Continued recap of last weekend

Sunday we went to the aquarium. I was really impressed by how far it's come, after everything having died from Katrina. It was a pretty good experience for an aquarium, but I really have little perspective about "normal" aquariums. I was spoiled rotten by the Monterey Bay aquarium, which is gonna be tough to beat. At least this visit was virtually vomit-free.

After the aquarium we went to Gordon Biersch for a nice dinner. We ordered an appetizer plate that came with an olive mash, some roasted garlic, some hummus and some bruschetta. I, being my usually masochistic self, went to town on the roast garlic. Unfortunately for me it must have gone bad or at least ill-timed, because it threw me into a rabid stomach illness from hell. I took the next 4 days recovering from it.

Ugh. No more roast garlic for me.

Wish I had pictures to share, but there are none that I can post.

The most boring swamp tour ever

Saturday we decided to go on another swamp tour. This time we had a different tour guide. Several things became apparent immediately.

1) He really liked the sound of his own voice
2) He had an obvious flair for drama. He missed his calling as a radical conservationist
3) Not all swamp tours are created equally
4) Swamp tours are best taken in in cooler weather


We sat, for 10's of minutes at a time, in stagnant swampy waters under a blaring sun listening to this man drone on about mind-numbing facts about some bizarre and totally uninteresting bird. We sat for more 10's of minutes listening to this man on a completely pointless tangent, not even sticking to the same subject. We listened to excruciating stories about how terrible parents let their children be eaten by alligators in Florida, and politicians and authorities watch it happen, and grandma and grandpa don't have the heart to break it to their son or daughter that they let their child be eaten by an alligator becuase they fed the alligator chicken and steak on saturday afternoons to train the alligator like a pet seal to do tricks, while they drank themselves silly through the night and then when dad and mom are hung over the next morning little sally decides to feed daddy's pet alligator some bread. But take all the crap in the painful run-on sentence up there and expand each small tidbit to about 14 sentences of drama and there you have our tour guide.

Then we decided to go see a movie. We were gonna see 3:10 to Yuma, but since I'm a total numbskull and apparently had my yahoo page configured to see the wrong theaters, I picked up the wrong movie time and so we headed to the theater after the last showing had begun (40 minutes prior). After some quick discussion we decided to see Kingdom. Now if that's not a downer, I don't know what is. Some movies just hit too close to home, and this was one of them. It was depressing and terrifying all at the same time.

All in all I think I didn't do so good in the entertainment department yesterday.

People should come with disclaimers

Today I had an interaction with someone that left my head spinning. It was one of those times when you're just bumbling along, having a light-hearted conversation and chatting and all of a sudden the other person has flown off the handle. Obviously there's a disconnect there, they misunderstood what you said or meant or intended to convey or something, but the reaction is clear: they're pissed and they're on a warpath. They lash out first with a guilt infused jab to the pride. Then it escalates. You respond to the mean remark because it was totally unjustified, wondering to yourself "what the hell just happened here??", defending yourself the best way you can while trying to disarm your unwanted opponent while also clearing things up, still entertaining a shred of hope that perhaps the misunderstanding can be returned to its rightful "misunderstanding" status.

What is it, at this point, that turns the mind off to reason?

What is it that causes these sorts of misunderstandings between persons 1 and 2, but not person 1 and someone else? Is it personality conflict? Why can't two people repair from such a misunderstanding before lashing out with guilt or cruel words or abandonment or rejection?

Man, being human sucks.

Tourless ghost

We tried like hedoublehockeysticks to make it to one of the famous New Orleans ghost tours. We missed the boat. I question if there really actually ever was a boat to miss. Either way, we got some great pics of us downtown eating dinner and missing the tour.

There's really just no excuse for this sort of neglect

I know. I realize it, and I think about how neglectful I've been to my poor readers. My poor readers who are undoubtedly lost without me.

(crickets)

I'll try to do better.

Note I invented some new posts and inserted them in their proper chronological place, as if I haven't really been neglecting my duties at all.

Nikolai and Mama play in front of the cam

Gators

While Melissa was here we went on one of the swamp tours here in NOLA. We had to drive a little ways, up to the north shore, but it was worth it. You can see the highlight of the tour in the movie below.