Daniel, Sarah, Caroline, Jamie and I went to Turner Field last night to see the Braves take on the Marlins. It was Daniel's first baseball game (the girls' second). We arrived about an hour before the first pitch - time enough to enjoy the fun of the ballpark. The big hit (so to speak) was Tooner Field, the Cartoon Network-themed play area for kids. There, something wonderful, and hysterical, happened.

Take a look at this(Click here)

(It is big, but worth it.)

I'm a proud Daddy whose sides still hurt from laughing!

HealthDay
Read this article. Juan Gershanik is the last guy on earth to blow his own horn, but clearly he and his colleagues are among the many unsung heroes of Katrina. Take a look at this photo: - could be a Pulitzer winner if you knew the back story.

Wow.

NOLA.com: Times-Picayune Updates - Click to read about the huge potential problem with the pump system.

Ugh. The levee breaks were the news and the root cause of the flooding, but it is important to understand that the system was designed for flooding. For this purpose, the city of New Orleans is surrounded by massive pumping stations which are there to get rid of floodwater.

It is critical to have stronger levees, but if the pumps are not (1) working properly and (2) shielded from water damage they will not be able to handle even simple things like heavy rainfall, something that is not only predictable but happens almost every day in the next couple of months.

Come on.

This house actually floated off its foundation and landed on the owner's car. Remember, all of this happened 8 months ago - in a major US city (and it still is in this condition!)
Lower Ninth Ward pics - these were homes, mostly privately owned. All gone now.

 

TechCrunch � AllOfMP3 Launches allTunes

My favorite legal MP3 store - I'm pretty sure it is legal, anyway. If you can buy a pair of Levis in Atlanta for $35 but can get the same pair in Moscow for $3.50 after the exchange rate, is it ethical to do so? What if your travel costs were free? That's pretty much the premise of this Russian-based music store. The prices they charge (about $0.10 per song, depending upon the compression you choose) are based upon the prices in Russia, where they operate as a music reseller. They've been challenged in Russian court by the RIAA and "won" by virtue of the case being thrown out by the courts.

Anyway, the new tool, alltunes.com, is most likely an attempt to address the pitfalls of the browser-based allofmp3.com storefront, namely the kludginess of downloading the songs you purchase. Their previously launched AllofMP3.com Explorer works pretty well, but it does not bring them into iTunes' league in re: customer experience.

If you have yet to join the age of digital music, know that when you do you'll have a very good way to fill up your iPod without draining your bank account.

One final tip - your credit card bank will likely deny your initial attempt to pay this retailer. They assume it is fraud until you clear it in advance with them.

New Orleans R&B star begins posthumous mayoral bid - Yahoo! News

The cynics are moving into New Orleans. Well, they've probably been there are for a while.

I returned to New Orleans for a brief visit two weeks ago. The company conference I attended was downtown and mostly contained within the hotel or the nearby sections of the French Quarter. From there, you could almost think the city was fine.

Alex showed us the face behind the Mardi Gras masque, however. He took me and two work colleagues for a 2 1/2 hour tour of the city which left us all speechless after about 15 minutes. Less than 5 blocks from the French Quarter we took pictures next to a house that had floated off its foundation and settled on the owner's car. The house is still full of furniture and clothing, all befouled by the floodwaters. This was the less-damaged part of town.

A short drive later and we were in the most damaged part of town - the lower Ninth Ward. Somehow even the name of this section of New Orleans evokes images of tenements and squatter shacks to those of us outside the city. The reality is far more depressing. This was a low-income neighborhood of single-family homes, most of which were owned by their residents. This was the working poor - not those on public assistance. Not the destitute that we all like to pretend does not exist in this country. These were the folks who were getting by pretty well. (A shopkeeper in the French Market had earlier described how a person could get by pretty well in New Orleans on a couple of thousand dollars a month in income - unlike most major cities).

This neighborhood is gone. Not damaged, not empty. Gone. There are piles of rubble everywhere, much of which looks a little like houses. Close to the levee break there is little but the foundations upon which houses once sat. Think of a war-ravaged city that was then hit by a tactical nuclear weapon and you'll start to get the picture.

From this happy place, we went through into St. Bernard Parish where we saw miles & miles of ugly brown lines across the sides of empty houses (the high water mark). We peered inside of some of these homes, admiring the patterns of mold covering walls and ceilings. In most cases, couches and chairs seem arranged in the least appealing and functional manner possible - but then you realize that the layout was done by tidal effects within the home itself over a period of weeks.

The tour took us back into Orleans via Lake Terrace, Lake Vista (not that bad) and near Lakeview.

The good news is that work is being done, some people are back (there were FEMA trailers everywhere), and the overall attitude could have been much, much worse.

We took a bunch of pictures, so when I get copies, I will post them for posterity. Thanks again, Alex, for the tour and for opening our eyes.

Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP - United States - Trademarks on the Internet � Fair Play or Fair Game? (16/03/2006) from Mondaq

Here's a change of pace for you. This article presents a pretty good summary of the challenges of trademark law in the Internet age. Weigh in with your opinion.

Grim find shows normalcy still eludes New Orleans - Yahoo! News

(Click on title above to see full article).

"Katrina Fatigue" may be widespread, but the bottom line is that there are 400 people still missing more than 7 months after the tragedy. This is America still, right? Home of CSI and Murder, She Wrote and Bones? We can figure out what the driver of a stolen taxi was eating for breakfast on the basis of a dislodged pebble from his tire tread, but we can't find bodies in a demolished city area? Here's a hint: look under the rubble of the places where the people LIVED.

I'm coming across as a bit bitter today. Not sure why.

Maureen told me the other day that mail service to their home is "every couple of days," restaurants are open only occasionally with very limited hours, grocery stores are crowded (since many are still not open) - in short most of what we take for granted in this country is simply not happening in New Orleans. Again, is this still America?

NOLA.com: Times-Picayune Updates:
Insurance costs for Louisiana residents and farmers will increase by 50% but will cover substantially less (things that actually cause damage and the need for insurance, for example). Hurricane damage? Not covered. Hail? Nope.

I like to look on the bright side of things. Here's my attempt for this one - since the local economies have been devastated by the aftereffects of Rita and Katrina, people probably could not have afforded the rates at the original levels, so they aren't actually any worse off.

My favorite quote:

"'The only way we survived those events was reinsurance,' VanDreumel said. 'The only reason we're doing this is the cost of reinsurance.' "

In other words - we had to pay out a ton of money for last year's claims. Now we have to get it back from these horrible people to whom we paid it.

Argh.

AOL video service to debut with Intel, Kraft ads - Yahoo! News

Former Nexchangers continue to be ahead of the curve in all things Internet. Joe Michaels was recently promoted to Director, Business Development for MSN. He does all of the MSN entertainment deals including video and other streaming content. Now AOL wants to catch up a bit. Joe, your market value is skyrocketing by the minute! Way to go, bro! "You're da best!"

NPR : Resistance Grows to Arab Firm's Control of Ports

This article (and voice piece) also describes how one of these ports is in New Orleans.

Tough question - money is money, and the city needs it. But is money money?

Somehow this post turned out kind of trite, but I do think there is a point to ponder here.

NPR : U.S. Gold Medalist Donates Award to Darfur Refugees

This was very cool. I'm pretty jaded about the activism of celebrities (for example, the pet rescue squads led by celebs in New Orleans). This usually smacks of self-righteousness and public relations and flies in the face of multi-million dollar divorce settlements, sex-party yachting, and mansion-swapping that will often precede or follow such actions.

This guy managed to be incredibly genuine. In part, perhaps, because he is not a celebrity. In part because of his frank assessment of the relative importance of "people sliding around in a circle on ice wearing tights" vs. world hunger. Perhaps more than that because prior to his winning the gold, he was not even close to being a celebrity. And because he really could have used the money.

