar. The second thing is that there isn’t a "no shirt, no shoes, no service" rule. It’s completely common, even normal, to have guys everywhere - stores and all - without shirts on. And they’re a sweaty lot. Another NW rule I’m thankful for. Oh, and people are called Mr. or Miss Not sure how I feel about Mr. Matt, but it’s been my local name. Very respectful and courteous. You thank people for EVERYTHING, excuse yourself, etc. It’s nice actually having polite people around.
We had dinner two nights ago with the mother of the guy we’re working with here. Very southern. Chicken, beans, potato salad, the whole nine yards. (Note to Mom: So you know all the family jokes about your chicken? You’ve got nothing on her!) We got to talking afterwards about here, Katrina, New Orleans, and a bunch of other stuff. This area is very tight-knit. Subdivisions are named for the families who have lived there for over 100 years. All these houses and the associated heritage are gone. I think that’s what’s been the hardest on everyone.
The next topic was the disaster response, FEMA, etc. A lot of people ask me questions about how things really are going down here. As I’ve mentioned before, the response has been very limited. FEMA, Red Cross, Salvation Army, etc. are all here, but so long as "here" is a place you’ve heard of. Like Biloxi. Right across the bridge in D’Iberville, where they were hit much harder, there’s nothing. It really seems like a matter of press, which is very disappointing. Another characteristic of Southern people is their resilience. They’ve pretty much given up on other people helping and are buckling down and doing it themselves. So who’s to blame? I’m not really in a position to say. There’s a lot of misconceptions about FEMA’s job. Not to defend them, they did botch some stuff, but they can’t just show up and "fix it" like a lot of people were expecting. The scale of this disaster is so huge no one was prepared to deal with it. It’s a sad but true reality. Here in Mississippi, people seem to realize this. They know that no one else is going to fix their situation and if they want it better, they’re going to have to do something about it. That’s what it takes. People helping people, not expecting handouts or instant results. I can truly admire everyone working so hard here. Now New Orleans, on the other hand, is another problem. I’ve learned a lot in talking to locals that you just don’t hear on the news. I didn’t know a lot about this region before hand, so this has all been very enlightening. The bad news is I can’t take the time to tell the rest of this story tonight. (ooh, cliffhanger) There’s a lot of stuff I have to get ready for tomorrow, but I’ll see if I can finish it up while en route, wherever that might be. Thanks again for all of your ongoing support.
- Matt
But on to what I really wanted to write a little about: the South. Things are different here. And that’s an understatement. For starters, EVERYONE smokes. And I do mean everyone. A Reverend just came into the shop, smoking. You go to someone’s house, they smoke. And, unlike Oregon, you can do it just about anywhere here. The whole state smells like a bar. But not an Oregon bar. The second thing is that there isn’t a "no shirt, no shoes, no service" rule. It’s completely common, even normal, to have guys everywhere - stores and all - without shirts on. And they’re a sweaty lot. Another NW rule I’m thankful for. Oh, and people are called Mr. or Miss Not sure how I feel about Mr. Matt, but it’s been my local name. Very respectful and courteous. You thank people for EVERYTHING, excuse yourself, etc. It’s nice actually having polite people around.
We had dinner two nights ago with the mother of the guy we’re working with here. Very southern. Chicken, beans, potato salad, the whole nine yards. (Note to Mom: So you know all the family jokes about your chicken? You’ve got nothing on her!) We got to talking afterwards about here, Katrina, New Orleans, and a bunch of other stuff. This area is very tight-knit. Subdivisions are named for the families who have lived there for over 100 years. All these houses and the associated heritage are gone. I think that’s what’s been the hardest on everyone.
The next topic was the disaster response, FEMA, etc. A lot of people ask me questions about how things really are going down here. As I’ve mentioned before, the response has been very limited. FEMA, Red Cross, Salvation Army, etc. are all here, but so long as "here" is a place you’ve heard of. Like Biloxi. Right across the bridge in D’Iberville, where they were hit much harder, there’s nothing. It really seems like a matter of press, which is very disappointing. Another characteristic of Southern people is their resilience. They’ve pretty much given up on other people helping and are buckling down and doing it themselves. So who’s to blame? I’m not really in a position to say. There’s a lot of misconceptions about FEMA’s job. Not to defend them, they did botch some stuff, but they can’t just show up and "fix it" like a lot of people were expecting. The scale of this disaster is so huge no one was prepared to deal with it. It’s a sad but true reality. Here in Mississippi, people seem to realize this. They know that no one else is going to fix their situation and if they want it better, they’re going to have to do something about it. That’s what it takes. People helping people, not expecting handouts or instant results. I can truly admire everyone working so hard here. Now New Orleans, on the other hand, is another problem. I’ve learned a lot in talking to locals that you just don’t hear on the news. I didn’t know a lot about this region before hand, so this has all been very enlightening. The bad news is I can’t take the time to tell the rest of this story tonight. (ooh, cliffhanger) There’s a lot of stuff I have to get ready for tomorrow, but I’ll see if I can finish it up while en route, wherever that might be. Thanks again for all of your ongoing support.
- Matt
Tuesday, September 27, 2005
More of the Same
I guess it’s been a while since I’ve posted. Can’t say much has changed. Working on rolling out services to more and more clients in the same area. We have 4 new members of our team, so we can finally begin some of the expansion we’ve been waiting on. Tomorrow the backhaul to Long Beach/Pass Christian goes in, which will bring our coverage area up to St. Louis Bay, where we stop. They’re also working on the link east to Mobile, AL. After these expansions, the only place we have to go is north! If you scroll down a couple posts, you’ll see a link to the network map, if you care. Really things are going pretty uneventfully well. Or at least I guess it’s uneventful at this point because we’ve been at it for almost 3 weeks. The guys were hooking up some additional government and medical sites today. Joe spent a lot of the day talking to Cisco trying to get the donation stuff in order. Things are looking really well - we just have to fill out some grant paperwork. Thankfully, grants are one thing OSU taught me to do well! When it’s all said and done, we could be sitting on at least $50k of switches and routers from them. Here’s hoping....
I’m trying to finalize my travel plans tomorrow. It’s going to be a little disappointing not being able to see this thing come to completion, but I think that would require at least another month down here. Just not possible. It’s really crazy how the travel industry just takes advantage of "last minute" plans. A ticket for next week? Under $100. For this week? $500. And I know the flights aren’t full. I’m going to go to the airport tomorrow and try pleading with them. I hear the "relief worker" routine does a pretty good job. Then there’s cars. Once I get the airline squared away, that’s the last part of my trip that needs planning. And this is almost IMPOSSIBLE. Apparently, if you’re under 25, no matter how responsible you may or may not be, you pay double the regular rate. NOT COOL. I’m down here giving up time and money VOLUNTEERING to help people. In order to take a 3 day little side vacation, I have to pay double everyone else. Unbelievable. I hear you can maneuver around the age restriction with some corporate accounts, so I’m going to see what can be done tomorrow. If you know of any tricks, please pass them on! Sorry, that was a little off-topic, but it was the last thing that happened today and still fresh. I’m going to have to sign off since we have a pretty early start tomorrow. Got a lot to get done. Drop me a line or something, let me know you’re all still out there.
