Ground Control To Major Mike

The Bliss wallpaper from Windows XP Spring is just around the corner. I can feel it. In fact, I’d have to say that watching the world change is one of the fringe benefits of writing this weblog. I have a routine on most mornings and when I write my weblog entry, I sit at the kitchen table. I bang it out on the Dana Alphasmart Wireless and as I look up to ponder my next thought, I can look out the bay windows that overlook our backyard and the pasture behind it. The view reminds me of the Bliss Wallpaper found on Windows XP machines. You know the one with the green hill and blue sky behind it? It’s not exact, but the pasture behind my house reminds me of that and I have to admit, I do feel blissfull looking at it.

Right now the trees are still stripped bare of their leaves. The wind kicks up and the trees shake as if waving their fists demanding that their clothing of soft green leaves be returned immediately. “Where I my leaves?!”, they shout. To whom I don’t know, but they’re tired of being naked, that’s for sure. Behind the trees lies the pasture, which is one big hill that stretches up until it’s bathed in the blue of the sky. From my perspective, clouds can drift behind it like boats sailing behind a levee. For the first time in a long while the hill looks green. It’s been brown for so long, seeing the green is a bit of a surprise. Although it didn’t appear overnight, it seems like it has.

2884 days ago • That Reminds Me Of A Story...

I’ve Only Met One Rude French Person

Phone Booth Every culture has something about them that others use to stereotype them. The Irish drink, the Italians have hot tempers, etc. For some reason, the French have been given given the label that they are rude. I don’t know where this stereotype has come from, but whenever I’ve been to France, I’ve never found them to be rude. In fact, I’d have to say that my experience has been quite the opposite. I found the French to be very hospitable. Being from Louisiana, with it’s rich French influenced history, I used to say that I found France to be the birthplace of Southern Hospitality. However there was one notable exception and I used to like to tell this story from time to time, well that is until I became the punch line of my own story.

My first time travelling in France was back in 1990. I had just graduated from LSU and a buddy of mine and I decided to take our bikes and ride through Europe. We started in Ireland and made our way through Wales, England, Scotland and Belgium and after two months we were in Paris. Both of us were new to bicycle touring and extended travel and as a result we were together most of the time. Spend two months with someone 24 hours a day you really get to know them, wether you like it or not. So by the time we hit Paris, I had had about enough of my companion and I was ready to go solo. Well, I can’t say that I was ready to go solo, but I was ready to get away from my cycling partner to say the least.

2899 days ago • That Reminds Me Of A Story...

Becoming Santa

Me As Santa Claus Tuesday, I performed as Santa Claus for Holly’s Youth Choir. It’s the first time that I’ve ever performed as Santa for children and I really wasn’t sure what to expect. I kept thinking, “At what age do kids start not believing in Santa?”, and I had visions of kids staging a mutiny and saying things like, “That’s not Santa!”, or “I know who that is,” and pulling off my bead. For some, playing the role of Hamlet may be the role of a lifetime, but Tuesday, it was me playing the most well known and beloved holiday character in the world – Santa.

How I Got The Suit
There was a department store in Baton Rouge called Godchaux’s (pronounced “god shaws” ). It was the premier store in town and also was a local store to boot. Even when Dillard’s and other stores came to town, everyone still shopped at Godchaux’s. Godchaux’s was fancy and was very tied to the community, so it was more ingrained in the local culture than any other store. Founded in New Orleans, Godchaux’s had several stores, the largest in Baton Rouge in fact, and it was a mainstay of Louisiana life. Unfortunately, the store eventually fell on hard times, or the owners wanted to sell, I don’t know which, but in the late 80’s Godchaux was sold and went out of business.

2973 days ago • That Reminds Me Of A Story...

Missed Opportunities At Calloway Gardens

Opportunity I am a coffee snob. I admit it and I’m not ashamed of it. I like good coffee in just about any form – espresso, french press, drip, cappuccino, etc. Coffee is almost like a drug, once you’ve had the good stuff it’s hard to go back. Starbucks is OK, but there’s other brands that I prefer and I’ll drive miles out of my way for it and pay a handsome fee for it as well. This fact was completely lost on Callaway Gardens when I visited there over the Thanksgiving Holiday.

Call it catering to snobs, but I found a lot of missed opportunities at Callaway. These opportunities were not just flights of fancy, but opportunities that would generate revenue. There was a lot of wasted space in the main area of the Inn. What used to be the bar, was turned into a general common area that had little rhyme or reason. This area could be easily converted into a coffee bar. Starbucks has brought the idea of fancy coffee into the mainstream. Setting up a coffee shop that also served a pastries and bagels would have been very popular. There was a restaurant of course, but if you wanted something quick and easy, you were out of luck.

2983 days ago • That Reminds Me Of A Story...

My Love Affair With Paper

Paper and Pen I’m about as techie as they come. I always seem to have a gadget of some sort on me and more often than not, I’ve got more than one. Since starting this weblog, I’ve been carrying around my Dana wherever I go and use it to jot down thoughts and ideas. Yet with all this technology surrounding me, I find that I still have a love affair with paper.

Journals
I use paper less and less these days, but I still pack a National Brand 43-571 stitch bound notebook that serves as my journal. Since college, I’ve used this style of notebook and I’m now in my 6th one. I love the cloth covered cardboard covers which protect the light green ruled and numbered pages underneath. I found these notebooks at the LSU bookstore and it’s the only place that I’ve found them. I think it’s a lab notebook, but all my Google searches turn up Chemistry class overviews requiring the. Every few years I go by the bookstore when I’m in Baton Rouge and stock up. It’s not that the notebooks have the best paper, or anything of that nature, I just like them.

2987 days ago • That Reminds Me Of A Story...

I’m A Writer?

Writing Perceptions are a weird thing. My perception of myself may be quite different from the way you perceive me. For example, I’ve never really thought of myself as a writer. As a reader of my weblog, you may be scratching your head and thinking that I’m crazy, but it’s true – I’ve never thought of myself as a writer.

In college I kind of minored in English. I took short story and poetry classes, but everything I wrote for those classes were assignments. I was told to write something and I did. Later, when I entered the business world, I ran several marketing departments. Being in marketing, I was expected to generate copy. I wrote annual reports, press releases and tons of flyers and newsletters, but still, all of these were required of my job and I perceived them as just another task in my job. When I started KCPUG and then later InterPUG and NPUG, I wrote my fair share of articles, reviews, and meeting announcements, but once again I perceived these as tasks.

2990 days ago • That Reminds Me Of A Story...

That Reminds Me Of A Story…