Amsouth 2008, Mardi Gras
After returning from beekeeping last week I turned around and scampered off immediately to New Orleans. There I caught up with my friends Kerri, Laura, & Jen from NAU (Northern Arizona University) at Aaron's place, along with Aaron's friend Spud and his parents. Despite the large number of people Aaron was hosting we had awesome times. We were there for Mardi Gras and then of course we caught up with the rest of the NAU delegation at the end of the week for the Model UN Conference. Somewhere in there we saw Barack Obama and I got kicked out of a bar, among many other things.
When I arrived on Sunday Aaron and the girls had already been bonding for most of the day, as they came in in the afternoon.
Monday evening we went down to Bourbon Street. As it was the day before Mardi Gras it was quite debaucherous out there. All the MUNers who arrived after Mardi Gras have no idea what they missed, the following Fri and Sat did not compare to Monday. There were already a lot of young women "earning beads out there," as it were. The way I see it, if young women want to flash their mammalian bits for cheap plastic trinkets, thats their perogative, and if young lads want to oggle like seeing them is the best thing ever, thats fine too I guess, but what really creeps me out is all the guys wandering around with cameras or video-cameras just being creepers. On that note, here's some pictures!!
Jk you may note all I have pictures of are the preachers with signs. Those were the only pictures I took on Bourbon street... except for one involving a girl, a horse, and a cop, but.. yeah. Anyway I was quite offended by the preachers with signs -- they were making inexcusably bad misuse of apostrophes!!! I really wanted to have a serious chat with them but Laura adamently didn't want us to give them any attention. Personally I think they only thrive on negative attention (since they have a victim complex about the holiness of being persecuted) and it would throw them off if one talked to them about anything other than theological disagreements. Also one of them had his sign upside-down it was quite odd.
Tuesday, AKA Mardi Gras we went and saw the "Rex" and "Zulu" parades. There were a lot of neat floats ... but I haven't gotten around to putting up pictures of them yet so instead here's what the road looked like after the parades had passed by: more beads than you know what to do with. ...But we found something to do with them -- when the rest of the NAU people joined us at the end of the week and we moved to a hotel, we decorated the boys room with beads! In particular I decked out the lads' bathroom all in pink, complete with a heart on the toilet. (=
Also around this time (the parades) Spud was overheard saying "Chestnut" to Aaron. One of the girls was like "is that your pet name for him?" and he was like "no its the street we're on." Nevertheless, we started calling Aaron "Chestnut" and the name stuck all week. Henceforth in this entry Aaron will be referred to as "Chestnut."
Anyway after that we went back to Aaron's Chestnut's and had a BBQ. My brother nibot was in town at the time apparently but lacked transportation to get to where we were out by Carrolton.
That evening we didn't actually go down to downtown because our local contacts reported it would be too insane down there. Anyway, I guess we're just not as debuacherous as nibot who was presumably at the epicentre. Instead we went to local bars in Uptown.
Wednesday we moved to the hotel rooms and about half a dozen other people from NAU joined us. We went out to Bourbon Street as soon as the others got in.
Though apparently only announced at all about 24 hours in advance, nibot gave us a heads up that Obama was speaking Thursday morning at Tulane University which was right off the trolley line down by where Aaron lives, so Kerri, Laura and I got up early Thursday and went to see him. That was really cool.
We got back to the conference hotel just in time for opening ceremonies. Just before we got there was like "wait! Wait country am I!?" Turns out I was Malaysia in the Economic & Social Commission for Asia & the Pacific (ESCAP). Armed with this immense amount of preparation I proceeded to win the best delegate award for the committee. (=
And of course there was much debauchery every night. As I mentioned I got kicked out of a bar. I was walking towards the exit when someone threw a firecracker. I barely looked up, whatever, shit happens right. But I get to the door and the bouncer is all up in my face. I try to tell him I can't hear him but he gets in my face again and all I can gather is that he thinks I'm being a smartass. I'm assuming he's blaming me for the firecracker, and he seems pretty pissed. Anyway he goes to talk to people around where the firecracker went off and I continue on my way out the door. As I'm walking away the bouncer comes back to the door and yells something at me, which I'm later told was something along the lines of that I wasn't welcome back or something. Whup-tee-doo.
A Story About Global Warming (Warning this story contains debauchery and "adult situations," not for the overly sheltered!)
So at some point, a certain two delegates are taking a shower, you know, to conserve water. Other people are in the room outside. Presently, this girl Danielle is like "are they okay in there? Its been like 40 minutes!" "yes" responds someone, "they're having sex." "I know," says Danielle, "but I mean, it shouldn't take this long!" Everyone is like "Uh yes, yes it should." to which she responds "well, shouldn't they like, be thinking about global warming or something?" AND SHE'S SERIOUS! Lolz. Maybe water conservation but global warming?! So yeah.
(Anyway, the rest of the pictures)
Anyway then Sunday night I came back home, and Monday I started a new job at a law firm called Kenobi Marten and Bears, LLC, or something. Figures if Obi-Wan lived in this world he'd be an intellectual property lawyer. Anyway, I got sworn not just to not disclose what I'm working on to people outside the firm, but even to people inside the firm who aren't on the project. So yeah, it would be deleterious of me to report on any goings on there here.
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