Back to Uptown

I was out early this morning, but my mind was elsewhere, and although I had a nice enough ride, my legs were just putting in the miles while my head was thinking about work. As things have evolved, I have found myself doing a lot of work for various people, and it turns out that I rather like it that way. It can get complicated sometimes when schedules collide, but at any rate it does keep things interesting. On the one hand there is my regular work related to government affairs. That intersects quite often with the Research Office, and since I put up the Research News blog it has become a part of my daily routine. I am also immersed in the Psychiatry/Neurology department, and am often called on for technical help ("The computer just ate that document I was working on!") and miscellaneous other overflow tasks. So this morning was pretty busy and by lunchtime I was happy to accompany the department Chair and a few others to eat at an "upscale" Country Club a few miles down the road. It turned out to be about twice as much food as I needed, but not being the wasteful sort, I dutifully finished what was on my plate.

During lunch I made yet another call to my noncomunicative insurance agency and when I spun the roulette wheel this time, the ball landed on the number of someone who actually knew something. I was informed that my claim had been assigned to a new adjuster. This was actually good news, because the phone number I had been given for the previous one was coming back as disconnected. The bad news was that the company had not put the person's phone number into their database yet, so I was unable to harass her personally. The insurance company person promised to send her an "electronic inquiry" asking that she contact me because I was planning to be in New Orleans this weekend (no doubt along with a few hundred thousand others). Naturally, I have not received a phone call from this alleged claims adjuster.

So after lunch I made a trip over the Zachary where there is a Home Depot, and after negotiating a road closure (overturned tractor-trailer) picked up a bundle of generic roofing, a roll of tarpaper, nails, roofing cement, etc. so that I can make some temporary repairs to my roof. The mayor has opened up my part of the city, effective tomorrow, and I will be heading back to Uptown around mid-day to begin the big clean-up. The Wife will be coming down on Saturday with some other people who we will be helping out. They will be seeing their flooded house for the first time in person and trying to make some decisions and see what they might be able to salvage. I don't know if there will be any electricity at my house yet. I'm guessing not, but at least it should be back on soon. The Mom's condo had power restored today. One of the guys who lives there send the following email out today:
Friends

I was sitting at Igor's on St Charles washing some clothes and having a "Katrina" (hurricane that is) (actually I was having "several") and ran into someone from Entergy who said that they could turn on our building if someone could assure him that there would be no conflict (as in sparks flying) with generators on site which assurance I was willing to provide (wisely or not - our generator being dead as a door nail and tunrned off at the transfer switch today by me but that is another story) and he picked up his cell phone and called someone who threw the big switch in the sky and there was light. Simply amazing. So we are powered up. We will get Schindler in the building tomorrow for the elevators (Larry - please do) and life will go on. "His Honor" the mayor has opened the city to residents in our zip code starting in the am. Herein ends my story. Come home.