"Well, here it is the 22nd of May and the last Thoughtlet I wrote was about Matt's Eagle Project, and although I transferred the words from e-mail to html the night before leaving for China, I didn't even connect this Thoughtlet into the Thoughtlet Index. And this happened back on Thursday the 14th of April. Here it is the 22nd of May, and I have not written a thoughtlet since then. So I will spend the next two weeks catching up. For those who follow these words, here is the preview of what is planned:
| # 0515 | New Orleans (this thoughtlet) | 10 Apr 05; |
| # 0516 | Trip Preparation | 17 Apr 05; |
| # 0517 | Sara Ellyn & Sarah Elizabeth | 24 Apr 05; |
| # 0518 | Overnight Trains | 01 May 05; |
| # 0519 | Joshua & Audrey Waldron | 08 May 05; |
| # 0520 | My Second Sixth Anniversary | 15 May 05; |
| # 0521 | Dead Battery | 22 May 05; and |
| # 0522 | Matt's High School Graduation | 29 May 05; |
So what am I going to write about New Orleans that I haven't written about before? After all the words `New Orleans' occur 46 times in 25 previous Thoughtlets. I wrote about flying to New Orleans from Dallas to train Evans & Sutherland marketing people for the SEG Convention in 1979 (../9814.html and ../9837.html), about driving to New Orleans for Landmark Conventions (../9743.html), about HyperMedia in New Orleans (../9811.html), about Continuum's demonstrations in New Orleans (../9830.html), about Paul Sullivan working at Shell in New Orleans (../9838.html), about renting a van and driving out of New Orleans with Continuum's computers and sitting in a freeway parking lot (../9839.html), about taking Southwest Airlines to fly over to New Orleans for one day meetings (../0017.html), about meeting Michael Hauck in New Orleans (../0234.html), and about my month long assignment to work for Mobil Oil in New Orleans in about 1977 (../0336.html). So what else is there to write about New Orleans?
Well I could write about my favorite restaurants there. There is a little place on the west side of down town called Pascalle Manelles, which specializes in bar-b-que shrimp that I love. The shrimp are big jumbo prawns, and they are cooked whole in a bar-b-que sauce. They are really messy to eat, and really good. One needs the bib they tie around your neck to eat them. Served with great homemade bread, it is one of my favorite restaurants anyplace. There is a restaurant I can't remember, close to Mobil's old office, that serves a mile-high ice cream desert that is superior. There is a sandwich place on Poydrus, that I think is called Mamma's. In fact, there are very few restaurants I've eaten at in New Orleans where I have not enjoyed the meal. Including eating gumbo on The Riverwalk or at the airport.
I could also write about safety. I have never felt particularly safe in New Orleans. When I made my first trips to New Orleans in the mid 1970's with Mobil Oil to receive data and report on interpretation results for offshore lease sales, there was a rash of crimes in the downtown area, right around the Mobil offices. Blacks were killing executives in the parking lots for whatever was in their wallets. It was scary times, and Mobil stressed we should never go out on our own, especially at night. On subsequent trips to conventions in the downtown area, I was encouraged to walk with friends down Bourbon Street. Just walking past the bars and seeing the antics of people was enough to turn my stomach. Listening to people talk about the transsexuals and the weird created great concern for loved ones, particularly children, who might visit New Orleans, specifically from a moral standpoint.
I could write about music. I recall when Continuum Resources had our
first major convention, it was in New Orleans. Jeff Hume and his
girlfriend Cindy rented "The House of Blues" for our open house the
first evening of the convention (
Of course, none of these thoughts about New Orleans were on my mind as the week started. On Monday morning the 4th of April I had a meeting with Fred Hilterman at 8:00 AM. It has been so long ago, I'm not even sure what the meeting was about. At 4:30 I was back out to the house to work with Marc Roulston, who rebuilt the system and put several gigabytes of new disk space on it, so I can now download some of the digital photos which have been accumulating (../9848.html). At 7:30 in the morning on Wednesday the 6th , I met with Ed Rogers at Denny's to catch up and to discuss my relationship with ASI. He read the letter I had written to Marti suggesting a change in how she would be paid if I am able to get any money out of ASI. The idea is to get services instead of cash, since they have never been able to pay back the cash I loaned them. Marti ended up sending me a very nice letter absolving me of the debt, since it was always my deal anyway. This was nice of her, and I guess it becomes justification for her not giving me an accounting of the trust fund that was set up for colleges and missions. It was nice to catch up with Ed. His female Episcopalian Minister was at the restaurant, the same as the previous time we had breakfast there. Her reaction to being introduced to Ed's `Mormon friend' was also the same. I found it interesting, and said nothing about it to Ed. Friday, the 8th was Sarah Johnson's birthday. Matt and I went to the grocery store to buy a card, and then I forgot to sign it. Then the next day Andrea forgot to mail it. I recall both Andrea and I were able to talk to Sarah and apologize for being late with her card sometime that week, probably on Sunday the 10th.
I believe it was one evening this week that Sara Ellyn cooked an excellent Benin meal for us at the house. I forget what it was called. It was spicy, including an havanaro pepper, which I ate half of, much to Sara's chagrin. It was different to eat with your hands. The main bulk of the meal was very bland, and I thought the spicy sauce was excellent.
I also got the results back from my colonoscopy. The two polyps were benign. They repeated notification I have Diverticulosis, and that I am not suppose to eat popcorn anymore. It is disconcerting, since I do enjoy popcorn so much. And I wish this was the worst news I would ever hear regarding getting old, but I know it isn't. Oh well!
Early Friday, on my way to work, I dropped Matt off at Taylor High School for his annual Choir Trip. The band trip was to New Orleans. About 10:30 that night, just after we had gone to sleep, we had a call from the choir director telling us that Matt had made a mistake and needed to come home from New Orleans. The plan was to put him on a Southwest Airlines flight first thing Saturday morning. I suggested I drive over and pick him up, Andrea agreed and said she wanted to come also, and so about midnight we headed out for New Orleans.. We arrived just as they were getting up, and I think it all helped to keep disruption of the choir plans to an absolute minimum. It was sad that Matt was not able to go to the World War II Museum, as he loves history and especially this portion of history, and already knows the history backwards and forwards. Oh well! We have the right to make choices, and usually we do not have much choice when it comes to accepting the consequences of our choices. It was a minor infraction of the rules, and the teachers had no choice. It did turn out a lot better than when Paul broke a minor infraction of the rules. And then again, Paul, maybe your punishment is one of the reasons you have done so well since then. It is hard to judge these things, sometimes even retrospectively.
The good news is we were able to stop in Vidor and eat an excellent lunch with Melanie, Jared, Colby, and Taylor. The kids are growing up so fast. It is so much fun to spend time with them. I look forward to the days when I have build my city and all of you kids and your kids come to live in the city with me and I get to spend time with the Grand kids every day. Opps! Did I just slip off into my dream world again, or what?
Andrea and I went out to Katy Mills Mall to see the movie `Sahara' when we got back Saturday night. It is an interesting action film with an absolutely impossible theme. Global Warming has caused the rivers to dry up so much since the end of the Civil War that a ship which was full of Confederate gold was stuck on an ancient river channel in the middle of the Sahara desert? Oh well! It was a fun movie from the action standpoint, and the action did help keep me awake. After all, it is not every day that one makes an overnight drive to New Orleans and back."
