Some Photos

Everyone in the country should go to New Orleans and see what is happening there, and try to be a part of making it better. Although it is not on your TV screens anymore New Orleans’ rebuilding story is still a long way from finished. Nearly two years later you can still drive around New Orleans for over 3 HOURS and never stop seeing destruction. That is a scope and a reality that is nearly impossible to comprehend until you see it with your own eyes.

The destruction of New Orleans spreads through all neighborhoods - rich, poor, black and white. The water rose, and everyone was effected. And they continue to be effected today.

There is a spirit about New Orleans that is unlike any place I’ve ever experienced. The city has a heartbeat that can be heard and felt in everything from its music to its food to its amazing people. When you talk to these people, when you hear their stories, you hear anger, sadness, frustration and pain. But when you ask them why they love their city their eyes just light up. And the answers are full of pride, heart and love.

Be a part of helping this city get back on its feet. Go see what can only be seen in New Orleans. And when you do, I guarantee you too will fall in love with the heart and soul of NOLA.

Go to http://volunteerneworleans.com/ for various volunteer opportunities in the New Orleans area.

Some Stories

I have always wanted to volunteer in a far off land. Whether it was building houses, cleaning-up habitat, teaching English, or just doing what I can, that part didn't really matter. It was mostly about giving a week of my time for the betterment of a community and the world.

Recently I help Dawn Dais in organizing the Dream in Motion, a volunteer group from around the country , go to the devastated New Orleans area to volunteer. I knew the area was devastated and in need of help before I set foot in the jazz capital of the country, but once we were onsite I got the full brunt of how much farther the Bayou region had to go in order to make it 'livable' again for its residents.

I was surprised to see how little had been done to restore the area to its pre-storm glory. On our tour of the area, the devastation was more encompassing that one could imagine. Pictures truly don't express the expansiveness of what we witnessed. Every neighborhood had been touched and up to its eves in polluted water. As we drove, every neighborhood, every street and every house as far as you could see, seemed empty and void of its once harmonious roots.

It felt good to leave there knowing, however small the contribution, that we had helped and made an impact. I would definitely recommend everyone get involved in something like this. It is an eye-opening experience that you should have at least once in your life. You will leave with a deep appreciation for what YOU have and how much you have to be thankful for in YOUR life. I hope to return to NOLA some day, to volunteer again and see the changes that helped renew the city and it's surrounding communities since this recent visit.

Carrie
Seattle, WA


I always tell people I felt like I was on two distinct trips while visiting New Orleans. After returning from my week of volunteer work and sightseeing in New Orleans, friends naturally want to hear about my experience. And the best way to sum up my time there is that I spent a week manically experiencing the highs and lows of humanity in the Crescent City.

Having never traveled to New Orleans prior to Hurricane Katrina and the floods, I had no basis for comparison for what I saw. What I felt was overwhelming sadness...in its purest and most animalistic form. TWO plus years after the disaster, the city is still in desperate need of its government, its nation, its residents, and its saviors to pay attention and to care, to act, to love. Neighborhoods are empty, businesses are shut down, homes are no longer homes -- instead, dilapidated wood skeletons remain. NOLA's soul is hurting.

Man oh man, though, is that a fun town The people, the food, the voodoo, the music, the art, the booze, the crooked streets, the funny accents, the culture, the history, and, again, the food...you'll not find New Orleans's equal anywhere in the world. Vibrant is the word that springs to mind when thinking about the town. I'm already trying to figure out a way to return next year, and the year after that, and the year after that. Perhaps one year my visit won't seem manic and I'll return talking about just one trip. Visiting New Orleans has convinced me that this town is necessary, its people are necessary, its heritage is necessary, and its vibrancy is necessary.

Heather
Berkeley, CA

I'm Trying

I am trying ever so hard to come up with something worth blogging about. As I reported yesterday, my brain has taken a leave of absence. I do so hope it returns shortly. Or not. Being a zombie isn’t all that bad. It’s a lot less stressful that regular life.

Ahhh regular life. I am trying so hard to remember what that is. It’s slow goin’ in that department. So far the television has provided some insight for me. I’ve reconnected with my TV shows, and that is a start. I’ve also reconnected with sushi, which has gone a long way in making me feel like part of my own life once again.

I just don’t really know what I’m supposed to be DOING. I work from home. So I get up and walk down the hall and I do the work that clients require. And it’s not like there isn’t work to be done. There is. And I’m doing it. But see, the thing is, for the past few months I’ve been doing all that work PLUS planning a cross-country trip/book tour/New Orleans volunteer effort. So I’m left with a little bit of a hole where I used to put A WHOLE LOT OF CRAP.

