November 2005 Archives
This guy is money in the bank.
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers family environment. They just didn’t know the rules. The only people allowed to charge for sex at an NFL game is the NFL.
Not something I've given a lot of thought to. Can't be good for business if every child has to have an empty seat buffer.
According to the email, I can get a “P. h. D. in the field of my choice” in two weeks. Must not have FEDEX under that rock.
Having worked on a laptop with WiFi for a little over two weeks, I can now say I don’t care if I ever have that capability. It is a frustrating experience. Computers should speed you up, not slow you down.
Quote of the Day
Johnny like to gamble with his lady Louise
She was a black jack deuces are wild
Aerosmith, Lick And A Promise
Blog of the day here.
Quote from said blog: "We made some bold claims about whiskey alternatives this week, but we're not afraid to come right out and say that for a brief moment, we were afraid we weren't tough enough to drink Georgia Moon whiskey."
One of the people mentioned in this horrible story is a work colleague.
Yesterdays’s two-way commute: 3 hours 35 minutes. Yeah, I’m happy about that. Normally, it’s about 2 hours 15 minutes.
My fantasy football team is winning but not scoring nearly enough points to be a contender for the title. My guys are getting the yards but they need to start finding the end zone. It wouldn’t hurt if I played the right guys on occasion, either.
Quote of the Day
On Sept. 30, a woman's body, with a feeding tube attached, was found outside the home of the Manganos' son, Sal, which is behind St. Rita's. St. Bernard Parish coroner Bryan Bertucci says he has not yet identified her.
USA Today
Blog of the day here.
Quote from said blog: "There is always the chance, however slight it may be, that I am just a crank."
Back to the grind today after a four day weekend. It started inauspiciously enough with our clothes drier going out on us Wednesday. When we moved to the NorthShore, we needed a place to live while our house was being built. The place we found had no gas. We had a gas drier. After much consternation, we decided to buy a new electric drier and we gave our gas drier away. When we built the house, I hated the thought of trying to sell our brand new drier at a loss so we asked them to just cap off the gas line and install an outlet for the electric drier. Electric driers use 220, gas driers use 110. Now that the electric drier is finished (It needed a timer and motor and that was too much money to throw at an 11yr old drier), we would replace it with the gas drier that we really wanted in the first place. The thing is we have LP gas (Propane), not natural gas. Appliance stores don’t sell propane driers. They sell natural gas driers that you have to convert. To do so in the case of the drier the wife picked out, I had to take that thing completely apart. I love taking brand new appliances apart. I couldn’t do this for a living. My hands are too big to get into the tight spaces and I’m too big to get into tight spaces. Two screws that would have been removed and replaced by smaller hands in a few seconds took me 15 minutes. Getting behind the drier and then bringing it close enough to the gas pipe to screw it on is for smaller people. Anyway, its done and I think it will save us considerable money over time. That electric drier ate electricity.
The Saints managed to find a team even more self-destructive than they are in the New York Jets. I guess there’s some pride involved but a higher draft pick next year may end up being more valuable. Next year figures to be a long season for the Saints, too. The Superdome will probably not be ready to play in until late October or November. That’s assuming there is enough money and any work force in New Orleans to speak of by then. Not at all safe assumptions.
Quote of the Day
When I hit it, I thought it was going to go.
Mike Nugent, New York Jets
Blog of the day from New Orleans is here.
Quote from said blog: "The Fairgrounds has always been my place to turn for reality and a good burger."
Renault to the arriving police: "Major Strasser has been shot."
Rick glances at Renault.
Renault glances back at Rick.
The two glances are perfect. The first time I ever saw this movie was on the late show with my Dad. I was probably 10 or so. Remember late shows? The happily ambiguous Renault is "in" now. Whatever he says next will determine which side. When you didn't know what he was going to say and the only time you didn't know was that first time you saw it, that was the most perfect moment in all of film. "Round up the usual suspects" is the best line of all time. It says exactly what you wanted to hear in the most satisfying way. I have watched that film 100 times since because of that moment. Every other great moment in the film has grown on me since but that one got me the very first time.
What a joy this film is.
One offering for CrabAppleLane Sunday.
We have some form of fall color changing here in Louisiana but I think most of it is imported. This one from China, I’m told. These are the leaves from a Chinese Tallow tree in my front yard that my brother-in-law gave me. They turn from green to yellow to red to brown and might fall off at any time leaving you with a nice multi-colored carpet of leaves.
Quote of the Day
I've often speculated why you don't return to America. Did you abscond with the church funds? Run off with a senator's wife? I like to think you killed a man. It's the romantic in me.
Claude Rains, Casablanca
Blog of the day from New Orleans is here.
Quote from said blog: "Our region needs a levee board focused on levees, not on casinos, an airport, and a police force, as the current Orleans Levee Board spends its time."
Taken near my sister’s place on Thanksgiving Day.
Katrina obviously couldn't read. Not sure teenagers on ATVs can, either.
Many years ago before we built our house, we used to come out to our property here in Bush to explore and let the dogs run. One day we’re out here and two guys with guns and five or six little hounds come traipsing through our woods. I made myself visible and then this:
Me: “What’s up?”.
One of them: “We’re just runnin the dawgs a little.”
Me: “My wife and dogs are here, too, and I’d rather you guys go somewhere else to hunt.”
One of them: “We wasn’t goin shoot at nobody’s house or nuthin.”
They went off and I appreciated it but then I got crazy as I started thinking of what on Earth made that guy think that needed to be said.
If you have high speed internet, this is worth seeing. It will take a minute or two to download. It is an extended Sony Bravia commercial. To demonstrate their high-resolution imagery, 250,000 brightly-colored rubber balls were released to bounce down a street of San Francisco. It is set to music and I think it is such a neat concept.
