Possumblog

Not in the clamor of the crowded street, not in the shouts and plaudits of the throng, but in ourselves, are triumph and defeat.--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

REDIRECT ALERT! (Scroll down past this mess if you're trying to read an archived post. Thanks. No, really, thanks.)

Due to my inability to control my temper and complacently accept continued silliness with not-quite-as-reliable-as-it-ought-to-be Blogger/Blogspot, your beloved Possumblog will now waddle across the Information Dirt Road and park its prehensile tail at http://possumblog.mu.nu.

This site will remain in place as a backup in case Munuvia gets hit by a bus or something, but I don't think they have as much trouble with this as some places do. ::cough::blogspot::cough:: So click here and adjust your links. I apologize for the inconvenience, but it's one of those things.

Wednesday, December 31, 2003

About that time...

It's time to go home.

Here's wishing each and every one of you a wonderful New Year--I will be at home tomorrow cooking up the peas and cornbread and turnip greens and old Mr. Hog, so no posting is planned, but I will be back here Friday to kick off Twenty Ought Four.

See you then.

posted by Terry at 4:49:00 PM

More Christmas Books

Another nice present I got this year was from my mom, in the form of two family histories for her side of the family. One was for the Gilberts, her dad, and the other covers the Tuggles, her mom. Super interesting stuff. Both sides lived in Walker County, which is where Miss Reba’s daddy’s family is from.

Which means…yep, you guessed it--we’uns is related!

It’s not real close--a couple over and two or three back--although it is through both my grandfather and my grandmother’s branches. We had great fun figuring it all out, and there was much naughty talk about being kissing cousins, which just scandalized the kids, although they weren’t quite sure why they were being scandalized.

Anyway, both books are the product of a nice lady named Gladys Gilbert Mahlmeister out in Oceanside, California, who has done lots of genealogical digging around and hunting and gathering to come up with information on both the Gilberts and the Tuggles. Lots of old photos of grim, hollow-cheeked folks stiffly posed in front of mules or corn, or later in uniforms, with automobiles. Along about the ‘40s, folks start cracking a smile, and by the time the end of the 20th Century rolls around, there is quite a selection of very happy guys in ball caps with no shirts on. You know, I’m not trying to be uppity, but I think if I knew my picture was going to be in a family history book, I would at least put on a tee-shirt. And take my hat off inside the house.

The Tuggle book is particularly interesting--there are two newspaper articles reprinted in it detailing the death of one of the relatives--I’m not quite sure of the relationship, but it looks like he is a second or third cousin of my great grandfather. Anyway, the articles are interesting, and I hope I’m not stepping on any family copyrights here by copying them.

The Cordova Herald Thursday, April 4, 1912

W.E. TUGGLE SHOT AND KILLED BY RANSOM UNDERWOOD
Terrible Tragedy Last Saturday Afternoon in Knight’s Mill
Preliminary Hearing Next Friday:

A most deplorable tragedy occurred in Cordova last Saturday when W.E. Tuggle was shot and instantly killed by Ransom Underwood. The killing occurred in the grinding room of Pulaski Knight’s mill, shortly after one o’clock. A large number of people were in the streets when a fusillade of pistol shots rang out in the direction of Knight’s mill. Underwood ran out of the mill and ran a few yards, then turned and retraced his steps, and met Officer Brown, who was approaching on a run. Scores of people hurried to the scene. Those who first entered found Tuggle lying in a crumpled heap on his left side, upon the floor. He was dead. A hasty examination revealed a bullet hole in the center of one breast, one in the left side and in the right groin. Later when he was stripped, three more bullet holes were found. Underwood, when questioned at the city jail, a few minutes after the shooting, stated that he himself had not been in any trouble with Tuggle, but that his father had. When asked whether he expected trouble when he entered the mill, he stated no, and admitted that he was armed.

The gun used by Underwood was a .32-20 Smith and Wesson and was a new gun. Tuggle’s gun was of the same caliber but was an old gun. Both were young men and were farmers. They lived about seven miles south of Cordova, and were near neighbors. Both were married and had families. It is alleged that Underwood’s father and Tuggle had a quarrel an hour or two previous to the killing at the Frisco depot, and Tuggle called Constable J.R. Davison, who was standing near, and he asked him to arrest the elder Underwood. Later the killing occurred. Underwood’s wife was near the scene and heard the shots and her grief and terror were pitiable. Pulaski Knight was in the grinding room when the shooting began, and sprang behind a mill hopper. He states that he did not know anything was going to happen until the firing began. All the shots were fired in a few seconds. Bill Tuggle, as he was familiarly known, was a son of Edward Tuggle, who is a minister of the gospel. Young Tuggle had many friends in this community and was considered a good citizen. He was carried down to his home Saturday night, and buried near here Sunday. The funeral was conducted by Rev. W.Y. Browning of Cordova. Underwood was carried to Jasper Saturday evening by Deputy Sheriff Alvin Baker and placed in jail, pending a preliminary trial. The tragedy is the first homicide in Cordova for four years and is greatly deplored by everyone.

Whew! They don’t write ‘em like that anymore. The other article comes by way of the Mountain Eagle (now called the Daily Mountain Eagle):

AN OLD GRUDGE, IT’S SAID

Cordova was the scene of a pistol duel to the death Saturday afternoon about 3 o’clock.

The principals were Ransom Underwood and William Tuggle. The former is said to have fired five shots and the latter four and Tuggle was killed almost instantly, death resulting in less than five minutes, while Underwood escaped un-hurt. It occurred at Pulaski F. Knight’s mill and gin at Cordova. It was regular grinding day at the mill and both men had carried grist to the mill. After transacting some business in town, both men returned to the mill after their grinding. Mr. Tuggle arrived there first, and was sitting upon some full sacks when young Underwood entered the door. Mr. Knight, the miller, had his back turned engaged at his duties and was startled by the reports of pistols in rapid succession behind him. And when he faced about the two men were engaged in the deadly duel and he cannot say who fired first or who brought on the difficulty.

That young Tuggle fired four times is evidenced by that many bullet holes in the wall, but that he fired aimlessly is quite as evident, because some of his bullets ranged too high to strike his antagonist. The friends of the dead man advance the theory that Tuggle must have been shot while yet sitting on the sack and that he drew his pistol and fired the four bullets after being mortally wounded. On the other hand young Underwood’s friends and he himself claim that he fired in self-defense. He fired five times and every shot, so it is said, took effect in Tuggle’s body.

Underwood surrendered to the authorities and was brought to Jasper and lodged in jail to await a preliminary hearing. Both men were neighbors, residing about six miles below Cordova and both have families. Underwood has a wife and two children and Tuggle a wife and three children.

Tuggle was the youngest son of Rev. E.H. Tuggle, a highly respected Baptist Minister, who since the death of his wife, about a year ago, has resided with his son.

Both the dead man and his slayer stood high in the community and the tragedy is deeply deplored by their friends.

If anyone ever gets the idea that eyewitness stories will always agree in every detail, just read both of those accounts. Likewise, the idea that “spin” is a new concept.

Epilogue

Not to leave things unsolved, the following is the result of the trial…

The Cordova Herald Thursday, November 7, 1912

RANSOM UNDERWOOD SENTENCED TO 35 YEARS

The jury in the case of Ransom Underwood charged with the killing of Will Tuggle here last March, rendered a verdict of murder in the first degree and he was given a sentence of 35 years.

It will be remembered that Tuggle was shot and killed by Underwood here last spring at Knight’s mill. Both men were prominent farmers living in the same community a few miles below Cordova. The trial of Underwood was hard fought by both the defense and the state. It was completed Thursday night and turned over to the jury about 8 o’clock. The jury rendered their verdict before noon Friday morning. It has not been authoritatively learned that the defense will take an appeal but that is the general opinion. It is stated that Underwood took the verdict of the jury with as much composure as could be expected of him and that during the process of the trial he frequently showed signs of grief and shed tears.

A note in the book states that Underwood appealed but the verdict and sentence was allowed to stand.

Family history sure is something, eh?

posted by Terry at 4:34:00 PM

Slow Cars, Driven Fast

Going back to the OXA post yesterday, I got to thinking of a couple of car-magazine-writer articles I have read in the dim past (usually, this means any time over ten minutes ago, but in this case it’s probably been at least a couple of years) noting the odd idea that it’s more fun to drive a slow car fast, than it is to drive a fast car slow. Obviously, the ideal is to be able to drive a fast car fast, but there is something to the frustration inherent in having to drive one slowly--especially those older ones with carburetors and anvil clutches, and without computer-controlled engine management to keep the plugs from cooking or fouling or boiling away all the coolant. Cars are a lot better now, but it still has to be something of a drag to sit in 30mph bumper to bumper traffic in a Viper.

ON THE OTHER HAND, when 30 represents half of the available speed, it tends to change your priorities. The ability to see if you can get that bad boy up a hill faster than getting out and walking has a certain charm. It’s a bit like driving one of those tiny remote control cars, I guess. Maybe it’s just the thrill of taking a machine to its absolute mechanical limits.

In any event, I sat down just now and tried to figure out all the slow cars I have ever had the pleasure to push to their low heights of mechanical fury.

The first one I can think of was early ‘70s VW Beetle owned by one of my neighbors. Its astounding lack of power was further sapped by Volkswagen’s tricky manual shift automatic. My neighbor, a fine, upstanding fire fighter, allowed my best friend and me to experiment with driving it before we were statutorily able to do so, which seems rather shocking now, but one of those things like riding in the back of a pickup that people used to not worry so much about. Anyway, it was nifty, for no other reason than the automanual meant not having to know about the use of a clutch pedal.

Sadly, the fire fighter would not let us drive one of his other toys--a tube-framed dune buggy with a turbocharged Corvair engine that could pop the fronts off the pavement by just thinking of the accelerator pedal.