Now I’m trying to figure out what to put in that space formally filled by a whole lot of crap. There are plenty of options. But I feel like I should just breathe for a minute and not jump immediately back into the craziness. But breathing takes a lot of energy and restraint and I’m not so good at being still, as it turns out. I’m very good at being stir crazy though, which is good to know.

My Blackberry broke the other day. I think it’s a sign. Well, I guess it could be a sign that you shouldn’t drop Blackberry’s in the toilet – BUT! I like to instead think of it as a sign that I don’t need a Blackberry anymore. That there is no reason for me to connected to everyone every single second of the day. And also, maybe that I shouldn’t keep my phone in my back pocket...

In book news, there is a little blurb about me in Runner’s World this month:



Do you understand how completely ridiculous it is that there is anything, blurb or otherwise, about ME in Runner’s Friggin World? I mean really. This could be why I feel so out of sorts, there is something off in the world when I’m in Runner’s World magazine. Of course things have been off for awhile, as I was in Women’s Health magazine last month:

You notice that I was also the cover model for both magazines. Ha! I think it would be funny if I was the cover model for these magazines, standing next to their cover models. That would be comedy.

Some Pictures

I really have no thoughts at this time. My brain is on strike.

But I do have some pictures. And they are supposed to be worth a lot of words, I've heard.

Peeking Out

Hello all.

It has been quite some time since I’ve written. My bad.

I got home from my 10 week book tour/New Orleans trip. Since that time I have been doing a lot of bonding with my couch and TV. I’m actually sore today from laying down for so many hours. Sore. That is fantastic.

I don’t really know what to do with myself entirely.

Since December, and probably even before that, I’ve been planning or doing this book tour thing. At the same time I’ve been doing my real job as well, as mortgages are fun things to pay sometimes. I hear. So now I’m done with the planning and the trip. And all that is left is my real work.

There are a lot of hours in the day.

When you don’t have any morning shows to do, or book events to go to, or random groups of people to talk to, or 500 miles to drive, or 25 people to organize in New Orleans, or 25 meals to eat in New Orleans, or ulcers to get.

I’m forcing myself to take a moment to breathe a little, to be okay with the calm for a second at least. My house is quiet. It hasn’t been quiet near me for months. It’s a weird sound to get used to.

There are still a lot more things on the List of Things to Do. So I will not be calm for long. But I’m trying, I really am. I’m trying to process the last 10 weeks. Trying to get some perspective on it now that I’m done. It already feels like something I did once. Not something I did last week.

Here was the last promo that was put together. It’s a lot like the first one, but with a little more added on. Watch till the end, there a little extra after the pr info.

Greetings from NOLA

Good lord it has been forever since I’ve blogged. My bad. It seems I haven’t thought much about blogging this past week. I usually blog as mainly a way to keep friends and family updated on what I’m doing and where I’m going. But see, many of my friends and family were here with me in New Orleans. So it seemed silly to write a blog when I could just tell them to their face what I’m up to and where I’m going. Chances were they were up and going to the same things.

So we are in New Orleans trying to save the world. And eat as much food as humanly possible. The eating takes a long time, you know. And then there is the digestion and the plotting of the next meal. This too has left little time for blogging. I know you understand.

It’s been great to be back here in New Orleans and to be here with so many of my friends and family who came out to build and play. And eat. It’s been a wonderful way to end these past couple of months and a great way to sorta refuel after the draining effects of doing a book tour for 8 weeks. The book tour already feels like a distant memory and I’m glad to have washed it away with some good stuff here in New Orleans. Good people, good work, good food, great drink specials. And so on.

We are having a lovely time here and I am glad that a bunch of people in my group got to come out and see for themselves what is going on out here. It is nearly impossible to comprehend until you come here and see it with your eyes. A New Orleans resident said to me today, “We don’t have post-traumatic stress, because we are still in the trauma.”

I will be back here again, many times in the years to come. I’ve fallen in love with this city. Even in its weakened state it still has a hell of a lot to offer, and I think its people are probably some of the few in this country that would be able to fight back from this. They’ve got fight these folks. But they need other people to fight for them too. I hope to be one of those people for many years.

We will be here for a few more days, then it will be time to pack my suitcase one more time, get on one more airplane, and go home. My sweet home. With its wonderful couch and big screen TV. It’s waiting for me. I hope it remembers me. I know I remember it. Quite fondly actually.