Quote of the Day
Then they show that show to the people who make shows, and on the strength of that one show they decide if they're going to make more shows.
Samuel L Jackson, Pulp Fiction
Blog of the day here.
Quote from said blog: "Sometimes, when I choose to review my activity log, I am hit with a wave of paranoia when I read what people have searched for on this site because it sometimes feels like there are people that know me that are trying to find things out about me without asking me, which, going back to the subject of secrets, isn’t too likely."
Whether you think ex-FEMA director Michael Brown was a sacrificial lamb, a bungler whose head rolled for good reason, or both (Sorry, there is no “None of the Above” choice for this guy), give him credit for gall. As for his clients, I can’t imagine what their thinking is unless they’re foundering and need a good obliteration to get out of the mess they’re in. If so, he’s your man. Nero had nothing on him. Link via The Daily Irrelevant.
Quote of the Day
May you feel your arms around me
May you feel your blood mix with mine
A dream of life comes to me
Like a catfish dancin' on the end of my line
Bruce Springsteen, The Rising
Blog of the day here.
Quote from said blog: "Letitz, PA, is trying to figure out what to make of the blogs kept by an 18 year old who murdered the parents of a 14-year-old who also blogged. Should people have known? Did the Internet somehow contribute?"
That the 1000th entry here falls on Thanksgiving is accidental but I think its cool nonetheless.
The subject was fire. Here’s my CrabAppleLane fire story. File this in the category of Man, That Was Stupid.
When we bought these five acres in Bush 17 years ago, what would become CrabAppleLane was just a red clay and gravel road and it ended right where our property began. The developers, if you call them that, had pushed all of the trees and dirt and what-have-you from the road construction into a pile up onto the un-bought property. Said un-bought property turned out to someday be ours. The pile was about 20 feet high and 50 feet in diameter and it had been there a while. Vines and weeds were growing in it. Someone suggested I should burn it. Born and raised in the city, I never burned anything. My experience with burning ended with a lighter fluid experiment on my bedroom windowsill that a neighbor saw and put a stop to. That’s a story for another day. My only other experience was watching Dad pour gasoline on ant piles and burning them. I went out and bought ten gallons of gasoline. I walked around this gargantuan pile liberally dousing it with gasoline all the way around as high up as I could get it, which was pretty high. When I had emptied both 5-gal cans, I set them down in a “safe” place about 10 feet away from the pile. The gasoline, which has been on the pile for a couple of minutes by this time, was fuming pretty good. Gasoline fumes distort/react with the air (No scientist here) and that phenomenon was going pretty good. That should have tipped me off that this was a bad idea but it didn’t. My stupidity is formidable. The idea was to light a match and throw it onto the pile. Standing about 5 feet from the pile, I pick up the kitchen matches and with the striker in my left hand and the match in my right, I proceed to light the match. As soon as that match touched the striker (All it needed from that close was a spark), there was a blinding light, a heat and shock wave, and a large whoosh-like noise. My eyebrows were burnt off, the hair on my arms was burnt off, and my hair was on fire but I managed to get that out before it did any serious damage. I was lucky.
The flames shot into the air and by the time I had escaped to a safer distance, made sure I was still in one piece, and had a look, the top of the flames were at tree level and remember this thing is about 50 feet or so in diameter. We had had the property cleared with a bush hog and the only standing trees we had then were tall so the flames were at least 50 feet high. Then 40, 30, 20, 10, 5, and then just a few embers. This entire adventure lasted about a minute. The fire was out. I risked life and limb AND didn’t get the job done.
Quote of the Day
A silver dawn steals over the docks
A truck with no wheels up on the cinder blocks
Men with no dreams around a fire in a drum
Scrap metal schemes rusted over and done
Mark Knopfler, Silvertown Blues
Blog of the day here.
Quote from said blog: "How many people were killed by the Black Ops brought in after the storm to eliminate the cities growing "hotspots"? And where were their bodies brought afterward?"
I’ve heard various things like this, too. Rumors were and are rampant and I don’t know what to make of a lot of this stuff. -Rob
Then (February 2, 2005)
Now (November 22, 2005). After Hurricane Katrina.
The new facade came crashing down. It's in the front parking lot. Looks like it has been looted in addition to being flooded. Its not open and it looks to me like no one has started cleaning up. The water line is at about the four foot mark. You can't see it on this building but you can see it clearly on the houses and fences leading up to it. This store is on Elysian Fields about a half mile from Lake Pontchartrain. This is the same Elysian Fields Tennessee Williams wrote about in Streetcar Named Desire and it used to be a very pretty drive. Its in a section of town called Gentilly.
The only businesses in New Orleans that are open right now almost a full three months after Hurricane Katrina are the ones that sustained minimal damage or the ones with the resources and the inclination to overcome substantial damage. Residents, like Kitty, are in the same boat (Apologies for the metaphor). All are trying to overcome significant obstacles like no power, no running water, and haphazard phone service, and most are still doing the FEMA-Insurance dance but, by far, the biggest obstacle of all is the devastating emotional toll this has taken and continues to take. It can’t be measured. Some will throw in the towel. If I lived in Gentilly, I might hesitate, too. What if I rebuilt and my friends and neighbors of many years didn’t? There was some street and debris cleanup underway on Elysian Fields by various contractors but I didn’t see anyone I thought might be a resident.
My thoughts this morning:
1) As soon as the FEMA-Insurance dance is over, the cleanup and rebuilding effort will start gathering momentum and that’ll be a sight to see.
2) If the politicians and their crony appointees don’t get out of the way down here, they’re going to get run over. Either is fine with me.
Quote of the Day
While our outrage is well-placed, we have to raise the level of action. I say we put a full court press on this.
