Steve McConnell wrote a great software development book, Professional Software Development. (Actually, in my opinion, Steve McConnell has written more great software development books than anyone I know, save perhaps Martin Fowler.) But before Steve wrote Professional Software Development, he wrote an earlier version called After the Gold Rush. The central metaphor there was that early in a gold rush, many people can get rich by picking up nuggets that are just waiting to be found; but that after those are gone, people can only succeeed by planning, building infrastructure, and working with more discipline to dig out the more difficult and hidden treasures. And he said that software development had moved past the gold rush stage, where great ideas were just waiting to be discovered. Newer advances will require a lot more effort to bring to fruition.

But that's in general. There are still niches where great ideas are just waiting for someone to make them happen. And one of those niches is Tablet PC applications. I contend that some really powerful Tablet PC apps are just waiting for the right developer with the right domain expertise and Tablet PC programming skills to open up a whole new market.

And since I'm hoping to teach you Tablet PC programming, I figure one way to get you interested is to throw out ideas of how you might strike gold with a Tablet PC app...

This first gold nugget comes courtesy of my friend Tom Lavey. He and his partner Charlie own L & M Precision Machine, Inc., of Pinckney, MI. (If you need high quality short runs of production turned small parts up to 1.625 inches in diameter, I highly recommend their work. And full disclosure: I'm their Web designer and administrator. But that's a volunteer position, so I don't have a stake in their work. I just think they do great work!) When I was trying to explain to Tom why Tablet PCs are so cool, he immediately envisioned my second-favorite example of a great Tablet PC app (right after Tablet UML). Loosely paraphrased, here's what he said:

So last week, we had the electrician come in to give us a quote on wiring up the shop. He took out a yellow legal pad, and he drew out a sketch of the layout. Then he asked us where the machines and equipment were going to go, and he drew in conduit, junctions, outlets, etc. And then when we were all done, he said, "OK. Let me take this back to the office, and I'll have a quote for you in three to five days.

Now if he had a Tablet PC, you're saying he could draw the same picture; but when he drew conduit or a junction or an outlet, the computer would know what he meant. It wouldn't be just lines, it would have meaning. And when he was all done, he could push a button, and out would pop an estimate. Is that about right?

And Tom was exactly right. (And yes, I'm still annoyed that a machinist saw this great example, and beat this programmer to the idea. Serves me right for having smart friends...)

Now let's flesh out Tom's idea a little bit:

• The electrician would start by drawing the building layout. For this, he'll need basic sketching capabilities, including various pens and colors, selection and erasing, the whole gamut of standard sketching tools.


• In addition to sketching, though, he'll need dimensioning. He should be able to tap or click a line in the layout and enter information about the wall length. He may also need to be able to add comments. For example, he may want to indicate the material a wall is made from, so that he knows how hard it will be to drill holes or snake conduit.


• The app should automatically clean and straighten lines, but the electrician should be able to turn this feature off.


• For drawing conduit and junctions, etc., the system should define a shape grammar, where particular symbols correspond to particular types of electrical equipment. As much as possible, the shape grammar should duplicate the notation the electrician is already using; but since I don't know that notation, I can't predict what compromises will be needed.


• The electrician should be able to click or tap a symbol and pop up a detail window. This should let him do things like indicate conduit length, make notes, and select from a list of alternatives (different types of junction boxes, etc.).


• There should be a database behind the app, providing the various alternatives that can appear in the detail window. Ideally, this should include latest pricing, and even live update via the Web (wireless, of course).


• The electrician should also be able to just sketch and just write notes, without any recognition. This lets him draw and write things the programmer never expected.


• There should be a Prepare Quote button. This should pop up a form that prompts the electrician to fill in any details he overlooked, and to make any choices of equipment type that he hasn't identified yet. When he answers all the questions and adds in any other charges he can foresee, the system will produce a quote. He can also email it to the client and to the home office.


• The app should let the electrician define business rules with regards to the quote. For example, some businesses may prefer not to give the client a preliminary quote until supervisors back at the office have approved it.

That's a start. I'm sure there's more this app should do; but I'm not an electrician, I don't know the domain, and so I can't define it better. But if you can, I can teach you how to write it.

Consulting and speaking engagements have gone insane. Trying to catch up now.

