2007

Mar142007

Full Day

Today was a reasonably busy day compared to most… by my standards. I had Dad drop me off on Frenchman St. this morning in lieu of going straight to work. I met Christy for lunch at 13 Monaghan’s, a place I’ve walked past countless times but I never knew they served food. Although I talk to Christy online with reasonable frequency, I think it’s been well over a year since I’ve seen her in person for any significant length of time. I arrived first sometime before 11 and she followed not long after that. We both ordered sandwiches. Between the bar and Washington Park after, we talked for a couple of hours, mostly about what we’ve been up to lately. We parted ways shortly after one and I took the streetcar down Canal St. to the Mid City office.I don’t remember doing much in the line of work at the office. Anyway, we left sometime around five, I think. After we left the office, Dad took me to Tulane for class this evening. I had a mid term exam in my US foreign policy class, which I think I did rather poorly on. Neglecting the read the entire book on John Dulles really did me in. I read a couple chapters but apparently not the ones that mattered. Consequently, I finished rather quickly.Dad was waiting for me when I finished and we went out to Zephyr Field. Tulane played UNO this evening. As this entry is late I don’t remember many details of the game. I do remember it was certainly a pitcher’s duel. Tulane scored one run in the first and one more in the fourth, and that was it. The final score was 2-0.

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Mar112007

Baseball & Jazz

Dad and I arrived at the Mid City office at about 10:30 this morning. With all my dictation done yesterday, I didn’t have much to do at the office. I did finally get around to routing some phone cables in the baseboards. I went to lunch not long after 11. I walked along Carrollton to a place called Little Tokyo. It’s a very decent looking place and the food was good. It was nearly empty when I arrived, however. I had the beef teriyaki which was a well-portioned dish either that or it seemed that way because it took me so long to eat with the chopsticks.At about one, Dad and I left to go out the Metairie office to get some things done. The billing and phone list were three months out of date. There were some other things I wanted to get done but I didn’t get around to it. We left the office at four and went to the mall for a little while before driving out to Zephyr field for this evening’s baseball game.Tulane played the first of three games versus Loyola-Marymount tonight. It was a pitcher’s duel the whole way. Sean “The Captain” Morgan pitched nine innings for Tulane and gave a phenomenal performance. He tied a career record with 13 strikeouts and he did it in exactly 100 pitches. He walked nobody, allowed only five runs and one hit. Coach Rick Jones said it was one of the “greatest performances that I’ve seen.” It was very exciting to watch.There was no scoring until the fifth inning when Marymount managed to get a run in. Tim Guidry answered in the bottom half with a home run, tying the score at one. In the bottom of the sixth, Warren McFadden homered as well, driving in two run and giving Tulane the lead. Tulane extended the lead in the bottom of the eighth with another run on two hits. That was the rest of the scoring, Tulane won with a final of 4-1.After the game which ended around nine, Dad drove me down to Frenchman St. I met Andrey and two of his friends, Veronica and Shona, for a show at Snug Harbor this evening. Ellis Marsalis was doing his usual Friday night show with two accompanying musicians and a couple of guests. Herlin Riley was on the drums, Peter Harris played bass and Roman Skakun was a special guest on the xylophone.I’m not in the mood to type up a play by play of the 10 o’clock set. Suffice it to say, it was one of the best Ellis Marsalis performances I’ve seen, second only to the first time I saw him at Snug Harbor when Ellis’s sons were with him. The music was great, more up-tempo than the last couple times I’ve seen him and there were a few good quips between the numbers.After the show, we stood outside on Frenchman St. and talked for a little while and were entertained by a street performer. After that I walked with them back to Andrey’s car and said good bye. I walked back to d.b.a. where my Dad had been late this evening. After hanging around there briefly we both went home.

