I decided to blog again

I had the flu this last week. I actually think this is the first time I ever had the flu. I basically never get sick. Let alone have a 102 degree temperature. I would like everyone to know it sucks. What sucked even more was the fact that my parents were in town for a week visit. So I was kinda moody the entire week. But, being the good parents they are, they still did a lot of work on my condo. Dad tiled the bathroom floor and installed a screen door with a small door for my cat; my aunt planted the garden in the back; and my mom cleaned my bedroom and kitchen. Overall, it was a good visit – or I’m sure they would say it was a good visit. 

If I haven’t mentioned it before (and probably haven’t since I don’t blog anymore) I bought a townhouse ’cause I thought it was a wise investment. In other words I’m not saving any money thus far and I thought some equity would be a good option. The place is located in mid-city, which isn’t downtown. But within walking distance of two grocery stores, a coffee shop, a bar, and varies other things, which is more then my fifth story on-bedroom apartment in Spanish Town could say. Plus I don’t have a landlord from hell anymore. It’s somewhat amazing that this location could actually be more convenient then a downtown location – but then that’s Baton Rouge. Not to say my Government Streetlocation is paradise. When I first moved here I would have told you that this area was horrible. Now I think its great because it has sidewalks and walking access to most my essentials (including a brain surgeon, which is good).

Anyway, I was sick this weekend so I took a responsible position and decided to bypass the "out" scene Friday. And on Saturday I did the Grid Iron show that my friends in the Capital Bureau were in. Definitely worth the time and money. And contrary to the beliefs of the reporters sitting behind me, I can get most the jokes even though I haven’t lived here for more then fifty years. I didn’t exactly get that comment. It came right after the second reporter commented on my short stint down here and gave me a face when I said I wasn’t sure if I was sticking around. Neither of them was rude, just inquisitive. This put me on a mental thought process that preceded me wondering why people complained about the "brain-drain". Almost every place in this county experiences a ’brain-drain’ and says that is the weakness of their place; and at the same time every one encourages their youth to get out and experience life and learn different angles. You can’t get both. Therefore places shouldn’t be worried about the losing of their youth, they should be worried about if they are attracting the youth.

And Baton Rouge isn’t doing a horrible job. People my age find Louisianainteresting – it’s culturally rich, and that’s what kids these days want. New Orleans andLafayette might be the real cultural spots in Louisiana, but Baton Rouge is the center of government. The culture bleeds over, but the city can’t kid itself by saying it will ever be on the levels of the other two cities. Which isn’t bad. It should focus on its position as the governmental hold for the state. People are always saying what they "want" Baton Rouge to be: a small town of neighborhoods, a big town with entertainment, a culturalMecca, a college town and on and on. When Baton Rouge is really just one thing - theLouisiana government center. No other city in Louisiana will ever have that title, so Baton Rouge should build on that one thing. Then, once it defines itself as the center of government, it can have all the other things: a dense urban core, an artsy Mid City, intimate neighborhoods.

But I went back to watching the political skits which were rather funny. At least Louisiana people can laugh about their corrupt government, right?

Back Home Again - The Flight

I know I don't really blog anymore, but I thought I would begin the blogging during the holiday season while I was away from Baton Rouge, and visiting my roots in Lafayette (Indiana that is).
The trip was suppose to be a smooth transition from the 60 degrees of Baton Rouge to the wintry domain of Chicago. I was leaving from the Baton Rouge airport, which is nice. I literally showed up 45 minutes before my flight was scheduled to leave. I had checked in online and security only takes a few minutes - even on the weekend before Christmas. However, the convenience of this airport always ends after security. As soon as you are finished getting frisked by security you head straight to the boards to check your flights status. This will, of course, do you no good because your flight will be listed on time. Nevermind the fact the plane should be boarding at this point and its not even at the terminal. A quick look at the incoming flights will quickly tell you that the plane hasn't even arrived from Chicago. So its rather doubtful that the plane will be taking off on time. So you sit in the terminal waiting to depart, and it really doesn't phase you that the flight disappears off the departure list after it was suppose to take off. (Keep in mind there is still no plane at the terminal). As I have learned from past experiences the airport just doesn't update the departure list - ever. Once your flight was suppose to leave it just disappears like it never existed.
At least this situation doesn't phase me after a few flights from this airport. It still concerns others at the terminal. They begin freaking out that the flight is: 1) late; 2) has disappeared from the board; and 3) no staff is posted at the gate. Very legitimate reasons to be concerned, but from past experiences I know that someone will show up sooner or later. And indeed a crew starts to wonder onto the scene and finally announces that there is a two hour delay.
After patiently waiting the two hours there is still no plane at the terminal. Of course I assume that there is a longer delay. But would they ever lie to us? Of course not. At 4:15 they tell us that we can go ahead and board plane; but instead will be boarding at another gate. There is now a mass exodus across the airport because we can now finally get on the plane, but after boarding we discover that we won't even taxi until another hour. But that doesn't matter because the airline needs to find three volunteers to leave the plane due to us being over weight. They force three people off - who board again after a half an hour and they pull a family of four off. Someone back at headquarters must have reworked a wrong equation.
After about an hour, we begin taxing to the runway ready for departure - until a Louisiana monsoon hits. Not even I would be comfortable driving in one of these monsoons, let alone trusting a pilot to airborne the plane. We then wait another half an hour until this passed (mostly) and then I experience one of the most turbulent takeoffs in a lightning storm. I honestly didn't care at this point because we were finally headed home.
The rest of the trip was smooth. My parents came to meet me and we left for downtown. It was only 40-some degrees that night, but we woke up the next morning in Chicago-style winds with flurries and temps in the teens. It was great… for about thirty seconds. About two minutes after I described the situation as "refreshing" to my brother, I decided the wind could die down a little. But it was still great. I miss Chicago and even though the trip was short, it was good to be back.
The rest of the trip can be described in pictures on Facebook.