I've been too busy to check in on Steve Poling's blog lately. Steve, you need to find a publisher for this piece on a private flight. Of all your stuff I've ever read, this is the best. I heard your voice in every word, and you really put me in the plane with you. Kudos!

I write about a lot of stuff on this blog. Mostly, I write about whatever interests me; but clearly, I'm also writing about stuff that's related to my work: UML, Tablet PCs, .NET, and so on. I've had plenty of posts on each of those topics. I've also written on comic books, Persian food, travel, and lots of other topics. And I've written a post or two about Hurrican Katrina relief.

But looking over my referral logs, I find that I could've gotten almost the same traffic with just one post. Depending on the day, anywhere from 13% to up to 20% of recent visitors have come via search engines or Web sites that lead to this post on Borders Rewards vs. the Barnes & Noble Member Program.

I never would've guessed that this would be such a hot topic. I wrote that post just because I was frustrated; and now it's my ninth most-requested page. Too weird...

Josh Holmes has a survey for you. Help us to better serve you!

The itsy bitsy Easy
Built on the lowest ground.
Down came the 'cane
And New Orleans nearly drowned.

Out came the Feds
And pumped out all the rain.
And the itsy bitsy Easy
Said "Let's build there again."

Well, when the fridge failed me, at least I didn't lose any of this: Bolthouse Farms Perfectly Protein Vanilla Chai Tea. Why didn't I lose any? Because the stuff is so good and goes down so smoothly and I like it so much, it doesn't stay in the fridge very long. It's my new drink pleasure.

Start with the texture. Imagine a drink with a texture like milk, but not as thick. And yet unlike thin, watery nonfat milk, the lack of thickness suits Perfectly Protein well. This stuff is light.

Now the flavor. There's supposed to be chai tea and green tea in there somewhere. I think I can almost taste it; but that's just a base. To that, they add soy milk. Now I know, a lot of people just went "Eeewww!!!" They hate having soy shoved down their throats by the vegetarians and the health nuts who try to presuade them that soy substitutes taste "just like [fill in the blank]", when their taste buds tell them that's a lie. I agree, actually: I've never tasted a soy substitute that tasted as promised. But I do enjoy soy products in their own right, as long as you don't try to sell them as what they aren't. Soy milk, to me, always tastes a little on the bland side. The chai and green tea bolster the soy milk in Perfectly Protein, making it very pleasant. And then they add a touch of vanilla and spices. The result is just about perfect: not too sweet, not too spicy, not too thick. This lets it go down way too fast.

And then there's the nutrition:

Total Fat 3g (5%)
Saturated Fat 1g (3%)
Cholesterol 0mg (0%)
Sodium 60mg (3%)
Potassium 530mg (15%)
Total Carbohydrate 25g (9%)
Dietary Fiber 0g (0%)
Sugars 21g
Protein 10g % Daily Value*

Vitamin A 0% • Vitamin C 180%
Calcium 30% • Iron 15%
Vitamin B6 200% • Vitamin B12 195%
Magnesium 20% • Zinc 20%

Now that's an 8 ounce serving. A bottle is 33.8 ounces, and I can't imagine drinking less than a bottle (or only a bottle, sometimes).

Actually, I like all of the other Bolthouse Farms juices that I've tried: Passion, Green Goodness, Strawberry Banana, Berry Boost, and Mango Lemonade. But those are just juices. Really, really good juices. Perfectly Protein is something else. It's in a class by itself.

And apparently I'm not alone in my taste for Perfectly Protein. It seems to compel people to write about it. If you can't understand why, all I can say is: try it, and you'll see.

Word comes through the grapevine that my buddy Josh Holmes is now an INETA speaker. Congratulations, Josh!

I note also that fellow Tablet PC fanatic Julie Lerman, who has been an INETA volunteer in the past, is now also an INETA speaker. Congratulations to you as well, Julie!

And congratulations also to the other seven new speakers: John Alexander, Miguel Castro, Bill Evjen, Chris Menegay, Ted Pattison, Les Pinter, and Bill Vaughn.

If you have a user group related to .NET technologies and you would like to have Josh — or any of these other great speakers — come speak to your group, it's worth your while to join INETA. They'll provide the speakers and the pizza, up to three times per year. All you have to provide is the meeting space and the user group.

