Nix Bits

Albuquerque is dry. The weather has been nice, but I guess I’m a sucker for that old humidity. I miss my wife. I miss my dogs. I miss my house.

I don’t mind the occassional work travel, but this trip just wasn’t as productive as I’d have liked.

Snarky. yes.

It’s still okay to laugh. This picture from Jazz Fest this past weekend was taken by a friend of a friend and forwarded to me

“That is why we need to go back is to have a conversation about what to do -rebuild it, tear it down, you know, whatever it is,” McCain Said

What a MORON. Hey Johnnie, how about you do some research and get back to us. You can start with today’s latimes editorial by John Barry and sorta work your way backwards to 8/29/2005 through the tens of thousands of words that have been written since then. Maybe get your priorities straight instead of seeking endorsements from complete nutjobs.

h/t: thinknola.com more here

Monday I decided I knew better than to try and head to the office. On Saturday we got notices informing us that a movie stunt scene was going to be filmed on our block and the neighborhood was going to be heavily restrict all day long both driving and parking. And I noticed too that there were a whole separate set of parking restrictions on Prytania and St Charles and I figured that had something to do with this North American Leader’s Summit and a probable dinner at Commander’s Palace for the mucky mucks.

Besides, I kinda like working from home every once in a while.

It’s a little hard to work with all the screeching tires and ruckus. The stunt shot is for “Final Destination IV:3D“. Sounds like that’ll be a classic. Apparently it’s not time for this particular character to do so the actress walks casually across an intersection as cars go careening and skidding around her. They filmed it about 30 times, presumably to get all those 3D angles. The stunt double had nerves of steel and eventually the actress was able to overcome her fear and do the shot as well. My little Saturn may have made the cut in the background

They managed to wrap up around the time the Coast Guard copter started buzzing the neighborhood and probably ruining their sound. I’m trying to get a handle on how this was supposed to be an “undisclosed location” for the Summit dinner. There were cops and guards and guys in government badges all over the place. There were temporary No Parking signs on two major thoroughfares for 4 hours leading straight from downtown to Commander’s Palace stapled on every pole and tree two days ahead of the event.

We decided to talk our daily workout through the neighborhood. We were thwarted about a block and half from Washington Avenue. We were both amused by one of the neighbors complaining as he tried to walk his little dogs. “Apparently this isn’t America anymore when HE comes to town. Might as well move to Puerto Rico. Can’t even take a walk in my own neighborhood.” He ranted at anyone who was nearby.

We rounded a corner and I noticed former Gulf Coast Recovery Czar Donald Powell getting out of a car. J sorta recognized him, but sorta didn’t. Eyes met and they started chatting about the craziness in the neighborhood with the movie shoot and the presidential visit. Powell asked if we had been in the movie. Jennifer tells him know but we thought our dogs should have been in it. Powell agreed. It was all really kinda strange. When I told J who it was, she said she wished she could have asked for where to send the bill for all the appointments she lost out on today because her clients couldn’t get to her office.

We saw the motorcades blow by a short while later. We also chatted with a neighbor. She’s apparently taken a new job as an assistant to an actor working another movie filming in town. We actually received a UPS delivery from Amazon for him that was misaddressed to our house and had both thought, “I wonder if….nah.”

It’s pretty entertaining being in the center of the universe on an off Monday afternoon. But I’m ready for the more “normal” excitement of the next week and a half of Jazz Fest activity.

So at work I’ve been talking to $unnamed_vendor about their product that we’ve been purchasing in relatively small numbers up to this point. I work for a company with a couple of large scale data centers, one here in the area and the other in Little Rock as well as some smaller sites. From an OS perspective, we have a whole lot of Solaris and it’s a mature, enterprise class environment. But Linux is starting to make sense for some things so we’ve been making some support contract purchases from $unnamed_vendor lately.

A few weeks ago, I got a call from a rep with $unnamed_vendor and was actually glad to get the call. While supporting a few small OS instances isn’t a big deal, it becomes unweildy fast in a shop like ours. We need to be able to support Linux as easily and seamlessly as possibly alongside all that Solaris. Building servers from CD, ad-hoc patching, etc just doesn’t work at this scale. So $unnamed_vendor set up an on-site meeting after we discussed some of the potential and some particulars about our environment.

So last night I got an email from the rep. He and his engineer had gotten to their hotel and just wanted to confirm our physical address so they could google map it and head on over in the morning. So I sent it on over. I got a call at 7am this morning. The good fellas from $unnamed_vendor had flown to Little Rock. While he had been calling a 504 area code and talking to me in the New Orleans area, all of the sales were coming through Little Rock. We do have ample staff there and a full scale data center, but the people they needed to talk to were all here. I could have put him on site at the Little Rock office at least, but we’re short at least one guy up there right now and I didn’t think I could round up busy, non-management staff for a sales pitch on such short notice.

Gave me a good chuckle for the day. I had to rub it in a little bit, too: “y’all come down and maybe we’ll have some lunch or dinner when you come? So how was the BBQ anyway?”

