As some of you may know, I used to teach at Delgado Community College. I was full time until I started my own company back in January 2005. After that, I taught one class a semester as an adjunct. I remember talking to my students on the first day of class of the Fall 2005 semester. I made a comment about how the fall semester before, we lost a week of classes because of hurricane evacuations. I said "Hopefully that won't happen again this year." DOH! How about missing a whole semester of classes? And the powers that be thought that it would be fine to host the college's website and data bases and so on, on campus with no off-site redundancy. Therefore, for weeks there was no DCC e-mail or website or data. They had to boat in to retrieve the hard drives if I remember correctly. If you had a non DCC email for someone you could try to reach them. Otherwise too bad.

Unfortunately, I have not taught there since, either because they didn't need me or scheduling conflicts. I miss teaching and being an adjunct was great. You show up, you teach class, you grade. You don't have to get involved in committees and other academic nonsense. I don't have much patience for bureaucracy, which is why I decided not to pursue teaching full-time and went back into private practice.

I haven't been back on campus other than to go to the Symphony book fair. I was sad to read this article in the T-P.

Meanwhile, Delgado is continuing its steady post-Katrina growth with 16,715 students this semester, 16 percent more than last fall and only 4 percent below its pre-storm high of 17,398, which it reached days before the hurricane struck in August 2005, Delgado spokeswoman Molly Jahncke said.

For the first time in Delgado Community College's 88-year history, the area's most populous institution of higher education has turned away 1,500 applicants because it ran out of building space.

About 40 percent of the square footage of the City Park campus' buildings is out of commission, including the library.

... eight of the 21 buildings on the City Park campus are unusable.

They used to have stuff about the flooding after the federal levees flooded, including photos, but that appears to no longer be on the web site. There isn't even a mention of it under "Our History." I typed in Katrina in the search box and the info does still live, Hurricane Katrina Chronicals, just no recognizable links from the current website.

I'm still here. Just been distracted. We added a new feline to the Kitty Krewe. Click here to meet Harold the kitten.

Second day of September and first day of Criminal Court jury duty. I was feeling nervous this morning. Didn’t know what to expect. Wasn’t that bad, just boring. You feel like cattle though. I entered through the main entrance but I think we can enter through a back entrance. I walked up the stair through the front where you have to put your belonging in an x-ray machine and go through a metal detector. Then down an ancient elevator to the basement. The holding pen, oops, I mean jury lounge, is a huge, windowless room full of chairs. You check in then take a seat. There’s a display on the wall that show how many courts are left for the day. There are 12 courts and we started at 8. The first pool of 25 people got called, left the lounge and then promptly returned because something had been canceled. It weird sitting there listening to them call out the names, waiting in anticipation to see if you are going to hear your name or not. They do provide coffee and tea and there’s a small kitchen with a microwave and refrigerator. I was getting stir crazy and around 11:00 took a trip to the snack bar on the first floor. I brought snacks but really just wanted to walk around. You have to sign out on a list so they can find you if they need to. You can also go outside for a smoke break. Councilman Arnie Fielkow is in my group. He said he was trying to get out of it. I was standing next to him so I asked jokingly “You’re not exempt?” and he said no. He got to wait with the rest of us. He moved over to the other waiting room, the quiet room where you aren’t supposed to talk. I main room has 2 TVs and I’m not a fan of daytime TV. It’s not bad if you aren’t seated close to them. I passed time on Facebook, checking email – there is free Wi-Fi, which is good because you can’t get much of a signal down there. Listened to a business podcast I’ve wanted to listen to for a month now. Trying to do some constructive stuff with my time. One woman was knitting. There’s a good way to past the time. Too bad I don’t know how. My name didn't get called and we got released around noon. Never been so happy to go to work.

Tomorrow marks 4 years since Hurricane Katrina made land fall. I’ve struggled thinking about what to do to mark the occasion, like I did for last week’s anniversary of my mother’s death (Needless to say, August, especially this last week, is particularly emotional for me.). I have a friend’s baby shower to go to. I remember thinking when I got the invitation, “Are they crazy? Do they know what day that is?” But maybe they did it on purpose to symbolize rebirth and renewal; life must go one. I imagine anyone who lived here 4 years ago must have August 29th burned in to their memory, unless they are in very deep denial. I’m glad it falls on a Saturday this year. It was odd the last 3 years to go to the office and work, just like it was any other day. But it wasn’t. Sure there are bell-ringings, plaque dedications and wreath layings across the city, but I couldn’t connect with that. The other day, a friend who had surgery a few months ago proclaimed that she was finally ready to go out and wanted to go to Rock ‘n’ Bowl. I pulled up the music calendar and saw that Kermit Ruffins was playing Saturday. Perfect.

After bouncing around from house to house to house in Baton Rouge the first few weeks of September 2005, we decided to head to Houston. We weren’t the only ones, many of our neighbors ended up there, as did Kermit Ruffins. He wrangled a weekly gig at a Jazz Club downtown and it when he played, it would be overrun by New Orleanians. We got there early and while waiting for friends and neighbors to arrive, got a drink and noticed a couple sitting across the room. The guy was wearing a huge gold Saints Jersey and Saints baseball cap and we took the table next to them. Turned out the women worked at my friend’s gallery in the quarter and they lived in Gentilly. When Kermit took the stage I started crying, wondering when I would be able to go back home and what would I be going home to. It felt good to have other New Orleanians around who understood what you were going through and could talk about it. I hugged neighbors I wouldn’t normally hug and let Kermit’s music and voice wash over me. The crowd stood around listening to the music, but when he broke out into “We are Family” everyone cut loose, dancing and singing along.

Gambit's Best of New Orleans poll came out this week. I was going to vote on-line but when I read that I would have to answer at least 50% of the questions I changed my mind. A lot of the questions I don't know or don't really care. My apologies to friends whose businesses I didn't vote on. Here are some of my thoughts...

Here's the link.

Best Place to Get a Bloody Mary - Louisiana Superdome
Glad to know I'm not the only one who would have thunk it? But they are fantastic. My number 2 would be Molly's at the Market.

Best Neighborhood Bar. I'm glad to see my neighborhood bar, Rendezvous, did not make it on the list. Keep those posers out.

Best College Hangout & Best Place to Karaoke lets me know what places to avoid. I didn't realize Budda Belly had Karaoke.

I predict we'll see Avenue Pub showing up on this list next year. The new and improved AP hasn't been discovered yet. It would qualified for Best Beer Selection, Neighborhood Bar, and they should have a category "Best Bar Food."

Best Beer Brand - 1. Abita, 2. NOLA Brewery 3. Budweiser. Budweiser? Seriously? I guess Bud Light drinking like to take on-line pools.

Best New Restaurant - Glad to see Gott Gourmet made the list. I'm surprised to see Rum House, it's only been open a few months.

Best Cup of Coffee & Best Coffeehouse - Glad to see all winners are local.

Best Public Spat - Wow, Stacy Head is involved in all three!

I like this one: Best New Job for Mayor Ray Nagin - 1. Garbage Man 2. Making License Plates in Prison 3. Cleaning the French Quarter for SDT

Muses got voted Best Carnival Night Parade. I certainly have to agree.

I like their comment about NOLA.com's comment section though it can be next to impossible to find stuff on the site.
Best Local Web Site - 1. Nola.com - The online arm of The Times-Picayune features the paper's excellent reporters and some interesting blogs and multimedia. Now if we can only get them to clean up the toxic soup that infects their comments section. Mr. O'Byrne? Please? 2. Bestofneworleans.com 3. WWLTV.com

Best Local Blog - 2. Blackenedout.blogspot.com How is it I've never heard of this blog? Now it's going to get slammed.

I find it interesting that Best Men's Clothing Store & Best Women's Clothing Store are all national chains save Perlis. Are you paying attention over-priced Magazine street boutiques who only carry size 0-2??

Best Wireless Phone Service - 1. AT&T - SERIOUSLY??? I have AT&T and they suck for cell phone service.

From the Gambit blog "Lights out for Canal Place Cinema"

"Monday, September 7, 2009 will be their final day of operation at that location."

Well crap. While it wasn't the best cinema to see a movie, it is (was) the only place to show "art house" and "foreign" films. Since I'm not the type of person who must see a movie the day it comes out on the big screen, I'm quite content to wait for a movie to appear on DVD and get it through NetFlix. File under "ain't there no more."

