Early Sunday morning she wrote that she, her boyfriend, their cats, and her computer were leaving. They arrived in Madison Sunday night, after driving straight through in the cabs in which she and her partner would normally carry fares.

This got the attention of Doug Moe, the Capital Times’ ‘gossip’ columnist, leading to a photo of them, with one of their cabs, in front of New Oreleans Take Out on Madison’s East Side.

I’m glad Nevenah was able to get out of there. It’s small comfort compared to the thousands who didn’t and either died or went through hell, but I can look at the photo and try to keep from crying.

If you aren’t reading the coverage on Making Light, go over now. Teresa, Patrick, and Jim and company are all over the clusterfsck where I can only sputter in rage.

My brother, who lives outside of Dallas in Rockwall County, says the local relief agency’s swamped with refugees who arrived early in the week, expecting to go back in a couple of days. They need donations of ready to eat food and drink if you’re in the area, money if you’re not.

The Red Cross is handling the main stream of refugees arriving by bus convoy, sending them to Reunion Arena. The Red Cross needs money to help them, even if the Federals are keeping the Red Cross from helping people still stuck in New Orleans.

I miss Madison on occasion. There were winter days when it was near zero, and I left the house bundled against the cold to hike to my office. The first thing you feel is the cold on your sinuses. I’d stop at the Steep and Brew on University Avenue for morning coffee. The coffee would freeze in a thin layer across the sip hole in the top of my insulated mug.

Driving ten minutes down Highway 85 doesn’t compare, even in a winter storm.

My best wishes to you guys on your new home and job.

Homework’s no longer an excuse for you and David to skip WisCon.

Don made little programmable badges out of a grid of LEDs that cycled through dozens of patterns, and you’d find your eyes tracking to his blinking lapel whenever he was nearby.

My sympathies to his partner, Grace.

So, I was happy when I heard Kerry’s selected Edwards as his Vice Presidential Candidate.

Maybe we’ll see Joel become Kerry’s Secretary of Labor.

This is how you take care of your customers.

And how you keep your customers in the hotel for breakfast and lunch instead of going to a WiFi hotspot on State Street.

It still has to be voted on by the State Senate and approved in a statewide vote, so there’s some hope that it’ll be stopped.

Note: I lived in Wisconsin from 1987 to 1996.

Apparently:

• 70% of the UK would had gone to Oxford or Cambridge
• the Prime Minister can walk around with one bodyguard
• and having the number one single at Christmastime is terribly important.

Curtis definitely got Milwaukee wrong in Love, Actually. It’s a Miller, not a Bud town.

Aren’t combinorics fun?