Saints won Monday night.

Yay for the Saints and the Superdome!

Neighborhood plans are up!

Okay, so, finally the neighborhood plans (that I never thought were going to happen) are up. They even include the Lower Ninth Ward. I find this very interesting, considering I’m going to school for Urban Studies and would like to get into the planning field one day. Anyways, you can check them out here.

Also, I’m going to be back in New Orleans from October 11th until the 14th. So that’s really cool. I have a report to write about Hurricane Katrina for Urban Studies and I’m very excited.

One year later.

Here are a couple of articles, from our papers:

On anniversary of Katrina, residents mourn, celebrate life

Special/Hurricane Katrina

I don’t really know what to say myself, I feel like I should be down there too, but here I am in Toronto…

Distro moved.

I’m back home now, got home Tuesday morning. Before I left New Orleans I moved our distribution center from N. Robertson to a location in a Catholic Charities building, at 2301 Gallier Street. I also moved into the building, which was a haunted former convent. Here is a picture of the building:

Crowne Plaza.

St. Mary’s is going through a giant cleanup so we have been sent to stay at the Crowne Plaza hotel at Canal and Bourbon. Sweet!

Injuries and distro.

It’s been awhile. Hi world, yes I am alive. I keep injuring myself, though. The other day I fell off my bike, leaving me with a giant purple bruise on my right knee, and last night I managed to slice my knuckle open on some rocks.

I’ve been working at the distribution centre on N. Robertson lately. I like it because I get to talk to the residents all day. The only problems are that it’s really long hours and the roof leaks, thus making the building a great breeding ground for mosquitos. I’ve gotten a lot of bites working there, despite our anti-mostuito candle and despite bug spray. We’ll see how long I stay working there.

Recent shooting.

Yes, there was a shooting that involved five guys about my age. I am fine, thanks for anyone who has been concerned about me. I was not shot. The shooting didn’t happen in my neighborhood. According to this article, “New Orleans shootings may be drug-related”. There are a lot of crack-related problems going on right now, so even though I don’t personally know anything about the shooting, yes, it most likely was drug related. Good thing I don’t smoke crack, huh?

Loss of water and tropical storm.

Yesterday we lost our water for two or three hours. It sucked. Andy thought that they were going to have to tear up the street to find the leak and fix it but luckily we magically got our water back. Before it came back on I was afraid we'd be without water for days. I really take water for granted. I mean, without water we wouldn't be able to shower, drink, flush toilets, do dishes, wash our hands… Yikes. Anyways, here is an article about our loss of water.

In other news, we may be getting our first tropical storm in the next couple of days. I think right now it's aiming at Florida but they're still keeping an eye on it. I really hope it doesn't turn into a tropical storm for us because, from what I understand, people living in FEMA trailers have to evacuate even if it's just a tropical storm. For us, we have to evacuate if there's a category two hurricane.

EC closing and picture.

The other night Emergency Communities closed and left the Lower 9th to another location. They're a group who provide free food for volunteers and residents. I used to eat there all of the time because they had really good, cold cranberry juice. Plus it was a nice change from the usual potatos at St. Mary's. Anyways, here is a picture of me and Henry outside of the EC dome.

Fiberglass and haircuts.

Advice: When dealing with insulation, wear long sleeves to avoid fiberglass burn.

… 

Only in New Orleans do you get offered free wine while getting a haircut.