UPDATE: Apparently Gambit only had half the story. Today's T-P says the cinema is closing but another group will take it over, renovate it and reopen it.

Well I have quite the weekend ahead of me. Tonight's the Opening Reception for the Rising Tide IV "Bloggers" Conference. Got to love this year's theme "Sinking to New Heights." Looking forward to checking out the new and improved Avenue Pub. It's been a long time since I stepped foot in there.

The conference starts Saturday at 9 a.m. Ouch. I'm not really one who follows celebrities but I am very excited that Harry Shearer is going to be the keynote speaker. He's so talented, I hope I get a chance to meet him. It can be hard to get a word in with other bloggers (they can talk as much as they type) and I'm sure Harry will be the belle of the ball. The conference has been getting some press so it should be interesting to see what this year's turn is like.

That evening there will sure to be the post-party somewhere, but I'll be scooting off to go join my fellow FSU alumni at the Greater New Orleans Seminole Club inaugural meeting. Years ago there was a club but it became defunct. Thanks to the tireless Shrimp Po-Boy we again have a group. That's 7-10pm at Cafe Prytania, 3445 Prytania Ave, in case some fellow Seminole stumbles across this page.

Sunday marks 10 years since my mother passed away. In her memory I'm going to have a movie marathon of some of her favs. I already watched "Clue" (can't ever get enough of Tim Curry and a favorite board game of ours) and saw "Young Frankinstein" when I was in Albuquerque (Gene Wilder was on of her favs). First up will the "Blues Brothers," hands down her #1 fav movie followed by "Murder by Death" (she loved murder mysteries and had a great sense of humor). I have all of these on DVD. Another fav is "Ladyhawke" that I only have on VHS - it's kinds of a silly movie with a bizarre soundtrack by Alan Parson's Project, but has Rutger Hauer and Matthew Broderick so there you have it. And I should get a Dirty Harry but there's only so much sitting around I can do at one time so we'll see. Plus I'm going to make Hungarian stuffed cabbage and that can be time consuming. Hmm... maybe I can roll the cabbage rolls while watching one of the movies?

Spinal Tap is Back! "Back From the Dead"

It's the 25th anniversary of the original release of the mockumentary "This is Spinal Tap." I LOVE that movie. And I love that "the band" managed to release albums and tour in spite of not being a real band, not originally.

Their website rocks and they have fully embraced all the new media available. No Facebook page though? I downloaded the Spinal Tap app for my iPhone. You have to be careful where you use it. Every time you launch it, it starts cranking out a song.

The new CD is over the top as well, with a pop-up diorama of the band.

So of course I'm thrilled that Harry Shearer will be the key note speaker for this year's Rising Tide Conference. I missed it last year, but am already registered.

This afternoon I am jetting off the the "Land of Enchantment" otherwise known as New Mexico. Time for my annual hiking/camping trip with my friend Dorie. Really looking forward to it. I learned my lesson - no more traveling far during the peak of hurricane season. Darn Gustav cut my road trip vacation short last year. Nothing in the Atlantic right now. Pshew. Not sure where we are going yet... we like to be impulsive that way. It's going to be a quick one since Dorie is still in school. I'll be back home Monday.

There hasn’t been everything out of City Hall regarding recycle in a while. There was the survey they did back in April 2008 I blogged about here and here.

Before that T-P did this article November 2007 about how the City's 2008 budget was not going to include recycling.

[Veronica] White said that, in light of other pressing needs, the city cannot afford recycling, too.
"I need to have money to recycle," she said.

Midura said she realizes that the city's recycling program, like most across the country, never drew enough participation to generate sufficient savings in landfill disposal costs to cover its own expenses. But she said the city still should provide the service because of its environmental benefits, even if City Hall has to subsidize it.

At what point are the landfills so full and costly that recycling is a cost saving measure?

I cough up my $14 monthly fee so the Phoenix recycling will come pickup my paper and plastic. They stopped collecting glass last year, which is really annoying. STD offers curb-side recycle for a fee, and I now learn from Gambit that there is yet another company offering it, The Pooh Bah Group.

