Arrived in New Orleans yesterday; I caught a standby flight and made it here 12 hours earlier than planned. Peter Chang joined me on the trip since he couldn’t catch his flight to Iraq. He managed to get thrown off my flight and came in 2 hours after I had landed. We’re staying at a hotel right on Bourbon St. in the French Quarter; so we’re right in the heart of the action. I’m not expecting to get much sleep in the next few days.
I hit the streets with less than 2 hours sleep, and met up with Bill (my friend Jen’s husband), who is in town for the NADA conference. The next 8 hours is a blur of hurricanes, blues music, and wild revelers. I crashed around midnight — I know, I’m a slacker… Last night I also discovered that I mis-scheduled this trip, and we’re here a week early; Mardi Gras isn’t until next tuesday. Oh well, maybe it’ll be easier to survive the week before Mardi Gras instead of the event itself.
I hear I missed a wintery mix of rain, sleet, and snow back home — my loss.