Welcome

It is quite nice here very unusually warm for this time of year. I wore shorts today just a few days before Christmas. I can remember Christmases before when it was really cold but that was mainly in North Florida. Around here it is usually much colder now but no where near as cold as Indiana.

I spent some time with my friends from work on Thursday. They all seemed happy to see me so that was nice. I doubt I'll get to see everyone I want to since I need to help my grandmother move into her new apartment the day after Christmas and many people are probably already gone for the holidays.

I'll be back in Bloomington in a few days to celebrate New Years and to get some internship and scholarship applications filled out.

Hope everyone has a Merry Christmas or had a Happy Hanukkah.

I made it, through one semester that is. Today my group turned in our final paper for our class. The paper deals with the CHI 2007 problem. The group is taking a little time off for the break but I know we will have to start working on a plan to move forward before we get back if we want to submit to CHI. We still have some testing to do on our concept and a poster to design but for the time being we are done.

This semester was rough especially the few months. I am hoping things won't get that bad again but who knows. Next semester I have two more classes from the HCI/d track plus either Applied Cognitive and Emotional Psychology or Stats for Information Science and Usability. The professor who teaches the stats class told me this is the last time he is teaching it so that is probably my first choice reluctantly due to my love of math. The class is taught through the School of Library Science and not Mathematics and apparently this guy is a really good professor so hopefully it won't be that bad.

The only problem with the stats class is that there are four students in it right now including me so there is a good chance it won't form. This is why I signed up for the Applied Cognitive and Emotional Psychology class which is taught through Telecommunications. I know this is kind of odd for both classes but Cog Sci doesn't teach anything at the grad level that is not for just the cog sci people and stats at the grad level in the math department would not be a good thing for me.

I am heading home this weekend and will be gone for a bit. I am happy to be going home to see some friends and be back in the warm weather although it hasn't been that bad here for Indiana in the winter. :)

This is an interesting thing I ran into this evening. I was using a link to Google words to a song and came up with a link to a site that said it had the lyrics. When I clicked on the page I got this from Google.

" Warning - visiting this web site may harm your computer!
You can learn more about harmful web content and how to protect your computer at StopBadware.org.

Suggestions:

* Return to the previous page and pick another result.
* Try another search to find what you're looking for.

Or you can continue to http://www.lyricsandsongs.com/lyrics/RAY_LAMONTAGNE.html at your own risk.

Advisory provided by Google"

See here for the actual page
http://www.google.com/interstitial?url=http://www.lyricsandsongs.com/lyrics/RAY_LAMONTAGNE.html

The question is how did they end up on the malware list? How do get off of the list if you end up on it and don't belong there?

For example in my last job our papers sent out e-mail newsletters to people who had asked to get them. Often the papers would complain that users were not getting the newsletters. Sometimes it had to do with our newsletters ending up on the spam list of AOL, Yahoo or one of the other major e-mail providers. So then we had to jump through the hoops to get off of the list. This happened every month or so and then we would have to fight to get off the list again.

I wonder if this will happen with this new malware advisory. I guess we shall see.

As a side note they do ban you from messing with the url parameter and making it look like a clean site is a malware site. I am sure they saw people seeing this is an easy hack.

Right now it is 16 degrees outside and it feels like 2. Tomorrow's forecast high is 31 with a 22 feels like temperature. I have never lived anywhere that it gets this cold. It is really hard to deal with these temperatures. Needless to say I am cold.

Today I bought another hat that covers my ears and ties under my chin along with another scarf to match.

I has snowed, well as they say flurried a bit here but nothing has stuck to the ground.

On Friday we had really high winds and our first day of horribly cold weather. I am glad the semester is almost over so I don't have to walk in this much longer.

Hopefully this won't last too long. *crosses fingers*

I had said earlier this year that I thought UF would have a good season but I didn't think they would end up in the National Championship game. I'd love to go but the tickets are super expensive through scalpers. I am working all of my ticket connections and crossing my fingers for something around face. The bad thing is that the game is the first day of classes for this semester, I am sure it is the same for UF but I don't have class until Tuesday at maybe 11:15 depending on how things go.

Having Michigan on one side and Ohio on the other probably doesn't make me real popular as a Gator in Indiana but I don't care.

All in all GO GATORS!!

Yes I have been a bit busy with school, new friends etc so I haven't posted in a while.

It has been getting cold here, well my definition of cold that is. Most days right now only get up to about 40 degrees.

The rumors about snow come and go. Last I heard it was supposed to snow but not stick tomorrow morning. According to the weather.com this doesn't look like it will happen.

I have been working on my apartment also. I bought a smaller desk since I don't have an office in my apartment and my other desk was taking over the living room. I also bought a nice table off of craigslist. So the place is shaping up nicely I'll post a picture when I am done rearranging.

*shameless plug* If any Indianians are looking for a nice large desk see this ad. http://indianapolis.craigslist.org/fur/236934289.html */shameless plug* Sold yeah!

I keep loosing my hats. I had a nice white knit cap that I lost someplace and tonight I lost my Florida Gators knit cap. :( I found my white knit cap and the pizza place where I had dinner the other night found my Gator hat. :)

The big thing I am working on now is a class project/contest entry for CHI 2007. It is not an easy topic but I think our group has a pretty good concept. More on the question here http://www.chi2007.org/submit/designcomp.php.

I am not going home for Thanksgiving since the trip is too long and too much of a hassle for a few days so I am going home at Christmas instead. I am instead spending the day with my boyfriend and his family in Louisville and then hitting Best Buy for the black Friday deals. I really need a flat panel monitor.

I am happy that IU won today. Beating Iowa is a big thing since the Hoosiers have lost to a lot of unranked pretty crummy teams. I am a passive Hoosier fan I haven't been to a game this year and probably won't since it is getting too cold for me to want to be at a game.

On the other hand the Gators lost today. No matter how big the IU win was it can't make up for the Gators loss. :P

On a slightly more amusing note I was at Target today and I saw what I though was a kayak in on of the isles. I went down the isle and saw that it wasn't a kayak but in fact a snow sled they also had snow boards. I sort of looked at them for a few minutes since that is not something I have seen in a Target before.

The leaves around here are changing color and falling off of the trees. It is quite pretty and I need to get some photos taken before all of the leaves are gone.

We have a bit of Fall in Florida but not anything like Indiana. It is sort of fun walking through the leaves scattered on the sidewalk on the way to campus.

It is nice today about 75 right now. That is supposed to change dramatically tonight getting much colder so we should start seeing 50s very soon.

The past five days have been the first few days since I started school that I haven't just felt stressed and crazy.

I appreciate the short lived break from the chaos. We have our next project and our teams but it isn't due for a little while so we have a bit of time.

We are all quite happy about this little break.

A bunch of us went to some cabins in southern Indiana this weekend. We had a lot of fun so that was also a nice break from school.

Breath in...Breath out...Get back to work.

Since I am stuck on campus so often and food on campus is very fatty, horrible for you and expensive I have found the need to carry around a protein bar to substitute for a meal.

I bought this Cool Mint Chocolate Cliff Bar and was eating it today while working with a group. All of the sudden I got jittery like I had too much caffeine. It turns out the protein bar I have is an energy bar with caffeine. Caffeine and I are not very compatable since it makes me nervous.

So I have been eating a little bit and then drinking a lot of water to keep from getting too high on caffeine.

Laugh if you want.

How important is age really? This is something I have been thinking about quite a bit over the past few days.

Before I came to IU a concern of mine was that the other HCI students were going to be much younger than me. I didn't want to be the old lady at 28. When I got here I found that there are some people that are older than me and a few that are the same age as me along with the youngsters :) and that made me feel better.

Am I too old for a facebook or my space account? Is it odd that I have these since these services are dominated by people much younger than me.

Is it weird that the main person I spend a lot of time with outside of class is 24? Is it strange that this should bother me?

No real answers here just questions.

Five seemingly unrelated things that are in a way related.

Last weekend I went to Chicago to see Tom Petty. I have been a big fan of Tom Petty for a while and he has been very high on my list of concerts I had to see. I heard this tour might be his last so I planned to go before I started school. It was a bit of a mistake since things are really crazy right now but I had a good time.

I had never been to Chicago before and will hopefully post a more detailed post about the trip later.

Tom Petty is sort of Gainesville's equivalent of John Mellencamp but he doesn't live in G-ville anymore unlike Mellencamp. If you talk to some of the musicians that have been in the G-ville music scene for a while you will find people who can tell you about hearing Mudcrutch, Petty's first band play the bars around campus.

I am one of those people that finds inspiration in music. I know I do especially in times of stress. A few of my favorite inspirational songs are Tom Petty songs so that is another reason I wanted to see him live.

I relate a lot to "Learning To Fly". Before he played this song he said that this was a song many people relate to and was probably one of the best songs he wrote.

A few verses of the song I find particularly pertinent to my current state.
"Well I started out down a dirty road
Started out all alone
And the sun went down as I crossed the hill
The town lit up the world got still

I’m learning to fly but I ain't got wings
Comin down is the hardest thing

...

Well some say life will beat you down
Break your heart, steal your crown
So I started out for God knows where
But I guess I'll know when I get there"

A few other favorites I Won’t Back Down

"Well I won't back down, no I won't back down
You can stand me up at the gates of hell
But I won't back down

Gonna stand my ground, won't be turned around
And I'll keep this world from draggin me down
Gonna stand my ground and I won't back down

Hey baby, there ain't no easy way out
Hey I will stand my ground
And I won't back down.

Well I know what’s right, I got just one life
In a world that keeps on pushin me around
But I'll stand my ground and I won't back down"

Runnin’ Down A Dream

"Yeah runnin down a dream
That never would come to me
Workin on a mystery, goin wherever it leads
I'm runnin down a dream"

Right now I and many of my classmates are pretty stressed out about our first year of HCI/d. In a way I feel like they are trying to weed out the people who are not serious about this. I am very serious about this program and determined to succeed. So I am sure you can see even more why I identify with some of the lyrics above.

The unfortunate thing about group work, projects, readings etc. is that it takes up a ton of time. I have been working as the editorial assistant for the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication but I have found very minimal time to work on this on a consistent basis. I have time on the weekend but the editor needs someone to help everyday and right now I can't guarantee anything on a regular basis. Therefore I had to make a tough choice today, I need the money from this regular job but I haven't had the time to devote to it so I had to give it up today. It was a tough choice but I could potentially pick up some coding for the journal. I am also getting tossed a few high paying freelance items that I find more interesting so it may work out better in the long run.

Everything happens for a reason.