Pooh Bah is cheaper than Phoenix, only $10 a month. I sort of want to continue to support the first company who started a recycling program post-K but I could save $48 a year. What I want to know is how can 3 competing companies offer curbside recycling if there’s no money in it???? I don’t understand.

My friend K and I are trying to not take New Orleans’ fantastic music scene quite so for granted. I don’t have the stamina I once did to go out late to see music, especially not on a work night. We took advantage of Tipitina’s Free Fridays a couple of weeks ago and saw a great show with Soul Rebels and DJ Soul Sister. Even though the place was packed, we scored a great spot upstairs. Last night, we ventured to d.b.a. It’s been a while since I’ve hung out on Frenchmen Street. It was hopping last night. I was pretty surprised for such a crowd on a night in July, but what do I know?

Lost Bayou Ramblers were playing. A great young Cajun band out of the Lafayette area (a.k.a. “Cajun Country”). K and I had the pleasure of discovering these guys at the Creole Tomato/Cajun Zydeco/Seafood Festival back in June. It was a blistering hot Saturday afternoon. We walked around for a while, had lunch but it was just too hot, so we parked ourselves in Café Angeli and had some cocktails. Once we had cooled down and had a nice buzz we wandered back to the music stage to catch the end of Sunpie and the Louisiana Sunspots set. After Sunpie, the Ramblers came on.

About half way through their set, the power went out. This did not deter them in the least. The bassist unplugged himself and jumped off the stage into the crowd. The rest of the guys followed suit with the drummer grabbing his snare from his drum kit.

They moved over to stand on some steps near by and the crowd followed them, clapping keeping time. Sunpie had been dancing in the crowd when this all happened. He rushed off to grab his accordion and joined in. I don't know if the techs got the power back on, but nobody cared. It was one of those magical musical moments.

Last fall I did a post about the former Copeland's Restaurant on St. Charles Ave. and Napoleon Ave. from an email I recieved about the proposed new restaurant. link

The T-P had a story about it today. link

In my almost daily drive-bys on the way to the office I've notice some minor activity at the site. I was wondering if the seafood place would happened. Maybe it will.

R.I.P. Le Jardin?


A for sale sign appeared outside our community garden this week. As neighborhood assoc pres. I got many phone calls and emails about it. The way it works is, the garden is on private land and can stay there as long as the the owner allows; the gardeners maintain the land and pay the water bill. Unbeknownst to the gardeners and even Parkway Partners, the land had been adjudicated by the city and sold for $20k in November 2007. The currently asking price is $89K. If anyone pays that much for the property I'm sure they are not going to leave a community garden on it but rather build a house or apartments. Many people in the neighborhood love the garden. Non-gardeners come to enjoy the green and tranquility. I suggested a few options such as, create an LLC or some other legal intity and buy the land ourselves; convince someone to buy the land and let the garden remain (hello Brad Pitt?); start looking into some of the other empty lots in the neighborhood and see if we can move the garden. I remains to be seen how it plays out. But it will be a sad day when the garden is gone.

The NY Times has a column called "Happy Days"

About Happy Days

The severe economic downturn has forced many people to reassess their values and the ways they act on them in their daily lives. For some, the pursuit of happiness, sanity, or even survival, has been transformed.

Happy Days is a discussion about the search for contentment in its many forms — economic, emotional, physical, spiritual — and the stories of those striving to come to terms with the lives they lead.

What a refreshing perspective now days when it seems all the media focuses on if the negative. I don't understand why the local news has to cover stories about murders and and what not in towns on the other side of the country. Leave that to the national news.

Today's "Happy Days" is about New Orleans. link The author, Dan Baum, seems to have really picked up on what makes people here tick - "Their preference for having more time than money was at the heart of what made that city so much fun to visit and so hard to leave."

And his closing sentence: "New Orleans can teach us that the life we build with our neighbors deserves at least as much attention as our endless thrust towards newer and bigger."

Why does the 2nd District Police Station need a crime camera out front?