I had a friend in school who was much older than me, even though were in the same grade--he had his license in the eighth grade--and besides being a terrible moral influence he had a clapped-out 1971 Ford Mustang with a 250 cubic inch straight six and three on the floor. It looked something like this--not the sexy fastback, nor the sexy convertible, nor the somewhat recognizable notchback, but the one with the ungainly, saggy, swoopy rear C-pillars.

Such a pile of junk--full of candy wrappers and cigarettes and garbage and a sawed-off BB gun and stolen porno magazines--it was bog-slow, but deafeningly loud. It looked like it was ready for the crusher, but then again, when any vehicle is used regularly on logging roads and in strip mines, it does tend to take its toll. I did learn to use a clutch in this one, however. Sorta. This is the vehicle we were in when stopped by a deputy sheriff for acting suspicious in the vicinity of a mailbox. The sawed-off BB gun got confiscated, but thankfully we were allowed to leave.

A few years later, another friend in school became the proud owner of a mid-‘70s Ford Fiesta. It looked a bit like this one, except it was the color of bile. (Thanks for the photo to those wacky guys at Mongrel Motorsports, by the way.) Actually a fun car to fling around, believe it or not, even though the idea of “fit and finish” was as alien a concept as would have been an automatic herring dispenser. Whenever I was allowed to drive it, I did so with much gusto, and it never rolled over. It did take on some remarkable handling characteristics when it was fully packed with mouth-breathing teenaged classmates and I would sit in the back and slam myself from side to side. That was sorta scary.

And this would not be my only brush with a Fiesta. When I did my three-month study abroad program in college in 1986, I rented one to drive from Heidelberg to Munich. If you have never driven in Germany, rest assured that it is everything you could dream of. Unless you’re driving a car that will only do 160.

As in 160 kilometers per hour.

Which works out in round terms as 100 miles per hour.

It wasn’t really so bad--I left the pedal all the way to the floor the entire distance, but there were several moments of warp-factor 8 butt puckering when I would be passing a big truck that was only going 99 miles an hour, and there would be a big BMW or Benz in the rear view mirror closing at 170. Couldn’t back off, couldn’t go forward any faster. Yikes.

Equally ignoble was when I was being passed by VW Golfs--even Cabriolets with their roofs bulging upwards from the air pressure would zip past me like I was standing still.

Probably the most embarrassing thing was before I even left, when I drove from the rental office back to the hotel our group was staying at in Heidelberg. I kept smelling funny burnt clutch odor. And then, some insane German guy pulled up next to me screaming and pointing at the car and yelling something. About the only German I know is, “haben Sie einen zimmer mit Bad?”, so all I could do was shrug. And wonder about that horrible smell. Finally got back to the hotel and parked, and reached down to pull up the parking brake, only to discover it had never been let down in the first place. I had been driving with it on, and I imagine that I was trailing a plume of blue brake smoke the entire way there. Which really seemed to get everyone agitated.

Also, there is no right-turn-on-red in Germany.

Anyway, back to the chronology of slowness--the next one on the list was the car I took my driving test in, my sister’s 1978 Toyota Corona. As with most of the cars on this list, I couldn’t find a contemporaneous photo of such a beast, but it looked somewhat like this one, except it was silver, and was the ultraluxurious Lucaya edition. I think it had vinyl over the usually bare metal upper window sills, as well as a fat, pseudoleather-wrapped steering wheel. Not a bad car, from that time when it was still possible to find a small, rear-drive sedan without it having a high-dollar German nameplate. Slow, and despite having a fat, pseudoleather-wrapped steering wheel was resistant to any sort of truly spirited driving. The (power assisted) steering was annoyingly logarithmic like the decibel scale--turn the wheel a little, the tires would steer a little; turn the wheel just one more degree in the same direction, and the wheels would heel over into the next county. Brakes were the same way. BUT, it was the first car I ever got to drive in all by myself.

An unfortunate time in my life was after my beloved (and not slow) 1972 Monte Carlo was slid into a ditch and totaled by yours truly, that I decided that I needed something frugal--we were, after all, in the throes of Oil Shortage Panic II, version 1979. So, with the insurance money, a beige and gold 1976 Vega wagon was purchased. It looked nothing at all like this, and only barely like this.

What can I say about the Vega that has not been said before? Precious little, although I will aver that when you are driving down Highway 78 in the rain, and you are just before the intersection with Finley Boulevard, and you see someone up ahead pulling out of the shopping center into your lane, and you decide to move over to the next lane, and then that person pulls over in THAT lane just as you are within spitting distance, that the combined effects of tiny bias-ply tires, drum brakes all around, and manual steering can cause a 1976 Vega station wagon to slew violently to and fro across several lanes of traffic; further, it is not outside the realm of possibility that a 1976 Vega station wagon might cross over into ONCOMING TRAFFIC, and avoid missing the front end of a 1975 Ford LTD Yellow Cab by only the merest sliver of inches before it miraculously sluds back into its own lane, having caused the driver to see the entirety of his short life replayed in vivid and heart-touching clarity.

Onward then, to another junky Ford product, my best friend’s graduation present of a 1979 Mercury Capri. (This picture is of an ’84, but it looks the same.) Four cylinders. Four speeds, not a single one of them fast. He was very enamored of this thing’s “handling”--honest to goodness exchange:

Him, sawing steering wheel from side to side: “See how good it handles!”
Me: “What?”
Him: “How good it handles. See, you can just turn it, and it goes just like this!”
Me, laughing in his face and calling him a very rude name related to the part of his body he was sitting on at the time: “You moron, that only proves the steering wheel is connected to the front end!”

He never mentioned that anymore. It was actually somewhat fun to drive, and it looked almost cool. He wound up burning up the clutch in it because of his insistence on riding it. “I’m not riding it! I just have my toe on the pedal!” Mo-ron.

Of all the slow cars I’ve driven, there is only one that I absolutely hated, and that was my mother’s ill-advised purchase of a 1986 Buick Riviera. 140 rated horses hauling around 3300 pounds of crap. What an execrable jumble of idiocy. If anyone wants to know where my antipathy for computer screens in cars comes from, it’s this thing. A lemon and a junker from day one. Destroyed my mother’s brand loyalty to Rivieras going back to her and my dad’s robust 1969 Riv with its great honking 455 Wildcat engine.

The good thing was it made Mom so mad that she traded it for a 1988 Lincoln Mark VII LSC, which Miss Reba and I later drove on our honeymoon up to Asheville, North Carolina. Now THAT was a car--and quite a nice trip, too. Driving fast is one thing, but fast driving with a fast woman is an entirely different game!

posted by Terry at 2:26:00 PM

Oh, yeah...

How in the world could I have forgotten that the Auburn Tigers are set to take on the University of Wisconsin Badgers in the Gaylor Hotels Music City Bowl in little less than an hour in the lovely town of Nashville?! I mean, you know, besides the obvious things of the game being played during the middle of the day in the middle of the week, against Wisconsin, in a bowl sponsored by a hotel chain.

Add to that the fact that all the post-season stupidity of the administration over the botched ouster of our head coach kinda sucked all the oxygen out of the room, and you have a surefire recipe for lots of yawning. At least Wisconsin's Badgerettes, or whatever they're called, look like a group of fine, healthy representatives of America's Dairyland. And one thing I know they have us beat at is women's hockey.

Anyway, my prediction for this game is Auburn 45, Wisconsin 21, based upon the simple fact that badgers are smaller than tigers.

UPDATE: Oh well, I was wrong--it was only 28-14. The bad thing is that it took them until there was only 3:30 left in the game to go ahead. That's either some really tough badgers, or we have a lot of work to do in the off-season.

posted by Terry at 10:41:00 AM

The long march

Oh, that hurt. First, property taxes, then I decided to walk on over to the bank and pay the mortgage. Did I mention that it hurt?

Today seems to be the day for it--I brushed my teeth this morning, using my new tube of AquaFresh Extreme Clean. I bought it because the tube is shiny silver, and, well, you know, I like shiny things. Anyway, the goop inside promises nice shiny teeth, too, and it has "Micro-Active Foam" that has some sort of "dynamic foaming action"--I think they copied from Dow Chemical's Scrubbing Bubbles.

I can tell you this thing for sure--although its effects on my teeth may be debatable, sucking a tiny bit into the upper portion of your respiratory system is nigh unto drinking a Drano shooter. The dynamic foaming action hurts, and the fresh minty flavor burns, not being the least bit cool and tingling. Although it does last.

I hacked and coughed and spit and heaved, then did the same when I got in the shower, until I thought I was going to have to go to the hospital.

I'm all better now, though. Sorta.

posted by Terry at 10:02:00 AM

Eww.

posted by Terry at 9:53:00 AM

Now then...

I have to take a brisk walk across the park to the courthouse to pay my property taxes for the year, so I will be back in a bit, crying uncontrollably.

posted by Terry at 8:47:00 AM

Possums in the Mainstream

Big news across the world of marsupialia--many thanks first of all to Mac Thomason for the lead to this story appearing in THE NEW YORK TIMES!!

Keep Your Ball. We've Got the Possum.

By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN

Published: December 31, 2003

BRASSTOWN, N.C., Dec. 30 — The lights are strung, the stage is set and Baby New Year is waiting in a cage, hissing.

Brasstown, once again, is ready for the Possum Drop.

Yes, the annual New Year's Eve Possum Drop, the one and only, inspired by the dropping of a certain illuminated ball 670 miles away.

Frankly, I believe the one in New York was inspired by the one in Carolina, but that's just me.

On Thursday, at the stroke of midnight, at the exact moment that hundreds of thousands of people holler in the New Year at Times Square, with millions more tipping back champagne flutes and watching it on TV, a few hundred people will huddle at a Citgo station in this little Appalachian town, wearing hunting jackets and hats with dangling ear flaps, to cheer the descent of one confused marsupial.

Talk about parallel universes.

It started 13 years ago, when someone said to Clay Logan, owner of Brasstown's only gas station and vendor of kitschy possum products, "If New York City can drop a ball, why can't we drop a possum?"

Mr. Logan could think of no reason why not.

The law of gravity being universal and all...

