Road Trip!

Well, I'm glad Sarge (potentially soon to be known as Henry, Steve or Moley, the jury's still out) had a thought provoking post today (Sunday) on the 71st Anniversary of the Bombing of Hiroshima or as I like to refer to it "The first notification that We didn't start it, but we WILL end it.".  The reason I'm glad that he had a post that was thought provoking is because I don't.

This was the weekend that I have my de-geekifying sessions. I have just returned, exhausted, but geek level reduced to within tolerance.

 As most folks are aware after retiring from the AF, I put my college degree(s)  to use and work IT for the local school district.  As such, I'm the DBA in charge of all the student and faculty data and any queries needed of that data.

 As an additional duty, I am "Printerman!"  Can't print?  Call me!  "Yes, I'll drop that overdue report to the Superintendent to come clear your jam, because you don't want to walk all the way across the hall to a working printer. "

"No, really, I don't mind, not one bit. Wouldn't want you to get a nasty papercut!"

Oh, and I'm in charge of Active Directory, the guardian of user accounts and computer accounts.

In short, I'm in charge of a lot of geeky fecal matter and it starts adding up.

So, once a year, I need to go and remove the geeky matter build up, by being in close proximity to people who, actually, are more geeky than I.

I found them at SQLSaturday in Baton Rouge.Some could safely be said to be a "black hole" of geekiness.  Proximity to them causes the gravitational pull of their geekiness to pull the geektrons off me and add it to their event horizon of geekiness.

Seriously,  They were at a professional computer programmer conference in full star wars costume. Storm Troopers, Sith Lords, Rebel Soldiers, Darth Vader, Ewoks.  Princess Leia (No, not in THAT costume!)

All Day.

Outside.

Baton Rouge LA

100 Degrees

95% Humidity

I feel better already.

I was unable to arrange to meet VX, as I had the rest of my office mates with me and "Herding Cats" was the order of the day.  

In lieu of actual photographs of Jedi Geeks or cat hearding, let me introduce the Newest Member of the Juvat clan.  Her name is Schmedlap.
(If I ever find who threw her out of the car on the highway, you're dead meat buddy!)

Unfortunately, they were pretty good at herding cats and I was unable to slip away.

Friday, we went to Parrains (VX's suggestion from last year), where I had a very nice Andouille Encrusted Fresh Drum (Drum being the name of a very tasty white fish), served over crawfish with garlic mashed potatoes.  Paired nicely with an Abita Andygator beer.

Saturday we went to The Chimes.  Right across the street from LSU, I raised the average age in the place by a bunch.  My colleagues fit right in.  The food here was not the primary draw (Pun intended, It WAS directly across the street from LSU!).  With 80 Beers on tap, 127 in a bottle, and 5 in cans, the decision was difficult.  I settled on Founder's Breakfast Stout.  This went quite well with the blackened Aligator appetizer.  (Tasted remarkably like chicken albeit a bit chewier.  Served with a mustard creme sauce.)  It also paired nicely with my New Orleans Spicy BBQ shrimp on a Fried Tasso Grit Cake.  

Got back to the hotel in time to avoid a torrential downpour and hit the rack. (Note to self: Self!  you'll sleep a heck of a lot better if you bring the power cable to your CPAP with it and you. Dummy!)

Arose this morning and RTB.  Had a good time, but it was nice to get back to the Auld Sod!

Of Course, crossing the state line only means 388 miles to go to get home