Saturday Night

Here we are on a Saturday night in the Big Easy... New Orleans... the city that care forgot... open 24 hours a day... and what are we doing? We're sitting on the back deck with a fire pit, roasting marshmallows and making "smores", of course! Good times!

It's now 11AM on Sunday. Linda is at Mass. I went to the 8AM service so I'm home waiting for her and thought it would be a good time to try to finish this post.

The "Global War on Terror" is taking its toll here locally. As more and more money is diverted to support the war effort, more and more is being taken from various Navy projects that are being developed or supported here in New Orleans. What this means is that the contractor workforce, which comprises a large percentage of the total workforce at the Spawar Systems Center, NOLA where I work, is suffering from layoffs to cover the loss of funding. Sadly, as the Christmas holidays come to an end, so too does employment for many of the people at work.

Although the cuts are being forced at a high level, locally there is a concerted effort to relocate and re-employ the people so that the impact of the layoffs is minimized. Please join me in praying for those whose jobs have been eliminated and who are unable to find work immediately. Join me, also, in thanking God for those who are able to remain employed through these difficult times.

While I am not a proponent of capital punishment, this item caught my eye. As we here in the good old U.S.A. struggle with whether or not lethal injection is an inhumanely painful method of capital punishment, our "peaceful" Muslim neighbors in Saudi Arabia don't seem to have such qualms.

And this just in. Apprently drinking and sliding don't mix! So remember, friends don't let friends slide drunk!

We just came back from a late lunch at Serrano's. DLG and kids, H2 and H2GF, Linda and I. The food was great, as always, but the service is definitely slow! Still, a lot of fun and conversation was the order of the day.

Linda is now off shopping with DLG in the French Quarter. It's a beautiful day for it. Sunny, with temps in the 50s. Not bad for mid-January.