Unfortunately, as the old proverb says, all good things must come to an end.
In my case, my trip to NOLA with my son ended this past Saturday, returning to thirty degree weather in the Windy City just hours after leaving eighty degrees in the Crescent City.
To say that we had a great time may be the understatement of the year.
For me to recount all that we ate, music that we heard, things that we saw and things that we bought would be a very long post indeed and would tax my memory to the fullest.
I did take many photos with my crummy phone, none of which would be worthy of resale on any website, but will help my son and I recall this trip for many years to come.
Also, since this mensch is one of the millions of bloggers who writes about money, I can attest to the fact that quite a lot of the money earned at my municipal economic development job in the northwest suburbs of Chicago was spent this past week as if we were members of the upper middle class rather than just regular old middle classers.
We did lodge with an upper middle class family: my younger sister, her husband and their two daughters, my nieces. They were beyond hospitable and gracious, feeding us several times, providing guidance and making reservations, and shuttling us around a few times.
$260 Left
I just counted $260 left in my wallet after having left with just under $900 in cash. Do not think that means we "only" spent six hundred and change while we were there. I engaged in most forms of spending with the exception of having written a check.
I had been a passenger in an Uber-driven car on several occasions including the most drunken evening that I have had in the past ten or so years, back in the city of my undergraduate years, Mad-City last year.
My sister insisted that we use Uber while in NOLA, so we did a few times. I also ordered an Uber from Midway Airport, where we flew in and out of via Southwest Airlines, to the house where my siblings and I grew up and where my mother still lives in Evanston. That ride alone was over $50, plus I tipped a generous ten spot. Same thing in NOLA. You would have thought me a wealthy man by my tipping street musicians, performance artists and bands playing in bars. Check up at least a hundred in tips.
For any of you planning a trip that would surely be great, just not as great as ours, you should know that the cabs out of Louis Armstrong Airport charge a flat $36 from there into most points in the City. We took cabs to and from the airport to my sister's house, so with the $7 tips on both rides, chalk that up to another $86 in cab fare.
Also, for those of you unfamiliar with NOLA, you can still travel through the City via streetcar. To be clear, it is not a freakin' trolley. Don't be an idiot and refer to it as a trolley, like I used to and I still heard some tourists with less knowledge of the city than I possess calling it that. It's a streetcar, not a trolley. You can ride on one by putting a dollar and a quarter into the slot for any ride or purchase a 24-hour pass like my son and I did for $3.
My son and I also did something twice that most tourists or locals would never do. We actually walked, with our feet, from Uptown to the French Quarter. Twice. Once via the streetcar line along St. Charles and on Friday the whole way via the trendiest street I have ever seen in my life, Magazine Street. The few people whom we told were impressed, but by measuring the distance it was only a bit over four miles. Both of us were thinking that it would help us burn some of the massive quantities of calories that we had been consuming. While it may have burned some off, it did not burn off enough for me. I left for NOLA on Monday weighing two pounds over the weight that I had been for the past several years and returned two to three pounds heavier than that.
I also paid for other things, like a huge meal, with my credit card. I paid for another huge meal with my debit card. I purchased CDs, a tie with trumpets on it, NOLA-inspired spices and tee-shirts with my debit card too. I probably made another $400 or so in purchases with my credit and debit cards.
If I was testifying in court about our spending for the week, I would be forced to admit that I do not know the exact amount but would estimate it between nine hundred and one grand. That does not include our air fare and we paid exactly zero for five nights of lodging in my sister's guest room.
Our reservations for the same room have been submitted for next March.
We Ate Like Kings
My goodness, did we eat well. My sister and her family live in a beautiful home on a block of million-dollar-plus homes a few blocks off of St. Charles Avenue near Audubon Park. The closest type of home for sale in their neighborhood like theirs is currently on the market for $815,000 but their home has more character than this one. There is a house on the market for $1.7 million at the end of their block, but that one is significantly larger and fancier than theirs.
There is a street called Freret near their home that has been developing rapidly the past few years and attracting many new trendy restaurants.
Two of the restaurants that we thoroughly enjoyed were Mint, a Vietnamese restaurant where we enjoyed seafood and noodle soup, and a place that I liked better than that, Dat Dog. We got bagels one morning at the Humble Bagel, a shop that closes around noon most days once all their freshly-made bagels sell out. The customers there are largely Tulane and Loyola students and employees as well as the many home-based business owners and idle rich who reside in the area.