(Full disclosure, though you probably knew it already: I'm an INETA speaker, too, so I'm not a disinterested party here.)

The lesson: never assume the refrigerator in your hotel room has been turned on.

The cost: one gallon of milk, curdled beyond hope; one bowl of cereal, covered in curdled milk; various leftovers I probably wasn't going to finish anyway; one tub of chicken salad; and one tub of rice pudding. Overall, a cheap lesson.

The refrigerator wasn't completely off, just at minimum cooling; and the last two items were completely sealed, so they might have been OK. But they had been in there over a week, so I wasn't taking any chances.

Presented free of charge (and also without support, just so we're clear up front): Tracking Systems, a game for the Tablet PC.

Now let me repeat that up front, more clearly: Tracking Systems will only run on true Tablet PCs running Microsoft Windows XP, Tablet PC edition, and upgraded to version 1.7 of the Tablet PC API. If you try to run it on anything else, it's not going to work. End of discussion.

Tracking Systems hearks back to space defense games from the early age of video games: alien saucers fly over your city, dropping bombs; and it's your job to destroy saucers and defend the city. But there's a twist: you use your Tablet PC pen to draw your defenses.

• In one mode, you can draw torpedoes. Simply draw a stroke, and a torpedo will launch. The size and power of the torpedo varies with the length of the stroke. The speed of the torpedo is based on how fast you drew it.


• In the second mode, you can draw shields. Any stroke you draw becomes a full strength shield. When a bomb hits a shield anywhere along its length, the whole shield weakens, until it's eliminated.

You can change modes in two ways: you can press the Torpedoes or Shields buttons; or if your Tablet PC pen has a barrel switch, you can hold that down to draw shields, and release it to draw torpedoes.

Here's a screen capture from a game of Tracking Systems:



Tracking Systems is far from a commercial game. For one thing, it's rather crude and unpolished (a lot like the games that inspired it, in fact). And it can get sluggish when there are a lot of saucers and missiles in the air, since I haven't put any work into multithreading or other optimization techniques.

But as a demonstration of Tablet PC programming techniques, Tracking Systems has a lot to offer:

• It responds to Stroke events, in order to draw torpedoes and shields.


• It reads Stroke properties to determine the size of each torpedo.


• It manipulates Stroke properties to change Stroke color to indicate shield strength.


• It manually adds Stroke objects to the Ink surface to create the saucers and buildings and bombs and torpedoes.


• It manually removes Stroke objects when items are destroyed.


• It manually moves Stroke objects as items move on the screen.

And if you want to learn these and other Tablet PC programming techniques, and if you want to write your own great Tablet PC applications, then I have to recommend our Tablet PC Programming BootCamp in Boston.

A visitor to my Tablet UML Web site asks:

What's the big deal with allowing this [i.e., Tablet UML] to run with a mouse and keyboard?

Sure it would be great if I had a Tablet PC to get the full benefit, but in the mean time, you can still recognize my mouse drawings (as if I had drawn them with a pen) and convert them into models.

That's a very interesting question: if the pen substitutes for the mouse, why doesn't Tablet PC software work without a Tablet PC? It's an interesting question, because it gets to the heart of what is often not understood about the Tablet PC. So I'm reproducing my answer here.

Tablet UML is written with the Tablet PC API. Until Microsoft merges that into the mainline OS (rumored to be around 2007), it will only run on Tablet PCs.

I've thought about replacing the Tablet API calls; but they do so much of the work for me. It would be like starting over again, on a very much larger project. If you study the Tablet API, you'll find that it is very much more than just a pen that acts like a mouse. The Tablet API does 90% of the recognition work for me, and then I just have to UML meaning to what it recognizes. Without that capability, I would have to write all that recognition code myself, which would be far more work than I can handle.

As I've written before: a Tablet PC is more than just a laptop with a pen.

And if you want to learn more about why a Tablet PC is more than just a laptop with a pen, and if you want to write your own great Tablet PC applications, then I have to recommend our Tablet PC Programming BootCamp in Boston.

My students always laugh. They think it's a joke.

They ask, "How many dogs do you have?" And I answer, "I don't know. I haven't been home this week." And they think I'm kidding.

Thursday night, I called home and talked to Sandy. Among a lot of other news, she informed me that she and Lucy had been walking the dogs, and a stray dog appeared from the darkness and pretty much begged to be taken in.

