Trip to New Orleans (belated entry)

Last weekend (Oct. 21) Katie's uncle Chris and I made the short trip to Metairie/New Orleans looking for loot.

The trip came to be by way of Katie's other uncle Jim who had been working down in Metairie, running a hauling business for the construction crews tasked with repairing the homes down there. The crews would go into houses which were totalled by the insurance company (because of mold damage mostly) and throw everything out on the curb to be picked up and hauled off to the dump. The owners couldn't reclaim any of the merchandise because they'd been paid by the insurance companies for those items and the insurance companies weren't wasting their time going through the garbage heaps. That's where we came in.

Katie's uncle Jim told us the week before we left that we wouldn't believe the kind of stuff that was down there. Fridges, ranges, couches, all kinds of furniture all lying on the curb waiting to be picked up and hauled off to a dump. So, Chris and I decided it was worth 24 hours to find out whether Jim was exaggerating or not.

We borrowed a Dodge Ram and a huge trailer from Jim and set out Friday night. Jim put us up in the house his crew was renting (though they moved on to Beaumont, TX the day before) in Metairie.

We showed up Friday night to a house with more junk in its yard than any of the houses we saw all weekend. The house had been gutted. The bottom floor didn't even have sheet rock on the walls. It was just beams supporting the structure of the house.

The second floor was a little better, having walls, but nothing else. That's where we stayed. Because the front door was missing the glass on the upper portion and didn't close very well, and the garage door and back door were permanently open, we locked ourselves in the upstairs bedroom and shoved a bag in front of the door to keep out any possible mid-night visitors from sneaking up on us.

The next morning we woke up and drove to a 24 hour truck stop diner and had a big breakfast. It was one of the only restaurants open at the time, since McDonalds and the other fast food restaurants in the area can't find workers... after all, people are getting paid to sit at home... On a side note, Burger King was offering a $500 bonus per month to work there, with wages starting at $9/hour to entice people to get off their government subsidized butts. I digress...

We went off on the hunt and saw quite a bit of good stuff. We noted an entertainment center, but decided to come back for it. After a little more driving we found a gas dryer and stainless steel front dishwasher. Chris and I loaded those up and headed back to get the entertainment center, which was now gone... only 15 minutes later.

That's how the day went. We would drive around, find something on the side of the road and throw it in the truck. Sometimes, we'd see other people picking up good items, but I think we came out purty darn good considering we were going through people's garbage. The items we got had very little damage and most items had no damage at all. The water was probably only two inches deep at best in the ritzy area we were scouring, but the houses were totalled because of the way the mold had spread throughout the houses after having standing water for so long.

After our second trip back to the "safehouse" that Jim was renting, we saw a group of guys in trucks wandering around in the house. We pulled up and said "Howdy", and tried to find out why in the world they were wandering about in the house. It turns out that Jim had rented the house to them so he wouldn't have to pay for the rest of the month (since he was moving his crew to Beaumont, TX). So, we had to get our stuff out of the driveway so they could have better access to the garage and house. That was the only little snag in the day though...

After we could load no more, we came away with an Armoire (damaged but repairable), two chests of cabinets (damaged, non-repairable, but useable), stainless steel dishwasher, 1 book shelf unit, oak cabinets from a kitchen (to be sized, cut and installed), a leather massage table (with a hole for a face), and the prize of all prizes... my leather chair and ottoman.

It turned out to be an $1800 set that's still listed on the Dillard's website. It had no damage, apart from one of its back legs being a little busted up. It's in the same condition as the chair pictured above, and sits as comfortably as any chair... though it may be the price that makes the chair so comfortable.

Chris got most of the wooden furniture goods and I took two chests of drawers, the massage table and the chair... oh, and a little jewelry box thing for Katie.

The only other item of interest came on the way back. We were in bumper to bumper traffic for some unknown reason right outside of Metairie for about 30 minutes. After getting out of the traffic jam, we realized that the truck wouldn't shift out of first gear. So, we were stuck on the shoulder going at a top speed of about 17 mph. After letting the truck cool down a bit, though, we were off again with a working, but unreliable transmission. We made it back in about 6 hours without another incident.