At midnight, as he lets a rope slip between his fingers, lowering a possum in a plexiglass cage from the roof of his gas station, Mr. Logan will call out, as he has every New Year's Eve since 1990, "5, 4, 3, 2, 1!"

And then, as the crowd starts going bananas, "The possum has landed!" The possum is alive, of course, and will be released at the end of the night unharmed, if a little shaken.

Nothing like a vodka possum martini--shaken, not stirred.

The show is more than just the spectacle of suspending in the air a fuzzy-headed, pink-pawed animal that looks as if someone stuck it together with spare parts. There are fireworks, the firing of muskets, country food like peach cobbler and bear stew and the Miss Possum contest, a cross-dressing affair in which bearded truck drivers wear eye shadow and strut across the stage with hands like oven mitts swinging at the sides of bursting lace dresses.

Of all the snotty and condescending bits in the story, the part about cross-dressing truckers is probably the one part that will greatly appeal to all those sophisticated alt-lifestyle Manhattanites.

There will also be bluegrass music, including a crowd-pleaser that includes the line, "Down in the darkness, much to my delight, there's five pounds of possum in my headlights tonight."

Life, Mr. Logan says, is full of possum-bilities. Over the years he has worked to promote Brasstown as the "Possum Capital of the World," not because it has an unusually large possum population but because Brasstown "desperately needed something."

And where there is desperate need in the world, there you will find the noble possum.

The town, tucked in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains about two and a half hours north of Atlanta,

...the only town south of Boston (or north of Miami) that anyone from Times readers would recognize...

survives on cattle farming, a few small tobacco plots and industrial jobs where people can find them. Brasstown became famous for 15 minutes a few years ago when townspeople were said to be sheltering Eric Rudolph, the abortion-clinic bombing suspect who was captured in May after five years on the run.

Ahhhh, it IS the NY Times...after all, what good is a human interest story about possums unless we can interject subtle jabs at 1) people who eat meat, 2) people who grow tobacco, 3) unemployment (no doubt caused by evil Republicans), and 4) abortion?

Mr. Rudolph grew up around here, not far from the Citgo gas station near Greasy Creek Road where Mr. Logan does a brisk trade in stuffed possum toys, cat-food-size tins of "possum roadkill" (actually filled with dirt), and T-shirts that proclaim possum to be "the Other, Other White Meat."

As it says on his Web site, "One man's roadkill is another man's icon."

"We love possums around here," said Mr. Logan, 57, as he spat an oyster of tobacco juice and wiped his gray beard. "They're an animal everybody says is the dumbest animal in the world, and they probably are. But they'll save your life. If you're out in the woods and you get lost, just follow a possum track and it'll take you right to the road."

On Tuesday, Mr. Logan pumped gas and squeegeed windshields as his friends prepared the stage in front of his gas station, Clay's Corner. Electronics included a computer system and a 10-foot-tall TV screen known as the Possumtron. Mr. Logan is expecting up to 1,000 people, a lot for a town with 240 residents.

Wow! Thanks for that insight, Mr. Wizard!

In the afternoon, Mr. Logan and his buddies drove out to inspect this year's star, curled up in a wire cage on a breezy hilltop in an undisclosed location. Each year, several Brasstown hunters trap a cast of possums for Mr. Logan to chose from.

"Ain't it pretty?" Mr. Logan asked as he scooped the male possum out of its cage and dangled it by its long, pink tail. His friend, Paul Crisp, nodded and said, "Now, that's a town possum."

"Yep," Mr. Logan said. "Pretty face, nice slick fur."

The possum thing is tongue-in-cheek, Mr. Logan explained. He is a firm believer of the rule that there is nothing funnier than laughing at yourself.

Nothing funnier except when fancy little guys from New York drop in and can't quite seem to understand that the joke's on them, that is...

"We're kind of poking fun at all the stereotypes of rednecks and hillbillies," he said.

Mr. Crisp, who drives an enormous pickup and speaks knowledgeably about gigabytes and microprocessors, said, "We're high-tech rednecks."

Ooops, we forgot to throw in the obligatory slam against 5) people who drive their own vehicles, 6) people who drive their own vehicles that happen to be enormous pickup trucks. Whew--thought the Times might be going soft on us, there!

And for all of you sophisticated sorts, it might be worth reading the Salon article published on this same festival back in February of 2002. It covers a lot of the same topics--not that anyone would ever accuse the "Paper of Record" of looking over anyone else's shoulder during a test.

Now then, having dispensed with the domestic possums, Jim Smith says it's time to run down underneath the globe to Wellington, New Zealand with the boys from Reuters--

Possums on power trip spark blaze

WELLINGTON (Reuters) - Teams of firefighters and three helicopters have extinguished a blaze started by two possums that climbed a power pole and short-circuited the 11,000 volt line.

The New Zealand Press Association said the possums were found dead at the foot of the pylon after igniting the bushfire, near Lyttelton Harbour on New Zealand's picturesque South Island.

Bummer of a way to go--I'm sure they were just trying to find a safer way to cross the road.

ANYWAY--there's your possum fix for the day!

posted by Terry at 8:38:00 AM

Tuesday, December 30, 2003

So, you like the style of the new BWM-sourced Mini, but it would set you back a few too many kopeks? Well, buddy, you now have a choice!

Via AutoWeek, a story about the newest import brand vehicle to hit our shores--is lovely OKA! Which will be viewing for peoples at the L.A. Auto Show!

The article mentions that we will first be receiving the City and Race models.

Powered by a two-pot 749 cc engine producing 35 entire horsepowers, the City model sprints from 0-62mph (100kph) in a breathtaking 20 seconds! The Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price comes in at a low, low $7,300, making it easy for you to act all snooty and superior to those Mini drivers who paid WAY too much.

(And, there's a special treat waiting in the wings--something "Designed Especially in Collaboration with your Analyst, recommended for those who would suffer serious SUV withdrawal symptoms"--the OKA SUV! Can hardly wait for that to come over here!)

Happy Motoring!

posted by Terry at 4:56:00 PM

One of the other movies I went to see over the holiday (along with Middle Girl, both of us acting as chaperones to Oldest and her beau) was Return of the King. Here is a very nice synopsis of the action that perfectly captures the stern, sweeping beauty of the film.

(Thanks greatly to Miss Adler for the heads-up)

posted by Terry at 3:12:00 PM

MMMmmmmm--what goes better with wild game than STUFFING!

posted by Terry at 3:00:00 PM

Well, you know what they say...

Party Chief Won't Break Up Scuffles

By John M. Glionna and Matea Gold, Times Staff Writers

DES MOINES — Democratic Party National Chairman Terry McAuliffe has no plans to play referee to what has become a vitriolic presidential primary, saying through a spokeswoman Monday that voters would decide whether the negative campaigning was good politics. [...]

...they say, "Circuses are FUN!"

posted by Terry at 2:32:00 PM

Mr. Burns would never allow this to happen in Springfield...

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) -- The Tennessee Valley Authority has disciplined employees for hazing a new worker at a nuclear power plant, and a report concluded that such rituals had been going on for years.

The worker, an employee of an independent contractor serving the Sequoyah Nuclear Plant, was placed in a basket above the nuclear reactor while ice chips were blown over her. The baskets of chipped ice are used to absorb heat. She also was sent on a bogus assignment. [...]

Smithers! Get in here on the double!

posted by Terry at 2:02:00 PM

Wow--Spurrier Quits As Redskins Coach

By JOSEPH WHITE, AP Sports Writer

WASHINGTON - Steve Spurrier resigned as coach of the Washington Redskins on Tuesday, ending a failed attempt to bring his Fun 'n' Gun offense to the NFL.

Spurrier quit three days after the Redskins finished 5-11, losing 10 of their last 12 games. He was 12-20 overall. [...]

Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy. Assuming, that is, that Saddam doesn't try his hand at coaching--I imagine he would have his own ideas of what "fun and gun" means.

posted by Terry at 1:38:00 PM

Dog bites man...

Isn't a news story. Man bites dog, on the other hand, is.

Both, however, seem to be trumped by a dog bites dog story.

posted by Terry at 1:34:00 PM

What an odd story--Local Rose Parade float ready to rock that town

KATHY SEALE
News staff writer

You can try, but you may not be able to stop yourself from boogieing Thursday when Alabama's lone entry in the Tournament of Roses 2004 Rose Parade comes into view.

Birmingham's Bayer Advanced, a lawn and garden division of those aspirin folks, has put together the 55-foot Rock Garden for this year's parade, themed "Music, Music, Music." Giant animated flowers - up to 22 feet each - include a rose drummer, a daffodil on sax and zinnia bass guitarists gyrating to the beat of "Rock This Town" by the Stray Cats.

"Most of the floats use a slower tempo," says Mark Schneid, spokesman for Bayer Advanced. "It's going to get people stirred up." [...]

The Rock Garden, which will be the 68th unit in line and the 32nd float in the 5½-mile parade, features 126 varieties of flowers and plants, more than any float in the parade.

"It becomes a challenge," Schneid says. "How do you top it?"

The Bayer Advanced float won the Fantasy Trophy in 2001 for the most spectacular entry, the Queen's Trophy in 2002 for the best use of roses and the Animation Trophy in 2003 for the most animated float in the parade. [...]

Well first, who knew that a Bavarian pharmaceutical giant had one of their division headquarters in Birmingham?!

Second, isn't the combination of a parade, rocks, rock music, flowers, stray cats, fertilizer and herbicide just sorta strange?

Maybe not.

posted by Terry at 12:23:00 PM

Late News

I mean that I'm late getting to it, but Peg Britton out there in Kansas has moved her blog to a new address--http://kansasprairie.net/blog/blogindex.htm?

All of you fix your links and go say hey to Peg.

posted by Terry at 11:40:00 AM

A shout from the amen pew.

Doc Reynolds tumped over an ant's nest yesterday when he got into the highly controversial topic of cookware.