Scott Cowen, Tulane University President and Mayor Ray Nagin's Bring New Orleans Back Commission Leader
Blog of the day from New Orleans is here.
Quote from said blog: "I'm looking out the large windows of my office right now at the city of New Orleans. It looks the same from here."
Call this a repost. I attended a bodacious bonfire back in February that doubled as a birthday celebration for myself, my sister, my brother-in-law, and the pyromaniac host, Harry.
The bonfire was perfect. Wish I could have stayed longer but I was running on empty by this time even though this fire had a long way to go. I had worked that day.
This one is from my brother-in-law’s blog, Divasaurs and it appears this was taken just before mine was. Most of the people at the bonfire were divers or former divers. They’re a fun group and can be counted on for a good time.
Quote of the Day
Where was Bill O’Reilly during all this? Spending the night with me!
Keith Olbermann, Bloggermann
Blog of the day from New Orleans is here.
Quote from said blog: "I should note that for every call that got through, there were about four that were cut off somewhere in their phone routing system."
Only problem calls get lost in these routing systems. New business or upgrades get right through. -Rob
Taken Near City Park in New Orleans
I used to go to the show a lot back then. Multi-screen theaters were just starting to come into fashion. You could buy a ticket to one movie in the afternoon at the matinee price, get in the door, and pretty much stay there all day. They didn’t start checking ticket stubs or make sure theaters were empty until their bread and butter screenings at 7PM and 9PM. That’s not to say the theater operators didn’t know kids were doing what I was doing. I think they secretly encouraged it as long as we were buying popcorn and soft drinks. That was their money. The bulk of box office receipts go somewhere else. You could also buy a ticket to a G-rated or M-rated film, no PG or PG-13 in those days, and sneak into an R-rated movie. That was a big deal back in the pre-cable days. Moms and Dads, your kids can probably still buy a ticket to one film and go see another if its not sold out but I doubt that’s any kind of concern for today’s kids.
Quote of the Day
I know I-tey food when I hear it! It's all them "eenie" foods... zucchini... and linguini... and fettuccine. I want some American food, dammit! I want French fries!
Paul Dooley, Breaking Away
Blog of the day here.
Quote from said blog: "I took this photo while I was in Florida over Christmas. I should have posted it back then. I'm finally sharing it today because ... well, just because I felt particularly inspired today."
Beautiful pic. -Rob
Have any faves of your own?
Safety tip for those using Movable Type Version 3.2: In Main Menu > System Overview > Weblogs, there is an option to Refresh Template(s). I’m not sure what I was thinking that would do when I pressed that option and clicked on Go. The old sysop (BBS slang for system operator) in me came out. Sysops like to know what things do and are somewhat stupid fearless about venturing into the unknown. It resets all of your templates to the default. Better have backups or all of your template work goes down the drain.
The turkey saga continues at CrabAppleLane (Stop laughing, Kem):
This sight greeted me as I went for my second cup of coffee this morning.
Grill.........Turkeys............Grill............Turkeys. There’s a connection there but its just beyond my grasp. The male is puffing up to challenge me but he runs in the other direction if I move toward him. The female looks headless here. She’s looking right at me.
Have I mentioned that these birds are monumentally dumb? I said that the female was particularly dumb and annoying the other day. Her mate has been working extra hard at his dumbness and I think he has surpassed her, now. He’s trying to squeeze through the bars to get away from me rather than fly over the railing like his mate did. Patsy has named them Trisch and Troy but I think Dumb and Dumber might be more appropriate.
Quote of the Day
If you even dream of beating me you'd better wake up and apologize.
Muhammad Ali, Heavyweight Boxer
Blog of the day here.
Quote from said blog: "Here is a post I put on the fantasy football website. It is about the playoff possibilities. Now that I am in, I want to win it all."
Yay. Another fantasy footbball player. -Rob
CrabAppleLane now has telephone service. It was somewhat reconnected Thursday night when Patsy got home. We had no power and it was cold inside and outside. While trying to get the power company on her cell phone, she noticed one of our land line phones’ light was on. She picked it up and she heard the a dial tone for the first time since August 29. Since we had the service disconnected at the phone company’s suggestion, she was only able to dial 911 according to the recording she got after attempting to dial the power company. Bummer. She called yesterday to have us reconnected. They told her we would be reconnected by midnight but we were reconnected much earlier. To the phone company: I take back everything I said and tip my cap to a job well done. For what its worth, I never had any complaints about the crews in the field or the delays. I know this is a massive effort. My concerns were with the advice I received from the phone rep. The concerns were unfounded. Thanks.
Leftover Stuffed Shrimp Tchefuncte from Abita Brew Pub in the refrigerator calling out to me this morning. Managed to keep it off of the floorboard this time. It was excellent but I could hardly eat any of it after the appetizers and salad. One of our favorite places because the portions are generous enough so that you always get two meals and good enough that you want the leftovers.
Readers who want to comment here or at any of the CrabAppleLane blogs are no longer required to preview their comments. That was an anti-spam measure that I hope is no longer required. It served us well but it was a bit of an obstacle and a delay. Most overcame it and I am grateful for that. We know we can go back to doing so if it turns out we have to at some future date. For now, enjoy the ease of use.
Today's QOTD inspired by a short exchange at Disarranging Mine A subject of another entry some day.
Quote of the Day
I'm not much on rear window ethics.
Grace Kelly, Rear Window
Blog of the day via Pitcherlady is here.
Quote from said blog: "Shortly after I did so, it boarded an airliner for parts unknown, leaving me bereft of any great themes to explore, while a blinking cursor mocks me from the top of a blank white screen."