-Matt
I’m trying to finalize my travel plans tomorrow. It’s going to be a little disappointing not being able to see this thing come to completion, but I think that would require at least another month down here. Just not possible. It’s really crazy how the travel industry just takes advantage of "last minute" plans. A ticket for next week? Under $100. For this week? $500. And I know the flights aren’t full. I’m going to go to the airport tomorrow and try pleading with them. I hear the "relief worker" routine does a pretty good job. Then there’s cars. Once I get the airline squared away, that’s the last part of my trip that needs planning. And this is almost IMPOSSIBLE. Apparently, if you’re under 25, no matter how responsible you may or may not be, you pay double the regular rate. NOT COOL. I’m down here giving up time and money VOLUNTEERING to help people. In order to take a 3 day little side vacation, I have to pay double everyone else. Unbelievable. I hear you can maneuver around the age restriction with some corporate accounts, so I’m going to see what can be done tomorrow. If you know of any tricks, please pass them on! Sorry, that was a little off-topic, but it was the last thing that happened today and still fresh. I’m going to have to sign off since we have a pretty early start tomorrow. Got a lot to get done. Drop me a line or something, let me know you’re all still out there.
-Matt
Monday, September 26, 2005
Got a Case of the Mondays?
Welcome to any new visitors who read the stories today in the Albany Democrat Herald and Corvallis Gazette Times. I really appreciate the ongoing support of everyone back home - I couldn’t be here without you all. Our situation has improved a bit since my last, rather depressing post. Three more people arrived and are currently out in the field with the rest of the team getting work done. We’re trying to pull in another 10 MB or so of bandwidth from Mobile, AL, which we need pretty badly. There’s also a pretty good chance that our 2-week overdue 18-wheeler of supplies will show up today. Granted, we think that every day, but I have a good feeling about today!
I was woken up this morning by a call from Cisco, which is OK by me. We’ve been asking some contacts there if they can supply us with the routers and switches we need to finish up our core network. Sounds like they’re really interested in helping us....let’s just hope they can convince the beancounters. Same with Trango (the company who’s donated almost all of our radios). With the additional bandwidth we hope to have, we really need to upgrade the capacity of our backhauls. Additionally, we currently have a single path through the network, which doesn’t do much for redundancy. One of our main sites for this area - the 35-story hotel/casino - has lost power for a couple hours each night. This is a major problem for us, so adding multiple paths around the network is a high priority. We really need both these vendors to come through for us to be able to finish our network core. As for me, I’m probably only looking at another week here. There’s only so much unpaid time you can take off work without hurting too much. Plus, there’s stuff back at OSU that I have to take care of. Everyone’s been really supportive, but there comes a time when you just have to get back. I’m hoping we can get the hardware and personnel here before that time so I can at least see our core become what it should. I’ll post later when I have more to say.
- Matt
I was woken up this morning by a call from Cisco, which is OK by me. We’ve been asking some contacts there if they can supply us with the routers and switches we need to finish up our core network. Sounds like they’re really interested in helping us....let’s just hope they can convince the beancounters. Same with Trango (the company who’s donated almost all of our radios). With the additional bandwidth we hope to have, we really need to upgrade the capacity of our backhauls. Additionally, we currently have a single path through the network, which doesn’t do much for redundancy. One of our main sites for this area - the 35-story hotel/casino - has lost power for a couple hours each night. This is a major problem for us, so adding multiple paths around the network is a high priority. We really need both these vendors to come through for us to be able to finish our network core. As for me, I’m probably only looking at another week here. There’s only so much unpaid time you can take off work without hurting too much. Plus, there’s stuff back at OSU that I have to take care of. Everyone’s been really supportive, but there comes a time when you just have to get back. I’m hoping we can get the hardware and personnel here before that time so I can at least see our core become what it should. I’ll post later when I have more to say.
- Matt
Sunday, September 25, 2005
Politicking
This is going to be pretty short because I need some sleep. Today hasn’t exactly been the best day. I’ve had to deal with a lot of political messes, which really shouldn’t exist down here. No matter how many times I try to tell some people that I’m just down here to help people, someone always wants to start a fight about something. There’s a couple different groups down in this area, and I’ve been working as hard as I can to meet and coordinate with each one of them. We’re all after the same thing, and through effective coordination our efforts can be worth so much more than they can alone. Unfortunately, many people down here have very political motivations. They want to see this group succeed or that technology be used. I honestly don’t care about any of that. But because I’m here working as part of one of the groups, all sorts of things get inferred on me. And because of my leadership role, I take a lot of crap. It’s just killing me. I spent pretty much all day responding to emails accusing me of this or that. Not working with so and so - when I haven’t even talked to so and so. It’s just unreal. I had to spend almost an entire day just trying to convince some incredibly angry people that the information and stories they were hearing about us are wrong. I’m at a loss for what’s going on here. For some reason people at various levels of these respective organizations keep starting stuff and picking fights. Then I have people yelling at me from all sides. KNOCK IT OFF, PEOPLE! We’re all here for the same reason. Quit being petty and let’s get back to work. Sorry for making this such a negative post, but I’m really just mad, worn out, and frustrated that so many people are working so hard to sabotage our progress for the sake of their stupid organizations and/or ideologies.
Grow up.
- Matt (currently in: a bad mood)
Grow up.
- Matt (currently in: a bad mood)
Saturday, September 24, 2005
Live From the Eye
This is gonna be a quickie, since it’s after 2 am here. Rita and I have officially met, now. She’s kinda mean. It’s been CRAZY winds and mad rain all day. We were pretty much stuck inside, except for the little breaks in the "outer rings" as they swirled around. We now know rather conclusively that our roof does not, in fact, leak, which is a plus. We wrapped the RV in a giant tarp, so it should stay pretty dry, too. It’s rather incredible out there. The rain is nothing new, but this WIND. Stuff is blowing all over the place. The giant 16’ box truck we have outside with all our stuff in it was just ROCKING away. I made Joe go turn it sideways so it was more aerodynamic. We were pretty convinced the thing was going to blow over. We also saw what I THOUGHT was lightning, except way blue. Turns out the power transformer on the telephone pole across the street decided to blow up and put on a bit of a fireworks show. That side of the street doesn’t have power now. We’re pretty much just bunkered down and riding it out. The building creaks and makes other strange noises, but has held up remarkably well, considering this is its second hurricane this month. Within the next 24 hours Rita should blow over and we can get back to work here. On a side note, there are some pictures posted now. Thanks to Kelly Wildman for putting those up for me. I have about 700 pictures total, none of which I have taken. I hope to eventually get most of them up there. Joe and I also spent the last couple of evenings building the "Part-15 Emergency Communications Team Weather Station." We’ve managed to weatherproof a cheap webcam and laptop computer, and will try to put them somewhere interesting. I have it outside now, testing the seals, but you can’t see anything in the dark. It’s a pretty cheap one. But if it’s dry tomorrow, I’m going to try to take it up to the roof of the 35-story hotel/casino we have access to. Might see some interesting stuff during the day. ‘Night, all. Stay dry for me.
