Basically I’ve seen my office, the pool, a few colleagues and students this week. It was raining and overcast on Monday. And we had a nice bit of sunshine yesterday. I was inside all day. And, so, I present two of the most beautiful things I’ve seen this week.
This flowering dogwood is on Samford’s campus, not far from my office. It never disappoints in the spring:
And, beautiful in a different way, french fries from Milo’s. There’s one just down the street from campus. And so, occasionally, I indulge.
Milo got his start as a cook in the Army during World War II. He came home, opened a restaurant and started working on his burgers. It is a love it or hate it think, everyone agrees. Now they’re starting to expand outside of the state, at least their tea business. This has never made sense to me. The tea is fine, but it is tea. At some point tea is tea. And there is better tea. But now that’s what Milo’s is known for.
A lot of Milo’s doesn’t make sense, granted, but it works.
Today? We had class. And then I made recruiting phone calls. And we critiqued the newspaper. And then I made more phone calls. And then more grading.
About this time last week we were passing through Mobile on our way to New Orleans. As promised, we’re just going to be getting by for a few days here with pictures from that trip.
This is the General W.K. Wilson Jr. Bridge on I-65 across the Mobile-Tensaw River Delta just outside of Mobile. Built during the Carter administration, the bridge marks 6.08 miles of your travels over the delta, which apparently makes it the 10th longest bridge in the nation. Wilson was with the United States Army Corps of Engineers after several distinguished WWII postings and was a Mobile resident. He was said to be one of the first people arguing for a high-level bridge that would not impede waterway development. Wilson died in 1985 and is buried at Arlington. His father, who retired a major general, is also buried there. His son, who retired a Colonel, was placed there in 2008 as well.
This is apparently a Mexican restaurant and margarita bar. So the sign is the best thing going on here on Dauphin Street.
Two cargo loaders at the state docks on the Tensaw River. You can see them on Google, right here.
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.
Feeling a bit better. This will make no sense, really, but, in the ear, nose, throat area I feel like almost a new man. This is a relief since last night I was beginning to wonder if this was something more serious than allergies.
I still have a nice, powerful cough that can’t seem to clear the problem, but only irritates the throat. It is about to get to the point of having that handsome congested resonance to it. I think, perhaps, the tiny/mild fever has subsided. I’m still sniffly, but there is progress. I sound sick when I talk, but that’s not unusual.
I am exhausted. Not tired so much, though I haven’t slept well in the better part of a week, but I did have a decent night’s sleep last night and yesterday I took a blessedly amazing 20 minute nap. I just feel physically tired. And to think I was going to try to go run or ride today. Hah. So there are no grand stories or adventures about the day.
Things to read … because sometimes reading is the grandest adventure of them all.
This is one of those things that popped up ages ago. I read it, kept it, thought about it and never passed it along. (Because how would you find it on this Internet without my help, dear reader?) Since there is never going to be the right time, one supposes, here it is now: The Top 5 Regrets of The Dying
I came to the conclusion pretty quickly, and haven’t been able to change my mind since, that the biggest regrets I have are fairly small in the scheme of things, but they almost always center on something I didn’t do.
For the next several months, WBHM joins al.com and the Center for Investigative Reporting as part of the Alabama Media Group’s Investigative Journalism Lab. We’re taking a closer look at Alabama’s prison problems.
As part of this project, al.com reporter Kelsey Stein has interviewed many former inmates of the Julia Tutwiler Prison for Women. The prison gained national attention earlier this year after a Department of Justice report detailed cases of rape and sexual abuse at the prison.
Surging prices for food staples from coffee to meat to vegetables are driving up the cost of groceries in the U.S., pinching consumers and companies that are still grappling with a sluggish economic recovery.
Federal forecasters estimate retail food prices will rise as much as 3.5% this year, the biggest annual increase in three years, as drought in parts of the U.S. and other producing regions drives up prices for many agricultural goods.
During the past 30 years, administrations have spent more than $100 million trying to automate the old-fashioned process in the mine and make it run at the speed of computers.
They couldn’t.
So now the mine continues to run at the speed of human fingers and feet. That failure imposes costs on federal retirees, who have to wait months for their full benefit checks. And it has imposed costs on the taxpayer: The Obama administration has now made the mine run faster, but mainly by paying for more fingers and feet.
The staff working in the mine has increased by at least 200 people in the past five years. And the cost of processing each claim has increased from $82 to $108, as total spending on the retirement system reached $55.8 million.
U.S. officials think that Russia may have recently obtained the ability to evade U.S. eavesdropping equipment while commandeering Crimea and amassing troops near Ukraine’s border.
The revelation reportedly has the White House “very nervous,” especially because it’s unclear how the Kremlin hid its plans from the National Security Agency’s snooping on digital and electronic communications.
One interesting parallel is the presence of Edward Snowden in Russia, where he has been living since flying to Moscow from Hong Kong on June 23.
As you might expect, the story concentrates on that one interesting parallel.
President Barack Obama is seeking to abolish two highly successful missile programs that experts say have helped the U.S. Navy maintain military superiority for the past several decades.
The Tomahawk missile program—known as “the world’s most advanced cruise missile”—is set to be cut by $128 million under Obama’s fiscal year 2015 budget proposal and completely eliminated by fiscal year 2016, according to budget documents released by the Navy.
In addition to the monetary cuts to the program, the number of actual Tomahawk missiles acquired by the United States would drop significantly—from 196 last year to just 100 in 2015. The number will then drop to zero in 2016.
The Navy will also be forced to cancel its acquisition of the well-regarded and highly effective Hellfire missiles in 2015, according to Obama’s proposal.
So you take two effective weapon systems with a finite inventory and shut down the supply. These are two successful force projection applications being removed from the table with no replacement in site. And if you look at subsonic-to-supersonic evolutionary trends that means your next gen weapon system needs new and more fuel and bigger engines which means larger missiles which means larger platforms and we aren’t upsizing the navy any time soon, either.
There’s never been a story that makes me long for elementary school again, but this one does. I would show up to school the next day with a shaved head myself. There is an update. The little girl is being allowed back into the school. It isn’t quite sanity that prevailed, since these educators still found themselves in a ridiculous position of voting (three to one!) on the issue, but widespread scorn and cynicism brought about part of the proper resolution. Funny how that works on “educators.”
My class visited Alabama Media Group today. I saw old friends, nice folks with whom I used to work that I don’t hardly get to see enough today. I didn’t even see everyone that I still know from al.com, but I saw enough of them to build that sense of melancholy of friends on hold or, the silly notion of being placed on hold. Silly because we are all still moving, because perhaps one day some of those circles will become concentric again.
Alex Walsh, an economist who does data journalism for AMG, was one of the people who spoke with my students.
The layout will be different. There will be less floor space in general and more room for collaboration. It is meant to be more open and inviting to the public. The new building will probably re-shape the culture of the company in ways they don’t understand yet. I suggested they need to install a Waffle House.
Then I’d have more reasons than friends to go visit.
Hit the pool tonight. I did it despite, for most of the first half of the thing I was trying to ignore my brain, which was urging me to get out of the water. My collarbone hurt. I drank a bit of the pool. The pool was closing soon. You’re surrounded by other people plodding along.
I don’t know how to process the information that I am faster than someone in the water. (I do not know what is happening.)
So I didn’t drown, but I did swim 1,750 yards. That’s still a mile.
Showered. Had dinner at Chic-fil-A and then visited Walmart. So I have a half-dozen new Walmart stories.
No?
Things to read … instead, then. This is another one of those quick, link only versions. But they are of high quality:
