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| Day 8 - Thursday, 29 August 2002 |
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| Setting: Downtown
New Orleans; includes the hotel (New Orleans Marriott), the convention
center (Ernest N. Morial Convention Center), the Elms
Mansion, and a brief stroll down Bourbon Street.
Today's Cast:
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6:30am - The alarm sounds. Neither of us were much impressed.
7:46am - We actually left the hotel after rising VERY slowly. Why rush a good thing?
10:21am - We headed to the closing speaker, featuring the Honorable William Jefferson Clinton. Or just Bill, I guess... Of course, we were too far away to get a clear picture (the flash did nothing for us), and the big screens didn't help... but trust me, I was there, yo.
12:04pm - The session over, we returned to the lounge room to begin cleaning up and taking stuff down. I just sat and watched.
1:30pm sharp - The network connection we had to the rest of the world was cut right on time, and from there, everything was rolled, tagged, and put away neatly. Well, almost everything.
2:14pm - Soon after this incident, the keys were taken away from Skip, seen here driving the cart.
2:39pm - Back in the room to begin to relax a bit, let me update the page, and Tubby to do whatever it is he does.
6:32pm - Those in our hotel comprising the overall team assembled in the lobby for a wrap-up party thingy, which was said (on the invite) to begin at 7pm.
7:11pm - After leaving our hotel, and circling two others in search of passengers (none were found), we were taken down St. Charles Avenue to the Elms Mansion for the wrap-up party for those involved in working on this event. (The mansion was built in 1869 for a Confederate Army Major, later served as the home of a German consulate until the beginning of the U.S. involvement in WWII, briefly with a Texas oil family before being acquired by the Elms family in 1950... all of which you could have read on their site just as easily. The house was incredible, both inside and out.
9:43pm - Back at the hotel and staging for a stroll down Bourbon Street. Figuring that we landed right in the middle of Southern Decadence, I figure it should be a good time to be had by all.
10:58pm - We leave the room and head through the lobby, where we meet several other members of the crew, largely by chance. We hook up with them for a while.
11:07pm - The entire group heads out to Bourbon Street, and ends up ducking into Utopia, a club on the first block of so of where Bourbon Street becomes something other than a place for cars to travel.
11:21pm - Utopia apparently holds a weekly 'make your own bikini' contest every Thursday night, sponsored by the local radio station. Intriguing...
11:40pm - ...and bored. We headed to the far end of Bourbon Street before heading back. Very little seemed to be going on, even at this hour.
12:04am - The bikini contest contestants came out, and true to how the station's web page describes, the creative application of cake icing and gummy bears was, to say the least, innovative. (Sorry, no pictures... that would have seemed uncouth.)
12:25am - Tiring of the debauchery, we headed back to the hotel to retire for the evening.