Forewarning

(The following post is quite long, probably not very well-written, and almost certainly of very little interest to most of you. But I for some reason had to get it out of my system; previous attempts have been a good deal more ambitious, but that very ambition seemed to lead to pretentiousness and prose of the purplest hue. And so, you’ve been warned – mind you, I think some of the pictures are pretty nice.)

It may seem kind of insensitive to make my first post in weeks an item that has almost nothing to do with the latest "natural disaster" to entertain those of us enslaved to the silicon teat.

But what the hell. I don't know anyone in New Orleans, I've never visited the city, and like most of you, my interest is the morbid abstraction of a westerner who - on a gut level - still does not believe that IT CAN HAPPEN HERE.

Welcome to the 21st century, people. Whether or not the recent increase in number and severity of hurricanes has much or anything to do with "global warming", this is just a taste of things to come. While icecaps melt and the Dutch are getting nervous, and those of us with brains and means are moving to higher ground, we can at the same time enjoy the smaller, human, pleasures that life sometimes provides.

* * *

First of all, for those who are wondering, New York didn't happen (for which my anxieties are mostly thankful). Between Laura's lack of photo-idea, the very short time-line, and the fact the producers offered a contract that wanted exclusive control of all of Laura's images in perpetuity (an unenforceable clause, I suspect, but still ...), we decided this was an opportunity whose knock she could afford to ignore.

Her other new career is moving, though neither as quickly nor quite as lucratively as we had hoped. Our financial situation, in the short run, well, sucks. We're living on my credit cards for the next couple of weeks. The longer-term is looking better, though. I'm looking at a 15% raise on the first of October, retroactive to May 24, which chunk of money will go a good way to keeping the wolves from the door.

And despite the financial stressors, the weeks since my last past have been good ones. If you're interested, below the cut you'll find a travel report, a lot of photos and some soppy appreciation of some of my family. ( La Belle Province, Snuggling George W. Bush and More! )