Today is Samuel Johnson's birthday, an English 'man of letters' from the Eighteenth Century who probably would be completely unknown if not for a Scottish sycophant named James Boswell who followed him around like a panting puppy and attempted to write down everything he said. Johnson, who lived in London at a time when London was probably one of the most important cities in the world, was sarcastic and unimpressed by most things he encountered, short of the royal family, who, at the time, were German usurpers to the English throne who enjoyed the perks of royalty and failed to adequately fulfill the responsibilities thereof. I think Johnson would have committed suicide if he had access to information about how the world had evolved since he was alive. He clearly wouldn't have liked modern culture or the democratization of the world or the present state of the royalty.
On the other hand, he might just have ignored the bumbling royals and retreated into the internet to spew his bile and opinions on everything he encountered. In that case, he quite possibly might have been drowned out by the cacophony of voices one hears on the internet. Including mine.
Can you tell that I don't like Samuel Johnson? I suppose that it is the height of irony that his memory so depends on the writing ability of a brown-nosing Scotsman.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Monday, September 17, 2007
Looking forward to Louisiana
Today is the first of the week and I am waiting on several closings to occur. Meanwhile, a lot of litigation is winding up to go. When I look at the calendar, it looks rather sad, with no closings scheduled to go in the next two weeks. It would be nice to have a spurt of action to color the calender with blue and red.
Cindy and I are travelling to Louisiana for Lianne's wedding. I am looking forward to that. I love travelling down there. I hope we get some seafood and New Orleans time in while we are down there. It would be nice to relax in the quarter a bit. I would really like to go to some of the little Cajun towns down there to see the sights. Real gumbo and crawfish ettoufee. Cold Dixie and Abita Amber. A little music L'Acadian. That would be fun.
I found a restaurant in New Orleans which is located in an old house which was built by a citizen of New Orleans so Napolean Bonaparte would have a place to live if he left France for the new world. There is a bar and a little cafe and bistro. It looks pretty neat on the internet. It is called Cafe Napolean.
There are other places down in the quarter that I have always wanted to go to as well. I have only been married to Cindy for twenty four years. You would think we would have been to Antoine's and other places by now.
Oh well, we still have time.
Cindy and I are travelling to Louisiana for Lianne's wedding. I am looking forward to that. I love travelling down there. I hope we get some seafood and New Orleans time in while we are down there. It would be nice to relax in the quarter a bit. I would really like to go to some of the little Cajun towns down there to see the sights. Real gumbo and crawfish ettoufee. Cold Dixie and Abita Amber. A little music L'Acadian. That would be fun.
I found a restaurant in New Orleans which is located in an old house which was built by a citizen of New Orleans so Napolean Bonaparte would have a place to live if he left France for the new world. There is a bar and a little cafe and bistro. It looks pretty neat on the internet. It is called Cafe Napolean.
There are other places down in the quarter that I have always wanted to go to as well. I have only been married to Cindy for twenty four years. You would think we would have been to Antoine's and other places by now.
Oh well, we still have time.
Football, week three?
Well, I looked all over for something about the W&L-Averett score from Saturday only to find that the game will be played this Saturday night in Salem, Virginia. Oh well. I wish Lexington was a little bit closer. Man, if it was as close as Clinton, I'd be going to those games all the time. I am jonesing on football and can't seem to watch a game these days. The damn Georgia games are way too expensive, ticket-wise and Presbyterian is changing to a higher classification and has only a couple of home games. Cindy is in no mood for football and is more interested in watching home shows on HGTV or some other channel. Augghh!
Weekend Rerun
Well, Cindy and I travelled in Kate's car up to Clinton to swap cars over the weekend. We transported a good number of Kate crap up to Clinton and played hide and seek with Tex to avoid any hassles with the powers that be. There didn't seem to be any students on campus this weekend. The football team had played in Birmingham on the previous Thursday night in the pouring rain and a lot of the students apparently went home for the weekend.
Kate thought we were going to spend the night in Clinton and we had originally talked about that, but the plans didn't go through that way. After we got the stuff up to Kate's room and moved some of the things around, Kate's roommate Allison arrived and we went out to the Greek restaurant in town. The food was nice; I had a big salad, and we took the girls back home and headed on back to Griffin for the night.
