August 26, 2003

All –

Let’s see, last time I wrote we were in the middle of Maureen and the kids staying here. Sunday when I got home from work we went to church at St. George’s. The mass was over an hour long but not much complaining, as it was new and interesting to them. After church we went to the Marble Slab Creamery and had ice cream cones. I am having trouble remembering but I took Monday afternoon off and worked Wednesday afternoon (Tuesday and Wednesday are my days off). Monday I met the family at the Waffle House ( http://www.wafflehouse.com/ ) as they were finishing up their breakfast. From there we went back to the house to swim and play water volleyball.

Tuesday we went to Lafayette – the middle of Cajun Country. We first stopped at the Jean Lafitte National Park Acadian Cultural Center and saw a movie on the Acadians being forced to leave Nova Scotia, Canada and ending up in what is now Louisiana. From there we went to nearby Vermilionville ( http://www.vermilionville.org/ ) which is an historic area depicting the buildings, people and life style of the early Cajuns. We had lunch there before touring. The kids were a bit anxious as up to this point they had seen quite a bit of cultural and historical stuff but I think they will remember the chapel with the fiddle player, the hand ferry where a young man took us across a small waterway pulling on a heavy rope anchored to each side of the waterway, the old schoolhouse and the boathouse where we learned about boat making, moss used in making rope and insolating the houses with moss which absorbed the moisture out of the air at night and released it in the hot sun providing a sort of natural air-conditioning.

Tuesday night Jessie picked out the restaurant – Jones Creek Café and Oyster Bar. We had a nice dinner with Laura having like a dozen and a half raw oysters as her main course!

Wednesday morning we just hung around the house and stopped by my office after lunch. They got to meet a lot of the people I work with. Laura and I then led them to the airport and said our goodbyes – I couldn’t believe the nine days were over! Laura and I went back to the Army Reserve Center where I finished up some work and she became a bit bored.

Thursday and Friday were slow days – I worked, Laura slept till noon and watched TV – the lazy bum.

Saturday after work Laura and I went to Dixielandin’/Blue Bayou ( http://www.dixielandin.com/ ) – an amusement park/water park not far from the house. We were both a little nervous about riding the Flying Tigers (which spins you around and then the ride lifts up to look almost like a Ferris wheel as it spins you upside down) but we both survived and actually enjoyed it as well as a lot of other rides. A free concert with Aaron Carter was there and we stood and watched for a little while and then headed over to Sonic’s – a drive-in restaurant with servers on roller-skates bringing food to our car. After the late night snack, we headed back to the house.

Sunday at lunchtime I came back to pick Laura up. She wanted to try Popeye’s (a chicken fast food place) so we stopped at one by work. Well it seems Laura didn’t want chicken and that is about all they served. We ended up taking chicken, fries and apple pies back to work. I ate most of the chicken. After work we went to see a minor league baseball game – the Baton Rouge Riverbats. They play right next to where I work. The game was very lopsided as the home team won but it was fun watching anyways. If a Riverbat player hits a home run they collect a dollar from all the people in the stands and give it all to that player. Cost me 2 more dollars. After work we went to the house, changed and rode the motorcycle to St. George’s for mass and then to the Marble Slab Creamery. Laura had a bubblegum cone with crushed gumballs put in. We watched as they put a couple scoops of ice cream on a cold marble slab (maybe that is how it got it’s name?), crushed some gumballs and mixed it in with the ice cream and put it all in a cone. I only had a couple of small bites of her cone! We went back to the house and played more volleyball in the pool.

I had packed most of our stuff Sunday night and let Laura sleep in Monday morning. At lunchtime, I came back to pick her and the suitcases up. We went to Sonic’s again and had some lunch. At 3:00 we said our goodbyes to the people at work and got a ride to the airport from Reggie who sits next to me at work. The connection in Atlanta was fine as we took a subway from one terminal to another. The airport is quite large with 5 or 6 terminals each able to handle 30 or 35 planes or so. We had some Burger King sandwiches and drinks while we waited for our plane to board. The flights were pretty bumpy with the weather – seemed like a roller coaster at times. They even stopped beverage service on the one plane. Maureen and Ginna met us at the airport in Allentown.

Time for Musikfest! My mom and dad came down to see us and Bob and Bill. I got to see a lot of concerts and shows throughout the week with my mom, Maureen and Ginna and Jessie, Steve, Mary and Dave, Lois and Bob, Cindy and Bob, and Marilyn and Greg and Julie.

