GATR Deployment: Day 6 (9/26/2008)

This morning we woke up and arranged the firehouse for the FEMA folks again.  They sent a crew of five people to get people registered online and another two to get people signed up for blue roofs (big tarps for temporary roofing.  The system was working great.  At 10:20 I got a call from Suzanne [...]

GATR Deployment: Day 5 (9/25/2008)

Smith Point is a small community on the bay.  A majority of the population is Hispanic, and the rest are cattle ranchers and retirees (most teachers from public schools).  Phil, Caleb, and I spent the night in the firehouse with Lois.  She is a lady in her 70s that loves to talk.  We worked until [...]

GATR Deployment: Day 4 (9/24/2008)

We met Keith Stone (HISG) and Suzanne Novak (FEMA) at the Anahuac deployment site around 9AM.  I showed the technology to Keith.  He saw the application of the technology immediately.  He has been on deployments around the world and has worked with setting up large antenna.  He could not believe that a 2.4m antenna can [...]

GATR Deployment: Day 3 (9/23/2008)

Let me start by thanking Danielle for her comments on my last post.  She is in training to take a job with FEMA.  I hope my last post did not come across as denigrating FEMA in anyway.  They are in this area and working very hard to assess damage and get housing assistance to those [...]

GATR Deployment: Day 2 (9/22/2008)

The day began in a hurry-up-and-wait mode.  The people at the courthouse wanted us to deploy with the FEMA group at the American Legion building.  There was a lot going on and FEMA wasn’t moving from the courthouse anytime soon.  I got tired of waiting on them, so I went and set up the 2.4m [...]

GATR Deployment: Day 1 (9/21/2008)

I woke up at 5AM to finish packing all of my gear in the truck.  I was told to be as self sufficient as possible, so I packed everything in my brother’s hiking backpack including his sleeping bag and my tent (Kevin, I forgot to ask – I hope you don’t mind).  I had to [...]

GATR Deployment: Hurricane Ike Relief

 
Last week was a busy week at GATR.  On Saturday (9/13/2008) I participated in a conference call with the Humanitarian International Services Group (HISG) in regards to destruction from Hurricane Ike in the Galveston, Texas area.  They are aware of the capabilities that the GATR inflatable antenna system provides for disaster relief.  At that point [...]

American Myth

Disclaimer: This post talks about politics.  Don’t start hyperventilating and threatening to “drill my head here, drill my head now” if I mention something you don’t agree with.  For the record, I am not sure who I am voting for yet.  Both parties/candidates have issues that I really agree with, and both parties/candidates have issues [...]

We Are Made To Create

I am currently reading Andy Crouch’s new book titled Culture Making.  In the book Mr. Crouch makes the case that the God introduced to us at the beginning of the book of Genesis is a Creating God and a Cultivating God.  We are God’s image bearers; therefore, we are also made to create.  This is [...]

Definitions

Tony, Our Youth Pastor, has started a new blog where he is exploring issues related to Youth Ministry.  He has an interesting post titled, “How Postmodernism Killed Duck, Duck, Goose”.  Truthfully, I believe that child worship (everyone gets a trophy) has killed it more so that postmodernism, but the post is interesting nonetheless.  Tony’s post [...]