Here is a video of our experience with a travel guide book:

NOLA

We have finally made it to New Orleans. My good lord did it take us awhile. Next time, by the way, I think I’ll just head straight to Louisiana. I don’t know if this state is looking especially nice because it is the last one I’ll have to see before I go home, or if I really do love Louisiana. Probably a little of both. There is something unique here. The combination of New Orleans and the area outside of New Orleans. They are two entirely different places, with totally different people. And yet they aren’t that far away from each other. I like both places. I like both people.

We went and saw a play today. It is called Rising Water. I read about it in the paper yesterday and we went and checked it out today. On Sundays the playwright comes to the play and has a Q&A session with the audience after the show is over. This is heaven for me. The creator of art, sitting right there, telling you how and why they created.

It’s a play about the floods, about two people who are waken in the night by rising water in their home. They don’t know where the water is coming from and why it is coming so fast. Katrina has passed, it had missed the city really. Why are they having to sit in their attic to avoid the amount of water that is rising in their house? It’s a great play, only two actors on stage for 2 hours. The dialogue flows and the story is told and you get a teeny tiny glimpse into what it must have been like. To have the levees break. To have your city under water, and to have no idea why.

The Q&A session was more like a dialogue itself. Many of the people in the audience were New Orleans residents. They had their own stories to tell. Mostly they said, “No one in the rest of the country knows what happened here. They just don’t get it.”

And we don’t.

It’s impossible to describe to people what happened here. That is wasn’t Katrina that flooded New Orleans, it was the failed levee system. A system similar to ones in cities throughout the country. And then after the levees failed, everything else failed as well. The stories you hear from people here, they make you wonder why there aren’t riots in the streets. And they make you understand why the suicide rate is 3 times the national average here.

My group of volunteers is going on a tour of the devastated areas on Thursday. It’s a two and a half hour tour. During that time we will not repeat anything. And we will probably still not see all the damage that was done.

The scope.

That is what we in the rest of the country don’t understand. An entire city wiped off the map. That doesn’t seem possible, so we can’t quite grasp it. But it is possible.

The French Quarter is still open for business, tourists still wander the streets, beer and food is still flowing from the bars and restaurants. So everything must be okay, right? Go 5 miles away from the French Quarter and you will see that no, it is not okay. And you will feel very strongly that it is so not okay how not okay this place is a year and a fucking half after the levees broke.

The playwright, John Biguenet, told a story today at the Q&A session. He said that Americans can’t wrap their heads around what has happened here but that the Europeans he’s met seem to understand. Because they’ve had whole cities destroyed before. There was a man from Germany who said that he understood what New Orleans was going through because Germany had been wiped out as well. He then said that New Orleans should take solace in how Germany rebuilt and rose out of its destruction. To this Mr. Biguenet replied, “Yes, but you had the United States helping you rebuild.”

I saw a bumper sticker recently that said, “If you’re not completely appalled, then you haven’t been paying attention.”

Pay attention.

My Driving Teacher

Driving Lessons

Sherry let me drive the RV the other day. Lord help me. And everyone else on the freeway. Thank the same lord that there weren’t very many of his people on the freeway, because I was taking up most of the freeway with my driving. I don’t know where anyone else would have fit.

See, the thing is, I’m used to driving a CRV. CRV’s are very tiny. RV’s, towing pickup trucks? Not so tiny. Wow. Talk about nerve-wracking. One would think that Sherry’s nerves might have been a little wracked, but no. A nice afternoon cocktail took care of her nerves. If only I could have had a few cocktails, because my nerves were a wreck.

I got us to our destination without causing harm to us or anyone else. To me that is a job well done. We won’t discuss how many lanes I needed to take up at one time, those details are unimportant. What is important is that people realize that it is not easy to navigate such a large automobile/home and therefore they need to just, “GET THE HELL OUT OF MY WAY ” Ahem. It’s kinda difficult to brake when you are going 70 in a house on wheels. Make note of that wouldja?

Next time you see a motor home in your rearview mirror, just pull over and let them pass. You never know who might be behind the wheel. And you never know if the only person really qualified to drive the home on wheels is in the back mixing a cocktail.

I’m here to inform.

Here is a video of my driving adventure. It’s like a Driver’s Ed video gone terribly wrong.

Texas

We’s in Texas ya’ll.

I got my cowboy hat on and I’m ready to rock this state.

We lost two hours getting here.

We haven’t really had to be anywhere at any time the last couple of days so time isn’t all that important. But it’s still a funny thing, “What time is it?” “3, 4 or 5 o’clock, I’m not sure where we are exactly.”

