Tag: rebuilding

Mar 30 2011

The Fix We’re in For: Bridges and our Infrastructure

Yesterday I put up a post about a report that was to be released today, the report is now public and it isn’t a pretty picture as noted by those who put it together.

And this report is only on the Bridges around this Country and broken down by States.

This is well known by many, especially us who work in the construction industry and understand what is built needs constant maintenance, even our military understands that with preventive maintenance programs

This has been ignored for way too long. With tens of thousands of construction workers laid off or on spotty contract jobs wondering what’s next. Thousand of contractors scrapping the bottom trying to inject projects. Engineers and architects, along with other construction white collar personal doing likewise, out of work or just hanging on.

Here’s the report:  

Jan 24 2010

Put America Back To Work

Just one of many ways, and not only as to the VA facilities but Federal and State buildings etc. as well. And boy could I make a huge list of overlooked and ignored infrastructure needs!

I did this a number of years back, but it wasn’t because of a collapsed economy. I came off some eight years on the road, mostly in the northeast some midwest and a few southern states, building and supervising the building of stores in the new enclosed Malls that had grown out of strip malls all over. I just happened to have hit a call for a carpenter to lay a couple of VCT floors at the VA facility in Syracuse and was one of two hired. After we finished that we were asked to stay on and work out of their maintenance office and shop doing repairs and preventive maintenance. We ended up working there for a year plus. The other carpenter, older then myself, stayed on, I left to go back into commercial Rebuilds and continued in Commercial and Residential for the years since, up to the collapse of it all and the to little going on now.

Mar 19 2009

This Is What Should Have Happened: Afghanistan

I just caught this and will say, this is what should have occurred after we invaded and rid the country of the Taliban rule, and while we went after bin Laden and al Qaeda!

Will it be to late?

I think it is already, and Hopefully I’m Wrong, Very Wrong, this time:  

Jan 03 2009

“The Old Man and the Storm”

Last night, 1-02-009, on the PBS News Hour they held a discussion with “Frontline” correspondent and filmmaker June Cross who describes her documentary “The Old Man and the Storm” which will air on PBS’s “Frontline” on Jan. 6th, New Orleans: Three Years After Katrina.

This is a timely documentary more than three years after Katrina and especially as to the way the Government has been handling that compared to the extremely quick bailouts of the financial institutions in the present economic collapse and at other times when the corporate elite demanded their political friends come to their aid. There are three short video’s at the ‘Frontline’ site that I’m embedding below, the third one touches on just that, especially as to the promises made by the President bush and other Government Officials and to the rapidly failing ‘free market’ ‘trickle down’ economic policy of the GOP.

Nov 19 2008

Give it up for the Gulf Coast, take 5

The gross incompetents and criminally negligent may be leaving DC soon, but there are still tens of thousands of people on the gulf coast who haven’t been able to rebuild… so we’re going back over Christmas, some for the fifth time since the storm.

What started as a group of 7 is now over 70 strong.

Show us some love… and if you’re near Westchester County, NY… come listen to some music:



Riverbuild'08

Feb 28 2008

Nagin’s 39 Pages of “New Rules”

Okay, Our Bushite-wanna-be Mayor is trying to push another agenda on the folks who are trying to pull their lives together after the Federal Flood of New Orleans and the callous disregard given by all levels of Gov’mit when it comes to real people.

This is the latest insult/threat:

Crossposted from GentillyGirl

Feb 21 2008

Raping New Orleanians…

Alright, Betts and I are racing to get our Federally Flooded house ready for us to return to. (Try paying a mortgage, and rent on what is basically a home that passes as a dumpster AND paying for contractors and the materials.) Material costs have gone up over 30% because the home building industry is going down the tubes due to the junk mortgage B/S. The Gulf Coast is the only place left for the home building industry, and they are fucking us royally.

Since we have to buy four bathrooms and three kitchens for the Trans Compound, we needed to get some lavatory faucets for our baths in the main house. It came in around $200 for the lavs. (I don’t buy junk.) What shocked me was that our kitchen sink stuff is running at $270. Sweet Zombie Jesus, they are just chunks of metal.

Our carpet company really helped us out for the two carpeted rooms in the house: Lowe’s wanted almost 250% more and we got better products. We also caught a sale on some area rugs that we need since the bulk of the house is done in Terrazo tile. (Wake up in the middle of the night needing to potty? Running across tile is torture. I want our tootsies to be warm.)

