A few months ago I found out I'd be going to New Orleans for work to train some people with the US Corps of Engineers on some software we've been using. I was pretty excited about the prospect because I'd never been to New Orleans before.

Well, I've been here now and let me tell you - this trip has sucked hard.

Initially I was going to be heading down here by myself but we expanded the entourage to include Ryan (another developer at SBCS) and our boss Mark. Last week Ryan and I embarked on a major bug squashing mission. We worked hard and late on Thursday and Friday to make sure everything was "rock solid" and we honestly thought it was. We touched every new and old feature of the sections of the application we were working on.

On Saturday Ryan worked on a user manual and found a couple small changes that needed to be made; so late Saturday night I went into the office and worked for a couple hours to address those things and a couple other small bits I discovered. By Sunday morning the site really was working great and everything felt wonderful.



Monday morning I woke up early, finalized my packing, and waited for Ryan to arrive from Kentucky before we headed off to the Charleston airport. Ryan had never flown before this trip and was really nervous about the prospect. You have to really know Ryan to understand how much the idea of flying affected him. He has a variety of anxieties and flying was a truly daunting prospect for him. His wife brought him to my house at 8am and we loaded up my car for the trip to Charleston. It was obvious that his wife was nervous for him because he was so stressed about flying.

We headed out immediately thinking we would hit a bunch of morning rush hour traffic on the way to Charleston but the highway was almost empty so we made the trip in about an hour which meant we had a couple hours before our flight would leave. The Charleston airport is pretty small and you don't have to arrive that early even in this day and age so I took a detour to the mall so we could kill time without Ryan having to watch planes take off and land. We spent about 40 minutes there walking around before heading to the airport to meet up with Mark.

As we walked into the airport I noticed a news crew was working at one end of the terminal and I mentioned it to Ryan but he thought I was just screwing with him. I wasn't. The news crew was the first omen of what was to come with this trip.

We checked in nice and quickly using the kiosk, had our bags checked, and started to walk toward security. Ryan saw the news crew and we ignored it while he went to use the restroom. While he was gone the news lady came over to Mark and I and asked us if we were grounded. We didn't know what she was talking about and said, "No, we're heading out to Atlanta." She said, "OH, Atlanta, were you pushed back to the next flight?" We said, "No." And she said, "You weren't on the earlier flight?" We looked confused and she asked again, "You don't know what happened?"

As that question ended Ryan reappeared. I told her we didn't really need to know. She decided to tell us anyway. It turns out the flight before us had to abort its' takeoff due to having 2 of it's tires pop during the speedup to takeoff. The plane was broken down in the middle of the runway.

We went through security and headed to our gate. Once there we could see the fire trucks, ambulances, and emergency vehicles all over the runway alongside the broken down plane. Fortunately, I had convinced Ryan to take his first half of a Xanex while we were at the mall.

Eventually our flight was cancelled. However, we really needed to reach New Orleans that day so we could be at the Corps office in time for the first day of training since they had arranged their schedule to accommodate us. I jumped on my cell phone to try and book a different flight and, at the same time, Mark did the same. I had a really helpful lady on the phone but she put me on hold and, eventually, my hold status changed to a disconnected status and I wasn't sure if my flight had been changed.

While we were on the phone we were also in line for the Delta counter and, eventually, we made it to the front of the line where the ticket agent worked with us to get us to Atlanta that day but we couldn't get to New Orleans until the next morning. C'est la vie. Because of the delay in getting to New Orleans we also had her shift our return flight to Friday and Mark called our New Orleans hotel to extend our reservations through Thursday night.

Eventually, we found ourselves on an airplane. Ryan and I were sitting together with me in the window seat and Ryan in the aisle. Ryan had said he didn't want to look out the window but, as soon as the flight started, he was gazing out the window in wonder and amazement. The flight to Atlanta is about an hour long and the entire flight he was leaning over looking out the window with child-like wonder at the miracle of flight. It was pretty awesome to behold. When we finally landed in Atlanta he was equally amazed to experience the amazing time savings of flight over driving. He swore right then that he would never drive that far again (if he could afford it).

At this point we were in Atlanta but we had nowhere to stay and no plans for dinner. However, the Charleston ticket agent told us to talk to a Delta rep in Atlanta to get a hookup for a room and a dinner voucher. She also said she would put some information on our confirmation to help the Atlanta agent.

