New Orleans day 1

Back in . . . oh, probably December, I got an e-mail that said this year's NCTM (National Council of Teacher's of Mathematics) Annual Meeting and Exhibition was in New Orleans, Louisianna.  I thought, "Oh, that's cool.  I'd like to go to New Orleans.  Maybe one of these days I will go."  Then within a day or so I got another e-mail that said applications are due for the Laura Baker Grant in my district.  It's a grant that awards 2 teachers every year with a paid professional development opportunity of their choice.  I asked James what he thought about me applying for the grant and maybe going to New Orleans and he said something like, "If I get accepted into a master's program, it would probably be a fair trade for you to go."

In January, I found out that I got the grant!  

Now I'm here.

Plane information:

• Lots of math teachers on the flight.
• The lady next to me had her barf bag out and ready to go.  This totally creeped me out.
• The guy behind me talked loud and non- stop for the entire flight.  Everything about Bozeman, MT to oil rigs in Texas, to how much a head of cattle is, to why he doesn't eat chicken, to his accident in 2009 . . . . Ahhhhhhhhhh.  I couldn't sleep.  I couldn't focus on my book.  I finally just resorted to solitaire because it was all my brain could do.  It was painful.
• Shuttle ride next to two co-workers who were there to set up a booth for the exhibit hall - talking about their use of mary-joo-wanna - one of the guys gets it from his friend with medical benefits and it comes in the from of candy - $40 a week for 50 pieces of 10mg each - you get a 3-4 hour high . . . yadda, yadda, yadda, the usual

I was glad to finally be on the ground.

Here is the view out my hotel window (looking away from the Mississippi River).

I had about an hour before my first meeting started, so I decided to head to the French Quarter.

Trolley car on Canal Street.  

Cathedral at Andrew's Square.

Here there were lots of tarot card readers, a guy asking for money while his dog pretended to be dead in a coffin, artists, a band playing, a guy asking for money for kicking his hacky sack around, etc.  There was supposed to be a Hurricane Katrina exhibit in the building next to the cathedral, but it (and several other things) were closed while they set up a big French Quarter Festival for this weekend.

I decided to brave Bourbon Street.  It was . . .  what you think Bourbon Street would be like.

After this, I went to the convention center and started to get situated for a few days worth of meetings, starting with tonight's keynote address, "The Joy of X."  It was a presentation from a man who wrote articles in the New York Times (and later a book) with the same title.  It was all about infusing fun and interest in math.  It was a decent start.

I was hungry, so I headed to where a saw some food, asked to look at a menu at a cafe called Ernst's .  I met two other single ladies (one from Arizona and one from Texas) and we each had a po' boy.  I had fried chicken on mine.  It was tasty.