What a week!

Whew, helluva week!Last Friday (Feb 21) I drove to Biloxi, MS to take part in a two-day core shamanism workshop. The drive wasn't too bad (5.5 hours in the rain), but after I arrived at the hotel my car wouldn't start! The starter on my old '86 bimmer had finally died. I say finally because it had been trying to die for the past month or so, but I was too lazy to fix it. Bad acorn! Bad acorn!The interesting thing about Biloxi, if you haven't been there in 15 years, like me, is that they now have gambling. Long/short story on my gambling is that, no, I didn't come out ahead this time. I did enjoy playing craps for the first time this trip, though! After losing several hundred across several days at craps, I resorted to my old standby, blackjack. That went better, well, uh, until it went worse again ;) Anyway, enough of that.The shamanism class was incredible. I'd done shamanic journeying before, but the more organized small-group teaching helped me get much more out of it. We did lower and upper world journeys, and I learned several techniques to help recover lost power for others. This was a real verification for me that this should be a more important part of my path. I also met some neat folks, including a Reiki master from Alpharetta, who will probably do my attunements in mid March.So, the special personal challenge of the broken starter is that I therefore needed to ASK FOR HELP. Yes, I'm not good at doing that, but I'm getting better ;) Long/short -- I ended up getting rides back and forth to the workshop, and was able to offer some folks without a place to stay room in my hotel, so it was all okay.On Monday, I bought a new starter and decided that I *should* be able to put it in myself. Well, that may have been true if I'd had the right tools and wasn't trying to do this in the hotel parking lot. I finally gave up and found that the cheapest mechanics in the world work in Biloxi. It cost me all of $35 in labor! $35!! I feel like I should drive to Biloxi the next time I need car repair!So, I wasted a few more (frustrating) days around Biloxi with a new acquaintance, and finally drove to New Orleans on Thursday.For the unitiated, Mardi Gras is Mar 4, 2003 and the week before is a huge party in NOLA. Thanks to Irish and earendel, I did find Lafitte's, which I concur is the best bar in the quarter. At Lafitte's, I met Mario Grillo, the extremely nutty editor for a number of porn magazines.I also left an offering at Marie Laveau's tomb in St. Louis #1. Thanks for the pointer on that, too, earendel.Across the rest of the evening, I met lots of beautiful people, some of who were mostly naked. Mmmm. I also danced until about 5:00am. I walked around the quarter and danced so much that my feet were sore for two days afterwards. I stumbled to my car and slept until 7:30am, then drove to a rest area and slept again until about noon. Finally I was on the road again and got back to Atlanta around 7pm on Friday. I'm definitely going to start doing Mardi Gras every year.I ended up with a head cold (and mucho exhaustion) and fell asleep soon after getting home. Unfortunately, I missed beauty_moves's phone call after the crowd returned from The Magic Flute, which really meant I missed myndsweep getting experienced. (Think "JH")Well, I think that's enough, don't you?