I have had some things that have bugged me just a little bit ever since I decided I wanted to come to IU.

The first is what if I get up there and hate doing usability testing?

Well I did my first formal usability test today with the camera, microphone and a working site to test. I was the facilitator and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I can't tell you why but I just thought it was so great. This is definitely what I should be doing. I am really interested in digging into the observations from the rest of the group. We tested the IU accounts system, http://itaccounts.iu.edu. If you have used it you know how lovely it is. You can't even log out after you get into the site.

The second was what if I have made a huge mistake by quitting my job and no one will be interested in me?

I went to the job fair today and had a lot of good conversations with employers. One of them told me that with my experience I would probably be high on the list of a lot of companies for internships. This made me feel good. I didn't really find anyone that I am very excited about since many of them didn't know anything about usability and were looking for coders. I did have to explain usability to a few people. Some called it QA which it could be I'll have to see if I get any QA intern offers and then see what they entail. One thing I did decide is that I am not accepting an unpaid internship or an internship that is not what I want it to be. I don't need the work experience like I did as an undergrad looking for an internship.

I did get some decent tchotchkies. Target gave me a set of cool magnets and a foldable Target Frisbee. General Mills gave me a box of granola bars and a microwave cake. I also have a collection of pens and other stuff.

As someone said it was a good place if you were looking for consulting work but not quite as much if that wasn't what you wanted to do but it was a good boost for me during a rough first semester.

It has been quite some time since I have been to a career fair. I like getting all dressed up but I don't like having to schlep across campus in a suit.

As an undergraduate I didn't get much out of the fairs other than a bag full of tchotchkies, pens and other stuff. The only things that I still have are a light up Microsoft yo yo and an Intel guy. Remember the Intel guys in what looked like hazmat suits?

I am hoping for something more out of this one other than stuff. Of course I also now have four years of work experience and I am working on my masters instead of being an untested undergraduate.

I spent some time this evening revising my resume and printing out a few copies on some nice resume paper.

Now I just need to find someone to give me an internship in usability.

I just googled one of the employers Indiana INTERNnet. They are having a luncheon with of all people Stephen Dubner, co-author of Freakonomics. So if you didn't get enough of Freakonomics this summer here is your opportunity for more!

Everyone has their where were you on 9/11 story so here is mine.

I was in the first semester of my last year of undergrad. I didn't have classes that day so I offered to take a friend to the doctor who had back surgery a few months earlier. She was going in to get clearance to work and to drive again.

I remember sitting in the waiting room of the doctor's office and hearing the doctor's assistants mumbling something about a plane crashing into a tower. I thought maybe an ultra light or some other small plane had crashed into something local and didn't think much of it.

My friend finished up with the doctor and said to me sounds like there will be interesting front page news tomorrow a plane crashed in to the World Trade Center. At this point in time neither of us realized the severity of the situation.

I dropped her back at her house drove back to my apartment and decided to take a nap. I had been up late the night before doing night production of the online edition of the student newspaper, The Independent Florida Alligator.

About 15 minutes later my friend called me in tears and said you need to see this. So I got up and immediately headed to the internet as many did since you really couldn't load any of the major news sites.

At this point I thought maybe I should go into the paper since they need me but I didn't want to hang up on my friend. I got a call waiting beep on the other line and it was the Editor asking me to come in and help out.

I drove down to the Alligator and started helping put photo galleries online and whatever other content we could get off of the Associated Press wire. I didn't see any of the video until after I got to the Alligator.

I don’t remember how long I was at the Alligator since time went very quickly after that.

It was exciting to be part of the frenzy of getting information out. The only thing I can compare it to since would be working with a paper in Louisiana post Katrina. It is sort of a twisted adrenaline rush that journalism types get out of major events like that.

They canceled classes on campus as I am sure many major universities did. They also canceled the Florida vs. Tennessee game that was set for that weekend. There was a report that someone might try to blow up the nuclear reactor that across the street from the stadium.

I remember at some point in time my mom called and left a message to make sure I was ok and she never does that.

My brother hadn't decided what he wanted to do with his life after college and the events of 9/11 steered him toward the Marines. Currently he is a second lieutenant in the Marines and is graduating from the second part of basic school in October. We don't know where he will be six months from now.

I am used to not usually watching the first two games of the season since they are pay-per-view and usually not worth the money but I would have liked to have seen UF vs. UCF. I couldn't even find it on pay-per-view here. I have 4 free PPV things I need to use within 30 days so I could have watched it for free.

It sounds like it was a pretty good game. Chris Leak the QB apparently really shined. Maybe just maybe I am wrong about next year being the year but I don't want to say too much now until we meet Tennessee since that match up is so unpredictable. Hopefully I will get to see that game but I will be in Chicago.

Clarification for people who don't know the Florida University System structure. Instead of having IU at various cities we have different universities spread throughout the state. UF is the University of Florida in Gainesville. UCF is the University of Central Florida in Orlando. UF has a pretty good football legacy, UCF and USF are both good up and coming football programs.

Last Friday I was a somewhat overcast day no rain but just sort of gloomy. At about noon I hear this loud siren coming from the direction of campus. I would have had no idea what this was except for the fact that my mom went to Missouri so she had told me about tornado sirens. I guessed that is what that was.

At this point I was very concerned and immediately went online to the weather channel to figure out where the tornados were. I was considering grabbing my laptop and hiding in the basement of my building. I didn't see anything about a tornado in the area or even a tornado warning online so I wasn't sure what to do.