The Atlanta agent wasn't nearly as helpful as we had hoped. She was fairly difficult to communicate with due to her extremely thick accent and she wasn't particularly interested in making sure we were happy. Eventually she gave us a voucher for the airport Ramada. However, the voucher just entitled us to the airlines negotiated price of $50 a night. She provided nothing for dinner however she did give us an incredibly worthless "overnight" bag which was filled with complete trash.

We laughed it off and headed out to the Ramada shuttle only to be told by the shuttle driver that, even though the bus said "Ramada" on it she wasn't really a Ramada shuttle and that we'd have to wait. So we waited, and waited, and waited, in the cold for a shuttle. In the meantime a guy with the super-8 offered to let us come to his motel and that they would honor the voucher price. We weren't really interested in his offer. Instead I got on my phone and tried out priceline to see if we could get a 4-star hotel near the airport for $60/night. We did and we booked rooms at the Westin (home of the Heavenly Bed)!

During checkin at the Westin the clerk gave me three vouchers for 50% off our dinner at their restaurant after I told her about our crazy day. At this point it was about 8 or 9pm. After checkin we went straight to our rooms, dropped our bags, and then headed back down for dinner. After we ate a pretty good meal we headed back upstairs to sleep. However, our morning flight was really early and we had to be awake by 5am so I slept horribly for fear that I'd oversleep.

Back at the airport we checked in, got our seats assigned, and then headed to security. Mark was on the "stand-by" list because he wasn't scheduled to fly until a couple hours later. In the line for security we picked, by far, the slowest lane but, eventually, we made it to the xray section. However, once we got there the bins were all used and Ryan had to scramble through other lines to get bins so he could pass through. Considering this was his second effort ever at flying he was obviously a little flustered by the experience and in dealing with people who were rushing for other bins so they could get ahead of him in line.

Eventually he got some bins and passed through the x-ray machine. However, on the other side he had a moment of panic because he couldn't find his boarding pass. At this point I told him to take his half of a Xanex again and we hopped on the train to our terminal. We waited for an hour and half until we were finally able to board but Mark wasn't called for standby.

The plan at this point was to fly and then wait a the New Orleans airport for Mark to arrive so we could get our rental car. Ryan and I boarded the plane and found our seats - row 20; the last possible row on the plane, right beside the lavatory. To make matters worse we had no window on our side of the plane, we had no over-head storage as our space was being used for emergency equipment. However, the two seats on the other side of the aisle were empty after it appeared everyone was on so we switched. Sadly, both of those passengers eventually boarded. The first was happy to take my window-less window seat on the other side but the other wanted his window seat so I took one aisle and Ryan took the aisle seat nearer the window.

As we got settled in we were happy to see Mark had gotten a seat on our flight so we wouldn't have to wait around in New Orleans.

The guy who took my window-less window seat had two small carry-ons so one had to go under the seat in front of me and I ended up with no leg room. Fortunately the flight was only 1hr 45 minutes so it wasn't too bad. However, every time I stretched my legs into the aisle someone got up to use the lavatory.

Eventually we were in New Orleans, we had our rental car, and we were at our hotel; the Residence Inn Convention Center in downtown (warehouse district) New Orleans. Our suite had two bedrooms, two baths, and a sofa bed for me to sleep on. Oddly the trip started with just me going to New Orleans and here I was sleeping on a sofa bed.



After we checked in we wandered around until we found ourselves at Cafe Du Monde so we could try some Beignets which had been highly recommended. To be honest, I wasn't that thrilled with them. They were basically just small crispy doughnuts that seemed a little overcooked. However, the hot-cocoa was pretty good!

After leaving Cafe Du Monde we headed back toward the hotel and then Mark and I stopped off at a place called Denie's for po-boys. They were HUGE and pretty tasty. After lunch we headed back to the hotel to rest up a bit and think about what we'd do later that day.

