Tomorrow!

YAY!

So more good news.

Greetings blog fans, So it seems that no one even has a guess on the song title, and also no one has made any Iditarod picks. Hmm.. I know that updates are coming fast and furious, but I is a busy guy with a lot to do and much to blog.

So, my TV functions again. As it turns out the maintenance types cut the cable and it had to be replaced. However the apartment complex is gonna bill the maintenance people for the cost to replace the cable. And I got my no service credit and that will cover just about all of the cost of having the dude come out and do the service call. So all in all, it works out well. Plus I can again enjoy the History channel. Hooray History!

Other then that, well, I have some correspondance to take care of this evening. So beware! There maybe a letter coming to you. I know how important mail is. And on that note, I would advise all of you to go to the post office and buy stamps, make sure to ask for the forever stamps. The rates are going up again. They always do, but stock up on forever stamps.

Hooray!

Ok, so this is an amazing post from my desktop. I am working on getting it synced back up with the laptop. I have to move calendars and such and transfer pictures. I'm gonna have to move some musics eventually, but that can happen later. The pictures and the calendars are the big things that have to be moved. And then we have the problem that I love having the play button right on my keyboard. I may have to get a new keyboard with such buttons, cause that is super sweet.

But now we get into the big news of this post, because on March 1st there will be a big event. It is the beginning of the 36th Iditarod! For those of you who don't know, this is the amazing dogsled race across Alaska. Dogsleds have been used in Alaska for a long time, however this trail dates back to the diphtheria epidemic in early 1925. The town of Nome was struck by the epidemic and the nearest serum was in Anchorage. The only name brave/crazy enough to try and fly it was in the lower 48. The answer was dogsled.

This year being an even year the race will follow the northern route. The teams must cover 1132 miles of ice and snow. The object is to see which team can complete the course in the shortest amount of time. But they must complete this under their own power and without aid from others. To stop your time the nose of the first dog in your team must cross the finish line.

Now, since I figure that most of you don't know that much about the Iditarod, I shall let you know some of the basic rules. First off you must be at least 18, and completed in a qualifying race before th Iditarod. The race begins at 10 Am in Anchorage, Alaska, regardless of weather.

Now then, for the race. The musher must personally sign in at each checkpoint before continuing. The team must take one mandatory 24 hour stop, but it is up to the musher where to take it. The musher must stay at that checkpoint for the entire 24 hour period. The musher must also take one eight hour stop on the Yukon and one 8 hour stop at White mountain. But you cannot combine any of the stops.

There are restrictions on your sled and a list of mandatory items. But as a note, one mandatory item is 8 booties for each dog. Also you have to always carry emergency dog food on the sled. Also, for navigation you are restricted to traditional means. Map and compass, no gps, no night vision goggles...nothing electric or mechanical to measure speed and direction.

Oh, and just so you know there are several pages of rules regarding the dogs. Mandatory vet checks, you have to carry your vet book, if they think you've been cruel to your dogs you can be detained for 8 hours.

You are allowed to ship food and gear to certain checkpoints along the trail to resupply.

Now then, since I haven't followed as closely in years past , mostly due to not realizing when the start is until its is nearly over, this year I will be rooting for Lance Mackey of Fairbanks Alaska. Mostly this is based on the fact that he is the defending champ. He is starting in position 10 this year. There are 96 people starting this year. Most hail from the USA and Canada, but there are mushers from Norway, Germany, Belgium, and a musher from France and Italy. There are 74 male mushers signed up and 22 female mushers starting the race. 64 of them are veterans and 32 are rookies.

Now, here is the fun part. I said that my pick was Lance Mackey for the veteran and I'll be pulling for Rudi Niggemeier from Germany as my rookie pick. I'm willing to wager a couple beers on this. So here is how this will work, any one who is up for it, make your pick for veteran and rookie musher. At the end of the race the person whose pick ranks highest for their category will win a beer from the person whose pick is lowest in that category. If mushers are disqualified, each person picking a disqualified musher must buy the winner a beer. Anyone who wants to be part of this by all means leave your pick up as a comment. You can find the list of mushers here.

