Tuesday, February 12, 2002


Another Mardi Gras comes to a close. Today we decided to go to the Lafayette celebrations. The crowd has grown so large in Lafayette that the parade route has been extended to a full seven miles. There are high school bands and dance teams marching and dancing the whole distance. Ouch!

It was a perfect day for Mardi Gras. The skies were clear and the weather was just a little cool. I wore a blue jean shirt over a tee shirt and was very comfortable. The krewes were throwing a middling amount of throws, but how many do you really need?

While waiting for the second parade to start, I heard someone call my name. It was Mark Richard, from my old art school days. While watching the parades we got caught up with each other. He actually makes a living as an artist. There aren't many people who can boast that. He paints abstracts and portraits, plus he teaches several classes. I really need to take one of those classes. You really have to light a fire under me to keep me motivated.

After the parades, Mark invited us to his house. The majority of the rooms of his house are devoted to art. Spaces were dedicated to either creating it, displaying it, or storing it. Apparently he's been pretty prolific, because there was plenty. His portraits are acrylic, but he also makes digital art and even has two printmaking setups. No one has to light a fire under him.

Before we left he wanted to log on to take a look at this website. He uses Linux, and is very enthusiastic about it. I'm going to have to try it for myself one day. He went to jeffandjanice.com, trying it with two different browsers. One of them wasn't configured for Flash, so it didn't display the animation or the menu. That means that any of you who don't have the plugin can't access my sailing pages or the old house pages. I hadn't thought of that. I'll have to add some links to the page.

So now Mardi Gras is over for another year. Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday, when the faithful will be seen all over town sporting a smudge of ashes on their foreheads. A fitting start to the 40 day period of atonement.

btw: Here is Mark Richard's website.


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