It didn't take us long to figure out what we'd like to do because that night the New Orleans Saints were going to be having their Superbowl Championship parade. Our hotel was about 1 block from the parade route so after a brief rest we headed back out to the streets to watch the Saints fans enjoy their moment. We reached the parade route at about 3pm and we hung out for a while before the parade started. The parade itself was only about 12 floats but there were a ton of high school bands and, becuase the fans were so happy, the parade often stopped to let the players celebrate on the street with the fans. Thus, we didn't see the final float carrying the coach and the Vince Lombardi trophy until around 8pm. I'm not much of a parade person but it was great seeing so many people so happy all at one time.



If there is one thing that New Orleans knows how to do it is to host a parade. They host tons of them every year for Mardi Gras and yet this parade, the Super Bowl parade, exceeded them all in sheer crowd size. According to the news the next morning this parade brought more people into town than New Orleans had ever had downtown at one time. Think about that. They get hundreds of thousands of people in town for Mardi Gras and the associated parades and this 12 float parade superceded all that had gone before and it sounds like it was by quite a margin.

Before we went to New Orleans I was skeptical of the relationship between the city and the team. I felt like the NFL and ESPN had to be overplaying it. I assumed that the NFL was milking the tragedy of Katrina to garner sympathetic viewers and to create drama where none existed. I was wrong. New Orleans really does love their Saints. The joy in the faces of all those fans and the excitement of the entire crowd was overwhelming. It was amazing and, while it may sound trite to say so, you had to be there; the mood was magical.



The next day we had our first day of training at the Corps. Unsurprisingly, a variety of the features that I had made sure worked solidly the prior week didn't work. They didn't work at all. Crazy, strange, and unusual errors just popped up all over the place. Fortunately I was able to talk to Jason back home and have him fix a couple critical problems and we worked around the others to finish the first day - though by the end of the day at the office I was starving because I worked with Jason through lunch to get some critical issues resolved.

That night we decided to go out and have a good dinner so we called up Dickie Brennan's Steak House which is close to Burboun St and made reservations. We walked the mile or so from our hotel to the restaurant and were seated immediately upon entering. The interior of the restauant was very masculine with low lighting and dark wood paneling. We were seated at a booth-like table on the lower level. If you watch the homepage for a bit the images will change and you'll get a good feel for the ambiance of the dining area.

I had the 12 oz Ribeye and a cup of soup for dinner and both were very good. I believe the Ribeye was quite a bit larger than 12 ozs and it was perfectly cooked. It was probably one of the better Ribeyes I've had. The soup was also very good. Mark also got a cup of soup and my favorite part was how it was served. Both cups were brought out in small crocks within a bowl. Two separate waiters approached our table and, in sycnhronization, they placed the bowls down, lifted the crocks, and poured the soup. It had a very classy feel to it.

After dinner I we had some dessert. Ryan and I each had the chocolate cake and Mark had the pecan pie. I had been told to try their coconut cake but ignored the advice when I read the chocolate cake description. I should have listened. The chocolate cake was ok but it was definitely the low point of the meal and the photo of the coconut cake looked great. It was nice to finish the day off on a high note (dinner) after all the difficulties in the training room.

By, as Lee Corso would say, "Not So Fast!" Later that night I received a phone call and an email from Delta reminding us about our flight the next morning. The flight that we had asked to get off of so we could fly on Friday instead of Thursday due to our late arrival in New Orleans. So, Delta screwed up and Ryan and I were still on the Thursday flight. Ryan got on the phone and about 2 hours later the problem was finally fixed and we were back on the Friday flight. Almost as soon as Ryan hung up the phone the Hotel called us and let us know that our reservation ended the next morning and that we had to get out. It turned out that the hotel didn't really extend our reservation either so Mark had to get online and book us a hotel via priceline and we ended up with rooms at the Radisson near the airport.

The next morning we woke up and headed to the Corps for the second day of training which, of course, went no better than the first day. All sorts of shit broke and we once again had to call Jason to have him address a few problems while we worked around the rest of them. It was really annoying and embarrassing to have everything breaking in front of all the potential end users. Amazingly, the whole training was not a bust. In the afternoon as I demo'd a new and fancy way to edit data in the application the lady in charge of the entire department, Susan, happened to step in. She watched the demo (which went off without a hitch) and saw how the users responded (very positively). It was the last part of the training so, afterwards, Susan came over and had some very nice things to say. It was refreshing to have at least that part of the two day training go so well.