lonely blog

I thought I would sit down and blog today. Considering I use to blog all the time – and update y'all on my boring routine and mundane life – I really haven't had the will power or urge to sit down and write all those boring, routine, and moundane "stuff". But I got an email from a friend today, basically asking if I had dropped off the face of this planet. I was like, not exactly. But close. So I decided to sit and blog.
What to blog about. Work? Way exciting – but not bloggable.

Life? Yes. A great blog topic. Everyone does it now-a-days. I mean, you can sit and read about people's sad breakup, wedding days, child bearing, etc. And all in the privacy of my own home. Why would you want to do this? Absolutely no reason at all, just because it's fun. Therefore, I'm not really caring what I blog about. You'll read my blog anyway, because you're just as boring as me. That reasoning makes me feel better.
So, let me blog about traveling. Other then my quick jaunts back home, and the one time I went to Philadelphia and New York, I stay in the south, (which, by the way, is everything south of I-10; if you were not aware of the location of the south). In fact, just last weekend I attended the Shrimp and Petroleum festival in Morgan City, which is two hours south of Baton Rouge. Two weekends before that I went two more hours south ofMorgan City where basically land (kinda) meets water. (Kinda) meets water, because even though you've been driving down this bayou for an hour and the road finally ends – you still have another fifteen miles until the ocean. You can see oil rigs off in the distance; along with shrimp boats making their way to sea. In fact the beaches are great. It's basically swimming in the Wabash River. Remember all that crap everyone else is dumping in the water up stream? Well it makes its way down the Mississippi and dumps it onto our coast line. And Louisiana people can swim in it, if they chose. Most don't.

But swimming in the ocean isn't the fun, really. It's the Cajun dances at BreuxBridge every Saturday morning. I don't usually partake, but its nice to sit back with your (spicy) scramble eggs with a Bloody Mary and watch people older then my grandpa go crazy Cajun. That definitely makes it fun. For sure. 

Umm, lets see. What else goes on. I'll list everywhere I've made journeys too:Houston, Dallas, Little Rock, Lafayette, New Orleans, Biloxi, Destin, FL. Destin just counts as a good place to go see Andrea and chill. It's about where you start getting good beaches down here; Dallas is actually a cool little city; I like Little Rock a lot, even though Lindsay didn't so much; and Lafayette is the big cajun city.

Otherwise, I just sit back and hang out with friends. 

Anyway. There is LOTS more to tell, and maybe I will blog about it all later. But that's about it for now.

An update worth sharing/maybe not worth reading

Well, I haven't blogged in an age or two. But I am speed blogging tonight - due to requests and need for sharing my boring life. Since my last blog I have been home and out to Philly and NYC. But now I am back in Louisiana sweltering in the heat.

However, instead of backtracking hugely and blogging about my mini-east trip, I am going to keep my blog wrapped into a smaller section and save my longer trip blog for later.

When I got back from New York I had mixed and confused feelings. I mean, seriously, I go from New York to Louisiana. It became suddenly apparent that I just went to the two polar opposites of the USA. And I can't lie – I like the north. People talk faster and to the point; in fact, it took me an entire day to re-realize how much I love it down here. (But I guess that goes with the slow pace of life here).

