Finally!

Well, Mark called to say he had landed in Houston a little after 9 this morning to finally, finally, FINALLY pick up that Expedition he "won."  They're having a gathering in the home office over there during which the CEO is supposed to be handing him the keys, then he'll be driving home.  Guess we'll need to run out to the airport tomorrow to pick up his old car.  I thought about dropping him off, but it's on the other side of town and he needed to be up there before 7, so I would have had to get up even earlier than my usual 5:30 am in order to get everyone fed and myself dressed for work in time to get him out there by 7.  No thanks.  Decided to just let him drive up there and we can go pick the other car up later.  The "other" car . . . I'm already thinking of it that way.  ;-)

Heard on the news a day or so ago that the L'Auberge Casino that's going up just a couple miles from us is having a gathering this week to interview for . . . you ready for this? . . . over 1000 new jobs!  Whew!  And those have nothing to do with the construction.  They're all permanent jobs in the casino and accompanying businesses after they open this summer.   It seems a bit soon to me to be doing all that hiring since it's not nearly complete.  Check out the webcam showing the current status.    (It's really fascinating to click on that "time lapse) tab at the top of the photo and watch the river rising to flood level last fall and then going back down.)  I knew they would be hiring soon, but I was surprised to hear how many jobs there were actually going to be.   I'll tell you what, though -- with that many people working that close by, I think the property values around here are bound to go way up.  Gotta love it! 

Here are a couple Google satellite views from a while back - it really IS going to be huge, isn't it?



It's that white spot there in the center of this one just above that loop in the river. 
And we are just down at the bottom of this view -- not far at all from there.
Maybe 4 or 5 miles.