This is the day when the crape myrtle begins to go unnoticed. The lesser blooms are thinning, wisps of the petals are snowing down on passersby. So constant now, they'll soon just be another tree locked in an eternal stretch for sunlight. If you stretched for that long your muscles would lock up too.

They'll last, crape myrtles are hardy things, but they're marking the peak of summer. It is opposite of our own pattern: the leaves are thickening in the crown and the white is disappearing. If only we knew their secret.

Great story in the paper today about a couple married on Friday the 13th. Today is their 50th anniversary:

On their first date they attended a fraternity dance, and they talked easily, Donna recalls. When her husband doesn't chime in on the first-date conversation, she glances across the sofa at him with an I've-got-your-number look. "You don't remember, do you?"

"I can't remember yesterday," he says, then laughs.

Those crazy kids, if they work really hard, they just might make it. I have a feeling about them.

Only 96 degrees today. Seemed like a good afternoon to walk around and photograph things. So to Bessemer I went.

Warm enough for an Eppo Ice Cream Bar. This is another one of those likely regional products that only exists in the back of people's minds today. Months from now someone will recall it, google it and come here looking to make an order. (Purchase your tasty and delicious Eppo's Ice Cream Bar here! Same great taste! Just like you remember!) They'll be wrong, and I'll be wrong for enticing them that way. Maybe they can tell us more about the product, though, as the internet is silenty on the frosty treat.

That ad is on the side of the building that was once my mother's business. In the picture you can see where her sign covered the old painted one. That sign was taken down when she left the storefront, a lawyer (with deeply tinted windows) haunts the place now. Safe to say that everyone will understand the word lawyer in half a century, but would would they think of the signage for a 1990s computer shop?

This deputy sheriff thinks rather highly of himself. On the opposite end of this spectrum, a county employee a few years ago adorned his county car with a bumper sticker that said "Work sucks, I'm going racing." That became a mantra around the office after it became the moment of angst du jour in local politics. This guy, moreover, just comes off as slightly vain, but with the ability to lock you up if you suggest that concept.

So I quickly snapped the photograph and moved on.

The county does a fine job of remembering historical places with markers. Each marker has a number that corresponds to a list, somewhere, but not online, unfortunately. So the historic details that bind together each building have become mysterious details buried under a generation of decay. As is the case with McLellan's. I know it was once a drug store, but not much more. The internet, save this one note, is coming up short here as well.

Across the way is the old United Textiles which is now making a living as a low-traffic arts, hobbies and collectibles store. This is really the moment frozen in amber of the place. A second chance at life, redeeming the cold antiseptic green tiles hung in years past when there was still a future in textiles in this part of the world. The imposing facade that says to all who enter: This is bigger than you.

Now the building looks crippled and forgotten. One car out front, one sparse tree as a nod to peaceful shade. Wicker furniture strewn about; it looks like a moving sale. Only nothing moves on this street. In the late afternoon of a business day that tree is all that's thriving. That cursive script hangs over it all, though it feels like its slipping. It is the bad falling sequence from an action/drama movie. If you visit next week and the letters are hanging at an angle you wouldn't be surprised.

Further down that same street is the Bank and Pawn: Allowing people to make questionable choices in occasionally dire circumstances since 1898. Over the years that full motto was shortened, of course. Awfully hard to get the entire scope of the joint on one business card. The city, by the way, was incorporated in 1889, so this place has pretty much seen it all, even if it is an empty shell now.

Directly across the street sits Bessmer Cornice Works, which did a lot of the decorative work on buildings throughout the area. Mr. William Long started the company in 1887, later opening a hardware store and merged with the competition, taking the name Long-Lewis. A few years later Mr. Long got into the horseless carriage racket, becoming one of the first Ford franchises.

Mr. Long's first automobile, the one that inspired his vision of the future, was destroy after it stalled on a railroad track. Chevy fans delight. Meanwhile, in the original version of this photograph the viewer can note that material is being hauled from this now closed building with a Toyota and a GMC.

Under that covered sidewalk is a little patch of cement that had to be repoured. One corner of a square had broken off badly, and so J.S. and J.H. created their own time capsule in 1944.

Those are bold initials for 1944. Historically we look back on this as a time of trepidation, but back home life, such as it was, had to go on. Who knows when in 1944 that cement was poured, were things in Europe well in hand or was a rumored invasion still a vague and ominous concern? Were J.S. and J.H. possible candidates to be shipped off to war? Whatever became of them? Their lasting legacy is surely greated than a little corner of cement, but remains unknown to us. That's why, I think, that these cement engravings hold such a mysterious charm for me.

Here's the back of a building that has been alternately a grocery and feed store (phone number 11!) and now specializes in medical transportation equipment. In between you could take care of all your buggy needs here. Buggies seem so cordial and inviting. Razor wire does not.

The old library will, one day, become the new library again. Currently it is housed in an old movie theater that needed the rescuing. The library needs it to, there are ambitious plans, but this could be one of those see-it-when-you-believe kind of projects. The wrought iron above the front door is as welcoming as wrought iron can be.

What covers the basement windows just above the ground is a different story. The message here is clear. "Mess with the window, you get staked. We'll push one of these through your thigh. Run away then, book boy."

Very patriotic, saw a nice flag. We could use that right about now.

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

If the Chinese restaurant is empty when you walk in should you be concerned? And -- is it just me? -- should I be offended that they'd like to charge for water? Further, why could I once eat Chinese regularly now but it is now strictly a once-every-three-weeks proposition?

These are vexing questions to have over an eggroll.

Got to talk to Elisabeth today. We should make her unbusy so that this is more the norm than the exception, but that's one of the greater joys of life too, the people that reappear at precisely the right time.

I met Elisabeth on a trip to Washington D.C. in 2003. She's from Alabama but was studying law at the time. She's the never-met-a-stranger type, which explains our friendship I suppose. Elisabeth can connect with people in the most profoundly simplistic and important ways in no time at all. Even the most reticent are powerless against her charms.

As I looked through the Fodor's book for D.C. and lamented I have two more days and I want to see everything except for the Postal Museum and the National Building Museum I knew I'd found a fast friend when she said, "Actually the Building Museum is really neat."

We walked through Dupont Circle as the war in Iraq started. We laughed about Tractor Man and never managed to make it to the Jefferson Memorial. We've been making lists of things to do since then. When we're 104 we'll have nursing home rooms nearby, we'll work the crossword and show each other pictures of our families. It'll be great, even if I am gumming on a frozen dinner.

It isn't all of your friendships that you can plan on enduring for 80 years, but some deserve it. Makes you take better care of yourself too.

Pretty pictures: The moon made a pretty sight on Saturday night. It fell between the trees just enough to make you pull up short, even while on the search for dinner.

Nothing like an empty row of rocking chairs to give you optimism and fill you with melancholy in the same turn. No one's rocking, but everyone could be.

The one I chose had a flat spot on the right rocker.

Ever get the feeling that someone gets lost in your neighborhood a lot? This is an old apartment building on a sleepy street on the Southside. Here your pizza is always delivered fresh, the drivers and couriers of the world could see this from a low earth orbit if they were at the right angle.

Occasionally, and always while driving, the clouds have just a moment where they hang in the air and hold themselves up like a fresh painting. This never translates to the photograph, especially when you just point the camera out of the window and hope for the best.

For mental vacations I'm now suggesting Israel Kamakawiwo'ole. Have a listen, do like me and put it on a loop. You'll understand.

# posted by Kenny 

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

The baseball game with baseball ramifications is on and in the late innings I'm falling asleep on the sofa watching the American League trying to mount a comeback. Something's wrong here, and I refuse to believe the problem is mine. One of my stenographers should fire off a memo to the Commissioner:

Dear Bud,

Speed things up. Start this earlier in the night.

Do something; even your fans are abandoning you. We can only peer through the steroids for so long.

I look forward to seeing these and other changes next year.

Yours,

K

P.S. Thanks for doing away the gaudy fake uniforms. Nice to know you're listening.

But I'm ahead of myself.

Went to an informational session on the Executive MBA program at Alabama this evening. Everyone has really great things to say about the program. People in the know outside of that little group rave about it as well. I left thinking that perhaps I could get the work done, but knowing I can't afford it.

Basically the skinny is that your traditional MBA is over four years, this is over 17 months. Top flight program, real world insight, high touch faculty and staff. Top 10 percent among all MBA programs. Its a valuable place, and the return on your investment is reputedly immense.

See? I already talk like I have this degree.

Thing of it is that the tuition is more than I make in a year, so it is a little out of my price range at the moment. That's fine, I probably could use the break from finishing one program before going into another. Perhaps in a year or two. Liked their stats though; apparently only one percent of the nation has an MBA. Meanwhile, the Census report shows only six percent have a master's of any kind, so I'm extremely fortunate already. If I got another I'd be smugly full of myself for sure.

And then no one would know what to do with me.