- Matt (currently in: Rita)
- Matt (currently in: Rita)
Wednesday, September 21, 2005
Nothing to See Here....
Let’s see, what’s been going on. I started the day with a meeting between Intel, MCI, and Part-15. Intel and MCI are trying to deploy network services in the same area we already are, and we’re trying to figure out why. If we’re really all in this for the same reason, why are they trying so hard to muscle us out of town. Doesn’t make a lot of sense. Especially when the rules for this stuff read "first come, first serve." And the Chief of Staff of the FCC asks you to coordinate the efforts down here. It’s really annoying to have to spend half a day dealing with pushy people who claim to have no commercial interest, then talk all about their long-term commercial vision for the area. We’re just here as a band-aid to get officials back online as quickly as possible. Don’t care if they stay with us or go with them in the long run. Let’s just deal with now. Apparently these are concepts lost on some.
The guys spent the day out doing installs. We’ve provided service to a couple more city facilities in Biloxi, and will be lighting up City Hall in D’Iberville tomorrow along with a couple more relief centers. I’m trying to hold off on starting more new work until we get a bigger team here. Everyone is getting pretty tired now that we’re in week 2 of the deployment. I think a couple days of minimal work will be good for them. As for me, I spent the day doing admin stuff. Replying to a lot of emails and stuff. Had a phone call with the Mississippi Technical Alliance, which apparently is a thing. They represent all the high-tech industry in the state, and I asked them to see about getting us a couple hundred computers we really need. They’re going to see what they can do. That’s a huge need for us right now. Looking ahead, I think I’m only going to be able to be here another week or so. There’s only so long you can go without making any money, etc. Part of me would really like to stay here longer and see some of this stuff come to fruition, but I have stuff to deal with back at home too. Oh, a lot of people are asking me about Rita. We’re not changing anything. None of the locals seem very convinced it’s headed here. Either they have nothing left to lose, or they know what they’re talking about. In any event, I’m not concerned in the slightest for our safety. Everything we’re hearing here is that it’s headed straight for Texas. Think that’s about it for now. I have a couple hundred pictures I’ve compiled from various sources that just need to make their way online. I know a lot of you have asked about that, so I’ll see what can be done. If you know of a good gallery that just takes a directory and thumbnails, etc. AUTOMAGICALLY, let me know. Later, all.
- Matt (currently in: bed)
The guys spent the day out doing installs. We’ve provided service to a couple more city facilities in Biloxi, and will be lighting up City Hall in D’Iberville tomorrow along with a couple more relief centers. I’m trying to hold off on starting more new work until we get a bigger team here. Everyone is getting pretty tired now that we’re in week 2 of the deployment. I think a couple days of minimal work will be good for them. As for me, I spent the day doing admin stuff. Replying to a lot of emails and stuff. Had a phone call with the Mississippi Technical Alliance, which apparently is a thing. They represent all the high-tech industry in the state, and I asked them to see about getting us a couple hundred computers we really need. They’re going to see what they can do. That’s a huge need for us right now. Looking ahead, I think I’m only going to be able to be here another week or so. There’s only so long you can go without making any money, etc. Part of me would really like to stay here longer and see some of this stuff come to fruition, but I have stuff to deal with back at home too. Oh, a lot of people are asking me about Rita. We’re not changing anything. None of the locals seem very convinced it’s headed here. Either they have nothing left to lose, or they know what they’re talking about. In any event, I’m not concerned in the slightest for our safety. Everything we’re hearing here is that it’s headed straight for Texas. Think that’s about it for now. I have a couple hundred pictures I’ve compiled from various sources that just need to make their way online. I know a lot of you have asked about that, so I’ll see what can be done. If you know of a good gallery that just takes a directory and thumbnails, etc. AUTOMAGICALLY, let me know. Later, all.
- Matt (currently in: bed)
Monday, September 19, 2005
Random Thoughts
As I’ve been trying to catch up on my email, I remembered several things which have happened over the last week which I wanted to comment on. All sorts of miscellaneous stuff.
Site: I’ve updated the "About" section to reflect my new work here and added another news story to the "Links" page. I DO have a digital camera, though I haven’t been able to take many pictures. Others have, and I’ve gotten copies - around 600 of them. Hopefully I can sift through them and get some posted for ya’ll soon.
Water: So we can’t drink it in some places, and can in others. There are locations around the city where you can pick up free cases of bottled water. BIG bottles. What’s cool about this is where some of it comes from. The most interesting, by far is that from Miller Brewing Company. We have several cases of glass bottles (40’s, to be exact) filled with water. They all carry a blue label with the Miller logo and "For Emergency Use Only" stamped on them. They also make the CAN variety. I’m trying to get some for souvenirs.
Security: Some of you have heard me say this before. Most security is a JOKE. For those of you who don’t know, I serve each year as a security supervisor at a 4-day 24x7 event which draws 30,000+ people. This has taught me a lot, and it’s not hard for me to get places that I might not belong. The basic rule of thumb is if you act like you belong, people don’t question. I’m quite surprised to see these concepts transfer to a place with MILITARY POLICE. We made these cheesy little ID badges in the car on the way over since we thought it might help to have SOMETHING identifying us. Cell phone pictures and a Kinko’s later, we have "official" ID. I can’t begin to describe the help these suckers have been. Between them and our city contacts, I’ve been able to obtain near unrestricted access to all city buildings in Biloxi and D’Iberville, the roof of a 35-story casino/hotel which is the highest point around, access to the "Restricted Quarantine Area" (the area closed to the public because of the damage it sustained), passage on the "special lane" (reserved for police, medical, government vehicles) of the bridge which is usually WAY backed up, after hours entrance to Wal-Mart (still HATE that place, but it’s all we have), and no problems getting through any of the curfew checkpoints. No one bothers to ask much. Just pull up, say something like "doing emergency communications for the city," they see the badge, the headset I’m wearing, and the clipboard I’m carrying (a KEY piece), and wave me through. It’s gotten to the point where they recognize our van and don’t even stop us. And these are military police.