They've put a "found dog" ad in the paper, but I'm under no illusions: there'll be another member of the menagerie when I get home.

Actually, the new dog doesn't get along with one of our dogs, so he'll go over to my sister-in-law's house; but one of their dogs will then come to our house to make room.

How many dogs do we have? I don't know. I haven't been home this week.

...and more good corporate citizens and other generous folks I would like to acknowledge.

My sister Anita informed me that Edward Jones is matching employee donations, so all you EJ folks can can easily help out from the office. You probably know that already, but this gives me a chance to thank the company for its generosity. (Hi, Anita! Hi, David!)

Anita also informed me that McDonald's is matching donations made in their stores. OK, that's even easier than Best Buy: most of you are less than fifteen minutes from a McDonald's. They're temporarily using their Ronald McDonald House donation boxes for Red Cross donations, and matching those up to $2 million. They're also making a direct donation of $3 million, and they're making loans and other assistance to their employees who were displaced by the hurricane. And they're doing a lot more. Go read.

Others have noted how Wal-Mart and Home Depot are both taking donations and offering all sorts of generous assistance to their employees and other displaced persons. Home Depot is matching your donations. Wal-Mart isn't; but since they've already made $17 million in direct cash donations and also donated merchandise and supplies and transportation and stuff, I think that's just as good as matching donations.

And the generosity of these folks (link courtesy of Instapundit; original story here) overwhelmed me. They're not doing any matching funds. And their donation is small compared to Wal-Mart's or McDonald's or Home Depot's. But it's from the heart, and that's important:

TAJI, Iraq, Sept. 9, 2005 — Iraqi soldiers serving at Taji military base collected 1,000,000 Iraqi dinars for victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Iraqi Col. Abbas Fadhil, Iraqi base commander, presented the money to U.S. Col. Paul D. Linkenhoker, Taji Coalition base commander, at a Sept. 5 staff meeting.

“We are all brothers,” said Abbas. “When one suffers tragedy, we all suffer their pain.”

The amount of money is small in American dollars - roughly $680 - but it represents a huge act of compassion from Iraqi soldiers to their American counterparts, said U.S. Army Maj. Michael Goyne.

“I was overwhelmed by the amount of their generosity,” Goyne said. “I was proud and happy to know Col. Abbas, his officers, NCOs and fellow soldiers. That amount represents a month’s salary for most of those soldiers.”

If a bunch of soldiers trying to rebuild their country after decades of tyranny can donate a month's pay, I know you can help, too. And I know you have helped, and will help more. Thank you.

As an author, it's always nice when someone says they enjoyed your book.

Nice? Heck, it's incredible.

But last night at CMAP, Dr. Osama A. Morad, Ph.D. gave me a compliment I will not soon forget. Upon meeting me, the first thing he said was, "Hello, Martin. I read your book. How's Sandy?" And then he told me how much he appreciated the dedication to my book, reproduced here:

To Dad, for teaching me how to work.
To Mother, for teaching me how to think.
To Sandy, for teaching me how to be me.

I can't speak for other authors, but I worked hard on that dedication, to get it to say exactly what I wanted to say about the three biggest influences in my life. For Dr. Morad to recognize that was really special, and is the nicest of the many nice things that readers have said to me. (He also asked some other good questions about the book, proving that he did indeed get farther than the dedication.)

Sandy's not in my book (computers don't need feeding or walking or grooming, so they don't interest her); but like everything I do, Sandy's all throughout my book. I'm the person I am because she helped me to open up to the world on a personal level. Before I met her, I was a geek. Because I got to know her, I'm a geek who knows how to relate to people and reach out to them and communicate with them a lot better. Growing up, I was an introvert by nature. I still have a self-image of an introvert; but I also know that self-image is inaccurate, because my whole job now is about standing up in front of students and conference attendees and trying to share ideas with them. And an awful lot of that I learned through interacting with her. Sandy is comfortable in many different social situations and groups; and because she drew me into them with her, I became more at ease with them.

That's just one of the many ways Sandy makes me feel somehow more me (if that makes any sense), but it's the one that's most relevant to the book and to my teaching and speaking.

