Optimally different!

So, umm.. wow. Someone who'd gone to NOLA in the previous group said it was "surreal", but I don't think this is what he had in mind.

See, we don't have 'net access at the camp, right? Now, the thing is, the geeks, they needs the net access. So after work today we headed downtown for dinner and email. We found a good place for dinner and afterward the first order of business was to find a place where we could use the net. Now, one of our number said that last night as he was wandering around bourbon street he'd noticed a bar with free net access. The idea of 'net and booze at the same place being of no small appeal to most of us, off we went.

We walked down bourbon street for a while and were just about to give up when we found it: a little place called "Napoleon's Itch", with a big sign in the window advertising free wifi. Entering the door, directly to one's right is the bar. A young fellow who wasn't the bartender smiled and gestured for us to head in that direction, which seemed odd, but hey, New Orleans is a friendly city, right? Anyway, directly in front of you is a large flat TV playing... Law and Order. But what really caught our attention was what lay to the our left. Biiiiig comfy looking couches and chairs, power outlets and pumping techno music. Rock on.

So in we headed, sat down, and then noticed the two other huge, flat screen TVs hanging on the walls, which were playing... gay porn.

The whole group takes an enormous double take, notices the couple sitting on the couch across from us ermm... watching tv and then, almost as one, shrugs, sits down and plugs in because, damn it, we need our email.

Classic.

So here I am sitting in a gay bar on Bourbon street with three other Hatters clustered around a table each typing away at their "guess where I'm blogging from?!?!" posts while, just to my right, well sculpted men undress on giant flatscreens. The award for best moment of the evening goes to the time when the soundtrack for the video switched to "son of a preacher man", to which we all sang along. While sitting around a table in a gay bar. Blogging.

Have I mentioned that I freaking love my job?

Oh, and then my dad called. That was... interesting. I tried to be as vague as possible and keep a straight face while a certain Red Hat higher-up, who shall remain nameless, started doing what can only be described as an obscene mime routine across the table from me. I finally ended up explaining the whole thing because he actually asked where on Bourbon street we were. His reaction:

"...ok."

And then proceeding to explain that the reason he'd asked (lest I think he was prying into my gay-bar-frequenting habits) was that I have a relative who lives on Bourbon street. Yup. That's me dad.

So yeah. I was going to write an update about how work was going and I promise I still will, but I hope you can understand how the immediate surreality of this demanded that it be recorded. In the meantime you can read the blogs of some of my co-workers at:

http://iwillbeeatenbyanalligator.blogspot.com/

and

http://redvoodoo.org

Also, there are pics here:

http://people.redhat.com/pgraner/katrina_relief/

For more information about the bar that inspired this post, visit

http://www.napoleonsitch.com/ (the more worldy of my flisters can quick snickering at our collective naivette now)

Ok. That is so all for now. Gotta check my email. No, really.