I've had a hard time taking my eyes and mind off of New Orleans since Katrina changed directions and took aim at the city as she exited Florida on Friday, August 26th, and these days of Carnival have been among the most compelling since the water that came from the man-made flood that followed her, receded. My view, alas, is from afar and I'm left trying to glean feeling from what I can find on CNN, in the blogosphere and from the webcams at NOLA.com. There have been brief updates from my son who lives there and his brother who is visiting, but I am not surprised that contact has gotten sparse as the celebration progresses. At least as it appears online from the ParadeCam at Fat Harry's, the crowds along the Uptown parade route have been considerably smaller than the ones I remember watching last year, and the cold and rain both last weekend and again yesterday seem like a cruel twist of the knife, supplied by Mother Nature. That said, it looks like the sun is shining this Sunday morning and real crowds are staking out their decorated spots with tents and ladders, and gathering to view a day of parades made even fuller by the rescheduling that resulted from yesterday's rain. My thoughts and my prayers are with the people of New Orleans and their visitors, this Mardi Gras.
There's been a great deal of discussion this week about whether or not a company based in the United Arab Emirates should be allowed to purchase some of our seaport operations from the British company that has been operating them. I know enough to understand that I don't know what's right and wrong here, but I believe what we're running into is a national lack of confidence in this administration's competence, and suddenly, ordinary people as well as elected officials from both parties wonder if we can safely believe the same people who told us that we'd won the war in Iraq and that they were doing everything possible to help the situation in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, when they say that it's safe to let any foreign entity have any ownership or interest in our seaports. This administration's record in matters of national security is worse than suspect, and any credibility they might have once had, is gone.
I've been a while between posts and I thank my dear blogosphere friends for their inquiries as to my well-being. I haven't felt great the last few weeks, as if I've had just a touch of what has made everybody else in the office terribly ill, but it's been enough to leave me spent after work, which has been particularly stressful and energy-consuming, as we're evaluating and changing our systems at the Knocking Shit Down Company. It needed doing, given our rapid growth. I've also been particularly pensive, wondering where I was heading and what I should be doing to choose where I go rather than just drift there, feeling sad, a little lonely and bone tired. I've had things I wanted to write about but lacked the incentive or energy to actually do it.
I think I need a little break. I've been a year at the job, and while it's entertaining, it isn't like owning a business where you're motivated to work for years at a time without taking time off because you're looking for the big payoff at the end, as well as the satisfaction of having built something where nothing was before. I just work there, and I will always just work there, so, naturally, my focus is distracted by other opportunities, more likely to provide me with enough to live on and the chance to do some of the things I'd rather be doing. I am distracted by the Matter About Which I Cannot Speak, which continues to progress in our favor, and our patents, the licensing of which has been requiring attention for the first time in some while. I still believe they can be monetized because the product continues to be in demand and the market segment it occupies is expanding rather than contracting. We were too far ahead of our time and I bet the majority of inventors, real inventors, fall in that category. In the meantime, unless the Husband With Whom I Have Completed The Cohabitation Phase Of The Marriage finds work (at least he's looking), I really can't afford to take time off from my job, so I need to find some other way to rejuvenate and energize, to find some excitement from my soul, out.
Yesterday, in a cold drizzle, I went over to the ballpark to take registration for our spring baseball league, in which I will field a team of players from my son's alternative high school. It was chilly and miserable and I didn't have many "customers", as it was the first session and, these days, many folks dowload the form from the website and just mail it in. Still, it was a beginning and maybe, in lieu of adventures or exciting opportunities, a little baseball on the horizon will just have to do.
Peace. Out.
Edit: They don't get Mardi Gras, and they never will, Chris Rose's column in today's (Sunday 2/26) Times-Picayune is well worth a read.
Addendum (Tuesday): I don't know if ya'll have been watching but there's something really special going on in New Orleans. Even if it's just for one Carnival and tomorrow all of the problems will still be there, unsolved, just for today, laissez le bontemps roulez!!
Happy Mardi Gras to all!!!
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