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Originally uploaded by SKoon.

Amelia was born Sept 23 at 12:52PM. She was a bit too big, 9lbs 11oz, so she had to come out via C-Section. Mom is doing fine, she took a few steps today, and baby is doing wonderful. She has big, chubby cheeks and lots of dark reddish-brown wavy hair on her head. And of course, big feet like her mommy and daddy.

Today is Talk like a pirate day, so my text is run through a pirate filter today complete with pirate theme.

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Originally uploaded by SKoon.

We’re flying our flags at half-mast.

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Originally uploaded by SKoon.

We painted two walls in the babys room today. Kim wanted to paint all four walls this yellow color, but I said “lets paint two of the walls and see how it looks. I think painting all four walls that bright yellow would be too much.” It would have been too much. The poor kid wouldn’t have been able to sleep in the room.

Via Instapundit.

ACCORDING TO THE WASHINGTON POST, the problem with New Orleans flood-control wasn’t insufficient money, but an excess of pork-barreling that diverted the money from where it was needed to where Louisiana politicians wanted it:

In Katrina’s wake, Louisiana politicians and other critics have complained about paltry funding for the Army Corps in general and Louisiana projects in particular. But over the five years of President Bush’s administration, Louisiana has received far more money for Corps civil works projects than any other state, about $1.9 billion; California was a distant second with less than $1.4 billion, even though its population is more than seven times as large.

Much of that Louisiana money was spent to try to keep low-lying New Orleans dry. But hundreds of millions of dollars have gone to unrelated water projects demanded by the state’s congressional delegation and approved by the Corps, often after economic analyses that turned out to be inaccurate. Despite a series of independent investigations criticizing Army Corps construction projects as wasteful pork-barrel spending, Louisiana’s representatives have kept bringing home the bacon. . . .

Pam Dashiell, president of the Holy Cross Neighborhood Association, remembers holding a protest against the lock four years ago — right where the levee broke Aug. 30. Now she’s holed up with her family in a St. Louis hotel, and her neighborhood is underwater. “Our politicians never cared half as much about protecting us as they cared about pork,” Dashiell said.

quoth the pundit, “indeed”

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Originally uploaded by SKoon.

We went out to the P-Patch today to dig up the rest of our potatos and churn in some compost. While we were out there, we picked some of these flowers (Dalias?) from a neighbors patch. He had told us that they were there to be shared by everyone and that everyone could take some whenever they wanted.

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

“Steve Queyrouze, owner of three Ruth’s Chris Steak Houses in the Northwest, is from New Orleans. He is donating 20 percent of sales in his Bellevue, Seattle and Portland restaurants Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday to the Salvation Army for hurricane relief.”

There are numerous other charities and churches collection food and money to send down south. Don’t forget that you can also donate blood.