I know that feeling. -Rob
CrabAppleLane can only offer links today that have caught my eye this morning and other mornings. For your dining and dancing pleasure:
November is a month for weddings? Well, anniversaries. Two gorgeous anniversary celebrations. One in Natchez, Mississippi celebrated by my sister and her beloved, the other celebrated at The Coromandel in New Zealand by Fi and her Other Harf. OK, makes our anniversary celebration at the Burger King look a little cheap. Will have to do better in May for our 25th.
The early morning laugh. Thanks, Marie.
My not nearly as funny version.
Dooce. Need I say more?
Heard the other day: Federal Express and U.P.S. are merging. The new company will be called Fedup.
Quote of the Day
A weekly roundtable on media coverage in which the conservatives (Jim Pinkerton and the woefully-hair dyed Cal Thomas) often burst out in liberalism, and the liberals (Neal Gabler and Jane Hall) often finger-wag conservatively.
Keith Olbermann, Bloggermann
Blog of the day here.
Quote from said blog: "A circus owner runs an ad for a lion tamer and two
people show up."
Its 30º on our back deck at CrabAppleLane. As noted by ths, it gets pretty cold down here in the South but this is unusually cold for us at this time of year. Patsy is sweeping frozen turkey droppings off of it as I type. Even she, with her animal-loving heart, is getting tired of these things. The female turkey is particularly dumb and annoying.
We heard gunfire last night. It’s not like hearing gunfire in the city. Thankfully, I haven’t had that pleasure yet. There are hunting leases not far from here and sound travels pretty far, particularly at night. I thought at first it might be a nail gun but it was very rapid fire so I doubt that was it. Have no idea what they might be shooting at but I always thought all night hunting was illegal. I know almost zero about hunting, though.
Katrina update: Still no telephone service at CrabAppleLane. No phones, running water, or electricity yet at my workplace in New Orleans. They’re using wireless cards to connect to the computer network. It is a haphazard and somewhat frustrating undertaking.
Quote of the Day
It would be no secret to you that whatever area we decide to do less of would have its supporters who would be very upset by that, as would Florida if we decided to do less shuttle. So, we are working to find every bit of fiscal synergy that we can so we can do what we want to do and we do not have to sacrifice what are valuable programs.
Mike Griffin, NASA Administrator
Blog of the day here.
Quote from said blog: "On the front page of this site, during November, you’re seeing a “sticky” post that looks different and warns you that I’m not tending to everything equally this month."
The idea for this entry was stolen from came from Kim. She has one like this that I couldn’t find this morning. It’s becoming fairly common practice on websites to force a person to enter a series of numbers and/or letters so they know a human is at their site and not a computer spam script/program. They’re called captchas. The numbers and/or letters are randomly generated and, typically, they are distorted. The distorted part is supposedly what a script/program can’t handle. Yet. The one above is what I was dealing with today. The correct answer is in the extended portion if you want to give it a go without looking. My personal all-time favorite practice is when they put one of these things at the end of a lengthy form and then wipe out all of the information you submitted if you get it wrong. On the first try. To be fair, these things are probably doing what they’re designed to do. Unfortunately, for them, I think they’re doing a whole lot more. What they’re really good at is measuring your frustration threshold. If you’re not giving me money to get past it, mine is about three tries. One, if you do the wipe out thing.
There is a plug-in program for Movable Type that will make a you enter a captcha prior to commenting. This is to keep spammers out. I worry it will keep comments out, too. In fact, the BOTD just installed it on his. When I installed the latest MT (3.2) just before Hurricane Katrina hit, the blacklist I had worked on for some time was disabled and MT’s own built-in version took over. The blogs here were unattended for almost six weeks. I was posting periodically afterwards but those were quick copy-and-paste operations. I couldn’t sit at a computer with valuable and rare internet access to do any maintenance. No spam got through here.
Quote of the Day
I love Christian today as deeply as I loved
him before this awful thing happened to us. We are
soul mates.
Tina Marie Stebbins
Blog of the day here.
Quote from said blog: "I'm happy to say that since setting up SCode I haven't received a single spam comment."
The BOTD struck a chord with me. I was taught penmanship in the early grades in school. I don't think I've lost any knowledge or skill more completely than I've lost that one. My handwriting is so bad that notes I write FOR MYSELF have a shelf life of about 20 minutes. If I don’t get back to them quickly while the reason for writing them is still somewhat fresh in my mind, I can’t figure out what I was trying to write. I’ve resorted to printing, as opposed to writing in script, whenever I can or typing if I’m at a computer terminal but that’s not always possible or practical. Its something I need to work on. I guess I should have been a doctor where bad handwriting might come in handy.
Quote of the Day
To call upon taxpayers — most of whom don't have defined-benefit pensions — to pay for the benefits of those who do would be fundamentally unfair.
Bradley Belt, Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp Executive Director
Blog of the day here.
Quote from said blog: "There's something ironic about ME teaching handwriting."
The Saints were up to the task yesterday. They had a bye.
Nice tradition. Congratulations, D.
My review of Royal Blend made it to the Coffee Tourist Blog. Cool beans.
It’s back to the grind today after a very nice three day weekend that included a blogger meet. The work plan has changed. I do not report to New Orleans today. At least, not this morning.
New Orleans mail issues came up the other day here, too. Still no answers on where any of the mail went during the service interruption. I am certain, as Mr Bingley said, that a lot of it was lost forever but I’m also certain that a lot of it still has to be somewhere. I know I’ve missed a good bit of mail.
Quote of the Day
And there's the idiot argument that I have the right to kill myself.
David Willis, Texas Transportation Institute
Blog of the day here.
Quote from said blog: "Statler and Waldorf of The Muppets have weighed in with their review of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire on Movies.com."
A blog devoted to Harry Potter. -Rob
First, Happy Birthday, Mom.
