As requested, here are some details about that state of things here at the most expensive relief effort in history. Tell me if it’s useful and interesting. Should I put sustained effort into blogging about the situation down here? I’m aware of one other blog, http://texasctcs.blogspot.com/, which is updated quite frequently.

Let me start with some demographics: I’d guess 95% of the evacuees are colored, about 75% of the volunteers are white, and 95% of the volunteers are from the greater-Houston area. Of the political discussions I’ve been privy to, three or four were among the volunteers and all those were inspired by disgruntlement with Bush; two were with non-volunteer Houstonians, one a Bush disgruntlement and the other disgruntlement at the evacuees and their “feelings of entitlement”.

The configuration of the Astrodome changes daily. Agencies are moved around, sections of the buildings are repurposed, and outside agencies change their levels of presence. But people are leaving daily (we’re down to less than 9000), so I guess they have to be. Rumor has it that they want everyone out by the 18th (which, if it happens, gives me two days to explore Houston!).

Responsibility is given very quickly. At three days, I’m no longer a newbie. I expect to achieve veteran status within the next couple of days. Communication is dreadful. There are multiple organizations handling the same services, without any contact between them. Everyone has a different idea of what’s needed.

But by and large, the necessities work fine. The evacuees are usually happy (children playing, adults smiling) or angry, but I don’t see crying or great extended frustration. Food is very plentiful, and mostly clean. Packaged food is almost always available (I missed lunch and dinner, but I still was able to collect a full meal at 9 pm), and good ol’ Aramark caters the rest. In particular, canned and bottled water and other drinks are always nearby and easy to get.

The evacuees are grateful to us, but unhappy with their lack of freedom, control, and knowledge.

So anyway, come on down– it’s a blast! Volunteer opportunities are endless and diverse, and the Youth Hostel here has plenty of space at $14.95 a night!

On Friday I realized that I could free up the time to volunteer for a couple of weeks. And that was the whole idea behind my giving up teaching for independent coding, so I decided that it was a moral imperative to do so. For once, there’s a real need, and I can help. So I got out of all my responsibilities, and I have two weeks to groove at the big party at the Astrodome.

I’ve been busy getting ready, but it all went well. Work responsibilities are satisfied, play responsibilities are in a reasonably happy state, and if I stay in touch, they’ll all remain that way.

I started this entry on the plane down. I’m very excited. I want to blog for real while I’m here, but don’t know if I’ll have time. I wasn’t even able to find a place to stay the first night.

So I came straight to the dome and did a night shift. I was told that I would never be able to get in, but it wasn’t difficult and I got the nice little Volunteer band without going through any official registration process. I slept on a cot in the clothing sorting room and was jolted awake by the announcement system starting back up, less than four hours later, but I’m still pretty charged. I just need to call the Youth Hostel so I can get one good night’s sleep and a shower.

The system dynamics here are understandably horrible, but better than they are reported to have been a week ago. A call goes out for lots-and-lots of volunteers, and 30 minutes later they have next to nothing to do. A few hours ago, the building I was serving food in had run out while the Astrodome-proper was closing full feeding stations for lack of demand. For approximately two minutes, we were told “Don’t feed anyone but evacuees– we don’t have the food!”, before they realized that we a good deal more food than we needed.

I’m in one of the main computer labs now, in the Astrodome. Very excited. I’ll say more later.

I recently started helping out with the Harvard Square Rocky Horror Picture Show.
Now two weeks in, I am completely intoxicated with the subculture. Lines from the movie, and call-backs, and songs, keep running through my head. I dwell on what happened last Saturday or what will happen next Saturday. I want to analyze every aspect of the culture, and figure out how it all fits together. I realize that it’s just a form of limerence, but it’s a distracting blast right now.

Anthropological Observations

I went to the bookstore yesterday to get gifts for my family, and accidentally bought two books for my self: Understanding Comics and Guide to Getting it On!.

And now I am inspired to begin a new project: A Comic Book Guide to Social Interaction. Other manners books for men, alas, are written for SPs; I want to write a book for geeks that develops a general framework for understanding people and social situations. And the sequential art form is exactly the right tool.

Why should I write it, when I know so little about the subject? Partly to have a project to occupy myself and experiment with during social situations– a reason for existence in the social world. I’ve *read* so much about people in theory (and communication, love, and sex), and I’ve recently developed a craving to dive into the real thing as deep as it goes.

Of course, this will have to sit behind-the-back-burner, because I already have a list of projects for the season (which are progressing beautifully– more on that later), but that’s okay. Besides, I still need to figure out my general theory of social interaction, and learn how to draw.

I’m going to form a club for people who want to make a career of kindness. I lost sight of that goal, but two recent discussions brought it back.