I look forward to seeing what happens to this guy. Does he become a celebrity himself, appearing on Wheaties boxes, guest roles on Real World-Road Rules Challenge IV, and endorsements? Nothing wrong with that but what kind of person will he become?

Something to Ponder.

In Small Town, 'Grease' Ignites a Culture War - New York Times

Who gets to decide what is appropriate? People just don't seem to be able to think ahead, ever. We agree to the suspension of civil liberties and to censorship with the idea that it's the other guy's speech that will be limited or that we will be the censors.

We think "why would the government want to tap my phone? I'm not a terrorist?" and allow them to move forward.

But we live in an evolving society in which there is heterogeny of viewpoints, moral philosophies, political leanings, or ethnicity. What happens when the censors/speech restrictors/wiretappers don't share our viewpoint? Would the conservatives in our country be so comfortable with wiretapping (sans warrant) if Al Gore was the executive running the program?

I can just see a small town in the midwest having a population shift towards naturalized middle easterners and choosing to ban a play about King Arthur because of the way the crusaders ravaged the cities of the Ottomans that they went through.

Welcome to the Best of New Orleans! Cover Story 10 20 03

This article (click the title above) is worth reading again now that the storm waters have receded. How many of the folks on this list have left the city? How many of those since Katrina? I know that Scott Dawson is gone. He was the General Manager of the InterContinental New Orleans. Scott was a good GM, but I heard through the grapevine that managing a hotel full of FEMA-paid guests was markedly different than managing a hotel full of upper-upscale clientele. It took its toll on the staff and, apparently, on Mr. Dawson as well.

Of course the "multi-talented" leader profiled in this article who has decidedly NOT left is our very good friend, the President of the Power Courses. Thanks for staying around, Alex.

Technology stability - An Unattainable Goal?

Have you ever had to reboot your toaster? In the world of old-school electronics and gadgetry, the world is a binary equation - the thing either works or it doesn't. If it doesn't, if it is expensive you consider fixing it. If it is relatively cheap, you throw it away.

Today, Yahoo appears to be experiencing a service outage for its My Yahoo! customers. Yahoo is the most established online media outlet in the world. They serve more than 70% of Americas Internet users and a sizable chunk of the rest of the world's as well. Their entire business is their websites.

And they are broken this morning.

What does this say about technology? Its future? How it should be used?

The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle states that you can measure either the velocity of an object as it travels through space or its position, but never both at the same time. Is there a corollary for technology today? My thinking is this: stability requires static technology (no enhancements/changes); progress requires change. Therefore to remain competitive, compelling, and useful over time, you must adapt and change your technology. But this change creates instability (and is, by definition, instability) and with instability inevitably comes unreliability.

Given the competitive pressures of the world, I cannot foresee a static Yahoo. It would be marginalized in about a week. But who can trust a mission-critical function to something which may not be reliable? Would you fly a plane if every 10,000 seconds the engines cut off without warning? (that's 99.99% uptime) Would you use an oven if the voltage regulator managing the current flowing to the oven let massive bursts of energy flood your house every so often? Before you say no, consider the alternative - would you be happy cooking with the appliances used by your grandmother's grandmother? The pace of technological change (that has upped the ante for what is required in order to live) is such that this 4-generation gap occurs in about 1/10th the time now, so sticking with what you have right now will leave you obsolete within about 15 years.

This is a pretty rambly post, but my inability to access my My page today made me think of this.

Slashdot Last NTP Patent Tentatively Thrown Out

Ahhh, E-Commerce patents - the great debate. As a patent holder, I believe that they are, in principle, valid. There are some bad patents undoubtedly - the OpenMarket shopping cart patent perhaps. But there are some good ones.

