I was in New Orleans, but Abby made this cake for Amy and Sally delivered my present, the photo book of 25 years of marriage.

In New Orleans I had a nice hotel, the Omni Royal, in the French Quarter. It was much nicer than being out on Canal Street in the conference hotel. There was a rooftop platform with a nice view, and an exercise room which I used a few times, a quiet bar, a sunny room with view of the river … a good place to get some work done. The restaurants were expensive, but we found some good ones, in particular Cochon, with memorable ham hocks and grits, and August, very fancy, where I had oysters served three ways and duck with its liver.

We had the consortium meetings before the joint math meetings this time. Yet more talk about what to do with the algebra book. There seemed to be a fair amount of buzz about the Institute at the joint meetings. Whether it will last who knows.

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