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adventures

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2
Apr 14

26 minutes

The thing about New Orleans, I’ve discovered already, is that everyone wants to give you their restaurant recommendations. This is a good thing, so long as restaurant suggestions don’t play like car mechanic recommendations. Everyone has a A Guy, and they are sure he is better than every other guy. And if you don’t go to your friend’s guy … well, you’re taking your carburetor into your own hands, aren’t you?

We have a list of suggestions — not a suggestion, but lists — from at least three different people. Our friends at this conference are arriving today with similar lists. It is a remarkable thing.

One of the places we were told that we must go was a little dive bar and grill. The directions were “Go here and look across the street.” The idea being that you’d never see this place if you were looking for it:

We were told two things. First, order the macaroni and cheese, which is not on the menu, and they will treat you like locals. We forgot this instruction entirely, mostly because we were trying to work up the courage to follow the second piece of advice. The second tip was that we had to order the peanut butter and bacon burger:

The burger was, we were told, life changing. As in you will leave the place a different person. That’s a lot to say, and a lot of pressure to put on a burger. Oh, but this burger brings peanut butter and bacon to the party, too. The waitress agreed, this was a good burger. So we ordered them:

It was OK. The peanut butter overwhelmed the burger and you only occasionally noticed the bacon. It was very filling, go figure. It was a half a pound of beef with a whole lot of peanut butter. But we’d walked five miles last night. When I woke up this morning I was sore and tired and dehydrated. And then we went down to the fitness center and ran a 5K before lunch. The burger was fine, but it wasn’t something that you should order often because beef, bacon and peanut butter. So maybe it is a “when in New Orleans” thing. And you wouldn’t need it very much more often anyway.

We emerged from the place the same people. But later tonight I found myself thinking about how a peanut butter burger sounded like a pretty good idea …

This is the view from our hotel room in the Sheraton. Down that road there are some great neon signs that I’ll have to take pictures of later. The river is nearby. We found Jackson Square last night. Bourbon Street, which we haven’t even considered visiting, isn’t too far away. We’re apparently in the center of the business/tourist haven.

Now almost all of our conference friends are here. The conference begins (and my first panel presentation is) tomorrow.

I’d tell you about the place we had dinner tonight, which was also on a list from well-meaning friends, but the dining experience left something to be desired. Let’s say it this way, the meal was so weird that someone looked at a watch and wondered how long it would take us to go from getting the check to leaving the table. Consult this post’s title, above.

adventures / history / music / photo / Tuesday / video — Comments Off
1
Apr 14

Travel day

In New Orleans, this is the Cathedral of St. Louis King of France (a minor basilica).

The first church on this site was built in 1727. In the 60 years that church stood, parishioners saw colonial children and the children of slaves baptized inside. At least a dozen people were buried inside. Change came after a fire ravaged the neighborhood in 1788. The “new” church was finally finished in 1794, and a quarter of a century later the central spire and the clock face went in. The bell still rings today. Restored in 1844 at the order of the Baroness Pontalba, the church had already seen two presidents, Andrew Jackson and Zachary Taylor. It was restored and rededicated in April of 1976 for the bicentennial. The church still considers “the greatest moment in the history of the St. Louis Cathedral was the visit of Pope John Paul II in September, 1987.” He celebrated an outdoor Mass for over 200,000 on the New Orleans lakefront.

I think the night shot was better:

The building next to the Cathedral is the Cabildo. It was the seat of colonial government and is now a museum. The original building was destroyed in the same fire, of course, and this one was built just before the down of the 19th century. Among other things, the Cabildo was the site of the Louisiana Purchase transfer ceremonies in 1803. It was also the home of the state’s Supreme Court during much of Reconstruction.

Across the square, in our foreground, is a statue of Andrew Jackson, who looks wild and crazed on his horse. It fits.

Here’s a shot from the Tremé Brass Band.

But you really need a video of the Tremé Brass Band:

We walked five miles. We had gumbo and red beans and rice and a po’boy. We met some people from Atlanta. We saw amazing musicians on almost every street corner. It was a fine evening.

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22
Mar 14

Chadd and Kristi’s wedding day

We had lunch on the beach. We ate sandwiches while we watched the waves. Not a bad way to spend the noontime hour:

I saw a turtle:

This was our path to the beach:

We took a run this afternoon, an easy 3.57 mile jog along the beach and the road beside it. Not a bad way to spend the afternoon.

Oh, you wanted to know about the wedding? This was the site, on Fort George Island:

The Timucuan Indians called it Alicamani. They were met by the French explorer Jean Ribault, who found his way near this spot in 1562. The home itself is named in Ribault’s honor. The Spanish pushed the French out, of course, and then the British overran what was then San Juan in 1702.

In 1736 James Oglethorpe, the governor of Georgia and our friend from Savannah, named the island and his fort St. George here. The Spanish took over the region once again in 1783 and then three Americans became the owners of the island. Two of their plantations still exist.

After the Civil War the island fell into the hands of a carpetbagger from New Hampshire. Then came the trains, and the yellow fever and a fire that wiped out much of the little island. In the 1920s came the first car. The Ribault Club was built in 1928 and was, from the start, a playground for the affluent. Recently it underwent a four-year renovation and hosts parties and weddings and, oh look, here comes the bride:

Her father walked her down the aisle. Later, he offered a toast to his daughter and new son-in-law. He was shaking so hard I’m not sure how he saw his notes. But it was a beautiful speech. Very nice man.

Here are Kristi and Chadd, just after they exchanged their vows:

And their first dance. Chadd is a smoothy. Who knew?

The big finish:

It was a lovely ceremony. For dinner we sat at the Auburn table. Everyone there was just a little older than me. They said I was the one that picked up Chadd’s pieces when they all graduated and moved off to the real world ahead of him.

“Really” I said, “he was the guy that helped give me my start. It was a small thing, maybe, but … ”

So you were the one with the puppy dog eyes.

Probably, yes. If I look at the path of my career it is easy to see how integral he was to a lot of my progress. I was thinking about that when Chadd’s brother offered his best man toast. It was a great speech, about how consistent and dedicated and unflinchingly moral Chadd is. As a speech it felt right in every sense, and it was wonderful to be there to see the start of this new part of his life.

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21
Mar 14

Travel day

We spent almost the entire afternoon in the car, but we’ve finally arrived somewhere:

We are on Amelia Island, a well-kept secret coastal getaway just outside of Jacksonville. I’d never even heard of the place until my friend moved here. And my friend is why we are here. Tomorrow, Chadd, one of my old radio mentors, is getting married.

Chadd helped me get started in broadcasting in Auburn. I worked with him doing high school sportscasts. When he moved on I moved into his spot. And I’d follow him up in a broadcasting job in Birmingham, too. He moved on to nationally syndicated shows and ESPN and now runs a sports talker in Jacksonville. Earlier this week they announced they were becoming the flagship station for Jaguars football. Tomorrow he’s getting married. Some week. Some guy.

We saw them tonight at a little mixer. It was the first time we’d met his bride, though we are friends online — one of those modern conditions of modern life. “Oh, finally, we meet.”

She’s going to be a beautiful bride tomorrow. It is an outdoor wedding, if the rain holds off. There’s a big concern of that. Every forecast is different, the entire week, we’re told, has been a weird weather experience.

This evening was lovely, though. We sat outside on a beachfront patio for dinner. We’d walked in and they asked “Inside or out?” My first thought was “Why would you come to the beach and eat inside?” My second thought was “Why is this woman singing Wagon Wheel? And why is Wagon Wheel suddenly the ‘I have country’ bonafides?”

Outside was louder, but the band was better. And, boy, could this lady sing:

She went from the very reverend Al Green directly into White Stripes and she actually made it work. Not bad for a patio band.

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7
Feb 14

Check your egg rolls for bugs and the store owner for guns

We’re at Walmart. There are two checkout lines open. And each line has about 20 people in it. One of the two lines is for the Express lane, which is more a state of mind than an indicator of progress or even a goal to which anyone abscribed. Such is your lot in life at Walmart. I’d say late at night, but increasingly, this seems to be the case no matter the time of day you’re there.

So The Yankee goes to the other line, figuring one of us will have to move eventually, because Disney World doesn’t stay stagnant forever, and the winner can call the other person halfway across the store to the other line. By now I’ve made friends with the young couple in front of us. The Yankee’s line starts to move. She waves me over. Our new buddies come to. The girl says to the boy, “They have to be first … ” and he says of course.

About this time two other families slink into that line. And my new friend says “Actually, we’ll be behind them.”