I asked another student last week about it and he said that they test the tornado sirens every Friday at noon. Apparently when you hear these you should go to the basement of the closest building.

Not being from the Midwest tornado sirens are a completely foreign concept. We do have tornados in Florida but we don't have tornado sirens on campus and with hurricanes you know those are coming at you in advance.

I just heard them again not too long ago so that reminded me.

I wonder how many students know we have a night escort service. No not that kind of escort but I am sure you can find that in B-ton also.

Following up on my little rant about IU Parking. I sent an e-mail to the Office of Women's Affairs seeking a solution and they gave me the number for the walking escorts.

"Safety Escort Department
Phone: (812) 855-SAFE
Web: www.indiana.edu/~cps/escort.html

The IU Student Association provides safe evening transportation for women and men who would otherwise be walking alone. A walking escort is available for women only, but van service is available for both women and men."

That would have been helpful to know earlier. Thanks to Matt hopefully I won't have to use this service that often but it is nice to know it is there.

So I find myself in this nearly impossible situation. I have a class that gets out at around 9 two nights a week. I live about a mile from campus and don't mind the walk during the day but at night it is a different story.

The neighborhood I live in is not well lit so walking home around 9ish is not a great idea although I have done it 3 out of the last 4 night I have had my class.

I tried to be safer tonight and park on campus in one of the metered spaces but the meters are only for an hour and I didn't know this until I got there. I even gave it an extra dime hoping maybe it would give me more time. Unfortunately I got a parking ticket.

After that I came home and decided maybe I needed to just give in and buy a stupid decal. I had looked on the parking site earlier for what I was eligible for and it had said A and C which are decent but expensive permits. Tonight I see I am only eligible for an E or an F which are essentially worthless since I live closer than an E or F decal can park.

So what do I do? I can't keep walking home after dark because it isn't safe once you get off campus but I have to go to class.

I blame one of my former coworkers for introducing me to the evil Chipotle burrito. Those things are so good they are near addictive. I believe there was a point in time when he was going there just about every day for lunch. I know there was a point where him and my supervisor were going there once a week.

Today is free burrito day in Bloomington at the Chipolte near campus. They are giving the first taste away hoping to get more people hooked on their burritos and willing to pay for it next time. I am sure they will succeed since I became fairly addicted after going there the first time. There is even a web site for people who are huge fans http://www.chipotlefan.com/. *Disclamer* I only know about this site is because I was looking for the official site on Google. I am not that huge of a fan.

I had to head to the Starbucks in the same are to interview a subject for a project I have due tomorrow and decided to see if I could get through the burrito line fairly quickly.

I think in total it took me maybe 15-20 minutes from the point at which I started standing there. When I visited here for the first time in April of 05 they were just opening the Chipoltle and had a free burrito day. That day the line was wrapped all of the way around the block. I knew I wasn't that determined to get a free burrito.

I have noticed that pizza, another food that is a staple of college and so good for our health *sarcasm* is very cheap too. I am a fan of Papa Johns pizza as far as chain places go. In Tampa a large cheese pizza would run you about $12. Here I can get a large one topping pizza, breadsticks and a 2 liter of Coke for $10.

I also had pizza from this place called Avers the other night and they had basically the same deal as Papa Johns but the pizza was marginal at best, the breadsticks were pretty tasty though.

Mother Bears is my favorite non-chain place right now. The have some good specials but the problem is that I end up with too much food for one person as is what happened with Avers.

Yes I did see both.

My friend and I went to West Palm Beach my last weekend in Florida to see Dave Matthews Band. We have done every tour since 1998 together. We had a great room facing the beach.

This was the view from our room. Kind of Florida postcardish I think.

The funny thing about our room is that we had this little black and white TV in the bathroom. When you turned it on it didn't get anything but fuzz. It looked like it was connected to the cable but didn't seem to be working. I just thought it was so weird I had to take a picture of it.

We did find out that Dave Matthews Band was staying next door at the Four Seasons. Unfortunatly I didn't bring my Four Seasons clothes or else we probably would have had a few drinks at the lobby bar. The opening act was apparently staying in our hotel but I didn't see them.

On my way back to Tampa I decided to do a bit of outlet mall shopping. I was walking past one of the handicapped spaces and saw advertising for a scooter company on the curb.

They are reaching their target audience but it makes me question what is for sale next.

A lot can happen in a few weeks. This time last month I was beginning wrapping up things in Florida, still working full-time and trying to manage my summer readings for grad school plus a part-time job.

Today I am in Indiana and have just started my second week of grad school. I don't have my full-time job anymore, I do have some freelance from it though and more reading for school plus the part-time job is still there.

Much has changed on one hand but not a lot has changed on other hand.

I am going to be clearing out a few Florida posts I wanted to make before I left but I didn't get a chance to. So it is going to be a little mixed up between Bloomington (B-ton or B-town ?) and grad school posts and Florida things.

It is official now, I am quitting my job and moving to Indiana to pursue a masters in Human-Computer Interaction Design.

Yes it is slightly crazy to quit a good job and go back to school but this is something I have wanted to do for a long time.

This will all happen in August so I still have about 6 weeks to work. The good thing for me is that I accepted a job this week with the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communciation as an editorial assistant so I won't be completely without a job. But I am still looking for more work.