Minivans: Most of you know I hate these with a passion. I just don’t get it. If you REALLY have the need to move that many people/things, there are still other solutions to the minivan. Maybe I just hate what they stand for. I’ve vowed to never own one myself. WELL, for the last week, I’ve been driving one. We needed something to haul gear and people around, so Matthew (systems guy, gone now) rented one. I’ve pretty much been the only driver. It’s growing on me. Granted I still don’t want one, but the thing drives so well and has been so useful. Gas mileage is terrible, though, so I imagine a SUV would do just as well. Think that’s all for now. Thanks to everyone who has written, called, and supported me. I really appreciate it. Now, time for bed.
- Matt
Site: I’ve updated the "About" section to reflect my new work here and added another news story to the "Links" page. I DO have a digital camera, though I haven’t been able to take many pictures. Others have, and I’ve gotten copies - around 600 of them. Hopefully I can sift through them and get some posted for ya’ll soon.
Water: So we can’t drink it in some places, and can in others. There are locations around the city where you can pick up free cases of bottled water. BIG bottles. What’s cool about this is where some of it comes from. The most interesting, by far is that from Miller Brewing Company. We have several cases of glass bottles (40’s, to be exact) filled with water. They all carry a blue label with the Miller logo and "For Emergency Use Only" stamped on them. They also make the CAN variety. I’m trying to get some for souvenirs.
Security: Some of you have heard me say this before. Most security is a JOKE. For those of you who don’t know, I serve each year as a security supervisor at a 4-day 24x7 event which draws 30,000+ people. This has taught me a lot, and it’s not hard for me to get places that I might not belong. The basic rule of thumb is if you act like you belong, people don’t question. I’m quite surprised to see these concepts transfer to a place with MILITARY POLICE. We made these cheesy little ID badges in the car on the way over since we thought it might help to have SOMETHING identifying us. Cell phone pictures and a Kinko’s later, we have "official" ID. I can’t begin to describe the help these suckers have been. Between them and our city contacts, I’ve been able to obtain near unrestricted access to all city buildings in Biloxi and D’Iberville, the roof of a 35-story casino/hotel which is the highest point around, access to the "Restricted Quarantine Area" (the area closed to the public because of the damage it sustained), passage on the "special lane" (reserved for police, medical, government vehicles) of the bridge which is usually WAY backed up, after hours entrance to Wal-Mart (still HATE that place, but it’s all we have), and no problems getting through any of the curfew checkpoints. No one bothers to ask much. Just pull up, say something like "doing emergency communications for the city," they see the badge, the headset I’m wearing, and the clipboard I’m carrying (a KEY piece), and wave me through. It’s gotten to the point where they recognize our van and don’t even stop us. And these are military police.
Minivans: Most of you know I hate these with a passion. I just don’t get it. If you REALLY have the need to move that many people/things, there are still other solutions to the minivan. Maybe I just hate what they stand for. I’ve vowed to never own one myself. WELL, for the last week, I’ve been driving one. We needed something to haul gear and people around, so Matthew (systems guy, gone now) rented one. I’ve pretty much been the only driver. It’s growing on me. Granted I still don’t want one, but the thing drives so well and has been so useful. Gas mileage is terrible, though, so I imagine a SUV would do just as well. Think that’s all for now. Thanks to everyone who has written, called, and supported me. I really appreciate it. Now, time for bed.
- Matt
Setbacks
Guess you have to take the ups with the downs. Things are going very well in the sense that we have a TON of places which are requesting service. The word of what we are doing has gotten out and the list is getting long. Problem is, there are only 5 of us here now. There is just NO WAY we can handle the number of requests we are getting. It’s frustrating to me not to be able to immediately provide service to these people who need it so badly. The good news is that I have requested reinforcements of up to 50 people which will hopefully be here within a week. The idea is to create 8 sub-teams, each responsible for a specific city/region. Since a lot of work comes from word-of-mouth requests, these people will become familiar with their area and its specific needs. There’s just no way we can handle this work alone. Especially since I’m supposed to be "coordinating" things, and have ended up spending most all of my days out doing installs. This gives me less time to track and coordinate with other groups working in this region, which should be my primary job. There are about 6 sites I hope we can get online in the next 2 days, otherwise we’re going to look pretty bad to these people. We’re also moving. The family we were staying with needed to make some important family decisions, and it was hard for them with us there. We packed up and left this morning, and are currently staying in another RV behind our NOC. This is temporary, since 50 people can’t stay there. We’re working on getting accommodations at a Navy Seabee’s (CB’s) base nearby. Should have something worked out in a couple of days. This will enable us to have everyone in one place, making inter-team communication easier. I’m going to require a nightly briefing where each team can give a status update and we can update the project status as a whole. The idea is to be able to dynamically reassign resources to scale the teams’ size and abilities as necessary. There is a large area to cover with limited resources. Hopefully this structure allows us to do this. We’ve encountered a couple of network problems as well. Our main backhaul to the area serving us is picking up a lot of interference suddenly. Hopefully Ryan (our Network Architect) can get out there early tomorrow and take a look at it. I have to complete a network map in the near future as well. I may have some open questions to the more technical of you, so stay tuned! FINALLY, we hear there’s another hurricane headed our way. Bring it.
- Matt (tired)
- Matt (tired)
Saturday, September 17, 2005
Online!
Hey everyone. Sorry it’s taken so long to be able to post again. We’ve been without Internet until late last night, and I fell asleep at my laptop. But during my downtime, A LOT has happened around here. I’ll give a little information now, and hopefully expand later in the day. There’s a lot to do down here. We’re currently working to provide communications to four cities in the Biloxi area: Biloxi, D’Iberville, Pascagoula, and Hattiesburg. Situations vary in each location. In Biloxi, we’re helping their IT team regroup after losing their data center. We’ve established a wireless uplink (now a backup since their primary came up) and have helped them talk though a couple of issues. I hope to be able to send them a team of 3 or so just to help them rebuild. In D’Iberville, there’s nothing. The city has set up a medical and operations center which needs attention. They were able to get the cable company to run them a line, but it’s only in one building of the four building campus. So we’re going to put a very large antenna on a WAP and large tent facility which needs connectivity. Pascagoula has a network going, but no Internet. We’re hooking them up and linking in their police and fire stations. Hattiesburg just got on the list, so I don’t know what we’re doing out there yet. Probably more of the same. We’re also trying to work with other organizations in the area to not duplicate efforts. MCI is here, and they have lots of bandwidth. We’re talking through sharing. My job has turned into primarily coordination. I’ve been asked to serve now in the same capacity, just over the whole region. I’ll now be working with each of the individual Team Chiefs to coordinate efforts and get them resources. We have a lot of network down here, and if we play it right, we can easily cover this whole Gulf Bay area. I’ll have to update the "About" page when I get a chance to reflect this. Sorry this is so rushed, and I do have more to say. Now that I’m back online it will take me a while to dump what I’ve got, so please be patient. Thanks all for your continued support. I’ve gotta go hook up a tent city and medical center now. Later.
- Matt (currently in: D’Iberville, MS)
- Matt (currently in: D’Iberville, MS)
Sunday, September 11, 2005
Long Day
That pretty much sums it up. I left San Antonio at 7 AM this morning with Claudia (P15 Project Coordinator) and Kelly team members Matthew (I go by Matt to avoid confusion) and Leon for Biloxi, Mississippi. The drive was about 600 miles, during which time I saw most of Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi - we’re basically on the Alabama border. I was first impressed with how non-desert-like Texas really is. Most of what I saw looked very similar to driving down I-5 in Oregon if you would just drop some mountains on the horizon. Instead of, you know, nothing.
After crossing over into Louisiana, the damage became almost immediately apparent. Billboards were thrashed to pieces, and in some cases the giant metal pipes which hold them up SNAPPED (not bent, snapped). Road signs were pretty much non-existent, and there were quite a few abandoned (destroyed) cars on the side of the road. Buildings didn’t do so well either. We saw a lot of roofs missing, trees cutting houses in half, some collapsed structures. Your basic hurricane damage. It looks pretty much exactly like they show on TV. I’m sorry that I don’t have any pictures, but the other thing I learned is that you drive FAST down here. I just didn’t have time to snap anything. The other huge thing was the tree damage. These suckers were just snapped in half. We passed HUNDREDS of wood chipper trucks in long caravans. My guess is they were all busy clearing the roads, which weren’t actually that bad. The only other thing I’m going to say about the drive is that technology abounded. We had the four of us along with Claudia and my gear packed into a Toyota Camry. It was tight. We each had our cell phones going at all times. Matthew and I had our headsets on. Leon hooked up his GPS receiver to my laptop so we could map our location. We also had a pretty good power inverter keeping our gear juiced up.
I’m most proud of how my little cell phone did hooked up with the data cable to my laptop. While traveling 80 MPH down a highway in partially ravaged territory, I was able to connect to the Sprint network at 230 kbps. Not half bad in my book. This allowed me to keep up on email and check stuff out on Google Maps. About halfway through Louisiana, we decided we needed badges in case we came into contact with any law enforcement personnel. So Matthew downloaded the P15 Disaster Relief Division logo and Leon took all our pictures with his cell phone. He Bluetooth-ed them over to my laptop where I pasted them into pre-made badges. We found the LAST Kinko’s in Louisiana on Google Maps, then looked it up on the GPS map. All while cruising down the highway. Got there 30 minutes before closing, and left with spiffy badges. Neat.
So what’s going on here? Well, maybe I should start with a little more information on what happened at Kelly, or at least the way I see it. In my mind, Kelly was a media prize. Everyone wanted a piece of it. Companies who wanted to be "part of" the relief effort but didn’t have anything relevant to offer the damaged areas wanted the PR from a site like Kelly. You don’t have to go anywhere dangerous, it’s dry and stable, and there’s plenty of power and air conditioning. But they "helped." Just about every large tech company showed up on their doorstep, and while were were busy planning and getting approval, some muscled their way in and did the job. It’s unfortunate that it went down that way, but I think in the end it’s probably better. Those people (it ended up being down to 6,000 or so) got connected. And everyone here is far more suited professionally to working out here in the "wild" than at that installation. Like I mentioned yesterday, we all really wanted to go here, and Kelly was seen as a starting point.
Now we’ve just fast-forwarded to being here. And now that we ARE here.....we don’t have a lot of information at this point. We got here at 7:30 PM, and there’s an 8:00 curfew to help curb looting. We met up with Joe who runs a local WISP (Wireless Internet Service Provider - you guys better learn that one). He’s been trying to tackle connectivity on his own, and, needless to say, he’s overwhelmed. Two members of our team aren’t here yet. They were in a bucket truck which can’t go faster than 50 MPH, so they won’t arrive until tomorrow. Also, if you’ve read the "About" section, you heard me reference the "Cowboy Team" who’s been out here since the beginning getting stuff done. As of today, they had TWO camps left in Louisiana to hookup, then they’re headed down here to join us. 20-odd of them. So we’ll have a pretty large and solid team. This area.....is a mess. If you look on a map, it’s pretty far south, right near the Gulf. So it just got THRASHED by the storm. I can’t really describe the damage at this time because it was dark, but I’ll let you know (hopefully with pictures) tomorrow. Many people are displaced, and living at either official shelters, schools, churches, or really anywhere else they can get. Cell service is spotty, at best. Some people have power/phone, others don’t. There’s no cable, and not many have Internet. The guy we met up with here has his house under water. It’s just not cool.
So AT THIS TIME, the first priority is to ensure that the local officials have all the connectivity they need. We want to make sure we’re doing everything we can to help them get a handle on the situation. After that, just like before, we’re going to roll networks out to shelters, schools, churches - pretty much any place that’s housing people. We’re going to try to get computers in there too, maybe some phones, depending. In a lot of ways it’s the same plan as at Kelly, just over a MUCH LARGER geographic area. But I’ll know more tomorrow.
My role in this project? Josh (the Team Chief from Kelly) couldn’t make it out here, and I’ve sort of assumed his role. I spoke with Claudia about it this evening, and she asked me to continue serving in this way. I’m not really hot on the "Team Chief" title. I really see it more as "Site Architect" or something like that. Chief Architect maybe. I guess the way I look at it is these people are experts in each of their respective fields. I know a little bit about everything, and I have the organizational abilities. I’m going to have key people lead each area, but I’m not going to be "ordering" anyone. I think we’ve made a few wrong turns in the past doing things this way. I’m going to collect the coordinates tomorrow morning of all the towers we have access to and what sites need immediate coverage and get them on a map. We’ll pay a visit to each one and see what’s up. Once I have a working knowledge of the area, I’ll get the network guy together and we’ll study the maps and figure out how to get things done. I see my job really being to find out what each of these sites need, and direct our teams in such a way as to meet their needs. A lot of what’s been hurting P15’s efforts thus far has been a very hierarchal way of thinking about things. We DO need management for a team this size working in such a sensitive area, but I think we’ve been over-managed. There has ALSO been a SEVERE lack of information from the management realm to those actually doing the work. In some cases it feels like they’ve actually been straight up withholding. That’s not ok in my book, and I plan to run things a little differently. We have a lot of issues to address over the next two or so days before I can report that I know what’s going on. I’m excited to get started though. In talking about it with the guys here, we’re pretty excited to hit this thing full speed. I’ll be sure to let ya’ll know how things unfold over the next couple of days.
Oh, I almost forgot: our accommodations. We had a connection here to a family which is loaning us their house. It’s pretty big - something like 5 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. They fared pretty well in the storm. A tree crashed through the roof in one room only, but the rest of the house is fine. They have power, water (though it’s not safe to drink it), air conditioning, food, phone, and Internet (DSL). They’ve been incredibly kind to us offering pretty much everything they have. We’re going to have someone cooking and they have laundry facilities (though I don’t know where 20 more people are going to go). Right now, Matthew, Leon, and I are out in a RV on their front lawn. Basically a brand new one. I took the loft above the cab, and have PLENTY of room to spread all my stuff out. It’s like a little office. We have refrigeration, a bathroom, stove, microwave, power, and air conditioning. We’re running on the generator right now, but they hope to have the power fixed in the morning. It’s a pretty sweet setup - I’ll take pictures if I have the time. I should go to sleep now. It’s just after 1 AM local time, and I need to adjust. Hopefully I’ll have more information tomorrow.
- Matt (currently in: Biloxi, MI)
After crossing over into Louisiana, the damage became almost immediately apparent. Billboards were thrashed to pieces, and in some cases the giant metal pipes which hold them up SNAPPED (not bent, snapped). Road signs were pretty much non-existent, and there were quite a few abandoned (destroyed) cars on the side of the road. Buildings didn’t do so well either. We saw a lot of roofs missing, trees cutting houses in half, some collapsed structures. Your basic hurricane damage. It looks pretty much exactly like they show on TV. I’m sorry that I don’t have any pictures, but the other thing I learned is that you drive FAST down here. I just didn’t have time to snap anything. The other huge thing was the tree damage. These suckers were just snapped in half. We passed HUNDREDS of wood chipper trucks in long caravans. My guess is they were all busy clearing the roads, which weren’t actually that bad. The only other thing I’m going to say about the drive is that technology abounded. We had the four of us along with Claudia and my gear packed into a Toyota Camry. It was tight. We each had our cell phones going at all times. Matthew and I had our headsets on. Leon hooked up his GPS receiver to my laptop so we could map our location. We also had a pretty good power inverter keeping our gear juiced up.
I’m most proud of how my little cell phone did hooked up with the data cable to my laptop. While traveling 80 MPH down a highway in partially ravaged territory, I was able to connect to the Sprint network at 230 kbps. Not half bad in my book. This allowed me to keep up on email and check stuff out on Google Maps. About halfway through Louisiana, we decided we needed badges in case we came into contact with any law enforcement personnel. So Matthew downloaded the P15 Disaster Relief Division logo and Leon took all our pictures with his cell phone. He Bluetooth-ed them over to my laptop where I pasted them into pre-made badges. We found the LAST Kinko’s in Louisiana on Google Maps, then looked it up on the GPS map. All while cruising down the highway. Got there 30 minutes before closing, and left with spiffy badges. Neat.
So what’s going on here? Well, maybe I should start with a little more information on what happened at Kelly, or at least the way I see it. In my mind, Kelly was a media prize. Everyone wanted a piece of it. Companies who wanted to be "part of" the relief effort but didn’t have anything relevant to offer the damaged areas wanted the PR from a site like Kelly. You don’t have to go anywhere dangerous, it’s dry and stable, and there’s plenty of power and air conditioning. But they "helped." Just about every large tech company showed up on their doorstep, and while were were busy planning and getting approval, some muscled their way in and did the job. It’s unfortunate that it went down that way, but I think in the end it’s probably better. Those people (it ended up being down to 6,000 or so) got connected. And everyone here is far more suited professionally to working out here in the "wild" than at that installation. Like I mentioned yesterday, we all really wanted to go here, and Kelly was seen as a starting point.
Now we’ve just fast-forwarded to being here. And now that we ARE here.....we don’t have a lot of information at this point. We got here at 7:30 PM, and there’s an 8:00 curfew to help curb looting. We met up with Joe who runs a local WISP (Wireless Internet Service Provider - you guys better learn that one). He’s been trying to tackle connectivity on his own, and, needless to say, he’s overwhelmed. Two members of our team aren’t here yet. They were in a bucket truck which can’t go faster than 50 MPH, so they won’t arrive until tomorrow. Also, if you’ve read the "About" section, you heard me reference the "Cowboy Team" who’s been out here since the beginning getting stuff done. As of today, they had TWO camps left in Louisiana to hookup, then they’re headed down here to join us. 20-odd of them. So we’ll have a pretty large and solid team. This area.....is a mess. If you look on a map, it’s pretty far south, right near the Gulf. So it just got THRASHED by the storm. I can’t really describe the damage at this time because it was dark, but I’ll let you know (hopefully with pictures) tomorrow. Many people are displaced, and living at either official shelters, schools, churches, or really anywhere else they can get. Cell service is spotty, at best. Some people have power/phone, others don’t. There’s no cable, and not many have Internet. The guy we met up with here has his house under water. It’s just not cool.
So AT THIS TIME, the first priority is to ensure that the local officials have all the connectivity they need. We want to make sure we’re doing everything we can to help them get a handle on the situation. After that, just like before, we’re going to roll networks out to shelters, schools, churches - pretty much any place that’s housing people. We’re going to try to get computers in there too, maybe some phones, depending. In a lot of ways it’s the same plan as at Kelly, just over a MUCH LARGER geographic area. But I’ll know more tomorrow.
My role in this project? Josh (the Team Chief from Kelly) couldn’t make it out here, and I’ve sort of assumed his role. I spoke with Claudia about it this evening, and she asked me to continue serving in this way. I’m not really hot on the "Team Chief" title. I really see it more as "Site Architect" or something like that. Chief Architect maybe. I guess the way I look at it is these people are experts in each of their respective fields. I know a little bit about everything, and I have the organizational abilities. I’m going to have key people lead each area, but I’m not going to be "ordering" anyone. I think we’ve made a few wrong turns in the past doing things this way. I’m going to collect the coordinates tomorrow morning of all the towers we have access to and what sites need immediate coverage and get them on a map. We’ll pay a visit to each one and see what’s up. Once I have a working knowledge of the area, I’ll get the network guy together and we’ll study the maps and figure out how to get things done. I see my job really being to find out what each of these sites need, and direct our teams in such a way as to meet their needs. A lot of what’s been hurting P15’s efforts thus far has been a very hierarchal way of thinking about things. We DO need management for a team this size working in such a sensitive area, but I think we’ve been over-managed. There has ALSO been a SEVERE lack of information from the management realm to those actually doing the work. In some cases it feels like they’ve actually been straight up withholding. That’s not ok in my book, and I plan to run things a little differently. We have a lot of issues to address over the next two or so days before I can report that I know what’s going on. I’m excited to get started though. In talking about it with the guys here, we’re pretty excited to hit this thing full speed. I’ll be sure to let ya’ll know how things unfold over the next couple of days.
