Arrived in New Orleans Wednesday afternoon after a short 200 mile drive. We stayed at the Astor Crown Plaza in the French Quarter. Parking was $31.50 a day if I paid through the hotel. I was cheap and parked the car myself in a parking garage around the corner for a mere $25 a day.
Got settled into our hotel room. Found the registration area for my conference and checked in and picked up my packet, name badge, etc. Lots of hugs and handshakes as I ran into old friends from the previous 11 years of attending this conference.
Met up with some other folks from Portland. We went to dinner at Deanies, a local place, a couple of blocks from the hotel. Good food! Good company! Good night!
Next morning we had to be downstairs at 6:15 a.m. for the first of two community service project days. I went with a group of electricians, all from Oregon or Washington. We went out into Saint Bernard Parish to Chalmette to wire a house that was being refurbished by the St Bernard Project. www.stbernardproject.org - I urge you readers to go to their website and find out about them. They are doing and excellent job with volunteers, donations and grants, to help get homeowners back into their homes. They say they can do it for about $12,000. Of course that is after the house has been cleaned out, all sheet rock, electrical, plumbing and HVAC is removed and has been pressure washed inside and out.
The house I worked on belongs to Will Staggs. I actually met him. He came by to provide some additional information to us. He and his family have been out of the house since August 2005. The spray paint marking is still on the front of the house. The house wasn’t searched until a month after the hurricane on 9/29 by a team from Georgia and they found 0 bodies. After our two days, the house was about 98% roughed in and almost needing the electrical inspector to check it out and approve for cover so it can be sheet rocked.
On Friday night, my union took the Portland group out to dinner. I think the count was 18 people. Had a nice meal with a bunch of good people.
Saturday was the opening of the conference. Pretty much an all day session until 4:30 p.m. That evening we had a banquet, some entertainment and dancing until about 11:00 p.m.
Sunday morning I went to the conference session and stayed until about 10:30 a.m. Said my final good byes and went to our room, packed up, checked out and headed to the dock to start our next adventure.
Haven’t done much exciting since boarding yesterday other than eat and drink.
Today is a day at sea. Tomorrow we will be in Costa Maya, Mexico for the day.
As I write this, Linda is in the Spa having a facial and enjoying herself.
Hope all is well with everyone.
Bob & Linda
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Sounds like a lot of fun so far... And how rewarding that must be to be able to give a family their home back! Wow! That is really something, Bob!!!
ReplyDeleteMom - You look AMAZING in this pic! I know sometimes you feel your progress is slow, but it is DRAMATIC - great job! And I loved hearing that you went to the spa and did something nice for yourself. You deserve it - keep it up :)
Happy Sails!