April 2006 Archives
The weekend and the last day of April fades away just a few minutes ago. In this image, the sun is just about on our roof, which might be why I'm still sweating from a 10-minute bike ride. Could be I'm outta shape, too. Nahhhh.
The Saints deciding to pass on all offers for their draft pick and taking Reggie Bush was really a no brainer. Not only was it a good football decision, it was a good business decision. If Saints owner, Tom Benson, had any say in the matter and I’m certain he did, that made Reggie Bush entirely too irresistible. People are going to pay to see him play while the Saints are rebuilding. The team has more pressing needs on defense but I think a productive offense will help them much more than any defensive player would have. With the additions of Drew Brees and Reggie Bush, the offense figures to be more productive. Thanks, Houston.
It rained all night at CrabAppleLane and is just now finishing up. The thunderstorms were thought to be so severe that our local NBC affiliate thought it wise to interrupt Saturday Night Live to give us a weather update. A night of hunkering down makes for a lot of wildlife activity in the backyard but the gray skies provide very poor light. Frustrating.
Used to see Rufous-sided Towhees quite regularly at CrabAppleLane but they stopped coming for a while. They’re back now.
Aint nothing in the world like a big eyed girl.............
131 days until football season...........................
Quote of the Day
In the future, any NFL-ready quarterback will have to think twice about a senior season. Call it the Matt Leinart Effect.
Joey Johnston, NBC Sports
Blog of the day here.
Quote from said blog: "this is where we wound up."
Nice pic. -Rob
It’s NFL Draft Day and Saints fans are now salivating at the possibilities. With the Houston Texans taking Mario Williams yesterday, the Saints can now draft Reggie Bush, who along with a healthy Deuce Mcallister and a pretty bright and experienced Drew Brees would present problems to most NFL defenses AND put people in the stands. Those rent problems have no impact on his football status in the NFL and I don’t even know why anyone is talking about it. The Saints might also trade down but I suspect the price for that draft position went up considerably since yesterday. Free, unsolicited and unwanted advice from CrabAppleLane for anyone interested in that Saints pick now:
Bring Da House
131 days until football season...........................
Quote of the Day
Don't take long, but take Bush
John DeShazier, The Times-Picayune in New Orleans
Blog of the day here.
Quote (April 28, 11:52 a.m. ET, before the bombshell) from said blog: "Media and fans aren't the only ones who assemble mock drafts."
There appears to be a spate of 9/11 films on the horizon. We have Flight 93 and now, Loose Change. I am a film buff and I love movies but certain films hold no interest for me and I will avoid them even if and when they come to Pay-Per-View/HBO/Showtime/Whatever. No links, Dear Readers. I’m not opposed to movies “based on true stories” and I’m not opposed to these, either. I loved Patton, the Untouchables, Glory, and many more. I can’t explain why I won’t watch these films other than to say I get 9/11. Whatever the film makers are trying to accomplish with these films will not improve or detract from my understanding of that event. And if they’re just trying to hit the nerve, well, that nerve has already been hit. It is still a thoroughly open wound and I didn't lose anyone close to me.
Dave has a great post up about Network Neutrality. There’s more on a similar topic at Dave’s Fish Fear Me site and also here at CrabAppleLane. I’m an armchair quarterback in all of this but Dave knows what he’s talking about.
132 days until football season...........................
Quote of the Day
It doesn't matter how good you hit. To get the ball in the cup takes a bit of luck.
Graeme McDowell, Zurich Classic
Blog of the day here.
Quote from said blog: "The Tattoo I would get"
Pretty cool tattoo. -Rob
So Keith Jackson is retiring from play-by-play broadcasting. I like Keith Jackson more than I like most national Game-of-the-Week broadcasters. He’s as well-prepared as any of them but I still would prefer a different way of doing game broadcasts of any sporting event. I think the ideal broadcasting team would be the home team’s local play-by-play person along with each team’s local color commentator. Those people have been covering their team for a season or several seasons and they know their teams better than anyone so they would never say anything silly like “This guy has great hands” when the guy has been on the bench most of the year because he drops almost everything thrown at him. I’m a dreamer. Good Luck, Keith.