Left there and cruised around downtown before finding a good spot to watch the sun dip its way into the bowl of Birmingham. The big ball of yellow turned orange with age and then blushed red before hiding behind thin tendrils of clouds. Finally it slide down the back of the western hills, bringing a soft grey sky for a warm summer night.

For my mother: Here's the closest use of my name and the University of Alabama she's ever seen.

Maybe she'll like the way that looks enough to pay for it.

# posted by Kenny 

Monday, July 10, 2006

Wallace State does not have very good t-shirts. I collect them, small schools finest glowing advertisements on ash grey fabric, just the name only. My nod to Cosby wearing sweatshirts of historically black colleges on his television show. I have no show. I only have one HBC shirt. I only have sweatshirts from my alma mater. I have none from Wallace, simply because they all said "Community College." I'd envisioned one that simply said Wallace State in big bold blue letters, so I left the campus bookstore and the off-campus bookstore -- named The Other Bookstore -- empty handed.

Just as well, I need to make room in the closet before continuing this silly accumulation.

Thought about adding to my other fledgling collection of campaign buttons, but couldn't find an antique store open between Hanceville and Cullman.

I was north of the city to visit Kelly, where we met up for our semi-irregular dinner and gabfest.

She has a convertible now, which she let me drive. Sadly I didn't photograph any of that. I was blinded by the wind in my hair and the bug in my eye. The sultry pictures with the top down will have to come next time I suppose.

The gabfest was at a place called All Steak Restaurant (Motto: Where not everything is steak, and good luck getting a refill.) We sat on the fourth floor of this building overlooking all that is the grandeur of Cullman. This is where the powerful come to plot the fate of their fair city. Perhaps the powerful can get a refill, perhaps that's what makes them powerful.

If that's the measuring stick for power, then I've got superhero skills at most restaurants, but the orange rolls are my kryptonite. Shame, really, the orange rolls were terrific.

It was during the gabfest that I realized that my life is blessed with good listeners. I just hope they're not cursed with bad things to hear about.

Rained at the end of the evening, just enough to interrupt a few nice night photographs I'd planned. Dried up just in time for the interstate, and an uneventful trip home.

# posted by Kenny 

Sunday, July 9, 2006

More SCUBA stuff this afternoon. This time classroom conversations about underwater navigation. I won't bore you with the classroom stuff. It will be enough to say that when we're done here I'll know enough to have a few new ideas and just be a little dangerous.

There were swimming plans, but that was a wash, so a sandwich and World Cup instead. Saw the last 30 minutes of regulation. Never did see the two goals, though I know one was on a PK.

Watching highlights.

I did see Zinadine Zidane lose it and crack this guy's sternum.

That's a shame, really, that Zidane did that. This was his last match and this is the legacy one of the truly brilliant players of a generation will leave. There's more to the story, like what prompted it, how the (well deserved) red card got used and more. I'm sure that'll all come out this coming week.

More importantly it gave the game away. Zidane practically lost the World Cup for France. As soon as he was sent off and it became 11-v-10 France had to play for PKs. When it came to that three of their top choices (Henry, Ribery and Zidane) were off the pitch and ineligible. Poor Trezeguet, who just flat out missed, may not have even taken a shot.

So the Azurri win, even as scandal rages in their professional league at home. The Americans will point to the match they had against the Italians in group play as a beacon of hope for a badly out of whack program and we'll all wait for South Africa in 2010.

If you've made it through this far despite my World Cup watching, congratulations. Since I live in the States and no one will carry a soccer match at a reasonable time of day here you won't have to read about it on the site for another four years.

College football's starting in 55 days, though.

# posted by Kenny 

Saturday, July 8, 2006

There's this ship called the Oriskany, she served valiantly in Korea and in Vietnam. Now she's just started her most recent, and last tour, serving as the world's largest artificial reef. I intend to dive this one day. Likely not this first season, but next spring, I'll be in the water.

To do so, however, you need an advanced certification. Since I should have done that years ago, I'm doing it now with The Yankee, who is just doing it to go swimming I think. Classes start today, where we get wet at Blue Water.

The quarry is warming up; that's the good news. The spring-fed water is cold until late July, (as noted here and here) but is currently about 72 in the warm spots. That's still pretty chilly in the cooler thermoclines, but tolerable with a wetsuit.

