NOLA Skyline

Took a few photos of last night's fireworks display from the roof of The Mom's condo. It was a bit of a challenge with a pocket camera and a subject that was about ten miles away, especially after a few glasses of wine. The fireworks display is on the river at the French Quarter, so from my vantage point the tall buildings of the CBD were in the way.

This morning I needed to get to the office early so I could finish up a document that we wanted to send around for comment by 10 am. Since I've decided I need a couple of easy days anyway, I didn't mind turning around early today. The group was a little smaller than usual, but by the time I made my U-turn out at the St. Charles parish line, the pace was already pretty high. My legs still aren't feeling very good, so I think I'll make tomorrow an easy ride for sure. Today we got the rush event permit just about submitted for the NBO/Bicycle World track series, and so I put the event announcement up on the website(s) and sent an email out to the list. This one will be very simple. One open-category group, six mass-start races per night, omnium format. I might have to break down and glue some fresh tires on the old track bike. Unfortunately I'll be out of town for the first one.

This evening when I got home from work there was a nice little UPS package on the front porch. It was the set of replacement ceiling fan blades I'd ordered last week from the Hunter folks. The fan on the porch is actually an old indoor-style fan and after Katrina the blades started to come apart. I guess the fan's around 20-25 years old, so I was happy to find that the Hunter people actually had the replacement blades in stock. Unfortunately they don't have the outdoor style for that fan model, but I guess if these last 20 years like the last ones did, I can't complain too much about that. Anyway, I got them installed pretty quickly and it's nice to have a fully functional ceiling fan out there again. We actually spend a fair amount of time out on the porch. Houses like mine were designed in the 20s and were really the first homes to do away with shutters in favor of the newly invented screens. Most of them were built with screened-in front and back porches, although over the years many have lost their screens and some have had their porches converted into additional indoor rooms. With their porches, casement windows and wide overhanging eaves, these "California Bungalow" style houses were well suited for the New Orleans climate. The idea was that you would have screened porches at each end, usually with a hallway running the length of the house, and a big attic fan in the ceiling of the hallway. Open the windows and front and rear doors, flip on the fan, and the house would stay fairly comfortable without air conditioning. This was very high-tech stuff back in the day. I keep meaning to fix that attic fan!