JohnA lifeBlog

Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics

I do not want to talk about New Orleans, the hurricane, my poor decisions last night to help me cope with it, or the resulting nonsensical drunken blog postings & (unfortunately) e-mail messages.

Instead, let’s have some fun with the UltraCart production database cluster!

• Number of distinct items for sale by UltraCart merchants: 228,747
• Number of product image thumbnails created by UltraCart: 51,188
• Number of digital delivery files hosted by UltraCart: 13,725
• Total disk spaced used to store digital delivery files (in bytes): 9,139,303,860
• Amount of bandwidth consumed by UltraCart in August 2005 (in bytes): 635,268,521,544 (or 591.64 gigabytes)
• Average per-order total across all UltraCart merchants in August 2005: $100.04
• Highest single order total in August 2005: $27,189
• Total bandwidth used YTD 2005 by UltraCart (in bytes): 5,187,348,672,758 (or for those loving nice round numbers, 4.72 terabytes)

If you have any other ideas regarding interesting statistics, let me know. Please understand that there are some metrics I can’t give out for business reasons. In fact, I’ll probably get in trouble for this.

Good News / Bad News

The good news is that all of my family is safe. My dad, stepmom, and sisters are staying with family friends in a town about an hour south of Shreveport. My brother, sister-in-law, and nephew are currently bunkered down in an undisclosed secure location. Actually, I think it’s Houston, but I’m not sure. Furthermore, the word is that Algiers, the community in which my brother & his family lives, has reported almost no flooding, and only isolated roof damage.

Now, the bad news. Jefferson Parish (in Louisiana, counties are called parishes), where my Dad & his family lives, has been struck quite hard. It is currently under martial law, and word is that they will not be able to return home for up to 6 weeks. My dad is friends with the sheriff, so he is going to head back there to assess the damage this weekend.

I have taken over editorial & administrative duties for RainbowKids until my stepmom is able to get a new temporary office set up. I am also working with her agencies to coordinate response and relief efforts.

Tragedy often brings out the worst in people, but I am happy to say that it has brought out nothing but the best in the friends & loved ones affected by this storm.

Continue to keep all of the displaced residents in your prayers, and know that both me and my family appreciate all of your kind words & offerings of support.

Whew.

The storm turned north sooner than expected, so New Orleans will not be in the most dangerous eastern side of the storm.

It is still unknown how bad the damage will be, but New Orleans has managed to avoid the worst parts of the storm surge.

Initial reports are indicating severe wind damage, but little or no flooding.

Update

Finally got in touch with my family. Everyone is fine. Ethan, Missy & Marshall are in Houston, and my dad & his family are on their way to Shreveport. Mom, my grandmother, and my aunt are all in Atlanta… they didn’t want to take any chances.

The local New Orleans wrote an article about a year ago describing what would happen should the perfect storm hit. Unfortunately, it appears that Hurricane Katarina is following that model almost step by step.

WWL-TV is showing their news coverage online if you want to follow the New Orleans news live.

I’m Scared

As most of you know, I spent my entire early childhood living in New Orleans, Louisiana. I attended Alice Harte Elementary School through 4th grade. And much of my family still lives there.

New Orleans is facing the most catastrophic storm ever to make landfall in the United States. Due to the unique location of the city, it is basically a huge bowl beneath sea level. If the hurricane proceeds in the direction predicted, it is possible that the entire city would be under 15 feet of water for weeks.

I’ve tried calling everyone’s cell phones, only to be met with “this call cannot be completed at this time”. Stupid Sprint PCS. I haven’t heard from anyone, and I don’t know what is going to happen to them. I’m sure they are evacuating, but what will they do if they can’t return home for months? How will my brother provide for his family if he can’t return to work for months?

I’m frightened. My mom & step dad went through something similar last year when Hurricane Ivan hit there. The stories they shared were awful. And New Orleans could be much worse.

I’ve been through numerous hurricanes (I even slept on the porch while a tropical storm hit… ask later for details), but they have never been anything like this.

The last Category 5 hurricane to hit the United States was Hurricane Andrew in 1992. I went there the week after to assist in food distribution, and it was unlike anything I had ever seen. The destruction was complete, and everywhere. People abandoned their homes after spray-painting their insurance information on the front walls.

Having seen first hand so many hurricane experiences, I am scared beyond belief. I hope & pray my family is okay, and I hope that someone will just call me and let me know what is going on.

Sorry for the rambling, I just am not in the state of mind to subject my blog postings through their usual editorial processes.

Leo Laporte Is Back!

One of the most iconic of all dot-come era pundits is Leo Laporte. Since the merger of TechTV and G4, the only place you could find him was through either his This Week In Tech or The Laporte Report podcasts. But now he’s back on TV!

If you get G4TV, be sure to check out new episodes of Call For Help.

Google launches a new IM product

Google has launched their own Jabber-based Instant Messenger client

I’m on there now with AdiumX as johnanderson@gmail.com

If you need a gmail invite, let me know

Mark & Andrea Hamilton

Congrats to my good friends Andrea & Mark on their wedding yesterday. It was so much fun. I had a really crummy seat during the ceremony, so most of my pictures are from the reception, which is where all the fun stuff takes place anyway.

Mark & Andrea’s Wedding Photo Gallery

Right now they are on their honeymoon in Hawaii… hopefully they’ll bring back lots of photos that I can put online here as well.

Neato!

I don’t know how I missed this, but I was quoted in a press release recently regarding RainbowKids.

Rainbowkids celebrates its 9th anniversary this month. Wait until you see what we have in store for celebrating our 10th anniversary.

*wink*

Bunch of CRAZY kids

My friend Ben sent me this photo, taken graduation night in 1995. Click for the full sized version.

Wow, I’m getting old.