New Orleans

Last week I was at the Acoustical Society of America conference in New Orleans. Gave two talks - one on modeling infrasonic arrays, and one on an infrasonic calibrator, both of which garnered some interest, which I was happy about. Unfortunately, I get incredibly nervous before giving talks like these, and my IQ gets divided in half during the Q&A sessions because of this. Which means I stumbled over some very easy questions. I think I was able to recover during the breaks in one-on-one conversations with people, though. I don't know how some people are so easy in front of audiences, maybe it takes practice.

In acoustics, there are two really big names in measurement microphones (i.e. really, really good microphones that are meant to measure sound as accurately as possible. You won't use these for recording music) that seem to stand a head above the rest. One is Bruel & Kjaer, and the other is G.R.A.S. My adviser told me that the first two letters of G.R.A.S. stood for the initials of the man who was presenting right before me.

So, basically, a man who founded one of the great measurement microphone companies would be presenting right before me. Furthermore, he would be presenting his own infrasonic calibrator. So, I think my nervousness was somewhat justified.

Anyway, the conference went well. I didn't spend much time walking around New Orleans, but enough to get a feel for the city. It had character, maybe more so than most other American cities, and certainly it's own flavor. I couldn't call the flavor a morally righteous one though. New Orleans, at least the French Quarter, seems debauched and proud of it. But the food was extremely good. They know how to cook in New Orleans. It is also expensive. Buy too many Oyster Po' Boy's and you'll literally become a po' boy.

I did have an interesting talk with a guy on the sidewalk though. He probably weighed three me's, spit buckets of saliva every word he spoke, reeked of alcohol, and didn't look right in the head. He asked someone if he could clean their shoes, but they brushed him off quickly. Next, he came over to me.

"Excuse me sa, if I tell you the exact place and time you bought them old and worn shoes blah blah blah [something I couldn't catch] but if I can't guess where you bought them shoes, then I'll give you a shoe shining for free!"

I stare at him blankly. Huh? I think the bet is, if he can't tell me where I got my shoes, he gives me a shining for free. But, if he can, then I'm obliged to let him shine my shoes, and give him money. Well... at least he's trying to work for his pay. "Um, well, to be honest I'm not exactly sure where I got these mysel-"

"Let me tell ya son" he puts a huge arm around my shoulder, "your shoes are from - " and he rattles of some string of something about America that I can't catch but I'm guessing was a clever trick answer. With that, he bends over, and pours a huge blob of shoe cleaner on both my shoes and stands back up. I look down at my shoes. cleaner is oozing everywhere. He then proceeds to tell me that it looks like I really need my shoes cleaned. But his expression is sort of blank, it doesn't look like it even occurs to him that he just played a rather rude prank.

For some reason, I just blurt out: "so, who do you think Jesus is?"

"Oh, Jesus??! Let me tell you about Jesus - I looooove Jesus!!" He says spraying spit everywhere. "Let me tell you about Jesus. I found him when I hit rock bottom, yes sa, that I did..." And he rambled off a lot about how great Jesus is, and how he is trying to help his family now because some of the members in his family are in jail.

It would have been easy to look at the guy and freak out. His eyes pointed opposite directions, talking with him was like standing in a shower, and he smelled heavily of beer. He also didn't seem completely present, mentally. When people are sozzled, they lose self control. This can result in doing terrible things, but it also means a lot of drunk people are uncomfortably honest. I think he really does love Jesus. Finding Jesus when you hit rock bottom sounds just about right. Beer might be keeping him at rock bottom to, and I think he probably needs help. Don't get me wrong, drunkenness is bad, but it doesn't rank in the top seven list of sins:

16 There are six things the LORD hates,
seven that are detestable to him:

17 haughty eyes,
a lying tongue,
hands that shed innocent blood,

18 a heart that devises wicked schemes,
feet that are quick to rush into evil,

19 a false witness who pours out lies
and a man who stirs up dissension among brothers.

So, basically anyone who's looking down on this guy is in worse trouble than this guy, who from all appearances, knows he's got no reason to be arrogant. So basically, if God can save me, a guy who has a lot of problems with arrogance, God can easily save this fellow. And I wager I'll see him again, in glory.

I offered him $5 on the condition that he let me take his picture. The picture sucked, but maybe I'll post it with the other New-Orleans photos I took, later.