03.23.06

New Orleans–Thursday

Posted in General at 10:42 pm

Further observations:

-Part of me wants to move South. These people are so much more like me.

-The network at this school is the most poorly designed one I have ever had the misfortune to connect to.

Ok, enough observations. We didn’t have to go to chapel last night. Yay!! I know, I’m horrible. On the subject of chapel…we have chapel for like 30 minutes in the morning–then in the evening when we’re all tired we have it for 2 hours. Shouldn’t that be the other way around?

Anyway, so we got to go OUT. Yay!! We had food in the French Quarter (the party area), which was good. I was still hungry so I wanted Cheeseburgers. There was this place across the street from the restuarant called “krystal’s”–it’s apparently a chain, and Barbara referred to it as “The Dick’s of the South”. Anyway, the burgers were terrible, and I was very sad. We ate at both places on Bourbon Street, so I saved the cheeseburger receipt. I also bought a hat, since I need one.

Ohhh…and we drove by the Hustler…something or other…it was either a club or a store. A store I think. Anyway, so first I was talking about how we should all get matching t-shirts (at that moment I realized I had been hanging out with three girls for far too long). Then I suggested we all get matching fishnet stockings (they were on the mannequins in the Hustler window). Quote from Hilary “I can’t believe you just said that”. We went shopping for t-shirts (NOT at the Hustler store), but didn’t find any.

I wrote in my last entry that I was sort of annoyed. Now that I’m not so annoyed I’ll actually talk about. I’ve been slightly annoyed since I got here…but I became more annoyed Thursday night.

So first, I had to work Wednesday night. I’ve known this since 2-3 week before I left. No problem. They have wireless here at the School. But…their wireless is gay. I mean…it allows traffice on port 25, 80, and 443. That’s all I’ve confirmed. Port 22 is blocked, so I can’t work. Port 993 is also blocked, so I can’t check my email with Thunderbird. I did some other poking around at their network, and concluded that this is the most poorly configured network I have ever had the misfortune to connect to (Can you say “double NAT” and “default password”?). So…working from here is out. So the plan was to find someplace with wireless when we went out Wednesday night.

But…we ate, I got burgers, and then we drove back to the School (there’s a 10:00 curfew…don’t even get me started). Umm…hey…MATT HAS TO WORK!! So once I realized that I was going to get the shaft, I called my mother and had her re-write a firewall rule (thank goodness IPCOP has a GUI) to redirect port 80 connections to port 22 on my mail server. With that done I could connect to my mail server and then to work through that (don’t even ask about latency…that was the worst terminal session I’ve ever had–yes, even worse than the ferry, at least the ferry is fast sometimes). Anyway, this left me annoyed for a number of reasons.

I’ve sort of been annoyed all week because I’m a selfish bastard. They have us working all the time here, and if not working then going to Chapel (I could certainly be more thrilled). I mean…I had hoped to see a little more of the city and sample the local cuisine. Yes, I know that’s not why I’m here, but…like I said, I’m a selfish bastard.

I may have developed a particular distaste for chapel because I absolutely hated it the first day. Let me explain this as nicely as I can…God is not deaf. Praying loudly, emphatically, quickly, and saying the same thing 60 times doesn’t make him hear you any better. The Bible actually speaks on this very subject (this has been a sore point with me for a long time). I can’t say exactly what spirit someone is praying in, but we would do well to keep this passage in mind (yes, this is The King James Version, it’s in the public domain so I don’t have to worry about copyright…It is NOT open source, however. ):

Matthew 6:5-8

And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.
But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.
But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.
Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him.

And that’s all I have to say about that.

There are some other minor annoyances, but they’re stupid and petty and completely my own problem, so I won’t document them. Ask me if you really want to know. Certainly my petty annoyances are nothing compared to having your house pressure washed off the face of the earth (we visited the lower ninth ward today…pictures soon).

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