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Jan202006
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Media and the Law |
I got up at a half decent hour this morning. I did a little bit of work today at home, just a couple of reports. Dad took me to Tulane at about 2:45 this afternoon. We stopped at the bank on the way. I got dropped off in front of the library. I went there briefly and found out I still couldn’t use the internet with my laptop. I walked over to the laptop station in Richardson to get the problem fixed. As it turns out, nothing was really wrong, but the Tulane network doesn’t broadcast an SSID (anymore). After I left Richardson I walked over to the Boot for something to eat before class this evening. I was there for a little while before going back to the library. I had the net working on my laptop and I remained there about a half hour before walking to Gibson Hall for my class this evening. My class this evening was Media and the Law, instructed by Stephen Gernhauser, an attorney. The class deals with various forms of media and the first amendment, but you wouldn’t have figured that out attending the first session this evening. Most of the class time was spent by the professor and the class discussing personal experiences associated with hurricane Katrina. The professor started first. He was one of a couple people in the room who lost everything. This went on for a good while. The last several minutes were spent going over the syllabus and what the class is actually about. After class I walked to Freret and McAlister to catch the downtown shuttle to get home. It showed up about 10 minutes after I got there. There were six or so other people waiting as well. After the bus got to Canal Street, I walked down to the riverfront expecting to take the Algiers ferry to the west bank, but it already stopped running. There was a guy parked in an RTA vehicle near the landing. I asked him about the hours but he had no idea. Nobody on his radio had any idea either. I called Dad and he had me meet him at the Sheraton, just up the street. I waited inside for a little while before he arrived. I made myself some soup for dinner when I got home. Beyond that I don’t remember doing anything.
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Jan182006
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Back to Tulane |
Monday was another rather quiet day, as was Tuesday. Aunt Lauren and Arien went home on Tuesday. Watch Boston Legal was pretty much the high-point of Tuesday. This morning, Dad and I went up to the new Metairie office to start setting things up. We took a bunch of equipment that was in the Mid City office before the storm up there. To be honest, we didn’t get that much done in the time we were there. We did get the wall brackets for the EMS machines up though. I cleaned the windows and door in the front, which were actually pretty dirty between the dirt the storm flew around and the dust generated by the recent renovations. Dad took me to McDonald’s at about one to get some lunch. It was pretty crowded but I didn’t have to wait terribly long. I took the food back to the office where remained for almost another hour. I got a ride to Tulane around two this afternoon. Dad stopped at the post office on the way. This was actually my first time being uptown on St. Charles Ave. since the storm. At a casual glance, things actually looked pretty normal. It didn’t look like many trees had been downed in the area. I used the phrase ‘causal glance’ for a reason though. Dad dropped me off in front of Gibson Hall. I first went to see my student advisor, Ms. Houston, as I was curious how valuable the classes I’ve scheduled will be to my major. Although I thought two of them were pretty irrelevant, it turns out I have still have all of my general elective credits open and all of the classes I scheduled will contribute to my major. We talked for a while before I left and made my way to the library to remain for a while before my first class starts at 4:30. Walking through the campus, things look pretty good. That’s the case because an incredible amount of work has been done on campus since the storm and the work looks pretty good. It was quite nice to walk through the campus and see things intact. My first class this evening was introductory psychology at 4:30. It takes place in a large auditorium in Richardson. About 70 students showed up, although the professor, a Dr. Brian Edwards, said only half of those who signed up showed. Most of the class period was spent going over the syllabus, which was hardly out of the ordinary. It took about an hour though. Myself and obviously some of the others thought that would conclude the class but we weren’t so lucky. The professor lectured until the end of class at about 5:45. The professor defined psychology and went on to talk about how broad a field it is. Class ended with just enough time for me to walk across the quad to Norman Mayer for my second class of the evening, which started at 5:45. This class was Consumer Behavior I don’t really know why I’m taking it. The professor wasn’t there, but a substitute was. Ms. Ann Ogden said she’d be teaching the class until the regular professor arrives in February. This is a considerable turn-off, even though Ms. Ogden is a nice lady, I’m more worried about being a month into the class and finding out the regular teacher is intolerable. That said, I may very well drop the course. There was no getting out early tonight either. The professor didn’t go over the syllabus until the ned, and then only briefly. The first session covered the first two chapters of the book, mostly basic introductory stuff I don’t feel like elaborating on. Basically, the class is about ‘why people buy what they buy,’ which was also my response when the professor asked what we thought the class was about. If I keep this class, it may be interesting basically having two back-to-back psychology classes works. After class ended shortly after eight, I walked back to Freret St. with the intention of catching a bus downtown and meeting Dad. The bus didn’t come anytime soon though and Dad came and picked me up. I didn’t do much of circumstance in the evening. I looked for at the class schedule again to no avail. I started watching a movie rather late and didn’t finish.