Love,
Robbie
Congratulations, Sheila.
Some unremarkable pictures from CrabAppleLane from this gray Sunday morning below.
Yes, the turkeys still come to visit us here just about every day. I wish feathers were the only things they were dropping but I will spare the two readers here images of their other droppings.
These are blue ginger blooms. They’ve always been purple in my soil and they’ve been displayed here many times in the past. These jewels start blooming in September and continue to bloom until the first solid frost or freeze. When they’ve finally opened wide, they reveal their gold center. I started with one stalk about 10 years ago. It’s up to eight now even though raccoons dug up a good many of them a few years ago. Purple and gold are the LSU Tiger’s colors. That’s another reason I like them so much.
The Tigers won a big game yesterday in Tuscaloosa. It was their third overtime game this year and it will move them up in the BCS and the polls. With USC, Texas, and Miami in front of them, I doubt they have a shot at the National title. I think USC will be in the title game even if they are upset by UCLA. Texas and Miami would both have to lose for LSU to jump ahead of them. I don’t see it. I sure would like to see if Matt Leinert could handle the Tiger pass rush.
The 5-1 Erasers take on Team Hyde this weekend. Hyde has blogged here before and still has an open account should he decide to post again. He lives in Kenner with his wife and three kids. He evacuated to Houston for Hurricane Katrina and I haven’t seen him since the night of our auction. The disruption Katrina caused to so many lives is just immeasurable and it is much costlier than any dollar figure that ends up on it. Katrina was very mean.
Quote of the Day
I was a 24-hour whore. All I ever thought about was sex.
Gene Simmons, Kiss
Blog of the day here.
Quote from said blog: "You may have a local place that is great, but if it's down two blind alleys and has no street parking, how are strangers from out of town going to get there?"
A coffee blog. -Rob
About intellectual property and/or copyright: I’m curious about people who make 5-10-20 copies or more of a CD or DVD and pass them along to their family and friends. How is that different from making 5-10-20 copies or more of a $20 bill? What’s the difference between a $20 CD and a $20 bill? In fact, why isn’t copying a $20 CD/DVD/Book/Photo/Painting/whatever as serious a crime as copying a $20 bill? John and I don’t agree on this. In fact, I’m pretty certain I swim against the cyberspace tide on it.
I was looking through our picture box for something else when I stumbled on a series of pictures I took a few years ago when we first set up our feeding area and I was still using my 35mm Minolta SLR. It kind of brought home the fact that I should be a little more systematic in my record-keeping and my picture-taking like Kem is. We’ve had a spectacular variety of birds and other wildlife that have lived at CrabAppleLane or migrated through here over the years since we’ve moved in. The only ones I have a good feeling about are my Ruby-Throated Hummingbirds. They’ll be back around March 10.
This is not a great picture of Indigo Buntings (The focus is not very good ) but it does give you an idea of the brilliant blue plumage they sport. The brown one in the back, barely visible, is a female and the one in the center of the seed may be a Blue Grosbeak. Grosbeaks are noticeably bigger in real life but its hard to tell from this image and that’s another reason I’m not wild about this picture. We only get one or two buntings at a time now. I haven’t seen a flock in several years. We had an outdoor cat that was a hunter and that probably contributed to their reluctance to come to our feed area. The cat is gone now and I think they’ll come back. I’ve always wanted to capture one of these in sharp focus in the same shot with one of CrabAppleLane’s spectacular red Cardinals. We have the reddest Cardinals on the planet here. I’ve done it once and I may post it someday but I’m holding out for a better one. It’s the reddest red and the bluest blue and it just has to be recorded.
About that Minolta SLR: We have two of them and a lot of money invested in lenses, filters, etc. They’re gathering dust and are probably only worth about 10 cents on the dollars we paid for them. I don’t ever see us going out to buy film again but I can’t bear to part with them. Minolta was one of the best film cameras around for amateurs at one time but they simply missed the boat when digital swept the amateur photography market. I hold out hope that they’ll develop an affordable, digital SLR that will be able to use the lenses I have. Our next camera will be a digital SLR. Minolta will have a built-in advantage with me over their competitors if they have one when we’re ready for it and if they’re still in business.
A cable guy from Indiana just re-attached my internet cable to the house. Hallelujah!!!
Quote of the Day
My cat Lucy recently and spontaneously learned how to understand and speak english. She's freaking our shit out, quite frankly.
jana, (not) not my dissertation
Blog of the day here.
Quote from said blog: "If your ex had a mean streak any bigger, it would come with elected officials, a zip code, and a sewer system."
Kim and I had lunch today in Covington. Kim is the second blogger I’ve met now. She told me I was her first. Cool. I offered her a couple of places we could meet and she chose my favorite place. We had lunch at New Orleans Food & Spirits. One of the many things I like about this place is the generous portions. There is almost always something left over, especially if you order the VooDoo Crawfish Rolls. I did. More on that in a minute. We then walked over to St John's Coffeehouse and chatted a while. We walked around Covington a bit afterwards but the debris, heat, and traffic made this a little less enjoyable than it usually is. Kim is as lovely and gracious in person as she is on her blog. (She has turkeys on hers, too). It was a real treat. Thanks, Kim. Have a safe drive back to Lafayette and then Austin.