Big weekend in New Orleans for locals. The Zurich Classic starts today, JazzFest starts tomorrow, and the NFL Draft is Saturday. I will probably miss all of it.
Happy Birthday, Dad. Miss you.
Quote of the Day
I'm going out to learn to be a senior citizen and find a president I can vote for and believe in.
Keith Jackson, ABC Sports
Blog of the day here.
Quote from said blog: "LAST PHOTO I EVER TOOK CONTEST!"
I think Ricky Williams is finally done with the Dolphins. In all honesty, I doubt he'll resume his career in 2007. He had one more large contract awaiting him and maybe a decent career as well if he could perform up to his ability and just keep his head on straight but it looks like he found that was simply too much to ask. Too bad. Despite all of his off-field foibles, he is a very likeable person. He may still get one more chance but it won’t be nearly as lucrative, will have plenty of strings attached, and despite the QOTD, it probably won’t be with Miami unless he is willing to swallow a new and reduced cap-friendly contract. In my view, even that is unlikely. I think they'll release him, wish him luck, and move on. The guy has talent but he’s disappointed the Dolphins, its players, and its fans twice now. Even though the Saints wound up with a bust with one of the players (DT - Jonathan Sullivan) they chose, I’m still glad they were able to trade him for something/anything. The roller coaster that is Ricky Williams is over in New Orleans.
67º and 99% humidity outside as I type. The weather cooled down last night about 20 degrees before the storm came. Rain and cooler weather are both welcome at CrabAppleLane.
Quote of the Day
I'm proud of my association with the National Football League and look forward to returning to the Dolphins in 2007.
Ricky Williams, Miami Dolphins
Blog of the day here.
Quote from said blog: "Shonda Schilling made a relief appearance in the 94th inning for Team Endurance."
Love,
Rob
It looks like The West Wing is pulling out all of the stops and trying for a strong finish much like Six Feet Under did. I wish The Sopranos would do that. They might still but they'd better get moving. All of these series started strong and then meandered in the middle. The last three episodes of Six Feet Under were excellent and that last episode is a classic. I’m hoping West Wing and The Sopranos can do the same. On another TV note, I wonder where Deadwood can pick up from last year. They tied up just about every storyline. We'll know soon (June). I'm there.
136 days until football season...........................
Quote of the Day
I don't demonize the oil companies, but I know the crowd will have a lynch-mob mentality when hit with multibillion-dollar oil earnings every day this week while coping with near-record gasoline prices.
Tom Kloza, Oil Price Information Service
Blog of the day via Goodboys Nation is here.
Quote from said blog: "There are still thousands of automobiles that sit exactly where they were deposited by the flood waters 8 months ago. In the middle of streets. On lawns. Some updside down."
This article about commuting is quite accurate. I’m not quite an extreme commuter by their definition (90 minutes or more one way). Well, I was for about 6 months preceding this one when traffic was just this side of bearable. It has eased somewhat but any breakdown or accident screws everything up. Long commutes are not for everyone. I sometimes play mind games. I have a landmark at 20.4 miles. If the trip meter reads 20.5 when I get there, I’ve had to pass more cars than usual. Quite a few cars enter the highway along my route and have no qualms about turning into 55mph oncoming traffic at 15mph and only gradually building up their speed. That infuriated me at one time but it doesn’t bother me all that much any more because I kind of expect it. I stopped drinking coffee along the route because the possibility of two hours in the vehicle and only one or two public bathrooms along the way doesn’t work for me any more, either. Still, I do it because I love to walk along the trails in the backyard. I love to watch the diverse wildlife that passes through. I love the tall trees. I love the dark skies. I love the quiet. I love the weekends. Had the 10 minutes from work and close to everything life but all I have to do is look at home prices in the part of the suburbs that I left and play one more mind game. The lot I lived on in Metairie (Suburb of New Orleans) was 45' X 120' and would have cost a fortune to renovate. 49 of those lots will fit at CrabAppleLane and I won't be doing this forever.
Quote of the Day
Last week I saw a guy going down the highway eating a bowl of cereal, reading the paper and steering with his knees.
Dave Givens, Cisco Engineer
Blog of the day via Creative Display is here.
Quote from said blog: "One thing that always got on my nerves about the area I live in is the condition of the roads there. There are potholes everywhere; most have been filled in but not well, so they're bumps."
No surprise at last night’s New Orleans Mayor election results. My guess is there won't be any lawsuits filed. It says here that Ray Nagin will win re-election handily even if Landrieu wins the endorsement of all of the other candidates.
Spring has pretty much given way to summer at CrabAppleLane. Temps in the 90s are expected today. It’s 83º now. I offer a couple of images from the CrabAppleLane backyard from this morning and a New Orleans story.
The yard debris Katrina and I left behind has made a lovely playground for a lot of creatures.
Our oleander is in bloom. It’s not as spectacular as the big, bushy ones lining I-10 in New Orleans, also in bloom now, but it is taller. This one is a good 15ft in the air. They do very well in New Orleans in open spaces. This one is not in an open space so instead of bushy, it's gangly. I lived my first two years on Oleander Street off of Carrollton Avenue in Mid-City New Orleans. I don’t remember seeing oleanders on that street even when I drove it as an adult but I was less observant of those things then.
Speaking of Oleander Street and food: Yesterday, it was hot dogs. Today, it’s hamburgers. There was a restaurant on Oleander about a block off of Carrollton on the second floor of a former house that used to serve original Lee’s hamburgers. This was 1981 or 82. A Lee’s hamburger is a burger cooked through and through with onions. Onions are mixed into the ground beef, are placed on top of the burger, and are placed on the griddle below the burger. For good measure, they are served topped with chopped raw onions. They were made popular by a guy named Lester "Lee" Hash, who had a burger stand in the 1930s. That was before my time but I’m told that they had one guy whose only job was to chop onions all day. Can you imagine? Advice from CrabAppleLane: The only way to eat one is on a bun with mustard only. A chain of Lee’s Hamburger Restaurants have opened since the New Orleans World’s Fair in 1984 serving a very sanitized (Less greasy) version of the original and they’re good but not nearly as good as those originals.
Quote of the Day
So goodnight
Yeah goodnight
Goodnight train is gonna carry me home
Gerry Rafferty, City to City
Blog of the day here.
Quote from said blog: "I won't have time to do it before I leave for Jazzfest, but as soon as we get back I'm making a huge pot of gumbo z'herbes."
If you’ve been to the French Quarter in New Orleans, you recognize this. Lucky Dogs are a New Orleans Institution. If you’ve had a few too many Hurricanes, they’re also appropriate penance. I haven’t had one in many years and I certainly wasn’t going to get one yesterday with all of the wonderful food all around us. This guy wasn’t doing much business, either, but I know business for him picks up when the restaurants start closing while the bars are still open. I don’t know what it is about drinking too much that makes you yearn for food that is sure to mix with the alcohol in your system and tear your stomach up. Lucky Dogs were one of my faves when I used to do that along with Krystal hamburgers (White Castle hamburgers elsewhere) and Takee Outee Shish Kabobs (Another New Orleans Institution but I’m not sure they’re still around). I’m not saying any of this food is bad because it’s not. It’s just that Pepto-Bismol, it aint.
One of the groups we saw yesterday at the French Quarter Festival was the Washboard Chaz Blues Trio (Adobe Acrobat Reader required). The stage was right on the river. I lost my presence of mind and didn’t think to take a picture. Hearing old time Mississippi Delta Blues on the Mississippi River is just awesome. I’m going to have to make an effort to see them again.
Quote of the Day
She can make a country boy's dream come true
Says she won't but you know she might
Ry Cooder, Nitty Gritty Mississippi
Blog of the day here.
Quote from said blog: "Of course, I ended up front and center looking like the biggest grandma mosher you've ever seen."
The band opens the festival. This is the second band that marched in playing. I was too late to get a decent shot of the first.
The French Quarter Visitor Center is part of Jean Lafitte National Park and it is a wonderful place to visit AND rest. Don't tell anyone about the second part. A place with clean bathrooms that isn't too busy in the French Quarter? Solid gold.
Louisiana State Museum - The Cabildo
We had a great time even though the weather alternated from hot to rainy and back a few times. We had the crepes again because we can't go all the way down to the French Quarter for this festival and not get them. They were especially good this time.
139 days until football season...........................
