1/15 Still in Austin

Today was a very long day, and a rough one. We worked really hard to plan for the future, so there's a lot going on. I'm working with some nice people and we get along, so the hard work isn't horrible.

Just hard. :)

Tonight a VP took us to the Cheesecake Factory for dinner. A great reward for a day of work. Loved it.

We work in the Austin office tomorrow for part of the day, then off to the airport. We'll get back to Mississippi around 10 PM. Another long day.

1/14 In Austin

I've been awake since 4 AM, so am winding down. Have some work to finish yet tonight, but not too much. We got in around 11:30 AM and after lunch went straight to the office where we got the grand tour of the new building. We then met with my boss for three hours before breaking for the day. Tomorrow will be a very, very long day.

11/8 One year

One year ago today I left Milwaukee. My trip took me back home to Quincy, IL for several days. Then I drove to NC, arriving on 11/14, Rob's birthday. Rob and Beata opened their home to me for a few months while I did disaster mental health work for the Red Cross.

I stayed there until March 1 when I began the job with LSSDR in Biloxi.

Can't believe it's been one year since I left Wisconsin. One year since I've done stand-up. One year since I've done sketch comedy with BroadMinded. One year since...lots of things.

But I'm not sad. I miss all those things certainly, but I love where I am and what I'm doing.

Tonight though I miss my puppies. Am leaving very early tomorrow for New York, so I had to put them in the kennel already.

This weekend will be a ton of fun. Am going to Mohonk Mountain House in the Hudson Valley. Will try to post while I'm there.

7/11 The day flew by...

This morning I had a conference call with my old boss, and this afternoon a visit from my new boss. The time just flew by. I really enjoyed meeting with Heather. She's great. How lucky I am to be here only 4 months and have had two great supervisors.

My car was in the shop all day. Needed a new timing belt, plus there was a factory recall on a cooling fan. Got some other small things fixed. Car seems to be happy that I take good care of it. :)

6/28 More conference

I'm at the Hurricane Conference again today and tomorrow so need to hurry. Spoke to the Mississippi governor yesterday...he surprised me by walking by me and touching my arm. I knew who he was because he was surrounded by state troopers. So I blurted out something appropriate. And he replied.

Last night I got elected to the board of directors of Mississippi VOAD (Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster). It's a good organization and will be good for my agency (and for me). Last month I got elected to the board of IDTF (Interfaith Disaster Task Force) which is another wonderful organization. These two things will be enough and will keep me busy. My job encompasses a lot of things, and community involvement is one of them.

A colleague from the Red Cross invited me to a beach party on July 4th. She's invited a lot of single people to just hang out. We're having a carry-in meal and will stake out our spot for fireworks. Sounds like fun. I'll be gone so long that evening that I'll have Q stay all night at the kennel, since she couldn't last that long at home without going out.

Gotta run.

6/21 Another superb day with great people

I went to the same site with the 18 people from Salem Lutheran Church in Panca, Nebraska. The day was awesome. If possible, the kids worked harder today than Tuesday. I can't believe their work ethic, and their lack of complaining. Great kids, led by dedicated and loving adults.

They went beyond the call of duty and did so many little finishing touches just out of pure love. The owners will be thrilled to find many little surprises throughout their property.

When the work was finished we had time for a swim. So we all jumped in the bayou and played. It was a lot of fun. Since it was salt water you could swim forever and not get tired. A few scary moments ensued when we thought some boats were going to travel right over us, but our fears were groundless. (Thank you, God.)

They all leave tomorrow morning, so I'm going to be there at 7:30 in order to say good-bye. What a pleasure it was to serve with them. The weather was perfect and the company was even better.

(Got home at 5, took a shower, and was in my pajamas by 5:30. Talk about lazy!)

6/20 Tired

I'm still tired from working outside all day yesterday. Will do the same tomorrow. Today was a day I had a board meeting, so had to work in the office.

Am really looking forward to tomorrow, just hope this old, old body holds out. :)

Not much else to report. Q and I are going to have a quiet night. Yay for that.

6/18 Stormy Monday

A weird day. Had a doctor's appointment this morning. Nothing wrong, just needed to find a local physician.

Left Q for 3 1/2 hours at home and she did fine.

It's been storming all day and I feel bad because we have 360 youth from a synod up north. They're here to work all week, and most of them were probably working outside.

There's a 60% chance of thunderstorms tomorrow too, and that worries me. I'm supposed to work with the kids Tuesday and Thursday, and we're working outside near the Gulf. I'm excited about getting out of my office, but know I'll complain about sore muscles.

Q has some stomach problems this afternoon--I think it's from drinking salt water when she was swimming in the Gulf. Hope she learns, for both our sakes. :)

6/15 Posting while lunching

Peanut butter sandwich and Campbell's "Soup at Hand" Velvety Potato Soup. Not as bad as it could have been. At least it's filling and will last me until dinner.