The next morning, we went to church, ate lunch at J Henry's and went home, where I relaxed for a bit and watched the Falcons give up a number of opportunities to win against Jacksonville. Afterward, I blew out the leaves and such from the carport and tried to clean out the gutters around the house. I finally removed the old plywood roofing from above the patio and cleaned up the leaves which fell on the patio.
That evening, I went back to church for a supper and presentation about the mission trip to China. It was fun; I sat with the Mussers and the Berrys and Mixons and enjoyed the meal and the presentation. I finished up with gathering up a meal to go for Cindy.
Now, I am tired and wishing I didn't have to be in Court on Wednesday and Thursday. I also wish some of these closing would take place. I got used to the busy-ness of the last week in August. I am also awaiting payment on that federal district court case.
Kate thought we were going to spend the night in Clinton and we had originally talked about that, but the plans didn't go through that way. After we got the stuff up to Kate's room and moved some of the things around, Kate's roommate Allison arrived and we went out to the Greek restaurant in town. The food was nice; I had a big salad, and we took the girls back home and headed on back to Griffin for the night.
The next morning, we went to church, ate lunch at J Henry's and went home, where I relaxed for a bit and watched the Falcons give up a number of opportunities to win against Jacksonville. Afterward, I blew out the leaves and such from the carport and tried to clean out the gutters around the house. I finally removed the old plywood roofing from above the patio and cleaned up the leaves which fell on the patio.
That evening, I went back to church for a supper and presentation about the mission trip to China. It was fun; I sat with the Mussers and the Berrys and Mixons and enjoyed the meal and the presentation. I finished up with gathering up a meal to go for Cindy.
Now, I am tired and wishing I didn't have to be in Court on Wednesday and Thursday. I also wish some of these closing would take place. I got used to the busy-ness of the last week in August. I am also awaiting payment on that federal district court case.
Friday, September 14, 2007
Football Weekend
We are in definite earnest here. I am thinking about Dunwoody High and Spalding High. I hope they both play and win tonight. I am wishing I could go see W&L play Averett in Salem as a benefit for Habitat for Humanity. A charity I support and really wish I could go and see Jim Guynn and his wife and cheer for the blue and white. Georgia is playing Western Carolina and should win. The front and the hurricane has come through here and everything is a couple twenty degrees cooler now. It would be a great weekend to drive up to Roanoke and watch the game and maybe drink a beer after the game. If Cindy's back and neck could handle the drive, I would definitely do it. I love the Fall.
Acadians and Rednecks
I like the way my mind travels. I am catching up on the month of September. Last night we sat and rolled pennies. I took my penny rolls (to that point) and my loose quarters and went to the United Bank branch in Ingles. By the time she (the teller. Why are they called tellers? Do they tell you how much money you have? They don't tell you how much money they will lend you, that is the job of the loan officer. That makes sense. Where does the term "teller" come from?).... Anyway, the teller counted out my rolls and my loose quarters and I had $22.00 at the end of the accounting. She gave me the dollar bills and I bought groceries for the evening.
We ate frozen pizza from Wisconsin (good cheese!) and had a salad with the tomatoes we bought up in North Georgia. When we got through, we went back to rolling pennies. I still had some money to go to Rite-Aid (formerly Eckards) to buy Cindy and me some dental floss and junior mints for Cindy. I found it somewhat ironic that I was buying Cindy dental floss and candy. What would the American Dental Association say? What would Cindy's Uncle Chuck say? What would that old dentist in Huntsville who grew up with my Dad say? Does she care? No.
Anyway, we ended up with around twenty dollars in penny rolls that I have to take to the bank to redeem for paper money. Maybe we can go to a movie tonight and eat lunch. Its an idea.
I feel a little like Kate in Prague, saving her glass bottles from the week's beer to buy fish and chips on Friday afternoon. Did she skirt along the edge of the Roman church when she was in Prague? Doesn't she remember Jan Huss and throwing the Catholic priests off the balcony into the cow manure below? Life, sometimes, is all in how you perceive it. A miracle or ironic good riddance.
I do wish I had bought two of those thin crust pizzas last night. I was still hungry, although you couldn't tell it by the way I fell asleep in the green chair during Burn Notice. As Cindy remarked, it was good we were recording it. I assume that means that she fell asleep too. At least I rousted myself up out of the chair, took Tex out and then went to bed. How ambitious!