One of our customers who was there for the training, but who is also from Huntington, really wanted us to go to the Red Fish Grill for dinner so she could indulge in the Double Chocolate Bread Pudding so I tried to make reservations but the entire restaurant was closed for a private party that night. Honestly, it kid of fit in with the rest of our plans that week so I wasn't surprised though I did have the difficult task of breaking the bad news to the customer.

Fortunately she took it well so after training we headed downtown to the Harrah's casino to eat dinner at their buffet (not nearly as good as our dinner the prior night at a local steakhouse) but the customer enjoyed it. After the Buffet we walked around and Mark and Ryan tried their hand at gambling. Ryan likes to play Roulette and Mark likes Black Jack. Right off the bat I had a bad feeling about the place so I decided not to play. It didn't help that the cheapest tables were $15 which is outside my budget. Ryan finally found an automatic roulette table that had a $3 minimum so he sat down to play while Mark watched. Ryan watched the wheel for a while and saw a pretty good random pattern of reds and blacks so he decided to bet. He really likes to bet on red so that's what he did and, of course, it came up black. Not once, or even twice or three times - but five or six times in a row. His money was dwindling fast so he bet what was left on Red and, amazingly, he hit and managed to come out only $17 down. While Ryan was checking out Mark found a blackjack table he felt good about, sat down with $60 (enough for four hands if all went poorly). It all went poorly so he got up four hands later with nothing left. We fled the casino and headed to our new hotel, the Radisson.

As we waited to check-in a large man with a baseball bat walked into the lobby with a disheveled looking older man. The baseball bat guy told the desk clerk to get someone now because it was an emergency. The dishelved guy just looked forlorn. It turns out the disheveled guy was a homeless man who had snuck into the hotel and was trying to sleep in one of the meeting rooms (either room 215 or 217). The manager showed the homeless guy the door and the baseball bat wielding man disappeared.

A few moments later two large men were told they couldn't stay in the hotel as long as they wanted to because the hotel was completely sold out over the next few nights. Luckily we were still able to check in, making sure that we weren't getting room 215 or 217, and we headed upstairs to work on some documentation from our last two days with the customers. As we finished up the document we saw the weather man say that with the weather coming over the next couple of days and that we should expect more flight cancellations than at any time since 9/11. Laughing, we logged on the Delta website to check our flight and sure enough ours was cancelled and we were rebooked on a Saturday flight that would pass through Detroit. Of course, at this point we didn't have a hotel room for Friday night and we knew our current rooms wouldn't be available since the hotel was totally full.



Mark spent the next couple hours trying to find a place we could stay that was within some sort of budgetary limits but nothing seemed to be available. Eventually he found a room back at the Residence Inn we had spent the prior two nights at about 3x the price we had paid previously (after taxes and fees). I slept fairly well in the warmth of my own room and under a thick comforter and then we packed up and headed back downtown. The weather was gloomy and wet so we just kind of hung out around the hotel until we haded to head out for our reservations at the Red Fish Grill (which was open and hopefully was a sign of good things to come). I had been told by everyone who had eaten there that the Double Chocolate Bread Pudding was amazing so I made sure I didnd't stuff myself with dinner so I could try this delectable delight. I wasn't impressed. Sure, it was OK but I doubt any dessert could live up to the hype that bread pudding had received over the past four years. Sadly, I also didn't think that much of their jumbalaya either so, for me, the dinner was a bit of a bust. The only good thing about it was we were on Burboun St on the Friday night before Mardi Gras. The bad part - it was cold.



Amazingly, the chilly temps didn't deter some of the revelers on the street from doing what they had to do to get some beads and boa's thrown their way. I didn't get to see the same kind of debauchery I had imagined but it was the most exposed breasts I've seen in one night since I left the Army so it wasn't a total bust. While the three of us walked around and laughed at the craziness there were others there with a far more serious mission - to save our souls. Burboun Street was loaded with people carrying signs telling us we were going to hell but that we could be saved. There were people hadning out leaflets and tracts; there were big crowds of young adults just blocking the road, there were men yelling and reciting biblical verses. There were nearly as zealots there as their were partiers. It was a surprising mix.



