b.rox

My friend JB was having trouble with his debit card on his recent visit to the Crescent City. When he called his bank, he was informed that Visa debit cards haven’t worked in New Orleans since Katrina. [Edit: I surely misunderstood. It must be just this particular bank's Visa debit cards.]
I found that somewhat astonishing. [...]

The Housing Conservation District Review Committee met on Monday. They voted to allow the demolition of three public housing complexes, and passed the buck on a fourth. These decisions dominated the local news.
But there were some other items on the HCDRC’s agenda. I wrote about the ongoing dispute between my neighborhood organization and Victory Real [...]

Big props to Alan Gutierrez for orchestrating a chat with New Orleans’ new Inspector General last week.
I did a hit-and-run. I asked a couple very general and probably naïve questions. Then I left because I had another commitment.
Fortunately, Alan’s posted the audio so I can listen to the whole conversation and catch up on what [...]

I put a second coat of varnish on the stairs today. I should say a big “thank you” to Celcus and Jedd who gave me good advice last time I wrote about this. I’ve been following that advice, sanding and steel wooling and restaining over the last couple weeks. The second coat did indeed go [...]

Xy and I finally had the talk Sunday, on whether to stay here in New Orleans.
(At the beginning of the year, I said we’d discuss this toward the end of the year.)
It took less than five minutes. There really didn’t seem to be too much to say. Moving is a big pain, and we anticipate [...]

We’re having a holiday open house at the office today, and we all brought cookies and other sweets. I thought it would be fun and unique to bring brandy balls. So I made them last night and brought them in this morning, and placed them on the table with a sign.

But Boss Lady’s husband (Elliott, [...]

A friend of mine celebrated her first birthday today. (Yes, I’m also friends with her mother, but after watching the girl bury her face in cake I feel a special bond.) What was really amazing to me was how many people showed up for the event with kids the same age in tow. There must [...]

We’re coming to the official end of the second trimester today.
I was joking recently that we were in the third stage of advanced denial. One person didn’t get the joke and wanted to know what the first two stages entailed. We have plenty of pregnancy books sent by thoughtful friends, but we don’t seem to [...]

So last night, in his big “religion” speech, Mitt Romney warned of nefarious forces bent on “establishing a new religion in America – the religion of secularism.”
Meanwhile, a new poll reveals more Americans believe in the devil than Darwin’s theory of evolution.
Those results hardly suggest a rising tide of secularism. I’m forced to conclude that [...]

Since all the cool kids are doing mashups these days, I couldn’t help but try my hand, however inept. A month or two ago when I had some spare time I threw these two together.

But It Seemed So Real

I’m taking Wednesdays off this month to work on the house. One of my co-workers was mildly astonished. He’d much prefer to take a vacation day on a Monday or Friday, thus extending his weekend. I like taking Wednesday off because it breaks the work week nicely. Two days on, one day off, two days [...]

Normally neighborhood groups support the demolition of abandoned buildings. However, last Monday representatives from the Mid-City Neighborhood Organization spoke against the demolition of the old Lindy Boggs Medical Center.

Reaction has been mixed. Here’s a typical comment from the story on nola.com:

Great, a bunch of boneheads that want to look important attempt to stop the demolition [...]

We finally got our new washer and dryer hooked up and situated properly, and last night I did our first load of laundry at home for over two years.

Our old dishwasher was crapping out on us, so we also got a new one of those. Splurged a bit and got a fancy one with a [...]

Xy wanted to give some trinkets to the neighbor kids this holiday season, so she had one of the girls compile a list.

Tomanique
Shawn’ae
Shawniah
Shawnique
Jurr’ieon
Jurr’eall
Melqueisha
Amy
Tyesha
Joshua
Zykeith
La Aarea
Keira
Lamar
Justin
Cheveniqua

Ages range from one to fifteen, and three-quarters of the kids are girls. I was surprised by the sheer number of kids on our little block, though a significant chunk of the [...]

Jaylene and her friend Tom came down from Indy for a quick visit this weekend. Saturday night we had dinner at Jacques-Imo’s, with just a bit of trepidation since we kinda thought they were slipping a while back, plus Xy had a major meltdown last time we visited. I’m happy to report we found Jacques-Imo’s [...]