Q was thrilled being back at Doggy Day Care. She flew out of the car. Looked like a dog version of Superman. Really cute how much she loves it there. No rules; just playing and spoiling and treats. Just like a kid going to Grandma's house.

So much work to do here. I've lost our office manager and am doing much of that work because our deputy is off for several days. In the future I'm hoping for an admin asst to help us out. We'll see if that pans out.

There are major changes in the offing and there's a lot of organizational work to be done in preparation. I believe things will go well; and am praying to that end.

As I was driving to work today I thought again about how much I love the Mississippi Gulf Coast. I don't think I've seen more beautiful beaches in the continental US, and I've seen a lot of them. If we don't get any major storms this year, the recovery phase will keep going full bore. This past week, they planted at least a hundred big palm trees along Beach Boulevard. The new ones add so much to the ambiance. This place is gorgeous!

Plus, I've decided to finally go to one of the casinos. Was going to wait until I have company because I really don't want to go by myself, but I want to go--so will. There are some beautiful casinos here in Biloxi. Haven't really noticed the ones in Gulfport and points west...but I'm sure they're nice too.

Okay. Done eating. Back to work. Will pick up Quincy about 5. As happy as she is to get to Doggy Day Care, she's even happier to see me. That's a good feeling. (I must get my camera connected to the computer to charge it up, so I can take pictures.)

6/11 Lutheran Church of St. John, Quincy, IL

Quincy and I drove to Gulfport, actually nearly to Long Beach, to meet some of the Quincy folks who have volunteered to rebuild a house nearly destroyed by Katrina. I met about six people and didn't know any of them. The surprising thing to me is that they'd never heard of the Bozarths. Heck we are all over the place. But they all went to QHS and we went to QND and there's the rub.

But some of them had heard of my sister Jane Peterson, who's a nurse practitioner at the Quincy Medical Group. She's famous (or infamous).

It was neat though. I brought Quincy and started the conversation by saying, "If I tell you my dog's name is Quincy, will you know why I want to meet you?" They were all so sweet, working their tails off in 95 degree heat with no air conditioning. And each one was cheerful and smiling. Others of their group were working in Biloxi, so I'll try to meet up with them later. The church had taken up special donations and these folks bought all the supplies for the house, dry wall, doors, windows, just everything. What a caring group.

Even though I didn't know any of them, it felt good. And made me feel just a little bit closer to home. Can't beat that.

5/20 A great reward

I went to buy groceries at WalMart yesterday and when I came out there was a note under my windshield wiper. (My car has Lutheran Disaster Response magnetic signs on both sides.) Here's the note:

May God bless you for blessing us! Thank you, Dave Brown

It brought tears to my eyes. Yes, we get thanked a lot by people who live on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, but this was so unexpected, so random, so loving. It made my day.

5/15 I learned something

At the meeting this morning with FEMA and some of our construction guys, I learned that if a structure is estimated to have less than 50% damage then it doesn't need to conform to the new elevation requirements. That's critical when it comes to an organization such as ours. If a house needs to be elevated, then we basically have to start from scratch and do a "build" rather than a "rebuild." Lots of complications, not to mention lots of money.

I also learned a little about flood zones. AE means that it's a special hazard flood area. A plain X means it's not a flood zone. An X in a shaded area means it's a 500 year flood zone, so we're still okay there (as long as it's not the 500th year). :)

Quincy slept well again last night, and is at doggy daycare today. She was thrilled to arrive and see her buddies. Hope I can afford to keep this up. It's hard to keep her at home when I work since her "condition" requires she goes outside every hour and a half or so. I'd leave her in the fenced yard but she's a digger and would be to China by the time I got home from work. That worries me--she could easily dig an escape route while alone and bored. Doggy Daycare is $1.50 an hour or $10 for the day (and night). So I'll give up something else to be able to keep taking her there. What can I give up? DSL? Nope. Digital cable? Nope. Fattening food? Nope. Cleaning team? Nope, don't have one here--yet. Lawn service? Nope--gotta get rid of those fire ants and mole crickets. Hmmm...I'll have to think about how to economize.

(Am taking a few minutes this afternoon to post since I only took a 2o minute lunch....)

5/14 I'm slow...

...but I'm learning.

There's so much to know here. So many details. So many people on the Gulf Coast I haven't met.

It's getting better however. The major piece I have to set in my addled brain is how the construction process begins.

I know it starts with case management and the Long Term Recovery Committee of the respective county. But I haven't been able to attend the LTRC meetings yet. My education there will start next week.

This week is full of meetings. My next one is at 1:30. I took a break and ran to McAllister's Deli to pick up a Spud Ole--a HUGE baked potato with cheese, jalapenos, onions, and veggie chili. (You can have regular chili as well.) Oh my it was great. But my office now smells like a Mexican restaurant. Not a bad smell as smells go. But the onions are STRONG. When I walk into the next meeting people will notice I'm there. My breath will enter before I do.

