I knew it would be a busy day today before the sun came up. The Wife was up and down all night, and finally gave up on sleep altogether around 5:30 a.m. She was worried about the housing situation in Houston for the Psych Medical Residents who would be starting in a few days. It put her on edge most of the day, and believe me, I was keeping my distance! When I left to do my training ride she told me not to be late because she wanted to get to the office early.
I told her to not to wait for me.
It was cooler this morning and the ride felt nice. My calves were a little sore from yesterday's stair-climbing excercise, so I kept my pace moderate for the most part, although I couldn't resist sprinting up a couple of the little hills. Early in the morning on days like this you can already feel the change in the seasons coming. Somehow, I always find Fall to be a little bit depressing. The shorter days and cooler weather make me think of those brutally cold winter rides when I leave the house in the dark with lights flashing and shoe covers on and freezing fingers.
The news from New Orleans is upbeat today with the mayor announcing his new re-entry plan. My Zip code gets to officially come back on Friday, which was pretty much my plan anyway. The water situation is improving, but they aren't quite ready to say you can drink it yet, and I think that much of the uptown area has had power restored. Perhaps that little glimmer I see may be the light at the end of this long tunnel. A friend of mine, Chip E., whose house is on Grand Route St. John in N.O., has recently bought a house in Zachary, just down the road from here. His house and office had some significant roof damage, but being on Esplanade Ridge, there was no flooding. He has started a blog called the Katrina Chronicles.
It was another busy day today. We had to go into Baton Rouge for a Psych/Neuro conference call at noon that, thankfully, I wasn't needed for, so I walked around the corner to the coffee shop with free wifi, checked my mail and had a sandwich and cup of coffee. Then we walked over to the Camelot Club at the top of the Chase bulding for the Psych/Neuro general faculty meeting. I had a conference call I had to be in about half an hour after it started, so I snuck out and made the call. Along the way my cellphone battery started to run out, so I had to plug in my charger right about the time my pen ran out of ink. Man, I hate doing conference calls with a cellphone! I really needed a headset because trying to take notes while listening to a conference call on a cellphone with medicore reception is pure torture. About an hour's worth of torture to be exact. Finally the conference call and the meeting wrapped up and then we had to go look at some space that Psych is considering renting in B.R. for some of their clinical stuff. The department chair and his wife arrived just before the first conference call, and are staying at the house we're at, so after going to the office at the hospital for about an hour we finally headed back to the house. Someone went out and got a bunch of fried chicken, so we broke out a couple of bottles of that muscadine wine. Seemed somehow appropriate. Anyway, now I've got to put these conference call minutes together and update the research news website, but since it's after 9:30 already and I've had three glasses of the finest muscadine wine that Jackson has to offer, I may have to take a rain check on that and do it first thing tomorrow. One bit of good news coming out of the conference call is that the Tidewater building may be "up" today or tomorrow and things on the downtown campus are generally going well ahead of schedule. The building may be ready for limited occupancy a week from Monday. So we will be heading into New Orleans this weekend for sure, at least to patch up the roof and start the cleanup. There is still a dawn to dusk curfew, so we won't likely be staying overnight unless power is working and we can run the a/c.
We shall see.
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