So we’ve had a couple of the wife’s relatives in for visits the past few weeks and had a good time all around. We took brother-in-law #1 to Jacques Imo’s for dinner where he had a stuffed pork chop roughly the size of his head. Per his own request, we took him on the devastation tour.

One comment he made was that he had really expected to see more construction going on. He said this as we were navigating Mini Cooper sized potholes in Lakeview. It was a valid question and I went on to explain very briefly about the nature of the insurance battles people have been fighting, the Road Home, and how the speed of progress is pretty much proportional to the height of the water.

A week and a half later, brother-in-law #2 paid us a visit during French Quarter Fest weekend. He was lucky enough to tag along with his wife on a work-related trip. While we were watching the Soul Rebels, I commented that this was how we did funerals around here as well — Ashley’s recent funeral was on my brain. My sister-in-law was unfamiliar with the concept and a little shocked. A lot of discussion ensued about that and about where local brass band music comes from with a coworker of hers.

Of course they got to experience much food. It was hard to get them out of the Quarter so we ate at both Redfish Grill and Palace Cafe. We did get brother in law to Napoleon House for a Pimm’s Cup. In addition to that, we had a truly only in New Orleans experience on a Monday night, catching the To Be Continued Brass Band jamming out at Canal and Bourbon.

While we didn’t get to do a devastation tour with this crew, they did at lots of questions that we were quite happy to answer. One of sister in laws co-workers was surprised to find that the bulk of the city was not, in fact, below sea level. And of course the raging Mississippi provided an object lesson of its own on the subjects of sea level, flood risk, and the importance of man-made protection for any community near a body of water.

It’s always good to see the city through other’s eyes and with them to get those constant reminders of all the things we get to experience only at home in New Orleans

Seems those crime cameras aren’t so effective. But at least they make people “feel secure.” Now if they could just figure out how to get them to generate revenue….

So Ms. Skenazy let her kid take an independent ride on the Subway and lots of parents are just up in arms at the idea. I seem to remember having a lot more latitude than kids have today. Now, I’m not a parent, but it seems like today more and more parents just want to wrap their kids in bubble wrap and send them out in the yard on a leash. I applaud Ms. Skenazy for actually applying some rational thought about how capable her son is and the potential real risks involved rather than letting fear-driven emotion drive her decisions.

More here.

No Monday can take a great French Quarter Fest weekend away. It’s a classic only-in-New-Orleans feeling that is Monday morning kryptonite. This may be heresy, but I prefer FQF to Jazz Fest these days. It’s all local music that you can here for free. It’s spread throughout the Quarter. And it has all the food benefits of Jazz Fest.

We are blessed enough to live within a 20 minute walk to the French Quarter. So Saturday morning, that’s what we did. The first thing J wanted to do was hit her FQF favorite, Grilled Chicken Livers with pepper jelly.

(Yes, it’s food porn. you know you want some)

The first year J came here and saw this at the FQF she got all excited. You can take the girl outta Kentucky, but ya can’t take the Kentucky outta the girl. I was not real keen on chicken livers. But times and palates change. I gotta say, I love me some organ meats.

Of course the food extravaganza went on: crabmeat raviolia aurora, gazpacho, shrimp ceviche, mango mama punches, oyster and artichoke florentine, crawfish and manchego tortilla and two (very) different bread puddings in two days. mmm.mmm.mmmm!

Jennifer’s brother came in town that afternoon. His wife is in town for a conference and they came with another friend/co-worker who had never been to New orleans before. What a choice weekend to visit. So following much music (Soul Rebels got our brass fix on), we hit Palace Cafe for dinner. Our guests insisted on Bourbon Street so we took them to see the sights, and enjoyed it more than I expected. We took a pause at Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop and J and I headed home

The next day we went in for more. We took J’s brother for the classic and necessary Pimm’s Cup at Napoleon House. It was then back to the LGD to prepare dinner for all including J’s local aunt and uncle.

For that event, we had a combo Kentucky/New Orleans meal. I whipped up some shrimp saute’d in boatloads of garlic and red pepper with an aioli sauce topper that I’ve been perfecting. We also defrosted the Kentucky Burgoo that I prepared several months back over one long weekend. It was as rich and hearty as ever. Our house is such a fantastic setup for entertaining like this and we delighted in sharing it with J’s brother and sister-in-law since this was their first opportunity to see it.

All in all a fabulous weekend and we’re probably going to be eating out tonight as well. No amount of Monday meetings and pointy-haired-boss nonsense can overcome a pure NOLA weekend like this one.

Dr. Ashley Morris passed away yesterday unexpectedly in Florida. I never had the opportunity to meet him in person but I am nonetheless stunned and saddened. He was loud, proud, funny and one of our city’s most passionate advocates. I read his postings nearly every day and regret never having met him in person. His wife and children are in my prayers. Sinn Fein.

Update: Go to Remember Ashley Morris to donate and help his family