Oh, I almost forgot: our accommodations. We had a connection here to a family which is loaning us their house. It’s pretty big - something like 5 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. They fared pretty well in the storm. A tree crashed through the roof in one room only, but the rest of the house is fine. They have power, water (though it’s not safe to drink it), air conditioning, food, phone, and Internet (DSL). They’ve been incredibly kind to us offering pretty much everything they have. We’re going to have someone cooking and they have laundry facilities (though I don’t know where 20 more people are going to go). Right now, Matthew, Leon, and I are out in a RV on their front lawn. Basically a brand new one. I took the loft above the cab, and have PLENTY of room to spread all my stuff out. It’s like a little office. We have refrigeration, a bathroom, stove, microwave, power, and air conditioning. We’re running on the generator right now, but they hope to have the power fixed in the morning. It’s a pretty sweet setup - I’ll take pictures if I have the time. I should go to sleep now. It’s just after 1 AM local time, and I need to adjust. Hopefully I’ll have more information tomorrow.
- Matt (currently in: Biloxi, MI)
Saturday, September 10, 2005
Changes
I’ve been on the ground in San Antonio for 6 hours now, and things have changed dramatically. Without going into painstaking detail, things are pretty much done here. And, no, I’m not that good. Between people fleeing the shelter, red tape, and other local involvement, Kelly is pretty much taken care of. I’m a little disappointed because I was really looking forward to this particular project, but this also opens a whole new set of doors. Just to make sure everyone is clear WE ARE NOT DONE. Even though Kelly is no longer at the top of our list, we are all re-deploying tomorrow morning for the "Ground-Zero" area. We’ll be heading to Mississippi, some place named Lyman. Map says it’s near the Alabama border. Things have been going VERY WELL for the people already there, and they are totally overwhelmed by the amount of work to do. So we will NOT have the same problem there that we did at Kelly. The people in this area are people who were not evacuated, but have still lost everything. There are whole cities and towns of people with destroyed homes and businesses, also with no way to communicate to their loved ones. We’re essentially doing the SAME JOB we were tasked before. The difference is that we will be doing many more, but smaller, installations where people are directly. The honest truth is this is what most of the guys were hoping to be doing in the first place. Kelly was a big, organized event with a lot of publicity, which contributed to the problem. EVERYONE wanted a piece of the action, and red tape and politics prevailed. Out in the areas where people are hurting, wallowing in the devastation, there aren’t these problems. There’s no red tape, no resistance.
This really is where all our hearts are, and we see it as a "win" to be able to go there directly. Speaking of the team.....these guys are something else! Right now we have an entire floor of a dorm at a Catholic university. Think we’re in a girl’s dorm. There’s pretty much no one in this building, so we were given the top floor. Whole room to myself - much nicer than the one I had at OSU. Bathroom and everything. The guys are still working hard on the equipment. A bunch of wireless gear was shipped here - several thousand dollars of donated long-range access points and bridges. Everyone pretty much seems to have "expert" status on this stuff. They’re configuring and testing everything now. Doing stuff like trying to see how many dorm rooms the signal can penetrate. (quite a few - they’re rated for several miles) They’re all networking/VoIP people. I seem to be the only architect/systems guy, so it will be interesting to see how I fit into the new team. I was looking forward to my original position as Systems Team Leader, but whatever job I end up with, I’ll do my best at. Chances are we’ll all be doing a little everything.
Tomorrow morning I’m leaving San Antonio with the Project Coordinator. Not Josh, the guy in charge of Kelly, but Claudia, the Project Coordinator for all of P15’s stuff. She asked me to accompany her to the new site before the team leaves so we can begin to assess the situation and make plans. The idea is to have some sort of plan in place before everyone shows up so they can get right to work. We’ll be driving about 600 miles right through the middle of the devastated areas, so I should be able to get some pretty interesting pictures. Oh, on a total side note, Texas is NOTHING like I imagined. I pictured a rather barren desert-like place, flat with lots of oil wells. Flying in I thought we made a wrong turn. Flat it is, but there are trees everywhere. It’s really quite green. It’s around 90 outside, with CRAZY humidity. Thunderstorms abound. Well, even though my clock says it’s only 8:40, it’s 10:40 here. I should start setting up camp if we’re going to be getting up at 6 AM. Want to talk to the guys a little more and try to figure out how we’re going to tackle this new problem. I’ll be sure to get some updates out either as we’re on the road or once we arrive. Thanks for your continued support. I hope I explained the change in plans well enough, but if any of you still have questions, feel free to contact me.
- Matt (currently in: San Antonio, TX)
This really is where all our hearts are, and we see it as a "win" to be able to go there directly. Speaking of the team.....these guys are something else! Right now we have an entire floor of a dorm at a Catholic university. Think we’re in a girl’s dorm. There’s pretty much no one in this building, so we were given the top floor. Whole room to myself - much nicer than the one I had at OSU. Bathroom and everything. The guys are still working hard on the equipment. A bunch of wireless gear was shipped here - several thousand dollars of donated long-range access points and bridges. Everyone pretty much seems to have "expert" status on this stuff. They’re configuring and testing everything now. Doing stuff like trying to see how many dorm rooms the signal can penetrate. (quite a few - they’re rated for several miles) They’re all networking/VoIP people. I seem to be the only architect/systems guy, so it will be interesting to see how I fit into the new team. I was looking forward to my original position as Systems Team Leader, but whatever job I end up with, I’ll do my best at. Chances are we’ll all be doing a little everything.
Tomorrow morning I’m leaving San Antonio with the Project Coordinator. Not Josh, the guy in charge of Kelly, but Claudia, the Project Coordinator for all of P15’s stuff. She asked me to accompany her to the new site before the team leaves so we can begin to assess the situation and make plans. The idea is to have some sort of plan in place before everyone shows up so they can get right to work. We’ll be driving about 600 miles right through the middle of the devastated areas, so I should be able to get some pretty interesting pictures. Oh, on a total side note, Texas is NOTHING like I imagined. I pictured a rather barren desert-like place, flat with lots of oil wells. Flying in I thought we made a wrong turn. Flat it is, but there are trees everywhere. It’s really quite green. It’s around 90 outside, with CRAZY humidity. Thunderstorms abound. Well, even though my clock says it’s only 8:40, it’s 10:40 here. I should start setting up camp if we’re going to be getting up at 6 AM. Want to talk to the guys a little more and try to figure out how we’re going to tackle this new problem. I’ll be sure to get some updates out either as we’re on the road or once we arrive. Thanks for your continued support. I hope I explained the change in plans well enough, but if any of you still have questions, feel free to contact me.
- Matt (currently in: San Antonio, TX)
Packing Up
Well, it’s almost time to go for me. Plane leaves at 11:17 in the morning, putting me in San Antonio at about 6:30 PM. Josh, the Kelly Team Chief called me tonight, and apparently there were some miscommunications. There are currently 10 or so people down there, primarily of the Infrastructure Team. The problem is red tape won’t let them on-site. No one has seen the inside of Kelly AFB yet. The local Red Cross knows what’s up and really wants the help, but they can’t let us in until national Red Cross leader people rubber stamp the form. So everyone is waiting outside. It’s absolutely absurd that for the support we have (FCC, FEMA, ARC, Intel, Cisco), the EXPERTS on-site, the TRUCKS of equipment, that the only thing holding us back is someone’s signature. This is a DISASTER, people. You have to act FAST. It kills me to know that there are 25,000 people bunkered up inside Kelly with ABSOLUTELY NO communication to the outside world. We’re there, ready to provide that crucial link, but can’t. That’s just wrong. So it could end up being early next week when we get physical access to Kelly. Which means I could have stayed home a little longer. Oh well. There’s got to be some reason I’m going now, and I’m determined to make myself useful in whatever capacity I can until they’re ready for Systems.
Other news-o-the-day. The official press release came out of OSU today. I’m new to this whole press/publicity thing, but think I sound a bit larger than life. I should probably also clarify that, contrary to what the article says, I am NOT leading the entire operation down at Kelly. That is Josh. He’s our Team Chief and pretty much the man. What I AM leading is the Systems Team, which will be responsible for all the computer-related aspects of the deployment. So far I’ve been contacted by two other media outlets: the Gazette-Times newspaper in Corvallis and KPAM radio in Portland. KPAM caught me coming off a nap to cure a splitting headache, so hopefully I made sense. Let me know if any of you hear that. The last bit of news I have today is a follow-up on the job I wrote about yesterday. I was informed today that, due to "Equal Opportunity Employment" rules, they will not be able to interview me over the phone, while requiring everyone else to be in person. But who’s getting denied the "equal opportunity?" I guess that in the event they find none of the current applicants acceptable, I’ll be getting a call. Here’s hoping! I’m going to head off to bed now, a little earlier than usual. I’ve been running at full speed getting ready for this trip, and my body is starting to complain. This is its last night to rest though, so I’m going to treat it. A big THANK YOU to those of you who have donated stuff to me so far. My little button up there has brought in $110 so far, which is amazing for the 3 days this has been up. My friends Ian and Mike have also hooked me up with some gear I needed. Thanks, guys. It’s great to know that so many of you are supporting me in this. My next post will be from San Antonio!
- Matt (currently in: Portland, OR)
Other news-o-the-day. The official press release came out of OSU today. I’m new to this whole press/publicity thing, but think I sound a bit larger than life. I should probably also clarify that, contrary to what the article says, I am NOT leading the entire operation down at Kelly. That is Josh. He’s our Team Chief and pretty much the man. What I AM leading is the Systems Team, which will be responsible for all the computer-related aspects of the deployment. So far I’ve been contacted by two other media outlets: the Gazette-Times newspaper in Corvallis and KPAM radio in Portland. KPAM caught me coming off a nap to cure a splitting headache, so hopefully I made sense. Let me know if any of you hear that. The last bit of news I have today is a follow-up on the job I wrote about yesterday. I was informed today that, due to "Equal Opportunity Employment" rules, they will not be able to interview me over the phone, while requiring everyone else to be in person. But who’s getting denied the "equal opportunity?" I guess that in the event they find none of the current applicants acceptable, I’ll be getting a call. Here’s hoping! I’m going to head off to bed now, a little earlier than usual. I’ve been running at full speed getting ready for this trip, and my body is starting to complain. This is its last night to rest though, so I’m going to treat it. A big THANK YOU to those of you who have donated stuff to me so far. My little button up there has brought in $110 so far, which is amazing for the 3 days this has been up. My friends Ian and Mike have also hooked me up with some gear I needed. Thanks, guys. It’s great to know that so many of you are supporting me in this. My next post will be from San Antonio!
- Matt (currently in: Portland, OR)
Friday, September 09, 2005
WOW
That pretty much sums up today. I‘ll try to retell events as concisely as possible.
This morning I received the official request that I make my way to Kelly AFB. The initial conversation I had with Sabrina at P15 was regarding the Chief of Supply position, however, I have the ability to pretty much pick up and go anywhere, something a lot of more established people can’t do. I thought it best to use this particular asset to the fullest, and chose instead to perform pretty much the same job, just localized to Kelly AFB.
I then spent the afternoon meeting with people. I wanted to make sure everything was in place at OSU before I just took off for an undetermined period of time. Everyone was very supportive and assured me I have nothing to worry about. My last stop was a meeting with an Associate Dean in the College of Engineering at OSU, my academic home. He asked their Director of Marketing & Communications to be there as well, and I pretty much told them the story. I just wanted to know my home was both aware of what I was doing and behind me. Wasn’t quite ready for what came next.
By the time I had walked from that meeting back to my office (other side of campus), I had three messages. The first was a call from the College offering to pay for my airfare. This came as a HUGE relief, since I have very little money and wasn’t having much luck at talking airlines into giving me a ticket. Clearing this final critical hurdle pretty much cemented my position at Kelly.
Next was a request to contact the team down there. I spoke with the project director for this site, and was asked to fulfill my supply job as well as serve as the team leader for the Systems Team. This team of 4-7 systems engineers will be responsible for the computing component of our communications system. I’m both honored and humbled to be asked to serve in this way, and I look forward to the challenges it will bring.
Also in talking to them, I was impressed with how things are coming together. The Network and VoIP teams down there are working, and should have something going over the weekend. Apparently Cisco came through in a big way with switches, routers, VoIP handsets, the works. The GOOD STUFF too. Hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of it. Thanks hardly seems fitting. These guys rock.
The last call was from a company I have a job application on file with requesting an interview for next week. Doh! Hopefully they’ll take a phone interview from Kelly, and hopefully I have some time to prepare. It’s a pretty sweet position!
The last call of the day was from the Gazette-Times, the local newspaper in the Corvallis region. Engineering passed on my story to them, and now they’re interested in following it as well. I’ll be sure to post any stories under the "links" section.
So now it’s after 2 AM, and I’m tired. I’ve been staying up past 3 all week working out details of this project, and now can’t seem to sleep before then. Hopefully tomorrow night I can get some additional rest so I don’t show up at Kelly exhausted. If not, well, we’ll just roll with it. Thanks everyone. ‘Night.
- Matt (currently in: Portland, OR)
P.S. God bless whoever at Google decided to add a "spell check a web form" feature of the Google Toolbar. Who knows if you’d be able to read this without it!
Thursday, September 08, 2005
Hello World!
Welcome! I plan on keeping all the details of my Katrina Relief deployment here so all my friends, family, and total strangers can have a better idea of what’s going on down there. Like the Interdictor, just not quite as cool. Sorry. It looks like my first stop will be the Red Cross camp at Kelly Air Force Base in San Antonio, TX where 20,000-odd refugees are currently stashed. The mission is to establish Internet connectivity, VoIP telephone service, and computing stations for the refugees to contact loved ones, file paperwork, and basically try to get their lives back together. You can read more about me and the mission under the "About" section above. This is all happening so quickly that I haven’t had time to complete the site quite yet, so check back later. Thanks in advance for your support!
- Matt (currently in: Corvallis, OR)
- Matt (currently in: Corvallis, OR)
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