If you are an IE fan don't view the linked video below.

Four years with one company is a long time for someone under 30. I reached that milestone today. Four years ago today I started with The Ledger in Lakeland, Florida. I am currently working for the New York Times Regional Media Group in Tampa, FL.

This is an interesting thing I found today while Googling. This new service basically tries to track your employment history among other things about you based on the web.

This is me:
http://www.zoominfo.com/Search/PersonDetail.aspx?PersonID=234281130

I disappear after The Ledger since my current work e-mail address is not published on the Internet.

This is an interesting concept. I went ahead and registered for it, using a spam account of course, just to see what it does. I'll let you know.

Sunday while in Pasco County I spotted the scene repeated below at multiple lights.

The Tampa Tribune and St. Petersburg Times have officially declared war in Pasco County. Living in the bay area we have two newspapers fighting the other one to gain new ground and hold on to what it has now.

The Tampa area is slowly expanding into Pasco with a large number of new developments in the area.

I live in Tampa and the St. Pete Times on Sunday is 50 cents the Tampa Tribune is $1.00. Cross the bay into St. Pete and it is the opposite.

I know they were selling the Times in Pasco for 50 cents but I am not sure about the Tribune. It was interesting to see two sets of newspaper hawkers working the same um corners. ;)

The first tropical storm of the year has formed. They are saying it won't become a hurricane and I am hoping they are right.

The current track has it headed straight for Tampa where I am currently located. I am not too worried about tropical storms those are usually just wind and rain.

I recently moved cubes at work for the third time. This time they gave me a window so at least now I have something to look at.

Here is the view if I look out the window while seated.

If I get up and walk to the left a bit you can see the skyline of downtown Tampa off in the distance to the right of the picture.

In late April/Early May I went on a trip to Louisiana, Alabama and North Florida.

Part of my trip was to visit my father and grandmothers who live in North Florida and Alabama respectively. The other part of my trip was to visit my good friend Joel in Houma, Louisiana about an hour outside of New Orleans.

Louis Armstrong Airport

I began my trip by flying into New Orleans from Tampa. As we got closer to the airport we found ourselves in the middle of a fairly strong thunderstorm. I found myself wondering for the first time what would happen if the plane was struck by lightning as I watched lightning strike the land below.

I spent the first 45 minutes of my vacation sitting in the baggage claim of the New Orleans airport because the runway had to be closed due to the lightning this prevented the baggage handlers from unloading the plane. We were told that they could reopen when there wasn’t any lightning within 10 miles of the airport.

The airport still had some visible damage. In the restroom molding brown ceiling tiles drooped down over the paper towel dispenser. As I sat in the baggage claim in a chair worn from years of use I remembered seeing pictures and videos of the airport used as a triage area. I thought of the people who spent their last days on this earth in the baggage claim of an airport. It felt sort of odd to be in the same place where so many sick and dying people had been only 9 months earlier.

During my wait I had an interesting conversation with an older couple that lived on the other side of Lake Pontchartrain. I told them that I was from Tampa and visiting some family and friends in the area. The older woman mentioned that her husband was in Tampa getting back surgery. They were just returning from two weeks in Tampa.

We started talking about flights and airports and she said that there must be a lot of flights to South America and Mexico from Tampa since there were so many Hispanics in the area. She also commented that most of staff in the hotel she stayed in were not native English speakers. She assumed there must be a large Hispanic population in Tampa, which there is, but many are not necessarily immigrants. It was an interesting commentary on how non-locals see Tampa.

As soon as I got my bags I went and picked up my rental car for my drive from New Orleans to Mobile, Alabama beginning the first of four days of driving.

The Great Road Trip

I got a little turned around on my way out of the airport in my little Sonata. After getting some directions from a local gas station and figuring out how to unlock the steering wheel of the car I was off.

I hadn’t been back to New Orleans in many years. The last time I was there was for a brief visit in 2003 to do training in Houma. At the time I wasn’t old enough to rent a car so I didn’t get to see much of the area. I was curious as to how the city looked in late April post Katrina.

As I drove down the highway I saw the city in the distance. I wasn’t going there today but things looked somewhat normal off in the distance. That changed quickly when I crossed over in to East New Orleans.

From the highway it looked like the storm had passed through yesterday. I saw apartment building missing their roofs some missing whole top floors. Business such as Wal-Mart, Target and grocery stores dark with twisted signs missing pieces of their logos. I saw homes that were gutted. The whole area was an eerie ghost town that looked so much like many of the suburbs that you would find outside of any major city.

As I drove further I saw the remains of a sign for Six Flags over New Orleans. I didn’t know there was a Six Flags in New Orleans and later research showed that it opened long after I left the North Florida area.

All along the highway many of the lights were still broken. Huge highway light poles were laying in the median of the highway slowly rusting away. Billboards high in the air missing their advertisements were bent over like diving boards high above a deep pool.

When I crossed in to Mississippi I saw less from the interstate. Passing the exit for Waveland I remembered seeing video on the news about the city essentially being wiped from existence by Katrina. A park near Waveland was still closed from the storm.

Near Gulfport I looked out over the water as I crossed a bridge and saw what seemed to be the large arms of a shrimp boat in the water. When I got closer I saw that it was a shrimp boat still stranded on a sand bar. I was somewhat surprised to see this 9 months after the storm.