On Magazine Street on the day we walked to the Quarter from there, my son and I had one of the best lunches we have ever had at the Rum House, one of dozens of super-trendy restaurants packed with moneyed Millennials, hipsters, area residents and tourists like my son and I. As much as we hung out with the locals who showed us around, I must admit that we were, in fact, tourists.
We also ordered Po-boy sandwiches and a few sides from one of my sister's two favored spots for them, Mahoney's. The other place she strongly recommends is Guy's. Both are located on Magazine Street. The three Po-boys, a meh ceasar salad and a side of rice and beans ran about $80 and was my treat.
In the Quarter, there may be a three way tie for the best meal that we enjoyed. The first was at the Royal House, where we ordered baked shrimp tortellini and blackened shrimp and jambalaya. The Royal House has what has now become my very favorite dessert in the world: bread pudding. The second was at the Palm Court, where we caught some great music for several hours and my son had Chicken Clemenceau and I dined on Creole Beef Indienne, which included a delicious mango chutney. That fine meal also ran about $80 for the two of us including $10 for tickets, about $50 for food, about $10 for taxes and my $14 tip for the fantastic waitress. The bread pudding was good there, but not as great as at Royal House and only about half the size.
Our favorite place may be the least fancy of all of them, a new barbecue joint called Flambeaux Smoke House & Bar-B-Que. The owner is very nice and chatted us up for a bit. We took a menu from him late one night and returned the next day, which was last Thursday, the first day that we walked to the Quarter. He gave us tickets to see a Depeche Mode and Smiths cover band called Strangelove, who played at House of Blues on Friday night. We never did make it there, but gave the tickets to some guy who was trying to hustle some up.
Our hosts took us to one of their favorite places, a restaurant called Elizabeth's in the Bywater neighborhood. I admit here that I became increasingly nervous as everyone ordered as if we were, in fact, royalty. Mahi mahi, seared scallops, seafood mixed grill, praline bacon etc. My sister ordered multiple gimlets at eight bucks a pop. Her husband ordered multiple IPA craft beers. I stuck with water, hoping to save a few bucks. Not wanting to be a cheapskate, mind you, which is one of the falsely held beliefs about us Jews. Most of the Jews that I know are generous above and beyond most other religions and races that I know of. Some of them to a fault.
When the bill came and I glanced a number just under two hundred, I began reaching for my wallet. Being truthful, I admit that I was going to suggest splitting the bill since it was my son and I versus the four of them and it was not our suggestion to go there and sit somewhere for two hours on our last night in town. My brother-in-law waved me off and said that he had already taken care of it, which is undoubtedly a classy thing to do. I was somewhat surprised, too. Had I known he would do that, I probably would have ordered a cocktail too.
I would be remiss if I failed to report that we ate beignets twice. Once, on our first night in town at Cafe Beignet and another time at the place with the best ones in the City - at Morning Call at City Park. My niece got us there via two streetcars (not trolleys!) that took nearly two hours to get us to our destination. But the beignets were well worth it. I also purchased a tie with trumpets on it for my son at their gift shop and he purchased several souvenirs there including magnets and postcards.
The Music
What can I say about the music? It was freakin' awesome!
Tuesday night, we caught the Rebirth Brass Band, my son's favorite brass band and one of the most popular party bands around. They play every Tuesday night at 10:00 PM at Maple Leaf Bar, just a few miles from my sister's house. It would have been great if they started at 10:00, which I had already been complaining was too late.
As the small venue became more and more crowded, the minutes and then hours began to pass. They still did not start at 11:00, at which time my bad ankle was very sore and I could not turn my body without hitting someone. It was about 11:20 when they finally started, but my God, did they put on a show. They were so loud, so good, so creative and got the crowd into it in nearly every song. We finally left around 1:00 AM, dog tired, and they had just started their second set. It was awesome!
We heard the Good For Nothin' Band at Maison on Wednesday late afternoon and then caught Tim Lauglin and Ben Polcer with the Palm Court Jazz Band at the Palm Court Jazz Cafe. My son and I chatted with the Good For Nothin' guys and I purchased their latest CD. I also bought the latest CD from the Preservation Jazz Hall Band, but we did not feel like catching their show on this trip. Mainly because their house band is the definite B-team while their A-team travels.
Some of the street musicians are on par with the jazz clubs, and we spent quite a while listening to many of them. As I mentioned, I tipped anyone who we listened to at least one song from.