The performers I saw were Artisan, The Beach Boys, The Difference, Dueling Pianos, The Electric Farm, The Elvis Tribute, Fruit, Fruit Duo, GrooveLily, Hannan & McKenna, Christine Havrilla, Henry Turner & Flavor, The Holy Goats, Keith, Catfish, Karen Luschar - "Chasing Rainbows - Songs of Judy Garland", LynnMarie, Mike Dugan & the Blues Mission with the Rust Belt Horns, Mountain Laurel Bluegrass Band, Trisha O'Keefe, Saw Doctors, Sharon Katz & the Peace Train, The Shoreliners, The Waifs and Wolfe. I enjoyed all of them but Fruit and Mike Dugan were especially good.

Looking forward to the Celtic Classic, which is smaller and has more of an Irish flavor to it – reminds me of Musikfest 15 years ago. That is coming up the end of September. Hope to see Seamus Kennedy, Maggie Drennon (who Jessie and I saw a year or two ago) some of the Irish Dancing as well as some performers I haven’t seen. Hope you all can make it. Their web page is http://www.celticfest.org/ .

The flight back was a little hairy time-wise – the plane was 45 minutes late leaving Allentown and then we had to circle Atlanta for 20 minutes or so before our turn to land and on the ground we had to wait 10 minutes for a gate to become available. My hour and 45 minute layover was now a 15-minute race to get to another terminal and make my plane. I was the last one on and we left the gate shortly after that and got to Baton Rouge on time.

The last two weeks have been a bit of a blur. Working a lot, cleaning my room and going through a lot of paperwork – hey, it’s a big room and takes a lot to keep it clean! Doing some yard work in the late afternoon/evening – still pretty hot and muggy here. I am getting somewhat used to the weather. I think a combination of expecting worse and the fact that we get a lot of afternoon showers that cool things down a bit are helping. Still been exercising but not as much – trying to work up to where I was earlier.

Been working with Linux that I installed on a laptop computer. Linux is an operating system based on UNIX somewhat like DOS or Windows or Mac systems. Practicing PERL, C/C++ and Shell on it, which helps me at work.

Work is going pretty well as I work with more and more people. I am learning a lot from them and they are learning a lot from me. Some people don’t like to share information, though, as they feel that what they know makes their job more secure. I see a never-ending amount of work to do and think we could get a lot more done without that attitude. Working with a couple of guys documenting a way to shut down individual inventory systems and handling all the supplies assigned to them - which we are doing now and will be doing a lot of. Working with others to help them extract data from the databases reducing the amount of time sometimes from days of privates reviewing printouts of the data down to 5 minutes of computer time. Hope to enlist a few to help put together a course on extracting data. Most have access to the data but don’t know how to use it efficiently.

Couple of funny stories: Rode the bike one of my mornings off in search of a cup of coffee – really just wanted to ride but you have to have some reason, don’t you? Anyways, the coffee shop was closed temporarily so I went to the McDonald’s down the street. Checked my wallet - $3.00 – okay, I’m good. Ask for a cup of coffee – “49 cents, please”. Wow, I didn’t know coffee was that cheap. Look up and the board says $.89 for a small coffee. I ask “is that right? The sign says 89”. “Senior discount” he says. Started to disagree but then just let it go. I am not old yet, am I?

Several weeks ago they called the civilians together to explain that whenever you see the flag being raised or lowered outside you must immediately stop what you are doing and face the flag. A week later I came in a little late (usually I am there before sunrise) and they are getting ready to raise the flag. I slip into the first parking spot, get out of the truck and stand facing the flag. After the raising I walk through the formation into the front door. Specialist Woolley who sits next to me comes in a bit later and says “Paul, I can’t believe you! The Colonel was addressing the soldiers and you walk right though the formation! I could almost see you saying ‘coming through’, ‘step aside’, ‘pardon me’. I still can’t believe it!” Oh, well. I later apologized to the Colonel but he said he hadn’t even noticed me.

The Riverbats won the championship in their league last week.

Sunday, about 80 of the soldiers from this Reserve Center came home. They had a local TV station there as well as family and friends. It was nice to see and talk with some of them who all seemed glad to be back home and away from the 125-degree heat.

I have some more pictures (Louisiana and Musikfest) on our web page. Enjoy.

Hope to see all of you at the Celtic Classic the end of September.

Till next time,

Paul