Fritz Schranck, though, has a much better idea than all that fancy-pants stuff--first, he dropped by "The K" and picked up one of Martha Stewart's fancy-but-not-pricey-pants versions of the copper clad cookery, and then almost in passing noted what is the true gem of his collection:

[...] one I’ve been using for 25 years, a 10 ½-inch cast iron skillet that my wife and I both love. [...]

Folks, if you want to REALLY cook, get yourself a big iron skillet. They're good for frying, sauteing, searing, baking, and hitting people. Thus, they combine the hearty masculine qualities of being useful as both tools of sustenance as well as a weapon. Fritz continues:

[...] For preparing most of my Creole/Cajun recipes, I rely on an 8-quart cast-iron dutch oven that we’ve owned for over 20 years.

Besides being nearly impossible to destroy, there are also some health benefits to using these low-cost cast-iron pans. Cooking slightly acidic foods such as tomatoes leeches some of the iron out of the dutch oven and skillet and therefore helps prevent anemia to some small extent.

The one common element to all these pans is their relative weight. It’s next to impossible to cook food properly if the pan’s bottom is so thin that the heat transfers both too quickly and too unevenly. [...]

Yet more virtues--the health benefit is especially important, because if you're anemic, it's much harder to whang someone a good lick.

Anyway, before you go out and load up on Calphalon, first buy yourself a good set of iron skillets.

Speaking of which, New Year's dinner at Chez Possum this year will be black-eyed peas, turnip greens, country-style ribs, and cornbread cooked in my iron skillet.

posted by Terry at 11:09:00 AM

Now I know...

You see, my boss told me the wrong station when he came running by my office--the reporter didn't work for the ABC affiliate--she works for the local WB affiliate, WTTO.

I am such an idiot.

Anyway, I'm going to see if the story ran and if I can get a copy.

Grr.

posted by Terry at 10:16:00 AM

'Nother one bites the dust--Historic restaurant La Paree closing

SHERRI C. GOODMAN
News staff writer

La Paree, a landmark downtown eatery, will serve its last lunch today after more than 60 years in business, owner Nick Erben said.

Erben's restaurant managed to escape closure earlier this year when two La Paree customers reached a tentative agreement to purchase the building at 2013 Fifth Ave. North. The deal fell through and another potential buyer came forward. That agreement, however, also faced some difficulties, he said.

Meanwhile, the restaurant received two below-par health inspection ratings this month, with some of the violations tied to the condition of the building.

"The building is deteriorating," Erben acknowledged. [...]

The restaurant, once a favorite breakfast and lunch spot for bankers, lawyers, politicians and office workers, claims to be downtown Birmingham's oldest restaurant in the same location. [...]

Sorta sad--if for no other reason than for the history of the place. I've eaten there a couple of times--good food, but not great. The decor is mid-'60s--old, but not old enough to give it that elusive, funky/charming retro "atmosphere". It's just old and shabby.

Birmingham is one of the toughest places around to be in the restaurant business--not for lack of customers, but for the incredible competition. There is great food to be found here to rival anything you can find anywhere--and that's not bragging. Not to say there's not room for the old-style meat and three places--there is--but it darned well better be great.

posted by Terry at 9:09:00 AM

Really? Angelina Jolie voted America's top New Year's Eve date: survey

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Film star Angelina Jolie is the woman most American males would like to date on New Year's Eve, according to a survey by movie rental chain Blockbuster Inc.

Results of the survey released Monday, showed Jolie in the top spot with 35 percent of respondents saying she would be their number one pick for a hypothetical New Year's Eve candle-lit dinner.

Rival star Catherine Zeta-Jones gained second spot in the online survey conducted by Blockbuster November 11-24. The survey had 31,969 responses. [...]

I think the headline might more accurately say she is the choice of Cheeto-stained Tomb Raider nerds whose lack of socialization skills leave plenty of time for filling out Blockbuster surveys.

Then again, maybe I'm just too old to find crazy chicks appealing.

posted by Terry at 8:49:00 AM

If I had better short term memory...

I would be able to remember that reporter's name and call back and find out what happened! I think I need to start writing people's names down as soon as I meet them or something. Oh well.

And speaking of short term memory loss, one of the kids got Finding Nemo for Christmas, and it was a very cute movie, especially Dory, voiced by Ellen Degeneres, but I have to ask one question--if the fishies in the aquarium have a friendly pelican who comes and visits all the time and is on a first name basis with them all, and they all want to escape--instead of all these elaborate plans for getting put into a baggie and rolling across a roadway into the ocean, why couldn't the pelican just dip his bill down in the water and let them all swim in and then he could fly them out to the harbor? Just wondering.

In other news, I still have teeth. Catherine is still missing one in the front. And sadly, since she has repeatedly stuck her tongue into the gap, the one that grows in will not be gold. (This is one of those cruel hoaxes perpetrated on children, in the same vein as "you can catch a bird by putting salt on its tail" and "your face will stick like that.")

posted by Terry at 8:29:00 AM

Monday, December 29, 2003

Well, now, that's all for today...

We television celebrities have to have our down time, you know. I also have to go get Catherine and take us both for our dental checkups, so further exciting details of Christmas Holiday Past will have to wait until tomorrow.

See you then.

posted by Terry at 2:57:00 PM

Jackson Still in Pain From 'Manhandling'

And if anyone knows about manhandling...

posted by Terry at 11:45:00 AM

Some people do things just because they can.

posted by Terry at 11:42:00 AM

I'm gonna be on the tee vee!

Well, maybe.

Just got off the phone with a reporter (sadly, not the ebullient, blue-eyed Nikki Preede, who still owes me a lunch and a FOX6 coffee mug, by the way) but a nice young lady from ABC 33/40 who is doing a story on neighborhood revitalization. I found out I was supposed to do the interview approximately five seconds before she called me on the telephone, so I had to put her on hold while my boss filled me in on what it is I'm supposed to be talking about.

One of our neighborhoods here in town is working with the kids over at the Auburn University Center for Architecture and Urban Studies (website seems to be busted at the moment) to do an analysis of their area, and I'm supposed to talk about how their work integrates with the City's design, planning and regulatory processes.

I think it's supposed to air on tonight's news, so all of you in Central Alabama be sure to tune in and see if you can catch a glimpse of my rugged, Tom Selleck-like face and hear my rich, baritone voice. In case you see someone who looks like a potato and sounds like someone hopped up on radiator moonshine, please rest assured he is an imposter.

UPDATE--10:31 p.m. CST. Well now, that was disappointing. No story at all. Either there was more work to be done on it and it'll air later, or I was PUNK'D! I think I will now go to sleep and weep hot, shamed tears into my pillow.

Or not.

posted by Terry at 11:24:00 AM

Gifts!!

I gave up in frustration at trying to find Reba something wearable this year--she’s lost a lot of weight, so I don’t know what size to get her in clothes--so we just went to Parisian and let her shop away. She likes shopping as much as any other gift anyway, so it was like getting two presents. And she could try it on and make sure it fit.

Making matters even more difficult is that with her hiatal hernia, she has been very strict with herself about not eating chocolate and other sorts of reflux-inducing foodstuffs. There’s just something wrong when you can’t have chocolate for Christmas.

I did manage to get her a couple of books, and some interesting little stocking stuffers--a miniature bonsai tree (no, that’s not redundant--this thing comes in a box about the size of a pager) and a companion miniature Zen rock garden--they both promise hours of soothing relaxation, you know. The younger two kids got her some more books, and the two older girls got her some jewelry, which she was quite pleased with.

I, on the other hand, racked up famously--books included Horatio's Drive. It’s the companion book to the Ken Burns PBS special about Horatio Nelson Jackson, who in 1903 (along with his mechanic and a dog) became the first person to drive across the United States. It makes a breezy bit of half-day reading, and has a nice selection of letters and photographs and period newspaper accounts. I took it with me when I got tires and read it in the waiting room. I thought that was rather appropriate.

The next one I read, last night before I went to bed, was The Civil War on Roanoke Island North Carolina. Now, I like any book about the Civil War, and picture books especially, but this one was a bit of a disappointment. The idea of comparing present-day photos with photographic and illustrated images from the past is a pretty interesting idea, but the book does a terrible job of it. You would think that it would be relatively simple to look at an old engraving of a place, then go and take a photograph from the exact same angle, but apparently that’s too much to ask. One of the most egregious examples was an aerial view of the island that was across the fold from an image of an old map, with various batteries and landmarks marked on each. The only problem was that the photograph was taken from the north, pointing south, and of course the map had north to the top. I think the problem stems from attempting to use stock photos rather than taking proper ones, but whatever the case, it’s annoying.

Also annoying was the use of modern-day sketches of various lighthouses in the area produced by a woman whose drawing talents rival those of an arthritic monkey. I’m sorry, but my kids do better work.

One more annoyance was the use of letters written by a soldier who was in the area, reproduced photographically, as well as in text adjacent. The problem was that the text reproductions were set in a face intended to look like old handwriting, which NEGATES THE NEED TO SET IT IN TEXT. If you can’t read the original, reproducing it in an equally unreadable typeface is just dumb. Just set it in italics! Anyway, I still like it because it was a gift and I like looking at old photos and maps.

Two other books I haven’t gotten to read yet are Secret Empire--Eisenhower, the CIA, and the Hidden Story of America's Space Espionage, which, like all spy stories, promises to be a real corker, and one written by a retired Samford University professor, All Because of Polly. Sounds like a sweet book, and Reba got the fellow to sign it for me.

The kids? Oh, they got more stuff than they’ll ever know what to do with--the big hits include, for Catherine, her very own GameBoySP so she’ll quit having to scream and beg to play someone else’s; for Jonathan, a variety of Hot Wheels/Matchbox accessories, including Ice Mountain (actually the way most people in Alabama learn to drive in snow!) and a remote control Viper which I have decided is mine; Rebecca got a Fib Finder--I’m not quite sure why she wanted this so bad, other than to try to catch Ashley when she’s lying; and Ashley (who has reached the sad age of thinking that Santa Claus is not real) got mostly clothes.