2009 Lafitte Corridor Hike

I posted my photos from the hike to my Flickr account. There's supposed to be a way in embed a slide show on your blog and even in a post, but I haven't found any clear instruction on how-to and don't have the patience right now to figure it out. So if you want to see then here's the link:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/27509547@N08/

If you want to see even more photos, there's a Lafitte Corridor group on Flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/lafitte-corridor/

This year's hike number exceed everyone's expectations. There were guest speakers and more stops. Massey's provided lunch and amazingly I think there was just enough for everyone. Massey's also paid for a bus to shuttle everyone back to the start but we exceeded the number of seats. A small group headed over to the Bulldog at the end of the hike to cool off and enjoy some libations.

My company designed a new logo for the Friend of Lafitte Corridor, and has been very well received. Their newly redesigned website looks great. Check it out here and learn more about the Corridor and the project: http://folc-nola.org/

Quick car update: I got my car back, after a few sweaty days of riding the streetcar to work. Got a new ECM relay, battery terminals and a fuse. Everything seems to be working now *fingers crossed.*

When I worked downtown I used to ride the streetcar every day. Some people think it's just a tourist thing but it's not. I must say I'm impressed by their punctuality. I checked the times on the RTA web site and they were right on. The first day I just missed it. I was drenched in sweat by the time I got to the office. After the first day I got smart and took a change of clothes with me. Yesterday I had one of those drivers with the fun personalities. The machine didn't want to take my dollar and he was cracking jokes the whole time. "Did you print that dollar last night?" Most of them are pretty nice. I remember the one man (pre-K) who would talk to the cars. "Whooo, hold that buggy!" he'd say when a car looked like it was going to cross in front.

Last weekend we did the Lafitte Corrodor Hike (I need to post photos!) and we rode the Canal Street line back to our car downtown. A great way to ride.

When you have 13-year-old car, you can expect it to break down from time to time. About a week ago I had trouble starting it. Turn the key – nothing. I checked the battery, nothing loose, wiggled some things around. After turning the key a few more time it started up. Had to turn the key a number of times to get it started at the end of day. The next morning, no problems. Didn’t have any problems until Wednesday. Took a number of times to get started. I should have taken the car into the mechanic then. Live and learn. Yesterday I had no problems. I had decided to go ahead and take it in today, and idea confirmed when it took many time to get it started. Driving along I noticed my radio kept powering off and on. All of a sudden it just turned off completely. I managed to coast over to the side. Turn the key, nothing. Mess with the battery and wires, still nothing. After a while I call AAA for a tow. I was told 45 minutes, so I sat and waited. As I’m sitting there, a trickle of very nicely dressed people start parking around me and going to the church across the street (I was broken down next to the post office on Louisiana Ave.) More and more people arrive. I’m guessing it’s a funeral. I notice men in gold blazers with “Zulu” on them. The crowd grows; a cop starts to direct traffic. I’m worried about my tow truck getting to me. I hear a brass band in the distance but I can’t see them. Now I’m kind of hoping my tow truck doesn’t show up for a while. A procession comes down LA Ave. and goes into the church. There were about 100 men in gold blazers standing on LA Ave, swaying to the dirge the band was playing, like they were marching in place. It’s been 50 minutes I call AAA. The truck is 5 miles away will be there in 20 minutes. An elderly woman walked by me asked if I needed help. I told her thank you but no, I was waiting for a tow truck. She said she read about the man who had died in the paper yesterday. “Must have been someone important, that’s a lot of people.” I agreed with her. The music stopped and slowly the men swaying in the street file into the church as other people file out. At long last the tow truck arrives and he gives the battery a jump and the car starts. He says I need a new battery and I tell him the other things that happened and that I was worried it would died again, so he says he’ll follow me to the mechanics. We go 4 blocks and my car conks out. He jumps it again. While standing there, my friend Michael, who lived near by, walks up “I saw on your Facebook status you had broken down and was wondering if you were close by.” I had posted the photo you see here to Facebook. I get in my car and we drive another 2 blocks. The tow truck driver states, “I’ll need to tow it.” No shit Sherlock.

I had not heard from my mechanic and it was getting to be the end of the day so I gave them a call. "It started right up" I was told. I was pissed and went off on a rant of the problems it gave me. They can keep it until they figure out the problem. I walked home which was good for the nerves. Monday the saga will continue.