Learning to be me

== Edited on advice from my wife ==



Does a baby change you that much?



Well I was having lunch and somebody mentioned I better live the next 6 months up because after the baby is born I won’t have a life. I disagree. I may get less sleep, have to change more diapers then I am now and not get stuck in the dunes as often. I don’t think that means I won’t have a life though. I just won’t have the exact life I had before. I see people toting their kids all over the place. It takes longer to get ready and there is more to consider but I think that is a small price to have a child. I can’t believe I have done such an about face on the topic but I’m looking forward to this new season in my life. Life will be different but so was it when I went away to college, got married and moved out here. Still being 6 months away from holding a William Edward or Emma Anne I’m in a pretty good mood. I’ll let you know how optimistic I am when I’m changing diapers at three in the morning.



Getin my training on



I don’t know if it is a good or bad thing that I’m sent to training as often as I am. I like to think good for the time being. I’m leaving Saturday night for London where I will attend a guerilla .net class. I will spend 12 hours a day for 5 days baking my head with all the fun things you can do with this language I’ve played with for the past 3 years. It should be fun. Too bad I won’t be able to actually see anything while I’m in London.

"I’ll make you famous" - Billy the Kid

You know you are living in a major city when a group of Ags getting together for a football game makes the front of the sports page. It’s funnier when you read the article and see the mistakes that would have been hard to check. The picture itself is labeled current students. Actually it is a group of staff and former students with one student from Cornell sporting the A&M logo. That ruffled some feathers on campus because there is a little friction between the two schools. I guess gun toting rednecks and Yankees with a role of quarters up their butt will always have something to disagree about. Our CIO wasn’t happy that they called it a satellite feed. We were actually watching it with a VBrick which does MPEG-2 encoding / decoding that allows you to watch video over the Internet. I guess it is just in the details.

American Soccer

I got to spend a few hours in Texas this weekend. Since A&M played their game at 11:30 it was a 7:30 PM kickoff on this side of the world. We have a little toy that allows us to stream TV from College Station over the Internet with little if any deterioration in quality. That, approval from the athletics department, a few dozen pizzas and some ice chests full of sodas and you got an Aggie football game day party. Watching the game was great but seeing the local commercials was pretty cool as well. I was hoping for the Bryan transmission one with Larry Bird (not the basketball player) in it but I think this was above their advertising budget. They did have Rudy’s BBQ with sausage in it. Mmmm … sausage.



The game itself was a lot of fun to watch. It was interesting during the first half and then A&M smacked SMU around pretty severely throughout the second half. With a score of 66-8 there is not much need for explanation. There was a student who came and sat next to me because he thought he might have questions about American Soccer. Either my whooping or yelling scared him away or he found his laptop that he brought to the game more interesting but he never asked for clarification on anything that was happening. I didn’t take too much offense. I can’t say that I get too excited when there is a soccer game on. But after 3 quarters it was 10:30 and I decided I should go home. I wanted to stop by Rudy’s for some brisket but I couldn’t find it. I’ll watch the commercial a little bit closer next time.

Katrina

Even in Doha the news of this disaster is ever present. CNN covers it 24 hours a day, people talk about it at lunch and it’s on all the websites. So even though I hadn’t watched the news for the first 5 days that this occurred, I’m pretty knowledgeable about the current situation. I have heard faithful Bush supporters dismiss it as being New Orleans fault for building their city on a swamp in the first place. This has proved to me once again that Intelligence and Ignorance are not necessarily mutually exclusive. I don’t want to harp on this too much but I do feel the federal government truly screwed the pooch on this one. I don’t care what the excuses are, you look at how the evacuees existed in their own country and no matter what way you look at it they were let down. I’m not talking about the national guardsman wading through the water to bring food and shelter or the many other government employees that are making things happen. As so often is the case, they make things happen in spite of what the decision makers did right or wrong.



I’m going to stop there with the negative vibes and talk about something that made me smile. It sounds corny but after reading the below letter from Dr. Gates (TAMU President) I was again truly proud to be an Aggie. It illustrated another reason why America is a great country. We have all the resources in the world but it’s the people themselves that make things possible. I never saw a call from the President to the people of the US to open their homes and donate their time but that’s what they did. People decided that the federal government dropped the ball and they picked it up. I only wish I could be there in person to do my part. So when JFK said “Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country.” I wonder if this is the spirit he was talking about. My history is a little hazy but those words sound like they fit.



OK, now for an email Dr. Gates sent to all Faculty and Staff on campus. I think it speaks for itself.

Any Aggie of any age who believes the Spirit of Texas A&M is waning should have been at Reed Arena over the past three days.



