Quiet Friday

It has been a busy week all-around, but things seem to be settling down today. Looking out the window here on the 25th floor I can see the thick dark clouds moving in from the south as promised, and in a minute I think I'll probably break down and make some coffee. The office is quiet. Marcia is finally moving back into her not-quite-finished house in New Orleans East today and tomorrow, other staff are out of town, and most of the fires on my desk are down to a slow smoulder. We've had a 10-year old niece from Baton Rouge visiting with us the last few days, and so she and The Wife left this morning for breakfast at Cafe' du Monde and a trip to the Aquarium. We also have one of the other sister in law's cats, who has been hiding in various inaccessible locations throughout the house since Thursday while our own cat prances about like she owns the place. Cats can be so anti-social.

Yesterday's long levee ride got pretty fast as usual. When we met at the start I was surprised how dark it was. I guess the days are starting to get noticeably longer already. There was a good sized group yesterday and things were going along pretty well as we headed up the river in a long fast paceline. Despite the pace, my mind was nice and mellow until suddenly my entire life flashed before my eyes as I grabbed a whole handful of brakes. There's this one spot where the bike path goes up over a big pipe and to accommodate that there is this narrow little 50-foot bridge with aluminum walls on the sides. Just as I came over the crest, Donald's wheel in front of me was suddenly going backwards. I'm not too sure what happened ahead of him but my bike was halfway up alongside his in a heartbeat and with the railing on one side and his wheel on the other I had nowhere to go and locked up the rear wheel for a moment. Luckily everyone behind was cool, but anyway it was a close one. Realdo made one last brief appearance at the group ride yesterday, and by now I guess he's somewhere in transit to France. He should be in Paris in time for the finish of the Tour. I guess the big news today at the Tour de France is that nobody got kicked out. It was a pretty dramatic finish today - a good day for the French fans for sure.

This morning we had a typical Friday ride with four or five guys at a steady **** woah!! we just got buzzed by a low-flying FA-18 Hornet!! I love when that happens **** So, as I was saying, we had a typical ride at a steady 18-20 mph. On my ride to work today I passed by that row of old shotgun houses that I mentioned some time back as being under re-construction. I mentioned at the time how it looked like they were playing it pretty loose with the zoning ordinances. Well, for the past few days I'd noticed that the jobsite was quiet, so today I looked more closely and saw the "Stop Work" notices taped to the wall. Looks like they were playing it a little too loose and got caught by the city inspector. I would have to guess that you've got to be really trying in order to get caught for something like that right now in New Orleans. Of course, since they have already completely torn down practically every shred of the original structures, the damage has already been done.