Southern Winter

Tuesday morning was cold and windy, and indeed it was hard to get myself out the door and to the levee by 6:15. The 39 degree air felt a lot colder thanks to the strong winds and I wasn't too surprised to find the bike path virtually deserted. There were only four of us and when Donald, who recently started a new job working for FEMA, said he would have to turn around early, we all decided that would be a fine idea for the rest of us too. We still got in around 35 miles. Later in the day, I had a nice ride from the uptown campus to the health sciences center (and back) downtown for a meeting. Ended up at work till around 7:00 working on a report and returned home to find that the neighbor and The Wife had strung up lights on a couple of the oak trees. Man, this next electric bill is gonna be interesting. Anyway, the street looks quite festive, except for the ever-present contractor trucks and the FEMA trailer parked in the neighbor's driveway.

Wedesday the weather was still pretty cold, by "southern winter" standards, but a bit warmer, although The Daughter called to say it was ten degrees below zero up in Iowa City where they spell winter with a capital "W." We had a nice group of eight or so for the usual Wednesday ride and things were going along smoothly until Donald inexplicably decided to attack about half-way back. The rest of the paceline sped up just a bit, and I'm sure everyone was thinking that he would ease up and come back to the group quickly. Eventually big Richard pulled the line back up to a pace that was starting to close the gap, and then I cam around and finished the job. Along the way we dropped a few of the guys, though.

So Tulane bought an apartment building just off of St. Charles near Jackson Ave., and has lined up a cruise ship also. The cruise ship will be moored at the "Riversphere" location, which is really an old riverboat casino building that Tulane was given downtown. Luckily, it happens to have a beautiful concrete dock. As I rode the commuter bike through campus this morning it seemed that the level of activity had moved up another notch. There's just about a month left before classes resume. Compared to much of the city, Tulane's campus will look like a real jewel.