"Life changes like the weather, but a legend never dies"

Ok blog fans! I start this post out with a challenge, can any of you name the song title and the artist of the quote from the title of this post? I realize that the easy way is to just google it, but hopefully someone might know it on their own.

Anyhow, lets do a bit of an update first off. First off, the truck. It is once again running fine, which is good. Stella comes this Friday and I have a functional vehicle to show her around here. I did have to ride my bike into the base to pick it up. But that was kinda fun and a bit of a work out, so it had some pluses.

Next, the desktop. Well as it is rather old, it turns out that the battery on the motherboard finally died. But being a simple watch battery, it really wasn't that hard to locate a new one and now the desktop is back in action. Of course I have to update some stuff on it and then move things from one computer to another and all, but at least it is no longer dead.

It does bring up problem three. There seems to be a virus on my computer. Both norton and windows defender have claimed to have caught it, and quarantined it and removed it. But I still get windows popping up and such. So that is a bother. I will continue to work on it.

And as for the satellite, well, I'm still waiting for their guy to come out on Tuesday and poke things with sticks and do a little voodoo dance to return my dish to a happy functioning receiving state. But I will keep you all updated. I am gonna be getting a no service credit for the time I have no tv, so I'm not paying for tv right now. I continue to watch movies.

As for this weekend, well, it hasn't been too bad. Friday I had to work the desk. Plus I had to ride my bike into base and get the truck, but I had mentioned that already. Then after work several of the people from the office came over and we ordered up some pizza and watched some episodes of SeaQuest, because the captain had pasted away. I forget his name right now, but he was also in Jaws. He said "We're gonnna need a bigger boat."

Saturday was our grand adventure in Las Cruces. We got a few people together to run some errands and then attempt to see the rock crawling stuff. Well, we ended up hitting up several stores and then tried to find the place. But we had directions to where it was headquartered, not the tracks, so we got some iffy directions and then headed off. The road turned to dirt and then it got sandy. The car we were in got stuck, so we had to push it out to more solid ground. We gave up on trying to find it, so we went to get lunch. Then back across the desert to home. Luckily we all managed to get through boarder control.

Saturday night we were back here for another movie and some drinks. We had chocolate-tinis and such, since we are classy like that. And of course after that it was time for sleep.

Today was dull, just some cleaning and a few little errands around town. Plus a nap. However I do have pictures for your viewing pleasure.

This is the desert. Note the way there are plants, but not those really big cacti.

When you get stuck on a dirt road in the middle of the desert, what else is there to do but take a group photo?

Oh, perhaps we should push the car out, this one is just a stagged photo, note the solid ground and lack of driver. But we were a bit to busy to take the real picture while we actually had to push it out

OH NO!!!! The radiation from the nuclear tests around here has created a GIANT MUTANT ROADRUNNER!!!!! Run for the hills!! No one is safe.... oh wait, its artwork, never mind.

Hmmmm

Ok, so lets do a quick rundown.

First up, the truck. As it stands now it is rumbling funny and backfiring. This is not good. I do not like it. I'm gonna have it looked at and hope that it works out.

Next up, my desktop. It has stopped booting up. Currently it comes on, does a check of the memory and then tries to start booting, it then beeps and says "Boot Failure: System Halted". As it turns out I can not boot from a windows CD, this makes me mad.

And then, when I got back my directtv didn't wish to find signal. So I have no television right now. I have called direct tv and they went through a bunch of stuff, none of it worked. So now a technician has to come out and look at it. But he won't be able to get here until next Tuesday. However, they are going to give me a credit cause I have no TV. This particularly ticks me off, cause not only did I miss the new Simpsons, but History Channel was gonna do a history of the joke on Monday, and I wished for to see it.

Luckily however I do have a laptop, which I am very glad that I got. And it looks like the only thing I have to watch till next Tuesday is DVD's, so its good that I have quite a collection of them. Also I'm happy that this is a three day week. Hooray RDO, even if I have to work the desk for the afternoon. I still get to sleep in. And while it does mean that I'll have a full day of work the day that I have to go pick up Stella, it also means that I get to have a full day off while she is here, and that is a good thing.

