Main Street

I'm already tired of the Main street vs. Wall street cliche when it comes to the financial crises.

Coach

Coach: Hey Sam come here, I'm gonna put you in.
Sam (name is fictional): Coach, I want to run free, like a bird.

We finally had our first game of the season, 1 month late due to the storms. We tied a team from New Orleans 1-1. It was our first game in a new competitive level and the guys played well. We only had 3 subs, ended up with 2 injured, had driven 3 hours to make a morning game...so all in all, a tie on the road in those conditions is not a bad result.

Welcome to Death Valley

I should have worn gold. Royal blue just doesn't fit in here.

Tiger Fan

I am headed to my first LSU game ever It might be official...am I now a tiger fan?

Exit Row

Random flight tidbit as I fly from Tallahassee to New Orleans:

I take the exit row seriously and always check two things. If I have to open the exit door, do I throw it indoors or out? And when I exit on the wing, do I go towards the front or back. For some reason the information never sticks...so I always check.

The Hold Steady - Sequestered in Memphis

The Hold Steady (from Brooklyn) are popping up in conversations all over the place for me lately. I hear they are great live. They were on the last Monthly Mix, Stranger to Blue.

In bar light, she looked alright
In daylight she looked desperate.

No Louisiana tour dates. They are in Tallahassee on November 2nd though - which happens to be where I am tonight. Looks like I arrived here about 1 month too early...

Polls Closed: Google Chrome

So at some point in the last week or so when I have been running around from place to place, polls closed on Google Chrome and I was surprised that 35% of the folks who decided to vote were not aware of what it was. So click here to go see some information on this new web browser (if you even care). Thanks for voting! The poll has been pulled down and maybe I'll replace it with a new one soon...

Confused

What does limiting executive pay have to do with the current financial crises? I don't get the connection at all.

Colbert: Oh My God, Society is Collapsing!

There are not many people who can make me laugh about the collapse of my 401K...Colbert is one of the few. No matter which kool-aid you drink (left or the right), this is a guaranteed laugh and full of insight at the same time. Enjoy.

If you are new to The Word, make sure you read the text on the side during the sketch. Otherwise you miss some of the best punch lines.

Time to Think

“Failures are divided into two classes --those who thought and never did, and those who did and never thought.” - John Charles Salak

Lately I've been feeling that I lack the time to step back and let everything just be at peace. Having time to think and relax is really important to me. It recharges me mentally and spiritually as much as sleep does physically.

Facebook

I think I might finally join Facebook.

From the Game

Fan 1: So why did that guy (Giambi) sub out and not run on the bases?

Fan 2: Because he sucks.

From the Street

I like the random snippets of conversation you hear as you walk through a crowded city like NY. The sheer numbers of people almost provide privacy to say anything and just not care who hears it. And then of course, there are the really random snippets like:

"Want to come back to my planet?"

The Big Apple

So we are in NYC! Went and saw Wicked last night and was blown away. From the writing to the music and down to the costumes - amazing all around.

Early

Today is one of those mornings when I wake up at 3:45 am in order to get to the airport at 4:30 to fly out of town. No one should be awake at this hour in my book...

At the end of the road the is a weekend in NYC, tickets to Wicked, my brother's birthday, a Yankees game and the grand opening of my sister in law's museum. Should be an action packed trip!

Lifted up as an offering to the gods

I was listening to NPR this morning on my way back and forth from the dry cleaner and Starbucks and heard the word 'anathema' used in an interview with a woman from the National Organization for Women (NOW). Apparently, NOW is going to be endorsing the Obama ticket and this raised a question about why they would not support McCain (and also Palin). The response the woman in the interview had (loosely quoted) was: "Actually, Sarah Palin's stance on various issues is anathema to our cause."

So three things I learned from this:

1. How to correctly pronounce anathema
2. The definition of anathema. I wanted to be sure I understood it completely: "to be formally set apart" with its roots taken from a Greek term (Ανάθεμα) which originally referred to lifting something up as an offering to the gods.
3. Sarah Palin will not have the support of America's largest feminist organization.