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Mar082007

Whatever

It’s been about two weeks since my last entry. I haven’t been especially busy lately but it has felt like it at times. Even though enough has gone on over the last several days to justify some entries, I haven’t had enough quality time with my laptop for it.The highlights of the last couple days include the colonial history of Louisiana mid term, which I very well may have bombed, writing a paper for IT ethics class, a few Tulane baseball games and attending my first wedding.I worked every weekday since the last post. Generally speaking I’ve had enough work to keep me busy. I was at the west bank last Wednesday doing the billing work.This past weekend, I went to the wedding of my dad’s first cousin’s daughter or something like that. This was the first time I’d ever been to a wedding and the first time in quite a while that I wore a suit without someone having to die first. The ceremony itself was mildly disturbing. It was conducted by a woman (odd) who giggled more than somewhat intermittently (also odd). I didn’t get to talking to anybody at the reception so I was a bit bored, but there was free food and booze so I couldn’t complain.I watched a couple movies over the last several days: Akira Kurosawa’s Dreams, The Crying Game and Midnight Cowboy.

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Feb262007

Chatty IT Ethics Class

Dad and I arrived at the Mid City office shortly before 10:30 this morning. We were only supposed to be there a few minutes to pick up some files but we were there until 11.I worked on some dictation in Metairie this afternoon. I also swapped out the computer there for the old mid city desktop.We left the office at about four and stopped in Mid City again to drop off a number of things Dad bought for that office. There was some traffic congestion on the way uptown but we got to Tulane not long after five.This evening’s lecture had something do to with corporate IT security, but that part of the class didn’t even start until 7:45. This first two hours were spent ‘discussing’ the three case studies and generally going off topic for long periods. I had to walk out of class before it was over to catch the 8:20 shuttle.

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Feb242007

Tulane Basketball Double Header

Update to come with game summaries, tulane won both…

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Feb242007

Venezia Open Again

This entry is a couple days later so I don’t remember much of the work day. I think I worked 11-4 but I’m not entirely sure. I know I had a lot of dictation to work on and didn’t get all that much done. Working on my 10 inch laptop is getting more than somewhat annoying.What I do remember is lunch. I walked across Canal to Venezia, an Italian restaurant on North Carrollton that just reopened last week. I only patronized the place a few times before the storm, but I enjoyed it very much. It’s a great little neighborhood place with good food and good prices.The freshly renovated dining room was a bit brighter than I remember, although that may only be because the front door was left open to the beautiful weather today. The back of the restaurant was rearranged somewhat with the bar being moved up from the back room it was in before.I had the fettuccine alfredo with shrimp, which was decent, although I didn’t care for the floury texture of the sauce. Eventually they will probably do takeout and I’m sure they’ll get a lot more of my business.

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Feb222007

Tulane vs. SMU

Dad and I arrived at the mid city office not long before 11 this morning. I ha plenty of dictation to work on but I didn’t get as much of it done as I probably should have. We left the office at about 5:15 and dad took me to Tulane for my class this evening.Tonight’s colonial Louisiana history class was about the last 20 years of French rule (1742-1762), which ended after the Treaty of Fontainebleau following the seven years war. We learned that class was actually not canceled last week as the chalk board said. The professor seemed to have taken it pretty well.Class was dismissed uncharacteristically early at about 7:30 this evening, especially unusual since we have a mid term exam next week and I was expecting some sort of review.After class I walked next door to Fogelman Arena where Tulane’s Women’s basketball team was playing Southern Methodist University. I came in as the second half was drawing to the close, the score after which was 36-34 Tulane.In the second half, Tulane started to fall behind, as far as 10 points as one time. They bounced back late in the half with a 24-8 run to retake and hold the head to end the game with a final score of 78-72.

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Feb212007

Back to Work

I was at home both Monday and Tuesday to my regret. Mom and Dad were out of town. With Mom and Dad still on the way back from their little vacation this morning, I had to get up early to cover the business phone. After nine, the phone started to ring incessantly. Several new patients were called in. Dad was supposed to be home by about eleven but was held up for some three hours due to an accident on the Bonnet Carre’ Spillway. At about two I had to take a cab to the mid city office so I could unlock the doctor’s office in the suite. Dad was already there when I arrived.With all the new patients, the office was as busy as the phones this morning. It was a long day overall, we left the office at about 7:30. Later this evening I watched Shadow of a Doubt.