Tomorrow we head to Austin and then to Houston. Then we will vote republican and perhaps buy a gun. Isn’t that what people do here. Hey! Did someone die? The flags are all at half mast. (Is it half mast or half massed? Dunno.) I always hate when I see flags at half mast, because it makes me sad and a little confused. I figure someone must have died, so I should be sad, but I’m not really sure who died, so maybe if I knew I wouldn’t have strong feelings either way. Basically flags at half mast sorta confuse me emotionally, I don’t know how to appropriately react. Hell, maybe they are still at half mast for that Ford guy that died. They were at half mast for weeks after he died. Every time I saw one I thought someone new had died, but no.

And speaking of presidents, I’ve been told that Lady Bird Johnson was big into the beautification of Texas highways. Is this true? Apparently she was all about making the highways pretty. Really? Can this really be true? That a First Lady of the friggin’ United States of America decided to spend her time and energy and influence and power on planting flowers along the highway? EVERY flower we’ve seen along the highway Sherry points at and says, “Lady Bird did that.” What a phenomenal legacy...

Tonight it was all of a sudden 10 o’clock and we hadn’t eaten dinner. We had big dreams of a real dinner that wasn’t eaten in the motor home, but alas our dreams were not quite answered when the only thing open was Sonic. See, the thing with Sonic is that they have really good commercials that really make me want to go to Sonic. But the bastards haven’t actually BUILT a Sonic near me. They just run ads. They did put up a sign near my house like three years ago. It says “Coming Soon”. It is lying. So I have this kinda idealized notion of what Sonic is. I’ve seen the great commercials with great looking burgers and fries and tasty treats aplenty. Yeah. So we went to Sonic tonight and well, they should stick with making commercials because they seem to be pretty good at that and I don’t think they have any hope of their cooking ever being good. Edwin actually said, “Well, the Coke is okay.” God love him and his search for the bright side.

Some Pictures

Skywalk, Part 2

Here’s the thing: The Sky Walk is a rip-off. Tell everyone you know. Tell them to avoid the Sky Walk and go to some other part of the huge, wonderful Grand Canyon.

The Sky Walk costs $25. BUT you can’t just go on the Sky Walk. The Sky Walk is only available as an add-on to another one of the tour packages they have available. The cheapest tour package you can get is $50. So then. You have to add on the Sky Walk for another $25. This brings us up to $75 for the joy of walking on a glass thing that is really beyond lame.

What does the rest of the tour include? Well, a bus ride. That was fun. It was 5 minutes. Then an All You Can Eat Buffet. We have a suggestion, perhaps All You Can Stand Buffet might be a better name. Truth in advertising and all that. Oh and speaking of which, here is the “artist rendering” of the skywalk:


Ooooo, ahhhhh.

Now, I present you, my experience in how the Native Americans intend to screw over the country that did them so wrong. Here’s the thing: The Sky Walk is a rip-off. Tell everyone you know. Tell them to avoid the Sky Walk and go to some other part of the huge, wonderful Grand Canyon.

Oh, and the video is pretty long, so I recommend pushing play, then pause and letting it load all the way to the end before you try watching it, it will play better that way. You wouldn't want to miss a moment of this thing.

Sky Walk Sucks

Do not go to the Sky Walk Glass Thingy at the Grand Canyon. Please. For your sake and for the sake of the Indians on the reservation there. Because, the thing is, if people keep going there and keep getting totally screwed by being made to pay $75 a person to walk on what turns out to be a really lame glass thing that doesn’t really extend that far out over the canyon, well then, bad things are going to start happening to the Native Americans on that reservation. I’m not saying I’m a violent person, but I am saying that if you drive down a bumpy dirt road for 20 miles (after already having gone hours out of your way to come see the wonder) then you are made to pay $75 for the privilege of walking around the Grand Canyon, well, uh, things could get really un-grand real quick. Is all I’m saying.

The thing is ridiculous. It looks absolutely nothing like the artist rendering that lured us to what we believed would be an awesome abundance of nature’s beauty and enormity. But no. All it turned to be was a brilliant display of how people will always try to do something to get more money out of other people, as well as a fantabulous representation of how those people who are made to pay are then treated as though they are inconveniencing the entire Native American population by merely wanting to see some of this promised wonder and beauty.

I have made a lovely video documenting our waste of $200 and several hours of our time. Unfortunately I have very slow internet because we are in the middle of nowhere. So the video is loading at a speed that may make it available for viewing sometime next Fall. Stay tuned for that.

We also went to Vegas this weekend and spent a little time on the strip. We went and saw the Cirque show LOVE, the one that is with all the Beatles songs. Have you guys seen the Cirque shows on Bravo? Where they have all those people performing amazing acrobatic acts as well as overall astounding physical tests? I have. So I keep going to these Cirque shows expecting to see people doing a bunch of awe-inspiring acrobatics. And, somehow, these shows keep forgetting that they are a Cirque show and perhaps should throw in someone balancing on someone else’s head or something. Work with me here.

