it's sooooooooooo nice out

What a view, huh? This comes courtesy of the 41st floor from one of the architecture firms I'm working with. You wouldn't see no enginEERing firm have this kind of a view.

Man oh man, the last week and a half has been amazing. It's actually been CHILLY at night while sleeping and in the morning the last few days. Everyone here tells me October is the best month here for weather, with April a close 2nd. Keep that in mind, people, if you're thinking about a visit. One of my roommates did as he's had people here the last 2 weekends to go see the rodeo at Angola prison. I'm going the last Sunday in October, maybe take me a longer trip to see other parts in that area as well. It's only a few hours away, like most places in this state, which is so different than the massive area I had for exploration out west. This way, though, you get to spend more time in each place.

Even though I've worked more since I've been here than at any other job in years, I've done some interesting stuff as well. The first weekend of October a group from work volunteered to help scrape and prime a house for Rebuilding Together, the non-profit I was helping out when I first got to town. We were working alongside the Secular Humanists, so therefore I learned what a secular humanist is. I went to a class at the New Orleans School of Cooking, although I only made it for the last hour. We had crab and corn bisque (amazing), shrimp creole (not so hot), bananas foster (our volunteer didn't do such a good job with this one...) and pralines (yummy). Then since we were already in the quarter we went out for a bit, ended up in bars with decent cover bands playing crappy music so I made my way home after only a short time. I broke off of the group to catch the last 30 minutes of the last debate, and then promptly learned how at least 2 of the group I was with are Republican supporters (red state, my friends) which put me in a foul mood for some reason, so even if I was at an Adam Ant show or something I would have been scowling. (note - Adam Ant = dreamboat)

I've been up early and walking the dogs are the river or biking in the park on the weekends. I need to get into work today so it's time to sign off. I'm getting tired once it gets dark, which is around 6 pm right now since I'm such a grand-ma now. Gotta run.

Are you ready for some FOOTBALL!

Saints are playing the Vikings at the Superdome right now...as I type. 7-0 Saints. I park in the Superdome lot everyday at work but when there's a game they don't let us park there unless you pay a huge fee. In the Superdome lot the tailgating that was going on around 6 pm after work was UNbelievable. However, I heard from more than one person that the lot was 1/2 full this morning...at 8:00!!!!!! Wow-ee. Tailgating here is a sport in itself. uh oh. 7-7 now.

What really struck me today since I took a route walking to work that I don't normally take, is just how much real estate downtown is sitting vacant. An entire shopping mall is abandoned minus the temporary (3 years later...) hospital they've got on the first floor - and then a HUGE Hyatt is also abandoned, it's right next door to my office building. It's as big as a casino Nevada, for chrissakes. Who owns all that real estate...and what are they going to do with it? I mean, you see abandoned properties all over town, but these are almost entire blocks in the heart of downtown. What's up with that?

I did some volunteer work with Rebuilding Together on Saturday with some people at work - scraping and priming a house in Central City. That is some tough work, man, but it was a gorgeous day out and kind of fun. uh oh again...14-7 Minnesota with a great play, I must say.

It actually does get cooler around here!

- and boy, does it feel nice. Football weather. It's actually CHILLY in the morning...well, a few times so far, and by that I mean in the high 60's I think. Maybe low 70's. I've been to a Saints party/cookout one of my old neighbors had - one of his friends is such a huge fan, he's going to London to see them play in October. I saw an interview of Reggie Bush's recently in a magazine online and he talked about volunteering here in the city to help rebuild houses - I worked with the organization he was with and I know for a fact that he and the entire team worked for 1/2 a day only. The article said he worked for a week. I was so preturbed by that I wrote the damn sports editor - like it's not enough to make millions a year, you also have to lie about all the good 'work' you do in your adopted hometown. Uggh. He's not very well liked here, I'll tell you that. He hasn't lived up to his hype and Saints fans (who are quite rabid...) are pissed.
We took a field trip at work to go see the Global Green house in the Holy Cross neighborhood - a LEED platinum structure that had all sorts of neat stuff in there. No batteries for storage of the solar energy, though, and when the power's down there is no power even from solar. You can't put power back into the lines where linemen might be working for safety's sake - so a generator is still needed for power backup.