Oh, and I may be going to a rock crawling thing on this Saturday, now, I will not be entering, I will only be watching. So don't think that I'm gonna mess up the truck anymore then it already is. Any how, I'm thinking now is a good time for some dinner, and then I shall watch a movie. There will be more posts later.

A plethora of posts

Well, while others maybe lacking in their postings, fear not blogfans! For I endeavor to keep new posts coming. And lucky as you are, there be pictures!

So I thought I'd put up a few pictures from the ASBC graduation party and then seeing downtown Montgomery.

What a cutie!

Yes, eventually there will be posting again with all the words and the sentences and full thoughts and the like.

Engagement Pictures!

So we finally got the engagement pictures that were taken over the summer. I figured that I would post some of them such that you may all see them and know of our engagement.

Yes, it is a butt picture.

Back in the Land of Enchantment

So I made it back to the deserts of New Mexico. And I thought that I might give you all a little update. As it stands I've spent the past 6 weeks in Alabama and the surroundings. I managed to visit Atlanta, got to see the world of Coke. They let me in free since I'm in the military and then as you go through you get to sample lots of different Coke from around the world. Plus they give you a free bottle of coke, so I have that one a shelf in my room.

The other big trip was out to Mardi Gras. Went down to New Orleans and such, there was much partying and enjoyment. There are a couple posts on here dedicated to the trip, along with pictures and links to more pictures.

Then there was the day trip out to the battleship Alabama. Got to tour around it and climb up and down. There was also a sub, and then some planes around the area. There are also pictures posted up on an earlier post as well.

The best thing though was Stella got to come down and visit for a couple of days. It is all wonderful to get to see her. We toured around amazing downtown Montgomery. Its a shame its not season for the Biscuits, I would have got to see them.

Other then that there was some exploring of the area, poking around base. Ran plenty of miles, played Icarus and all. It was good to meet various other peoples of the Air Force and all.

Then I had to fly back. I had to stuff plenty of stuff in my bags, which ended up being rather heavy. One was about 65 pounds the other about 45 pounds. Then there was my carry on and my laptop bag. So there was much to lug about. I flew into Atlanta and then waited there for about 5 hours. I ended up doing all my eating at the Atlanta airport yesterday. Oh, and I would like to say that the Atlanta airport sucks. It takes a long time to get to taxi to a gate, its a pain to get around. Also they charge for interwebs. That is just not fun at all. But I finally got on my plane, and it wasn't overly packed. So I got to have some seats to myself. However my carry on didn't fit, so I had to have them check it. Then I got to sit around for hours for the flight. I got to El Paso, grabbed my bags to find that the wheels have been broken off my one bag, the newer one. Which kinda sucks, but considering I was flying Delta (Don't Expect Luggage to Arrive) my bags did make it.

Next was go out to get the truck. It was kinda upsetting cause I got there, put the key in, turned it and nothing happened. I flagged down a shuttle driver to get a jump, and still nothing. Luckily he mentioned that kill switch and then I remembered that there is on. So while I was scared for a bit, but the truck started and I started to drive.

Finally made it back in, got to take my shower and head to bed. I waited to unpack till this morning. And now, I do believe that it is about time to to take a nap. So I wish you well, and would like to wish the Fork a happy birthday.

Safely Back in Alamo

One of the greatest things about coming home is taking a shower in your own shower (which is especially nice if you've been showering for 6 week in a tiny shower that is not big enough to turn in and shoots water about chest level) and sleeping in your own bed. And I get to do these, well, I took my shower and now I am drawing near sleeping. However I wanted to put up a bit of a post and let you all know that I am home safely.

Oh and how about a picture?

Valentines Day

So it seems that Valentines Day is near. And so of course there are all sorts of commercials urging me to purchase different things for that special person in my life. Now, I find these quite humorous, so I thought that we could have a little chat about them.