Anyway, the first night I had to sleep. An entire week of 8am to 3am, with drinking all the time, and conferences in the middle, means I needed a good nights sleep. However, the next day was great. I had to get up and go to the (biggest USA – I've been told) Earth Day festival downtown. So I got dressed and walked through Spanish Town – at which point I run into a parade. Apparently the neighborhood had decided to host a funeral procession for a stray dog that was held dear to most Spanish Town residents. I continued to the Earth Day festival to work our booth. It was a nice day, and I was beginning to slow down enough to talk to the residents of Baton Rouge.

Afterwards my friends had a crawfish boil – which is the coolest thing about Louisiana. How many people take live animals and dump them in a boiling pot in order to eat them five minutes later? Then they call all their friends and chill out all night. It's great.

So I am basically back in the swing of Louisiana. I like work. We're updating our long-range plan and we are now revisiting a lot of our zoning and ordinance codes – with a staff of three people; in addition to implementing a stormwater BMP grant; and severl overlay districts. My yuppie-tool organization I belong too held a downtown meeting, which will hopefully make people excited about downtown. I love it. In addition, people are trying to get a long range regional plan for southern Louisiana, which could be really cool.

So, Louisiana is cool. I do like it.

I'll be home for Candace's wedding on June 9th! Then Chris's and Toni's in July!

I just blog about weekends

I need help. One of the many activities this weekend included me paying a $10 cover to see – not one – but two 80's cover bands. And I wonder why I have financial fo-pas.

Anyway, other then that, this weekend has been fun. Friday night I attempted (again) to get some of my co-workers to go out. But no one wanted to partake (except Emanuel, of course). So instead I went to dinner with Lanny at Capital City Grill where a guy with Fannie May came to join us. Emanuel came out a little later on, accompanied with a friend.

We decided to go to a "street party" after dinner. A street, yes. A party, no. The "party" was actually occurring inside two different bars, so no one was really out on the street. It was kinda sad. Plus they were charging $10 to get in and see an 80's cover band. We all decided it wasn't worth it, so we went up to Tsunami's which was hosting a frat party. Not worth it. So we went to the Red Star and drank. Lanny and John went home. We headed over to the Roux House. We now had enough drinks to pay $10 to see a cover band. It still wasn't worth it. To home.

I had to get up early for the Saint Patrick's Day Parade. It was rolling through mid-town, so I was invited to a few house parties for parade activities and crawfish boils. The parade only resembled St. Patrick's Day by making a lot of things green. Otherwise, it was basically just a Mardi Gras parade. They didn't even attempt to play cliché Irish music or serve green beer. Afterwards I went and hung out with Jordan, Cyp, and Emanuel. I needed a nap, so I left.

That night we got some bottles of wine. Drank. Got restless. Wandered downtown attempting to get into a bar. No one bought the story that Cyp's ID burnt in a fire (which is true). But we went home.

Today was lazy. I spent the day in Perks Coffee doing random stuff. I am heading to kickball practice soon. Very soon.

crawfish boil and the beginning of kickball season

I'm going to start this post by talking about Wheat Thins. I'm somewhat addicted to these things, and for that reason I don't buy boxes of Wheat Thins very often. Well, at the weekly grocery store outing I decided to get a box of Wheat Thins – Parmesan Basil to be exact. Now I am debating on eating the entire box tonight so I won't have the temptation of eating them later this week. I mean, once their gone their gone. I don't handle addictions very well. My philosophy is to get rid of the addiction and go cold turkey.

This weekend was supposed to be low-key. I spent Friday night in my apartment (well, I had my nighly walk which involved sitting on the State Capital Building steps contemplating life). I got up early Saturday so I could go to the Farmers Market to get some food. Just before I left for the Farmer's Market Keith and Kelcey called and wanted me to go to a crawfish boil. I've obviously eaten crawfish before; and Jordan had provided us with some crawfish a few nights ago. But this was going to be my first "real" boil.

The event took place at Keith and Kelcey's friends and they had a bag of crawfish. After playing with them for a while we threw them in the pot for some boil action. For those of you who don't know, the crawfish are huge down here. But even at that, they don't have much meat. So once you scope up a dish of crawfish you have to work hard just to get a little bit of meat. It takes a long time before you are satisfied – but the meat is amazing. Especially with the seasoning. You eat the tail, and then suck their head for the juice. I guess the professionals even get meat from their claws. I didn't do that.