Under an agreement with local government officials, Texas A&M has made Reed Arena available as a temporary shelter for a little over two hundred or so evacuees from New Orleans through September 9th.
Probably like many parents and others, I was deeply concerned about security given what we all had read about violence in New Orleans. I only agreed to the use of Reed after being assured that the evacuees would be vetted, processed and security wanded at a facility elsewhere in Brazos County, wanded again upon arrival at Reed, and that University police and other security would be present at all times at Reed. Students who park at Reed Arena (mostly freshmen) will be parking elsewhere on campus for the week. The evacuees are escorted by
non-students wherever they go.



I asked the Commandant of the Corps of Cadets, Lt. General John Van Alstyne, to take charge of this endeavor, in no small part because one of his last responsibilities at the Pentagon was taking care of displaced military families after 9/11. I also wanted a no-nonsense person in charge. He has told me that he is quite comfortable with the security arrangements. Either he or his chief of staff are at Reed 24/7.



Now to the best part. With little advance notice, Aggies sprang into action last Friday. The Corps of Cadets was asked on Friday afternoon to set up several hundred beds on the floor of Reed Arena; to help establish a structure for processing the evacuees; to make arrangements for them to shower and get new clothes; to help develop a process for medical checks; and so on. (Contrary to some rumors, the Corps was never asked or expected to provide security.) Lt. General Van Alstyne asked the Corps Commander, Matt Ockwood, for 300 volunteers to do these tasks. 900 cadets volunteered, and Reed Arena was ready after the cadets worked all night.



The first evacuees began to arrive around midnight Saturday. They had boarded busses in New Orleans that morning, had been driven to Dallas and then finally to College Station - all in one day. Of the more than 200 arrivals, most were families, including some 40 children and a number of elderly. They arrived exhausted, dirty, hungry and many in despair.



They then encountered an Aggie miracle. Clean beds (not cots but surplus beds from a refurbished Corps dorm), showers, hot food, medical treatment, baby supplies for mothers, toys for children and more. But most of all, what they encountered were a couple of hundred compassionate, caring Aggie cadets and other volunteers. The cadets escorted them to their assigned beds, and not only saw to their individual needs, but sat on the side of their beds with them, talked with them - treated them like they were a member of the family. The cadets made them feel welcome and cared about.



Sunday, when I visited Reed, I learned that the women of the Aggie Dance Team had organized and were running a distribution center for pillows, towels, bedding, personal hygiene kits, baby food, diapers and much more; that sorority women were running a child care facility for dozens of children, well supplied with toys, juice, coloring books and cartoon videos; and that plans were under way for other student leaders and students to replace the cadets, some of whom had been at Reed for more than 50 hours. Plans were underway for some of our athletes (and
escorts) to take some of the evacuee boys ages 10-16 to the Rec Center to shoot hoops - boys perhaps including one I met who had treaded water under a bridge for 11 hours before being rescued by a helicopter.
There is a communications room where the evacuees can use both telephone and internet to try to reach relatives and friends. The Red Cross, United Way, and other community organizations are right there on the Arena floor, and the Salvation Army is serving three meals a day.
Escorted trips are being organized throughout the day to laundromats and stores. Area physicians, supplemented by the Aggie Care Team and the Health Science Center are available. Being treated with dignity, respect and compassion, our guests have responded accordingly.



Many other Aggie students are involved in the relief effort on campus, in the local community, and at our Galveston campus. Sunday afternoon, students organized a massive collection effort to gather canned food and clothes as part of the MSC's Open House. Student Government, led by Student Body President Jim Carlson, is planning other relief- associated activities, including helping organize more volunteers to work at Reed Arena the rest of this week.



By agreement with Brazos county officials, Reed Arena is a temporary location for these evacuees, and during this week, we are assured that most, if not all, of the evacuees will move to longer-term housing.



Aggies need to know that the past few days have been a high point in the history of Texas A&M as we have responded to this terrible disaster named Katrina. Seeing the desire to serve, the organizational skill, the willingness to work, the caring and compassion, and more, on the part of the Corps of Cadets, the Dance Team, the sororities and so many other students who have worked incredibly long hours - has been a profoundly moving experience. I do not know a single University official who, having watched our students over the past three days, does not choke up with emotion out of pride in these amazing young people.



And it's not just the students who have been amazing. It is also our staff, including those who today began admitting and helping up to 1,000 students displaced by the Hurricane. Faculty and administrators have volunteered as well, and also put in long hours to ensure that these displaced students can be processed into Texas A&M and their classes with speed and efficiency. I visited the processing center this morning and met many of the parents and students; I know now that they will never forget our generosity and warm welcome to Aggieland.