Friday night, I watched Holy Smoke, directed by Jane Campion. I was suspicious of it from the beginning– the synopsis made it sound like a romantic comedy (it’s neither), and it has disappointing reviews. The movie is about the forced cult-deprogramming of an Australian girl who went to India. The perceived hero of the movie switches about 6 times, leaving the viewer wondering what the director is smoking. I feared for the worst, until almost the end, when I realized, “Holy smoke, they did it!”: in one scene, when the characters are raw-est, the movie precipitates out of this confusion something at the core of the intersection of erotic desire, spiritual desire, manipulation, and the human condition. I think the reviewers largely miss it.

At the height of the manipulation, one main character writes “BE KIND” on the forehead of the other. At the end of the movie, those words become the codename for the synthesis that might be found hidden behind spiritual infatuation and cynical disillusionment.

The friend I watched “Holy Smoke” with was pre-med student until a few days ago. She wanted to be a doctor (a psychiatrist) because she wants to help people. She put hundreds of hours into studying for the MCAT, struggled through classes populated with money-minded cut-throats, and she’s finally ready to apply to medical school. She went to a seminar on writing personal statements for med school applications, during which some of the worst of her classmates claimed to be doing it all for the same utopic reasons she had. When she got to writing in her personal statement why she wanted to be a doctor, she realized that she had nothing to say. I told her that I didn’t think there was a profession out there to do what we want.

All of which is to say that its so easy to get caught up in the tactics of beneficence, when every tactic (or religion or profession) is its own end. The kindness club would be a meeting place for the people behind the tactics, for support in remembering our deepest intention, and to cooperate to fulfill each others’ best laid plans.

Two nights ago, Claudia and I decided to end our relationship in 8 days. We were originally going to break up that night, but decided to wait until she left for the summer. True to statistics, our relationship was exactly 2.5 years long.

Off and on, this has been a long time coming (although this was more an off time (things were going well)), but nothing specific precipitated it. Claudia is going to spend the summer in Florida with her prior-secondary, working out a grant she got with another friend. We had a long talk about what was going to happen over the summer and beyond. There’s always been some stress in our relationship stemming from each other’s behavior, and Claudia said that she wanted a family some day, but not with me because of the stresses and our different paths; I said that I didn’t want to continue the relationship with that kind of known ceiling. We spoke truthfully, and shed tears, and did the breakup-thing as best we each knew how. Still, there’s something stupid in the sense we’re following, when we both still love each other so much.

Some interesting points

I’m free! Free as hippopotami in a seltzer lake.

My classes finished last Friday (MIT continues for another week, but I had the final meeting of my joint MIT-Olin class then). I still have grading to do, finals to give, and Olin Expo to help with, but nothing required of me but my time.

And this is the last month on Olin’s umbilical cord before I need to make my own babies. Anyone have projects for a good, fast independent contract programmer?

Here are my scheduled plans for the next season:

• Independent Contracting (29 hr/wk)
• Develop Gumption Center (7 hr/wk)
• Greater Cambridge Community Events Calendar (7 hr/wk)
• System Signals Predictor (7 hr/wk)
• Public Service/Activism (6 hr/wk)
• Inner Work and Religosity (6 hr/wk)
• Serious Blogging (6 hr/wk)
• SCA and Peasants Activities (4 hr/wk)
• A Summer Seminar in ESG (4 hr/wk)
• Finish Things for Olin (4 hr/wk)

I’ll say more if my plans actually fruitate.

My book for this week is The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, and I’m totally freaking over it.

Last night it revealed to me a chunk of the mysteries of the life, concerning the radical oneness of the universe. I wrote it up for all to see: PDF. Then I looked at the time and realized that I’d been zoning for six hours and should go to sleep. My big thought now is, “If I can get this much of a trip off reading about LSD, I wonder how far I can go from actually taking it!”

All One Disclaimers

I had two bad weeks, but last week was good and this week looks good. I’m mostly caught up from the bad weeks, so Spring Break (MIT’s and Olin’s are the same week) will be a chance to go deeper than the surface of my todo lists. Especially so, since C. will be in Florida (*sigh*).

The low point was Sunday night, two weeks ago. My arm was still pretty broken, my niece had brain tumors, my computer crashed with all my data, it was cold, and I was poor. C. was naked next to me, trying to get my attention and falling asleep. I mostly ignored her for Olin work, and I went to sleep a hour after she did and woke up and left 2.5 hours before her.

It made me angry at all my responsibilities and myself. I think it’s wonderful now-days that most of my responsibilities are self-imposed, but between those and the not-so-self-imposed ones, I was more than beat. I’ve decide to keep track of my time the way I keep track of my money (q.v. Your Money or Your Life, My timesheet)

Last week was a great week for ideas. I’ve been working on a tutorial for my written language and I realized that, within my language “You are the line.” On Thursday, I got into a great discussion on the philosophy of love, and come up with the disputed relation dI/dt = ergo * agape-hat. And I’ve been working on determining the nature of the gestalt of signals and systems. Here’s my first attempt at a diagram of that whole.