Advanced is basically all about navigation, which is good since I am pretty poor at that in an aquatic sense. Today we steered around with the compass. You could almost cheat in Blue Water, for a change, because the visibility was 15 to 20 feet. First The Yankee had to go out on a heading and steer us back. Then I had to go out and steer us around in a square and bring us back. Then she had to take a heading and then swim blind before correcting with the compass. We did that out to the center and then back. Each time we somehow managed to come up within a few yards of our starting point, which is ideal. How we managed to do that I don't know, my compass wasn't the most cooperative thing in the world.

We learned about lift bags, which I don't know that I'll ever have use for, but the practice was fun. You tie the bag off to the object that will be lifted from the bottom, inflate the bag with air from your tank just enough to slowly begin the lift.

As the bag rises Boyle's Law takes over, less pressure means more volume equalling more pulling power in this case. A delicate hand removes some of the air in small bursts so the bag and its cargo don't get away from you, accelrating to the surface. If you're lifting at a serious depth, or are overfilled, the bag will dolphin at the surface, flipping over and then coming back down toward your head.

Pretty simple stuff, really. Little efforts like that are fun because the dive becomes more than soaring over reefs, swimming through coral valleys and playing with fish. It becomes more of a task accomplished.

One day a Navy diver will run across this post and laugh at that. Just for you, sailor.

Later: We decided to shoot fireworks tonight. Picked a road that has some sort of light industry distribution center and nothing else. Though kids drive up the end of the road to go park now. They kept driving through, as Brooke and Wads joined us for the festivities. The location was good because there are few houses around.

We made lots of noise.

Lots of pretty colors as well.

The fan favorites were the flaming parachute, with which we almost burned down a shrub, and the killer bees. Your firearms are useless against them.

And now, the death defying, one-handed flaming cartwheel.

# posted by Kenny 

Friday, July 7, 2006

Fridays, lately, have turned into days of near exhaustion. Not sure why. I don't do anything abnormal on Thursdays and my week is hardly taxing. Come Friday afternoon, though, and I'm ready for the quiet of Saturday. Some Saturdays even comply with that wish.

If this sounds bad it should be said that I wouldn't change much of anything right now, except maybe add another two hours to the day for napping purposes. But, who are we kidding, there'd be something to creep in on that time. This, I think, is how we've evolved from the original calendar day to the 24-hour variety we currently live in. The Mayans are said to have a better calendar. There seems to be some dispute about that, but they did invent "Zero" which drives some people into fits of groupie fanaticism. It is this group of people of whom the question should be asked, "You lack a certain social skill, doncha?"

I'm tired, and this is how I found myself falling asleep at K-Mart. I'd left work to run some errands, balked on one of them and followed through on the other.

I need a haircut, but there's something about getting that done when I'm sleepy that makes me fussy. You know the feeling. The next thing you know the guy's jabbed you in the ear with his scissors, we're slinging around the blue comb liquid stuff and you've modified those curler things intended for perm customers into multi-colored missiles. It isn't a pretty site.

Best to get the haircut when you're hyper, in case the person wielding the sharp implements feels chatty.

Anyway, no to the haircut, but yes to the picture errand, where I do, in fact, run into the chatty guy who works with glass, tape and straight edge razors all day. To him it was important that I understand his office's politics -- which really drives home the pointlessness of most office politics, to whom do they matter? -- and his athletic allegiances. It was all really thrilling in an "I can't wait to go to K-Mart and fall asleep in their furniture section" sort of way.

So I did, only I did not. K-Mart, as a time-killing technique, still has a bit of punch behind it which is bested only by the intercom system blasting urban top 40. K-Mart's are low traffic, so lounging on the furniture isn't much of an impedment to anyone. (I know, I could use my time wisely and go for culture, but I went for the futon. It's been hot outside recently, got me some slack.) Several people have done this lately judging by the books and magazines on the furniture. Or no one has been in furniture since 1978, as evidenced by the publication date on the hunting magazine.

So that left me alone to read, for which I'd chosen the brisk, charming and light Five People You Meet in Heaven. Mitch Albom is a journalist. He's got a soft side. I've read Tuesdays of course and the first chapter of this book. Now would be the time to finish it. So for the next hour and change I do so, getting all the way up to the end of Marguerite, the fourth person. At this point in the story it is time for Pie Day, leaving Eddie Maintenance in a week's more suspense.

(No spoilers please!)

There could be a nice warm finish to the book, and I'm still trying to guess who Number Five is going to be, beyond the obvious choice or two. More fun is guessing at my own parallels.

But who has time for that when there's Pie in your immediate future?

Some people, at gatherings with friends, tell dirty jokes. We write notes to one another in crayon on cocktail napkins. Some people tell dirty jokes on the cocktail napkins. They get the instant kharma of the "English as a second language" server.