Speaking of Lafayette, I was driving home from said lunch with what was going to be supper for me. It was the leftover Pasta Lafayette. When I left work yesterday afternoon, I brought my notebook home with me. It’s a rather large spiral-bound notebook. I threw it on the front seat. When I got back in my truck to go home this afternoon, I used the seat belt to strap my camera in and I let the lunch container rest under the belt. I figured that was enough to hold it in the event of a sudden stop. Maybe it would have been had the Styrofoam container been resting on my cloth seat. It was resting on my notebook. As I made the what-should-have-been-predictable sudden stop, my still warm lunch shot off of that notebook on to the floor mat. Thankfully, it stayed on the floor mat but it was in sight all the way home. The sight of it, the delicious smell of it, and the dejection I felt about the overwhelming brilliance of resting it on the notebook made for a very long ride home. The wildlife at CrabAppleLane is eating good in the neighborhood. Pictured is Pasta Lafayette, which is pasta, Parmesan cheese, garlic, some other spices, and shrimp. It comes with a choice of meats. That’s a blackened ribeye steak cooked medium and either garlic bread or buttered bread.
No work today for me. Its not because of Veterans Day, though. Happy Veterans Day. My office works on Veterans Day. I scheduled this day off last week because I wanted to meet up with someone passing through. With traffic being moderately heavy always to unpredictably, extremely heavy on occasion, it would have been too difficult to arrange to work around it. I have two more vacation days to use up before the 17th but I don’t see how that’s going to happen. We report to New Orleans on Monday. There are still substantial issues that we need solutions to but it will be good to be back.
Off to meet a fellow blogger. This will be the second such meeting for me. The first one was very nice. More on that later today or tomorrow.
Quote of the Day
And though they did hurt me so bad
In the fear and alarm
You did not desert me
My brothers in arms
Dire Straits, Brothers in Arms
Blog of the day here.
Quote from said blog: "In a city that supposedly doesn’t sleep, how come every store closes early?"
This from UPS:
Indefinitely Suspended
No UPS pickup or delivery at this time. Do not ship any packages directly to recipients in the following ZIP Codes:Louisiana
70117
70119
70122
70124 - 70129
70145
70146
70148
70149
70159
70167
70177 - 70179
70182
70184 - 70187
70189
Folks, this is a substantial section of New Orleans and I'll bet only a handful of people are aware of it. I found out about this on Tuesday. When UPS picks up a package, it is scanned. When a shipping label is printed, information has to be correct against the UPS database or it won’t be printed. It seems to me that the same technology should also tell the shipper or driver the package is undeliverable and shouldn’t be picked up. My workplace and many others have two months worth of UPS packages being stored in containers at various UPS hubs or the packages are being returned to sender. I suspect someone is being charged shipping on each one of them. When I asked the UPS person I talked to if we could pick up the packages or have them delivered to an alternate address or a UPS store, she said she’d have to get back to me on pickup and that I’d have to contact the shipper to arrange an alternate shipping location. That’s fine and dandy if I knew every shipper that sent us a package the last two months. A lot of those packages were unsolicited but could very well still be important to us. We may never see them or we’ll see them way too late to act on them. Some people cannot, for various reasons, use any other carrier. I think UPS could have done a better job of getting the word out about this. I’m only wailing on UPS a little bit here, though. They’re having problems, too, and they're not the only ones. DHL is having the same kinds of problems. FEDEX is better but still inconsistent. Many of their drivers are not back yet and there are many good reasons for all of them to suspend service to parts of New Orleans. Most traffic lights are not working yet so its not all that safe to drive the streets of New Orleans in some areas, a lot of addresses have been blown off of houses and businesses, a lot of addresses don’t exist any more, there is no one home to receive packages at many addresses and they really can’t leave packages outside in New Orleans right now, and finally, there are legitimate driver security concerns. Another huge challenge for New Orleans.
Quote of the Day
In your skin upon my skin in the beating of our hearts
May the living let us in before the dead tear us apart
Bruce Springsteen, Worlds Apart
Blog of the day is a photoblog (Large images) and is here.
Quote from said blog: "Even though the maple trees are bare, the oaks and tamaracks are still brightening up the landscape thankfully."
Place me firmly in the anti-pro Wal-Mart camp. I can’t stand them and I can’t do without them. The brands they carry are so much cheaper than any of their competition that I usually can’t afford to buy them anywhere else. I’ll sometimes pay a little more to help other businesses but I want something in return when I do. I’ll pay $3.49 for something at your store that I can get at Wal-Mart for $2.99 but I’d better be able to park closer to your front door and get in and out faster. Unfortunately, for you, I will only buy a few items. 20-30-40 items at 15%-50% more adds up.
Back in June, it was Wal-Mart takes aim at Target. Now, Wal-Mart is the target. My issues with Wal-Mart were never about how they treat their workers, though. They’re about what happens when a Wal-Mart is built. They don’t just compete with department stores. They compete with book stores, hardware stores, music stores, grocery stores, lawn and garden centers, camera stores, hi-fi shops, automotive stores, clothes stores, shoe stores, tire stores, etc, etc, etc. Many existing businesses can’t or won’t compete and close down. Entrepreneurs shy away from opening new businesses in areas that have a Wal-Mart nearby. That said, I don’t necessarily blame Wal-Mart for that condition. They’re very good at what they do. As a consumer, I’d like to see Wal-Mart get healthy, vigorous competition because I want more choices. If and when said competition ever comes, it will also have to be very good at what it does. Its sad for all of us that very few even want to try.
Quote of the Day
And every victory has a taste that's bittersweet
And it's your face I'm looking for on every street
Dire Straits, On Every Street
Blog of the day here.
Quote from said blog: "The Loop area is not exactly loaded with places to go, apart from ultra-high-end four-star restaurants and fast-food places for quick noontime refills, so a good, simple, fun place like this is a welcome addition."
Kim’s blogging her vacation through Louisiana and Mississippi.
Beginning to wonder how long it will be before we have little turkeys running around CrabAppleLane. They’re still around.
LSU-Alabama week. GEAUX Tigers!!!
Saints bye week. That's a relief.
I couldn’t agree more with the Eagles decision to suspend Terrell Owens and ultimately cut their ties with him but that sure is messing up my fantasy football team. He was a big part of my team’s early success. What a twit.