Approaching Biloxi I started to see signs for Beau Rivage one of the large casinos that seemed to be desperately looking for people to fill jobs. The casino had purchased between 5 and 10 billboards in a row that listed a bunch of different jobs in a sort of nursery rhyme way. I don’t remember the whole series of billboards but I know they said something to the effect of we are seeking a butcher, a baker, a martini shaker and went on from there.

After passing Biloxi I didn’t see any more damage. I reached Mobile about two and half hours after I left New Orleans.

After spending time with my grandmother I set out for Pensacola the next day. The drive to Pensacola was fairly uneventful. I did see a few stranded boats as I crossed Mobile Bay but nothing the size of the shrimp boat I had seen the previous day.

I spent the day with my dad and he showed me areas that were still damaged from Hurricane Ivan that hit in 2004.

The next day I visited my other grandmother and then drove out to the beach to see the damage Dennis had done.

Dennis’ Destruction

When my family lived in Pensacola we had a house on Pensacola Beach so I spent a lot of my childhood going back and forth between Pensacola and Pensacola Beach.

As I made the turn to go to Pensacola Beach I saw the somewhat tacky Pensacola Beach sign still showed some damage. It is the marker for turning toward the beach was always a note that I was almost home.

I drove toward my old house to see what it and the area around it looked like. I knew the house had survived the storm since I found photos of it online.

I drove down Via de Luna the main road on the beach toward the house. I rounded a corner where a huge Holiday Inn had been. I remembered going there for Sunday brunch and before the Catholic Church was built on the beach they used the bar at the top of the hotel for church services. All that was left of this huge hotel was part of the parking lot; the whole building had been demolished.

Driving further down the beach I saw another hotel that I remembered. The Dunes was a nice hotel with a really great swimming pool. Occasionally my dad used to take my brother and I over there to go swimming when we were younger. It wasn’t really allowed but no one seemed to care. The hotel was closed and the parking lot was blocked off. Construction trucks out in front made it look like they were trying to repair it.

On both sides of the road I saw additional landmarks that were missing or damaged. As I got closer to the entrance of my old neighborhood I almost missed it since the markers for Villa Sabine were missing. As I passed through the entrance I saw damage to a few homes that I had remembered growing up. Other homes were missing some were empty lots and others had the beginnings of new construction.

As I drove by my old house I slowed down and looked at the renovations that had been done. Someone was out in the front yard mowing the lawn and she looked at me sort of funny wondering why I was looking at her house. I continued on down the street past some of the other homes I remembered.

The original house my mom and dad rented when I was very young was gone. I don’t have any memories of that house. Someone was starting to build a new house on the lot.

I drove back through the neighborhood and back out onto Via de Luna toward Ft Pickens.

As I approached Ft. Pickens the damage got worse. An area that I remember having condos and a public park was all just beach now. There were many small condos that had survived but were still fairly damaged. You could see that people were working on repairing them.

Before Dennis you could drive all of the way out to the old Ft. Pickens. The park had an old fort, campground and lots of beach area that was not developed. As I approached this part of the beach I saw a road-closed sign in front of me. Dennis had washed out the road. A small information sign indicated that the road was open to pedestrian and bike traffic but there was a mile to a mile and half of no road where you would have to walk through the sand.

I pulled off and parked my car to walk around a little bit. Walking over to the bay side of the island and looking down toward the bridge coming over from Gulf Breeze I saw a little more damage on the back of some nearby condos.

I crossed over to the gulf side and walked along the beach for a while. The beaches were pristine and white as I remembered. As I walked along I started to see beautiful shells and gathered a few for a small shell jar.

As it started to get later in the day I needed to set out to head back to Mobile to begin my trip back toward New Orleans ending the next day in Houma.

From Home to Houma

I left Mobile fairly early the next morning to begin my trip.

On my way back into East New Orleans I looked for the Six Flags Park that I had seen the sign for on my way out. Off in the distance I spotted the amusement park. It was completely dark and ominous in the middle of all of the destruction in that area of town.

I started to run low on gas and needed to stop and call Joel in Houma so I could get directions. I pulled off the highway on the edge of East New Orleans thinking I might find a gas station. At the bottom of the ramp all I found was an intersection with no electricity and closed gas stations and fast food places.

I drove a bit further into New Orleans and hopped off the interstate one more time and luckily found an open gas station.

As I pumped my gas I looked around the neighborhood. Construction was beginning to restore some of the homes while others were untouched. Many of the homes in the area still had spray paint markings that indicated a rescue crew had checked the home for people and bodies. Most of the other people getting gas looked like construction workers.

I drove further into New Orleans and then called up my friend for directions to Houma.

I had been to Houma in 2003 but I wasn’t driving and I remembered the person who came to pick me up driving me down this small two-lane highway through the swamps. If you saw The Skeleton Key just picture the roads she drove down to get to the mansion.

This time I took mainly highways and didn’t really feel in the middle of nowhere until I got off of the highway to drive toward Houma. My friend Joel met me at a Shell station outside of Houma since he couldn’t give me great directions to his house. I was very happy to see him since it has been almost a year since we had seen each other.

From his place we planned out our trip back to New Orleans for the second day of the first weekend of JazzFest.

Bloody Marys and JazzFest

On our way we stopped at a small roadside bar that had self-declared famous Bloody Marys. The bar was a definite dive bar full of locals and we looked a bit out of place. We walked up to the bar and they gave us two Bloody Marys to go. This was my first experience with being able to take out alcohol from a bar, which I quickly discovered is commonplace in Louisiana.

