2008


Ballroom is Back

I worked from 10:30 to 4:30. I did have some patient reports to proofread but I spend a lot of time working on an assignment for my online journalism class. I started working on it a few days ago. I was having trouble thinking up what to write. The assignment called for me to write a story about myself and I ended up copping out and quoted myself in order to make it work.After I got off the campus shuttle, I stopped at the bookstore and finally bought a small binder to keep my class handouts. This evening’s class was about various news websites. We looked at a variety of online news outlets and a couple of partisan blogs. We discussed the appeal, appearance and content of the various sites.Class was dismissed at about 7:30 so I still had plenty of time before ballroom dancing this evening. With the time to spare I finished the journalism homework, answering questions about one of the news websites. Having already done a similar assignment for my advertising class, it didn’t take very long.As mentioned, Tulane ballroom dancing was back up and running this evening. The turnout was amazing, about 80 people showed up. The Riverside room where we hold lessons was pretty cramped but it worked out all right. If we were to have a crowd that big every week, we’d want a bigger space. The first dance style of the semester is salsa. We went over the basic step and a few other moves this evening. Tammy, the instructor, stared explaining a more complicated move near the end of the session that I didn’t get at all. After it ended at 10, I stuck around for a few minutes. Most of the people who came tonight signed waiver forms which certainly bodes well for attendance next week. I caught a cab home after I left.

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A League of Ordinary Gentlemen

On the way to work this morning, which took longer than usual due to road work, we saw one of the red Canal Street streetcars being tested. It looks like they are on track to start returning on October.Although I didn’t have much to do at work this afternoon, it became rather annoying after two as we are busy on Wednesdays and things get noisy and cramped. I had Dad bring me to an earlier shuttle so I could take care of something before class but that never ended up happening. I have to get a club sport pass for ballroom this semester the club president hasn’t filed the appropriate paperwork yet.This evening’s finance class was about banks, financial intermediaries and interest rates. Either I haven’t been paying attention or attendance was up considerably from last week. Class was dismissed somewhat mercifully at 8:00. Mom and Dad were at an open house at Andrew school down Freret this evening so Dad was able to pick up up again this evening. While I waited I got something to eat at the LBC. Later this evening, I finished watching A League of Ordinary Gentlemen.

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Introduction to Advertising

The Zune 3.0 Software/Firmware update was released today and I got it all installed this morning before leaving for work. It was a smooth process and adds a lot of interesting new features like browsing the Zune marketplace wirelessly on the device and support for games.I don’t remember much of anything from work this afternoon. I caught the 4:40 shuttle to campus. Tonight was my first class for Introduction to Advertising. I dropped a Photoshop class last week and this is the replacement. I had to call the professor, Richard Reso, prior to the class as they had been dropped from their room assignment and I had not heard about the new one.Although apparently eight including myself are registered for the class, there were only three fellow students present. I recognized two of them from classes gone by. Tonight’s lecture was about some of the reasons advertising exists and the cultural and economic climate that allows it to be fruitful. The lecture wasn’t boring but it was a bit longer than it needed to be with a substantial quantity of personal anecdotes worked in. Such tangents are forgivable in the case of this class as all of us are bombarded by advertisements daily so nobody is a stranger to it.Class was dismissed at 8:15. Dad was hanging around to pick me up. Later this evening I started watching a movie before Krystle called.

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Grazed by Ike

This weekend was rather uneventful for me as I didn’t go anywhere outside of work on Friday and church. I watched a number of movies over the weekend and reinstalled Windows on my desktop to solve a nagging problem that a repair install a number of weeks ago did not permanently fix.I was at the office from about one to 4:30 this afternoon. I didn’t have that much to do but I did get some reports in the mail.This evening’s Louisiana Politics class was largely about the history of the state of Louisiana. Having taken a Louisiana History class last semester and a Colonial Louisiana History class the term before that, I didn’t bother to pay that much attention. Class was dismissed at 7:30. I sat in the LBC for a few minutes. An old coworker from the bookstore, Sharon, was there and we spoke for a few minutes while I waited for my ride.Later this evening after I got home I watched 10 Items or Less, an awesome little movie with Morgan Freeman.

