Getting tired of that old Windows Start-Up Sound?  How about trying on a serious Mac Start-Up Symphony?

Bob Gentry – the CFO at Finali (now Convergys) – suggested that this reminded him of me.

Thanks Bob – after Amy saw this she suggested that I start using this as my email footer.

I’ve had a life long fascination with toilets which I’ve blogged about several times in the past, including Toto’s awesome throne, a tricked out toilet, and my personal favorite toilet / bathroom in the world.

Today I learned something useful about toilet paper.  I’ve clogged more than my fair share of toilets (c’mon – admit it – so have you).  I now know that I need to check the brand of paper before I do my thing.  No more Charmin for me.  Thanks Joanne.

Donald Rumsfeld is giving the President his daily briefing on Iraq.  

He concludes by saying:  “Yesterday, 3 Brazilian soldiers were killed.” 

“OH NO!” the President exclaims.  “That’s terrible!” 

His staff sits stunned at this display of emotion, nervously watching as the President sits, head in hands. 

Finally, President looks up and asks, “How many is a brazillion?”

As I get caught up on various blogs I subscribe to, I’ve seen many suggestions, actions, and wonderful stories of help for Katrina victims this week.  Most of the companies I’m involved in did something – ranging from contributing a percentage of September revenue to sending folks down to volunteer.

Rick Segal wrote about what one of his portfolio companies – which makes kits that enable light steel buildings – is doing.  Money helps, but active deployment of new technologies to help is great leverage – both for this situation and in advance of the next inevitable disaster.  My understanding is that Rick’s company GenesisTP is offering up the use of their facility at their cost to help enable the rapid creation of new buildings.  Rick / GenesisTP aren’t looking to make money on this disaster – rather they are taking a longer term view around the value of the IP they are creating while getting real experience and exposure to disaster scenarios which they can then use to proactively sell their technology / IP in advance of the next catastrophe like this.

If you know Boston but don’t know New Orleans, boston.com has a superb graphic that is a mashup of New Orleans, Boston, and the area that was flooded.  It’s an amazing perspective for anyone that knows the Boston area.  The North End, Harvard Square, Brookline, Newton, Wellesley College, and Framingham are all under water.  Shoppers World in Framingham is spared, but just barely.

A fellow who goes by the handle “The Interdictor” has been blogging since August 27th from a high rise office building on Poydras Ave near St. Charles.  The blog is an incredible hour by hour story of Katrina and her impact as she unfolded, along with some brave folks efforts to keep Intercosmos / directNIC (a hosting company) up and running.  The running commentary of the experience is awe-inspiring and gives you a very different view into the situation.

I’ve help fund and start several hosting companies and many of my companies depend on hosting companies for their business.  While the notion of spending the night in a data center is not a new one (yeah – I’ve done it – nice and cool, great white noise, but the floor isn’t that comfy), doing it in the context of the aftermath of a major hurricane is something that is hard to grasp. 

Start at the beginning and work your way through.  There are also a large number of outstanding photos of what’s going on.

I stumbled up New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin’s interview with CNN yesterday.  If you listen to one thing today, spend 12 minutes on this (or – read the transcript if you don’t have access to audio, although the interview is more powerful.)

I’ve been struggling with what – if anything – to post about my thoughts on Katrina.  At the end of the day yesterday, I sat in front of a TV for the first time for two hours and watched CNN (I hate TV – I try to avoid it – but I was trapped at the car dealership waiting for them to fix my car, everyone had gone home for the long weekend so work had shut down, and all their magazines were from June) and muttered, mumbled, and swore non-stop.  I woke up this morning to yet another beautiful Boulder day, obsessively read all the Katrina news online that I could find, and muttered and mumbled some more.  As I caught up on email and blogs, I kept rolling over thoughts in the back of my mind on a blog post.

Fred Wilson did it for me.  He captured exactly what I’ve been muttering, mumbling, and swearing about.  I’m extraordinarily saddened for everyone caught up in this tragedy, once again thankful that it only impacts me indirectly, and very pensive about how it impacts us as Americans.  Thanks Fred for putting your thoughts out there.  I noticed that Nick Bradbury also had a post that captures some of my feelings.  I am humbled by Anita Taylor.  And – as always – my wife Amy is more articulate than I am.

I obviously encourage everyone to help out any way they can.  Amy and I donated to the American Red Cross Hurricane 2005 Relief Fund this morning (if you get my feed, you can do this by clicking on the banner ad that FeedBurner is inserting), I’ve added a Humane Society link under “Promoting Now” on my main blog page, and we’re paying attention to other things we can do to be helpful.  NewsGator also committed to give 3% of revenue for the month of September to the American Red Cross and I encourage other companies to do the same.