Notes from N'awlins

Hey, everybody.  Today, I'm coming to you from the Joint Mathematics Conference in New Orleans, Louisiana.  So far, things have been pretty good, considering it took us almost an hour to get from the airport to our hotel because of the Sugar Bowl, which neither of us really care about.  The streets where we got stopped were a constant stream of red shirts.  This is due to THE Ohio State Buckeyes playing (and defeating) the Arkansas Razorbacks.  Go team.  I guess.

This is our second trip to New Orleans since the hurricane and things around where our hotel is seemed to have improved a lot in three years.  Everything seems to be a lot cleaner and buildings that were empty before have businesses in them, which is awesome for the are.  We're on the edge of the French Quarter, on Canal Street.

One thing I noticed when I walked around the French Quarter was there seems to be a lower number of "adult emporiums" than the last time I was here.  There are still a lot, to be sure, but the number seems smaller to me.  Maybe I just didn't notice as many.

At around 3 pm Central time, as I was walking through the French Quarter, I was one of few people simply walking around and looking at the architecture and people watching.  This probably marked me as a tourist.  Anyway, four times during my walk, I was approached by pitchmen hoping to get me to come into their drinking establishment where there just happened to be women taking off their clothes.  I declined each time, though I did have a conversation with one of these pitchmen, who seemed bored, about the drinking establishment and how they had "the prettiest ladies you even seen, no matter where you from."  Given the number of signs I could see for such establishments and how many of those signs made the same claim, I should have brought a salt shaker.  If you get the idea.

Overall, I enjoy the part of New Orleans that I've visited.  Most people are friendly and helpful and the city itself, that I've seen, has a lot of character.

Hopefully we're going to go out and do some tourist-type stuff tomorrow.  If so, I'll try to post some pictures on my Facebook page and on this blog.  Hopefully I'll get some good shots.  Maybe ghosts or jazz musicians or jazz musician ghosts riding crocodiles from the swaps.   Who knows?  Who dey?