Aggies often speak of "the other education" here. My original intent had been to keep the evacuees entirely isolated from our students.
Once assured of the safety of the students, that would have been the wrong decision. I have no doubt that the Aggie students who are participating in this extraordinary humanitarian endeavor will never forget it -- or what they are learning from it about crisis management and, far more importantly, about their own humanity and character. Nor do I doubt that the evacuees, all of whom are now wearing Texas A&M t- shirts, will always remember how these young people treated them and cared for them.



The hearts of every Aggie should swell with pride in what this University is doing for fellow Americans in trouble, and especially in what our students and staff are doing, to help those devastated by Hurricane Katrina. I thanked a University policeman inside Reed yesterday for what he was doing, and he looked at me with tears in his eyes and replied, "It's an honor to be here, sir."



Robert M. Gates
President, Texas A&M University

I need to pray just to make it today - DC Talk

Kara and I have had a pretty bloggable past 7 days. It started on Thursday morning when I was driving to work and opted not to listen to the Vanilla top 40 radio because my ipod ran out of batteries. Something in me decided that it has been way too long since I had a talk with God. So for 15 minutes I tried to praise him and thank him for all that Kara and I have been blessed with over these past 13 months. I just wanted to say thanks and that I want to follow him. I asked to stay in his favor and thanked him for all the things he has given us. I also prayed that I could be his tool while I’m here. Something that I have forgotten a number of times since moving here.



So I got to work and I was just happy with the time I spent with God. Around 10:00 our housing coordinator came by and said the villa we wanted had opened up so if we could move in by Monday it was ours. I’m the first to admit we do not live in a real world. We had a baby, we needed a bigger place and after all the effort of sending an email, Kara and I waited a week and one was open. I’m without words. Actually as you can see, I do have some. So after letting people know the good news we had enough volunteers to move our house in one trip. A caravan of 9 cars picked everything up and dropped it off in about 2 hours.



About 11:00 on Thursday I got an email from a friend of mine who said he had been invited to a mosque and wanted to know if I was still up for the trip. He had been approached the week before and spent the evening talking to some guys about Islam and Christianity. He was then invited to come back the next week, when he told me this I thought this would be an awesome opportunity for me to build some relationships. I shot him back an email and said I was up for it. So that evening we met his friend on the other side of the town. When you meet locals here, it is not uncommon for individuals to park in a roundabout and wait for you. So we did the Qatari thing and met him there. We then followed him to one of the biggest mosques in Doha. This was definitely not sanitized tourist trip. This was a sandal wearing, Allah praising, Islam brotherhood crowd. I’ve watched foxnews, I was a little nervous but I have to say these were some of the nicest people I have met in this area. We pulled up around 7:30 and walked in on the middle of the nightly message. We sat down where a guy was doing the English translation and listened to what they were saying. Minus the mention of Jesus, this could definitely have been a sermon from your local church. The brief 30 minutes I listened to was mainly about how Muslims should not worry just about their countrymen, people in this region or Muslims alone. He was saying Allah loves all and you should seek to serve all. What I’m getting at, is it was a pretty loving message.



After the message all eyes in our circle were on us. I guess me and my friend kind of stuck out. Everyone introduced themselves and we discussed the message for about 30 minutes. We pushed it back and forth and it was a nice intro. After this the prayer call was made and the whole mosque filled up. There were several hundred men packed in doing the traditional evening prayers. My friend and I sat in the back and did our own prayers. After the prayers two guys bee lined over to us and started making friends. The conversation progressed and pretty soon we became bigger then Elvis. We had about 30 or 40 guys staring at us. Arabs have a very small bubble for personal space so we all were getting cozy. Well after talking with these guys for a bit, the original translator pulled us out and sat us down separately so we wouldn’t feel overwhelmed. Before we sat down everyone wanted to shake our hands and congratulate us. Some how everyone got the idea we had converted.



So when we sat down I made it clear that I had no intention of converting from Christianity. I was only here to make friends and share our culture. They all took it in stride and just asked us to keep our minds open. It really was a challenging talk but it was good to have. It’s been a while since I sharpened my whit in this area. After this we were invited outside to have dinner. We ate from a bowl of rice and chicken while we sat on a mat under the desert night. After passing around a bowl of camel milk and talking some more we headed home.



This was a surreal experience on about 10 different levels. I hope to continue meeting with some of these guys and build friendships. I talked to my pastor about this on Friday and he gave me some realistic advice that I was surprised to hear come out of a pastors mouth but he has more life experience in this area then I have. He basically said that I should try to build relationships, do the culture exchange thing but I should never and he repeated that, argue the Bible inside of a mosque. I told him I agreed and he was happy. Words can’t really describe how happy and emotionally draining this was. Now that my hands hurt, I think I will leave it at that.