Friday, September 5, 2008

Why We Do What We Do

I got in to work today very flustered and not happy. We have a new dog on the way and things are going to get PRETTY crazy. I sat down and started reading through the tons of emails I had, most of them telling me that bills were coming as well as our new addition. Great.

Then I get to this email from Matt, who is a photographer living in Baton Rouge. Obviously, its been a really tough few weeks for that area, and the area Matt's home was no stranger to the effects of the Hurricane. Anyways, here is what he had to say:

Hey man,

I just wanted to send you a tremendous thank you for the blog that you have. I live in Baton Rouge, LA, and we were hit very very hard by hurricane Gustav. I am going on 5 days without electricity and needless to say, it's very very hot. All of the houses around mine were crushed by trees, thankfully except for mine. The entire city is in chaos it seems. We waited an hour yesterday just to get some gas, and some people are waiting for 3-4 hours just to get food at grocery stores. Apparently this isnt being shown on tv, but it's happening. I don't know when we will get power again. This is my first access to electricity in a week. The only connection I have with the outside world, pretty much, is my iphone. It doesnt load very fast, so I am limited to pretty much two sites. The news and your blog. The only thing that I have to look forward to, throughout each day, is reading the updates that you have on here. I have no way of purchasing cards or going to the local card shop to hangout right now. I don't even know if the card shop is still standing. But for 15 minutes a day, I get to read about the hobby that I love and in a humorous way, that is the way you write. I don't want to say that a baseball card blog is keeping me going right now, but it sure as hell is helping me keep my sanity. You are the man, and I appreciate your site so much more now. Thank you for keeping up with it the way you do. You work is not going unnoticed.

Thanks so much,

Matt Lange
www.mattlange.com


Matt, thank you for making my day, and for sure making my seven months since I started writing here. You never think you make a difference with an insignificant blog that rants about card collecting, but emails like this and others I have received show me that maybe SCU isnt that insignificant.

Either way, since Matt hasnt been able to get in on any of the action going on, I am going to put him in the FB Exquisite Break as a pick-me-up from the horror that has probably made Baton Rouge look like a warzone.

Good luck to you man, our prayers are with you...

4 comments:

  1. Gellman, you are very generous. I wanted to add one thing. It's not just me, it's the entire southern region of Louisiana (remarkably not really New Orleans). So when you read this, think of Baton Rouge, and all of the surrounding towns and areas. We are now experiencing floods from the high waters draining from the bayous. Towns by the coast are almost completely wiped out and may not have power for up to 2 months. So if you can imagine living with no AC, Water, Sewer, etc, then you can imagine them. And add into it, that Louisiana is renowned for mosquitos. So if you guys get a chance, send something to the Louisiana Red Cross or Salvation Army, or anything. Im not sure how you do it, but if you can, please do. People need help down here, and every little bit goes a long way. Send a truck load of Ice to my neighborhood, we'll put it to good use ;-). But seriously, I have it bad, but there are a lot of people who have it FAR FAR worse. The news isnt showing anything like they should. So, if you can spare something, please do. Lots of people need it. Again, thanks Gellman. You guys should appreciate this blog. It's something you take for granted now, but when times get really really hard, it'll pick you up more than you know.

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  2. My fiancee and I have already gotten together a lot of the supplies we were going to bring over to the red cross today. We may not be able to give much, and some of it does have the Vikings on it, but hopefully they will still get some good use out of it in Saints country.

    I hope it gets much better for Louisiana, it isnt fair how bad its been down there with very little help considering what had happened.

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  3. Matt, you're in our prayers here in Mississippi. Things will get better soon... It can't last forever...

    Gellman, thanks for posting this. I wasn't aware it was this bad in Baton Rouge.

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  4. Exactly. No one was aware. As soon as New Orleans didn't flood and no one was on their roof, all major news channels ran out of Louisiana as fast as they could. It's getting better though. But it really showed the character of Fox and CNN. All they want is tragedy and human suffering like they saw in Katrina. And as soon as they didn't see it.....gone.

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