Halftime of all halftimes

It was a defining moment. What started out with a jazzed-up introduction of players like nowhere else featuring the Rebirth Brass Band, Kermit Ruffins and Trombone Shorty, climbed to the penultimate of heights with a halftime show to rival even those put on by the fabled NFL. The musical fireworks were shot off in volleys from the keyboards of Harry Connick, Jr., Dr. John (Mac Rabennack), Allen Toussaint, Art Neville, Ivan Neville, Ellis Marsalis, and Jonathan Baptiste, truly the best that New Orleans has to offer to the nation in thanks for the ongoing rebuilding efforts. The 2008 NBA All-Star Game is over with the East squad claiming bragging rights with a 134-128 win over the West, yet the musical notes still linger. I am glad to acknowledge the play of Cleveland's own Lebron James netted him the MVP award for the game. His 27 points, nine assists, and eight rebounds were bound to please my good friends in King James's Cleveland, where I stayed some 20 months just prior to and following Hurricane Katrina. But Chris Paul and David West of the New Orleans Hornets created local pride, too. Paul's 16 points, three rebounds, and the game's highest total assists for a player at 14 were not bad for his first time All Star appearance. The $90 million pumped into the local economy will be warmly welcomed as was the previous huge infusion of cash due to the All State Sugar Bowl and BCS Championship Series Bowl games. The USA Network just announced that its "Character of the Month" isn't a character at all; it's New Orleans. With such good will and the coffers filled, can there be any question that the Queen City of the South has finally arrived and is back to its previous glory? To that question all I have to do is offer a tour of the Ninth Ward, Gentilly or Lakeview areas. I need not do anything more than show the rows of houses still standing that have had little or no work done on them since the storm. I need to only show the empty lots that formerly held beautifully appointed homes laid waste by the bulldozers. I need to only point to the horrible condition of the roads across most of these areas or to point out the missing trees and foliage that formerly graced front yards and city streets. Yes, we are enjoying record success in the Big Easy. But please remember we have so much further still to go.

Yartzheits and Hoops

There is a Jewish practice to honor loved ones who have passed on the aniversary of their deaths according to the Hebrew calendar called a yartzheit. By having the names of cherished family members who have passed called out during regular synagogue religious services and by reciting a special prayer called Kaddish on that date, the lives and deeds of the deceased are recalled and their memories are kept alive in the hearts of those who remain. The Kaddish, originally written in Aramaic, is a powerful prayer of praise to God that never mentions the dead, but binds the mourner to community and is, in effect, a prayer for the living. Later this morning I will be joining with a local family who tragically lost a beloved 27-year-old daughter five years ago. There will be services at their home. Next week my son and I will also recall the memory of my wife and his mother Sally who passed away 13 years ago. These private somber moments will have great meaning for us. But for most of the nation its thoughts will center on the loud, raucous NBA All-Star game that culminates a weekend of activities being held here in the Crescent City. Thousands of locals and visitors alike have been taking part in the "NBA All-Star Jam" being held at the Morial Convention Center for the past four days. The big showdown is tonight on TNT at 7:00 p.m. Central Time.

Feet, don't fail me now

Okay, so maybe I overreacted. Maybe it was the incredible pangs of pain that kept radiating from my foot that had me thinking the worst. Maybe it was my congitive reasoning that suggested that it was time for me to experience the indignity of a broken digit. Or maybe it was... ♪just my imagination, once again, running away with me♪...well, you know what I mean. For the record, I am not dealing with a broken toe. After an x-ray was taken on Wednesday and the results were finally given to me yesterday, it is apparent that I am suffering from a spur in or adjacent to my big toe. The spur could quite possibly have been exacerbated by the trauma of my toe hitting the sidewalk on Sunday. I'm not sure. However, once I took off my shoes and switched to sandals (and took massive doses of iburprofen) my foot started feeling oh-so-much better. Ahhhhhh... The good news for me medically will unfortunately mean that I will be committing many fashion sins in the next week or so as the swelling goes down and my normal gait returns. Sandals and socks: that's a fashion mis-statement if I've ever heard of one. I hope to avoid the fashion police over the course of the next several days. I guess the big question that needs to be resolved is what to do to deal with the spur. Is it something that I will have to deal with in the future or was it just a freak accident that could have been more manageable had I simply removed my shoes and donned my sandals days ago at the first sign of distress? In the meantime I am getting very proficient at downing four ipuprofen without water lickedy split. Its a technique I've rehearsed while watching reruns of "House."
On to politics: A new political poll awaits your vote at the right of this column. The last poll, which ran from January until earlier in the month yielded the following results: a three way plurality tie with Clinton, Edwards, and Obama (21% each). Because I could not change the poll without deleting it, Romney, Thompson and Edwards remained even after each had suspended their campaigns. I am fairly confident that the four candidates listed in the two major political parties races for nominations will remain, although Huckabee could bail if he runs out of money soon. I would invite you to cast your vote in our latest straw poll.
Hoop Dreams: In case you were on a different planet in the last few days or don't plan to watch the NBA All-Star game this weekend, you may not know that the NBA has landed in New Orleans for its annual show-off festival. It's such a big deal that the city fathers (and mothers) have decided to sweep the artists, tarot readers, and others away for the next several days from the area adjacent to Jackson Square, the site of tonight's "2008 Celebration of Contribution" NBA bash honoring volunteers who are contributing to the rebuilding effort here. Locally, there is much interest in Hornets Coach Byron Scott, who is leading an NBA All-Star team on his own home court in the upcoming game.

