A few random thoughts as the week winds down……

I bumped into one of my favorite students, CJ, from Andrew Jackson Elementary School the other day in the parking lot of one of the local grocery stores. Every once in awhile that question of whether or not I’m making a difference runs through my mind, but moments like this erase that so quick. CJ (see picture on the right, he’s the one to the left in front of me pointing to my home state of Arizona) was sitting in his mom’s truck while she was in the store, and when he saw me he jumped out he was so excited that he ran over and gave me a huge hug. CJ isn’t in the summer program over at AJ, so I haven’t seen him since school ended over a month ago. Never in my life has a child gotten so excited to see me. All of a sudden, I can’t wait for school to start again in August. ...One of the hardest things I’ve had to do since getting here in February in terms of physical labor was scraping and washing up excess cement from recently laid floor tiles. I spent the majority of Wednesday doing that, and afterwards I felt like my arms and fingers were going to fall off. What a chore. If you don’t get that stuff right away, and it settles, forget it. It also would help if the people who laid the tile didn’t walk in and track the cement all over the place. ….By the way, I’m really impressed by the woman whose house this is. She lives in a FEMA trailer that sits right in front of the home, has lost two sons in the past year, one to a car accident and one to a drug overdose, and while she struggles a bit when talking about them (understandably so), she seems very resilient and has a tremendous outlook. Another son who lives in Kentucky wants her to come live with him, as she’s around the age of 70 and on her own. But she’ll have no part of leaving the New Orleans area. Each day at about 3 p.m. she comes out of her trailer, all cleaned up and ready to head downtown where she works late into the night in one of the restaurant/bars. While volunteers are helping with her house, this is not a woman looking for free handouts. ….I cannot for the life of me understand the infatuation, either by the bosses who call the shots or the listeners who tune in everyday, with The Mike & Mike Show on ESPN Radio. Talk about two guys who have been on a meteoric rise, and for what, because they can play off this bit of Golic being dumber than a rock and having the vocabulary of a six year old? Or of Greenberg milking cows as payoff of lost wagers? Give me a break. Golic’s voice alone as he shouts moronic statement after moronic statement into the mic is reason enough not to listen to these two blowhards, not to mention Greenberg’s completely disingenuous “what do I know, god knows I’m not an expert” routine. Please, spare me Greenberg. Go kiss the _ss of another guest, will you. ESPN, of course, as its always inclined to do with it’s latest in fad announcers (see Stephen A. Smith as Exhibit A) is once again promoting and shoving a couple more windbags down our throats, online, on TV, via ESPN Insider replays, etc., etc. These two clowns are even going to call an NFL game during its Monday Night Doubleheader on opening weekend. Yeah, I’ll be sure to tune into that one. NOT!

Here are links to a couple of Editorials that ran in The Times-Picayune this past week. The first centers on the funding, or lack thereof, of the Road Home Program, which reimburses money to residents who have lost homes but is facing a pretty major financial shortfall. Of course, our government (state and federal) is doing more bickering and posturing than anything else as it searches for solutions. The second is commentary on the status of repairing the roads in and around New Orleans. They are nothing short of terrible (trust me, the shocks and struts on my car are beyond repair at this point), and the continued use of these roads by large construction type vehicles isn’t stopping anytime soon. Something has to be done. Read this, though, and you’ll at least get a sense of how even those things that should be considered the most basic and important steps to fixing this place up get wadded up in political in-fighting and red tape.

http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/editorials/index.ssf?/base/news-4/1182924321177870.xml&coll=1

http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/editorials/index.ssf?/base/news-4/1182924890177870.xml&coll=1