I should also mention that we spent quite a bit of time watching street performers, including this guy who escaped a straight jacket by supposedly dislocating both of his arms. It looked painful, thus my groan while watching. And a well-earned $10 tip.
Art Galleries
On our last full night in town, my son and I popped into about eight art galleries, all of them different. In one of them, an obviously wealthy woman was purchasing a five-figure painting that was priced at about twenty grand. There were many such art works there and I had to remind my son and myself not to hit one or damage one accidentally.
I cannot recall all of their names, but they were mostly along Royal Street, which has become one of our two favorite streets in the Quarter, along with Decatur. Most of the galleries do not allow photos of the art work, which prompted me to suggest to my son that I purchase glasses that can record things for this blog's purposes. If you have not seen these eclectic art galleries, I strongly urge you to visit them if you get the chance.
In one of the galleries, we spoke at length to artist Adrian Fulton, easily the nicest and most accessible artist in this area. We picked his brain for about fifteen minutes, as he explained his inspiration to become an artist after leaving the corporate world years ago. When I explained that I would have already spent a million bucks on art last week if I had it, but wanted to purchase his Jim Morrison painting, he explained that he did not have business cards but that I could take a photo of his "card." When I asked him to pose with it, he graciously did. What a cool guy.
While Mr. Fulton is the most accessible, we visited others where the proprietors immediately turned their noses up at us. Dressed in our jeans and tee-shirts and sporting scruffy facial hair, I suppose that we did not look like likely purchasers of expensive art. And they were right, but someday we might be.
Continued My Avid Reading
Of course I brought a book with me on the trip. I was in the midst of finishing Dollars and Sense by Dan Ariely when I happened across an interesting sounding book on my sister's bookshelves. Thus, I began reading The Redneck Manifesto: How Hill-Billies, Hicks and White Trash Became America's Scapegoats by Jim Goad. That became my morning reading on my sister's back porch while sipping their high-end organic coffee.
While walking from their home all the way to the Quarter last Thursday, my son and I stopped in the Milton H. Latter Memorial Library just blocks from their house. When a book lover like me sees a library like this, it's like a drug addict seeing his dealer. I had to stop in and I had to get something.
Knowing what a book addict I am, my son agreed that it would be okay for me to purchase one book. I joked with him that perhaps I would find a three-hundred-year-old leather bound book on spells or the history of New Orleans. No such luck, but I did find an interesting book about a Jewish kid making it out of Ukraine to the U.S. in the eighties called A Backpack, A Bear, and Eight Crates of Vodka by Lev Golinkin. I spent two bucks on it and have not started it yet, but it seems interesting.
My sister gave me the White Trash book, which I have found to be one of the more interesting things that I have read in a while. It details how America's class system was formed from top to bottom and, don't kid yourself, America has one of the strongest class systems of any country. There will be a few socioeconomic class posts in the future inspired by this fascinating read.
The fourth book was purchased today (Monday), my first full day back in town. I popped into the local library, as I am wont to do, and how could a mensch like me pass up a book called The Middle-Class Millionaire? Like I wrote, I was like a heroin addict returning to my dealer and what card-carrying member of the middle class, like me, would not want to read about how others in the same socioeconomic class succeeded in attaining millionaire status?
Lusher Crawfish Boil
My sister, her husband and my two nieces live a decidedly upper middle class existence. More power to them. Am I jealous? Well...yes.
I could write at length about them and about upper middle class people, in general, since I know and am related to so many. The short version of their story is that they both lifted themselves up through higher education, my sister via an undergraduate scholarship to Northwestern University and another scholarship to obtain a Master's at Stanford. Her husband worked his way through Northwestern on scholarships, work-study and waiting tables, then later obtained a Master's in education at one of the University of California schools around the time that my sister obtained her graduate degree, and he more recently earned an MBA from Tulane, just blocks from their home. My sister works for the public schools and my brother-in-law is an educational software consultant.
Their two girls attend what seems to be one of the, if not the, premier schools in NOLA. Lusher Charter School caters primarily to residents of Uptown and the even higher-end Garden District.
Lusher's academics, sports teams and art programs are second to none. Most of the parents of the students there are in the professional class: professors, doctors, lawyers, engineers, business owners and the like. Also some of those members of the idle upper class who are probably still living off of the fortunes attained by their slave-owning ancestors.