Oh, and everyone got batteries.

posted by Terry at 10:50:00 AM

Okay--what all’s been agoing on…

Well, let’s see--I have been assimilated by the Borg Collective. It was only a matter of time, you know. But I was over there at one of their big cubes last week buying some last minute Christmas presents, and there beside the checkout line was a plastic string full of Wal-Mart Connect CDs.

Hmm.

700 free hours, then $9.95 a month afterwards. You know, I’ve been paying over 20 bucks a month to BellSouth for dialup access, and that’s just ridiculous. Especially considering how crappy their e-mail service is. Oh, what the heck. Might as well try it.

So I did.

Not too bad--my BellSouth account has a 56k connection, and the Sam’s Choice version hooks up at a ripping (relatively speaking) 115k or so, which is pretty nice. The browser is some sort of proprietary Wallyworld version with great big squishy buttons to click (but no smiley faces, oddly enough), but it lacks some of the oomph of IE--no setting your own homepage, no View Source, and the windows have a completely unpredictable sequence of opening and sizing. The search engine is Google powered, though. There’s some sort of Instant Messaging (which I never use) and probably some other junk in there that everyone wants, but you know, it’s still not bad. It’s good enough for the little bit of time that I get to use the Internet at home, so I think I’ll keep it.

Making our Yuletide complete, I bought tires there Saturday (see perturbed comments below on the post from the 23rd--assuming HaloScan is working right) which were Christmas gifts from my father-in-law, and my mom gave us all Wal-Mart gift cards.

My next big plan is to sell the house and have us all just move in and live there.

posted by Terry at 9:43:00 AM

Where am I?!

Oh, yeah. Now I remember.

GOOD MORNING, all! Long holiday, there--full to the brim with all sorts of boringly mundane minutiae which I will be replaying herein in the coming hours. It'll be just like watching someone else's home movies!! YIPPEE!!

BUT FIRST, there is the matter of the Monday staff meeting to attend to, so off to that and then you'll get to hear all kinds of silly stuff about Christmas at the asylum.

posted by Terry at 8:22:00 AM

Tuesday, December 23, 2003

Ganging Agley a Little Too Aft

Funny how that happens.

Anyway, this morning's activities were relatively simple--1) Go down to the county jail building to get my pistol license renewed, 2) Go pick up Ashley from her grandparents' house, 3) Take kids to McDonalds to pick up the newest piece of plastic (Happy Meal toy, not food), 4) Go home.

The clock went off at the usual time, but I was bound and determined to go back to sleep this morning, so after rousting Miss Reba I was back in slumberland. Some time later, a little girl--soft as a box of hammers--sleepily scrambled under the electric blanket. Seems she had doused herself during the night, so Mom washed her down with a warm cloth and put her in with me so she could finish sleeping. I just hoped that was all she was going to finish doing.

Reba gave me some sugar before she left and I dozed back off, only getting punched in the throat once, and only once getting an elbow gently placed into my eye. (Catherine is usually much more active.) Finally got up about 8 and started getting everyone roused up to get going. Answered some e-mail and played with the blog comments for a second, dunked Cat in the bathtub to finish cleaning up, confirmed our schedule with Ashley's grandmother, and started getting everyone dressed. Tiny Terror was a sight to behold--red Joliclub (I have no idea) Cheer Squad shirt, blue sweat pants, and rainbow-striped toe socks. I would say she did this herself, but occasionally I will dress her that way simply for comic effect. I like seeing the disapproving glances of the prissy sorts as they think to themselves that they would never let one of THEIR children out of the house looking like that. (Since Middle Girl and Boy both dressed themselves, they didn't suffer such indignities.)

Dressed, everyone saddled up, and time to go--BUT FIRST, had to go to the Food World at the foot of the hill to get some money and shampoo and deodorant and hopefully some tire goo, if they had it.

I've been rolling on a set of front tires that are held together with the barest of carbon black molecules and a large amount of prayers. Back before we got the Honda, this was Reba's van and her lack of concern about such things is a wonder to behold. She never checked anything, and one day I absentmindedly looked at the (very nearly new) tires and saw that the outer shoulders of both the front tires had ground away to a broad band of slickness. AAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGHHHHH!! (This is what I said in my head. Such an outburst in an audible manner would have created a flood of tears from someone who admittedly has only the barest of understanding about things frictional.) Anyway, the front end was aligned and I vowed to get as much more mileage out of these ruined rubber rings as I could before having to change them. I've been seeing wire now for a good while, and the driver's side tire only holds air for a day or two before needing to be reflated. Obviously, this is dangerous, especially in light of the fact that I occasionally carry kids around, but dear old father-in-law has stepped in to purchase some new skins, so it was just a matter of when we could meet to get the transaction done. I figured some time this week while I'm off.

Anyway, I figured I would get a can of spray-in tire goo to hold me until later on in the week, so after I got my Sure Unscented and the bottle of L'Oreal Kid's Fruit Blast Kewl Radical FasDRY Blasted Fun SunPoo, I found my can of ick, and then decided I had better get the piranhas something to eat so they wouldn't attack me. Three little milk bottles and a fried pie apiece (yes, I know that wasn't the healthiest foods in the store, but they don't really like tofu doughnuts.)

Time to check out, and for once, the Uma Thurman Girl actually smiled. She works the morning shift, and I see her every so often when I stop in to buy my morning repast of dried meat snacks and sugar-free carbonated beverages. She really does look like the dark-haired Uma of Pulp Fiction--tall, rail thin, generously-proportioned nose and lips, straight across bangs, lots of eye makeup. But she always a sort of weary ennui about her--I imagine it’s a combination of things, caused in part by having to fight off the hounds all the time, and then having to work as the early morning cashier at a Food World when you look like Uma Thurman. Anyway, she hardly ever says anything, but today having the kids with me seemed to break the ice a bit--I actually caught her smiling at least twice in the short time it took to run the register tape!

Off then, shoved the kids in the Plymouth and proceeded to empty the can of highly combustible junk into my tire, finished that, threw the can in the handy trash bag by the cart return corral, and drove back around the long way to the Citgo with the free air. Hopped out, finished filling up the driver's side, topped off the one on the passenger side, and it was off to the jail! Whee!

I went up Chalkville Road and made sure to get out my permit and stick it under the clip on the sun visor so I could be sure and get it. Made the turn onto the interstate without having to stop and headed on down the ramp and…gee, that tire sure was running rough. Went on a little bit further, and then the whole van started vibrating like I was driving over cobblestones--"Kids, I think we've got a flat."

Sure 'nuff.

It was the tire over on the PASSENGER side. Flatter'n a flitter. I always joke with myself that it's only flat on the bottom, and I never fail to make myself giggle. Even today. (I have a low comedy threshold for such things, I think.)

The kids started trying to work up the requisite fear and anguish--"ARE WE GOING TO GET KILLED!?"

"No, kids. I just have to change the tire."

"WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO CHANGE IT TO!?"

"The SPARE tire. Just hush and sit still and hush and be quiet."

Closed the door and opened the hood to get the jack out and just then a big pickup truck with a conversion package and custom stripes pulled over in front of me and started backing up. It stopped and out jumped a short, burly, awfully friendly lass with a tightly curled mullet, wearing jeans and a plaid shirt. "You need some hep!? Ah got a cell phone, or if you need some hep, I can hep you!"

"No ma'am--I just got a flat. I got a spare, so I reckon I will be okay. But you sure are nice for stopping!"

"No problem a'tall--but if you wan' me t'stay, I kin!"

What a sweet girl--"Thanks, but I think I got her covered." She hopped back on board her pickup and took off.

Found a hunk of tree to chock the wheel, broke loose the lug nuts, winched down the spare tire, praying that it had some air in it, came back around and started working the jack. Such a contraption--a screw-type pantograph jack, with a swivel handle that doubles as the lug wrench. There is just enough available leverage to scour only half the hide off your palms, one half-turn at a time. Any longer and it would have been too simple. I was vigorously rotating the handle when another kind fellow stopped by and offered a cell phone or his hydraulic jack. You know, I figured the days of people stopping to help someone along the roadside were over. It sure is nice to know it's not. I thanked him and told him I really appreciated that he stopped, but I just about had it changed.

Off he went and off came the flat. You know, another good thing is that they don't make cars like they used to. Back not too long ago, a tire with a gaping hole on the shoulder would have been a recipe for a spectacular loss of control incident. As it was, there was very little drama--just pull over and stop.

Jack a few more jacks to get the hub a bit higher, slip on the spare, tighten the lug nuts, drop the jack back down, further aggravating the dime-sized hunk of raw meat the trip up had caused, roll the old tire back around to the back. "I thought it was flat, Daddy. It doesn't LOOK flat!" "It's just flat on the bottom, kids." "Oh."

Winched it back up, stowed the jack and handle, and we were off. Maybe thirty minutes tops, but then I had to stop and get some new air for it. By the time I got back around to the station, (still in Trussville, by the way) it was only fifteen minutes before I was supposed to pick up Oldest. Well, we'll stop at the jail on the way back.

Got across town with no further emergency, picked up Oldest and headed back toward home. She said she was tired, and that her stomach hurt. She then went into clinical detail about her lower intestinal problems, and allowed further that it was That Time of the Month. And she had no pads. ::sigh:: "Could you not get one from Grandmama? Did you not have a spare in your purse?" She started to answer in the negative on both, then, behold, she had one in her purse. Whaddya know. "Well, would you like to stop and change?" (After all, her expedient had been a wad of toilet paper.) "Oh, I guess."

You know, I think were it my lower nether region, I would be begging to stop.

Anyway, we had to make a detour from the old back road we were on and get back out to Highway 78. Stopped at the Crown station, door locked, told her to go get the key, it didn't work except in the men's room door, told her to go back and tell them it didn't fit, she came back with the same key and said they had told her it fit both doors, try it one more time to verify that the women's room would not open, then told her just to use the guy's, which I inspected beforehand to make sure it wasn't covered in the normal service station men's room filth. Surprisingly clean!

