Arrived in New Orleans on 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 pi cked up my packeet, 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 blo9cks 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 electiricans, all from Oregon or Washington. We went out into St. 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 an 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 oout, all sheet rock, electrical, plumbling 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 9/28
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