And there's one other way in which Sandy was key to the book: my sample project for the book (and for my UML classes) is an information management system for a high-end pet kennel. Everything I know about pet kennel management comes from Sandy's years in that business.

So I really have to thank Dr. Morad for the kind words, and the chance to acknowledge a little more fully Sandy's role in creating the book.

Like a lot of things in my life (especially since I married Sandy, who has never said no to a dog in her life), it started with a dog.

When I saw the pet carrier in Memphis International Airport, I figured it was small enough to be either a cat, or a very small dog. Given that we have a chihuahua at home, I guessed chihuahua. (Lucky guess, I would find out.)

The pet carrier was alone, except for another pet carrier next to it. Now as a seasoned traveler, I have an instinctive reaction to unattended luggage: call TSA, right away! If you can't find your way back to your luggage faster than I can find a TSA agent, it's your own damn fault. I take airport security seriously.

But that's for normal luggage, not pet carriers. I could see the dogs inside, and hear them whimpering. What, are we on the lookout for exploding chihuahuas now?

And then an older black woman came up to the carriers and tried to calm the dogs, who were getting more agitated (which was kinda surprising, since travel dogs are usually sedate, and even sedated). It was clear she wasn't a seasoned traveler; and since inexperienced travelers make the whole travel adventure take longer, I tried not to be too upset that she was on my flight to Atlanta. I may be impatient on the inside, but that doesn't mean I have to be impatient on the outside.

But the dogs got noisier. And then the gate agent came over, and I feared an embarrassing incident over a pet.

Boy, did I call that one wrong. The gate agent was very sympathetic, and gave the woman a number for the American Red Cross, and advised her to call when she got to Atlanta to see if they had any aid workers in the airport.

And suddenly, my whole perception flip-flopped. This was a Hurricane Katrina refugee. Only for some stupid reason, that term refugee has been deemed politically incorrect and racist (the fastest I've ever seen the politics of racial divide work), so we're supposed to call them evacuees. Stupid bit of semantics; but if people are going to get offended for no reason, now is not the time to rail against racial demagoguery. Now is the time to help. I'll use whatever buzzword is deemed politically correct; though honestly, I'm starting to think in terms of an old World War II term: displaced persons. That's really what they are. But again: not time to argue semantics, time to help.

But then I thought: should I offer to help this woman and her husband, who were traveling to Atlanta for the first time in their lives, and who had lost everything they had?

Now before you think that question sounds selfish, let me tell you what I've already done. On Saturday, I made a donation to the Red Cross, one which was almost as large as our monthly mortgage payment. (Business has been good, so I feel it's important to give back.) And I made it at Best Buy, where they're matching donations dollar for dollar, so the impact was doubled. (And Dean still owes me an essay for that donation. I thought I threw him a softball topic, but it looks like it curved.)

And then on Monday, I got upset about a lot of stupid political grandstanding over this disaster; and rather than fume in futility over the stupid partisanship, I decided I would put my anger to good use. I went out to the nearest grocery store here in Atlanta, and I bought a grocery cart full of bottled water and baby supplies. Then I drove to a downtown cafe that was holding a donation drive for the displaced persons. Only that drive was on the radio the day before, and the cafe was closed on Monday. So with the help of the Internet and Hertz Neverlost, I found my way to the local Red Cross, where displaced persons were queued up all over the grounds, waiting for assistance. Only when I asked, the volunteers there said they weren't set up for any donations but cash and blood, because they didn't have any way to ensure equitable distribution. (And before you ask: I would have donated blood if I could have. A decade ago, one of the Red Cross's hepatitis screens said I had elevated liver enzymes which might be signs of hepatitis, and I was asked not to donate any longer. Last month, they announced new screening tests which may be able to separate elevated enzymes from true hepatatis, and they sent me a letter saying I might be able to donate again soon.) So they sent me to a local Methodist church, where they were accepting and distributing donations. It took all day shopping and driving around Atlanta (and finding out — grrr!!! — that my Tablet PC's video card had died), but I finally made my second donation of the weekend.

So I had already given plenty before I flew to Baltimore yesterday for an INETA presentation. But I thought, "Hey, I have a rental car at the airport. And NeverLost still has the Red Cross location programmed in. I could take them there."

Then I thought of Heinlein, who said (roughly): "Never feed a stray kitten unless you're willing to raise a cat."

