Just dropping you a quick note from sunny New Orleans! Well, it's sunny, but it sure as shit isn't warm! It's very, very cold. So cold, in fact, that I had to buy a handknit Alpaca sweater with a matching hat and gloves! You know how it is :-)

I have had shrimp, I've had crawfish, I had french toast and finished all four pieces, I've had a pecan praline, I've had a crappy mimosa, I've had some shitty beer, and paid $11 for a small jack and coke. It's been so windy that my face is actually peeling and chapped.

We got to see one of the first parades come through the Quarter. The people were a blast, and everyone was friendly and social, and in a great mood. This is the week before, or something, Mardi Gras. So it's populated but not that populated. It stinks, but it doesn't.

The hotel is one of the old houses, really a block of them, that has been converted to hotels. We're on the top floor, facing the courtyard - Mr. Manners has taken some lovely photos, which will be posted sometime next week. We have real plantation shutters outside.

You don't see any damage to the city here from the storm. We do see that a lot of cleanup has been done.

I don't really even notice the mold smell in our room anymore!

Oh yes, the funniest thing I heard yesterday, in the Hustler store, out of the mouth of a young teenage girl "Oh My Gosh, they have kneepads!"