Lusher's biggest fundraiser event of the year is the crawfish boil, which my son and I were able to attend only briefly on Saturday prior to our flight back to our dreary State. We ate crepes from Crepes a la Cart, our final NOLA meal for this trip. Neither of us were up to eating a heaping plate of crawfish before our day of traveling.
We were there long enough for my son to smash an egg with confetti in it on my head.
Goodbye Vacation Beard
One of the things that I typically do, or don't do, while on vacation is shave. I have called it my "vacation beard" over the years, since I can grow a scruffy beard in a matter of days.
I concede that it looked quite scruffy and not very attractive. Not like the super smooth beard that so many Millennials sport.
Given about three more weeks off, I could grown such a beard, although mine would be have gray. But alas and alack, this was not the time for me to officially grow one. The photo may not show it well, but in the light many of my beard hairs appear to be gray, and that is not a great look for someone who may still pursue new employment. Say what you will about the illegality of age discrimination, but my personal observations have been that those with gray beards are rarely hired for municipal government jobs unless they are well-known stars, which I am not.
Totally Bummed
So returning to thirty degree weather from seventy-five degree weather, eating noodles and ground beef-based dinners after eating like Kings, going back to work for an ultra-conservative town and living in a messy small home after staying in a meticulously clean large home (did I mention that my sister and her husband hire cleaners every week?) is somewhat of a let-down.
Both my son and I became mildly depressed upon our return.
I told him and the rest of my family that what I want to be when I grow up is a wealthy New Orleanian. Someone who can take his time to enjoy the finer things in life and perhaps work on a business deal here and there while I am at it.
When I asked my very science-minded jazz-loving son what he thought my chances were of becoming a wealthy New Orleanian who could while away the hours strolling the town, eating whatever I please, taking in live music and living the genteel life unknown to those of my ilk, he placed the likelihood at .00001%. If you are not adept at rapidly converting decimals to fractions, that equates to a one in ten million chance.
Not so bad. Better chances than winning the lottery. But he told me that he was rounding up...a lot.
Well, I guess that in lieu of becoming a wealthy denizen of New Orleans, I will look forward to traveling there with my son again next spring break. Our daughter, his sister, is on her spring break this week but is staying local and doing fun things with her friends in the Chicago area.
Me, I am back to the old grind. Trying to catch back up to speed on the numerous development-related projects that I am involved with. I had about three dozen messages to reply to upon my return to work this past Monday. Most are extremely mundane.
I do feel bummed out, to say the least.
One positive though: after being around my sister's family and their successful entrepreneurial friends, it helped reignite the spark that I am trying to fan into a flame and go out there, put myself on the line a little bit and launch my own small side business.
One last thing...
I only left there three days ago, but I do know what it means to miss New Orleans.
I just counted $260 left in my wallet after having left with just under $900 in cash. Do not think that means we "only" spent six hundred and change while we were there. I engaged in most forms of spending with the exception of having written a check.
I had been a passenger in an Uber-driven car on several occasions including the most drunken evening that I have had in the past ten or so years, back in the city of my undergraduate years, Mad-City last year.
My sister insisted that we use Uber while in NOLA, so we did a few times. I also ordered an Uber from Midway Airport, where we flew in and out of via Southwest Airlines, to the house where my siblings and I grew up and where my mother still lives in Evanston. That ride alone was over $50, plus I tipped a generous ten spot. Same thing in NOLA. You would have thought me a wealthy man by my tipping street musicians, performance artists and bands playing in bars. Check up at least a hundred in tips.
For any of you planning a trip that would surely be great, just not as great as ours, you should know that the cabs out of Louis Armstrong Airport charge a flat $36 from there into most points in the City. We took cabs to and from the airport to my sister's house, so with the $7 tips on both rides, chalk that up to another $86 in cab fare.
Also, for those of you unfamiliar with NOLA, you can still travel through the City via streetcar. To be clear, it is not a freakin' trolley. Don't be an idiot and refer to it as a trolley, like I used to and I still heard some tourists with less knowledge of the city than I possess calling it that. It's a streetcar, not a trolley. You can ride on one by putting a dollar and a quarter into the slot for any ride or purchase a 24-hour pass like my son and I did for $3.
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| This is a streetcar folks, not a trolley. |
I also paid for other things, like a huge meal, with my credit card. I paid for another huge meal with my debit card. I purchased CDs, a tie with trumpets on it, NOLA-inspired spices and tee-shirts with my debit card too. I probably made another $400 or so in purchases with my credit and debit cards.