First off we'll consider various jeweler commercials. I've see a bunch of Kay's commercials which urge me to purchase a diamond necklace or earrings or the like. And they are willing to sell me such a necklace or earrings for the low price of several hundred to several thousand dollars. How nice of them. They try getting you to give in with the slogan "Every kiss begins with Kay". Now I can point out that I have been kissed more then once in my life, but none of them have began with Kay, in fact, I have never made any purchase from Kay's, so nuts to them!

Next up we have our good friends at Vermont Teddy Bear land. Now they are willing to make a bear and ship it to a home or office. And if I am to believe their commercials, such a bear will make women gather together (with the effect of all the women not receiving a bear jealous of the woman receiving the bear), and all the men sneak over to watch this gathering of women. Now there is a problem with this, note the way that all productivity comes to a halt? That just wouldn't be a responsible thing to do, I mean, think of those poor stock holders, with the market being low as it is, do I really want to make this stock drop lower due to a careless bearing? They clam that they can deliver a bear to a home, but based on this commercial I'm not sure that I want to be sending a bear which would force a large gathering of women in a home, especially if someone is not suspecting such a gathering. So there will be no bears given this Valentines day.

And of course we must discuss chocolate. Having only seen a Russell chocolate commercial I shall have to pick on them. Now this fine commercial features men telling how they must buy this heart shaped box of chocolate and how they are afraid of not bringing home this box. Now, unless I've missed the point Valentine's Day should not carry the risk of bodily harm due to poor choice of box shape for chocolate. Apparently arriving with a box of chocolates shaped like a rhombus may cause some poor guy to be sent to the hospital from being beaten around the head and neck. So yes, I think that I will skip the heart shaped box of chocolate.

And the last commercial that we'll discuss today is the Pajamagram. Now, overall I think that this is the best idea I've seen from these commercials. I'm still not sure why they send pajamas in a hat box, but what do I know about fashion? Anyhow, these commercials would lead me to believe that women who get pajamas for Valentines Day like to lounge about in them, which I would suppose is good, I'll take it as a sign they like this gift. However I will not be giving any pajamas this year.

Then of course there is the old stand by of flowers. Now I haven't really seen any flower commercials, but we can still have a little chat about them. I tried that last year, I thought that a dozen red roses would arrive at Stella's apartment. Now, a mess of lilies showed up instead. It wasn't that bad cause first off Stella likes lilies and since I called and complained they refunded my money. But I'm not sending flowers this year.

So after all of this you may wonder what it is that I got Stella this year for Valentine's Day. Well, to start I got her plane tickets. Yup, you read that right, now doesn't that sound romantic? Anyhow, if you want to know what else... well you'll have to talk to Stella to get those answers.

Hooray Boots!

So I was wearing my old black boots. The ones that I spent most of my POC years in. They were even featured in what my photography professor selected as one of the best photos of that class. While I would post such a picture on here, I have found that I don't have it here, so you will just have to imagine black boots. They make my feet hurt, and they also make my knees hurt. However, at lunch I was able to change over to my green boots. These are the boots that I don't have to shine. Also, they have much more padding under my feet, which leads to less hurting. So all is good, I approve of these boots.

Also, I stopped by the post office today. It was good, I got a box from my mother. I was all happy! I now have chocolate, and some mail that I will have to go through tonight. So hooray for that. Plus I have some books that I am reading through, which I like.

OOOO, you know what? Stella comes on Thursday! Hooray!

Any how, I just thought I'd put up a little post so that you are not worried about me. I will post again later.

A Battleship

Greetings merry blogfans! Fear not, I have not forgotten you. Here in this time of no blog updates and not even any blog comments, I boldly post such that anyone out there who still reads blogs to have something to read. And even pictures to look at.

So today I visited the USS Alabama. It is a battleship. I thought that I might share a few pictures with you. I realize that there are many of you that were wishing for stories of the elusive jackalope, but sadly, that will still have to wait for another day.

Battleship = big guns

See, there I am!

Once again, its me! You don't get to smile when shooting big guns.

What did I say about big guns?

Goodbye ship, I hope you have a good evening.