Taylor, at three, has now made the Friday --> Pie Day connection. She likes pie just like everyone else, only she eats the cream topping, leaving the pie portion for others. It works.

Pretty soon she'll be making the "I get toys on that day" connection. This time she got a Strawberry Shortcake ball, which we kicked around in the parking lot, and which I only put in the road one time. It looked like a sloppy play, or a careless move on my part, but really I was teaching her the importance of road safety. That's my rationale at least. Judging by her reaction when the ball had to be fetched from the road we must say the lesson is well-learned.

# posted by Kenny 

Thursday, July 6, 2006

Once again I've shocked the neighbors and mowed the lawn. Three-quarters of it anyway. No one came out to gawk, so it could be that they were merely stunned as they returned home to the neighborhood for the evening. I expect polite applause the next time we all make eye contact.

My grass doesn't grow very high. First the species of grass just doesn't have that sort of ambition (of which I am thankful). Now that we're in July there's not enough rain to promote any serious weed growth. After today's trimming it will likely all be burned up by tomorrow.

There are only two small areas that scheme to create an unsightly appearance, and they both just happen to be right at the road and right where the property meets the neighboring yards. So when those two areas become noticeable the rest of the yard still looks fairly respectable. These two areas have grown and, lately, I haven't made it home with any sunlight left in the yard. The western border if guarded by several imposing oak trees. After 4 p.m. the yard is cast in shadow, while the sun will stay around until 8 p.m. Solar timing dilemmas, I've got it bad, no?

Anyway, finished the yard up, got cleaned up and went to visit Brooke and Stephen. Or just Brooke. He wasn't there. We chatted -- and I love this about Brooke as I do my grandparents -- we sat at the kitchen table and talked about things.

Before long Stephen returned home, they made me stay for dinner. Made me. I tried to leave, they wouldn't hear of it. (Despite the feigned machination, I'm going to like this friendly neighborhood kitchen crashing routine.) Stephen and I spontaneously decided to head out for a banana pudding dessert, so to Dreamland we went.

So, yeah, remind me to not complain about gas prices below three dollars, particularly if I'm willing to drive 20 minutes for pudding.

The talk of politics and football and ambition and cultural and societal norms and media effects were worth the trip. I have smart friends, sometimes they let me listen to them think out loud. Sometimes I make them suffer through the same. He suffered through for the pudding; I bought his since I'd contributed nothing to a tasty dinner.

Back on my side of town we stopped at the local grocery store to get a candy bar for Brooke. She stayed home because she doesn't like banana pudding, which has to be a red flag of some sort. Two minutes later I'm back in the same grocery store and the cashier gave me the "Haven't I seen you already today?" look.

This is confusing for a nice lady who always greets everyone like you've been best of friends for years. You're not a face in the crowd at her register, you're just stopping in since you hadn't visited in a few days. She's probably a young grandmother, and if I didn't have such wonderful grandmothers I would choose the grocery store cashier lady. Though now I've completely ruined her late-night shift, first hunting a candy bar and then moments later buying nutritious things.

There is seemingly no end to the contradiction.

Fun links: The Japanese really fooled us, here's the proof! Et, tu Bill? Shatner does Shakespeare. As a rap.

A friendly blogger -- not your friend, not my friend, but our friend -- posted a shocking (I feel shocked!) story and insisted that I post it too. Since he's got all the details I'll just point you to the incomparable Jerry Katz for the story. I suspect a follow-up story is in the works.

# posted by Kenny 

Wednesday, July 5, 2006

Not much happened today. That was by design. We'll call it the mid-week reward of laziness. Did watch the France-Portugal 1-0 game. That went about as expected, right down to the catnap late in the second half.

Pretty pictures: I mentioned the anniversary of the Eisenhower Interstate System last week. Occasionally I'll see a sign designating the roadways, but not nearly often enough, such an important and successful program should be noted more often. This is the first one I'd ever seen, surprisingly still standing after 20 years.

Speaking of interstates ... I noticed this on the freeway a week or so ago and yesterday, with little holiday traffic, was the perfect opportunity to steal a quick picture. In 2000 it was estimated that more than 555,000 pass through the downtown junction each day -- with 163,000 going this particular direction. All those people, but only one porta-potty.

In between the brief drizzles yesterday I snuck out for a few pictures. Here's a vine, because it was there.

