Caterpillar!

(this has been on here before, but it ran in the News & Observer last week :)

The red carpet, the big names, who's wearing what....

Nope, it's not the Oscars.

It's the State of the Union....

I'm such a geek.

"...shall from time to time give to the Congress information of the state of the union..."

I'm running for President!

Well, not really. For one thing, I wouldn't be taking office as a 35-year old -- the age required by Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 of the Constitution.

But everyone else is doing it.... I've lost count.

"French Quarter is in a funk"

http://www.cnn.com/2007/TRAVEL/
01/19/french.quarter.ap/index.html

Checks and Balances....

Three branches of Federal Government?

Three elements of Paper, Rock, Scissors?

Coincidence? I don't think so....

The executive branch is the rock, or at least it thinks it is. The judiciary cuts everybody else off at the knees....

Yeehaa, I'm a ROCK STAR!

Or maybe not really....

There is a monthly service at my church for kids and adults who are developmentally disabled. It's an abbreviated, somewhat simplified ceremony (actually quite to my tastes) that is mostly student and lay run -- including the guitarists.

I've played guitar since middle school. It's actually the same classical guitar my dad got in the Army, never learned to play, and then gave to me. If you've ever noticed the longer-than-male-average fingernails on my right hand, finger picking the soft-stringed acoustic is the reason.

I don't play all too often these days, but I always try to show up to play at Special Service. There are a few other guys who usually show up and we've got a canon of campfire-style Christian tunes (This little light of mine, All of God's creatures 'got a place in the choir...) we go through.

One of the fun things is that I really don't have any idea what we're doing, but I've got enough experience on guitar that as long as I can see the fingers on another guitarist's left hand I can follow along with the chords.

I'm no Jimi Hendrix or Andres Segovia, but you don't have to be great for a little fun, fellowship, and service with the skills you've got.

So tonight the other fellow and I didn't really know which songs we'd be doing until we did them, and we knew even less about our final tune "O, come away."

"Do you know how to play that?" he asked me.

"No, do you?"

"Well, here we go...."

Bicycle Cavalry....

One morning this week, as I saddled onto my bicycle, getting ready to ride the mile uphill to law school, one of my fellow law students, a neighbor, was getting into her car so’s to drive the stretch.

The race was on.

I took off, realized I’d forgotten my helmet, wheeled around back to my apartment, got it, and started pedaling.

She passed me as I was maybe half way there, starting to puff up the long hill to the university.

As I topped the hill and entered the home stretch, I could see her heading across the street to the law school door. I poured on a little extra hurt and braked to a halt in front of her, 75 feet from the door.

“I won.”

And she was in a BMW….

More footage from The Gulf.....

http://s24.photobucket.com/albums/c23/jderrick/
?action=view&current=judgetour_0001.flv

A still photographer who also shoots video is sometimes referred to as a "platypus," a reference to the Australian mammal's being both one thing and simultaneously something else -- a furry mammal as well as duck-billed, webbed-footed and egg laying.

Shooting for a couple of newspapers over the past few years, which explains the photos and vids and such, being a platypus was a trick I picked up. The same small camera can do both, and the editing software isn't difficult once you get the hang of it. Male platypoda are endowed with a venomous spur on each hind limb, a trick I have not picked up but which does seem rather useful.

In any case, the morning before we took The Misery Tour though some of the hardest hit areas of the city, we met with Judge Madeleine Landrieu, and here is some of what she had to say and some more of what we saw....

check out http://forthegoodofthegulf.blogspot.com/ for more....

New batch of beer....

"Atonement Beer"


Courtesy of Mr. Beer....

http://www.mrbeer.com/images/pdf/11000atb.pdf

Mommy gave me a Creme Brulee set for Christmas....

Actually, creme brulee is just fancy French words for "burnt custard", but that just doesn't sound as sexy....

Amtrak: Oy Vey

I'd like to organize a bicycle trip to South Carolina at some point. Over spring break, I dunno.

But that's a long way. I'd like to ride down and maybe catch a train back.

In Germany this is a very simple process. They've got train stations all over the place and many, many trains have some way to conveniently transport a bike.

Specifically, they've realized that there is always, always a need to have some provision for baby stollers, suitcases... and other bulky baggage. So the trains have a car which is half empty where you can park your bike, pay a few extra Euros, and you're on your way.

It seems so simple.

There is one bicycle-friendly train car in NC. And it doesn't go to South Carolina.

Otherwise, you can go to the station early, have a reservation, give your bike as checked baggage... and it has to be at a staffed station.

This means that you can't load a bike in Hamlet, NC, which lies conveniently on the South Carolina border.

My next thought was that I could load a bike in Raleigh, ride to Hamlet, and offload there. I shot some emails to Amtrak, which weren't returned, and finally gave them a call.

The lady at Amtrak says I can't offload a bike in Hamlet. Nothing against bikes. Apparently, you just can't offload checked baggage at a non-staffed station.

So if you're going anywhere between Raleigh and Columbia, SC, (maybe to a little nowhere like, say, Cary) and you've got checked baggage, you're screwed.

Some folks say we need a reasonable, reliable, environmentally-friendly train system in this country.

Other folks will say our current system is a decrepit, pathetic sick horse that just ought to be taken out back and put out of its misery.

So help me, I'm trying to prove them wrong, I'm trying to take the train, I'm trying to give them my money... but Amtrak isn't helping.

Bought my books for this semester....

I was lucky and got almost all of them used.

Only $381.

I can think of a lot funner ways to blow $400.

And some of them are even legal....