My perspective - this is like what happened after the commercial viability of electricity became mainstream. Suddenly people were "electrifying" everything that had been manual before. Water pumps - add an electric motor. Toast-makers? Make 'em electric. Cars? Make them electric (and kind of slow, with a short battery life and no trunk space).

Water pumps were certainly not novel, but isn't the whole idea of patent law to incent the inventor to improve upon the original? E-Commerce certainly has its advantages over its analog predecessors, and even Luddites out there (who can't possibly be reading this) would agree that SOME people find the Internet useful for commerce purposes. Does it not make sense that patents will be written to cover inventions in this arena?

The Quiet Revolution in Email Marketing

Bill Nussey is the CEO of Silverpop, an email marketing services firm based in Atlanta. Very good guy, smart, with excellent dot-com and professional services management experience. If you are interested in learning about email marketing, there are worse places to turn to.

Not sure why I am blogging these seeming non sequiturs, but I saw the title of my blog and thought it was somehow appropriate.

Alex, if you read this, note that you can append comments to my posts. Do so. It will be a good way to ease into making your own blog.

The Straight Dope Front Page

For no particular reason, I thought of my old friend, Cecil Adams. I've never actually met Cecil, but he contributed a significant portion of my personal compendium of eclectic facts. Especially the ones that are true.

Worth a read, especially if you can bring your laptop to the bathroom.

One of the unintended consequences of the evacuee housing benefit offered by FEMA is the impact to hotel tax revenues for the city of New Orleans. Municipalities cannot impose taxes on hotel stays of longer than 30 days. As you can imagine, this is an important revenue source for New Orleans, so they were already taking a big hit. Now that FEMA has again extended the funding of hotel stays, this tax hit is going to be exacerbated. Mardi Gras is a season of very high hotel rates and occupancy, so good tax revenues. Nagin is working hard to assure the world that Mardi Gras is still on for 2006. But where will they stay?

Here is my company's notice on the issue:

• ATLANTA – January 23, 2006 – Some of InterContinental Hotels Group brand hotels in the New Orleans area continue to house a large number of Hurricane Katrina evacuees who have lost their homes. As a result of the FEMA evacuee housing extension to March 1, 2006, some of our New Orleans hotels may be overbooked during the Mardi Gras season and unable to accommodate incoming guests with confirmed reservations. Guests traveling to New Orleans for Mardi Gras with reservations at IHG brand hotels are strongly urged to contact IHG’s dedicated travel advisory line at 1-800-334-3598, or call the hotel directly, to ensure that rooms are still available prior to travel. It is our intent to put evacuees as our top priority, and we have encouraged IHG hotels to give evacuees precedence in fulfilling room requests. It is our hope that guests who have previously booked rooms with those IHG hotels will understand our commitment to provide shelter to those evacuees with nowhere else to go. We will work with guests affected by this situation to help them find alternative accommodations.

BTW, most hotel franchisees are not paying royalties on the housing revenues they receive from FEMA. This means that the franchisors, already facing depleted inventory in their properties, have less incentive to promote the destinations in their own marketing initiatives. Another unintended consequence.

STI: ERsys - New Orleans, LA (Ethnicity)

This site has an interesting chart related to my last post. It does not view the ethnic makeup of the city the way the locals do, but it is interesting.

Most distinctly worth noting is the overall heavy concentration of 50-75 year olds in most parts of the city. This is clearly a town that has lost its appeal to my generation (no big surprise). Isn't that a big problem?

I'm proud of a friend of mine for recently (pre-Katrina) being named as one of the most influential New Orleaners under 40 - he would have been on the list in almost any city - but the honor is cheapened by the fact that there are so few in that population segment to choose from!

How can this cultural gem of the US turn this around? San Francisco shares the cultural appeal of New Orleans but is perceived as a virtual Mecca for my generation. What would it take to make this happen for New Orleans?

At this point, I would not be surprised to see the under-40 population of Savannah surpass that of New Orleans, especially among the middle class, before 2020. Ridiculous.