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Feb182007

Andrey’s Birthday

This evening, I went to a gathering for my friend Andrey’s birthday at Mikimoto restaurant. Earlier this evening I rode downtown with them to a florist shop on Julia street. Uncle Larry and Aunt Dionne are somehow connected with the owner of the florist who has some valuable parking space adjacent to the far end of the uptown parade route. There was food and an RV there along with lots of people. I waited around with them for a while before catching a cab not long after seven. I called the cab far in advance expecting it to take a while with everything going on in town. However, it showed up rather quickly so I got to the restaurants on Carrollton quite early at about 7:20.I wanted at the bar with my DS for a while until Andrey and the rest of his friends showed up. A few friends, Andrey’s girlfriend, her mother and Andrey’s mother were in attendance. Mikimoto is a sushi bar so that was largely what we ate. This was my first time trying sushi and I was pleasantly surprised, as it’s not bad at all. Even so, eating raw fish is still mildly unsettling so I don’t intend to go far out of my way to eat it in the future. Overall the evening was evenly split between sushi, pleasant conversation and a couple bottles of Stolichnaya. I left around ten when Dad arrived to pick me up.Later that evening I watched Rome and Battlestar Galactica before bed.

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Feb172007

Endymion

This afternoon, Mom, Dad, Andrew and myself went uptown to see the Endymion. We spend the day near Superior Grill at St. Charles and Amelia St. We got quite lucky with the parking spot. I’m not sure exactly what time we arrived but I think it was around two o’clock. Not long after we got there we got our name on the list at the restaurant for dinner. There was a three hour wait, which wasn’t really a problem.When we arrived, Tucks was still passing. The crowd today was impressive, there were people everywhere.At about 4:30 our table was ready at Superior Grill. I had the steak and shrimp fajitas which were quite good. Endymion started passing as we were finishing our meal. The theme this year was endangered and extinct species. Endymion is a rather long and elaborate parade with 30 beautiful floats, many with fiber lighting, as well as several marching bands and other organizations. It was a very lovely and enjoyable parade although there was a significant hiccup. About half way through the parade, the ‘dinosaurs’ float broke down right in front of us when a wheel fell off the float. Even though the parade was delayed 45 minutes, the party atmosphere seemed largely unhindered. Eventually it was fixed and the rest of the parade rolled. It was over around ten and we went home not long after.

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Feb132007

Twister

At about 2:30 this morning, a tornado ripped through Westwego and Carrollton, destroying several homes and killing an elderly woman in a FEMA trailer. The resulting power outages closed several businesses and schools including Loyola and Tulane. Mom and I did not go to work today and my class was cancelled. Dad went out to the mid city office, but the power was out so I don’t believe he was able to accomplish much.While other people across the city had much bigger messes to clean up, I spent some of the afternoon tidying up my room. It wasn’t in particularly bad shape but it needed some work. My evening was spent with other trivial activities.

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Feb132007

Corporate Ethics, or Something Like It

On Sunday, Dad and I went to see the third and final game versus Southeastern Louisiana. They lost again, 4-0. Although Tulane was hitting the ball satisfactorily, they were unable to convert hits to runs. Two double plays didn’t help either.I went to work with Dad this afternoon, arriving in Mid City at 12:15. I didn’t really do any work, although I did manage to break the internet connection. I was able to fix it just as we were leaving.We made a stop on the way to Metairie so dad could drop off some paperwork. I was going to work on dictation this afternoon but a bunch of little chores prevented me from getting around to it. We left the office at about five so I could get to class.This evening’s IT Ethics lecture had something to do with ethics in the corporate world. To be honest I didn’t pay that much attention, although a lot the material like personal needs was familiar as I head it in my intro to sociology class a while back at Tech. The lecture in the second have of the class has been consistently much less interesting than the case study discussion in the first half.After class I was hoping to catch the 7:50 shuttle but I either missed it or it never came. I caught the 8:20 and went to the Sheraton to wait for my ride.Later this evening I watched the Galactica and Rome episodes I missed yesterday.