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Jan152006
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Weekend |
This weekend passed pretty uneventfully. Nothing productive took place. I played a lot of PGR 2. I forgot how fun that game was, or perhaps I just got bored with it after playing incessantly for months. I didn’t go to church on Sunday just because I didn’t bother to get out of bed in time. On Sunday evening, I saw my first episode of ’24,’ an obviously very good show that I just never bothered to see. Jeff is a big fan and recommended I watch it, and the whole family did this evening. Although I haven’t seen the previous seasons I was able to keep up, although I’m sure I would have benefited from seeing the previous episodes. I also watched a rather amusing episode of The Boondocks this evening.
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Jan132006
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Dinner, BSG and Music |
I didn’t do much of anything productive today. I probably could have done a little work but I didn’t bother. I did schedule a couple of classes for the upcoming semester which starts on Tuesday. I spent some time playing Project Gotham Racing 2, which I haven’t touched in many months. This afternoon, I went for a short ride with Aunt Lauren and Arien to Belle Chasses to get some groceries and to see Grandma Laughlin’s old house, which was sold not too long after the hurricane. It looked pretty much the same with a few changes. The shutters and window trim were painted dark green. There was a new driveway in the front yard and there was a FEMA trailer parked in the back yard. This evening, the family, Aunt Lauren, Arien and I went out to eat at a restaurant in Crown Pointe called Restaurant Des Familles. It took about a half hour to get there. I’m not sure how Dad found out about the place but he’d been there not too long ago and really liked it. From the outside it looks like an old plantation house although judging from the floor layout inside, I doubt it was ever anything aside from a restaurant. In any case, it’s a very nice establishment and the food was very good. They have a small menu with a number of seafood and Cajun/Creole dishes. I got a small platter with fried shrimp and catfish, which was quite good. We got home in time for Battlestar Galactica. I’d been waiting not so patiently for tonight’s episode after last weeks’ cliffhanger. It was another fantastic and pretty unpredictable episode. Ronald D. Moore is the man. Not too long after the show, Dad, Lauren and I went to the Maple Leaf Bar uptown to see John Gros and Joe Crown play in a trio that might have had a name. We got there at 10:30 but they didn’t start playing until 11, an hour late, so we didn’t miss anything. We got a couple drinks, saw the first set, and left not too long after midnight. The music was pretty good and of course it’s always nice to be out of the house. I went to bed not long after getting home as I was pretty tired.
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Jan122006
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Aunt Lauren in Town |
I was at home all day today. Although I don’t really remember much of what happened today, there was one event of circumstance. Aunty Lauren and Arien arrived in New Orleans this afternoon. They’ll be staying with us for a couple days while Aunt Lauren tries to decide if she wants to return to New Orleans. They’re currently residing in Virginia Beach because of a job opportunity with Aunt Lauren’s employer. We had boiled crabs and shrimp for dinner.
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Jan112006
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Another Moving Day |
With the U-Haul truck still in our driveway after yesterday’s empty-the-garage operation, there was obviously more moving to be done. Dad and I left the house in the truck at about 11 this morning. With renovation at what will be Dad’s new Metairie office, we had a place to move the contents of the old Mid-City office. So we did that today. The Russell Building, where the old Mid-City office is, the first one he opened, was flooded with about five feet of water. Luckily, the clinic occupied the second floor, which received no water damage. Dad had been to the office previously to retrieve some things, but most of the office’s contents remained, including all the furniture. Since there was no electricity in the deserted building, the elevator and lights didn’t work. Having no electric light in a windowless office was a significant inconvenience. Dad bought a lantern and we had a few flashlights on hard, but it was still quite dark. Having no elevator was also unfortunate, as all the furniture and dozens of file boxes had to be carried down a narrow stairwell with only the help of a hand truck. We were lucky, however, with the climate inside. It was cool and not unpleasant and there was no prevailing smell. Before we could start loading the truck, Dad had to force a door on the ground level, which was nailed shut. I started by emptying the contents of the desks into a couple boxes. Eventually I got around to the Hydrocollator, which was full of rather rancid water. I wasn’t able to drain it with a hose because the drain was clogged and I didn’t feel like sticking my arm in that water so I had dad help me tip it over into the tub in the bathroom, which was considerably quicker than my usual routine. Not long after that, Don arrived. He helped with some things, sort of. He provided more melodrama than assistance, quite honestly. Eventually we got around to the furniture. We started with the six treatment tables. It was quite an ordeal getting them down the steps. Once we got the hang of it, we were out of tables. We also used the hand truck to more a couple of desks and a metal bookshelf. We also carried down about a dozen various chairs. By around three we had the 20 foot truck loaded. We drove out to the new office in Metairie off Veterans. This was my first time seeing the inside of what will be the new clinic. It’s certainly the nicest facility we’ll have. Unloading the truck was considerably easier and quicker than the loading part. There were lights in the new place and there were no stairs to worry about. We put the treatment tables in various rooms but most of the stuff was put in one large room to the left. I guess we’ll sort it all out next week. We were finished sometime just before five. Having gone without any food all day, I insisted on a stop and McDonalds. We did stop but they just closed so I was out of luck. We took the transit lane across the river as traffic was pretty had on the highway. We drove the truck back to U-Haul. Mom met us there to take us home. I don’t remember really doing anything after getting home, as I was rather tired anyway. I do remember a bit of unrest in the house because Dad couldn’t find his car keys. The next day Dad found them in the truck.