Did you know that I was voted Most Ambitious as a 7th grade graduate of Dunwoody Elementary School? Do you know why? It was because I had an affinity for New Orleans and Louisiana and wanted to be the Governer of Louisiana. How's that for irony? I even married a NOLA girl.
Unfortunately, I have only got the trappings of Louisiana and none of the power of office. Judging by the complexities and dark meanderings (read "All the Kings Men") I don't really think I wanted to be the Governor of Louisiana. Trying to get elected President of the Student Body at Dunwoody was difficult enough. At least I could see what was happening when I lost. In retrospect, winning by such a great margin the election for Student Body Vice President was probably just a consolation prize for the other two years. And we really didn't do much when I won.
I liked the Writer's Almanac for yesterday. Sherwood Anderson just leaving his place of business and moving to Chicago to be a writer. Cindy would approve. I found out this morning that the writer of Moneyball and The Blind Side grew up in New Orleans. That's neat. Sherwood Anderson advised William Faulkner to work on his writing when he met him in New Orleans. Apparently John Grisham had something to do with Sean Touhy at Ole Miss.
I still want to go to Oxford, Mississippi. I have seen Oxford, England and Oxford, Georgia. All three have colleges in them. Ole Miss is the place you go if you can't get into the state university in your home state. Pretty sad. At least you could wander under the oaks and visualize Faulkner and the other writers from Mississippi. You could even close your eyes and dream of the antebellum south and the post war south and Elvis and all the other aspects of life in the delta.
I must say I wasn't very impressed with Southwest Mississippi this past June. Of course, we really didn't get much chance to look around. We were really close to Nachez and we saw Jackson and got to drive along the Gulf in Gulfport and Biloxi. The coast was so sad on one side and so pretty on the other. If we had been wearing our "baby suits" under our clothes, we could have parked the car and gone swimming in the Gulf. It was so pretty. But you would have had to come out of the water to see the remnants of the beach communities and remember how pretty they were before the hurricanes of 2005. It was interesting that the live oaks seemed to have weathered the storms fairly well. I enjoyed the sea food, so the natives are still there. Life is chock full of fun and sadness, and their mix is so close to the surface that it is amazing that we tend to see things in black and white. It is all a gumbo of life. We want the seafood first and foremost, but we also eat the okra and the tomatoes and the rice and even the file, which is just bark of the trees, right? Its all there, and it always seems to be there.
I remember watching Doug Kershaw in concert at the Great Southeast Music Hall in Broadview Plaza on Piedmont Road in Atlanta. Man, he would saw on that fiddle and burn out the horsehair on that bow. He would be fiddling so hot on that fiddle that he would have to trade bows two or three times during the performance just to get through the concert. He would get the room rocking and we were all tranformed into a group of pseudo-Acadians. But it was fun and it makes me want to go to Thibadeaux or St. Francisville or thereabouts and eat gumbo and crawfish ettoufee and listen to the natives play their tunes of love and joy and loss and hope for the future. Aieee!!!!!
We ate frozen pizza from Wisconsin (good cheese!) and had a salad with the tomatoes we bought up in North Georgia. When we got through, we went back to rolling pennies. I still had some money to go to Rite-Aid (formerly Eckards) to buy Cindy and me some dental floss and junior mints for Cindy. I found it somewhat ironic that I was buying Cindy dental floss and candy. What would the American Dental Association say? What would Cindy's Uncle Chuck say? What would that old dentist in Huntsville who grew up with my Dad say? Does she care? No.
Anyway, we ended up with around twenty dollars in penny rolls that I have to take to the bank to redeem for paper money. Maybe we can go to a movie tonight and eat lunch. Its an idea.
I feel a little like Kate in Prague, saving her glass bottles from the week's beer to buy fish and chips on Friday afternoon. Did she skirt along the edge of the Roman church when she was in Prague? Doesn't she remember Jan Huss and throwing the Catholic priests off the balcony into the cow manure below? Life, sometimes, is all in how you perceive it. A miracle or ironic good riddance.