Quote of the Day
I've got a watch
That turns into a lifeboat
Alice Cooper, Halo of Flies
Blog of the day here.
Quote from said blog: "Yes, I like Asia. And I always have."
Me, too. -Rob
Money quote #1 from this web page:
As companies get more cost-conscious, lots of sites have started "remote blocking", which can result in your pretty pictures turning into ugly red X's.
Your pretty pictures? You didn’t take them, you didn’t pay for them, and you didn’t ask permission to use them. All you did was link to them. They’re not yours. This practice is known as stealing.
Money quote #2 from that same page:
Find the same image located elsewhere on the Internet, and link to that
Amazing.
And money quote #1 from this page:
How do I get pictures on my site without Premium?
"Premium" must be their pay version. After reading the two aforementioned help pages, I'm wondering how do they get pictures on the sites with Premium
And, finally, money quote #2 from that same page:
Some websites just hate Xanga, and remote-block images just from visitors at Xanga.
I just can't imagine why.
Quote of the Day
To have him back in custody again, this is where he belongs. He was convicted of capital murder. He was twice sentenced to death. There is no scenario under which he should be free roaming around on the street.
Sheriff's Lt. John Martin
Blog of the day here.
Quote from said blog: "The jackass proceeds to cross the tracks, not looking as he crosses onto my side of the station, and climbs onto the platform and nonchalantly walks away."
Got on the bike this lovely Sunday morning. The images below are some offerings from CrabAppleLane and nearby.
The two most popular kinds of signs in Louisiana right now. You might think that it’s a buyer’s market with all of the hurricane-weary residents anxious to get out. That factor is offset by the extreme shortage of usable housing. I don’t know what percentage of houses in the swath of Katrina sustained roof damage so I will go by the percentage of my family who did: 62.5%. Not a bad time to be a roofer.
Broken branches have provided entry points into otherwise healthy trees for all sorts of insects that like to eat or make homes in them and that’s providing un unlimited supply of food for all of the creatures who eat insects. The woodpeckers, in particular, are having a grand time. This red-bellied woodpecker made his way from the bottom to the top of one of our sweet gum trees finding delightful morsels all the way up. The top used to be about 20ft taller.
A cleanup crew, contracted by FEMA, in the subdivision across the street from CrabAppleLane. They are removing yard debris. The guy in the white t-shirt is holding a sign that says “Slow” on one side and “Stop” on the other. He coordinates traffic with a guy on the other side of the truck, who has an identical sign. Those guys get $15-$20 per hour for the task of turning their signs around occasionally. The guy in the Bobcat gets double or triple that, the foreman is looking at vacation homes on the Riviera, and the owner of this company will be on the next Forbes list.
A different cleanup crew will pick up the root balls because it requires different equipment. All of these crews will be around for a while. What they clean up today will be replaced in the next few days. People can only put so much out to the street at a time. One of these massive pines, after its cut up, will take up most of the frontage of your property and some people have anywhere from 20 to 150 pine trees down.
Quote of the Day
Lunacy brews a good cup of coffee.
Pitcherlady
Blog of the day from New Orleans is here.
Quote from said blog: "Can you recall the last time you broke curfew? I suppose it depends on your age. If you're still in high school, then it might have been last weekend. But if you're a bit older, you may have to dust off some of those files in your head."
For those who don’t know, Roger Ebert is probably the most famous and influential movie reviewer in America. He is also half of the former TV movie review team of Siskel & Ebert and now half of the TV movie review team of Ebert & Roeper. I read Roger Ebert’s review of Fever Pitch after we’d finished watching it. I’ve always thought he was overly generous in his reviews but there is more. Some years ago, I read his review of Striptease and I noticed something about it. He attributes a line in the movie to “one stripper”. That line was from Demi Moore, who played the main character. It’s a detail and I don’t know what to make of it. He once chided Gene Siskel on a talk show about getting a detail wrong by saying, “As small as it was, I got it right”. This detail is not really inaccurate since she was one of the strippers but it seemed incomplete, for lack of a better word, not to mention that it was the main character who had that great line. Of his reviews of movies that I’ve seen and liked, I’ve noticed that he gets a lot of details wrong. For example, in his review of Fever Pitch, he says, “He has a great time at the party, until he finds out the Sox were down 0-3 to the Yankees, tied it up, and won 6-4 in the 12th inning.” He’s describing the wrong game and he’s doing so in much more detail than the movie did, either through memory or from somewhere else. That’s not the game where he was at the party. I don’t think getting these details wrong is intentional for the purpose of not being a spoiler. If he didn’t want to be a spoiler, he wouldn’t give any details and he surely wouldn’t recite a great movie quote. He also says about Fever Pitch, “do not make the mistake of thinking it is a baseball movie”. Well, neither is Field of Dreams but a working knowledge of baseball and its language will enhance your viewing of it. It could be that there is a long time between when he finishes watching a movie and when he writes about it. Whatever the reason, I can no longer be swayed by him. I still watch Ebert & Roeper on late Sunday nights when it comes on here if I remember to but Roeper’s review is given much more consideration.
About Fever Pitch, we both liked it. It’s a thoroughly predictable and warm-hearted, romantic comedy. It was extremely well cast. Jimmy Fallon and Drew Barrymore are perfect. Jobeth Williams and James B Sikking are perfect as her parents. All of the quirky friends were very good, including Ione Skye, who I thought might someday be a superstar after seeing her in River's Edge and Say Anything.
Quote of the Day
She's gone. She gave me a pen. I gave her my heart, she gave me a pen.
John Cusack, Say Anything
Blog of the day here.
