Well I made it back from New Orleans! I was both sad and happy to go. Sad, of course, cause it means I have to say goodbye again to my family, and I never know when I'll see those family members again. Happy cause, well, they can drive me up the wall sometimes. Read on and I'll explain...

The "Big Easy" sure was a fun place to be. Keep in mind, of course, that it's fun the same way I think Hawaii is fun: I love being there for a few days, but anything more than a week and I'm dying to go home. That was definitely the case here. I can't complain about the heat or humidity because the weather there was no worse than a typical Portland summer day. Everyone who has ever been to New Orleans, though, tells me how unbearable the heat and humidity can be there. For that reason, I highly doubt I will ever visit during the summer time...

Anyway, I flew to New Orleans on Wednesday (April 6th) with my dad. We left at 5am to get to the airport. How fun is waking up at 4am? Not very. But I also wasn't as tired as I thought I would be that day.

I stayed with my brother, Ben, and his family while I was down there. My parents got a hotel room as well, but I never stayed with them. I suppose the fact I brought season 1 of the King of Queens didn't help either huh? We ended up watching episodes every night! That was a lot of fun...

As was the drinking. Yep...I bought Ben a pint of Southern Comfort in October of 2003 when he first moved to New Orleans. For those who don't know, Southern Comfort (a.k.a. "SoCo") is produced in New Orleans. And, as a side note, I found out from my brother, Brad, that Ben did a little binge drinking in college with SoCo that led to him getting sick and never wanting to touch the stuff. So my gift of the SoCo pint was a two sided gift: it said "here's some liquid that's produced in the region you're heading" as well as a gag-gift that said "I know you won't drink it." What can I say, I'm a sicko like that sometimes...

So we broke open the SoCo on Wednesday night and Ben re-accustomed his mouth to drinking it again. It took a little while, but eventually he was able to drink it again without much of a problem (as was shown in the crawfish boil last Saturday).

All in all it was a nice trip, but there were things that irked me. The biggest issue I had was that I had no car of my own, so I had to rely on others to get around. That in and of itself would not be so bad, except for the fact that I seemed to be hungry more often than anyone else, and apparently I am the last person in the family who likes to eat meals at a normal time. I felt like I was begging people just so they would swing by a restaurant at 8 or 9pm. By then my stomach had already digested itself and began working on my small intestine.

We spent a couple of days in the "French Quarter" in downtown New Orleans: first on Wednesday afternoon when dad and I arrived into town, and then again on Friday. The streets were mostly empty on Wednesday, but it was fun finally getting to walk down the infamous "Bourbon Street." Not to mention, buying a daquiri and walking down the street sippin' on it ;)

Friday was a little more crowded, but I think more enjoyable because there were various street performers out, restaurants had their AC on, doors open, and music playing, and there were even a couple of people on the second floor balconies tossing beads down to us. In my case, they threw me beads as a plea to keep my shirt on...

I remember when Ben first moved there he talked about how nice everyone was. "They're so nice, they make you look like a jerk," I believe is what he said to me. Well I went and checked the people out there...although I didn't run into anyone who was a real jerk down there, I also didn't notice people being any nicer than they are up here.

The streets down there are crazy, too. And by crazy I don't just mean a lot of traffic or the fact that people walk all over the streets in downtown N.O. What I mean is the design: they have a ton of one highways that have large medians in the middle, and tons of places for U-turns. Half of the time we'd be driving, pass up the place where we were headed, and instead take a U-turn at the next "neutral" (as they're called) and then drive back to where we wanted to be and take a right turn. I'd prefer medians that give way to left turns myself...

I'm not sure when or if I'll visit New Orleans again. I definitely won't claim I'll "never" go back, cause I don't think it was that bad at all - I just worry about the rumors of the horrible heat and humidity being true. The fact my brother is too cheap to turn on the AC in the house doesn't make the decision any easier either. This summer may not be the best time to go, but perhaps towards the tail end of the summer (and thus their "hot spell") I might go down there with my girlfriend, Liza. It's a good 500 mile drive, so that means it would probably take about 8 hrs of driving to make it there.

I suppose time will tell just when I go back to the "Big Easy." I can't tell you how nice it was to need to put on a jacket to go to work on Monday. Not that I enjoyed having to go back to work, just enjoyed the realization that my current home is nice a cool and, sometimes, a little rainy. But that's all good for me :)

My gf and I opened our Christmas gifts (since we won't be together on Saturday).  I got her a really nice white gold necklace and matching earrings (she said she was going to bring them to work hehe)...I also got her some bath gel from Bath and Body Works.  I think it’s sick myself…spending $14 on an 8 oz bottle of gel…you can get very similar stuff in a regular store for 3 or 4 bucks…but…women will be women lol

I also got her a few other things…a wall calendar with kitties, a cute bookmark, and some things called “book darts.”  I bought the bookmark after the darts and said “was this really smart?” lol…see…the book darts kind of take the place of bookmarks.  They are little metal pieces that can be slid right onto the page itself and they have an arrow-type design so as to “point” at particular text.  You can place them where you left off in the chapter or you can use it to keep track of good quotes, etc…

Wow, it takes a lot to describe book darts considering they are a really simple looking object lol

Anyway…on to what she got me…

She got me a money clip with “BLD 2004” engraved on it (BLD are my initials lol)…she also got me an awesome flask with “BLD” engraved on it.  And, on top of it all, she got me the “Ultimate Bar Set” from a specialty/novelty type store called Brookstone!  It has a really nice bottle opener, wine corkscrew, wine pourer, and many other things…including the “BarSmart™ electronic cocktail jigger - the ideal resource for finding ingredients and instructions for mixing 40 popular drinks.”  Totally cool :D  Here is the pic: