I finally succumbed to the ‘25 Random Things About You’ whatchamahell that’s wandering around Facebook these days. Since A&W has been starved for content I thought I’d share the wealth. Without further ado: (more…)
I’m slowly working my way back into keeping the digital version of my life more up to date. As you can see, I’ve added my Twitter feed to the right hand column of the site to take care of the small stuff, which will hopefully make A&W seem less static than it has been over the last months (ok, ok, years). Hopefully that will help assuage the guilt of not posting even the smallest of items just to get something of interest up here so that I can actually write a few decent posts. (more…)
It’s been seventy-something days since Gustav and I’ve been looking for the right time and place to pick up the A&W thread. Right now I’m sitting on the back deck in front of the fireplace finishing off the last of the handle of Makers Mark I bought in the days before the storm and am burning, for the first time, wood cut from the tree that landed in the front yard during the storm. So the circle is complete. So mote it be. (more…)
There’s been a lot of waiting and watching on Gustav up to this point. I had told myself I’d know to switch gears to full on ‘hurricane survival mode’ when I started hearing the helicopters coming in. Choppers overhead in Baton Rouge are my enduring memory of Hurricane Katrina. On the Friday before the storm hit I was at Independence Park up on Lobdell which is right next to the State Emergency Response Headquarters, hitting baseballs on one of the fields when the helicopters started coming in, landing a few hundred yards away to shuttle officials into disaster planning meetings. It drove home the fact pretty quickly that something big was going down even though we still didn’t have a clue as to how big that something was going to be. After the storm they were the constant reminder of how bad things were down in New Orleans: for a number of days the only way into and out of the city was by helicopter, all of which were using Baton Rouge as home base. For at least 6 weeks after the storm the sound of rotors cutting the air was a constant companion to life post-Katrina.
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James Joyce fans unite, for Bloomsday is upon us. I couldn’t find any direct flights to Dublin from BTR, so I’m going to celebrate Leopold Bloom’s perambulations for the first time here in Baton Rouge. The Baton Rouge Gallery at City Park is hosting a celebration (.doc file) featuring LSU’s Joyce scholar starting at 6:30 pm (free admission) and then Culture Candy takes it late night with a fund-raiser at Red Star downtown, which kicks off at somewhere between 9:00 and 9:30. (more…)
I’ve followed horse racing since doing some work for a breeding consultant when I lived in New Mexico and have always wanted to be able to say that I saw a horse win the Triple Crown. Every year since then I’ve watched the Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont and seen a number of horses come close to horse racings banner achievement. While I was alive the last time a horse won the Triple Crown, I was only two years old, so today’s opportunity to watch Big Brown, the most dominating thoroughbred race horse I’ve ever seen run, take his shot is an exciting one. I’m even missing the first few innings of LSU’s super regional game against UC-Irvine to see if Big Brown can repeat horse racing history. (more…)