Gameboy micro and work

Work is about to slow down quite a bit after tomorrow. You see, it's October 14th. Schools here have to submit data for what students where enrolled in school as of October 1st... and they get paid according to the number and type of student. They have from October 1st to October 14th to clean that data up, or submit student data to ensure that they get funded for all the students the provide instruction or services to.

Try as they may to screw this up, the state has made their system semi-workable so people will be finishing up the last bits of data entry tomorrow and that will mean that everyone will be less panicked after tomorrow... after all we're talking $5,000 dollars per special ed student that our software submits to the state.

This may mean the end of overtime... wait, I mean long hours. You see, at my work when you work past the time that you're paid... it's called working after work for no money. There's no such thing as overtime.

In other news, earlier tonight I went and bought WarioWare: twisted for my new Gameboy Micro. It may be the best game I've played since Donkey Konga, solely because it's extremely entertaining and completely different than any other video game I've ever played.

Here's the deal. The game comes with a gyroscope (a little thingamabob that detects motion) and a rumble pack in the game cartridge. So, the whole game is a series of mini-games in which you complete short little tasks in which you have to tilt the gameboy or press buttons at the right time. For instance, in one mini-game you're instructed to "Pound", a hammer appears on the screen and one nail is shown protruding past another series of nails. You have about 3 seconds to look at the situation, find that you move the hammer over the nail by tilting the gameboy and then you hammer with the A-button. Once you've smacked it until it's flush with the surface, you're done. If you pound it in under the time limit, you are not penalized, otherwise you are.

It's a very strange game that I can't explain very well... but trust me, the gameboy is worth the purchase to be able to play this game. Maybe the novelty will wear off soon, but I'm extremely happy with the purchase of both the gameboy and the two games (Wario and Donkey Kong Country... the original SNES game).

I only wish I'd bought it in Dallas last weekend and Fry's. I tried to tell Taylor and Katie that I thought it would be great, but they didn't believe me. They said, no, let's go. We just need to leave before you buy something you'll never use.

The goods

Work, work, work. That's what I've been about lately... and bargain shopping. The bargain shopping keeps me sane, I think. This weekend, i hit the jackpot too. I discovered the Ralph Lauren Polo outlet in Allen , TX (pretty much Dallas). Polo shirts were $20, jeans were $30-40, sheets and comforters half off what you'd pay at Dillard's or the like.

In related news, Katie, the fam and I headed to Dallas this weekend to see my Grandparents. I had to tell three different people that "No, I won't be working this weekend" to get there, but I got to go nonetheless. I'm trying my best to keep this post a rant-free zone, so I'll just leave the work situation at that for this post.

Katie and I rented a Pontiac Grand Prix and drove down Friday night, about an hour after my parents and Taylor left. I drove like a crazy person since, as all rental car drivers reason, "this isn't my car". Hopping curbs and peeling out, acceptable. Random car-jackings, no worries. We had a good time on the way down... even got to have some Jack in the Box, a rare luxury for those of us in Northern Louisiana.

When we got down there, we visited with the grandparents for a while, watched a little TV, then headed to bed. Taylor and I had to share the fold out couch and Katie got the second extra bedroom.

Saturday was meant to be full of shopping. We took care of that early that day, and only spent about four hours total prowling the Allen outlet mall, Target (looking for an LCD TV deal), then Fry's.

When we got back, we found the house empty. It seems that my Dad suggested that my grandparents go by Circuit City after lunch (with my Aunt and Uncle) and check out the TV situation there. With my Uncle there and my Pappaw interested in making "60 minutes" as large as humanly possible each Sunday evening, good things were bound to happen. Uncle Bill schmoozed the salesman, I'm sure, and the grandparents ended up with a 51" Projection TV. Coincidentally, the old TV gave out the same day the TV was to be delivered... that Sunday.

That's pretty much all that happened that weekend. The last bit of news is that I just got a Gameboy Micro because I've been having a hard time having not bought a gadget in a while. It's great so far. That's all the news I have so far... so leave a comment, if you can. Last time I asked for that I didn't get any, so maybe I need to check into my comments script.