(no subject)

Morning in NO. Apparently the construction workers went to sleep without much fuss. I had no problems aside from the usual waking partially up in the middle of the night going "Wha? Where? Oh. zzzz". I do that normally on a trip as the environment isn't normal (lights in the wrong places, noises, and bed & pillow), so no big. Bottle of water by the bed came in handy as usual.

Breakfast was just about the same as every hotel I've been in, except for some more construction-looking guys. I sat down near a guy with a British accent, talking on his cell in French. He was joined by several other brits, all talking about NO and the bar where one of them got jumped. Seems he was minding his own business at the bar and "this bloke cocked me in the head". Apparently, it dazed him and his friend said that even as the guy was headed for him, the bouncers were headed for the guy. That's all I really got, because I was reading the paper and eating (mostly a cushion for my coffee. Don't get in the way of my coffee).

Also trying out the new "computer glasses". Makes reading much easier, but it's a little weird to look up and everything over 5-10 feet away is out of focus. Not completely, but enough to automatically try and squint. My eyes aren't bad enough to need bifocals or progressives, so this is an intermediate step to tone down on the eyestrain I have now.

That's it for now. Answering email, etc...

(no subject)

Well, drove to Slidell and had dinner with my cousins, George and Danny. Haven't seen them in about 10 years, lots of changes. Lots.

I really didn't see any hurricane damage until I passed over the "Highrise" bridge, before the I-10 bridge over Lake Pontchartrain. After I got over that, I started seeing buildings that were damaged. After I got over the I-10 bridge (that's the one that partially collapsed), I saw miles of houses, businesses, and fallen trees. Every now and then I saw trailers and tarps on roofs, but not much for a while. Then I hit a spot of a few businesses (Home Depot, a Dodge and Honda dealerships) and a bunch of construction. After I got into Slidell, trailers and construction were everywhere.

A side note here, all the out of towners (guest workers) drive like fucking idiots. Pulling out of Applebee's, I made a right at the light (green) and this kid in his brand new pickup almost nailed me. At the light, I was in the left lane and this icecream truck in the left turn lane. I go straight and so does the moron in the truck. I slam on the brakes, hit the horn, and this waste of flesh blithely drives over the median to get to the next left turn lane.

George was lucky. His house was on the other side of the levee and they just had wind damage. But it ripped out a bunch of the trees. His mom, aunt Elizabeth, wasn't as lucky. Her house was flooded with 5 feet of water. I got there to see the final bit of renovation and a bit of drama with Lowes. Apparently, they didn't measure the cabinets right and the fridge wouldn't fit, even at it's lowest point. The cabinet bottom was too low by about an eighth of an inch. And they wouldn't raise the cabinets (there was a 1 inch gap at the top), they wanted to order a new one and that would take 2 weeks. Danny was on the phone to the store manager explaining that unless they fixed it to their satisfaction (this had been dragging on for weeks), the news was the next stop.

After dinner (restaurants are very popular, Outback was packed), George showed me around town. There's a lot of construction and a lot of progress. The major problem is that the vast majority of aid is going to New Orleans. The north shore of Lake Pontchartrain was devastated, possibly more than the city, and it's being ignored. Things are being rebuilt, but infrastructure isn't. The levees need reinforcing, 8 of 9 pumps are down and no money is allocated for fixing them. The list goes on and on.

Driving back was different. I could see some houses, but very few lights. The closer I got to the lake, the more lights in subdivisions. It was weird, just weird. No services until over the bridge, nothing. And the bridge has few lights now, so you can't see the lake, just the city lights. It's like you're in the middle of nothing.

And as I was driving back, I noticed that I was low on gas. Which was odd, as I just picked up the car from Avis yesterday with a full tank. I gassed up at my hotel's exit and I put in 10 gallons. WTF? Did I get siphoned last night? That's a lot of gas for a 100 mile round trip.