Cryptozoology

So let's talk about Bigfoot, the Yeti, Sasquatch if you will. Oh, and I will. So last night I caught Monster Quest on the History Channel. It was on bigfoot and I was intrigued. For you see I think that there may very well be a bigfoot out there somewhere.

Now I have never seen one, been attacked by one, shot one, captured one, eaten one, found one's footprints, hair or dropping. I have not interviewed people that have seen them. But I have read a bit on the subject, and being my blog I can write whatever I darn well please on here. And you being the blog fans can choose to read or not read it, so it all works out.

Now first off, bigfoot (I realize there are other names and all, but for this I'll stick to just one) is supposedly a large primate, rather covered in hair, tends to walk upright, leaves bigfoot prints. Now we are talking about something between a human and gorilla.

Most of these sightings tend to occur in places like Alaska, Montana or the vast wilderness of Canada. They tend to be out in places like forests. Overall its not places that a lot of people tend to happen so there aren't a lot of run ins. If you don't think that there are animals that we haven't discovered ask anyone about the rain forest, people haven't gone there, they don't know whats out there. So just think what could be lurking in our own forests, maybe a bit smarter then we want to accept and openly trying to avoid us. If it is a creature that lives in forest, then its on its home turf and would be able to avoid us much easier then we would think.

Now, a chunk of these sightings come from people who have wandered into the woods who don't really belong. City types that wanna go camping, kids looking for some where to get drunk. I don't believe their stories for the most part, as they tend not to know what is in the woods, and a bigfoot may turn out to just be the wind. However there are reports of people who live out in the area, hunters and other outdoorsmen. These people have spent time in the woods and know what is and should be out there. When they come out to say something odd is out there, I'd have more of a reason to believe them. They know what lives there and what is just odd.

So as these people report strange things I'd be willing to believe that there may very well be strange things out there. Now people say that we would have found the bodies of ones that died of natural causes. But then again how many times have we found a bear that died of natural causes? I mean, there are critters which would clean that up, nature seems to have this whole thing worked out quite well.


Overall I think that there is a good chance there is something out there that we don't know yet. I realize that a lot of cryptozoologists are nut cases and such, and that not all the critters they believe in exist, but I'm sure that there is still plenty out there we haven't found yet. And then there is always the jackalope, but that is a story for a different day.

A few random thoughts.

Here there be dragons

Where did my pillow cases go?

Hooray Giants!

Just so you can keep up.

I don't wanna run another 3 miles.

US Americans need maps.

Goodnight.

The Big Easy (Part 2)

Well, we have now returned from our break. I hope that all you merry blog fans have enjoyed the intermission with various pictures. We now rejoin this story. If you need to get updated on the beginning of the story it is here.

We can see here a mounted cop riding to deal with the shooting. Yes, after we ran a bit we stopped and I did take a picture of the cops responding. But don't fear, I was safe and such. I thought that you might like to see the police in action. Since I'm sure that most of you have not been that close to a shooting and most likely have no real desire to ever be that close.

So yes, after the shooting we headed back to the hotel and got ready to go back out to Bourbon St for more Mardi Gras wildness. We headed back out and once again acquired some beverages. We meant up with the people we watched the second parade with and wandered down the street. It was packed Saturday night. I did manage to get up to a balcony at one of the bars. It was fairly packed, but I got to snap off a view of Bourbon St from it, so you could all enjoy the partying from a different perspective. Overall it was much of the same going on. One of the girls wanted to go dancing, but we had to go into a club, cause apparently dancing in the street isn't good enough. So we went in and there was some dancing, and being that she was drunk kept wanting pictures taken. I had to save my married friend from a drunk guy that kept trying to dance with her. Overall I called it an early night and headed home around 3 in the morning. I got a hot dog on the way home, and overall it wasn't bad. There were many hot dog stands up and down the street, as far as drunk food goes, it wasn't bad at all. On the way back to the hotel room we did see a few drag queens. We got back safely and crashed for the night.