And his date, a charming young woman, says “No we won’t, we’re going in right after him.”

To which I said, “Yep.” So I fell in line behind my wife. This couple fell in line behind me and four people with tons of stuff had to wait because, By Walton, we’d all been there for an interminable amount of time.

Maybe the place was in shock about the massacre in the Valentine’s Day part of the store:

I broke my swimming goggles today. I’m always struggling with them in one way another, fighting the creeping water or exasperated at the slowly accumulating fog. Even if I wanted to swim non-stop I’d be stopped just so I can see. I’m forever closing one eye or both and just guessing. So, somewhere in a bad swim today, I pulled up and pulled on the straps, and broke them.

The nicest thing about the googles was that there was plenty of strap, because this is the kind that allows for a strip of the rubber to go around the bottom and the top of the back of your head. I spent a long time trying to reconfigure them today, finally got it to work, and found that it was no better.

Oh well. It was a lousy swim anyway, even by my poor standards.

This afternoon I had a nice meeting with industrial designer Chris Arnold. We are trying to tease out a few interesting things to explore in the journalism world. This conversation goes on and on, which means there is a need to refine some ideas. But Chris is a long-time Twitter friend, and it is always nice to get to spend more than few moments in passing with thoughtful people.

We watched the live-on-tape Opening Ceremonies with friends at a party. Some people dressed up as their favored nations. I think we all told each other we were Canadians. One woman wore a ushanka, with the standard Soviet pin, and she did so without irony. There were artists there, so they were thrilled with the constructivism, which was neat to see. One of the art historians there was a woman at the party from Belarus, and she got to hear her national anthem and gave us some context for some things.

I promised myself I’d limit the number of things I said about the Opening Ceremonies, so I’ve limited it to the above and just a few tweets:

Dear everybody at NBC: SHUT. UP. #OpeningCeremony

— Will Collier (@willcollier) February 8, 2014

Good grief, NBC. No ratings are worth your on air twits parroting Putin's propaganda. This is shameful.

— Will Collier (@willcollier) February 8, 2014

"A bittersweet moment as she lets go of that red balloon" (JIM BREAKS CHARACTER AND SPITTAKES)

— jimgeraghty (@jimgeraghty) February 8, 2014

Internet. Winner. RT @hudsonette: Well done. RT @pourmecoffee: Those who forget history are doomed to watch an interpretive dance of it.

— kenny smith (@kennysmith) February 8, 2014

The two overly annoying phrases that NBC developed for their embarrassing coverage: “This is highly idealized” and “pivotal experiment.” I’m not sure whether they were talking about the Soviet era or themselves.

Things to read … because this part of the daily post is always pivotal, even when it is quick.

You can admit it, you can’t wait until these become ubiquitous: Cruise Ship’s 80-Inch ‘Virtual Balconies’ Livestream the High Seas

The kindness of strangers always awes us: Snow can’t stop the Southeast’s largest kidney transplant chain at UAB

This is a regrettable portmanteau, but a fine read: Rise of the Platishers

A record month here, the coldest in a generation: The Alabama Climate Report

The Snowden era of journalism:

Snowden has prompted a free-for-all among journalists itching to tell America’s surveillance secrets, an important generational shift as the nation faces years of growing debate about privacy in an increasingly wired world. The litany of stories come not just from the handful of reporters with access to the former NSA contractor’s treasure-trove of documents but also from competitors eagerly searching for scoops to move the dial on what has become one of the biggest stories of the decade.

“For years … it was like the number of articles to come out on NSA you could count on the fingers on one hand,” said James Bamford, who has written four books on government surveillance. “Now it’s almost impossible to keep up.”

“What we’ve seen with the Snowden revelations is the impact that putting documents out there really has,” added Siobhan Gorman, a national security reporter for The Wall Street Journal, during a recent panel discussion hosted by Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism and the Reporter’s Committee for Freedom of the Press.

I’ve been thinking about this for a while. For example: You can have a robot vacuuming your floor, not unlike the Jetsons. That’s existed for some time now. But no one really wanted a Roomba until you saw it as DJ Roomba on Parks and Recreation. Anyway: Technology? We haven’t seen anything yet.

Headline of the day: Birmingham restaurant owner accused of shooting at customer who complained of bug in egg roll.

Let’s not eat there.