NOW, thus completed with her hygienic pit stop, it was once more time to try to get something else accomplished. Oh, and it had started to rain.

Got to the jail (a.k.a The Melvin Bailey Jefferson County Criminal Justice Center, a.k.a. Eric Robert Rudolph's current address). It actually houses both the county jail as well as the Jefferson County criminal courts, and for some reason, the application office for pistol permits.

"Daddy? I have to pee."

::sigh::

"Okay, let's go inside first." Luckily, we had found a place to park on the street, which made the whole ordeal of getting four children out of a van in the middle of a downpour with only two umbrellas somewhat less onerous. Got them all out and safely across the street and in the door and…and…oh crap. Why in the world did I not just leave my permit in my wallet instead of taking it out and placing it under the clip on the sunvisor WHERE IT STILL WAS?

Because I am an idiot.

Rounded them all back up and back out to the sidewalk and had them stand under a big lightning ro--I mean, tree--while I scooted back across the (middle of the) street in the rain--a fine example, indeed. Leave the kids under a tree in a rainstorm while I jaywalk. Oh well.

Got my permit and ran back across the street, got back inside with everyone, paid my tab, finally got them to correct my weight (I haven't weighed 215 since, well, you don't need to know) and then it was time to go pee.

The restroom is over in the jail side of the building, so we went down the ramp and 'round the corner…"Is this the JAIL, Daddy?" Yep, sure is. "Is this the JAIL, Daddy!?" YES. "Is this where BAD people go?" Yes. "Is it a jail!?" ::sigh:: No, it's where they bottle Coca-Cola. "REALLY?" ::sigh::

Thus relieved of his pressure, Boy was refreshed and it was time to get back toward home.

BUT FIRST, a stop for a Christmas present. Ashley's little beau wants a book--I went out last night looking for this thing at Books-A-Million in Trussville AND at the Barnes and Noble at the Summit. Neither place had what he wanted, so I got a couple of others that would do the trick. BUT, not wishing to contribute to a disappointment at Christmas, I figured we would stop by the BAM at Eastwood Mall and just by chance maybe find it.

Eureka! They had it, a book with a 12-foot-long fold out timeline chart of architectural styles over the ages. Nifty. Got it and headed off toward home, with the final stop at the Clown Place for new plastic junk toys and wonderful foodstuffs.

It sure has been an eventful day. Ain't over, either--we have Bible study tonight instead of tomorrow, so there'll be more getting out and driving around in the rain with a carload of fussy children.

We're going in the Honda this time, though.

posted by Terry at 4:18:00 PM

Monday, December 22, 2003

Oh, I know...

I said I was taking a week off, but the most extraordinary thing just happened--believe it or not, I am now the proud owner of a silver, 1965 Corvette Sting Ray small-block roadster with red interior!!

A miracle, indeed! It came with this note:

Terry

Could not locate a Tuxedo Black 67 on short notice.

Merry Christmas anyway!

Nate

Well, I just gotta say what a wonderful, unexpected surprise it is to receive such a gift, even if the maroons down at the Post Office nearly destroyed the derned thing when they ran the Priority Mail envelope through their dumb ol' machines.

I made Little Boy run out to the mailbox just now (what good's having kids unless you can send them on mindless errands for you) and he came back with a stack of stuff and a mangled envelope swathed in clear tape.

Utah?!

I opened it up, and there in all its shining glory was a brand new Johnny Lightning 1:64 scale 'Vette. (None the worse for wear, thank goodness--I'd hate to have to go down there and get all postal on 'em.)

Anyway, thanks very much to my good buddy Nate McCord out there in The Promised Land for the great Christmas wish come true! I will drive my new car all over the top of many tables and possibly head out across-floor.

While I'm here, might as well go ahead and fill you in on some more stuff--Reba's at work this week, so I am home with the three younger kiddies. Oldest is spending today and tomorrow at her other grandparents house, so it's only 3/4 of the madhouse it could be.

Had to get up early this morning to maintain peaceful marital relations with my bedmate. For some reason, she really has a thing against me staying in the bed if she's awake. "You are going to be sure and get me up in the morning, aren't you?" She knows to be all coy and sweet when she says it, so I'll maintain the quiet complacency of a puddle of butter. "Yes, sure will." AARRGGHHHH! How DOES she do that!? Clock went off and I flopped over onto her and breathed on her and told her it was 6 o'clock. She eventually got up, and then proceeded to go get all the kids up so I would be forced to wake up and tend to them after she left. She's very crafty.

She went on to work, and out of equal parts duty and terror, I got up and got moving. The kids were all stacked up in Cat and Bec's room, tearing apart the boxes of stuff they came home with yesterday from Ashley's grandparents. They always give them too much--but that's a story for another time. Anyway, tons of wire ties and bits of cardboard flinders everywhere.

I grunted and went and put on some jeans and scared myself by looking in the mirror to get the old heart pumping. I came back through and told them to throw away all the bits of ephemera and plastic sprue and after that, it's been a blur of having to put batteries in this, and fix this, and make this work right, and why's it doing this, and such like. I had such high hopes of cleaning at least one room today.

Oh well, they'll only be young once, and the house will be a wreck forever.

In other news, Oldest got her first kiss.

And for some odd reason, I don't have the thoughts I thought I would think. I always figured I would fuss and fume and such, but as I mentioned last week, the kid--tall, all Adam's apple and bone--is just too nice to want to really hurt too badly. The teenagers from church went to see White Christmas at the Alabama Theatre Saturday night, and at first he thought he was going to have to be out of town. To her undying credit, Oldest decided to go on anyway because she likes the movie. Good girl. I told her I was proud that she decided to go on by herself--no use thinking she had to have some boy (no matter how nice) to make it fun. And then, plans changed and he got to go, so they were both just beside themselves.

They had a good time, and according to the debriefing administered by my G2, Mrs. Oglesby, he managed to overcome her defenses just as they were turning into the driveway at the church building.

You know, you gotta figure that was probably a pretty special something or other--a night at the Alabama, a wonderful old movie, and furtive smooches in a crowded fifteen passenger Dodge van.

As I said, it's hard to fault the boy. Other than he wants to be an architect.

Time to go referee a fight downstairs, so I'll sign off again for a while. Once more, many, many thanks to all of you who left such warm comments below for the second anniversary of this silly mess. It really does mean a lot to me.

posted by Terry at 4:21:00 PM

Friday, December 19, 2003

The Terrible Twos

Well, it's finally gotten easy enough, so I herewith launch out into the fetid, overcrowded harbor of blogginess, courtesy of some computerized thingamabobber. You know, when they tapped out the old "what hath God wrought" line on the telegraph, I'm sure they figured this is where it would lead. Serves 'em right.

Thus at 11:29:35 on the morning of December 20, 2001 did Possumblog come into being.

A lot's happened in the intervening one hundred four weeks, and I just figured out that I've managed to type up about 1.3 million words, some of which even made sense.

Over the past 24 months, this silly hobby has allowed me to vent and spew and chatter aimlessly, all the while getting to correspond with hundreds of the most interesting sorts of people from all over the world, and two absolute jerks. I started this exercise partially as a way to gain some emotional catharsis from the events of September 11 of that same year. I'd been playing on the Internet for couple of years, hanging out at various message board sites and leaving the odd comment (some more odd than others) here and there. It was interesting in its own way, but there sure seemed to be a high concentration of idiots with the brains of a gerbil hanging around. Too much stupid, even for me. What I knew of weblogs at the time was limited, but I was no more impressed--they seemed awfully heavy with poetically maudlin teen angst. I did find several humor sites to enjoy, including the quirky Institute of Official Cheer, by some guy up in Minnesota. We wrote back and forth a good bit--I was one of the ones who got him to join the Straight Dope Message Board (which broke down almost as soon as he signed up).

And then, September.

It jarred something loose, I suppose. All the raw feelings, the sense of imbalance, the dark thoughts--they needed to be said.

For right or wrong, there is a stoicism I impose upon myself in the face of hard times--a jaw to the wind, hands on hips, 'don't worry kids--Dad'll fix it' sort of construct. It's dumb posturing, I suppose, but there are enough things to worry about in the world, and I think my wife and kids deserve something solid and dependable they can count on when they have their rough patches. But those thoughts were still there, and didn't need to sit around--they make mischief, you know.

So, I wrote.

There might not be anyone at work to unburden on; I might not feel comfortable even if there were. I might not want to stand face-to-face with someone and admit my limits. But I could sure put words down on paper. Think about them. Rearrange them. Get them to say what I felt. I wrote, and it felt good. Some of those things are still out there, some still stuck on my hard drive. But it felt good.

And then, one day that Minnesota guy had some links to some of those silly weblog sites--but these were nothing like I had read before. Tight, concise, reasoned, informed--better written than 95% of what passes for popular journalism today. I was hooked. Couldn't get enough of them.

Finally, it looked like there might be a way to not only write for my own consumption, but also maybe even see if there was anyone else out there who might enjoy it. A dangerous proposition, to be sure, but one that was undertaken with much vim and vitality, and occasionally the use of a dictionary.

I wrote, and continue to do so, with the idea that although I may not have a person physically in the room with me, there's at least an imaginary one sitting right over there in the chair by the door, and that person wants to hear what I have to say. I respect him enough to not feel I have to explain every little obscure reference, but if he misses one, I'll back up a bit. I figure he's smarter and better read than me, so I try to make sure I have my facts right. I know some of the stuff bores him, so he'll get up and leave--but the cool thing is, there will come along someone else! Then I blabber until he's bored.

