I think there was one other day this year that I had a clear Outlook calendar. It was a good day to catch up on e-mails and memo writing. The cancellation of our National Event, which would have been held now in New Orleans, changed the plans of hundreds of my co-workers who, like me, would have been working at the convention center. Hurricane Katrina swept all of our plans away. Friday seemed like a low key day around the building--like a hurricane's eye of calm passing through the swirl of activity of these busy months at the office.

Besides the thousands of tasks required to undo the several days of programming, exhibits, and entertainment that were to take place in the convention center and hotels, there was dealing with the truckloads of swag that would have been given away to the 25,000 attendees. Things like t-shirts and totebags that could be of use to the evacuees were donated. Then there were the tens of thousands of party beads, hurricane cups and feathered masks to support the Mardi Gras theme. Rather than attempt to give all that stuff away, the events team sold packs of these things for $3 each to staff to raise more money to donate to relief efforts. I bought a bunch of stuff to take home to Cianna.

After lunch at Fuddruckers at the corner of 7th & H in Chinatown, I visited the new Wall Mounted Display (WMD) in our tech group's area. WMD is a 20" iMac G5 that can display realtime web traffic stats for our site, and virtually anything else we can capture over the network and render to the screen.

For the subway ride home, I readied my current nano kit consisting of Mini Cable Turtle, iPod sock, and Smartwrap.

- mike lee - washington, dc