Scans: What seems like a lifetime ago right about now, there was a stop at OK Cafe for a quick bite to eat. The schtick was decidedly throwback, the waitresses all wore their hair up in those little hats which have no doubt lost their identity today. The food was pretty good, but the lasting memory remains taking pictures of their signs outside. For some reason I walked out of the cafe with an odd little memento. The reason, now forgotten, has been replaced by the warm feeling of rediscovery today. The clean lines, the sunny disposition and the tasty contents all brought a shine to the afternoon.

Read this. Very ominous, those messages in small print on the back of packages. Care to guess what it held?

Now that your curiosity has gotten the better of you ... No! You don't say.

# posted by Kenny 

Tuesday, July 4, 2006

Happy Birthday America! Best one yet, and many more!

Slowest. (Work) Day. Ever.

Two of us at work by mid-morning, because we're that dedicated to our craft. We're pretty dedicated to the art too, but if I include that directly this becomes a note about Summer Camp. "Kenny is extremely dedicated to his arts and crafts!" That's the sort of sentence that will stigmatize you through high school if it falls into the wrong hands. Children are scorned and beaten up by their peers for less.

I'm just saying.

I brought and shared watermelon. We watched World Cup. I stayed late after work so I wouldn't miss the end of the Italy-Germany match, and my patience was rewarded 2-0, with both goals coming in the last two minutes of overtime. The upstart Germans are done, the Italians move to the finals over the weekend. The Americans will begin to spin it as how we were the only team in the tournament to give them a challenge. In fact no other team even scored on the Italians leading to the final match. We Americans will gloss over the fact that the lone mark sullying the Italians tournament was an own goal.

An aside: I'll just say this about the North Korean missile tests today. Normally I wouldn't comment on such here, but a local issue has brought the matter close to home.

The 604th Battalion of the 803rd Division of the 22nd Rugrats Army is conducting tests of their own near my home. Their rockets are flying for a great distance than the North Koreans. Kids. Shooting bottle rockets on steroids. In the rain.

They then went inside and ate better than the entire North Korean people, and that's the real tragedy here. How much grain did the proud people do without for this worldwide attention and coming condemnation? Otherwise, the ballistics tests aren't too impressive. Go be ronrey Kim Jong Il.

It did rain, just as I was putting charcoal in the grill. With such a manly humbling now in place -- a nice cool sprinkle delaying the fire (but not the kids' fireworks) -- we'll introduce the newest irregular feature on the site. One with perpetually unrealized potential.

And I'll say that this has been a bad television idea of mine for several years now. A half hour food show, Cooking the Bachelor Way. Each show starts with some semi-humorous method of just making the kitchen deliberately messy. We just go ahead and get that out of the way.

The show'd only have to be a half hour because the bachelor method of cooking wouldn't be so involved as some of the finer shows. The kitchen would not be complete, and needless to say, the pantry and fridge would be understocked. Playing it for laughs, the host has to still make something reasonably edible, and something that the bachelor would conceivably make himself.

So, tonight, was a T-bone over the grill. Nothing says the birth of our nation like carcinogens and undercooked beef! God Bless America!

First, we'll start with the marinade. Today I stepped out from behind the usual marinade and went with whatever I could grab. The lineup, minus the sweet water and the garlic cloves coarsely ground. Let the steak soak -- and, because of the rain, about 90 minutes longer than intended, so about six hours total.

Fire the grill. Inhale a lot of smoke and heat. Shuck, silk and re-cover the corn on the cob. Wrap in aluminum foil. Throw them on the grill for 30 minutes, turning regularly.

Throw on the steak. Get rained on. Flip steak a few times. Undercook it, and then scare it, threaten to overcook it. (I've always found that it is best to intimidate the sizzling hunk of meat preparing itself above smoldering coals.)

Remove the steak to taste, leaving the corn on to finish. Go inside and eat big chunks of beef directly from the bone.

Listen, this particular marinade wasn't even good. (Remember, the concept of the fictional television show is cooking for inept bachelors. We assume the same about their grilling technique.) This marinade was average, but if you're putting sauce on your steak you've done something wrong and you may as well go lob some missiles into the Sea of Japan.

# posted by Kenny 

Monday, July 3, 2006

This place is about 15 minutes shy of rigor mortis. Sure it is Monday, but July the 3rd may as well be the day after the Rapture. Traffic was non existent on the drive in. Saying there was a skeleton crew at the office would be offensive to skeletons. It was a very quiet day, and I managed to escape an hour early thanks to a generous offer from the boss.

Even the sun didn't seem to care too much for the day. "Third day of a four day weekend, brah," the big ball of fusion in the sky seemed to say.