And then I thought: "Shut up, Bob, you old fraud. Never once in your too-short life did you fail to feed a kitten or help a stranger in need."

But mostly I thought of Dad. Dad, who would go out of his way to give a coworker a ride to work. Dad, who would stop to help a stranded motorist long after "sensible people" had decided that was too dangerous. Dad, who for many years delivered Christmas gifts to needy families. Dad, who could be called on for emergency aid in any hour of the night.

I knew what Dad would do, so I did it. I offered to drive them to the Red Cross and see them safely to shelter. From the time we touched ground in Atlanta, I had adopted four "cats": Joycelyn, Anthony, a chihuahua named Candace, and a Yorkie whose name I never did catch. And thus began my day among the displaced persons, a day which made me sad and made me laugh and made me astonished at how resilient the human spirit is. The following, not necessarily in a particular order, are some observations from the day...

• Joycelyn explained how they had spent two days on the roof. Then they were rescued by boat and taken to the Superdome for another five days. While they were there, Joycelyn did volunteer work, caring for two 80-year-old men, one of them deaf. In return, the Red Cross offered them a plane ticket anywhere they wanted to go. They sounded like lifelong New Orleans residents, and they really didn't know anyone anywhere else; but they were told that Atlanta had temporary housing, so that's what they chose. They were bused to Little Rock, and from there flew to Memphis, where I ran into them.


• Anthony seemed like a man nearly shell shocked. He opened up a little later in the day, but he was a man of few words.


• They left behind five grown children. They had word that the children had made it to the Astrodome, and they hoped the family would join up; but things are still too disrupted for that to happen yet.


• When we got to Atlanta, I realized just how jaded a traveler I am, and how inexperienced they were. I can navigate to baggage claim in most airports by instinct. (Hint: follow the crowd, since most of them have the same goal in mind. You can usually make it 90% of the way to baggage before you have to make any decisions.) Yet they didn't have the foggiest idea where to go or what to do. The underground trains between the concourses at ATL were a complete surprise to them.


• When we got to Atlanta, I also heard Heinlein laughing at me, because boy, did they have luggage! I always travel as light as I can, and had only a backpack and my backup Tablet PC this trip; but for their luggage, I did something I never do: I rented a cart. And then I rented another cart! Was this all going to fit in my rental car?


• And did I say luggage? Try cardboard boxes strapped shut with TSA inspection tape, plus a backpack, a roller, and a suitcase. Yep, complete amateur travelers.


• Then Anthony told me that those boxes and bags were everything they had in the whole world, and they only had that because the relief workers gave it to them. And yes, it did all fit in my rented Taurus, along with me, them, and the two pet carriers. Here I had been depressed because my Tablet PC and my digital camera had both broken in the same weekend, and these people's entire worldly possessions fit into one car. I told myself to stop being so judgemental, stop being so ungrateful, and just start helping.


• Actually, they had one other possession. Joycelyn told how the praying hands necklace around her neck had come floating up to the roof on their last day there, and how she took it as a sign to keep going; and shortly after that, they were rescued, and she felt obliged to help out after their rescue. And then when she helped other people, more help came to her. She has the sort of simple, matter-of-fact faith that you find in some people. She kept telling me I was an angel, and the Lord sent me to them. I'm not about to go that far; but I sure hope I did right by Dad's memory.


• We got to the Red Cross, and it was organized chaos. They had too many people to deal with, and they were dealing with them anyway. They told us I could drop off Anthony and Joycelyn so they could start filling out their paperwork, but I couldn't park there. They said the line was around two hours long, so I could come back in two hours, or park a mile away and walk back. I left my cell phone with Anthony, and they took the dogs and went to join the line. I took the car full of their stuff, and I went to find lunch and a parking lot where I could park and get some work done. I called my clients and explained why I was unavoidably delayed. I only got voice mail; but they were all pretty shaken up by the disaster last week, so I think they'll understand.


• Anthony called in only an hour, and I headed back as fast as traffic would bear. Little did I know that he had called too soon: there were two lines, one to apply for assistance, and one to collect it. So I drove through the parking lot, didn't see them, still couldn't park, and left again.


• According to the radio, Atlanta's Red Cross center was far more disorganized Tuesday, and today was a big improvement. I'm glad I wasn't there Tuesday, because today was bad enough.