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The Greenberg Rule

The weather was more that somewhat windy this morning. We will probably be getting some nasty weather from of the outer bands of Hurricane Ike which is currently on track to hit Houston. Dad and I got to the office for 11 this morning. At 12:30, we lost power for exactly one hour. There were no patients in the office so it wasn’t a big deal.This evening’s Online Journalism class was about differences between print and online journalism. Basically there is an even bigger emphasis on saying more with fewer words. Class ended around 7:30 and I got a ride home not long after that.

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The Balance Sheet

Dad mentioned the washing machine wasn’t working this morning, although the electrical outlet is good. I did not have a great deal of work to do at the office this afternoon, but I did get some reports ready to go out.Dad took me down Canal Street to catch the 4:10 shuttle this afternoon. I went to the bookstore when I got to campus with the intention of buying a small binder to hold some handouts for class. As is frequently the case, there was a long line that I did not need to be in badly enough. I sat in the LBC dining room for a little while with my laptop for a little while before class this evening.Tonight’s introductory finance class covered the basics of the balance sheet and investments and loans such as T-Bills, stocks and bonds. I was having a hard time paying attention so I’ll probably be reading the chapters a couple times this week. After class, Dad picked me up in front of the LBC. Apparently he was still in the neighborhood. When I got home this evening I read a reply e-mail from the professor of an advertising class I’ll be signing up for in lieu of the Photoshop class. The e-mail included the first assignment, a short critique of MSNBC.com that I took care of this evening. Later on I talked to Krystle and watched most of the movie 10, which is one of the funniest movies I’ve ever seen.

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Digital Design I

I had a few things in storage that I got back last night, one of them being a hard drive that belongs in my desktop PC. With that back at home I was able to put my computer back together this morning before work. I didn’t get it hooked up until this evening though.After work this afternoon, Dad drove me out to Tulane’s Elmwood campus in Harahan. I signed up for a class called, Digital Design I, essentially an introduction to Adobe Photoshop. I have wanted to take a class like this for a couple years but it is only offered at the distant Elmwood campus which presents a significant inconvenience to me. With the increased likelihood that I’ll be driving soon I decided to sign up anyway.The class takes place in a small G5 Mac lab. There were 14 other students registered for the class. When the class finally got started, the professor, Martin Straka, went over the syllabus and what the class entails. The first lesson was today as well, in which the instructor went over some basic functions in Photoshop. Although I have nearly no experience working with Photoshop, I really didn’t learn anything new today. Based on the syllabus, it doesn’t look I’d learn much of anything through the whole semester. I could probably learn anything I don’t already know with some tutorials on the Internet. During the break I glanced at the textbook for the class which pretty much confirmed my thinking on this. Although the class offers an easy A and probably some fun projects, it’s just not worth going out to Harahan and back once a week. Perhaps next semester I will sign up for Digital Design II, which would be more challenging.

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Back to Business

After a weekend of watching TV, putting things back where they belong and clearing a few downed branches from the lawn, it was back to work… pretty much. Dad and I went to the mid city office this morning but we weren’t actually open so the only real work was putting things back together like the computers and EMS machines.Dad dropped me downtown to take the 4:40 shuttle to campus for class this evening. Tonight was the first session of Louisiana Political Culture, which is essentially a class covering Louisiana Politics of the 20th century. There was no lecture this evening, just an introduction to the course and the writing assignments. The professor was a bit hard to peg but this class should be alright.

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Home

I got up early enough this morning to shower and help myself to the waffle maker in the lobby this morning. We checked out of the hotel shortly after nine this morning and headed home. We had to take a detour to Baton Rouge to pick up Jeff, Dad’s car and a number of items we left in Jeff’s apartment. After entering the city we could see more of the damage we saw on the way out a few days ago, mostly downed signs and fallen trees that occasionally landed on houses.After getting the cars packed, we got back on the road. We had to take Highway 30 to 74 because the I-10 just south of Baton Rouge was closed. The right was largely quite smooth but there was a significant slowdown at the I-10, I-55 merge. Driving through the city, things looked a lot better in New Orleans than they did in Baton Rouge. There was some damage to a few businesses and billboards, but overall the city looks fine. Our neighborhood had a lot of tree foliage in the street, but nothing else of circumstance. Our house looks fine but more than a few of our shingles were in the yard so we’ll need a new roof and soon.After unloading the cars, getting some of my stuff back in order and removing the boards from the windows, I helped clean the refrigerator. Everything in the fridge and freezer had to be thrown away. Mom had the foresight to triple-bag all the meat in the freezer so thankfully there was no vile stench.This evening I noticed that one of the boards holding up my waterbed fell over. Since a collapsed waterbed would be a huge mess I started fixing it immediately. Dad has a utility pump so I didn’t have to start a siphon to drain the bed. I took advantage of the situation and cleaned the liner and vacuumed behind the bed where a couple years of dust accumulated. It took the rest of the night to get that done so I went to bed with a big mess on the floor in my room.