Quote of the Day
I don't have a lawyer. Have him call my doctor.
Woody Allen, Play It Again, Sam
Blog of the day here.
Quote from said blog: "Their culture may dominate the world, but there's nothing like meeting American tourists overseas to give you a glowing sense of superiority."
The best 15 skylines via Emily at It Comes In Pints. All of the images are spectacular but I especially like the night pictures. Inspires this repost of the New Orleans skyline taken by yours truly on the day after Christmas 2005.
Thursday morning observation from CrabAppleLane: Oil is at $72 a barrel and gasoline is at $2.75+ per gallon yet gas stations are doing a hustling bustling business and there are still so many vehicles on the road around here that traffic is almost unbearable. We must be out of our minds.
Sports Illustrated has the best draft bargains of the last 20 years. If they're supposed to be ranked in some order, I have a strong disagreement over ranking the 3rd rounder Steve Smith over the 6th rounder Tom Brady. Both are great players but Smith is merely a bargain. Brady was a steal. One other thing about that list: No Saints, no surprise.
Today's QOTD sounds a lot like this chain email I get from time to time that suggests we should all stop buying gasoline at Exxon/Mobil. Supposedly, prices would drop at Exxon/Mobil and everyone else would have to follow suit.
Quote of the Day
If everyone decided to drive 3% less the next 30 days, prices would crash
Tom Kloza, Senior analyst - Oil Price Information Service
Blog of the day here.
Quote from said blog: "There is a place in my home harboring approximately fifteen turkey basters, and damned if I know where it is."
Inspired by Sheila, I decided to do take this survey. I can't help it. I'm a movie fan. Rate the "Ten Best Best Pictures" of all time. No Raiders of the Lost Ark, no Local Hero, no L.A. Confidential, no Almost Famous, no Man in the Moon, etc...... Most of my faves don't win Best Picture Awards but this is still a good list. These are my top ten with some comments:
1) 1943 - Casablanca - Needs no explanation
2) 1980 - Ordinary People - Not a big fan of melodrama normally but this one is perfect. Everyone talks about Mary Tyler Moore's performance and it was surely wonderful but Donald Sutherland hit it out of the park for me.
3) 1934 - It Happened One Night - One of my faves and one of the few comedies on the list.
4) 1966 - A Man for All Seasons - Saw this in high school religion class. Still powerful.
5) 1970 - Patton - Because of George C Scott’s fabulous portrayal
6) 1974 - The Godfather - Part II - Because of Robert De Niro’s powerhouse performance
7) 1999 - American Beauty - Loved this movie. Identified strongly with the Kevin Spacey character.
8) 1949 - All The King’s Men - The movie and the book is roughly based on Louisiana Governor Huey P Long. There’s a scene where Broderick Crawford transforms from stiff speech reader into shear charisma. I think every film maker shooting a transformation scene/sequence should watch this movie just for those two minutes. It's a great movie.
9) 1973 - The Sting - “Four Jacks” is one of those magic moments in film.
10) 1972 - The Godfather - Liked II better but this one is great, too
141 days until football season...........................
Quote of the Day
Don't admire people too much, they might disappoint you.
Donald Sutherland, Ordinary People
Blog of the day here.
Quote from said blog: "Of course, I can't confirm whether or not you've seen the ones you are voting for, but I think it's only fair that you only nominated movies you've endured."
Quote of the Day
Here come the law gonna break down the door
Gonna carry me away once more
Never never I never want it anymore
Gotta get away from this stone cold floor
Queen, Stone Cold Crazy
Blog of the day here.
Quote (April 15, 2006 entry) from said blog: "Paul, Roger, and I have plunged into this enormous upheaval in our lives with a firm belief, instinctively, that here was something hugely worth-while, on the level of the "worth-while-ness" of the original Queen, or the original Free."
143 days until football season...........................
Quote of the Day
God's a kid with an ant farm, lady. He's not planning anything.
John Constantine, Constantine
Blog of the day via Ilyka Damen is here.
Quote from said blog: "Use your free time to bake more, or to do his laundry."
Happy Easter
Paperwork and computer work all morning, yardwork all afternoon, errands all night. That was yesterday. Today, it’s drinking coffee on the back deck, taking a few pictures of the glorious wildlife at CrabAppleLane, a movie and a nap, a jaunt to the neighbors for Easter BBQ, and maybe some TV tonight.
