b.rox

I’m nearing the end of my project of excavating old images from the depths of my hard drive. There have been some interesting discoveries along the way. A few days ago, I found a set of photos I thought had been lost, from March 23rd, 2002. That’s when I made a road trip to Shreveport [...]

Bad news everywhere. The sunken barge shifted in the Mississippi last night, spilling yet more oil into the river. Stacy Head (my Council rep) is attacking Jerome Smith for no good reason. Derrick “Saggy Pants” Shepherd is going down in flames.
But I don’t care, because I got a new monitor at work.
Actually, I got the [...]

I left my daughter with a bunch of strangers this morning. Kind of an odd experience, but not as upsetting as I might have thought. The folks at the daycare seem to know what they’re doing, and the whole scene inspired confidence.
This is teacher prep week, so Xy’s not quite back at work full time [...]

Here’s an excerpt from the 1st District Crime Activity Report for July 24, 2008, reproduced verbatim and without editorial comment:

Type: Aggravated Assault
Location: 3100 block of Bienville
Gist: At 6:30pm, the victim had a verbal confrontation with her live in boyfriend over the one month old baby not being his son. After being informed by the victim [...]

I spent a few hours over the past week helping a friend pack up and move. Something I’ve done many times before.
Only, in this case, my friend already left. And wherever he is now, he won’t be needing his file cabinets or his shoes or his pipe collection… or any of his worldly possessions.
So, [...]

And now here comes a video from the unfathomable T Bill featuring Xy and yours truly at the Kroger grocery in Bloomington, Indiana, circa mid ’90s. I guess I gave this raw footage to T Bill when he visited years ago and then forgot about it. I never expected to see it again. But, lo [...]

Rainwater collects in little puddles on several of the steps leading up to our front porch. Ideally these old worn treads should be replaced, but that’s a lot of work. As an interim measure, before I put down the second coat of paint, I was thinking to drill a few small holes to allow drainage. [...]

Dipping into ye olde hard drive, I found this photo collage I made six years ago. I still think this is pretty cool.

I didn’t use a flash and so most of my pix turned out blurry, but when reduced for this collage they actually look decent.
Of all the people who read and performed at this [...]

The Louisiana Department of Transportation held a public meeting at City Park Tuesday night to gather input for a statewide bicycle/pedestrian master plan. I missed it, but good ole Charlie London tells me we can still send ideas to esoll@bkiusa.com
Here’s what I sent:

I commute to work every day in New Orleans using the Jefferson [...]

Just wrapped up a four-night visit with the in-laws. (Actually they left town yesterday morning.) What to say? They read this blog, so of course I can’t be too honest. Heh heh.
No, really, I love my in-laws. I just like to make fun because they’re, you know, my in-laws. They’re fun people. Xy gets a [...]

Here’s an excerpt from the 1st District Crime Activity Report for July 20, 2008, reproduced verbatim and without editorial comment:

Type: Theft
Location: Dumaine and North Rocheblave
Gist: The victim stated that at 6:15pm, she received a response to an ad that she had in the newspaper for a puppy. The victim met an unknown black male in [...]

You don’t cry much, but you’ve been grunting and making a lot of other noises, pretty much since the day you were born. Over the last month you’ve been gurgling and cooing more. Then, a couple weeks ago, you went swimming with Sebastian, who’s two years old, and he taught you the joy of squealing. [...]

You’d think a guy like me would be all over Tales of the Cocktail. (Hell, I should be on a panel. After all, I’ve co-hosted almost a hundred episodes of a show about mixed drinks.) But every year it sneaks up on me, and I find myself obligated elsewhere. This year I’m hanging with the [...]

Here is some random audio mess I mixed up lately.

Voskhod [26:15]
Proton [25:53]
Cosmos [26:35]
Soyuz [27:58]

All files are in MP3 format;
each clocks in at just under half an hour
and just around 50 MB.

Actually it’s not entirely random. There is a method at work here.
How best to describe this stuff? They might be called mashups or remixes. [...]

Three years ago, I became aware of a collaborative poster project which made use of a couple of photographs I’d published under a Creative Commons license.

According to the krazy genius who put it all together:

This mosaic was made from 2500 individual photographs of circles, photographed by 542 talented individuals.
The mosaic was constructed algorithmically by Jim [...]

It would have been nice if this big old house could have been preserved. It would have been nice if someone had taken responsibility for this property and not allowed it to further deteriorate and become a haven for vagrants and a (perceived) threat to the residents across the street.

Instead, we get another empty lot. [...]

Four years ago I was at the national convention of the Green Party. This time around, I was barely aware of it before it was over. Preoccupied I guess. But Cynthia McKinney just got nominated as the Green presidential candidate, and she gives a great acceptance speech. Via C-SPAN and YouTube.

I was playing with the girl yesterday, and I asked her some silly question I don’t even remember now. Then I answered my own question, “Yes you are,” and gave her belly a little rub.
She laughed.
So I repeated myself, “Yes you are,” and rubbed her belly again.
And she laughed again.
“Yes you are.” Belly rub. Laugh. [...]

WWL-TV will do a feature on the Lafitte Corridor this Thursday morning at 7:45 AM.
This is part of a series called “In the Zone.” They’re covering a different recovery zone each segment. They’ve done almost all of them, so this is one of the last. If you want to see previous episodes in this series, [...]

Title: The Speed of Dark
Author: Elizabeth Moon
Published: 2002
So here’s a book that I enjoyed despite some glaring deficiencies. It’s the tale of a young autistic man. He’s high-functioning with a genius aptitude for pattern recognition, so he’s gainfully employed. In fact he’s part of a whole unit of autistic employees at some high tech company. [...]