Mardi Gras World

Well, as you will recall Friday night I went to a fancy dinner, and on Saturday night I had a casual dinner with my former provost, but, at risk of sounding as if all we do at conferences is party (which those of you who know that I typically go to bed at 8 o'clock wouldn't have believed anyway), I have to say that last night I went to the best party I've ever been to at any conference! I was given by a vendor called Cambridge Scientific Abstracts (CSA) at a place in New Orleans called Mardi Gras World.

About 100 of us gathered at the Convention Center and, along with a jazz band and a police escort (which was more for fun than protection...a lot different than a national guard escort as someone pointed out) paraded down streets that had been blocked off for us (only in New Orleans). Then we piled on to a ferry to cross the Mississippi (which only took about 10 minutes but was fun) and on to buses for a very brief ride to Mardi Gras World.

Once at Mardi Gras World, we were treated to more music, the talents of a characature artist (yeah, I did have my characterture done, you'll have to come to my office to see it), an absolutely delicious dinner, and strolls through the floats. Here are Sally and Chris at our dinner table.

The floats were amazing, examples are Yoda and a very beautiful dragon.

The highlight of the evening was a mini parade put on for us in the large room where we were having dinner. The parade began with two policemen on their motocycles, perhaps our escort from earlier but I'm not sure. Next came a highschool marching band (yeah, I know, it sounds incredible). And then several floats with people in costume on them throwing beads (no, there were no bare breasts that I saw!). I took a couple of video clips that I wanted to share here but I haven't figured out how to embed them yet, so you'll have to settle for one more picture.