I do wish I had bought two of those thin crust pizzas last night. I was still hungry, although you couldn't tell it by the way I fell asleep in the green chair during Burn Notice. As Cindy remarked, it was good we were recording it. I assume that means that she fell asleep too. At least I rousted myself up out of the chair, took Tex out and then went to bed. How ambitious!
Did you know that I was voted Most Ambitious as a 7th grade graduate of Dunwoody Elementary School? Do you know why? It was because I had an affinity for New Orleans and Louisiana and wanted to be the Governer of Louisiana. How's that for irony? I even married a NOLA girl.
Unfortunately, I have only got the trappings of Louisiana and none of the power of office. Judging by the complexities and dark meanderings (read "All the Kings Men") I don't really think I wanted to be the Governor of Louisiana. Trying to get elected President of the Student Body at Dunwoody was difficult enough. At least I could see what was happening when I lost. In retrospect, winning by such a great margin the election for Student Body Vice President was probably just a consolation prize for the other two years. And we really didn't do much when I won.
I liked the Writer's Almanac for yesterday. Sherwood Anderson just leaving his place of business and moving to Chicago to be a writer. Cindy would approve. I found out this morning that the writer of Moneyball and The Blind Side grew up in New Orleans. That's neat. Sherwood Anderson advised William Faulkner to work on his writing when he met him in New Orleans. Apparently John Grisham had something to do with Sean Touhy at Ole Miss.
I still want to go to Oxford, Mississippi. I have seen Oxford, England and Oxford, Georgia. All three have colleges in them. Ole Miss is the place you go if you can't get into the state university in your home state. Pretty sad. At least you could wander under the oaks and visualize Faulkner and the other writers from Mississippi. You could even close your eyes and dream of the antebellum south and the post war south and Elvis and all the other aspects of life in the delta.
I must say I wasn't very impressed with Southwest Mississippi this past June. Of course, we really didn't get much chance to look around. We were really close to Nachez and we saw Jackson and got to drive along the Gulf in Gulfport and Biloxi. The coast was so sad on one side and so pretty on the other. If we had been wearing our "baby suits" under our clothes, we could have parked the car and gone swimming in the Gulf. It was so pretty. But you would have had to come out of the water to see the remnants of the beach communities and remember how pretty they were before the hurricanes of 2005. It was interesting that the live oaks seemed to have weathered the storms fairly well. I enjoyed the sea food, so the natives are still there. Life is chock full of fun and sadness, and their mix is so close to the surface that it is amazing that we tend to see things in black and white. It is all a gumbo of life. We want the seafood first and foremost, but we also eat the okra and the tomatoes and the rice and even the file, which is just bark of the trees, right? Its all there, and it always seems to be there.
I remember watching Doug Kershaw in concert at the Great Southeast Music Hall in Broadview Plaza on Piedmont Road in Atlanta. Man, he would saw on that fiddle and burn out the horsehair on that bow. He would be fiddling so hot on that fiddle that he would have to trade bows two or three times during the performance just to get through the concert. He would get the room rocking and we were all tranformed into a group of pseudo-Acadians. But it was fun and it makes me want to go to Thibadeaux or St. Francisville or thereabouts and eat gumbo and crawfish ettoufee and listen to the natives play their tunes of love and joy and loss and hope for the future. Aieee!!!!!
Thursday, September 13, 2007
The mind runs on some
This has been a long day and I look forward to going home and rolling pennies.
A new "Burn Notice" will play at 10:00 o'clock tonight. I look forward to that.
I need to get the prescription filled on my high blood pressure pills. I need this!
All of the closings for tomorrow have been postponed until next week.
I need to contact Walker Chandler (the old Wahoo) and see if I can look at his books.
I am looking forward to this weekend and our trip to Clinton, SC. Maybe my daughter will talk to me about something other than more money in her account.
My office is a mess but I feel like I accomplished something today. I hope that that big check rolls in here tomorrow or soon.
I would like to have a nice meal tonight. I am very hungry and my head is aching from my blood pressure.
I would like to go see '3:10 to Yuma'. I am also looking forward to the new Brad Pitt movie about Jesse James. I can't help it; I like Westerns.
Is a movie about Jesse James technically a western? Missouri definitely has identity problems. And I thought Kentucky was bad.