L-O-V-E

Today is the day dedicated to lovers the world over. It is the day on the calendar where a relationship could falter due to a lack of consideration on either of the parties involved or where one might be cemented for life. If one consideres its history, it is a rather strange holiday. Its basis goes back to the Roman holiday of Lupercalia, which celebrated the fertility of family, flocks, and fields. The Ides of February was reserved for young men to extract a billet with the name of an available young woman on it and pin it to their sleeves. The expression "to wear his heart on his sleeve" came out of this practice. But when the Church needed a figure about which to "Christianize" the holiday, it came up with a minor martyr named Valentine whose history would hardly be considered worthy of association with love. Marriage, yes. Love, no. In fact, Valentine, a man who unquestionably was chaste, was executed for performing marriages, not for promoting love. We have come to make Cupid, as the Romans called the son of Venus, or Eros, the son of Aphrodite as the Greeks knew him, a symbol for this holiday. That probably stems from the earlier practice of wanton sexual activities during the height of the winter season. So, at this time, what is it that really ramps up a relationship? Is it the chocolate that acts as an aphrodisiac? Is it the aromatic scents of the bouquets given to one's love? Or is it the other gifts -- jewelry or otherwise -- that engages our urge to merge? I know that the most intense of all senses associated with love is the sense of smell. Pheromones given off by the opposite sex have been shown to be among the most attractive of forces. (Of course for same sex couples the same must also be true.) I know for most men, the sense of sight must also be considered high on the scale. In case you question that statement, I have one word for you: pornography. Women are not wired the same way, it would seem. They are turned on by visual cues, but not to the same extent as men. For example, I have heard of very few men complaining their wives were up late at night surfing porn websites and not spending time with them. But I do not want to accuse men as being inconsiderate, boorish cads. I would like to point out that their fascination with being excited by visual cues makes for the sparks that light up a relationship. Whether it is imagining a blonde, buxomy bimbo or a demure, delicate distaff as their ideal mate, doesn't seem to matter. Whatever is behind it is what makes the sex drive of the male as strong and passionate a force as can be found in nature. I, for one, have my fantasies too. If there is one body part of a woman that turns me on, though, it is probably her brain. But some will say that is a cop out. So I will admit that as to external charms, I have always been turned on by eyes, the windows of the soul. I see myself melting in the deep, emerald pools of my soul mate's orbs. But this is Valentine's Day and fantasies, after all, are as close as a pair of contact lenses and a wig.

