Well, last weekend I was down to
New Orleans,
Louisiana, to
meet up with
Templeton and
Byzantine. My very first meeting
with other noders, and my very first meeting with people that
I had met
online. Despite the oddly coincidental appearance immediately after
my arrival of enough
plastic sheeting to "wrap a body in" (to paraphrase
Templeton), I was not reduced to easily
fondueable cubes in the
manner that one of my friends expected.
- Muegge:
- "I'm going down to New Orleans to meet up with some of
the people from that Everything2 website I'm on all the time."
- Gord:
- "You mean the cult."
- Muegge:
- "No, no, website."
- Gord:
- "No. You mean the cult. You'll be dead by Sunday."
Some notes on the trip:
- People such as Templeton, Byzantine, Accipiter and
likely others on this website that I don't know about, people
who open their homes to others based solely on their gut feelings
about a person, have my admiration and give me reason to hope
that people in general are not as cold as I believe they are
becoming. May you never be disappointed.
- To support the preceeding point, Templeton mentioned that
all the noders she had personally met seemed to be reasonable
people. I'm glad I went out of my way to meet some of them,
and I'm hoping I get the chance to meet more of you in the
future. I personally am impressed with the quality of human
beings that are associated with Everything, as my host seems to be. I wish my trip could
have been longer.
- As with everywhere, get a local to show you around. I saw
more in one day with guides than I had in a week during Mardi
Gras last year.
- If in New Orleans and you get the chance, there is a rotating
bar at the top of the World Trade Center in N.O. from which you
can watch the tankers and cargo ships roll out along the Mississippi.
Something to see - and if you have the right company, a great place
to sit and get to know people over drinks.
- Stay the hell out of karaoke bars in Slidell, Louisiana. 'Nuff
said.
By the way
Templeton, in thinking about it, in terms of
structural
building analysis, an
open condition is an exterior or
interior portal blocked by a
door,
skylight,
air conditioner or any
other post-installation obstruction that may, under unusual
seismic
or wind conditions may be torn out and thus must be treated as an
opening or portal. Whether or not the
precepts of metal building
analysis can be made to jive with
Sri Lanki mysticism is uncertain -
given that you seem to lack the natural defenses to devils
Byzantine
discussed on the way to the
Mississippi, you may want to check any
Virginia
prospects against
the first rule of sinhalese architecture.