Big cooking weekend

In order to prepare for the upcoming weeks of study mornings, library evenings, and working late into the night, we decided to save some money, time, and our stomachs but cooking a lot of food that we can just reheat as the week went on. On the menu were beef stew, pasta, and meatloaf! Finally, JJ made the meatloaf he's promised for so long!

Beef stew:




Meatloaf:




Leftover meat from the meatloaf was made into meatballs!

Donna went to New Orleans for training

It was my first trip ever to New Orleans and it was with the firm's national training. This meant that I didn't get to see much of N'awlins other than the trip to and from the airport and the short walk across the street to check out Harrah's. I didn't know what N'awlins was like before Katrina but a year since the hurricanes, it felt like a dilapidated and semi-abandoned place. I saw very few people walking around but we did stay in a touristy part of town. Still, in the hot sticky humidity, the place felt rather empty.

My room's view of the Mississippi


For the entertainment portion of the training, the firm hired bands and various Mardi Gras type festivities to parade with us down the street! They closed off the streets and hundreds of us walked down with our beads and the music blaring.


At the restaurant/bar place that I don't know the name of, they had a jazz/blues band that was very good.


Also, the food (buffet food at a number of stations) was sooooo good. Truly cajun! There was the best jambalaya I've ever had, some cajun pasta, roast turkey/pork loin, fried catfish, coconut jumbo shrimp... ohhh it was so good! :) They gave us such small plates so I had to make 2-3 trips to buffet stations! Also, the catfish and the shrimp were on platters that the waiters went around with so we basically stalked them.

JJ went to Atlanta for a conference

He's been too busy to post but I'll let him talk about it :) Don't forget to check back!

10/14/06 edit:
Whew! Finally time to catch up. Yeah, went to Atlanta for a conference. Nothing too exciting to report except the trip to the Georgia Aquarium.



Most noteworthy of the Georgia Aquarium is that it has the world's largest tank at 6.2 million gallons. That doesn't really mean anything until you're standing in front of the ginormous main viewing panel. I don't know the dimensions, but I remember hearing that it cost a few million bucks to make a single piece of glass that big and distortion free. It's about the size of a big movie theatre screen and at least a couple of feet thick to be sure. It's really amazing when you see it in person.

Those fish (giant grouper) are literally bigger than the kid.

And the tank holds 4 whale sharks. I couldn't believe how big they were. To give you perspective, that fish in the lower left of the picture is the same fish that was bigger than the kid.