Why I won't be dancing this Valentine's Day

OUCH! It didn't seem like such a major injury when I tripped on the sidewalk this past Sunday afternoon. There I was, leaving the dedication of the new Rohr Chabad Jewish Student Center just off the Tulane University campus, when the front of my right foot caught the edge of a broken piece of sidewalk. Broken sidewalks, especially since Hurricane Katrina are somewhat commonplace in the city. It smarted, but my foot didn't throb immediately or feel particularly bad. On other occasions I had tripped in a similar manner with no lasting ill effects. So, I went home, rested, wrote my blog and offered myself up to Morpheus. When I awoke Monday morning, I noticed a dull pain in the general area of the top of the foot. It wasn't very pronounced, but as the day got longer, it became more of an issue. I began to limp noticeably as I favored the other foot. On Monday night I rested the foot and it seemed to lessen when I awoke on Tuesday. Yet, Tuesday the pain seemed to worsen as I stayed on my feet and in my shoes all day. That may have aggravated the condition. When I finally removed my shoe late last night, it was inflamed, swollen and I could perceive the point of pain as the joint on my toe. I'm not a doctor and I don't play one on TV. But it's my opinion that I have broken my big toe. Later this morning I will confirm my diagnosis with one rendered by a medical professional. In the meantime my toe throbs and pounds and won't let me sleep. Trust me, I don't sleep a lot to begin with, so missed sleep to me is a crisis of looming proportions. If I understand the treatment for a broken toe correctly, it is that there is nothing that can be done other than to confirm that it is broken, tape it, and wait for the upcoming six to eight weeks for the healing process to be finished. I can't wait to start downing ibuprofen and taping my big toe to its adjacent mate. The thought of removing the tape as it pulls on my skin or rips the tiny body hairs out of place seems unsettling, but perhaps won't be as unpleasant as I fear. If there is a good side to this malady, it may just be that I will start wittling away at my medical insurance deductible for the year. Forget the roses, the chocolate and the champagne. I'll be dealing with x-rays, tape, and Aleve. Those may be romantic words to a quick care center or a pharmacy, but ones I had hardly hoped would be whispered in my ear this Valentine's Day.

Give Me Just a Little More Time

Every now and then a problem will pop up on a network and it will have no logical explanation. Programs that would normally be performing correctly will stop working or, worse, will create errors or bring the entire operating system down in a heartbeat. This happened to me this morning as I received a call from a friendly client. His legacy DOS program, which he runs from a server on his local area network (LAN) was quitting abruptly and giving him an error report or, worse, simply rebooting after two or three minutes. The problem had just started when he came in, so it wasn't chronic or anticipated. As I was inspecting his system, his administrator also began experiencing problems on her computer accessing the same legacy DOS software program. In her case she could log in, but couldn't supply a password. The server returned an error that "no passwords could be found." The red light started going off in my head. Two different problems associated with the same server. A prudent man could reason it didn't seem likely they were not related in some way. I went over to the nearby server in an adjacent room and examined the Event Log under Administrative Tools. I noticed several "red" errors in the log that had only begun a few hours before. They all related to the "W32Time" service or the Windows Time service that is a major feature of the Windows Server 2003 operating system. Then I looked at the clock in the lower right hand corner. The actual time was 11:18 a.m., but the clock showed 11:34. It was now 16 minutes ahead of all of the other computers on the LAN. Several protocols and services within Windows must run within a 15 minute period or else a Windows 2003 server will not communicate correctly with workstations in a workgroup or on a domain. That's something that is not widely known, but it was the root of all of the problems. All that had to be done was to reset the clock to the proper time, sync with a good Internet time server (part of the same Time/Date options), and the problem computers were functioning correctly again. Sometimes something as simple as the wrong time can have a plethora of problems associated with it. It's always a good idea to check that out on workstations too. A common mistake is to have your clock on the p.m. setting instead of the a.m. setting. Always make sure the time and date are correct because, as Tony Bennett once sang, "Time After Time" you'll find out that the Outsiders were correct: "Time Won't Let Me."

Computer Riding

Following the release of the movie "Urban Cowboy," riding a mechanical bull became a popular attraction at country and western clubs that sprang up across the nation like Gilley's. Recently, I began a new "sport" of riding computers while working on them to strip them of viruses and spyware. Many don't suspect it, but a computer case will support the weight of a man of woman many times its size due to the way it evenly disburses weight distribution. But I must admit it. It was necessity, the heralded mother of invention, that started my computer riding days. My chair, a lovely antique that was part of the bedroom suite I inherited from my maternal grandfather was in need of reglueing and I was afraid that it might lose all integrity were I to continue to use it. So, I plugged a computer in one day and straddled it like a knight in shining armor atop a fine Arab charger. It felt good and somehow it made me feel like I was in more control of directing the computer and putting it through its paces. It brought me back to my earlier days of riding English saddle. I could press the start button and slowly bring the computer from a slow walk into a post. Then, I could allow it to get up to speed cantoring and then running all out at a gallop. There is a certain thrill that I get as the computer whirrs beneath me and I know I am in total control, the master of all I survey. That is unless the vile viruses or spurious spyware conspire to make my ride a less than pleasurable experience. Then, it's a protracted workout of several hours finding ways to reign in their effects until the computer has a restored registry or a new operating system to get it on its way. In the meantime I guess I should keep this new sport to myself, lest people get the wrong idea that I only want to ride their computers, not fix them. But I do promise one thing to ease everyone's mind. I'll never take up computer jumping!