So cool.
Just meeting so many incredible people, and having such wonderful times.
I love New Orleans!!!
Also, added cool new functionality to CodeWOW. Lots more to come!
Rock & Roll!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I love Louisiana!
New Orleans has quickly become one of my favorite American cities, if not my favorite. A few other contenders include San Diego, California, and Tucson, Arizona.
By the way, those three areas -- the southern parts of California, Arizona, and Louisiana -- also have some of the most beautiful girls I've seen anywhere. Going by the south-of-every-other-pair-of-southern-states pattern, I'm going to guess that Mississippi also has some beautiful missies!
Rock & Roll!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wow, I love New Orleans!!!!!!! :-)
So much fun, and so many wonderful people.
Also a fair share of poverty and other problems, but overall one of my favorite places.
Laid-back, party-loving attitude. Lots of people enjoying a beautiful and convenient location. Way better in person than in photo or story. Sorry, still haven't had a chance to clear camera space, too busy having fun! :-)
Also: AMAZING music, girls, food, drugs, nature, hospitality, LOVE!

While camping, I made cowboy barbecue of a custom variety, with some creole cream style red beans, which I put on a burrito with hot tomato. It was delicious!!!
Just now I had a warm chocolate muffin, with Creole coffee and chicory, all covered in whipped cream. Yummy!!!
Also eating lots of greens seasoned Southern style, with smoky bacony flavorings.
All the little gas stations here have fried chicken, along with a variety of things like pickled pork snouts, red beans and rice, po' boys, boudin, and more.

Made it!!!
Long beautiful ride from Baton Rouge to New Orleans, Louisiana. Followed the Mississippi River. Camped out along the way. Went through some really amazingly scenic places. Only got a good morning call from the cops once, that I can recall! This morning.
Kind of exhausted. Time to recharge in NOLA for a little while. Sitting at a cafe in a studenty area. Good coffee!
Lots to do...
Rock & Roll!!!

Just ate a breakfast with buttermilk pancakes, eggs, bacon, grits, coffee, cane syrup, and lots of butter on everything. With the smell of wood smoke, and lots of beautiful people.
I love Louisiana!

Today I read through the entire draft of Astrotripping. What a trip!
Seriously, just reading the book draft has taken me on a journey through the last two years, and across space and time. Reliving many adventures, while coming to new realizations, has proven quite inspiring.
And I wasn't kidding when I said it's a really good book! :)
I love it! I laughed, I cried, I'd do it all over again, and will when I do the next draft.
I am really grateful.

Today I finished writing the first full draft of Astrotripping!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Tomorrow I'll read it.
Feels fantastic!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Plus, it's a really good book. :)
Stats: 174 pages, 76,070 words.
Still lots of revising to do, as I will write another draft. And then there are other steps along the publishing path. However, this is a pretty big landmark.
Rock & Roll!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Last night, went out on the town, tried a few new foods including duck and sausage gumbo, hushpuppies, and remoulade.

In Walden and Civil Disobedience, Henry David Thoreau writes of his experiences living in wilder conditions alongside a pond, rather than with mainstream civilization. He expresses a very life-affirming view, and quite beautifully. Intuitively, he seems to grasp much of what characterizes the good life, without recourse to modern scientific precision. A few times he seems to veer off into his own preferences as if they represented some of the grander, more abstract ideas and ideals he represents. However, overall he seems to convey the importance of developing our meanings in life.

I especially like this passage:

I read in the Gulistan, or Flower Garden, of Sheik Sadi of Shiraz, that "they asked a wise man, saying: Of the many celebrated trees which the Most High God has created lofty and umbrageous, they call none azad, or free, excepting the cypress, which bears no fruit; what mystery is there in this? He replied, Each has its appropriate produce, and appointed season, during the continuance of which it is fresh and blooming, and during their absence dry and withered; to neither of which states is the cypress exposed, being always flourishing; and of this nature are the azads, or religious independents. -- Fix not thy heart on that which is transitory; for the Dijlah, or Tigris, will continue to flow through Bagdad after the race of caliphs is extinct: if thy hand has plenty, be liberal as the date tree; but if it affords nothing to give away, be an azad, or free man, like the cypress."