After work on Wednesday, my four-day weekend began, and Mom and I started it off with a dinner date with Davin and Trish, who are getting married next weekend. They're a very sweet couple. They agreed to re-enact Davin's engagement proposal:


Maybe he had to ask twice.

On Thursday, Mom was brave enough to try an interval workout. She completed five circuits of the hill at Chatfield Res, and all in great time.


Mom finishes the third circuit. Whoo!


The sunset was very pretty. Such are the benefits of bike riding.

When we came home, our neighbor Dan had arrived to help assemble a playset in the back yard, which was a surprise gift Mom got for the boys. It's quite impressive!


Looks like fun, huh?

Tuesday night, it was off to Club Vinyl with Scott. Vinyl was a very neat club, and, of course, smoke free! Colorado is awesome.




Scott gets his wicked groove on.


The speakers were huge, and really neat: four massive speaker cones fire IN to the speaker, and sound is guided out through a horn. The sound was great. And after a while, deafening.

DJ Kenneth Thomas, the opener, spun an awesome set before Paul Oakenfold came on. He also let me come up into the booth, and gave me a copy of the track he was spinning. What a classy guy!


What a fun night!

Monday, I started at the Colorado Supreme Court. It's a nice gig, with a great view:


Out my office window.


Karen and Trang came out for lunch -- how great to see them again. And Trang is now engaged! GOOOOOOOOO, Trang! See trang.org for more information.

The only downside to the Supreme Court internship is that it's unpaid. Feeling very depressed about giving away 12 hours out of every day, I figured I needed a way to reclaim some time. The solution: bike to work. Replace 2 hours of traffic with a 2-hour workout!


I'll take this over traffic lights any day of the week.


The view riding in on 16th street.


Bye Denver! See you tomorrow!

That thing about eating the dirt is totally true. There's no place in this world like Colorado. On Saturday, upon arriving home, Nina and Scott took me out to Lands Down Arms for some stiff drinks and good company.


Vodka-tonic versus Vodka-Coke ... the showdown!


Nina's prompt: you just ate an entire bucket of rotten anchovies, and now you have to fart.


Scott's prompt: you just smelled it.


It's ok, it was just a game. All is forgiven!


Testing the wind ... "Waitor, one more vodka, please!"

The next morning, Mom was determined to head up to Red Rocks after being told about it for so long. The weather was sullen, but we headed up anyway. The drizzling rain spackled our sunglasses, but did nothing to dash our spirits. To the contrary, riding in the rain was quite fun.








Finally, we arrived at Red Rocks, and enjoyed the view. However, soon after we arrived, the skies REALLY opened up, and we got soaked. Unfortunately, we were now 21 miles from home.


By the time we reached Littleton, it was *C* *O* *L* *D*


But a little cold get us down? Never!

I had a long post all finished and ready to post, when firefox suddenly crashed and the post got lost. So, here it is again, in brief.

Tuesday: Fourth of July. See previous post.

Thursday: The real fireworks began. The associates took us out to lunch at the World Trade Center, a gorgeous restaurant on the 30th floor of the building:


Humongous artwork, fancy waitors.


And 360-degree views of the city.

During lunch, Berkeley called. They wanted me to come to law school there in the fall. Thanks be to God, my first-choice school has admitted me, and I'm headed to San Francisco. I can't wait to see you all and celebrate in proper fashion! Dad and Charlie wanted to celebrate that evening at Nardo's, Charlie's favorite restaurant. It's a quaint Italian joint with lots of frog decor:


Frog. James Frog.


"No, ma'am. We don't serve froglegs here."

The next day, Friday, I had reservations to take Dad to MY favorite restaurant, Emeril's. But before that, the associates and a parner at the firm took me out to lunch again. As we walked down the street at noon, I realized we were headed in a familiar direction. Our lunch destination?


Well, I'm not complaining. Emeril's twice in one day!


Beef Briskit on potatoes and slaw. Very tasty.


Chef Bretton was very friendly that night at dinner. He was making some lentils for the salmon dish, and Dad thought they looked really good. When dinner came out, Bret made a small side of lentils and handed it to Dad over the counter. The kitchen also sent us a special appetizer, recognizing us for being "regulars" at the place.

Last night, I e-mailed Berkeley's triathlon team, looking for a roommate in San Francisco. As it so happened, the president of the team grew up in Boulder! He said "You're moving from the best place in the world to the other best place in the world." Needless to say, his endorsement of the place is encouraging. Two people on the team responded within a couple of hours, and it looks like housing should be no problem.

Finally, Saturday morning has arrived, and my time in NOLA has come to a close. Dad has been such a fantastic roommate, and I'll miss him a lot. Colorado, I'm homeward bound!