Enjoy some of Kim’s pics from her vacation through Louisiana and Mississippi.
How much was that sofa?
From the CrabAppleLane backyard this Easter Sunday morning
Move over, Mockingbird. This guy can out sing you. He’s a Brown Thrasher. This is as close as I could get to him this morning and I’ll blame that for the soft focus. I’ve been hearing these guys in my backyard for a few weeks now and I had no idea it was them. When I see them around my feeders, they’re not singing. They don’t come to the feeders. They stay on the edge of the clearing, where they can always retreat into the woods. They eat things, probably insects, off of the ground. They can sing non-stop for 45 minutes while constantly changing their song.
Splish, splash. I really do get a charge out of the wildlife using the things I put out for them. This gorgeous, still splashing blur of a Cardinal made my morning.
Have a great Easter!
Quote of the Day
Way down around Vicksburg
Around Louisiana way
Lived a Cajun lady
Aboard the Mississippi Queen
Mountain, Mississippi Queen
Blog of the day from Meg's Lovely Quilt is here.
Quote from said blog: "Yes, folks, this scene is how the Pittsburgh Steelers got their name & "Mascot" (the 3 colored hypocycloid symbol)."
It’s tax day. The only thing worse than filling out your tax return is having to do a portion of it again. I discovered a mistake on ours after I had mailed it and had to fill out another form with the correction. Most taxpayers think the tax system is unfair according to this AP article at MSNBC. Of course, it is.
Everyone can think of at least one inequity in the system. If we addressed all of them, we’d probably have a system where the budget is divided by the total number of people. No adjustments, no deductions. You live here, have a seat at the table, you pay your share. A trillion dollar budget divided by 300 million people would be about $3300 per person. A family of four would pay $13200. Or maybe we could devise a system where everything has to be paid for as you go. Take a ticket when you get on to the interstate and pay when you get off. You pay in proportion to what you use. There would have to be automatic debit from all citizens whenever Congress is in session, the President holds a state dinner, or the military launches a missile. There may be a handful of people in the United States that wants fair. I salute the dreamers amongst you. Some also want a more fair system. It's been tweaked for 75 years or so. Don't know how much more fair it can get. What the majority of the citizens here really want is to be on the good side of unfair.
Spent/squandered the morning making space on the hard drive and moving images to disk. That’s always a pain but it beats yardwork. Unfortunately, it doesn’t make the yardwork go away.
Quote of the Day
She always was a fit cat, otherwise she wouldn't have survived 14 days in that hole.
Peter Myers, Greenwich Village
Blog of the day here.
Quote from said blog: "Just when you thought that the theory of relativity meant one thing, in Aruba it seems to have a whole different meaning."
It’s been nostalgia week for me in New Orleans. Yesterday, it was a muffuletta from Central Grocery. Today, it was a shrimp po-boy from Mark Twain’s Pizza Landing and a bubble gum sno-ball from Sal’s. I must have passed Mark Twain’s 100 times before I finally took a chance on it. It has a paper mache Mark Twain in the store window. The shrimp is sautéed, not fried, and that’s all I had time for today but it’s the pizza that makes the place. I eat pizza. Any kind of pizza placed in front of me is in danger but I never thought there was much difference between the big chains and the smaller specialty pizza places. I was wrong. Mark Twain’s Pizza Landing was the first gourmet pizza joint I started frequenting. I used to live AND work nearby. I do neither, now, and I miss them.
Speaking of football season, a little fun being had at the Coalition for football-starved people. I’m not starving for football, though. Nope, not me. 146 days until football season...........................
Quote of the Day
Yet, in addition to trying to start up contract talks with USC running back Reggie Bush, the Houston Texans continue reaching out to North Carolina State defensive end Mario Williams to get him to try to negotiate on a contract. Williams is leery about being used as leverage, but the Texans insist it is not about that.
Adam Schefter, NFL.COM
Blog of the day here.
Quote from said blog: "They’re stealing my garbage."
