I haven’t mentioned Hurricane Katrina yet because I didn’t have anything to say that hasn’t already been said. Now I do…..

My wonderful wife, Jennifer, has been a Red Cross volunteer for a few months now. She is on the Disaster Action Team (DAT) and was on pager duty a week at a time once a month. She would respond to fires in our county and help out the fire victims.

Recently, some Katrina evacuees (about 400?) were brought to the Raleigh, NC area and my wife was able to work for the Red Cross with them (in fact, she is there right now). The other day my wife called me before I went to work and asked if we had any extra routers we could let the shelter use. They had three laptops but only one cable modem to provide internet access so she wanted a router to give all three laptops ‘net access.

So, I loaded up a backpack with two routers, two CAT5 cables, and two mice (I hate laptop touchpads), and delivered them to my wife at the shelter. It was a small contribution, but I was happy to do it.

On the same topic, we talked to my four year old daughter and asked her if she had any extra stuffed animals and/or baby dolls she would like to give to the kids at the shelter that had NO toys. She, of course, has WAY too many of these anyway, and we figured this might be a good lesson for her. Now remember, at four years old, your life REVOLVES around toys. She ended up picking out about eight stuffed animals and baby dolls to donate. Once again, I was SO proud of her. Jen took them to the kids at the shelter and she said they were VERY happy to get them.

geek, katrina, redcross, fatherhood