We got up the next morning and had to rescue the car and pack up so we could check out. As we packed up to leave we decided that we had too many beads, at least more then we needed. We all collected up what we wanted and then left a pile of our booty in the room. We gathered up our stuff and headed out. But then we need food so we drove back to Bourbon St, there was this cool open air cafe. We had beignets, which are little pastry like things with powdered sugar. There was a live band playing musics as we ate which was really cool. From there we strolled down the street a little more and there was a group tossing out energy drinks. The one I got was called urban detox, which was actually quite good. We ended up one street down strolling along stopping in little shops and such. Saw some street performers and all. There was a guy totally covered in plastic bags. We ended up in Jackson Square which had a bunch of local artists and all. Then we walked up and were standing on the bank of the Mississippi River. It is really amazing to see how fast the city slopes down into a bowl. As we stood on the bank we were at the second floor level of buildings about 100 yards away. We finally headed back to the car and started our drive home.

In my wandering I came across pirates and drunks, college kids and old partiers, there were even 3 guys dressed as the Blues Brothers and the Penguin. I saw a human statue and a voodoo shop. Overall it was quite a trip.

So on I10 out of town you can see areas of the 9th ward. Now I must make this warning statement quite clear ***WARNING*** Unless you have amazing good reason do not go into the 9th ward!!!***WARNING*** Now then, the 9th ward is the poor area of town, it was hit hard by Katrina, most of it was not rebuilt. The people there have a tendency to carry firearms with them. The cops don't go there. Its not safe at all. I talked to a few people that lived there and learned a thing or two.

Anyhow, on our drive home we hit some traffic and such. As it turns out we missed most of the first half of the Super Bowl. And concerning the Super Bowl... well, that is a story for another post.

Now, I realize that there isn't a lot of pictures up from this trip on the blog. This post is particularly lacking in photos, the connection here sucks and I am tired, so I shall not be fighting it. Fear not, I did take plenty of photos. You can find them here. And if you are looking for some more of my pictures you might want to gaze at this site. Should anyone have questions about any of the pictures let me know.

The Big Easy (The Intermission)

So I am here on my lunch break and I thought that I would put up a few more pictures of my Nawlins adventure. Hope you all enjoy.

The Big Easy

So what a very exciting post this is. First off this is post 100 on my blog. I know you have all been keeping track. Second off, it shall be a story of my adventure at Mardi Gras. And should all go well, there will be pictures. If not, look for them to arrive soon.

So I set off to New Orleans, you know, a sleepy little town in Louisiana. As you will remember, Principal Skinner, who is from New Orleans, told us "Not really a party town. Though if I remember correctly they occasionally a function called Marty's … something.", and he is an educator, why would he lie? So I set forth for a quiet weekend to relax and explore a city. But wouldn't you know it, I would happen to show up during this function "Marty's... something". Though apparently Marty is not a good speller and his something has become Mardi Gras. Which as far as I can tell is actually translated to mean "drinking and throwing beads." But that is a very loose translation.

In all actuality I was going to Mardi Gras and was pumped. I mean, I happened to be on this side of the country, and I had the opportunity, so why not take it. So we packed and piled into the car after class on Friday. Now we had been up since about 6:30 in the am, had done the class thing, ended up running about 3 miles, and then we set out. We stopped for food and gas and such and ended up getting into New Orleans around 930 pm. We found the hotel, which was actually a very nice hotel, good location (only a few blocks from Bourbon St). Well, it was suppose to have parking, but there were people who didn't pay but were still in a spot, so we had to double park to unload. We tried to convince the hotel people to let us stay there, but as we argued they said we had to move our car or they would call the police. Which seems odd, as we were willing to pay the required amount to park legally, but they would have none of it. So my friend and I cruised around, found a lot, that we had to pay every 12 hours, parked and headed back to the hotel.

