Hallowe’en window display in New Orleans

This was an inflatable display. The coach, horses, and driver are all inflated plastic figures. If you peer, you might be able to see that the wheels are kind of squishy.

And the air-pressure enabled the makers of the display to make the figure in the coffin inside the coach sit up occasionally and then subside.

Pilates class

I’m back from Pilates. LotStreetWiz begged off sick: alternating workout days and sick relapses doesn’t seem to be a good plan. We are working on smaller and smaller movements of body-core muscles; and our instructor tells us that the class will be advancing to Intermediate Level in the new year.

Hallowe’en cats

The black LOLcats are here.

I saw many glimpses tonight of costumed children going from house to house for candy.

Hallowe’en pumpkins

From LOLcat builder:

Jack-o-lanterns with Hallowe’en cat

The dentist’s pumpkin

Happy Owlowe’en

Walk on Canal Street

I finally got out for a walk this evening, just into the tourist quarter for dinner and then away from Bourbon Street and and back to Canal Street, up Canal until it turned kind of industrial, then back to the hotel.

This is the richer part of Canal Street, near the hotel, during the day.

Walking tour of New Orleans’ French quarter

Last night a group of eight of us went out for dinner, supposedly Cajun food, and then on a walking tour of the old French Quarter. We got some of the history with the requisite ghost stories.

Note the narrow streets designed for small wagons, not cars.

In New Orleans

I’m here for a conference, indirectly supporting the rebuilding of the city. The conference is on project management and advanced technical communication. The keynote speaker was the colonel in the U.S. Army Corps of engineers who is helping to plan and execute a new level of safety and coordination in flood control.

I’ve been for a few walks in the Old Quarter or French Quarter, which was the core of the town in the 1700s.

The picture is of some of the building fronts on Canal Street.

The hotel is here, in a bend of the Mississauga River, south of Lake Pontchartrain,

The hotel is here, in a bend of the Mississauga River, south of Lake Pontchartrain,

The hotel is here, in a bend of the Mississauga River, south of Lake Pontchartrain,