We decided to park in the French Quarter by the Jax brewery and take the shuttle to the JazzFest. This only part of New Orleans I am very familiar with.

The bus weaved through more destroyed neighborhoods in city toward the fair grounds. Through the windows of the bus I clearly saw dark lines on the buildings that indicated where the floodwaters had been.

We arrived at JazzFest and wandered around a bit before heading over toward the Acura stage to check out the scene over there.

Originally we thought we could watch the Dave Matthews Band for a while and then wander over to another stage. Neither one of us had been to JazzFest before but after seeing the crowd we quickly realized we wouldn’t be able to travel. We worked our way through the crowd to a fairly decent place on the lawn in front of the stage. They had a nice big screen up so short people like me could see.

Joel was a great sport about it all since Dave Matthews Band is on his list of the three things he hates along with Kevin Bacon and water chestnuts. He said he did enjoy the concert and I appreciated him going to see them with me since they are one of my favorite bands.

During the whole evening we were wondering if it would rain since there was a chance of it that evening. At the very end of Dave’s set it started to rain. Coming out for an encore he did JTR, which has a refrain that was appropriate for the current weather “Rain, rain, rain down on me Again and again Rain down on me.”

After working our way though the crowd to leave we boarded the bus and headed back to the French Quarter.

The Hurricane, Not Katrina

We got back to the French Quarter around 9:30-10 but the night was still young. We were both covered in dust that was carried by the winds blowing around the fairgrounds but many other people were also so we decided to hang out for a bit.

Joel called a friend and got a recommendation for a great little restaurant I wish I could remember the name. The atmosphere was really cool when you walked in the door off to the left was a band playing among the tables instead of on a raised stage. We had to seat ourselves but there wasn’t any room when we walked in so we waited for a bit and a large table got up so we grabbed two chairs by the window and had a great dinner.

Afterward we went to Pat O’Brien’s a New Orleans bar that is famous for it’s red drink served in a glass that looks like a hurricane lamp. I had a Hurricane and Joel had a Cyclone while we waited in line to get into the piano bar.

The bouncer at the door only let people in when other people left. Two out two in, three out three in. Eventually we got to the front of the line and after two left we were in.

After drinking pretty much the whole Hurricane plus a Cosmopolitan from the piano bar I was feeling a bit tipsy. I joked if I would have had anymore to drink Joel would have had to carry me to the car.

We sat at the bar and listened to the pianos for a bit and watched the guy tap the metal tray full of change creatively to the beat of the songs.

At about 12 a.m. we left to go back to Houma and meet some of his friends at a bar in Houma.

Y Is This Bar In Houma

We rolled into to Houma at about 1 am and met Joel’s friends at the Y bar. He had told me that it was one of the very un-Houma places in town. I wasn’t real sure until we walked in and then I suddenly I felt underdressed.

A place with the atmosphere like the Y bar in Tampa would have a fairly upscale dress code and would have not let either of us in.

At the Y bar I had another Cosmo and hung out with four of his friends from the papers in Houma and Thibodaux.

After about an hour I was getting tired and really wanted a shower since I was still covered in sand from JazzFest so we left.

That night I was happy to be not looking at making at least an hour drive to another city and another state.

Boudreaux The Crawfish

Sunday morning the papers were sponsoring a crawfish boil. I am a very tolerant vegetarian and so I said I would go but not partake in the crawfish.

On our way to the boil we passed a drive through daiquiri stand. Joel had told me about these places when he first moved to Houma. He offered to pick up some drinks. I didn’t think it would be open since it was 11 am on a Sunday morning but sure enough they were. They handed us the daiquiris in a “closed container” which was a Styrofoam cup with the straw opening taped shut with masking tape.

Since I work for the corporate office of the same company I wasn’t sure how kosher it would be for me to show up at a company event with a daiquiri at 11 am on a Sunday morning. Joel assured me it would be ok and that they would be disappointed if we didn’t.

We got a little lost and were told to look for a building with a lion out front. Eventually we found the Cajun Center. This was the beginning of the full Houma experience for me.

We walked into a large room with long plastic tables covered in white plastic sheeting. At the front of the room was a large blue bin that contained boiled crawfish. The ceiling was decorated with white drapes leading to the center of the room where a small gold chandelier hung. The walls were concrete block and metal. Needless to say it was a classy joint.

We picked a table and I sat down while Joel and his friends went through the line and got food. They came back to the table with a tray of crawfish, a piece of corn, a piece of sausage and a tray for the crawfish shell.

This is where it got a bit gross for me. In order to eat a crawfish you break the tail off of the body and then eat the meat out of the tail. Often the tail meat had this greenish crawfish guts but you would eat that along with the tail meat. At one point someone cracked open their crawfish and the greenish guts landed on my hand. I just took a napkin and wiped it off but it was pretty gross.

Joel picked up one of his big crawfish and named it Boudreaux and had it dancing around and talking to me about how he, the crawfish, was good to eat. It was sort of funny and it didn’t really bother me.

I have watched people eat lobster, crab and shrimp with the shells on before and that never even slightly bothered me but the crawfish was almost more than I could handle.

After the crawfish massacre, just kidding, myself, Joel and his friends set out for another day of JazzFest.

More Festivities and More Destruction

This time we parked in the neighborhood surrounding the fair grounds. The day before we didn’t really know where we were going but this time we had someone in the car that knew where to go.

Driving through the neighborhood I saw more flooded homes and flooded cars still sitting in the driveway or street where they were before the storm. This was also a very eerie feeling. The neighborhood was sort of a frozen in time from last August but had this layer of dust, dirt and dried muck covering the cars and homes.

This day we had more time to explore the whole festival since we were there much earlier. We wondered to a few different stages and heard a bunch of different acts. Two of Joel’s friends spotted Mayor Ray Nagin and had their picture taken with him.

By the end of the day I was exhausted. The highlight act of the day was Bruce Springsteen. We tried to get close to the main stage to see him but ended up only being able to find room in the walkway and kept getting bumped around so we move back where we could see the big screen and hear the music.

A few songs into the set I was ready to go. We had been out there all day after the daiquiri in the morning and then another daiquiri later in the day along with some beignets all of the alcohol, sugar and sun were getting to me.

We left shortly before the end of the Springsteen set since we were all pretty exhausted.

Walking back to the car I was looking at the lines on the homes in the area and noticed that they were as tall as me. If I would have been standing where I was after Katrina I would have been underwater.

We walked past a FEMA trailer and I looked over and saw a lady looking through her blinds at us as we passed. A few of the homes in the neighborhood had been restored and people were living in them a few other homes had signs out in front indicating that they would be back.

On our way back to Houma I notices tons of flooded cars under the interstate. Most had been broken into to steal anything that was usable. The cars ranged from fairly new cars to crummy old cars that could have been there from before the storm but they all shared the mucky grey color of the dried floodwaters.

The Un-Houma Tour of Houma

Houma is a very small town in the middle of a bunch of bayous. There really isn’t a whole lot to the town but it is still an interesting place.

In the afternoon Joel took me on what he called the Un-Houma Tour of Houma. We went to this nice little place for lunch where they had a good veggie wrap. The last time I was in Houma the only place they could think of to take me for lunch was to the health food store.

After lunch he showed me around the town. We drove out to the mansion where The Skeleton Key was shot. Then we went over to this neat little store that imported things from Asia mainly Japan and China I believe. I found a neat yin and yang fish painting.

That evening we went to a sushi place. I am a big fan of sushi and I was surprised that this place was pretty good. One odd thing they did was to bring us fried Chinese noodles with our miso soup. That didn’t really make sense to me but this was Houma after all.

That evening we went to a movie and then picked up a book that Joel had recommended that I read.

I decided to spend my last day of vacation wandering around the French Quarter.

The French Quarter

The next morning I told Joel goodbye, thanked him for his hospitality and drove back to New Orleans.

I ended up getting a little twisted around and missed the Canal St. exit and got off at another place. Once again I needed to get some gas for my car and ended up on a quest to find an open gas station and a public restroom.

Normally when you drive down the street and see a McDonalds or some other fast food place you know you can usually stop there and get a restroom. That doesn’t work in New Orleans right now. The first couple of times I saw a McDonalds I thought that might be a place I could stop real quick but as I got closer I saw the water lines and realized they were not open.

After driving for a little while I found a gas station. I think they had just opened since they had a now open sign out in front of the station. I was in luck since they had gas and a public restroom.

With a little bit of gas in my tank I headed toward the French Quarter. As I got closer to downtown I saw the water lines again.

Driving through downtown I saw people dressed for work in suits and business clothes walking in between the buildings. It was good to see some signs of major businesses returning to the area.

In the French Market I purchased a necklace from one of the vendors. He told me that he had lost everything in the storm and was living out of a FEMA trailer and waiting for money to rebuild. I asked him if the JazzFest had helped his business and tourism a lot. He told me things were picking up but the JazzFest didn’t usually impact his business a lot since it was in a different part of the city.

I spent the rest of the afternoon walking through the streets, taking pictures.

The thing that struck me the most about the French Quarter was the stark contrast between that area and the rest of the city. If you were dropped into the French Quarter without seeing the rest of the city you probably wouldn’t know what had happened here less than a year ago.

In the downtown area and the French Quarter it is hard to find very much storm damage. The French Market was missing some of the canopy over the open-air market. The missing areas were covered with blue tarps but that was the only major damage in the area I saw. I did see a few crooked lamps and street signs but that could easily be from a drunken person hanging off of it.

I left the French Quarter for the airport as a rainstorm started to close in on the area.

After seeing all of the videos and pictures from the days after Katrina I knew what I was going to see but seeing it on TV or Online didn’t have the same impact as seeing it with your own eyes.

More photos from my trip.

I am going to be posting a few things that I hadn't done yet since I wanted to wait until I got the header redone. I just wasn't happy with the way it looked.

Paddle Boat Wheel

This is the wheel of the paddle boat I rode on during the dinner cruise at the Saxotech User Conference earlier this month. We went from a dock down the Intracostal Water Way along St. Pete Beach and back.

The food was marginal and the band was worse but the company was good.

I started to blog about a year ago and then stopped. I am going to do this blog as more of a mix of Journalism, Usability and just personal miscellaneous. For now it will probably be more daily thoughts than industry stuff but in the next few months it will probably become more usability centered.

I am going to be working on the layout in the next few days and relaunching with both photo and text posts.

Stay tuned.