An East Wind

I got to the levee a few minutes early this morning. Something was amiss. A strong southeast wind is rather odd around here. Up above the sky was grey and off to the east a big black cloud was raining on part of the city. Bob P. rolled up, looked at that cloud, ruminated about it for a minute, and decided to head home rather than risk getting wet. I didn't think it looked quite so ominous, though, and so when Bob B. showed up we headed off with a nice little tailwind, spinning easily and complaining about our sore legs. Of course, I knew we'd have a bit of a battle once we turned around. We stuck to our "recovery day" plan, though, and rode back side-by-side at about 15 mph. I knew what the wind was up to, and I wasn't going to play into that game this time! I was glad to have gotten in a nice spin this morning because when I woke up I very nearly blew it off altogether. I've got stuff stacked up pretty high here at work, and elsewhere, right now. Those few hours I'm spending every day in a hospital room without internet access seem to be causing a backlog. After I got back from my training ride this morning I fired up the computer and spent a couple of hours working on a paper, already overdue, intentionally resisting the urge to check my email until I was done.

So Tulane sent out a press release today about it's expected Fall 2007 undergraduate enrollment and it was very encouraging, albeit the "percent increase" headline was a bit over the top considering that the prior year was such a disaster. I mean, a 56% increase in first-time enrollment would be spectacular if it was 56% of a normal year and not 56% of a year that was about 50% of what it would have been without the hurricane. Are people really dumb enough to fall for that kind of "statistic?" Anyway, the reality is that it will get us back up to around 1,375 freshmen which is a nice jump from the meager 882 we had this year, but still not quite up to the 1,600 or so that we would have expected without Katrina. Still, it's solid movement in the right direction, and the fact that so many of them are from other states says a lot about Tulane's recruiting and public relations effort. It also speaks volumes about the improving national image of the city. Sometimes I guess and East wind blows some good.