If you've ever been to Las Vegas you are undoubtedly familiar with the many men who stand along the sidewalk flipping little cards and trying to get people to take them. They flick-flick-flick the card with one hand against the other to catch your eye and then try to hand you the card. On the card you'll find little explicit advertisements for escorts and, I assume, prostitutes. It's funny but I imagine it must also be effective because they've been out there handing out those cards for as long as I can remember. Well, on Burboun St. there was a guy doing the same exact think. He was flick-flick-flicking his card and then handing it out. Except, unstead of pimping an escort he was pimping his Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. It was laughable so I walked up to him and asked if he had ever been to Vegas. He said he had been, 2 or 3 times on the same kind of mission. I asked him if he had ever seen the guys with the escort cards and he answered in the affirmative. I pointed out the irony that they both were doing the exact same thing to get my attention and then wished him luck. So far, for me, the Vegas card flickers and the Burboun St. card flickers have the same rate of success : 0.



One thing about Burboun St that I've long been curious about is, "How much can people expose themselves there?" Is it limited to the chest or can people show off all their goods and, further, is it limited to just the women? Well, while waiting for a small crowed of young women expose their breasts I happened to look to the right where a man was attempting to expose himself, but not his breasts. Before he could extract anything a police officer took him down and removed him from the street. So, let that be a warning to you guys: keep your privates private. Oh, and ladies, keep doing that thing you do; like the girl in the white striped shirt is about to do in this photo (camo jacket girl did too).



Eventually we extracted ourselves from the mass of drunkards and preachers wearing an abundance of beads and we began the mile long trek back to our hotel. However, as soon as we got back to Canal St. the Morpheus parade was finishing up so we hung out to watch it pass by. While standing there the Morpheus Krewe was throwing out even more beads (bag-fulls) and some cool doubloons. Another parade, the Muses - an all woman Krewe, was going to start up after the Morpheus parade but by then it was getting to late so we headed back to the Hotel to get some sleep before our flight the next morning. Ryan and I were able to check in electronically via the 'net but Mark's ticket wouldn't let him so we knew we'd have to be at the airport at least 2 hours early.

The next morning we arrived at the airport without any difficulties but, when we went in, we saw one HUGE line at the delta counter. Mark tried to bypass the line by using the computer terminals but, just like the night before, his ticket wouldn't let him. Ryan and I were in a short line for baggage check but the line for checking in was so long Mark would have to be in it for at least 2 hours. There was no way he was going to make the flight so I told him to ignroe the line and just walk up to the counter at the other end. For once during the week fortune shined down upon him and the lady at the counter helped him and he was checked in within 3 minutes and we were on our way to security and then our gate.

Initially we were supposed to fly back through Atlanta but after our Friday flight had been cancelled Delta changed our route to send us through Detroit so we were all joking about how we'd be spending our Saturday night in Windsor, Ontario trying to win back some of their gambling losses from Thursday night. The flights to Atlanta were all being cancelled again but ours took off without a hitch and we were in the Exit row so we had plenty of leg room. By this time Ryan was loving flying but still marvelling at how amazingly fast you actually got from point A to point B. I have to admit it really is an amazing thing that I've just become numb to because I've flown so much. We eventually arrived in Detroit and the weather was cold but clear and, amazingly, our flight to Charleston wasn't cancelled so we headed down to our gate to wait.

Of course, nothing could go perfectly smootly and, at our planes scheduled take off time we were still sitting in the terminal waiting for the boarding call. However, instead of a boarding call we were informed that we were being moved to a different gate so we all had to grab our bags and hussle to another part of the terminal to get to our plane. We made it there with plenty of time to spare but at this point we were a little skeptical that we'd actuall be taking off. However, we boarded without a hitch and we were airborne within half an hour. The flight from Detroit took about 1.5 hours and then we were safely down in Charleston.

Ryan and I loaded up my car and drove the hour back to my house where his wife and children were waiting for him. Once they left I gave Lisa and the girls a bunch of beads and then we headed out for dinner at a local Mexican joint. It was good to be done with the trip.

I'd actually like to go back to New Orleans at some point when the weather is a little nicer. I think there would be some cool places to go visit and there were some beautiful neighborhoods I'd like to walk around and see. Plus, it would be nice to go without all the stress of travel plans being spoiled and software demonstrations going bad!

#MyLife #Travel