It appears Michael Brown, ex-FEMA director, won’t be hired by St Bernard Parish (Free registration may be required) for their recovery effort. I had mixed feelings about the idea. Not wild about his emergency management skills but his skills as lobbyist with an axe to grind may have benefitted my friends in St Bernard. Still, do you hire a guy you hold partially responsible for your current situation to help you?
Quote of the Day
Do we hire an individual to assist in our recovery efforts who as FEMA director resigned two weeks after Katrina made landfall? We were in the middle of the worst natural disaster in our nation's history.
Louisiana State Senator Walter Boasso (Free registration may be required)
Blog of the day here.
Quote from said blog: "I have never seen a car in Oakland that was worth stealing and they have ugly hookers."
Quote of the Day
You look at the world with a smiling eye
And laugh at the devil as his train rolls by
Alison Krauss & Union Station, The Lucky One
Blog of the day here.
Quote from said blog: "The latest interview featured on The Nashville Nobody Knows is with the Gibson Brothers."
Construction is a curious business to me. I marvel at it. I simply don’t understand how it gets done. There is no teeming mass involved. At any time, you can find a rather large job site like this one almost totally deserted. Those sheet metal pilings sticking out of the levee represent the height of the levee that was washed away by Hurricane Katrina’s wind driven flood waters.
Harrison AvenueHarrison Avenue is usually busy around lunch time. Not today. Reconstruction has hardly begun and all of these buildings are severely wind and flood damaged. That white van is a flooded vehicle that hasn't been removed yet and the green in the far distance is one of the levees that broke. The salty lake water poured in and stayed until it was pumped out a month later.
One of the financial institutions I do business with allows and supports several payment options. On this particular occasion, I chose the payment by phone option because mail around here is still very slow. I received my statement two weeks late and payment was due soon and our mail, even express mail from USPS, wasn’t going to get it there in time. So I followed the instructions, entered the correct prompts, and completed the transaction and got a confirmation number, which I emailed to myself from work. I verified the next day that payment was issued from my bank and thought no more about it. Over the weekend, I received a letter from financial institution. Contained therein was this little jewel:
If there is reason to dispute the debt, or any portion thereof, you must notify financial institution in writing within 30 days of this notice. Otherwise, financial institution will consider the debt validated.
In other words: If I don’t dispute their mistake, they won’t consider it a mistake. I’m no lawyer but I don’t think that statement is worth the paper it’s written on. Anyway, I wrote a letter with my confirmation number and also attached a copy of the bank transaction and dropped it in the mail yesterday but I also called them because I would like this resolved so I can use that option again if the need arises. If I try to pay by phone without resolving this mistake first, I would have to pay the current amount plus the amount they consider past due or I would have to pay the entire balance. At present, that former would be inconvenient and the latter pretty much impossible. After jumping through the hoops of their phone menu system, I finally arrived at a representative that could assist my situation. She verified all of my information, saw that I was right and they were wrong, and resolved it while I was on the phone with her. Actually, no, that’s what should have happened. Instead, she verified all of my information, saw that I was right and they were wrong, opened a work order, and told me work orders require 8 days turnaround on average. In those 8 days, they will not see any new information they haven’t seen already. I find this inexcusable and wonder what might have happened had I allowed them to proceed. Would there be an aha moment in court or would they have discovered their mistake before it got that far? You might think this is rare but I’ve been down this road before.
149 days until football season...........................
Quote of the Day
It was a bit stupid. She could just have kept the wallet
Darmstadt Police Spokeswoman
Blog of the day here.
Quote from said blog: "I'm in Amsterdam. It's okay. I'm staying in a hostel right on the edge of the Red Light District, which is kind of...well, sensory overload."
I’m looking at the USA Today Mock NFL Draft this morning. The thinking or hoping around New Orleans is that the Jets and Titans both want Matt Leinert and will have to trade up to the Saints to get him so that the other team doesn’t. The Saints are in a position to accept any offer because they could move down to 3rd or 4th and still get a player they want. If Brett Favre decides to retire, the Packers enter the mix of QB-needy teams and they have the 5th pick. Things are looking up in New Orleans for Saints fans. All of the mockers have the Saints taking D'Brickashaw Ferguson with their first pick. D'Brickashaw? The clock is ticking..................LET'S MAKE A DEAL!