If I was testifying in court about our spending for the week, I would be forced to admit that I do not know the exact amount but would estimate it between nine hundred and one grand. That does not include our air fare and we paid exactly zero for five nights of lodging in my sister's guest room.
Our reservations for the same room have been submitted for next March.
We Ate Like Kings
My goodness, did we eat well. My sister and her family live in a beautiful home on a block of million-dollar-plus homes a few blocks off of St. Charles Avenue near Audubon Park. The closest type of home for sale in their neighborhood like theirs is currently on the market for $815,000 but their home has more character than this one. There is a house on the market for $1.7 million at the end of their block, but that one is significantly larger and fancier than theirs.
There is a street called Freret near their home that has been developing rapidly the past few years and attracting many new trendy restaurants.
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| My noodle and shrimp dish at Mint. |
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| Dat Dog is freakin' awesome! |
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| Our nacho appetizer, my son's red cream soda and my pina colada at Rum House. |
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| A fantastic Po-boy sandwich from Mahoney's. |
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| My jambalaya at Royal House. |
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| We loved our dinner at Palm Court too. |
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| My lunch at Flambeaux was great! |
When the bill came and I glanced a number just under two hundred, I began reaching for my wallet. Being truthful, I admit that I was going to suggest splitting the bill since it was my son and I versus the four of them and it was not our suggestion to go there and sit somewhere for two hours on our last night in town. My brother-in-law waved me off and said that he had already taken care of it, which is undoubtedly a classy thing to do. I was somewhat surprised, too. Had I known he would do that, I probably would have ordered a cocktail too.
The Music
What can I say about the music? It was freakin' awesome!
Tuesday night, we caught the Rebirth Brass Band, my son's favorite brass band and one of the most popular party bands around. They play every Tuesday night at 10:00 PM at Maple Leaf Bar, just a few miles from my sister's house. It would have been great if they started at 10:00, which I had already been complaining was too late.
As the small venue became more and more crowded, the minutes and then hours began to pass. They still did not start at 11:00, at which time my bad ankle was very sore and I could not turn my body without hitting someone. It was about 11:20 when they finally started, but my God, did they put on a show. They were so loud, so good, so creative and got the crowd into it in nearly every song. We finally left around 1:00 AM, dog tired, and they had just started their second set. It was awesome!
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| The Good For Nothin' Band last Thursday at Maison |
Some of the street musicians are on par with the jazz clubs, and we spent quite a while listening to many of them. As I mentioned, I tipped anyone who we listened to at least one song from.
I should also mention that we spent quite a bit of time watching street performers, including this guy who escaped a straight jacket by supposedly dislocating both of his arms. It looked painful, thus my groan while watching. And a well-earned $10 tip.
Art Galleries
On our last full night in town, my son and I popped into about eight art galleries, all of them different. In one of them, an obviously wealthy woman was purchasing a five-figure painting that was priced at about twenty grand. There were many such art works there and I had to remind my son and myself not to hit one or damage one accidentally.
I cannot recall all of their names, but they were mostly along Royal Street, which has become one of our two favorite streets in the Quarter, along with Decatur. Most of the galleries do not allow photos of the art work, which prompted me to suggest to my son that I purchase glasses that can record things for this blog's purposes. If you have not seen these eclectic art galleries, I strongly urge you to visit them if you get the chance.
In one of the galleries, we spoke at length to artist Adrian Fulton, easily the nicest and most accessible artist in this area. We picked his brain for about fifteen minutes, as he explained his inspiration to become an artist after leaving the corporate world years ago. When I explained that I would have already spent a million bucks on art last week if I had it, but wanted to purchase his Jim Morrison painting, he explained that he did not have business cards but that I could take a photo of his "card." When I asked him to pose with it, he graciously did. What a cool guy.
While Mr. Fulton is the most accessible, we visited others where the proprietors immediately turned their noses up at us. Dressed in our jeans and tee-shirts and sporting scruffy facial hair, I suppose that we did not look like likely purchasers of expensive art. And they were right, but someday we might be.
Continued My Avid Reading
Of course I brought a book with me on the trip. I was in the midst of finishing Dollars and Sense by Dan Ariely when I happened across an interesting sounding book on my sister's bookshelves. Thus, I began reading The Redneck Manifesto: How Hill-Billies, Hicks and White Trash Became America's Scapegoats by Jim Goad. That became my morning reading on my sister's back porch while sipping their high-end organic coffee.