I write about the stuff I want to write about, and for better or worse, Possumblog has steadfastly resisted easy categorization. Part of that is intentional--once someone thinks he has you pegged, the tendency is to forget about you. You're as likely to find a post on Bucephalus as you are on barbecue; on etiquette as you are on flatulence. I try to make sure the subject and verb agree in number, that the spelling is right, the adjectives and adverbs are modifying the right things, and participles are strapped in as tight as Michael Jackson's baby dangling over a balcony. [Most of the time--and sometimes it takes a couple of more swipes throught the edit tool after it's been posted. If something looks weird, wait a while and reload and maybe it'll be corrected. If not, send me a note and let me fix it.] The style, what there is of it, is conversational--I can get all thoughty and eloquent when the situation calls for it, but most of the time it just give me a headache. I don't mind making fun of myself, or anyone else that deserves it. I appreciate every single time someone mentions me or links to me, but I don't go begging for folks to read my scintillating thoughts on maritime salvage law or The Lord of the Rings. For having done this for so long (relatively speaking) and for being somewhat widely read (relatively speaking), I have a pretty paltry total number of visitors. That's okay by me. Again, I'm not trying to make money off of this or be the first name that pops into your head when you want to know about something--so, whether I get one hundred or one thousand hits in a day, I'm no better or worse off. If you come, I'm glad you're here--hang out, send me an e-mail or leave a comment, and come again.

I've thought on more than one occasion that once I got to some particular point--certain date, certain number of posts, whatever--that I would stop writing this. Sometimes it does get in the way, and sometimes it feels forced, and sometimes I can't say what I want, and sometimes I just don't want to do it. Last month, I vowed that if I got to my two-year anniversary that I would just pack up the shop and call it quits. Don't quite know why, just felt that way. Today, I think I could make a go of it all the way in to the second week of January!

Anyway, so--as Possumblog hits its Terrible Twos, I want to thank all of you who have come by and hope that you found something that made you think, or laugh, or grit your teeth, or cry, or best of all, something that made you decide to come back again. Have a seat over there, grab you a glass of sweet tea, and let's see what all else comes around.

OF COURSE, having said all that, I must now tell you that ALL of next week I will be at home for Christmas vacation, meaning that there won't be any new stupidness here until the 29th (Check the archives for old stupidness.) I will be keeping up with e-mail and comments, though, so if you get an itch, drop me a note.

Until I see you again, I wish you all good tidings and a merry Christmas.

Let no Pleasure tempt thee, no Profit allure thee, no Ambition corrupt thee, no Example sway thee, no Persuasion move thee, to do any thing which thou knowest to be Evil; So shalt thou always live jollily: for a good Conscience is a continual Christmass.--Benjamin Franklin

posted by Terry at 2:11:00 PM

$36,866.36 per foot.

That's how much it takes to build a new condo that's 217 feet higher than everyone else gets to build.

The developer managed to work out a nice deal with Orange Beach for some land transfers and improvements and offered to build a fire station, all of which worked out to be worth $8,000,000, according to his lawyer.

[...] [Council member Brett] Holk argued that coaxing a rezoning with such offers was unfair.

"The small man sometimes can't afford to pay to have the zoning changed. He can't afford to have ordinances changed. He can't give to have things changed," Holk said. "And I don't believe that the people that have the means to change things should be able to have any better rights than small individuals."

Holk and [council member Jerry] Davidson contend zoning shouldn't be changed to accommodate certain projects. Rather, developments should be designed to comply with building regulations so others know what to expect when they buy or develop surrounding property. Their comments were applauded by many of the 50 people attending Thursday's council meeting.

"Most of those council members are very progressive," said Wireman, who also developed the Caribe Resort on Perdido Pass. "The city's going to be very satisfied with the park we're going to give them and very satisfied with the project." [...]

All you gotta say is that when a developer is happy, someone got screwed.

posted by Terry at 10:46:00 AM

Always remember, guys--it's always better to ask for forgiveness than permission.

Field expedient armor and other protective devices have been around for a long time--soldiers are going to do what they can to see that they have protection. They know that Army time runs a bit slower than bullet time--BUT, they also know all about the bureaucracy. The problem is that someone let the idea slip out before they got to where they were going, and now the REMF guys have to get involved, if for no other reason than to cover their neatly pressed backsides. It may sound dumb, but it is the way it is, and once all that mess gets started, there's no going back.

The article does say that the troops will get to take their steel with them to Iraq, but may not be able to install it when they get there. Don't despair guys--you don't have to install THAT sheetmetal. Why, there's probably tons of OTHER steel plate all over the place where you're going...not saying anything--just making an observation.

posted by Terry at 10:13:00 AM

Just wondering...

(I mean, aside from trying to figure out what's wrong with Blogger the past few days.)

What I was wondering was, where have all the railroad bulls gone?

This thought occurred to me last night as I was waiting on a slow-moving freight to clear the crossing down at the foot of the hill from my house. I have noticed for some time now the explosion of graffiti on rolling stock--not just a simple tag or two--but huge, elaborate murals that obviously took a lot of time and effort to produce. Folks have been marking on cars for as long as they've been around, but it seems in the last 10 or 15 years it has gotten all out of hand. Even the model railroad crowd is in on the trend, and several companies even have graffiti decals to make their tiny boxcars and gondolas more authentic looking.

Maybe I'm more sensitive to this since Birmingham has such a long rail history, but I know that at one time railroad police were greatly feared for their foul temper, as well as the fact that they were pretty much a law to themselves. A dim view was taken of such shenanigans--I did a lot of stupid stuff when I was young, but I sure enough knew better not to get caught anywhere near a rail yard, much less with a box full of spray paint cans.

I looked at the CSX website and couldn't find anything about such activities; Norfolk-Southern was a bit better, with one article about trespassing and a link to their police department, and a short history of railroad police. Maybe they figure the less said about it the better.

Anyway, the train finally stopped dead on the track, so I had to turn around and go around the long way.

posted by Terry at 9:59:00 AM

From the Awfully Obvious Conclusion File: U.S. Says Catching Bin Laden Difficult, and then there's this one--Jackson's Attorney Vows to Fight Charges

Thanks for the updates, AP!

posted by Terry at 8:09:00 AM

I suppose getting the "Miss Congeniality" award isn't gonna happen...

posted by Terry at 8:04:00 AM

Aliens driving illegally cause traffic problems

Danged bunch of idiots with them flying saucers just a-whizzin' in and out of traffic!

posted by Terry at 7:58:00 AM

Thursday, December 18, 2003

Oh, please.

Bias keeps Internet from global expansion

By ANICK JESDANUN
The Associated Press
12/18/2003, 2:31 p.m. CT

GENEVA (AP) -- Rahul Dewan typed "India" into the search box of an online stock photo service, hoping to find digital images of his native country. He found only three -- all of flags. Dewan then typed "Switzerland," a country smaller than his, and found 33, while "USA" returned 72.

His demonstration underscores a major challenge in getting the developing world online: Even with access, the Internet remains meaningless to most of the world's population, its Web sites heavy in English and reflecting a Western tilt.

Dewan, managing director of the New Delhi software company Srijan Technologies, ultimately settled for Western faces and hands on his Web site, after failing to find Indian images he could use or a similar photo service catering to Indians.

So much for promoting his company as a homegrown business. [...]

Oh give me a break. All this proves is that the one site he went to wasn't very good. Maybe it's not a case of bias so much as it is of simply not knowing how to do a search. Take for example, a Google Image Search. Type in India, and you get 418,000 results. Sure, some are flags and maps and stuff, but think about the poor Swiss, who have to make do with only 154,000 results. Why, it's RAGING ANTI-HELVETIANISM!! Even po' ol' Alabama only gets 165,000. If Mr. Dewan had tried, he could have found hundreds of India faces, and India hands, and even entire India people.

Surely there are barriers to learning to use the technology, and non-English language sites aren't as well-represented as English sites, but it's senseless to make that case with this example. (It's also senseless to believe if there's a buck to be made that someone won't jump in with an Urdu-bay auction site or HOT! LIVE! girls who want to chat with YOU! in Sanskrit.)

posted by Terry at 3:23:00 PM

I'm going to lunch now and you can't stop me!!

Everyone at Sneaky Pete's says hey. Small crowd today, although Bicycle Riding Man came in. I don't think I've ever seen him stop in anywhere to eat before. I'm just glad he had on his winter clothing. Nine months out of the year, he usually has on some kind of tank top, and tiny little shorts covering his massive legs.

He also has a rather large assortment of beads and necklaces and knit caps and baubles and trinkets on his body, neck, and tied into his hair.

And festooning his bike.

Thankfully, he's not loud like Screaming Guy, but he rides like a man possessed and usually up on the sidewalk instead of on the street, and in the summer he gets all sweaty and slick and he comes whizzing by and you really hope he doesn't get funky sweat all over you. Winter is better--his sweaty parts are all covered up. And the beads and jewelry are more appropriate to the holiday season.

Anyway, he got a hotdog.

The ladies behind the counter where cutting up with each other and picking on one in particular--the tall lady with the square jaw and high cheekbones and hair pulled straight back into a long braid--who feigned deep emotional hurt from their taunts. They're all a fun bunch, and everyone who comes in is "hon" or "sugar".

I told her not to listen to all that mess, and she pouted and half-yelled over her shoulder that they were just all a jealous bunch of old hens. They got a big kick out of that. We swapped Merry Christmases and money and I got my load of artery-clogging foodstuffs and now, it's time to get some work done this afternoon!

posted by Terry at 12:33:00 PM

Speaking of what folks do for a living...

Dave Helton on the PR trade. And tractors.

posted by Terry at 10:54:00 AM

Ooooo--pretty!

posted by Terry at 10:50:00 AM

Chrysler Cancels 'Lingerie Bowl' Sponsorship

DETROIT (Reuters) - DaimlerChrysler's Chrysler division, bowing to critics, said on Wednesday it was abandoning plans to sponsor a Super Bowl Sunday televised football game featuring underwear-clad models.

The "Lingerie Bowl 2004" -- a tackle football game to be played by 14 women models wearing bras and panties -- was to have been sponsored by Chrysler's Dodge brand and broadcast on pay-per-view television at halftime during the National Football League's championship game on Feb. 1.

Well, good. You know, I really, REALLY like girls. I will admit to occasionally lingering a bit too long at the lingerie section in the Sears catalog. But this whole thing is just dumb, and since Dodge first announced their sponsorship, I never could see how it would ever help sell more trucks.