Quincy is sleeping by my chair. She's been just about perfect today. Just a few little barks but nothing to blog about (except I already did). When I go into a meeting I close my office door and she sleeps while I'm away. Works great.

Tomorrow she'll go to doggie day care, but they're closed today, so I have my buddy with me all day. Not a bad thing at all.

(Editing to add that Quincy slept 7 hours last night--got up, went outside and did her business, then let me sleep another hour. Life is so good.)

5/8 Emergency Operations Center

Wow. This place rivals the American Red Cross DOC in Washington, DC. Walls are lined with HUGE screens full of weather reports and breaking news. We are running a hurricane drill--Hurricane Zora--hitting the Mississippi Gulf Coast. And it's so very realistic. Since we're below ground we can't tell what the weather is really like outside.

The room is full of MEMA personnel (Mississippi Emergency Management Agency) and people from FEMA, Red Cross, Salvation Army, police, firefighters, private agencies (like mine), and many government agencies like Department of Mental Health and Department of Education.

It's quite an interesting experience. I'm learning so much, and am looking forward to tomorrow.

4/23 What a busy day!

The Senior Leadership Team is visiting from Austin so I spent all afternoon and evening with them. They are staying at Camp Victor tonight and Camp Biloxi tomorrow night. It's so much fun showing off what we do. I'm so proud of our volunteer camps and all that they and our staff accomplish.

I left Q home this morning since I had to go to Pascagoula for a meeting. Four hours later I came home to a crate that the poop machine had been busy in. That's what I'm calling her at the moment. Didn't have time to completely clean it up since I had to rush to the state office. On the way there my boss called and said they'd meet me at Camp Victor. So I brought Quincy with me and she behaved perfectly. I put her in the Site Director's office. She'd been there before when Pepper, Jon's dog, was there. So she was so happy to be there. She played and slept, with no barking, for five hours, so I was very proud of her.

Tomorrow, the Leadership Team is working on a site with a team from Camp Victor. I'm going to go at some point and "catch them" working, so I can take some pictures. Should be fun.

4/22 Bite me!

Yeah, that's what Q keeps doing. She thinks I'm a giant chew toy and teething ring. It'll be nice when she gets rid of all her razor-sharp baby teeth.

We went out for breakfast yesterday. I sat outside so Quincy could be with me. It was not a very relaxing meal because every single person had to stop and play with her. It's great to have a beautiful and friendly dog, but I don't get any privacy when I'm out. Is this what it's like to be a celebrity? :)

Right now she's attacking the doorstop. She found out that they move when touched so every doorstop in the house has become a toy. I've had to take off the little white rubber ends because she takes those off and chews on them. I'll put them back on when she loses interest. IF she loses interest.

This morning we walked around the circle (a block or so). This was the longest she ever walked without stopping. Felt like it was a big deal.

Have lots of LSSDR work to do today so need to get going....

4/18 A touching, moving day

It started after breakfast with some keynote speeches from Japanese members. To hear them talk about what they've learned from us over the years about how to mobilize volunteers was very moving. And a few of them were choked up when they spoke about the Virginia Tech tragedy. I found it so touching that I got teary-eyed too.

Then so much information all day about disaster work. I'm in sensory overload. Tonight several of us are going out to dinner, but it will be for business. All the agencies that also function as affiliates of the national Lutheran Disaster Response.

What was cool for me is that I saw so many people I knew from when I was at Red Cross HQ in DC and also people I worked with during the Florida tornadoes.

This is a valuable week for me, but I can't wait to get home. So much to do.

3/25 Sunday miscellaneous

Miscellaneous Musings:

Went to 8 AM services at Christus Victor. Since I was awake anyway I decided to go to the early one. Pastor Terri introduced me and had me stand. More than 100 people in the church were volunteers from Camp Victor and so it was good they could associate a face with my name. As I sat back down it really hit me about the enormity of this job. I just looked up at the cross and thought, "Help me."

In my travels today I drove along Beach Drive four times. There's a huge speedboat race going on and the roads and beaches are full of people. I could see from the road though and each speedboat had a helicopter right over it. How cool is that?

As I neared Keesler Air Force Base a C130J flew right over me. That thing is as huge as a small village.

I passed a clearing where a church used to stand. The people were having worship services near a big wooden cross they'd put up.

Our motto at work is Semper Gumby, standing for Always Flexible. Don't know who made it up, but I heard it from Henry, a retired Marine. I love it.

Went shopping, got my nails done, bought food and clothing. Went out to breakfast after church. Everyone is so friendly. We just chat while waiting in line.

Met some people from Luck, WI who are volunteering here.

Have been working on my taxes. Am almost done with my federal ones. Will get a nice refund this year--that's because I had CPI take out more money than I needed. I'm a terrible saver and didn't want to be caught unaware with a high tax bill.

I know there's more, but I'm tired.