I know everyone's probably tired of Katrina news by this point, but this guy deserves a mention. Michael Barnett, ex Special Forces soldier, and employee of DirectNIC, an internet hub and hosting provider for much of the gulf region, has been heading up a small operation that's been keeping their downtown NOLA datacenter up and running on emergency power, thus keeping vital internet communications services operational.

Here's been blogging his progress at http://mgno.com/ under the LiveJournal screen name of Interdictor and even has a webcam up and running(mirrored at http://194.97.144.25/NewOrleans, http://old.mises.org:88/NO, http://old.mises.org:88/NO2, http://video.freevideoblog.com/no2.asx, and http://wss-vip.adv.xc.advection.net/event/...n/0250?ext=.asf). He's one of the few sources of info on what's really going on in downtown NO, though admittedly, his focus has been on keeping his own operation going (having to secure a steady supply of fuel for both his own building and for the connectivity provider that runs his last OC3 line).

There's also a FAQ up about him and the work he's doing.

I don't know about you all, but this guy is so going to be an NPC in the next campaign I GM. Ex Special Forces, has a cool handle, damn cool and professional under a crisis, and to top it off his fiancee is a hottie.

Twist it and give him a personal agenda, or make him sociopathic, or some other flaw that when the players get to know him they will regret it.

Of course. This is Shadowrun, after all. That almost goes without saying.

I'm planning on using him for my HMHVV Infection campaign.

Yeah, i've been following him - his last weeks blog reads hauntingly like Bug City.

Except bug city had a cool conspiracy behind it all.

When he dual wields M249s while strafe jumping to blow away evil AK looters, can we film it, make it into an animated gif, and make "Katrin0wned" appear at the end?