Quote from said blog: "After (hopefully) recording the start, I biked on 7th, parallel to the runners, over to Hennepin Avenue, and turned left, to the south, and rode on the sidewalk until cutting over toward the Minneapolis Community and Technical College, down to Loring Park, and then across the Art Bridge by the Walker Art Institute."
A blog from Minneapolis. -Rob
So I was in one of the few fast food restaurants yesterday that you can actually dine in. Most are still “drive-through only”. There are severe staffing shortages at all of those places since Hurricane Katrina and most of them are making unprecedented offers, like signing bonuses and considerably higher wages, to attract employees. They’re not having much luck. Many entry level workers have evacuated or been evacuated, lost everything, and don’t have the resources or the inclination to come back. People who are still here and who might be inclined to take those jobs normally aren't because they can get jobs in the disaster-relief effort making considerably more. I digress. I ordered an Icee (That’s what they used to be called but every fast food joint that serves them gives it their own name) to go with my meal. I ordered a large. She heard large and gave me a large but charged me for a medium. I didn’t know she had made a mistake because I don’t know one size from another at most of these places. She went and got that for me and I started on it while I waited for the rest of my meal. She then went on to the next customer. The place was pretty busy. The manager was coordinating. He calls my ticket, sees the Icee on the ticket, and starts to make it. I tried to stop him but he wasn’t listening. He makes the medium Icee, which has one of those bubble tops with the hole in the middle for the straw. He slams it down on the counter, Icee shoots up through that hole onto the counter, and a little got on me but I wasn’t too concerned about it. He apologized and I explained that I already had one and showed it to him.
To me: “Where’d you get that?”
Me: “She gave it to me”
The cashier was taking an order from another customer. He interrupts her.
To her (Rather sternly): “This is a medium. That’s a large.”
He turns to me.
“OK, go ahead and keep it.”
I was both uncomfortable and angry. It was spilt milk. What was he going to do? Take it from me after I’d already drank some of it? I don’t think so. In fact, he wasn’t going to take it from me, period. The retail difference in price is 10 or 20 cents (I would have gladly paid the difference if I had known a mistake was made). It was really no big deal. He should have just let it go. If she makes the same mistake again, pull her aside and point out the difference. Instead, he chewed out an employee in front of me and 20 other customers over nothing. It was totally unnecessary. Unfortunately, I knew he was the jackass but the other 20 customers probably didn’t. My guess is that loser will have some staff turnover and he’s not long for that job.
Quote of the Day
You can't squeeze $3.7 billion out of this state to pay this bill. Period. That would be difficult for us on a good day.
Denise Bottcher, State of Louisiana
Blog of the day here.
Quote from said blog: "Haydn looked around at Rebecca and said, "Mama. You know that easy breezy beautiful Cover Girl stuff.""
Go to the blog for the next part. Priceless. -Rob
In Saudi Arabia, there is the “Commission (Committee?) for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice”. In France, there is a “Social Cohesion Minister”. In Monty Python’s Flying Circus, we have “The Ministry of Silly Walks”. I’m a fan of great-sounding government offices. May have to start a collection.
Married to three sisters. I don’t know if he should be a judge, either. Maybe a referee.
I hope the Packers establish a trend.
Quote of the Day
If it had not been for my grandson and his friend, we could have all been severely injured or killed.
Tom Benson, New Orleans Saints
Blog of the day here.
Quote from said blog: "It was if seeing another part of my childhood cut loose and fly away."
Condolences on your loss from CrabAppleLane. -Rob
Alanis Morrisette gets the Fug treatment. I saw her on a Dinner for Five rerun a few months ago. I don't know when that episode was filmed (It aired in May 2005) but she was on this path in her wardrobe evolution then. She hadn’t quite made it as far as that Fug image, though. She looks like a soccer mom now and some may think she's sold out. When I first saw her on stage (At Knebworth, I think), she reminded me of Janis Joplin. She has gotten away from that image in my estimation ....................... not that I really notice these things.
Prince Charles and Duchess Camilla are coming to New Orleans. I don’t think the Prince has ever been to the city. People in New Orleans are probably thankful that there isn’t much traffic there to snarl yet. Most people I know are evenly divided in their opinions of the Royal couple. Half don’t care much for them and the other half are indifferent to them. As long as they stay out of the way............
Quote of the Day
Some mornings it just doesn't seem worth it to gnaw through the leather straps.
Phil Soltanec via Whiskey River
Blog of the day here.
Quote from said blog: "Never expect your husband to be a good guest on your blog."
Its All Saints Day. The New Orleans Saints are 39 today. Its mid-season in the NFL and they are in the tank. This is not a new experience for a Saints fan. This is one of the many reasons why fantasy football is so popular. 10, maybe 12, cities are following a team that has a realistic shot at the championship. If you’re a football fan elsewhere, you have to get your football excitement from fantasy football or gambling.. I’m not much of a gambler. This has had an effect that the internet has figured out. I think more people are watching the games on one of the many live game trackers than are watching the games on TV. We do this for the stats. I didn’t care about last night’s game at all but my fantasy football opponent had Jamal Lewis of the Ravens and the Steelers defense on his team so I had one tab open to that game while I was surfing. Kind of a sad existence. My fantasy football team, Erasers, is 4-1 and in first place, though. That’s rare. Usually, the Saints AND the Erasers are hopelessly out of contention by now. The glass is half-full.
Quote of the Day
I've gained no wisdom, no insight, no mellowing. I would make all the same mistakes again, today.
Woody Allen
Blog of the day here.
Quote from said blog: "While I love local distinctiveness and regional cultural, I do wish the United States would switch to global usage on dates, measurements, and paper sizes. The rest of the world isn't going to switch to our outmoded forms; standardization would be better for business and would help to foster a sense that we are part of a global village."
