Flood in New Orleans

Holly Molly!! We dodged this.

From IHT: Heavy rains hit New Orleans, flood areas just recently coming back from Katrina damage.

Antoine's Restaurant

713 Rue Saint Louis
New Orleans, Louisiana 70130
Tel: (504) 581-4422
http://www.antoines.com/

We decided to eat here after I misread NOLA's schedule. Well, it doesn't really matter, since NOLA is 6 month back logged.

Mental note: avoid NOLA.

Parking: Abominable!
The crew: Excellent
Appetizer: Bisque (of crawfish)
Main: Lamb chop

New Orleans

• Use cab from airport, stay in the touristy area, the other side of the city is very artsy.

• Don't take flat tire insurance from your car rental if you are not planning to visit the other side of the city, I didn't scour the entire city but most of it seemed debris free. The city/touristy side is definitely free of debris.

• Careful when you drive, avoid wet spot since it could be a deep hole that could break your car axle, beware, since there are lots of them in the city.

• If you want to drive, GPS device is a must:
• Not all street signs, at the other side of the city, are restored after being blown away by Katrina.
• The streets near freeway are spaghetti like.
  

• Never come to this city in October. It rains every 5 minutes!

• French Quarter is asleep during the day.

• The hyped Pascal's Manale is alright, if you could afford yourself being a tourist nowadays, you could have the experience in your city.

• Lake Pontchartrain Causeway is the longest bridge in the world.

• Any Hurricane is better than Hand Grenade.

• "Big Al" Carson is alright.

• Go straight for Bourbon St in French Quarter @ night in October.

• NOLA takes reservation for the next 6 months.
  

New Cube in Santa Ana and File Server Going Kaputz

This is the condition of the cube in Santa Ana when I walked in Monday morning. Yes, it is open and spartan, but I got a window seat.

The boxes hold the computers from Jacksonville. I will post the cleaned-up version later.

Also the highlight of today: file server in Santa Ana blew up. A new instance of the machine was brought up quickly so the work could proceed by swapping the data drive to another machine.

I suspected that the machine might have faulty drive (well, it has failed once and it was a Dell desktop after all) and hopefully I fixed the whole machine by swapping the old drive with one from a cannibalized machine. The machine was swapped and joined to the corporate domain at the end of day.

After the mess died down, the workspace had the next attention.

Transportation

Back to the land of traffic congestion last Friday night, and I need a new transportation. Enter: Toyota Highlander 2008.

I am officially an active participant to the global warming, driving mid-size SUV 80 miles daily.

Willie Mae's Scotch House

2401 Saint Ann St
New Orleans, LA 70119
Phone: (504) 822-9503

Landmark restaurant, the gov, mayor and all of the big wigs plaster their plagues on the wall. But it is significant when Southern Foodways Alliance (SFA) raised 200 grand to save Willie Mae's Scotch House after Hurricane Katrina landed on New Orleans in 2005.

It serves simple southern food: fried chicken and pork chop with choices of sides such as butter bean, french fries, cabbage, red beans.

Love and recommend the pork chops with the side of cabbage with rice.

Yes, the crispy skin of the fried chicken is delicious but I like the fried chicken from Publix better.

Last Day in Jacksonville

It was smooth sailing on Tuesday: the junk was laid out, squeezed into the Relocube, excess garbage was picked up, and in the afternoon Craig showed up to pick up the grill, along with Wayne picking up the keys and the ABF Transportation person taking the Relocube away, all at the same time. :D

Wednesday, the last day in Jacksonville, we left at 11:30AM, flying to New Orleans, LA.

My Junks in 6 x 7 x 8

Hellish Monday

Everything went well on Saturday since nothing much is being done, just boxing up my stuff and papers.

Joe swang by on Sunday and helped me squeezed the sofa into the Relocube. After that, everything went crazy. I packed a third of my stuff that night, not much since I was tired from moving the couch and mattresses.

Monday was hell, although it started well, I ran errands: buying cleaning stuff and ratchets to tie down the stuff, keeping them from falling on us when we open it in Pacoima, CA. Took Michael to have lunch with people from downtown, Ray and Jen from SCM also showed up. Went home packed some more, I thought that I still have tons of space, not knowing that I was dead wrong. Later that afternoon I asked Michael for help with storing the vehicle for time being. #*?!@. After renting the car, we went to have diner, I was packing again until 3:30AM in the next day.

Last Working Day in Jacksonville

Good bye cube, smell you later.

Subversive Mom

Working Late

Yawn! Another midnight testing going on again... And the environment is totally crapping out.

Norco DS-520

MFreeman pointed out Norco DS-520 to me. Product spec: here. Additional review @ engadget: here.

My, o my, should I wait for another 4+ bays NAS from q-nap? Currently the 401 is underpowered.

Luminous eye...

Luminous eye...
Originally uploaded by fofurasfelinas

Good luck! (click the photo for full context :)

There are several reasons I like this picture: First, it is a picture of a black cat. While it is sitting on dark background, instead of blurring the subject, it is actually increasing the depth perception and the sharpness of the fur texture. Wonderful.

Glancing at the photo, I thought that the cat deliberately closing it's right eye and the person who took the picture was waiting until the cat was doing so. Wow, I thought, having a cat that could do that and waiting until it did it. What a good combination of patience and luck, I thought.

I was wrong, browsing other pictures, I realized that it was a defect. Poor thing. It is a good picture nevertheless.

Interesting Articles From WtF

Going through the magazine (online) ... I found these interesting articles:

ASSEMBLY 2007 (2007-07-30)
more info: www.assembly.org

FINLAND - SAUNA, GRIT, GUTS AND KOSSU (2007-08-10)
Kossu, eh?

I also like the article about Minna Parikka - too bad, it doesn't have any picture, besides the cover.