While walking from their home all the way to the Quarter last Thursday, my son and I stopped in the Milton H. Latter Memorial Library just blocks from their house. When a book lover like me sees a library like this, it's like a drug addict seeing his dealer. I had to stop in and I had to get something.
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| The local library in Uptown New Orleans. |
My sister gave me the White Trash book, which I have found to be one of the more interesting things that I have read in a while. It details how America's class system was formed from top to bottom and, don't kid yourself, America has one of the strongest class systems of any country. There will be a few socioeconomic class posts in the future inspired by this fascinating read.
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| The four books that I am currently reading. |
Lusher Crawfish Boil
My sister, her husband and my two nieces live a decidedly upper middle class existence. More power to them. Am I jealous? Well...yes.
I could write at length about them and about upper middle class people, in general, since I know and am related to so many. The short version of their story is that they both lifted themselves up through higher education, my sister via an undergraduate scholarship to Northwestern University and another scholarship to obtain a Master's at Stanford. Her husband worked his way through Northwestern on scholarships, work-study and waiting tables, then later obtained a Master's in education at one of the University of California schools around the time that my sister obtained her graduate degree, and he more recently earned an MBA from Tulane, just blocks from their home. My sister works for the public schools and my brother-in-law is an educational software consultant.
Their two girls attend what seems to be one of the, if not the, premier schools in NOLA. Lusher Charter School caters primarily to residents of Uptown and the even higher-end Garden District.
Lusher's academics, sports teams and art programs are second to none. Most of the parents of the students there are in the professional class: professors, doctors, lawyers, engineers, business owners and the like. Also some of those members of the idle upper class who are probably still living off of the fortunes attained by their slave-owning ancestors.
Lusher's biggest fundraiser event of the year is the crawfish boil, which my son and I were able to attend only briefly on Saturday prior to our flight back to our dreary State. We ate crepes from Crepes a la Cart, our final NOLA meal for this trip. Neither of us were up to eating a heaping plate of crawfish before our day of traveling.
We were there long enough for my son to smash an egg with confetti in it on my head.
Goodbye Vacation Beard
One of the things that I typically do, or don't do, while on vacation is shave. I have called it my "vacation beard" over the years, since I can grow a scruffy beard in a matter of days.
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| My vacation beard before I shaved it off on Sunday. |
Given about three more weeks off, I could grown such a beard, although mine would be have gray. But alas and alack, this was not the time for me to officially grow one. The photo may not show it well, but in the light many of my beard hairs appear to be gray, and that is not a great look for someone who may still pursue new employment. Say what you will about the illegality of age discrimination, but my personal observations have been that those with gray beards are rarely hired for municipal government jobs unless they are well-known stars, which I am not.
Totally Bummed
So returning to thirty degree weather from seventy-five degree weather, eating noodles and ground beef-based dinners after eating like Kings, going back to work for an ultra-conservative town and living in a messy small home after staying in a meticulously clean large home (did I mention that my sister and her husband hire cleaners every week?) is somewhat of a let-down.
Both my son and I became mildly depressed upon our return.
I told him and the rest of my family that what I want to be when I grow up is a wealthy New Orleanian. Someone who can take his time to enjoy the finer things in life and perhaps work on a business deal here and there while I am at it.
When I asked my very science-minded jazz-loving son what he thought my chances were of becoming a wealthy New Orleanian who could while away the hours strolling the town, eating whatever I please, taking in live music and living the genteel life unknown to those of my ilk, he placed the likelihood at .00001%. If you are not adept at rapidly converting decimals to fractions, that equates to a one in ten million chance.
Not so bad. Better chances than winning the lottery. But he told me that he was rounding up...a lot.
Well, I guess that in lieu of becoming a wealthy denizen of New Orleans, I will look forward to traveling there with my son again next spring break. Our daughter, his sister, is on her spring break this week but is staying local and doing fun things with her friends in the Chicago area.
Me, I am back to the old grind. Trying to catch back up to speed on the numerous development-related projects that I am involved with. I had about three dozen messages to reply to upon my return to work this past Monday. Most are extremely mundane.
I do feel bummed out, to say the least.
One positive though: after being around my sister's family and their successful entrepreneurial friends, it helped reignite the spark that I am trying to fan into a flame and go out there, put myself on the line a little bit and launch my own small side business.
One last thing...
I only left there three days ago, but I do know what it means to miss New Orleans.
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