I did enjoy the Beatles music, and visually the show was amazing. So overall it was a good way to spend a Saturday night. Another good thing about the night was that I won $10 in the casino while we were waiting for the show. I played nickel slots and kept winning random-ass things. I was up to quite a few credits, but I wasn’t really sure how much money those credits translated to, so I just kept playing. Who knows how much I won or lost, or why I won or lost it for that matter. Who understands nickel slots really? You just push the button and wait to see if you won. There are lines everywhere with random ass pictures popping up and animated things making noise and singing songs. Man I love nickel slots. “I won! I got four buoys and a crab cage!”

So that was my weekend. I also did a couple morning shows and a book thing. Nothing too exciting there. I’m sure TONS of people were gathered around the morning show on Easter morning watching me talk about carbo-loading. I probably sold at least 20,000 books....

On the Road Again

I am once again leaving my happy home and taking to the open road tomorrow. I am not so happy to be leaving my home. I ready to be home for good, and I still have another month. Ugh.

The good news about this leg is that it involves this:

A home on wheels! Yay! This thing actually opens out in the middle when it is stopped, which actually makes it about as big as my condo. AND it has two TV’s. Yay home on wheels!

My friend Sherry has agreed to spend the next few weeks on the Dawn Is Trying to Convince You to Buy Her Book Tour. She’s a great sport and a great friend to offer her home on wheels to my dreams on wheels. It’s all very Road Rules of us. Maybe we’ll stop every once and awhile and do a random physical challenge just like they used to do on MTV’s version. Could happen.

See ya on the road kids...

Stuff

The REI things are going surprisingly well. Fun fact: I can BS for really any length of time, as it turns out. Well, I don’t really think of it as BS-ing, I just think of it as thinking on my feet. I’ve just gone in there the past couple of nights, taken a seat and started talking about marathon training. I mean really. I wrote 200 friggin pages about it, the least I can do it rambling on about it for an hour or so. The only problem seems to be that I don’t have much of a set outline of what I’m going to say, so tonight I kept hesitating on things, because I didn’t know if I had already said those things tonight, or was that last night? Geez, this is probably why people write things down and formulate thoughts before they give seminars on running. Maybe I’ll formulate thoughts on the next book tour. Or maybe I’ll formulate thoughts before the book tour and as a result will decide not to actually go on a book tour.

Lot’s of stuff has happened between blogs, and since I’m not blogging as often as usual I feel like some stuff is going unreported here in the blogworld. For that I am ever so sorry. For instance, it’s April something or other now and we still don’t have an updated picture of my mom’s ceramic dog. Things are falling apart here. You know, one of my friends suggested that I make a myspace page for the dog. I think I just might. His pictures are much better than half of the people on myspace. And he’s wearing more clothes in his pictures. (The dog, not my friend)

Last night on my way back from Seminar de Dawn I had to stop at YET ANOTHER TOLL BOOTH. Seriously. I am beginning to harbor a resentment towards tollbooths that is bordering on homicidal. Last night I came very close to hopping that border. It’s late at night. I have no cash. I see a sign saying there is a tollbooth coming up. There is no sign for an exit where I might be able to go get money. I get to the tollbooth. I have no money I say, can you send me a bill or something? The man says that the bill will be $29 if I can’t pay. This is when I started taking very big steps towards the border. I said maybe I had the $4 (and by the way - $4 for a FRIGGIN’ TOLL?!!!! Please someone do the math on how much @##%^&#$!@#$!#$ money these tollbooths are bringing in. Perhaps maybe we could set up a tollbooth to help fund things like education and health care for the poor, instead of just potholes.) in change, could I just pull to the side so the other people could go while I counted my change? He said no, the people would have to wait. I did not have $4 in change, so he took down my license number and will be sending me a bill that charges me over 900% interest because I am one of the millions of people in this country who operate almost exclusively on plastic, not cash. Do you think I could have sued the tollbooth company if I was attacked and mugged while going to get cash in the middle of the night in order to pay their ridiculous toll? Ooooooooooohhhhhh, I am not a happy driver. I will be sending this ticket back with a very strongly worded letter and a $5 bill. I am willing to pay 25% interest. That to me seems fair. If you can consider paying to driving a FREEway fair to begin with.

In other news I made a short video of two videos from Southern California. The first is a little sushi place in San Diego. It’s got flat screens all over the place, playing the most random stuff. The second was a huge bomb-looking fire in Hollywood. Big stuff, captured on film for you...