• When I didn't show up after his call, Anthony assumed the worst: that I had left with all their meager possessions, and I wasn't coming back. But after all they'd been through, Joycelyn wasn't giving up faith now. She gave him what for, and told him to go back and watch the dogs and wait for me, while she stood in the second line.


• After a full two hours plus, I went back and circled the parking lot again. Still no sign of them. But by that point, there was room to park. So I parked, and I walked around until Anthony saw me. I joined him and ended up dog watching. And also watching the displaced persons and the aid workers.


• For all these people had been through, they were amazingly polite; and if not quite up to cheerful, you would certainly have to call them upbeat. And patient! That two hour wait turned out to be over five hours, and I heard no significant complaints.


• I would call the aid workers tireless; but frankly, the sheer size of the aid effort wore them down. But like some heroic army in the face of a long siege, every time one worker just had to call it quits, another stepped up to take his place. I heard on the radio that they were training volunteers in the morning and putting them on the front lines in the afternoon. And volunteers kept showing up.


• And though the aid workers may have gotten tired, they never let weariness or despair show on their faces while they were with clients. I only saw tiredness when I saw them stumbling to their cars at the end of their shifts.


• The news reports seem to show almost exclusively black evacuees. I don't think the displaced persons I saw were quite so concentrated in one race: the racial mix certainly ran heavily toward black, but I saw all sorts of races there. And as far as I could see, none of that mattered a damn bit. There were people needing help, and people helping, and that was it.


• Despite everything, kids are still kids. They ran, they talked, they played. And I saw them make new friendships and put games together on the spot. The two oldest little girls of the group I watched did a superb job of organizing and watching the small fry.


• Despite everything, little brothers are still little brothers. The one problem child I saw was a little boy who positively chafed at having his big sister running things. At one point, he picked up her little Sonic electronic game, chewed on it, spit all over it, and tossed it into ivy where it was hopelessly lost. He was frankly out of control; but given all the kids there, only one misbehaving child was quite an accomplishment.


• Despite everything, dogs are still dogs. While Candace and the Yorkie were a little overwhelmed by all the people and the unfamiliar surroundings, they soon settled down to do what dogs do best: sleep.


• And despite everything, kids love dogs! With my dog watching assignment, I was the most popular guy there with the under 12 set. And then I had to play the meany: Anthony was afraid the dogs were stressed and might bite, so he wanted the kids kept away from the dogs. As my nieces and nephews will attest, I don't play the meany very well. When a tiny little girl who seemed left out of things wanted to help me feed a hot dog to the Yorkie, I couldn't say no; and as soon as another kid saw it, there they all were. I laid down the law: each kid could feed one tiny bit of hot dog to the Yorkie, but no more, lest he get overstuffed; and the chihuahua just wanted to sleep, so nobody could disturb him. I failed to enforce even these meager rules; but fortunately, the mothers called the kids away and saved me from the embarrassment of being outmaneuvered by a bunch of little kids.


• Lesson #2,347 in Don't Judge a Book by its Cover: one guy who showed up made me think, "If there's gonna be trouble, this is it." He looked like the sort of displaced person who might have an attitude problem: a big, bald, black man in dusty motorcyle leathers, carrying a helmet, and wearing a muscle shirt that showed off more muscle than I've ever seen short of a bodybuilding competition on TV. And his face was grim. I figured he must have had a pretty rough evacuation. And then he and two buddies who were almost as big and almost as mean looking stepped behind the food table and started dishing up spaghetti to the displaced persons, and their grim faces turned to great big smiles. Lesson learned: aid volunteers come from all walks of life; and looking at all those people in trouble can make even a tough man turn a bit grim. Helping them can make him feel like he's making a difference.


• I can understand just a little bit of why the evacuation of New Orleans failed. Anthony and Joycelyn, old enough to have a 30 year old child at the Astrodome, have spent their whole lives in deep urban New Orleans. By deep urban, I mean city so dense, they could find everything they needed within walking distance, so they never had to leave. I wasn't surprised when I knew airports better than they do; but I was shocked when I, the country boy who has ridden a city bus less than ten times in his life, had to explain to these two city dwellers how to find the right bus or train to take them somewhere. They literally didn't know to read the destinations on the front of an upcoming bus. That tells me that they lived someplace where they didn't even need bus rides to find whatever they needed. It was all within walking distance. If people can live like that, then I'm not surprised if they would be slow to evacuate before it was too late. Their whole world was a small urban range, and they had no real experience to tell them how to manage outside of it. From there, it's easy to imagine that they would cling to the familiar until there was nothing left to cling to.