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Jan112006
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Garage Liberation |
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Jan092006
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The Weekend |
I don’t remember Saturday, but I’m sure computer use and TV watching was involved. On Sunday, later in the afternoon after church, we all went over to see Chris Rouselle and his mother, both friends of Dad. The trip was part social call and part tech support. Chris needed help setting up a cable high speed internet connection and new digital cable TV boxes, both pretty simple matters. Before getting into any of that work, we sat around for a while and talked, mostly about the events of the past few months. After that, I got to fooling with the internet thing. I got all the hardware hooked up without any trouble, but after quite a while, I couldn’t get the modem’s cable light to come up. The only answer phone tech support could give us was that the signal was too weak or there was some sort of filter on the line. It wasn’t something we could fix and Chris had to schedule a visit for a cable guy. I think we got home before five although I’m not quite sure. Nothing of particular circumstance took place this evening. I think I watched some TV for a while and late in the evening I spoke to Ami on the phone for an hour or so.
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Jan062006
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Week of January First |
Yet again, I haven’t been motivated to post each day at the beginning of this new year. Not much has been going on anyway. Dad made the ‘traditional’ white beans and cabbage rolls for dinner on the first. I worked for a little while on Tuesday. This week I’ve been watching Curb Your Enthusiasm episodes which I missed while I was at Tech. I’ve also watched a number of Battlestar Galactica episodes again, in ‘preparation’ for the show’s return. One thing that’s had my attention this week is the Consumer Electronics Show. I’m obviously not lucky enough to be in Las Vegas for this, although I’m sure I will be someday, I’ve been following the online coverage pretty enthusiastically. I watched the Bill Gates keynote webcast on Wednesday night some interesting stuff. Overall there’s been lots of cool stuff announced. Of particular interest to me are new PMP’s with Windows Media Center Edition and 300 gigabyte holographic versatile discs. Ofcourse CES wouldn’t be complete without big-ass TVs too, like Matsushita’s 103 inch plasma. In the end though, there are just two kinds of products shown at CES: really cool ones and really cool ones nobody will buy. I guess the whole Blu-Ray vs HD-DVD thing is newsworthy too. I think HD-DVD is gonna come out on top though. Simply being backed by Microsoft is pretty insurmountable in my opinion. It’s also cheaper, region-free and there’s less DRM bullshit (no AACS). On Thurday, we had a high-definition satellite system from Dish Network installed in the house. Technically, the service technician from an independent contractor. He was here from about four until about eight. I guess that wasn’t too long considering the work involved. The dish had to be mounted from a pole for some reason rather than bolted onside the house probably some legal crap, because I can’t believe the dish is that heavy. The pole was put in the middle of the back yard, which I’m sure mom is non-too-pleased about. He also had to dig a trench to bury the cable to the edge of the house. Judging from the work after-the-fact, he didn’t have the right kind of shovel for the job. A small switch box had to be mounted on the side of the house and coaxial cable had to be run to three rooms in the house. Lines were run to each of our houses three bedrooms. While I’d love to believe I now have satellite TV in my bedroom at no personal expense due to my parent’s generosity, I tend to think the cost was the same for just one room. The way it’s set up, there is no actual box in my room. I have an radio frequency remote that operates off the DVR in my parent’s room with some sort of dual TV mode. There’s a generic receiver box in Andrew’s room. It’s nice not to have any more hardware cluttering my room, but having just a coax cable coming into my room prevents me from using my stereo for audio since I don’t have audio out jacks on my TV. In any event, I hope to eventually have this hooked up to my eventually HDTV capable computer. SciFi Friday returned this evening, a big deal in my universe. There were new episodes of Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis, and most importantly, Battlestar Galactica. Each show ended with a cliffhanger a few months ago. While both Stargate shows were pretty decent, and I’m a fan of both, they now seem like mere pre-game shows for BSG. I’m not in the habit of reviewing TV shows in my log and I’m too tired to start now, so I’ll let it suffice to say tonight’s episode was fantastic. There was plenty of action and tension to spare. I think I can safely say the show is going to get even better and by better I don’t mean things are looking up for the characters. Judging by the large size of this post, I guess I better get back to daily entries.
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