I would like to travel through Missouri. I would like to see the Cardinals in St. Louis and eat barbecue in Kansas City and see Brewer & Shipley at that resort hotel near the Ozarks. I think I would like to have visited the Ozarks before the Branson phenomenon began. I've seen Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg and Helen.
Why is it that we continue to allow the Disneyification of America?
I think the Disney phenomena began with the spread of Western Europeans into the Americas. We all want our little gardens and paradises.
But we live in a fallen world. Disney is only a part of that fall.
The Rat! The Rat! The little, white-gloved, smiling, squeaky-voiced, dog-owning, friend of ducks and dogs and other rats, (dare I say it?) Rat-lover Rat!
I always enjoyed the more literary or historical productions of Disney. No rats, unless they had a part in the plot.
Now, Steamboat Willie is another matter. I liked his thin little legs and his dancing moves. Now Steamboat Willie is an antique.
Donald Duck was good. He apparently was in the Navy, or some navy. He always wore the uniform. Or at least the upper half. He had a temper, too.
When you start thinking about the evolution of this stuff, do you wonder why Donald never wore pants? Popeye was apparently a sailor, and he wore pants. My uncle was in the Navy (our Navy) and he always wore pants of some sort. There were times when he didn't wear a shirt. But he was a character a lot of the times.
Pants are very important in the Navy. They have their own styles that you don't see anywhere else: bell-bottoms, button-placketed, blue wool flannel in the Winter and white cotton duck in the Summer. Where is the line of demarcation? What do they wear in the Spring and Fall? The football team wears gold pants and helmets. That's in the Fall. What about the Spring?
I'd like to go swimming but it is now too cool and all of the pools are closed. I let that slip away with the summer months.
I did eat my peaches though.
A new "Burn Notice" will play at 10:00 o'clock tonight. I look forward to that.
I need to get the prescription filled on my high blood pressure pills. I need this!
All of the closings for tomorrow have been postponed until next week.
I need to contact Walker Chandler (the old Wahoo) and see if I can look at his books.
I am looking forward to this weekend and our trip to Clinton, SC. Maybe my daughter will talk to me about something other than more money in her account.
My office is a mess but I feel like I accomplished something today. I hope that that big check rolls in here tomorrow or soon.
I would like to have a nice meal tonight. I am very hungry and my head is aching from my blood pressure.
I would like to go see '3:10 to Yuma'. I am also looking forward to the new Brad Pitt movie about Jesse James. I can't help it; I like Westerns.
Is a movie about Jesse James technically a western? Missouri definitely has identity problems. And I thought Kentucky was bad.
I would like to travel through Missouri. I would like to see the Cardinals in St. Louis and eat barbecue in Kansas City and see Brewer & Shipley at that resort hotel near the Ozarks. I think I would like to have visited the Ozarks before the Branson phenomenon began. I've seen Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg and Helen.
Why is it that we continue to allow the Disneyification of America?
I think the Disney phenomena began with the spread of Western Europeans into the Americas. We all want our little gardens and paradises.
But we live in a fallen world. Disney is only a part of that fall.
The Rat! The Rat! The little, white-gloved, smiling, squeaky-voiced, dog-owning, friend of ducks and dogs and other rats, (dare I say it?) Rat-lover Rat!
I always enjoyed the more literary or historical productions of Disney. No rats, unless they had a part in the plot.
Now, Steamboat Willie is another matter. I liked his thin little legs and his dancing moves. Now Steamboat Willie is an antique.
Donald Duck was good. He apparently was in the Navy, or some navy. He always wore the uniform. Or at least the upper half. He had a temper, too.
When you start thinking about the evolution of this stuff, do you wonder why Donald never wore pants? Popeye was apparently a sailor, and he wore pants. My uncle was in the Navy (our Navy) and he always wore pants of some sort. There were times when he didn't wear a shirt. But he was a character a lot of the times.
Pants are very important in the Navy. They have their own styles that you don't see anywhere else: bell-bottoms, button-placketed, blue wool flannel in the Winter and white cotton duck in the Summer. Where is the line of demarcation? What do they wear in the Spring and Fall? The football team wears gold pants and helmets. That's in the Fall. What about the Spring?
I'd like to go swimming but it is now too cool and all of the pools are closed. I let that slip away with the summer months.
I did eat my peaches though.
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