Quote of the Day
People who are close to me are a little frustrated.
Brett Favre, Green Bay Packers
Blog of the day here.
Quote from said blog: "Oakland’s Kerry Collins will throw for 3000 yards and 30 touchdowns.
I hate Kerry Collins. Drafted him in eight of 13 leagues and missed the playoffs in seven of them. He is permanently on my do not draft list."
I have a permanently do not draft list, too. -Rob
Trying something different with my imaging software. I have not been particularly happy with the damage it does to the image when resizing. It was particularly noticeable on the Sammy’s Deli picture I took the other day. Two of the results below from this gorgeous CrabAppleLane Sunday morning: Temperature 64º Humidity 53%
About CrabAppleLane’s Louisiana Irises: Now that the purples are done, the reds take center stage. I offer a little time lapse.
The same irises about 45 minutes later. They like the sun.
For my friend, Ilyka: If you find yourself around CrabAppleLane in a couple of months, we’ll treat you to some vine-ripened tomatoes with vine-ripened roasted red peppers maybe with some fresh Italian parsley and Genovese basil on top. It won’t be quite the same as those ones you bought at Albertson’s but I think you’ll like them. That’s a Creole tomato bush in the picture on the right but we have Romas, too. That's one of the three red pepper plants we have on the left.
Oh, and Michele is back. Well, sorta.
Quote of the Day
There's nothing wrong about money that having it can't cure.
Charles Manning, Midnight Lace
Blog of the day here.
Quote from said blog: "Looking at those four teams, the Packers are not in need of a quarterback so you could eliminate them from the race for Leinert and the New York Jets could be sitting on the fence as to whether or not they would select a quarterback with their first pick in the draft."
Pitcherlady has some adorable photos and a lovely story up here and here. As my cousin might say, ohforcute.
152 days until football season...........................
Quote of the Day
Do you know that the harder thing to do and the right thing to do are usually the same thing? Nothing that has meaning is easy. Easy doesn't enter into grown-up life.
Michael Caine, The Weatherman
Blog of the day here.
Quote from said blog: "Lexi as a pup"
Cute and familiar picture. Patsy and I picked out our last puppy in a scene very similar to this one. Four puppies standing on the pen saying "Pick me, pick me" and one in the back with sad eyes and his back turned to us after getting in trouble for getting out just before we arrived. The one in the back had a yellow collar and was irresistible. We named him Nicholas Sergei but called him Nikki. -Rob
The NFL announced their schedule yesterday. They’ve moved the Saints home opener versus the arch rival Falcons, the first football game played in the Superdome since Hurricane Katrina, to Monday night. I suppose they’re going for the human interest angle and I suppose there will be plenty of then and now footage as well. The thing is, 7 months in, most of the homes and business look almost the same now as they did then. Either they were hardly touched by the storm and they look the same or they were severely damaged and reconstruction hasn’t started. When I come in to work, I can look down just about any street and see maybe 90 or 100 homes but just 4 or 5 trailers.
I don’t get Jon Heder. I saw Napoleon Dynamite and thought it was mostly a waste of time. He was OK as himself on Dinner For Five but he’s got this really blank look on his face throughout Napoleon and it looks like he’ll be sporting that look in The Benchwarmers if the trailers are accurate. I guess that might be the character but it's annoying.
153 days until football season...........................
Quote of the Day
One of my options, I thought, might be just a 7-iron right in the grandstands, just rip it from 100 yards and just try and pelt the grandstand
Tiger Woods at The Masters
Blog of the day here.
Quote from said blog: "All you want to do after a transatlantic flight is get to your hotel room as quickly as possible, shower, and then maybe have a nap. If immigration and customs isn't bad enough, when you arrive at this hellish hub you are only briefly reunited with your luggage before you hand it over to be conveyed to a different building in the airport, wondering if you will ever see it again..."
Windows to Apple: Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated. Microsoft hardly ever wins in a court of law or the court of public opinion but they do win wherever it really matters. To call this anything but a surrender on Apple’s part would be dishonest. The strength of Apples, according to their commercials and their users, has always been their operating system. Windows is no longer on the threshold of the Mac World. They’re in the door. How long do you think it will be before Microsoft pressures, leverages, or entices Apple into an exclusive arrangement? I’ve always been a PC user but the thought that someone out there was keeping Microsoft honest, though somewhat delusional on my part, was comforting.