Maybe I don't understand the buying habits of the whole Girls Gone Wild/Jackass-lovin' demographic--but I really don't think they're the ones who are keeping the Dodge Truck division afloat with their purchases.

Trucks are profitable for automakers, and they aren't cheap. The folks with the scratch to lay down on a new SRT-10 or Durango probably aren't going to be watching a bunch of dimwitted chicks in underwear pretend to play football, nor is such a spectacle going to make Mom decide she really needs to rush down to the White Hat Boys' place to plunk down some dough for a Hemi.

Good riddance.

UPDATE: And lest you think this crap was foisted on Dodge by a grotty old coot with Hefnereque fantasies, here's an excerpt from an AdAge article from yesterday:

[...] A spokesman said Mr. Murphy approved the deal presented to him by the marketing communications director on Dodge, Julie Roehm, who oversees advertising. (Her role expands Jan. 1 with the same title to Jeep and Chrysler brands.)

Shorts and sports bras
Neither CEO Dieter Zetsche nor Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing Joe Eberhardt knew of Dodge's deal until after it was signed, the spokesman said. The initial plan for the models to wear underwear changed in recent weeks to shorts and sports bras. [...]

For the record, Ms. Roehm--product is what sells.

posted by Terry at 10:04:00 AM

Malaysian children receive heart valves from Alabama

Suddenly Develop Passion for Football, Grits

posted by Terry at 9:38:00 AM

Free Dick!

Scrushy asks limits on travel be looser

VAL WALTON
News staff writer

Former HealthSouth Corp. Chief Executive Richard Scrushy wants a judge to lessen his travel restrictions, saying corporate figures facing financial fraud charges such as domestic goddess Martha Stewart and ImClone System's Sam Waskal have faced less stringent requirements. [...]

Martha Stewart?! Martha, although I think she's guilty of insider trading, is accused of nothing as serious as our old Dallas County Line lead singer. And Waksal, though a rogue and a cheat, at least has the sense to admit when he got caught red-handed, and his crimes haven't involved defrauding the public for years, as our buddy has been accused of doing. Anyway, here's the real money quote:

In a letter to prosecutors, lawyer Abbe David Lowell said Scrushy has taken no steps to flee since he learned he was the subject of a grand jury probe and saw 14 former HealthSouth officials, some of whom have implicated him, plead guilty to offenses related to the fraud at HealthSouth.

Lowell said Scrushy is not a flight risk, has deep roots in the community and has a family he would not leave behind.

"You also know that he is such a high-profile individual that there would be no place he could go where he would not be recognized and identified," the letter said.

Oh please. He ain't Madonna, folks--with his current fashionable affectation of slicked back hair, all he would have to do is regrow his cheesy little mustache, he could be serving salsa and chips at any place in town and not be recognized.

posted by Terry at 9:34:00 AM

SACS details reasons for Auburn's probation

By KYLE WINGFIELD
The Associated Press
12/18/2003, 12:34 a.m. CT

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) -- The accrediting agency that placed Auburn University on 12 months probation says Auburn failed to show the school president â€” and not the board of trustees â€” holds the reins of the athletic program and day-to-day affairs.

In a Wednesday letter to President William Walker, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools spelled out specific portions of the often-lengthy accreditation standards it found Auburn had violated. Previously, the agency had only named the standards.

The letter stated Walker "has not exercised sufficient control over athletic funds held by the athletic foundation," noting the president has "ultimate responsibility" for those funds.

SACS said Auburn trustees failed to limit their role to policy making,

::coughBobbyLowdercough::

and that the university had not sufficiently prevented a minority of trustees from micromanaging the school. [...]

::coughBobbyLowdercough::

Walker said in a statement Wednesday evening that he and the administration are studying the letter.

"We are confident that we can comply with each request contained in the SACS letter, and look forward to demonstrating to SACS our compliance with the cited criteria," Walker said. [...]

It might be worth remembering that he also said a few weeks ago he only wanted to talk a little about football with some guy up in Kentucky.

posted by Terry at 8:59:00 AM

What's wrong with my stupid machine?

I noticed, as well as that Aardvark feller, that some of the punctuation in my posts from the past couple of days has been replaced with stupid symbols instead of the desired marks. I changed a couple of posts by hand yesterday, and thought maybe it was just some gremlin in the ether between MSWord and Blogger and Blog*Spot and my IE browser.

I apologize to anyone else who's having problems reading the stuff below (I mean, aside from the normal problems with having to read run-on sentences and stuff). If I have to, I'll just compose this garbage on Notepad.

UPDATE: Sure enough, it's still happening--just had to go through and change the above stuff to make it correct. The ghost of Ned Ludd must be lurking about.

posted by Terry at 8:34:00 AM

Wednesday, December 17, 2003

Stuff to Look At

Go Google on "architecture" and you get 24,300,000 results. That's probably a bit much to wade through in the next five minutes or so. By adding "possumblog" to the search string narrows things down considerably to about 96 results, but that's still probably a little too much to look at. Further adding the word "poophead" to the string unfortunately leads to a zero result, which I find very difficult to believe, as well as not the least bit useful for our discussions, so I will endeavor to give you the abbreviated version of Interesting Architecty Stuff to Look At.

Books!

I love books of any sort, and just about any book you pick up on architecture will be jam-packed with lovely photos and piquant ripostes and all sorts of letters and numbers. Click on Books above and it'll take you to the American Institute of Architects' store webpage, which is probably as good as any other place to start looking. (Not necessarily to buy, though--you will usually do better at Amazon or B&N or Books-A-Million)

Over the years, the ones I have consistently come back to and reread are things such as the reprint of the 1932 Graphic Standards--nifty book from back in the day when draftsmen were men and smoked like coal-burning four-stack destroyers. Beware the reviews you see on the Amazon site--quite a few dimbulbs bought this and complained that it didn't have any current information in it. Hey, go play in traffic, Sparky.

I have a rapidly oxidizing paperback 3rd edition on my desk right here beside me of The Penguin Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture . Lots of arcane, as well as darned useful information. You never know when you might need to distinguish between an aedicule and an adytum. Or what a zoophorus is, for that matter.

Another one I thumb through on occasion is Ye Olde Banister Fletcher, densely packed with stuffy turgidity and pictures--a must-have!

Of course, NOBODY'S library would be complete without the always exciting Hollander Manual. If you are intent on becoming an architect, it pays to know what sorts of junkyard parts will fit your falling apart piece of tin that's the only thing you can afford to buy because your cheap, idiotic boss won't pay you what he pays his cleaning lady at his condo in Orange Beach because intern architects are a dime a dozen and it's hard to find good cleaning ladies and... uh. Sorry. Never mind.

For all you theory buffs, I think it's hard to go wrong with Louis Sullivan's Kindergarten Chats or his The Autobiography of an Idea. He was the originator of the phrase "form ever follows function," and he was Frank Lloyd Wright's mentor and boss. Sullivan had a profound influence on Wright, and by extension, the whole of American architecture. A brilliant man, who died a penniless drunk in a rundown Chicago hotel, April 14, 1924.

Before Sullivan's ideas about organic architecture, there was John Ruskin, who wrote both Seven Lamps of Architecture and The Stones of Venice, which still give me goosebumps whenever I read a few passages. Good stuff.

I have stacks and stacks of other books, too--you can never have too many books, even if you'll never read them all.

Toys!

We're all a bunch of big kids. Some of us do seem to have a sort of pyromanic/electrophilic side to us, so I would recommend not getting anything containing petroleum distillates or that has any loose or easily accessible wires. Clicking on the word "Toys" above will take you to the biggest list of architectural toy links I have ever seen with either of my two eyeballs. Some of them are antiques, some of them are still being made--just click through on stuff and see what you find.

If you're an insufferable yuppie who is hell-bent on forcing your child into a life of servitude, get 'im a set of Froebel Blocks, just like Frankie Wright's crazy Welsh mama got for him.

For the more pedestrian sorts of us, it's hard to beat Lego. (Except for their recent foray into making stupid sets of stuff that are intended to be built into the thing pictured on the box.) Just plain Legos are best. Don't leave them in the floor or you'll puncture your foot.

A more grown-up toy is the fabulous Rotring 600 Trio. It's three, THREE writing tools in one--a red ballpoint, a blue ballpoint, and a .7mm mechanical pencil. Way, way cool. Made of satin nickel plated brass so it weighs 54 pounds. Be the envy of EVERYONE when they ask to borrow a pen and you slap this chunk into their palm. Can also be used as a self-defense tool and won't get taken away from you at the security station like a pair of stupid nail clippers. I've had mine for probably ten years. It needs a cap for the eraser socket.

Another great toy is the Calculated Industries Construction Master IV Foot Inch Calculator. You will never again need to remember how to add decimal inches again! (Let's see-- .08, .17, .25, .33, .42, .50, .58, .67, .75, .83, .92, and 1.0. And that's just 1 thru 12 inches with no fractions.) Use it to figure rafter solutions, stairs, area, volume, and convert back and forth between real units and made up metric units. One of the handiest tools you'll ever find. (You can also use it to figure out how much cubic inches an engine has when all you know is its size in cubic centimeter or liters.)

Now, all of you know I never seriously beg for money or anything on here--I may joke, but I have remained scrupulous over the past months in not operating this site for profit of any sort. Having said that, I would now like to make an exception and beg you to send me the one toy I have always wanted. Tuxedo black, 327, 4-speed--I won't ask for anything else this year, I promise. I realize it's not strictly an architectural toy, but I promise I will use it to look at buildings.

Clothing!

Nobody making enough fun of you? Well, bucko, slap on some of these, and one of these, and a pair of these, and maybe this, and then snuggle down inside one of these, and you'll be stylin' like all the famous architects!

Now then, that should be enough stuff to look at today. I'm about to go out and see if anyone has left me my present yet.

posted by Terry at 4:29:00 PM

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