I believe that might be the first sunrise picture with the new camera. All of its cool sophistication and swanky buttons and nobs to play with discourage hanging outside of the window while driving down the interstate. There are only so many times that you need to see the same mini-skyline in a photograph anyway.

I decided, early on today, that my ambition had left me as well. Too hot to mow the lawn went the rationalization. Later in the week it looks to be down in the 80s. Thursday seemed better somehow.

Much more fun was going to pick up fireworks. I spotted one of the temporary trailers in the neighborhood a few days ago and walked in this afternoon to an empty building filled with flammable dreams and gunpowder. One guy was working the afternoon shift. He was a very round man. Not overly overweight, but round. Round head, round face, round beard, round speech. He was symmetrical with himself, which we all hope to be by that point in life, I'm sure.

He runs the location for Crazy Bill (Yes, there is a Bill: Here's his day job). Says there's no money in fireworks if you work for yourself. "What you don't sell you eat," which is the same in any business with an inventory, working for the big boy (Crazy Bill's has something like 85 percent of the state's market) you just turn in what is left over. We're talking about the average customer, he said, dropping $200-300 dollars. That's a brisk business, even if it does only give you a few nights a year.

These little trailers spring up just before the Fourth and just before New Year's in gas station parking lots and empty fields on heavy volume roads every year. Despite the constant fear of someone exploding something indoors they are actually putting a few dollars into the trailers. This one had air conditioning and carpet. I remember them being less of a place to linger as a child. Though this one was empty this afternoon, that helps. As the actual holiday gets closer they are packed out the back, with one door being the entrance, the opposite end having the exit and the people in the middle elbowing for room.

I am a cheapskate, though. The very round man told me that they'll have a sale of whatever small things are still around on Wednesday. That after closing at midnight tonight and turning no one away Tuesday. It is this sort of attitude that I have to thank for the concussion grenades going off up and down the street into the wee hours of the fifth of July. One year I'll go out there and bore them indoors with historical facts.

Now look, I'll say, I know the bikini was introduced on the fifth and Elvis recorded "That's Alright Mama," but we don't go shooting Black Cats for those!

Though maybe we should. I'll be back on Wednesday for more to round out the weekend's pyrotechnics. We'll go find some abandoned service road away from too many houses and do Chinese experiments with modern chemistry. That's America to me.

As I left the lawn procrastination got another boost. The rain started dripping down in tantalizing little sprinkles. It had all but stopped by the time I made the three mile drive home. The thunder started about that time though, and I'm not really a big proponent of riding a largely metal thing unprotected in a lightning storm. Discretion is the better part of lawn maintenance, I always say.

# posted by Kenny 

Sunday, July 2, 2006

No World Cup soccer today. I must find something else to do to amuse myself in 90 minute increments. Shaded picnic oh-wow-is-it-hot-out sandwiches then.

When sitting in the shade and eating a soft bread makes you sweat, there's no escaping the fact that you're in July and the sun is a whopping 16 miles away from your face.

Hey, I love the summers and the warmth. I look forward to mowing the lawn in 95-plus (I ride) and jogging on long, flat surfaces (in the shade). I don't mind the summer weather at all, I'm merely pointing out that even clouds have rolled over in the classic "Oh what's use?" pose and no longer filter the sun, but rather provide another layer to bake us in.

The autumn is glorious, the winter is mild, the spring magnificent, the summer gives us the test drive on afterlife options. This may be the reason the South is such a churchly part of the country. We know. We know and we've had enough, thank you. We want the afterlife model that has A/C standard, thanks. The heat index punched us up just over 100 today. I'll take the spiritual anti-lock brakes as well, if I can, please.

So one of the more obvious answers for an afternoon like this would be hours spent inside a cool dark room taking in all that Hollywood magic. Superman Returns:

Good movie. Spacey is great, Routh is a serviceable Kent, shorts Superman.

Maybe I'm too old now for this to take on some iconic meaning for me. Perhaps that "When I was your age" retread is in place here. The Man of Steel, in my mind, has been in place for two decades, and is inflexible as, well, steel. Brandon Routh has a freakishly similar sound to Christopher Reeve in places, though.

Maybe my biggest beef is that the film was shot in Australia. You'll see it on the radio at the beginning and on Lois Lane's cigarettes.