We got back to the room and our group got ready to roll out and party a bit. At this point its about 11. And off we go to Bourbon St. Once we got there we found some tasty beverages, I recommend the hand grenades, they were quite good (and I do still have one of the glasses). Then we ran into one of our friends who was also down for Mardi Gras. He and one guy from our group ended up disappearing, so now I was in a group of 4 people. We strolled down Bourbon St, took in the experience, had some drinks. There are balconies at some of the bars and some of the hotel rooms. And people stand up there, which is a really cool view of the wildness, but they toss beads. And so beads are flying through the air. Now I recommend if you go you watch out for these airborne beads, as they hurt when they hit your head. But you should catch them and wear them about. For this is Mardi Gras. At once point we looked up to a balcony and the old question of what happens to old wrestlers was answered, for Hulk Hogan was up on a balcony tossing beads to people. We continued down the street, there was much partying and such. There was dancing in the street, people in costume, people with large signs saying this whole thing was evil and such. When we got to the end of Bourbon St we started texting our friend to find were he ended up, and as it turns out he was at a club called Bourbon Cowboy, which happens to be at the end of Bourbon St, right about where we were. Well we go to go in, he meets us and apparently he made friends with someone, cause we were let in with no cover, which was sweet. So there was dancing and partying and such in the club. Long around 4 am some of us decided that it was about all the partying we could handle and set out back home. Of course there was more partying going on on the walk back, but oh well. We got back to the hotel and were getting ready for bed when it hit us that we should pay for the parking for a bit longer. Well I ended up heading out and paid for the next 12 hours at 5 am. I finally got back and changed and brushed my teeth and climbed in bed around 6. Let me tell you, your legs will hurt. Thursday we ran a PFT, Friday we ran 3 miles, then walked all over New Orleans, then danced. My legs hurt.

Well, we ended up getting up at about 10 AM, which isn't a lot of sleep. We headed out to get food. Being down near the gulf we found a nice seafood place and had Po-boys, which are sandwiches. They were huge, and so we ate up and then it was parade time. The first parade we made it to was the Krewe of Iris. Its theme was Give My Regards to Broadway, so it float was fashioned after a show, along the lines of Damn Yankees and Annie. Now, these are good size floats, like 2 layers, which people tossing out beads and coins and stuffed animals and random stuff. But overall it was cool to see, and I came back with a bunch of beads. After that we returned back to the hotel room for a bit of a crash. Which was a grand idea, because we were all tired. So we took a nap.

Then we got up to head out to the next parade. We found a friend of one of the people in our group, who oddly enough was with a guy that I went to field training with. So that was cool. Well, that parade was suppose to start around 430 pm. So we hung out, there was some wildness, toilet paper chucked back and forth across the street, chatted with cops and all. Long about 8pm the parade made it to us. Now this one was the Krewe of Endymion. It happened to be a Salute to Rudyard Kipling. Oh, and Kevin Costner was the grand marshal. Well there was more bead throwing and catching. Lots of cool floats and all. Well, 2 of our group headed back a bit early cause they were getting cold. So the 3 guys stayed till the end of the parade. The last float a guy tossed a bag of beads up to a window. As it turns out it broke the window, the lady inside was a bit confused. So as the parade wraps up we head out. We stop and trade a stuffed football for some beers. Now as we wandered on we noticed there were 2 groups of people standing around. Both were grouped up, staring the other group down, with an open area in between. As though a fight were to break out soon, we moved quickly. So we were walking down Canal St, we stopped and asked a mounted cop if we could pet his horse. (For you see, in class we were told that if you pet the horses you would be arrested, and we wished to not go to jail, but be able to say we pet the horses) Shortly after we were walking down Canal St and then we heard POP POP POP, as in 3 gun shots. We turned and there was a crowd of people all running away from where those two groups had been standing. Now, it is quite the experience to be running away from a shooting with an open beer in your hand, beads about the neck and a camera around your neck. And I didn't spill my beer. So we stopped after a bit and watched mounted cops charge in and cop cars flying down the trolley path. As it turns out the shooting made the news here. But we continued our walk to the hotel room, stopping for some cotton candy, cause one guy wanted some. As it turns out shooting tend to dissipates lines around places. But we made it safely back to the hotel and then it was time to get ready to head out for the night.

Then we headed back to Bourbon St for the night...

As it stands I am getting sleepy from all these adventures, there shall be the exciting conclusion to this adventure soon!