The Crew Speak

This is a rare moment for Taima (or Ofema, as she's known down south) to head the blog. Caught this when she wasn't looking.

Insofar as the PG nature of this blog permits - here are the voices of the Team. And good luck to you all.


So far you have only heard from Rusty Iron. What you have not heard about was the personal agenda of the splinter cells. Shane, being the captain of our crew, and I had four goals to accomplish onsetting out. Three of them have been accomplished by this midway point.

Getting into Barbara and Bobby's house was one of the goals and clearly, setting foot in New Orleans was one of them. Both of these, we have reached along with one of the other goals. The fourth is soon to come as we are making fine progress on it. Unfortunately, those last two are confidential. The important thing is that we are ahead of schedule.


Anyways, we have entered New Orleans and it is truly a fantastic experience. To see trashed houses with piles of destroyed material in front them is so much different when it's on tv. To see it in real life lets you know so much more. We have all seen shots on the news that are shot out of car windows and pan accross rows and rows of those houses. We can actually see the truth in it now. We can see the waterline on the interstate highways. We can see boats up in the trees and cars in the river. I am so glad that I have the oppurtunity to see it all.


This proves my point about travelling being the best way to learn.


Though I miss everyone back home, this is one of the greatest experiences of my life. C'est La Vie.


-Grasshopper





hey

its shane here everything is going great even though we had a rough begining we have pulled together and we are totally taking the south by storm. We have become a family and we have been treated so great like we were a rock band. i want to thank barb and bob and the family for treating us like we were one of there own. when i ask this high school girl brittany if she or is she knew anyone who was effected badly she said "that no own was badly hurt and she counts it as a blessing because it could have been worse" what this shows is that people have really accepted it and have reverted back to normality and have begun their "new life" and won't live in fear any more. this experience has been the greatest of my life and has made me appreciate life a lot more, because knowing everything can change in a second makes me realize to love and appreciate everything I have because it could go at any time. Don't get me wrong these people in the south are great and they can't be any nicer, and have really change in my mind all of our lives. ok well I'm out but I want to leave you with a quote and something to think about. "if you think you have it bad because your parents ground you or take your phone, try living with no water or electric for weeks, so if you think you live in hell try losing everything in an instant and knowing you can die anytime, so appreciate the things you have because you haven't seen anything until you have nothing"


miss all at home but I'll be home soon and I promise to make you all proud


RED LEADER OUT


Willow Thorneater reporting from the frontlines.


We descend, cutting our tethers at the Barb and Bob site (the most kickass pair of gumbomancers this side of the Mason Dixie line), racing through the barren lands between Bugalusa and N'olens at Russel's classic buck o' five. Three times baby. Three times in four days. Twenty points for Rusty pops. The first thing that erupts out of the swamp flats is simple, unequivicol devastation. Boats strung in trees, houses skeletonized, cars abandoned to sink into the thick Louisiana mud. Honestly, I watched the news shows, I read the accounts, I listened to my mother rant, but nothing prepared me for the degree of desolation. It was third world. Straight and simple. Now, this was the outskirts, this was the swamp flats, I was able to justify the lingering damage and it's intensity, but as we ramped up onto the bridge over the Pontchartrain and entered the city proper, I was amazed to see the same level of damage. I tried to visualize the water level and the wind, but I couldn't. Now, I am a self proclaimed visualizer, I think I'm pretty good, too, but I could not put my head around this sort of thing. The violence I saw in snippets and catches suddenly snapped into context. The anger and hatred I saw in the eyes of those interviewed suddenly made sense. These people were screwed double. Honestly. We passed over the outs, diving down into the city, arriving safely in the sanctioned tourist area. I felt good, with my slick hat and my belly full o' jambalaya, but I couldn't shake that disturbance. I'm ranting, I guess, I can't quite concentrate with Robin hammering on the guitar and all. All I really want to say is take a think when you read this, about what we have upstate. I am going to have a hard time just chilling on my butt and playing video games after this. Oh, and trust no one, don't sleep, and never build your house on the dragons back. I miss my forest, and my streams! I want my tolkien mountains! Sorry, a little homesick. See y'all later. No'olens out.




robin-
I enjoyed the trip so far, though i was thinking about blowing up pennsylvania on account as we passed through nothing of any intrest. Then we went to north carolina and stayed in a dorm's common room floor, we also met a drunk kid in drag "lol". So last night we stayed with barbara and bobby this couple in louisiana, they were really nice and they made a kick-ass gumbo. The recipe was okra, flour, sausage, onion,chicken,and red bell pepers. So barb and bob had three grandaughters and one step grandaughter, I thought that they were all realy nice. To day we went to new orleans, on the way we played a veriety of car cames including punch buggy, cruiser bruiser, and mustang game. We passed a swamp with alligato(r) in it. Shane says the alligator was fake, wil said it was dead, and trevor said it was sunbathing. I personally agree with trevor.