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Still Waiting

I got up early enough this morning to get some breakfast in the lobby. Today was more than slightly dull as we never even left the hotel today. We were practically certain we do not have power at the house yet and Dad saw no reason to fight the inevitable traffic only to return to a sweltering house. I spent most of the afternoon in the lobby as the wireless internet was quite poor in our room but worked great downstairs. This evening I watched just about all of the republican convention on TV, which unsurprisingly didn’t top the one given by his #2 yesterday. Late this evening we learned the electricity is back on at the house. Both our answering machine and fax picked up. We’ll be heading home tomorrow morning.

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Waiting

For the most part, today was uneventful as we were just hanging out at the hotel and not really doing anything. I have my computer to keep me occupied however so I wasn’t terribly bored. At about two this afternoon we went out for a late lunch. Dad wanted to go to a Chinese place but we couldn’t find the one he looked up so we ate at O’Charley’s instead.There was a good deal of news out of Louisiana today about the state of affairs including damage and power outages. This evening, I watched republican convention coverage including the speech by Sarah Palin which I found immensely entertaining. The democrats who appeared on Larry King later in the evening were not amused, however.

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Ridgeland

A second night of sleeping on the floor did not make the experience any less unsavory. The power was still out this morning and news on the radio stated 97% of Baton Rouge was also without power. Apparently, hurricane Gustav has arguably inflicted the worst damage on the city as any storm in Baton Rouge history.This afternoon, Aunt Lauren searched around and found a hotel room for us in Ridgeland, Mississippi, just north of Jackson. Dad wanted to leave a car and a bunch of our stuff at Jeff’s apartment so we only took the Taurus. It took us about four hours to make it to the hotel, traffic in Baton Rouge was heavy and slow moving. As we drove out of the city we got to see some of the damage, mostly downed trees. In itself that’s not a big deal but quite a few of them fell on roads. On one road there was a nearly continuous line of chopped up trees that clearly indicated a substantial effort to clear the road. I also saw a good number of trees that fell on houses and automobiles.We arrived at the hotel, a Comfort Suites, shortly after eight this evening. After getting settled in, Dad went out to pick up something for dinner. I didn’t have much luck getting the internet to work in the room. I watched some of the Republican convention on CNN and saw Fred Thompson, President Bush and Joe Lieberman speak. Later on I went down to the lobby, where the Internet worked, and talked to Krystle on the phone for a while before bed.

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In the Dark

The news this morning was looking decidedly optimistic as most hurricane force winds missed New Orleans. We had the news and such on until one o’clock this afternoon when the power went out and stayed out. Over the course of the day, the weather remained rough with intermittent rain and high winds. Many tree branches fell from trees but that was largely the extent of damage near us. We never even attempted to go to the hotel this afternoon. It was somewhat fortunate that the air was cool, if wet and there was a pretty stiff breeze coming through the windows.

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Evacuation

After a bit more packing and preparation this morning, Mom, Dad and I left New Orleans shortly after 7:30 this morning. The night before we intended to be on the road a couple hours earlier but that turned out not to be necessary for us. We took the I-10 to the contraflow lanes headed for Baton Rouge. The normal westbound lanes were directed to Hammond where traffic was very congested and at a standstill in places. I felt pretty fortunate being able to zoom past those poor people, but Dad was planning on riding out the storm in Baton Rouge which all forecasts say is a bad place to be.It was about 9:30 this morning when we arrived at Jeff’s ‘new’ apartment in Baton Rouge. Jeff, Andrew, Jeff’s roommate and her parents were already here. His apartment lacks furniture so most of the day was spend sitting on the floor watching TV and browsing the Internet. I also watched the movie Rope. Jeff and his roommate left with a friend to spend the night elsewhere.Over the course of the evening, the news looked less grim for New Orleans with the storm track trending westward a bit. In addition to the increased chance of returning to an intact house, staying here in Baton Rouge should be a bit safer.

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