I don't watch Oprah much anymore but I sure am glad I did today...she is giving ten million dollars to help build lost homes due to Katrina....she asked people to give what they could if they could...I haven't been to her site yet but she has a lot of different ways you can help...even a place if you want to pay for a new house to be built.... Hopefully some of those rich celebrities will match her...wouldn't that be Great

That IS great Jacquie and so nice to see. I know John Grisham and his wife gave $5 million within the first couple days after the tragedy and was pretty impressed with that too.

I think a lot of people were touched by the effects of that storm. It was such a catastrophe and has disrupted if not destroyed so many lives. Any little bit helps.

Kathryn Falk, Lady Barrow, (Yes the Lady Barrow I put in Single White Vampire) has also rallied writers together to get donations and writers themselves to travel down to New Orleans to help out. Last I heard, it sounded like they were heading down in a convoy. This was earlier on after the tragedy first struck and I haven't seen any updates on what happened there, but then they're probably all too busy to update us at the moment and will let us know when they have the time.

Lynsay

There is another Hurricane heading for the Gulf...it should be a category three by the time it gets into the warm waters of the Gulf...they think it will hit Galveston Texas....but New Orleans is in the warning zone...they are telling the people who just came back to leave again because all they need is 6 inches of rain and the Levies will break again. I have ran from a hurricane twice ...it isn't fun ...it must be a nightmare for these people.
I got out my debit card and gave Red Cross some money a few days after it hit....wish I could have given more but every little bit counts :) I also have given to the dog shelters. The National Guard just flew in a bunch of dogs and cats into Phoenix in Tankers today...so not only are the people being moved about the country so are the lost pets.
The thing that is really ticking me off is the companies who will be building are companies associated with the President and Vice President...the President just said that the employees they hire don't have to be payed min wage...so here are these big companies again getting rich off of our taxes while they pay the worker(poor New Orleans workers) beans...I get so angry when I hear this. Some of these companies are the same ones that are rebuilding Iraq. Guess you can tell I'm a Liberal huh???..LOL.:)

Don't remind me Rita. We're already looking for things like house insurance, car insurance, ect. so that if it looks like it's heading our way we can get outta doge.

I live roughly 75 miles or so north of Galveston; last I saw the track it was headding in toward Houston/Galveston making land-fall to the west of the H/G area, putting us on the "dirty side".

Theresa,
Just make sure you guys get out of the area especially if you are in the red zone. Who knows what Rita will do once she gets into those warm waters....I remember how warm those gulf waters are in the summer...in fact by the end of the summer we never went to the beach because the waters were to warm...not to mention the jellyfish and the seaweed problems by the end of the summer:) Just stay save.

Deffently Jacquie. Thankfully now it's looking like it's gonna hit Matagorda and not Houston, but then again, who knows? Allicia was forcast to hit Corpus and made a direct hit on Houston.

We're watching it and if it makes that North turn sooner rather than later, we'll get out.

Be careful everyone and stay safe. Don't try to ride this thing out. It is already a catagory 5.

Cat 4, currently going in east of Houston, putting me and my family on the 'clean side'.

Of course the "cone of uncertanty" goes from Matagorda (west of Houston) east to LA which means "this is where we think it's going to land, but in your in this yellow shaded area don't let your guard down."

Traffic is -=BAD=-. Kinda like a parking lot on all the major road ways, and some not so major. Friend left his house in South Houston (close to NASA) around 4pm YESTERDAY heading for San Antinio area. Somewhere around 7am he called me and said, "I've got a half a tank of gas and I'm about 5 miles from you. Can I crash there?" That's roughly 50 miles in 15 hours or about 3-4 mph.

Just thought I'd let everyone know that the trailer is still standing and so am I. Thanks to Rita making land fall another 100+ miles to the East of us, we stayed right here. I sleaped through the worst of it.

Here, I'll upload pics of what I got of Rita.

http://photos.yahoo.com/klingterra

"Rita" is the name of the album, and of course you can look at the other pictures if you like. The rest of the albums are of ceramic pices that I've panted (some I've tried to sell on e-bay with no success). The only exception to that rule is "TSID" which stans for 'Texas Socity of Interpreters for the Deaf'. Thoes are pictures that I took at the anual confrence, this year heald in Austin.

Glad you made it through Rita safe and sound. I looked at the pics. You're a pretty good pic taker and those are figurines. Angels are always my favorites, but a couple of the dragons were nice too.

Lynsay (making a note of Theresa's name in case she needs info on interpreting the deaf for a story someday )

*Beams* Thank you Lynsay! Photography is kind of a hobby of mine, and I was a photographer for yearbook in HS. As for the figurines that's more of an 'invatory' type of thing. Pics of everything I've painted. In fact, you and my mother have something in common, you both like angels. *making note to send Lynsay an email later*



Hehehehe I'll be happy to do what I can to help. If it's an anwser I don't know, I'll take it to my teachers.


Resa
Needing to take a picture of the farie she finished last night