• And that unfamiliarity with life outside a dense urban area is going to continue to be a problem for them. Joycelyn was distraught at how far away the hotel was: roughly ten miles, which is practically next door by Atlanta measure. To me, we were still in the city. To her, we were far out in the country; and so much greenery and open space unsettles her. It's just not what she knows.


• But she's learning! After we got them checked in, we drove to Publix so she could get reading glasses for all the paperwork she has to do. She made it a point to memorize the route, and was faster than NeverLost in telling me how to get back to the hotel.


• And yet she's determined: when they rebuild New Orleans, she'll be back. She's happy to have somewhere to go, but it's not home.


• Lots of people are pitching in. The Red Cross gave them a voucher for one night in the hotel, just to let them stop running for a bit. With all that luggage, that means tomorrow would be another hectic moving day for them, making it harder for them to track down more assistance. So I sprung for three more nights, so that they can have time to deal with paperwork. And then the fine folks from Motel 6 threw in another two nights, just to help them out a little more.

With all those people pitching in, did I do enough? Define enough. I can do more, and I will; but in a sense, there's never enough. I and NWA and the Red Cross and FEMA and Motel 6 helped two people tonight. I saw the Red Cross helping maybe a couple hundred more.

There are over 400,000 displaced persons due to Hurricane Katrina.

And that leads to the title of this post: the displaced persons are in your town, too. With 400,000 persons displaced, they're not all coming to Atlanta, or Houston, or Little Rock. They're coming to a town near you. There are so many of them, some of them have to end up near you. I know for a fact that some are in Michigan and Wisconsin, and I'm sure they're in every other state.

And that means that, even if you can't afford to give money (and I encourage you to give money, especially at Best Buy, where they're matching donations dollar for dollar), you can still give time. Call your local Red Cross, or the Salvation Army chapter, or a local church or synagogue or mosque, or a local Urban League or Jaycees or Chamber of Commerce chapter. Ask if they know of any relief efforts in the area, and where you can go to help. And then help!

I don't think you have to bankrupt yourself to make a difference. I don't think you have to give up all your free time. But please give what you can spare. After all, there may be 400,000 of them, but there are 299,600,000 of the rest of us. If the rest of us chipped in a dollar and an hour each, the impact would be huge. That won't happen; but if a lot of us give a little more than a dollar and an hour, we'll help the displaced persons.

These are 400,000 lives that are displaced. It's not just them: the entire economic infrastructure on which their lives were based has just disappeared. You know, if my entire house were swept away by a flood, life would suck; but if my wife and my dogs survived, I would pick up and keep going. My economy isn't just my house; it's Atlanta and Ann Arbor and Boston and Wichita and Seattle and a thousand other places that wouldn't be touched by any disaster that hit my house. But for a lot of these people, the flood took their houses, and their schools, and their churches, and their jobs, and their playgrounds, and their stores, and their power plants, and even their bloody streets! It's just gone; and while it may get rebuilt, their lives can't be rebuilt as easily as I could restart after a flood. This disaster was local, but it was a big locality, and it took out an entire economic zone. That doesn't come back over night, and they need the help now.

I'm actually sympathetic to the libertarian argument that we shouldn't subsidize people and businesses that build in risky areas. I've seen the studies that show that government subsidized below-market flood insurance and government disaster aid encourage people to build in risky environs that force us to risk lives and spend money to rescue them at the next disaster, and then we go and encourage them to do it again; and I agree that that's just stupid. I'm open to the idea that we shouldn't rebuild New Orleans at all unless it can be rebuilt above sea level. I think we need to have those discussions; but not today. Today, there are people who need help; and saying they should pick themselves up by their own bootstraps is naive at this moment, because their bootstraps are underwater in the Swamp Formerly Known as New Orleans.

Today, the displaced persons need help. Leave your debates on the shelf just for now, and please just help. I don't know how to say it more plainly than that. Just help.