Sarah Palin & Hilary Clinton on SNL (Tina Fey)

I can see Russia from my house!
...
It's just God hugging us closer.

I had to do some digging in order to find out a way to embed this video as NBC's website was not cooperating with me. So I did a quick search or two and found someone who succeeded where I could not (The Huffington Post).

In case you missed it, Tina Fey appeared as Sarah Palin on SNL this past weekend and the resemblance is uncanny. And if you are prepared to laugh at Palin's position on climate change, experience in foreign affairs, etc. then this is also really funny. If laughing at a bitter Hilary Clinton is more your speed, this clip does the damage. All around, it is a good way to start your Monday after learning that the stock market is in serious turmoil.

Tornado Watch in Lafayette

Just a FYI to all my Lafayette readers, we are under a tornado watch until 1 PM central. Not that you get your breaking news or disaster preparedness information from BOB, but still, I figured I would let you know.

...can be traced to an easterly wave leaving western Sudan

...on August 19. As of today, this wave, now known as Hurricane Ike looks like this:

Key:
1. Small boot shaped line: The state I live in.
2. Big red mark as big as the Gulf of Mexico: Hurricane Ike (former wave)

Our weather already started today. This storm is projected to land approximately 220 miles west of us and we could have almost a 20% chance of hurricane force winds. We have a 60% chance of tropical storm winds. Towns to our south west of us have evacuated due to "life threatening inundation.” It is amazing how big these storms can be. Don't worry about us though, we should be safe and hunkered down at home.

Morphine - Buena

Morphine is one of my all time favorite bands. They were great to see live and it is a shame that Sandman is no longer around to make great music which featured a unique combination of blues and jazz. It is also a shame that they have yet to appear on any BOB Monthly Mixes. I think I may correct this with the next release. In the meantime, enjoy Buena.

Chrome

Vote now in the sidebar. Are you going to check it out?

Evacuate Today

I meet a lot of amateur meteorologists these days, since we are in the middle of Weather Wars (I use to play it on my Commodore 64).

Most everyone is passing me a link to some sort of storm tracking website. Well, I now have one to pass back to them. Check out Umbrella Today? and never worry about being prepared again. Be sure to check it on Friday and Saturday to see if you should have evacuated or not. Or maybe someone should actually create that website: Evacuate Today?

Hurricanes from Orbit

The Big Picture has an awesome set of photographs of hurricanes as viewed from orbit up on its site. These really give you an appreciation for how big and nasty (yet freakishly beautiful) they can be. This one above (Emily-2005) looks like it is capable of pulling the moon from its orbit.

The one below is Ike.

RFC 4306

Looks like there is a decent chance life will remain normal here in Lafayette later this week. Knock on wood. Although, if that magic bullet model (purple) comes true things could turn ugly.

Sandlot, Smalls, & S'mores

Someone sent this to me tonight. I have never seen this movie (Sandlot). But the clip is pretty funny on its own.

Jon Stewart: Sarah Palin Gender Card

This is a funny. Watch Jon pick apart commentators and pundits alike who go after experience, teen pregnancy and sexism.



(Try to make it all the way through Retired. It should make you laugh at least once.)

Isidore's Substitute

Looks like he is modeling slightly west of us as of this afternoon. Still too early to tell. And even if it hits west, if it is close enough, we could be in the worst part. We are calling tree experts to come look at and possibly remove our pecan trees. Let me know if you have any good references.

Hebrew for the verb: To laugh

In case you are keeping score, the blue line that has evolved on the models for Hurricane Ike is not funny at all. This week has the potential to look a lot like last week, but possibly worse...

GU 63

I've spent a little bit of today trying to enjoy some NFL (in between a little work and a lot of debris cleanup). The good news is that Gustav cleanup at our house is officially complete. The bad news is that Ike is on the way and it looks like it could be dicey. The models keep shifting a lot so it is too early to tell.

Back to football though. What a strange feeling to be rooting for the Jets and have Favre as the quarterback. And then find yourself rooting for Chad Pennington to make the come back but seeing him in a Dolphin uniform. Sunday afternoon football just seemed all out of whack as the season kicked off.

