So we had our fantasy football draft earlier this week. I had a gameplan going into it to draft RB’s with my first few picks and then grab a top D (Ravens, Pats, or Steelers). However, after grabbing Shaun Alexander with my first pick (I had the 3rd pick overall), the second round came around to me with Randy Moss still available. Just like that my draft strategy went out the window and I decided to take Moss so that I’d have a legitimate #1 WR to go with my legitimate #1 RB. But it keeps nagging me, maybe I should have grabbed Julius Jones with that pick instead. Then I would have had 2 excellent backs. But last season I felt that I had undervalued WR’s in our league so I didn’t want to repeat that mistake. Plus I also look for Moss to do well since Oakland could well be the breakout offense of the season. In any event, I ended up with a pretty balanced team, but not strong enough in any position to be able to comfortably make a trade. Plus I have Ricky Williams who is just hogging up a roster spot until he can play in week 6. Oh well, it could have been worse, and indeed a bunch of the other teams in our league do look worse. We’ll see how this plays out.

I went back to Sushi of Gari again, and it was just as superb as last time. Plus I got the foie gras sushi this time too. Damn it was incredible. Perfectly seared foie, and a very substantial portion too, almost too big to get the whole piece into my mouth in one shot. It was so delicious I think it’s nearly a tie between it and the grilled uni for the best piece of sushi I’ve ever tasted.

Work has been getting a bit overwhelming lately, working 12 hour days and still way too much stuff on my plate. I’m off to Vegas at the end of next week, and then I’ve been told that I have to be in Denver that Monday. So now I think I may stay in LV on Sunday and fly directly to Denver from there. That would allow me to watch the football games on Sunday afternoon too. It’s nuts though, I’ll be in Denver at least 3 or 4 days, so really I won’t be back in the office here until mid September. I really hope my guys don’t slack off while I’m away, but I don’t have a lot of confidence in their self-discipline these days. They do an ok job, but just not the level of urgency or pride in coming in ahead of schedule that I want them to have. The worst part is that I end up doing so much more work just to keep them looking better than they actually are. From micromanagement where necessary to literally writing code for them to give them a head start on projects so they’ll meet their deadlines, all this adds up to my 12 hour days.

So work’s been wearing on me a bit, and then the whole hurricane disaster down in New Orleans really made me sad. It’s really heartbreaking to see what’s going on down there. I loved that city so much, and I just don’t know if it will ever be the same. Beyond the the direct impact of the hurricane, a greater horror has emerged. Everyone down there always knew that outside of the laid back fun vibe of the French Quarter, there was always an awareness of the darker side- the dangerous areas just outside of the Quarter, the poverty, the corruption in law enforcement. All of this has been brought front and center now as the city has fallen into lawlessness. Those once outlying miscreants are now just roaming the city doing whatever they want. There’s job abandonment by a significant portion of their police department. What the people that live there are going through right now is simply unimaginable. It’s hard to believe that conditions can be that bad and relief taking that long to arrive and it’s all happening right here in the USA. For those that do make it through this, I would venture to say that many if not most will not want to live there any longer even if insurance could rebuild their homes. I’ll cherish my memories of New Orleans forever and I feel sad for what has happened there and sadder that the city may never again be the same way I remember it.