Quote of the Day
For a gallon of elderberry wine, I take one teaspoon full of arsenic, then add half a teaspoon full of strychnine, and then just a pinch of cyanide.
Aunt Martha, Arsenic and Old Lace
Blog of the day here.
Quote from said blog: "Why he performs dressed as the next Pope, I don't know."
Sammy's Deli on Elysian Fields in New Orleans is now open for business again. It was and is a prominent member of my workplace lunch rotation. Their building is behind the trailer and looks like it took on about 6ft of water judging by the water line I saw. It looks like they'll be in the trailer for a few months. No jambalaya yet, though. They have some of the best jambalaya in New Orleans.
Congratulations to the Maryland Terrapins on their Women's NCAA Basketball National Championship. I watched part of their game Sunday against North Carolina and part of their game last night against Duke. Those kids play with a joy that all college athletics should produce. They're a treat to watch and are going to get even better. They overcame a ton of mistakes against those very good teams like it was no big deal. Pencil them in as the 2007 preseason Number One team right now.
And, now, for something different: File this under things NOT to do when naked.
Quote of the Day
I've taken that shot a million times in my backyard.
Kristi Tolliver, Maryland Terrapins
Blog of the day here.
Quote from said blog: "I never had the patience to really work with color until I started using a digital camera."
Marie has live-blogged a tornado. For the second time in just a few weeks. Hard to pin down everything that races through your mind in that one hour but she got down a lot of it. I find it to be a very accurate and very familiar depiction of that kind of weather event from someone hunkering down in their house. Very similar to our Katrina experience from a few months ago. Marvelous stuff, folks.
The CrabAppleLane March Madness Pool is over. A UCLA win last night would have given me first place. Wasn’t to be. Congratulations to the Florida Gators, the SEC school everyone in the SEC loves to hate.
Quote of the Day
Life's a bitch, then you die, and we score points.
The Dead Pool
Blog of the day via Ilyka Damen is here.
Quote from said blog: "I'm 226 points behind, which is about equal to the number of times "Cinderella" was used by the CBS broadcast team in the past 24 hours."
Well, the LSU Tiger men and women basketball teams took my “GEAUX Tigers” advice. They’re both gone. I’m not terribly disappointed in the losses as much as I’m terribly disappointed in the performances. I think both teams could have played much better although they shared the same weakness: ZERO outside game to speak of.
The CrabAppleLane March Madness Pool continues today. Go Bruins!
Quote of the Day
This car is not only a toilet, but you are the attendant.
Margo Sperling, The Late Show
Blog of the day here.
Quote from said blog: "And does anyone actually say the word "baseball" better than Jones in that speech? It's as if we've been saying it wrong all these years, forgetting that it's actually two words, splendiforously tied together."
CrabAppleLane enters its fourth year of blogging today. Thanks to all of you for making the experience as much fun as it has been. It's been a blast.
A little tired from a crawfish boil at CrabAppleLane yesterday so I’ll bid a lovely Sunday to you
From CrabAppleLane
Quote of the Day
Sometimes fires don't go out
When you're done playing with them
Coyote Shivers, Sugar High
Blog of the day here.
Quote from said blog: "By the by, did ya'll know that Nirvana, Veruca Salt, and Weird Al Yankovic all did covers of My Sharona?”
What I did like, though, was the heroine and her mysterious sidekick, Valentine. They had some fun scenes together and there were some funny moments. Basically, it was a quest movie that played almost like a video game. They entered one room, negotiated its obstacles, got a clue, and escaped to the next room. I found the underlying theme, the heroine’s problems with her parents and her mother’s unknown illness, to be contrived but the quest, itself, was fun and interesting and different. See the BOTD for more on MirrorMask.
Oh, and about the Men and Women’s Final Four this weekend:
The CrabAppleLane March Madness Pool continues today and one of my entries still has a chance.
Quote of the Day
I am a very important man. I've got a tower.
Valentine, MirrorMask
Blog of the day here.
Quote from said blog: "This movie is like one of those covers set in motion for an hour and a half. It looks great."
