{"id":650,"date":"2005-09-15T21:31:00","date_gmt":"2005-09-16T01:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vmalt\/?p=650"},"modified":"2005-12-05T21:52:19","modified_gmt":"2005-12-06T02:52:19","slug":"hell-or-high-water-my-ass","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/hell-or-high-water-my-ass","title":{"rendered":"Hell or high water, my ass"},"content":{"rendered":"

The President just delivered his address about the rebuilding of New Orleans and the gulf coast communities blow’d up by Katrina. He spoke from Jackson Square, which is about 400 feet away from where the official VM fiancee<\/a> and I plan to get hitched next March.<\/p>\n

Yeah, I’m using the present tense. We still plan to get married in the French Quarter in springtime.<\/p>\n

My coworkers, family and friends have stared at me goggle-eyed when I’ve told them that we think everything’s going to go off as planned. Maybe they’ve been following the situation more disinterestedly, or just watching and reading different news-sources. They may also have fallen into the trap of reading too much into the present moment. Each day, the city’s been getting better news about the drainage, the pollution, the electricity, and more.<\/p>\n

A week ago, you would’ve thought that we were on the verge of suffering a zombie plague. Now the mayor of New Orleans is talking about keeping the city crime-free and violence-free. Things change quickly during a disaster, and I’m betting that we’re going to see more rapid improvements (and, I hope, very few grisly discoveries).<\/p>\n

We’ll be visiting her family down there a month from now, and I bet this very blog will tout a photo of your humble correspondent downing a Hand Grenade<\/a> in the Quarter. And, sure, a beignet at Du Monde.<\/p>\n

“There is no way to imagine America without New Orleans”? I’m glad the President and I see things eye-to-eye.<\/p>\n

Update: The photographer we booked for the wedding just sent us an update from his first trip back into the city:<\/p>\n

Saw Jax Brewery yesterday and even got out to walk around the back. As with the rest of the French Quarter I was very surprised how little damage. It was hard to even find a broken window anywhere in the Quarter and there was no flooding. I couldn’t really even tell if Jax had been looted. The media reports about looting downtown where VERY misleading. (even the Convention Center, that housed the thousands stranded for days seen on the news, didn’t have one single broken window!)<\/p>\n

I would guess Jax Brewery will be open within weeks. It lifted my spirits to see the French Quarter and Garden District in such good shape.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The President just delivered his address about the rebuilding of New Orleans and the gulf coast communities blow’d up by Katrina. He spoke from Jackson Square, which is about 400 feet away from where the official VM fiancee and I plan to get hitched next March. Yeah, I’m using the present tense. We still plan … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Hell or high water, my ass”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-au","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":654,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/memorial-day","url_meta":{"origin":650,"position":0},"title":"Memorial Day","author":"Gil","date":"September 11, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Last month, one of my best friends asked me what I plan on doing on Sept. 11. I told her that I was trying to write a longish piece on the Twin Towers and NYC, but the last two weeks have made it pretty tough for me to concentrate on\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":18,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/the-here-and-now-of-the-immensity","url_meta":{"origin":650,"position":1},"title":"The Here and Now of the Immensity","author":"Gil","date":"April 21, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"Spoke to Paul West earlier (and, for a brief moment, his lovely wife, Diane Ackerman), to make sure we were on the same page regarding his new novel, The Immensity of the Here and Now. At present, I'm wrapping up the process of selecting a printer. This is the first\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1056,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/present-success-is-no-indication-of-future-failure","url_meta":{"origin":650,"position":2},"title":"Present success is no indication of future failure","author":"Gil","date":"July 29, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"In the New Yorker, James Surowiecki tells us to take a chill pill over Airbus' current struggles. In 2003, Business Week declared that Boeing was \u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c5\u201cchoking on Airbus\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2 fumes,\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c2\u009d and warned that Boeing\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s \u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c5\u201cslip to No. 2 could become permanent.\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c2\u009d The problem with such prognostications is that they infer basic\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "basketball"","block_context":{"text":"basketball","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/sports\/basketball"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":956,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/cadzilla-vs-cancer-and-diabetes","url_meta":{"origin":650,"position":3},"title":"Cadzilla vs. Cancer (and Diabetes)","author":"Gil","date":"May 16, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"My dad has a tendency to give me \"presents.\" These generally consist of things he has no use for (see: massage chair, undersized bicycle, wobbly office chair). A few years ago, this present consisted of his old Cadillac, a 1986 black Fleetwood Brougham that I promptly nicknamed Cadzilla. It still\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "suburbs"","block_context":{"text":"suburbs","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/suburbs"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":324,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/no-plan-for-the-peace","url_meta":{"origin":650,"position":4},"title":"“No plan for the peace”?","author":"Gil","date":"August 10, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Vodkapundit writes pretty well about the war on terror, and how ideologies fight.","rel":"","context":"In "Politics (explicit)"","block_context":{"text":"Politics (explicit)","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/politics-explicit"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1343,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/bizspeak","url_meta":{"origin":650,"position":5},"title":"Bizspeak","author":"Gil","date":"February 13, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"I read a lot of financial earnings statements at my job. 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