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What New Orleans Taught Me

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Re: What New Orleans Taught Me

#51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I met Morris Bart at some kind of party when I was a teenager. He told me that advertising is the most powerful force in the universe.

He’s not right but he’s not wrong, I was waiting for something in one of the city’s offices once and he came in and people in the middle of much more complicated legal affairs recognized him and started begging him for help. He brushed them off and went through to do whatever his business was. Plastic surgery’s a pretty powerful force in his universe too, this was only a few years ago but he looked just the same as w…

I sat in a jury for a civil lawsuit between an employee, a company, and the insurer for the company. Guy was driving a company vehicle for work and got T-boned on a rural highway by some kids riding through cane fields. His line of work was cleaning those giant shipping vessels, which requires you to climb about 60 feet vertically. Well, the company didn't want to pay more for insurance, so they tried to get the guy to take a foreman gig so they could skimp on his payout.

Long story short, the counsel for the plaintiff was VERY good, made the insurance company's people look like amateurs, and was successful in pleading his case and getting everything he asked for. Very nice fellow, and I didn't notice until driving over a shipping canal that his face was plastered on a giant billboard for maritime injury cases, lol.

Re: What New Orleans Taught Me

#52
The best part about New Orleans is that it's an absolutely terrible investment. At any summer a massive hurricane could wipe it off the face of the planet.

Why this is great is because it makes it unattractive for rich real estate developers and rich gentrifiers from moving here and wiping out the culture by turning it into strip malls and suburbia like the rest of the country.

Re: What New Orleans Taught Me

#54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He isn't buying jello shots like Gordan McKernan either

Now this I hadn’t heard

In Omaha, there's a bar that records the number of jello shots purchased by the fans of each team every College World Series. When LSU was in the CWS, they bought a record amount of jello shots, obliterating the old record. That's because McKernan and Todd Graves (of Raising Canes fame) were taking turns buying thousands of them and giving them away to the LSU faithful.

Re: What New Orleans Taught Me

#55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best NOLA-based game is NORCO. Fight me.

Norco is in St. Charles Parish, not Orleans.

Sure but if you scope it down too much it becomes the only game about that place which kind of takes the fun out of the discussion.

Re: What New Orleans Taught Me

#56
post #3

Speaking of community, there is a really nice little tech community going strong in New Orleans that I think reflects the culture talked about here. If you are ever in town you should stop by an event https://www.noladevs.org/ . Feel free to reach out to me if you want some intros.

BSides Nola is a little more than a week away https://nolabsides.com/nolabsides-main

Re: What New Orleans Taught Me

#57

I’ve traveled to NOLA for work over the years and have fallen in love with the city. The first time I went there, I just thought it would be a tourist trap which, of course, it partially is but you have to go beyond that to find all the wonderful things NOLA has to offer. What draws me to NOLA is the “grit” which is both good and bad. You can eat delicious and unique meals but there are other restaurants where you’ll…

My first "date" with my wife was almost exactly described by the Parachute song New Orleans: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKknLB8LXCQ

She spent her late teens and early adulthood living in the city, and moved back after living all over the place several times during her life; and so when we met we just got in her car and she took me to all the places that were meaningful to her: shopping on Magazine Street, Ursuline Academy where she went to high school, a book signing with one of her classmates, coffee and beignets at Café du Monde, lunch at Domilise's, etc. It was important to her because she felt that to understand New Orleans was to understand her as a person better. The major detail from the song that was missing was there were no roses bursting through cracks in the sidewalk, but sometimes there was jasmine growing along the fences and walls adjoining the sidewalk and as you walked along you'd just be bathed in the smell of it. Random marching or jazz bands do sometimes pass right by you. Everything you said about the city is true. It's sometimes dangerous, and I wouldn't want to be out in the wrong place at night, but it's honest and raw and real in a way most cities, even my beloved Boston, are not.

Re: What New Orleans Taught Me

#58
post #57

I’ve traveled to NOLA for work over the years and have fallen in love with the city. The first time I went there, I just thought it would be a tourist trap which, of course, it partially is but you have to go beyond that to find all the wonderful things NOLA has to offer. What draws me to NOLA is the “grit” which is both good and bad. You can eat delicious and unique meals but there are other restaurants where you’ll…

My first "date" with my wife was almost exactly described by the Parachute song New Orleans: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKknLB8LXCQ She spent her late teens and early adulthood living in the city, and moved back after living all over the place several times during her life; and so when we met we just got in her car and she took me to all the places that were meaningful to her: shopping on Magazine Street, Ursuli…

Thank you for sharing that beautiful comment. Yes, there really are random marching bands about. I also enjoyed the Parachute song which I didn't know. This video kind of captures NOLA for me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6E_s1oO4YQ. (Also love Boston, but for completely different reasons.)

Re: What New Orleans Taught Me

#59
Being a native New Orlean-ean its so strange to hear people talk about New Orleans.

People have these itemized buzz word lists of visited cultural touchstones that they drop in conversations to sound hip about the city.

Its very clinical... like an all white person second line.

Gentrifiers who sliced off the face of the city and are wearing it like a skin suit.

Re: What New Orleans Taught Me

#60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He’s not right but he’s not wrong, I was waiting for something in one of the city’s offices once and he came in and people in the middle of much more complicated legal affairs recognized him and started begging him for help. He brushed them off and went through to do whatever his business was. Plastic surgery’s a pretty powerful force in his universe too, this was only a few years ago but he looked just the same as w…

I sat in a jury for a civil lawsuit between an employee, a company, and the insurer for the company. Guy was driving a company vehicle for work and got T-boned on a rural highway by some kids riding through cane fields. His line of work was cleaning those giant shipping vessels, which requires you to climb about 60 feet vertically. Well, the company didn't want to pay more for insurance, so they tried to get the guy…

> they tried to get the guy to take a foreman gig so they could skimp on his payout.

That’s federal law; nothing to do with the company or New Orleans.

Glossing over a lot of nuance, but if you can offer the person what amounts to a lifetime (or at least long-term???) job at the same or better pay that they can reasonably do with their new disability, there is no standing for a workers comp claim.

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