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.

Down Grand Isle way

Took me a trip down Grand Isle way to see the area where Gustav landed. The area did not look as bad as I expected it to look, but I'm not sure my devastation meter is normal anymore. It has been a few weeks so a lot of the downed trees, signs, etc have been put into piles, hence the debris is orderly which makes it look less menacing. I didn't get the entire way down to Grand Isle, there was a sherrif's checkpoint and they were only letting people who lived there get past a certain point. Lots of utility work still going on. The cel site shelters are put waaaaaaaaay up in the air, with generators, so they are prepared for some power outages. Chevron has their own heliport which had a lot of traffic coming in and out, even in inclement weather, which I hit off and on during the drive.

The utility workers have super-cool air boats with lift buckets and drills on them that they use to re-set the poles that are in the water. How neat is that? I've been on an air boat tour once since being here and it is such a fun thing to do...I want one! The noise they make is unbelievable though...you hear one of them start up and you swear you just heard Crockette and Tubbs go by.

Thank goodness...

One of leftovers from Mr. Gustav - haven't seen much damage from Ike. Lots and lots to do at work - trying to fast track projects as a result of this emergency declaration. I have my first project under construction...it's a roof repair so not a big project or anything but at least it's something. Went out to a great bar close to where I live, St. Joe, a bar all decked out in a church costume with some opium parlor thrown in. Neat-o.

Made it back....only to leave again??

Got in safe and sound last night, saw Lily from a couple houses down and one roommate was home, the Americorps Red Cross volunteer. She's been running shelters for the last week, and she's not about to shut any of them down it seems. She's had only a few hours of sleep each night having to attend to everyone, so she was lucky to have had an entire night here. Poor thing has been sleeping on a 2" bed roll for months so I hooked her up with my double layer queen size air mattress. Drove to the store this morning to replenish my fridge contents which had to be thrown out - but I only got a very few things in small sizes since Mr. Ike don't look all that friendly.

Lots of tree damage, piles of limbs, etc. on the sides of roads but I haven't seen any large damage, even to homes under construction, as of yet. My next door neighbor has a HUGE tree in his backyard that provides lustrious shad in my yard, if anything happened to that one it would surely take out one or both houses. There's an elec plant a block or so by my house and I could have sworn they put up all these new large steel poles but a neighbor said Nope, they've been there since Katrina. They're really odd and I can't believe I didn't notice them before - most of the lines aren't even hooked up so it seems that effort was aborted at some point. Now I sure noticed the cel site in the yard, for obvious reasons. Quite a few businesses aren't open yet, even a the neon sign says they are (see pic), maybe about 50% but today IS Sunday.

I have a feeling not many people will evacuate again if another one comes calling, I've heard a lot of people say they wish they hadn't. However, if you have a place to stay that will let you bring your pets i.e. don't have to pay for a hotel, I don't know WHY you wouldn't. No power in the SUMMER, no water, no stores open...I mean what the hell? People that don't live here may not understand that if you leave windows open for the breeze and you don't have screens (which a surprising amount do not, including this house) you WILL be eaten up by skeeters. I mean eat-ten up.

So Monday it's back to work full throttle for at least a week.

On my way home

Yay! Got power and water at home! Didn't have any yesterday after first roommate came back, but at 11:30 pm we got it so I'm about to leave Atlanta to get back. Funny thing is, did you see Mr. Ike out there coming this way? I was treated so well with so much hospitality here, but I'm sure I would be pushing my luck if I came for another week so, look out, I might be coming your way (Matt in San Antonio - how 'bout it?). I lived here for years, but since I wasn't in the best mood or felt all that great I mostly either worked or stayed at Lisa's cozy house (above) with her great dog, Zeke, that PK loved to try to coerce into playing. We did have some great Thai food last night and I met April's roommate and boyfriend whom I hadn't met before. I had some Chicken Masaman which was a dish I used to get in a Thai place in Virginia-Highland when I lived there. Lovely creamy sauce with cashews and avacado, yum. Then I went to the Dekalb farmers market this morning to load up on spices which are the cheapest there I've ever seen. What a massive, amazing place. Then - back on the road, and next week...on va voir...