Monday, September 25, 2023

 The convention hasn't started yet today, and we got off to a late start, still recovering from jet lag.We decided to have brunch at the same Mexican restaurant we visited for dinner the evening before. They served a great Mexican breakfast dish.

Ann had board meetings today and they also went out to dinner at a very nice restaurant. I seem to be on the wrong board.

The hotel is just across the street from the Superdome and the Smoothie King Sports Center. It is huge and we're on the 25th floor. The elevator ride is like an amusement car ride.However, they seem to have some trouble measuring things, and I'll save that for a later post. 

Sunrise in New Orleans from the hotel room

A look from our floor down to the hotel lobby.

View from our floor to the hotel lobby

Bob discovered that you can purchase a $15. transit pass, good for unlimited rides the entire week. The only difficulty getting the pass, is finding someplace that sells them. Bob goes for a one mile walk to find a pass. Gets rained on and had to hunker down with some construction folks who didn't seem to notice he wasn't on the team, or didn't care. In frustration, calls the transit authority, telling them that none of the listed sellers don't seem to have any one week passes in inventory. The woman on the other end explains that nobody has the pass because everyone downloads the app on their phone. Long story short... the app is on the phone and works great. 

The next trip, while Ann is at her meetings, Bob travels the center of town, to secure a limited edition pen available at a special stationery store downtown. This is something that he looked for at the last visit to NOLA and finally found via the Internet. Google Maps gets him to the stationery store. It's a pen lover's dream and Bob spends about an hour looking around. He will probably return again later in the week. Bob discovers the limited edition pens have been selling well and there are only about a dozen left. Bob/I reserved one of the pens last week, and one of the staff remembers putting it away, but they can't find it! However, it was a really, really good thing that no purchase was completed before a visit to the store because Bob discovered each pen has a unique color and texture. The guys at the store were really, really, nice and allowed Bob to examine about a dozen pens that were in inventory (they had to be removed from packaging) to choose the one with the nicest color and grain. Not only that, but they gave a "senior discount."Also, they allowed me/him to examine different nibs and choose the one that was most comfortable. So Bob heads right back to the hotel room to stash it in a safe place.

Well.. almost right back to the hotel room. There were some really interesting art studios to browse on the way back. 

Visiting the art galleries on the French Quarter. The streets are closed to traffic and very pedestian friendly.

At $44,000 for a set of two, how could anyone resist these?

Then, off to the supermarket again for some snacks before the Eagles game begins on Monday Night Football. At this point we have sodas, selter, crackers, wine, desserts, salads, yogurt and our fridge if full for snacks. Bob heads to the sports bar at the hotel has monitors, but nobody in the audience really cares about the game. Locals are still down about their team's loss to the Packers last Sunday. It's raining outside, so watch in the hotel room and also get some work done until Ann returns from her dinner. 

Ann returns after dinner with photos!

Ann and one of her colleages in front of a Mardi Gras costume adorned with Swarovski diamonds and worth about $80,000.

The restaurant where Ann had dinner with her colleagues. 

One of the things I really appreciate is the T-Mobile hotspot I got from the law library. Since wifi in public places isn't always secure, the library invested in some hot spots that can be borrowed. We have it on 24 hours a day in the hotel room. The second thing I appreciate is a bluetooth transmitter we got from Temu. It is not the highest quality, and you have to wait a few days for it to arrive from China, but the price was right. I was able to connect it to the hotel TV and one of us can listen to TV on the earphones while the other is at the "command center" working.