1 I am sick for those folks throughout SE La and MS. What a frickin' mess. I guess there are flash flood warnings now throughout the New Orleans area. Man, Ogre, I'm dreading this September. I got hit with two last year, dodged two this year, my folks have been hit twice and if you include Katrina's outter bands, 3X in the last 11 months... I'm done. I really think Montana is starting to look really really really good...

2 I've actually looked at the entire country from a geologist's point of view. There's nowhere safe. Everywhere has it's natural disasters. West coast has earthquakes, south and southeast have hurricanes, north and northeast get snow storms, and the Midwest has it's twisters. I'm in one of the most relatively safe places -- far enough inland to be mostly safe from hurricanes, too far south for real snow storms, and in just the right spot for very, very few tornadoes -- and that's despite being on top of a fault line that could erupt into earthquakes any time. Of course, that's about all the good reasons you can really give to move to North Carolina...the bad reasons really start to add up when you consider taxes, education, and crime...