The people who see this movie through a political prism will grind on about how Superman saves us from small timers and the abominable Lex Luthor rather than modern day terrorists. Jor-El said something about that in his instructions to his son -- which, using the archival Marlon Brando footage was a beautiful touch, really sewing up the movie despite typical plot holes -- and maybe that's the statement we should read into, that these are problems worthy of human attention. Naysayers will cite Superman's contribution to fighting Nazi Germany in the comic books, but they will forget that the Superman movie character fought Luthor, three Krytonian contemporaries, a computer, himself and Nuclear Man.

Think about that before you get your cape ruffled over the antagonists. And then enjoy Kevin Spacey portraying Lex Luthor.

The "truth, justice, all that stuff" is a throwaway line, given to the paper editor -- remember, those evil newspaper editors? -- and hardly worth getting worked up about. That's just commercialism.

The oddest thing was watching a universe where everyone read the newspaper. Ahh, the good old days, when The Daily Planet was the voice into the community. Meantime the section editors make ridiculously good money and the reporters have days to work on stories. Remember friends: Fiction.

I am officially tired, though, of the Jesus parallels. Of course Superman is full of them. The movie character I mean. Maybe not in III, which was listed, in part, as a comedy, but the original serious movies the overtones were obvious even for the obtuse.

[The rant that appeared here -- referencing Spiderman, Superman, Alexander the Great, the Battle of Hydaspes and identifying Oliver Stone's fundamental lack of basic scholarship -- has been removed for space, time and sanity constraints.]

So that pretty much takes us through dinner. Barbeque, it being the holiday. Ribs, it being the holiday. Dreamland, it being Dreamland. There was banana pudding too, threatening to induce a sugar coma during the second movie of the day, this time at the dollar theater, to watch an early evening showing of The Sentinel:

In the Line of Fire meets 24. Nice drama, needs Jack Bauer.

Let's be honest, if Kiefer Sutherland was reprising his role as Jack Bauer here, this movie would have been called :15.

The bad guys were never expressly named, and the sudden twist at the end was sudden and without sufficient backstory. Considering the theme of the movie, and what the bad guy on the inside aspires to do, you'd think we'd learn more than just one cryptic conversation more than three-quarters of the way in. In that way it really did show an obvious 24 influence.

And since I'll be back at work in far less than 24, I bid you adieu and hope you stand for A/C, anti-lock brakes, all that stuff.

# posted by Kenny 

Saturday, July 1, 2006

Its a charmed life when you set the alarm for Saturday morning, after several extra hours of sleep, to wake up for a soccer game.

I set an alarm to watch something on TV. That's a beautiful feeling: roll out of bed, rub eyes, do typical morning things, sit down to watch England and Portugal draw 0-0 before a 3-1 Portugese victory in PSO.

I have carpet burn from slide tackling in my den. England falls quietly to the wayside, perpetuating their stigma as chokers. Let the criticism begin.

Here is the best part of soccer in the States. We're so removed from it (A girl yesterday remarked that "Soccer seems to be getting a lot of interest lately." She'd observed, with no other context, that it had been on TV several times recently at her restaurant job.) that we won't have to hear four years from the hooligans about the English team. Most people here have already forgotten the United States' early exit from the tournament. Bring on the Fourth, or bring on football, depending on your region of the country.

Indeed, bring them both on. I'll celebrate our nation's birth working and watching a good Germany-Italy match. Later that night I'll try really hard to not blow my hand up with fireworks. These are career decisions, after all.

Had a salad at Zaxby's for lunch. Rare is the day that I clean my salad bowl, but they are yummy, what can I do?

Got home just in time for more soccer, watching Brazil flounder to an embarrassing 1-0 loss to France. Thierry Henry got great penetration on a service by Zinedine Zidane. That's the actual goal, and I only include this here because that's the language the commentators used, verbage usually reserved for football. No matter the call, it was a remarkable goal, seemingly indefensible, even by a very good Brazilian keeper in Dida.

Look at the expression on his face. That says it all, "I've let the most important shot of the tournament slip past my line, even as my teammates refuse to play."

Here Brazil has an amazing collection of talent, and they just refused to play together. John Harkes was right, there were a ton of wizards on the pitch in this game, and it would have been a great advertisement for the game, but Brazil just wasn't inspired to play.

They always do this when I get to watch them. As soon as that nation figures it out there will be hordes of Brazilians on my doorstep clamoring for my head.

Later: I just watched Stick It at the dollar theater:

Jaded and cynical, neo-feminism but I have a new respect for gymnasts.

Couple of laughs, it was worth the dollar, though it will corrupt young minds.

Seems like I age another decade or two each time I leave the theater these days.

# posted by Kenny