At approximately 6:00AM MDT today I got engaged. Not engaged by work or to complete some task assigned to me but rather engaged to Loni to be married. I’ve had the ring for a while now and had originally planned to do it atop of some peak up in Steamboat but the trip never panned out and I sensed that Loni was wise to my intentions. For over a year and a half now any time Loni would bring up the dreaded “M” word I would always just say Thursday. She would initially answer This Thusday, next Thursday? To which I would simply reply… Thursday. It became a running thing with us and I’d never necessarily intended to propose on a Thursday as it was just my way of avoiding the question and ending the conversation.

It just so happened that this Valentines Day fell on a Thursday. I also felt good about the fact that Loni knew I’d never be cheesy enough to propose on Valentines Day. So with these two elements lining up nicely I felt in good shape to pop the question. I also opted to drop to one knee in the same place I had two Valentines Day’s ago when I gave her a watch. She didn’t think that little move was as funny as I did at the time. I also made the proposal in the very early morning hours as she was off to work to try and keep the element of surprise on my side.

It worked. She was surprised and she said “yes”.

Happy Thursday everyone.

-Matt

We just got back from a trip down to New Orleans for Mardi Gras. Loni has some family down there that was kind enough to put us up in a condo just 2 blocks off of Bourbon street, a pretty sweet gig indeed. We took in the town, its sights, and its booze over a 5 day stretch and it feels pretty good to be back home after all of it.

We flew out of Denver on Friday, February 1st at the very wee hours of the morning; 6:45AM to be precise on US Airways destined for Charlotte, NC. We had about a 2hour layover is Charlotte where we caught some grub and rubbed our eyes. We jumped on our connecting flight towards our final destination and arrived in New Orleans at about 3PM local time. From there we headed over to the condo where we’d be staying for the next several days and the location was prime. It was just 2 blocks off of Bourbon Street (on Bienville) and was a recessed area from the street. The door that faced the street was an electronic security door and opened directly to the the covered garage area. From there it opened into a little outdoor courtyard that bordered the place we were staying. There were 2 “houses” in this little area, the main house and the slave quarters where we were staying. It was a pretty cool little spot.

That night we had some VIP passes to The Hustler Club and so that’s where we started out at. It was a fairly nice outfit, especially considering some of the dives you can wander into on Bourbon street, and it was definitely cool to be escorted past the velvet rope. The VIP area was essentially the whole second floor which had a courtyard like view down to the main stage and access to the balcony overlooking Bourbon Street. We hung here for a few hours and then hit the streets.

We trotted up and down Bourbon Street and checked out a few of the various bars and clubs and picked up some of the famous hand grenade drinks. We walked around and covered all of Bourbon from top to bottom. We stopped at a few more places until the street gradually grew more crowded until it became unbearable. They say they got more than a million visitors a night to Mardi Gras while we were there and I’d say 90% of them were crammed into about 8 blocks of the street that night. We headed back to the condo to get out of the crowds and called it a night… we’d been up since 4:30AM and drinking for about 6 hours at this point anyway. The packed in crowds were pretty par for the course over the weekend getting real bad at about 10:30PM on.

Saturday morning we were parade bound so we headed down to St. Charles Street and parked behind a nice restaurant for the festivities. We wandered up and down the street and got some crappy food at a little grocery store deli while we waited for the restaurant we’d parked at to open in a couple hours. Once the restaurant did open we went inside for lunch and got our grub on. Excellent fried avocados. The 1st of two parades started around noon so we headed outside to check it out.

The first parade was a Broadway themed parade with the various floats representing different Broadway plays. There were some crappy middle and high school bands thrown into the mix alot of which were merely carrying their instruments and not even playing. Some of the marchers didn’t even have mouthpieces in their instruments. All the floats threw down tons of beads to the spectators along with cups and other paraphernalia. We bagged up all our loot and dropped it off at the car before the 2nd parade started.

I’m not really sure what the theme of the 2nd parade was. I think it was kind of a western theme as there was lots of horses and the occasional dressed up Indians. Maybe it was a “world” themed parade because I seem to remember a pharaoh float and a sailor float or something. Again, beads and cups and other junk was showered down on the on-lookers in lieu of the more traditional candy and some more crappy bands full of un-enthused kids marched through. We then headed back to the condo to rest up a bit.

That night we had some invites to a private corporate party at the Royal Sonesta hotel which also provided balcony access out over Bourbon Street. So we got all beaded up and headed down there. We nibbled on some of the food that was laid out and grabbed some free beers and stayed out on the Balcony most of the night. I kid you not they must’ve provided the party with 6 to 8,000 beads to toss down on the crowds below. They weren’t the chintzy little cheap beads either and they had some good heft to them. More than a couple beers deep we (along with several other bead tossers) began to amuse ourselves with knocking drinks out of peoples hands with the beads. We really became quite masterful shots. A few cops paid the price of being in range as well and the mischief was thoroughly enjoyed. They closed the balcony down at about 12:30AM and we hit the streets for a bit.

It was even more crowded this night than the previous and we didn’t stay down on Bourbon for very long. We hit a couple bars but in general the mass of people and stench of the streets was too much. Man was the street dirty. It hadn’t rained at all since we’d been there and yet the sidewalk, street, and gutters were slick with moisture. Booze and urine mostly. They sell these things called “sneaky leakers” which is essentially a condom attached to a tube that goes down the inside of your pants and out the bottom allowing you to somewhat discretely pee wherever you need. In the morning they just take a front loader plow down the street to scoop up all the cups and beads and trash from the night before. They then have power washers go up and down the street. And it still stinks. Being a humid city and humidity being generated from the available moisture in the air and the available moisture being mostly booze and piss… well… you get the idea.

The next morning we hit up the famous Clover Grill and got some good ol’ fashioned southern breakfast before heading down to the river. We perused some shops along the way and stopped at the flea market to look over the goods. From there we walked along the river and watched some giant cargo ships roll in off the ocean destined for ports along the Mississippi. We kept on walking over to Harrah’s Casino where we killed a couple hours losing money.

Back to the Condo to rest up a bit and catch the start of the Super Bowl. After the first quarter we headed back to the Royal Sonesta hotel again where we still had invites to the balcony from the night before as well as another balcony in a different section of the hotel. We were pretty wiped and didn’t stay long opting to head back to the condo for the remainder of the Super Bowl and an early bed time.

Monday morning we found ourselves back down by the river for the official start of Lundi Gras and the welcoming of the Zulu king to the festival. The place was infinitely more crowded than the day before with tents set up all over and live music being blasted from all corners. We got some food and perused around a bit and did a little more river watching. Somehow we found ourselves back at the Casino because apparently we didn’t feel like we’d given them enough of our money. We made up that little gap fairly quickly and scooted over a couple blocks to The House of Blues for dinner. Initially we’d planned to see the concert they were having there that night after dinner but when we figured out the doors didn’t open until 9 and the concert didn’t really kick off until 11:30 we opted to scalp the pre-purchased tickets outside. Back to the condo for a few hours of sleep before we had to head to the airport at 4:30AM again for another red-eye flight out of town.

4:30AM came quickly and we found ourselves at the New Orleans airport at about 5 for check-in and then awaiting our 6:15AM departure to Atlanta. We touched down in Atlanta and confused the time difference barely having enough time to make it to our next gate for our flight back to Denver. We touched down in Denver at about 10:20AM local time and were a little taken back by the the snow on the ground and everywhere else. We’d had good vacation weather the whole trip and while we shivered at the sight it was good to be home.

Pictures are up here.

-Matt