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Feb102007

Tulane vs. UAB

Since it was rather cold in Hammond this afternoon, Dad and I passed on the baseball game and went to see the Tulane women’s basketball team play UAB. Tulane has a great team this year, currently 21-4. There was a nice crowd of exactly 1,111 on hand for this afternoon’s match.Tulane and UAB were largely neck and neck through the first half. Tulane had a narrow lead at the half with the score 29-26. While both teams played well, it took me a bit to get used to the infrequency of scoring in women’s basketball. It’s been a good while since I was last at such a game.Tulane pulled ahead in a big way in the second half with a 17-3 run at the start of the half. I kinda felt sorry for UAB’s lead Carmen Guzman, who was visibly distressed. The final score was 66-48.The basketball season is coming to a close and I’m sorry I haven’t been to more games, this one was quite fun. A handful of ‘vocal’ fans added considerable entertainment value, although the loudest one in the house was UAB’s coach, who was barking orders throughout the game. Mid way through the first half, UAB player Brittany Jones knocked down Ashley Langford who’d just stolen the ball, drawing boos throughout the rest of the game. A sizable group of fans booed whenever she had the ball, it was quite amusing.Dad and I came home after the game and went back out not long after. I agreed to tag along with Dad to Office Depot, Best Buy and the west bank office. Just as we were pulling out of tall timbers we heard a car accident right behind us at the corner of Gen. De Gaulle and Tall Oak Drive. This is a frequent trouble spot. Cars for whatever reason pull out in front of oncoming traffic and get hit. In this case a small Ford will two adults and two kids aboard pulled in front of another small sedan. We didn’t see the accident but we certainly heard it. Dad and I, along with the gentleman in the car in front of us got out to attend to those in the accident. Everyone appeared largely uninjured although the lone woman in the car driving Gen. De Gaulle had chest pain, likely caused by the airbag, and got an ambulance. We waited with the woman until it arrived, somewhere in the neighborhood of five minutes.Although I fully intended to buy something I don’t need, I came home empty handed. I wish I’d stayed home could have folded some T-shirts or something.

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Feb102007

Tulane Baseball Season Opens Big

Dad and I got to the Mid City office early this morning at about 9:45 I’m not sure why. We had a handful of patient’s through the door today including a few new ones, but it wasn’t overwhelmingly busy. I have a bit of work to this afternoon, but not enough to particularly justify my presence. Had I not accompanied dad to the baseball game this evening I could have actually stayed home.Tulane’s baseball season began this evening with the first of three games versus Southeastern Louisiana at Zypher Field. The new Turchin Stadium is still under contraction so the green wave will continue to play there until about April. The weather was quite cold this evening. I had a jacket but I was a bit underdressed.Attendance to tonight’s game was quite impressive at about 3000 fans, especially considering the lousy weather and parades this evening.Tulane set the tone early with two runs in the first inning including a left field single by Warren McFadden, who saved a run with a great catch in the top of inning. Southeastern scored a run in the third. Tulane scored two in the fifth and one in the bottom of the sixth.I can’t remember exactly when, but I ran into Melanie at the game this evening. We haven’t seen each other in nearly two years. We spoke briefly. The conversation was surprisingly pleasant.SELU closed the gap seventh with two runs, bringing the score to 5-3. After the seventh inning stretch, Tulane scored four runs with two hits, bringing the score to 9-3. By this time Dad and I were ready to go as we were confidant of the outcome and it wasn’t getting any warmer.The eighth inning, which we heard on the radio heading home, was rather spectacular and long. There were ten runs on nine hits, including a grand slam homer by Rustin Rebowe. This “inning that would not end” was largely responsible for stretching the running time to 3:39. Southeastern managed to score one run in the top of the ninth bringing the final score to 19-4, a complete blowout.Later this evening I watched Flags of Our Fathers.

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2007

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