Farewell, New Orleans. It's been a pleasure.

First order of business: for those of you kind enough to read this blog, would you mind posting some comments once in a while? It's really easy ... just click that thing that says "0 comments" at the top of this post, and write me a little note. Doesn't have to be long, just let me know you stopped by :-)

Also: the main page will show only one post at a time, since they're quite long with the photos. If you'd like to see a previous post, use the "Latest" or "Archives" links to the right.

Anyway, Independence Day in New Orleans was a blast. The skies were overcast, and the rain drizzled a bit, but no one's spirits were dashed. Dinner plans for tonight: Emeril's, my favorite restaurant here. The host sat me at the Food Bar, where you can see all the action going on in the kitchen!




Chef Eric prepares the massive pork chop platter.

The food at Emeril's is delicious and ultra-gourmet. They have quite possibly the best gumbo in the city (and therefore, the world), and all the dishes are works of art:


That's veal in front, and the two in the back are pan-seared scallops sitting on a bed of crabmeat-filled mashed potatoes, asparagus skewers, and hollandaise sauce.

Not forgotten at Emeril's is the fine art of the dessert. The couple sitting on the left-hand side (in the above picture) came to Emeril's to celebrate their 37th wedding anniversary. They are fans of Emeril's TV show, and celebrated their anniversary last year in New Orleans to try his restaurant. They liked it enough to come back again. For their dessert, they ordered the very special Chocolate Mariner's Soufle, a decadant dessert that takes 30 minutes to prepare.


Oozing with chocolatey goodness.

Next door to Emeril's is the Regency Hotel, filled with funky decor:


Are you dizzy, or is it just the carpet?


Nice chandelier!

Then Michelle and Alejandro came by, and we all went off to go see the fireworks:


Hooray, no work today!


It's hard to photograph fireworks, because by the time the shutter snaps, the firework is already over. You have to guess when one's coming, then snap the photo just before it explodes.


The grand finale!

Don't forget to post a comment! :-)

No updates of late. Why? Well, my computer broke. Here's what it looked like:


The blue screen of death (BSOD).

Yep, the dreaded BSOD. Usually, just a quick restart, and your computer's back, right? Not this time, Skippy. Every restart would bring me right back to the BSOD. The Dell was done for. Or was she? A couple of days of no luck in repairing the thing led me to believe it was headed for the trasn can. But revelation struck, and before chucking it, I recalled that a corrput RAM chip could cause constant restarts. So, I tried removing one of the RAM chips. Voila, she was back in action! So, problem solved, the comp is running again, and the Verdict can continue! How better to celebrate the mood than with a nice bluish New Orleans nighttime photo?


Looking out of the apartment's living room window.

On that note, how about some more scenec photos from 400 Poydras, 30th floor - the offices of Fowler, Rodriguez & Chalos:


The famous Crescent City Connection bridge, as seen from the terrace.


Technically, no one's allowed out here due to the building code restrictions, and the doors are usually locked. But on this day, they were open, and vulnerable to an unscrupulous photographer.


A little spot of life, growing just outside our monolithic black skyscraper.

Oh, and one more from the building. This was just too funny. See if you can spot the inconsistency in this advertisement, which sits on the kitchen bulletin board:


There's no order to big or small. But you have to order by the dozen. What's an order of 11 then ... or of 13? Zing!

Finally, last weekend's trip to Vail Pass really gave me the cycling bug. Or, better stated, I'm having an outbreak of that chronic Cyclism bug, an incurable virus. Headed home from last weekend's trip to Colorado, it became necessary to order OLN, so that we wouldn't miss any of the Tour de France. Fortunately, it was a very easy process. We made a phone call, and got instructed where to pick up a digital box with which to activate the channel. Dad had his new Blackberry at the ready -- an updated model that is much higher-tech than its predecessors. At the airport, we were able to use Google Maps to pull up directions to the Cox headquarters, so we could pick up the box that same afternoon. Also of note is how enamored Dad became of his new little toy. To be fair, it was pretty cool, and in no time, we had an interactive map showing us where to go:


"Hey, I think I can even start my car with this thing!"

This past week, we parted ways, as Dad went home to celebrate the 4th. For my part, I was livin' in style; the apartment here is very posh, and I've been enjoying every adrenaline-pumping moment of the tour. Of course, with the tour comes a weekly (read: daily) pilgramge to a local bike shop to check out new gear. New Orleans doesn't have too many bike shops, but there is one on the west bank, as its name betrays:


Not quite a BikeSource, but not too bad.

I even found a bike that Dad might ride:


No bike shorts required

There's a bike burning a hole in my wallet ... and it's available for a test ride back home in Littleton. Someone stop me!!!


She will be mine ... oh yes, she will be mine.