Funny -- I am one of the first to know about this. And i don't have much to contribute...

I got an email from my friend, Sheila, this morning. It went something like this:
"Hi friends, I'm emailing you with some information about a new project I'm involved with at George Mason. We created a digital memory bank to collect stories from those affected by this year's hurricanes: Katrina, Rita, and Wilma in particular.
I know that most of you were not in harm's way, but you might have participated in a fundraiser or known others who traveled to the coast to volunteer. We have not begun to nationally publicize this project yet, because we want to get as many contributions as possible before showing it off to the media. So, we need your help—and that of your friends, family, neighbors, and co-workers—to make this important project a reality. Feel free to forward this along to others. Below is some information about the project that summarizes what we are doing.
Have a happy Thanksgiving.Thanks for your help! Cheers, Sheila "

Neato. A project! Problem is that I don't have much to say about the Hurricanes except that a) we had great weather in this area as a result of those storms, and b) my Fantasy Football League suffered because Deuce McAllister (runningback for the Saints) and his team didn't have the focus to play very well. That is, he didn't play well until Deuce's season-ending injury left me without a running back and only the great weather to comment on as a result of the Hurricanes. Here is the rest of the info she passes on:

"The Center for History and New Media at George Mason University and the University of New Orleans, in partnership with the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History, recently launched a new historical project—the Hurricane Digital Memory Bank: Preserving Stories from Katrina, Rita, and Wilma http://www.hurricanearchive.org. We are working with other organizations in the hurricane-stricken areas to preserve the history of the devastating hurricane season of 2005 by creating a permanent digital record of the events and the responses to those events.
Among other things, we are asking people to contribute personal accounts and recollections of their experiences with the storms of 2005. Those experiences, individual and collective, need not have been where storms came ashore, nor do we expect them necessarily to be heroic or harrowing personal tales. These can be very short or much longer recollections about how you, your friends and family, or your co-workers were affected by the 2005 hurricanes. If you choose, you can submit your account anonymously. We encourage you to visit the site to read examples of contributions people have already made to the Hurricane Digital Memory Bank.
In addition to personal recollections, we also created a repository of digital images, where people can easily place the pictures they took or received of the hurricanes, their aftermath, or the recovery efforts. The memory bank will also collect audio, moving image,text, or .PDF files that may be uploaded to this site. The site includes a set of basic instructions about how to submit your digital materials. Note that placing any of your material on the site does not mean you lose control over your materials. You still own them; in contributing them you give permission to the Hurricane Digital Memory Bank to display them on our site and collect them in our digital archive for use by future researchers and historians.
We hope to foster some positive legacies by allowing the people affected by these storms to tell their stories in their own words, which as part of the historical record will remain accessible to a wide audience for generations to come.
This project builds on prior work by George Mason University’s Center for History and New Media, and other partners such as the Library of Congress and the Red Cross, to collect and preserve history online, especially through the ECHO (http://echo.gmu.edu) project and the September 11 Digital Archive (http://www.911digitalarchive.org). It is part of a growing practice of using the Internet to preserve the past through “digital memory banks.”

Yep, still nothing of value to say.
Actually I have one other comment -- I will probably be in the market for a car soon and now will only consider buying a new car. I would have, in previous years, only wanted to buy used because of the huge cost savings, but now that I have heard the horror stories of flooded-out cars being resold by unscroupulous or uninformed dealers, I will stick to a new car.

Gas prices have finally come below two bucks a gallon also. It's about dang time.

Yeah, I am pretty sure that the digital archive doesn't need to hear from me.