The fourplex we were living in had neglected maintenance for the better part of 20 years and my upstairs neighbor’s windows were blown out within a few hours of the beginning of that storm. The water that settled into her floor then settled into my ceiling and walls. Several years later that upstairs neighbor would be the mother of my first child but that is part of another book.

For the second time, everything is sold and gave away. A insurance claim which covered 50% of the things lost was almost an insult. I put a few things in storage and crawled back to Memphis to figure out what to do with life.

I licked my wounds in Memphis and visited my friend Chicago, having no idea what to do. The recovery of Katrina had been over for years and I could run point2point from a van down by the river with no one the wiser.
Pulled back to the city this time with only my will to live in New Orleans again, my girlfriend at the time, Kendra, and I moved back before the Superbowl and Mardi Gras. Being homeless again in New Orleans was as thrilling as it was before. The irony of going back to St. Vincent’s was not lost. We stayed there, trying to appreciate the experience but living out of the trunk of your car gets old fast.

While living there, I received a phone call from an owner of a publication based in Midcity, the Sugar Journal. She found me in Google, looking for a WordPress designer, and wanted to see if I could help with her site.

I visited their office, above the Ruby Slipper Restaurant and was actually able to resolve their issue while on site(a rare thing for a web designer to be able to do).
On the way out I noticed they had part of their office available for rent. Purely out of curiosity, having ran the business virtually for the better part of a decade, I asked what they were asking. She told me she wanted to talk with her husband and would get back to me.

Tired of being homeless, my girlfriend Kendra and I signed a lease on a apartment in Midcity and 24 hour laters Romney, the owner of the Sugar Journal, gave me a lease which was unrefusable. From living out of my van to having a apartment and a office, the phoenix had begun to rise.