So we left the boil and dropped Kelcey off at work. Keith and I went for some coffee to wear off some of the alcohol. Afterwards, we met his and Kelcey's mom at Sunami's (a bar at the top of a downtown building which overlooks the Mississippi). We met some friends and chilled there for a while. I noticed a party happening at the Ball Room over at the Hilton Hotel. At which point I began telling everyone that I was invited to go to the party. I thought it would be easier to crash the party if my friends were lead to believe they were actually suppose to be there. However, once the alcohol started wearing off, I didn't think it was a great idea. So I had to work myself out of that mess. But it worked out OK. We went to the Red Star instead. My friend Emanuel was there. It was fun.

Afterwards we went to the Wine Loft and Rasputin's. However, their clientele are elite and can't wear sandals. So I couldn't go in.

Today was another low-key (getting over an entire day of drinking) day. However, tonight was our kickball team's first practice. So I had to go to that. I haven't played kickball since 5th grade. So I needed to brush up. But I think once the season starts I will rock. Our team is pretty good too. Disciplined. Most were there on time. (Well, the ones that showed up). We even warmed up by running around the bases. There was a baseball team on the other diamond who was doing this, so we thought it was a good idea for us to do it also. We recruited someone to yell at us as we ran. Lemme tell you, that lap around the diamond wore us all out. We got a beer.

In other news I'm thinking about buying a condo. My friends are into all of this, so I think it might be a good idea. But I can't live downtown anymore. Which would suck. Bad. But… it might be OK.

I apologize for lack of updates. I'll be better. I will write about Mardi Gras later.

another weekend, come and gone

I just got my electric bill and it was almost twice as much as I have used in the previous months. I found this ridiculous. I mean, if I actually used the heat then it might be OK. But it rarely gets turned on since the temp barley drops below freezing. Plus I live on the fifth floor, so everyone below me is heating my apartment.

It just motivates me to move out of my apartment. I overlook the neighborhood that I live in – longing to be within the ranking of all these other people. It is the most urban neighborhood I have found in Baton Rouge. I can walk downtown; there is a small market; and I actually see people when I am walking the streets. Its great.

My only complaint thus far is the slow movement of society. Apparently nothing really gets done. Considering I am an urban planner that kind of sucks.
However, they do like to have fun. I attended the Spanish Town Ball this weekend which was fun. It's the only time I ever attended an event labeled as a "ball". So I had to find something pink – they told me – and wear something associated with Asian culture. This is when I decided to pull out some 1970's tux that I had been keeping in storage. Usually when I go out it will be the simple suite coat and jeans. Tonight it was the off-white tux, complimented with a pink shirt. I had told my friend the ridiculousness of owning a pink shirt just two weeks ago. Now I found myself at Kohl's purchasing a pink shirt. Then after I got the pink shirt, I went to this Vietnamese Market on the east side to see if they – by chance – had some rice hats. Or Coolie Hats. So here I am, in the Vietnamese Market wondering the store until I find some Coolie hats on the top shelf. I had to stand on the bottom self and dig through these stereotypical hats, while the workers talked about me in Vietnamese. At least I am sure they were talking about me. I mean, the first time they see me in their market is to get these cheap, stereotypical hats. I couldn't take their starring anymore so I got three different hats and checked out. Since they were only three dollars each, I thought I could afford a few and try them on later. The only thing I would have to do is spray paint my hat pink, now.

I was ready for the ball.

My brother (who moved to Houston last week) emailed me Friday with nothing to do so I sent around some emails and got him a ticket to the ball. He came over to Baton Rougethat night. We would find him something to wear on Saturday, but Friday we went out with the intention of light drinking. Well, that didn't last too long. We went to Happy's Irish Pub first, which is basically the downtown frat bar. We moved soon to the Red Star... a lot better than Happy's.

We stumbled home.

The next day we found my brother something to wear at Goodwill and TJ Max. Then I spent my only savings on a new camera. My old one broke over Christmas, and I can't go any where with out my camera.

That night we went to Doug's pre-party and then to the Spanish Town Ball. The interesting thing about the ball was BYO beer and food. Basically they provided the venue and the music. It was pretty rad.

At some point we went to someone's house in Spanish Town for a post-party, and at some point I went home. Somewhere between there I lost my brother. I called him pissed and then hung up. Fortunately he found his way into the apartment.

I want to thank Erin for my CD. I've been too lazy to dig through my music and find a good collection of songs. But Erin kindly sent me a CD for Christmas. The CD is awesome. It will be my Spring 2007 mix. Thank you.