I arrived in New Orleans at 9pm CT on June 23rd. I was supposed to get in at 4:15, but my flight was severely delayed out of Newark. I sat in the airport and called everyone in NY in my cellphone phone book, for lack of better things to do. My gate was at the end of a long hall, in a circle of other gates. Since I carry my bags on the plane (proly a good thing, for this trip..and I HATE bag checking anyways) there was no way I was actually going to carry stuff around and try and find a bar or shopping. airports are too expensive anyway. Two of the hours were spent on the plane, sitting there while the captain spurted out encouraging and then discouraging items of info about our departure. after that, we were allowed to deplane until our flight was fo-sure going to leave. the rest of the day's flights to atlanta were cancelled and things didnt look good. i had already missed my 4:00pm connection to NO. But the airplane gods were merciful, and not only were we able to leave Newark, my name was called off the standby list in Atlanta, so I didnt have to figure out what the hell to do if i had to stay the night. (I have a friend there, but as luck would have it, i managed to leave her number at home.) The girl who was sitting next to me on the original flight from Newark to Atlanta musta decided to wait till the next day, because a nice french boy took her place. we ended up chatting the whole way all the way to NO, which is where he happened to be going as well to meet some people from an arm of his company. we split a taxi ride into NO and exchanged numbers. I think i lost it, but i hope he calls. we had a good time. nothing romantically inclined, but you can never know too many nice people. (i have a picture, posting to happen as soon as i get that zip drive, which incidentally, i rescheduled for delivery to the office tomorrow)
Got to my hotel: the Holiday Inn select room 813, across from the convention center. I was ready to go out. Rang Noelle, who was just returning from her sister's wedding. Noelle was a best maid, and when she arrived, she was looking all fine, since her hair was done up. Josie and the pussycats like (insert pictures) We hung out and watched VH-1 for a few minutes and hit the town. now, for some reason i cant rememeber exactly what we did. i rememebr cafe roma and drinking, and meeting up with my bud Jason at some point. i think the several days of HEAVY drinking and lack of sleep have ruined my memory. In any case, I had an excellent time,since i do rememebr every night having a blast. (let me tell you, even after one night of 8 hour sleep, i am still thouroughly thrashed.)
SUNDAY 6/24/01
I had to get up early...7:30 to get ready for the IFT conference. An associate was giving a 15 minute presentation at 9am about a new product of ours that reduces chlorestorol. I found the room and listened and after 15 minutes and the questions, the next guy in line began talking. my bosses, who i had met for the talk, left half way through. i would have left with them, but i was wearing my really loud, flippy black slides, and i didnt feel like being all annoying and leaving in the middle of the presentation. so i waited and snuck out during the short applause. this was when i wrote that one journal entry that i able to squeeze out: going back to the hotel room, not knowing where my boss or the booth was. As it was, I did phone Kohei on the cell phone and he did call me and let me know i didnt need to be in the booth (3125) until 12pm. I relaxed in the hotel and wondered how i was going to make it through the day and still be awake (little did I know this was JUST the beginning..ugha!) At 11:45, I marched my ass back tot he Conference center and foudn the booth. it looked great, compared to the booth I sat in (Jumpcut.com) at the Streaming media west conference a year and half ago. (insert picture of booth, and my bosses here) I ask Mr Tom Takeshita, wha was the only one there at the time what i should do. he pointed to the chair and in a crisp Japanese accent said: Sit there and smile. So, thats what i did at the conference for those 3 days. good to know, since wont be talking about the conference any more. theres nothing to say, accept i sat there and smiled and tried to stay awake. It was all good. i had to be there on the subsequent days of the show from 12pm- 5:30 pm, plus i got an hour lunch break. 4.5 hours of work is little to give for a free trip to NO to see your buds, you know?
Ok, so the conference passes. and its time to think about going out. I get back to the room abd shower and call up Noelle and her woman, Christal. I decided to take them out for a sushi dinner at Samurai Sushi. Samurai has the BEST squid salad, and for some reason i cant find squid salad at all up here to save my life...
i scooted my booty on down,and waited about 20 minutes for them to show up. since i did have to wait, i decided to start drink...so by the time Christal got there (Noelle was driving around trying to find a parking space) I was already a little bit blasted (keep in mind i was too lazy to actually eat all day..i mean, how could i? i rolled out of bed, showered and ran to the show and then sat there all day. oh yes, lunch break..but i didn eat on the first day). Noelle arrived and we all talked and laughed and I have to say I realized how much I miss those girls. I sorta regretted having spent sooo much time with the J and not with Noelle and company. Not that i would take it back, but, you always see in retrospect that you should have hung out with your friends a alittle more instead of with the "significant other" at the beginning of the relationship. As dinner ended, the night of drinking began. And I had a mission....
(END part 1)