The Goat Pen

yea I didn't consider the hurricane - remote but would kill the event of course.

April is the cruelest month...

...especially for fatty.

New Orleans = casino, strip clubs, great food, great music, great culture.

Only US city I would consider going to a conference instead of NOLA would be Vegas.

Plus in Sept you might hit a Saints or LSU game.

Obviously, you've never been to Montgomery, Alabama.

I hear the Mexican food is to die for.

That's Birmingham!

I stole RU's cell phone in Montgomery.

"Obviously, you've never been to Montgomery, Alabama."

Sadly, I spent almost 3 years there...

Condolences

Glad your aunt isn't suffering anymore, Rat, and still got my fingers crossed for the newbies. Sounds like they're going to make it. If they can survive this, they might even be able to survive having you as a close relative...

Rat, like Hedge said, at least your aunt is no longer suffering. The suffering is far worse than the actual death. My condolences to your family. I aml glad to hear that the twins are doing better. Godspeed

Rat, your family is in my prayers.

Thanks. Them babies are very strong.

Yeah sorry about the loss and hope the twins get stronger everyday.

Thanks

one thing we do at this event is a dine around where we take groups of 100 or so to the nicer places in town and negotiate fixed menu deals

I'm pushing for New Orleans, so I've found an event planner that already has a dine around deal established with Brennan's, Antoines, Arnaud's, Court of Two Sisters, Commander's Palace, Broussards and Tujagues.

The big boss is still pushing for Phoenix because its a J.W. Marriott connected to a PGA golf course. It does have a water park which is kinda cool but its so remote we'd never see the city unless we hired buses.

Nothing more than a conference attendee hates is getting on a bus to go out to dinner. I was in San Fran in December at a conference and they did this. We were smack dab in the middle of the city and we choose a restaurant 3 miles away! It took a charter bus 30 minutes to navigate 3 miles through SF streets. It was awful.

Dine at restaurants near the hotel, I say. People have the flexibility to leave at their own time if need be.

There are some okay golf courses in NOLA.

There is also a JW Marriott, or was his only connection to that the golf course?

We've kind of peaked with the J.W.'s so I guess they don't want to risk staying at another place, but we've waited so late in the year that the J.W.'s in many cities are booked as the case in New Orleans. The Hilton Riverfront is the hotel we'd choose in N.O.. The golf course isn't really part of it anything we'd care about.

I just called the Natchez steam boat people and they could pull the boat up to the hotel, pick us up and take us to Mardi Gras World for a catered dinner and then have an open bar 2 hour cruise for half of what it cost us to rent Lucas Oil Stadium.

New Orleans just sells itself.