Of course, I had to go look up what the GU 63 patch is that everyone is wearing. It is a tribute to Gene Upshaw (former Oakland Raider and Executive Director of the NFL Players' Association). Upshaw passed away on 8/20 and the players will be wearing the patch for the entire 2008-2009 season.

You Can't Win an Occupation

(Update: Added picture of the protester courtesy of comment and reference from BOB reader Pele1410. Thanks Pele!)

Politics rarely makes an appearance on this site but last night's RNC speech by McCain was pretty interesting to me. I am not sure where my vote will fall in the upcoming election, but I think that McCain has a tougher road to climb in terms of winning my vote than Obama does.

John McCain's nomination acceptance speech did impress me though. And I fully admit that I did not expect to be impressed either. However, I like the theme of service that he embraced in the speech and think that it will work well for him in the campaign. Of course, there were a lot of apparent contradictions throughout the convention including the mockery of Obama's Community Organization work by other speakers that did not sit well. Also, I thought the introductory video prior to his speech alternated between being extremely effective to borderline offensive due to potential hubris (particularly when the narrative voice suggested that he was spared war time casualty because God has/had greater plans for McCain in mind). All in all though, it was an impressive performance.

The big surprise for me (and it probably should not have been) was the interruptions from various protesters during the speech. The most prominent was a man wearing the t-shirt Iraq Veterans Against the War. He was holding a sign up that read: You Can't Win an Occupation. McCain handled the interruptions relatively well. I thought the crowd looked intent on attacking them though. It takes a lot of guts (regardless of right or wrong) to stand up in front of that convention and interrupt it like that. Kind of like standing in the middle of a bunch of Red Sox fans and cheering for the Yankees.

Phish - Birds of a Feather

During the evacuation drive to Arkansas, I had retired's son in the passenger seat next to me and I decided to introduce him to Phish. He immediately liked the song Rift, but also found the band really odd (after hearing the song My Friend, My Friend). Retired's son plays guitar so I tried to convey to him how good Trey Anastasio is but I am not sure it came across - Rolling Stone listed him as one of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time (number 73). It would have been good for him to see this.

He probably would have had a tough time relating this guitar work to the music he was hearing though, so perhaps this performance on Letterman would have worked to some extent.

All that to say, I've been jamming to Phish today, working in a local coffee house since my house has no phone or internet. Enjoy.

Peak

In case you were wondering, the peak period for hurricane season is from August to October.

Making Groceries and Pizza

Our local news website, The Daily Advertiser, has done a great job covering the storm (pre, during and post). However, every once in a while it just does something that makes me laugh. Check out the 4th update from the top.



Then there is the local turn of phrase that pops into the occasional story. Read this link and notice how people in this part of Louisiana do not buy groceries, they make them...

"She was in Adrien's Supermarket making groceries to restock her shelves after her power was off for 24 hours during Hurricane Gustav."

Blinking Lights

Post-storm pet peeve: Blinking yellow means proceed with caution. It does not mean stop. Argh!

Home

We returned home this evening after 8-9 hours in the car today - driving through what was left of Gustav. Our house is in tip top shape and power was even restored tonight! No phone, TV or internet yet though. The yard is a mess but no major limbs are down which is really quite amazing. I believe we are really lucky to have escaped unscathed.

Gustav Update

We have heard from a couple of our friends who stayed behind (retired and Mark) and both report that our house is undamaged. The major risk for most homes is in the wind and tree category and neither appear to have damaged our house (or our friends). So far, good news. We may be trying to head home today if we can figure out a good path south.

Gustav Watch, Day 7: More Lafayette Web Cams

Another web cam of Lafayette in case you are interested. It has now started to rain in Arkansas...

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Gustav Watch, Day 7: Web Cams

Gustav is passing through Lafayette and it looks like the storm may have spared us a major hit. However, with gusts up to 90 mph hitting our home town, I think it is far from a non-event. Not sure when we are going to head back and when I'll know how our home fared...but the earliest will be tomorrow. In the meantime, we are camped out in Arkansas watching web cams to see if we can get any hint as to how its going there...

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