So I now present an essay/diatribe from last August concerning the insanity of our our consumer society that I witnessed after joining a buying club when it comes to potties:

(Crossposted from GentillyGirl  

Feb 17 2008

I’m Getting A B’Day Present

Crossposted from GentillyGirl

 and the Wild, Wild Left.

WHOO HOO! does cartwheels

We are moving back into our home at the end of this month. It will have been 30 months since Betts and I slept in our house. Things won’t be finished there when this happens, but we’ll have enough ready for us to be able to use the place. One bathroom will be finished, same goes for the kitchen, our offices and the bedroom.

I can’t wait to see how our construction crew deals with us being around 24/7, much less having to deal with the katz bouncing off the walls. (Thank goodness that they are painting this week: I don’t want the walls “textured” with cat fur.) And we also have to remember not to walk around in bras and panties. giggles Hell, we need curtains! I don’t wish to be seen in the office windows as a Hollywood Hustler second story display ad.

The first thing I’m cooking in the new kitchen will be two huge vats of seafood gumbo, followed by a vat of clam chowder. Betts will want some escargot, I just know it. Being back in that kitchen will be a salve to the last 30 months of Hell.

When the gameroom is finally finished I order the billiards table. This is becoming so much fun: getting to decorate the house our way, not the way the boys did before we bought the place. It’s a bright and airy space. And this time, it is all us and no one else’s. We get to make the changes that we wanted to do in the 8 short months we owned the place before the Flood hit. (Sadly, the yards are going to take a long time to fix up… they look like Godzilla and King Kong held a wrestling match there.)

Finally, we are going home.  

Feb 11 2008

Looking Back…

Here is another look back at the first few months post-Federal Flood here in New Orleans. At the time Betts and I were in SoCal, and the only way for me to “be with” Gentilly was to use an e-list.

This letter started a movement to build a community association, and ultimately it did. (Just not exactly my version of the dream.)

Feb 10 2008

The Summer of Our Discontent

I’m going back and looking at the last few years, and like many others here, I’m bringing back past posts because they are still relevant.

This is from July of ’06:

This song has been driving me crazy all night… won’t go away:

GentillyGirl

LAND OF CONFUSION- Genesis 1977

“I must’ve dreamed a thousand dreams

Been haunted by a million screams

But I can hear the marching feet

They’re moving into the street.

Now did you read the news today

They say the danger’s gone away

But I can see the fire’s still alight

There burning into the night.

There’s too many men

Too many people

Making too many problems

And not much love to go round

Can’t you see

This is a land of confusion.

This is the world we live in

And these are the hands we’re given

Use them and let’s start trying

To make it a place worth living in.

Ooh Superman where are you now

When everything’s gone wrong somehow

The men of steel, the men of power

Are losing control by the hour.

This is the time

This is the place

When we look for the future

But there’s not much love to go round

Tell me why, this is a land of confusion.

This is the world we live in

And these are the hands we’re given

Use them and let’s start trying

To make it a place worth living in.

I remember long ago –

Ooh when the sun was shining

Yes and the stars were bright

We walked through the night

And the sound of your laughter

As I held you tight

So long ago –

I won’t be coming home tonight

My generation will put it right

We’re not just making promises

That we know, we’ll never keep.

Too many men

There’s too many people

Making too many problems

And not much love to go round

Just tell my why

This is a land of confusion.

Now this is the world we live in

And these are the hands we’re given

Use them and let’s start trying

To make it a place worth living in.

This is the world we live in

And these are the names we’re given

Stand up and let’s start showing

Just where our lives are going to.”

Jan 29 2008

A rant from a footsoldier in the “Army of Compassion”

Also available in Orange


Tonight the armies of compassion continue the march to a new day in the Gulf Coast. America honors the strength and resilience of the people of this region. We reaffirm our pledge to help them build stronger and better than before.– SOTU 2008

There are plenty of footsoldiers in the Army of Compassion. But are we marching to a new day in the Gulf Coast, or retreating before the gates of Moscow?

Jan 25 2008

Gulf Coast Slideshow!!

Or… What I did on my winter vacation

Who’s makin’ the popcorn?