b.rox

Mix for Lee. Update: Figured I might as well stick all my related Tropical Storm Lee observations here. On Friday, as I prepared to ride home through a gentle sprinkle, I was approached by a pair of slightly nervous students. “Are you from around here?” They were not. They wanted to know what to expect [...]

Hot on the heels of my “Streets of New Orleans” mix, I get this e-mail with the subject line, “New Orleans Streets to Avoid During a Storm.” Apparently this was released by the NOPD. I have to say in all my years of living here I’ve never seen such a list. New Orleans Police Department [...]

So yesterday I was over at Dr. Tim T’s office in the music building, helping the good doctor sort through some video issues. Midway through our session it started to rain, and Dr. T and I both agreed that it was nice to be back in the pattern of afternoon showers here in the summer. [...]

Kalix, April 28, 1986 (twenty-five years ago today) All of a sudden Sweden melted and I found myself in the Garden of Eden. No kidding. Today it got up to +10ºC. There’s still snow on the ground in lots of places, but much of it has melted now. Parched-dry streets streaked with rivulets of flowing [...]

Damn, it’s cold today. How cold? I think it may be 32ºF right now. The high is projected to be 44ºF. That’s the high, not the low. That is absurd. After riding around in the cold too much yesterday, I wised up and pulled on the long underwear this morning. Some people are surprised that [...]

An interesting pair of celestial events is in the offing. In addition to the solstice (Tuesday 5:38PM central) there’s a full lunar eclipse which should be visible in North America all night after midnight tonight — weather permitting. Unfortunately, here in New Orleans we’ve got a good chance of cloud cover all night. But it’s [...]

It’s been cold in New Orleans lately. The last two nights we’ve had freeze warnings. I don’t think it actually froze, though. Fortunately the new insulation under our house seems to be making a huge difference in terms of our general comfort level. The energy savings remain to be seen. I still find cold weather [...]

Another cold front passed through our area this weekend. On Saturday it was unseasonably warm, on Sunday unseasonably cold, and all day long Sunday I felt out of sorts — not quite right — like my body was out of tune. Nothing severe, but a tiny headache, a touch of fatigue, a slightly upset stomach, [...]

Our equinox celebration was a little chaotic, because the guys who are re-doing our driveway showed up somewhat unexpectedly to pour concrete. Nevertheless, we persevered. We had a few friends and neighbors over. I invented a simple cocktail of champagne, Sence rose nectar and wild hibiscus flowers in syrup. The flavor was probably more appropriate [...]

Instead of strengthening into a named storm, Tropical Depression #5 petered out and dissipated into nothing but a bunch of rainy weather. If it had played out differently, school might have been cancelled, but as it was today was the first day of classes at Xy’s new school. Yes, she’s teaching again, as I mentioned [...]

The dry spell was broken at last this morning. Purple (and Black) Rain by Editor B

Summer is my favorite season. Take a brief vacation from reality with this summery mix.

I woke around dawn to the sound of heavy downpouring rain. After it kept up for a while, I reluctantly dragged myself out of bed, put on a pair of boxers, some sandals, and a baseball hat, and ran out to move the car up to the driveway. Xy tried to tell me it wasn’t [...]

We got some heavy rain Sunday morning. It caused widespread street flooding throughout New Orleans. I know our street certainly flooded. I used the panorama feature of our new camera to take this picture. Of course it is better viewed at a larger size. You may even want to examine the original full size photo, [...]

We had a little party. For Beltane and May Day. I didn’t send out engraved invitations, only announced it via Twitter. What is this day, anyway? A cross-quarter day, Beltane falls halfway between the vernal equinox and the summer solstice. Some folks mark it as the beginning of summer, which makes sense to me. We [...]

Abril lluvioso by Julián Lozano This has always been a funny time of year for me. Between spring break and the end of the semester, faculty get more stressed than ever and tend to walk around campus enveloped in clouds of gloom. Because I don’t teach, I’m a bit removed from the pressures that build [...]

I don’t seem to have been writing much here lately, and I’m not sure why. It could be that mentally I’m on spring break, and so I have prepared this mix for your enjoyment. The University is actually on spring break this week, but poor slobs like me are working anyway. As one (faculty) friend [...]

There was a little frost outside this morning, but our cold snap seems to be coming to an end. The morning bike ride was chilly but not bone-chilling. It looks as though we won’t see freezing temperatures for the rest of the week. Hopefully the rest of the season! Personally I’d be happy if I [...]

By strange coincidence, I found myself watching The Big Chill Friday night. It’s one of those super-famous movies that I’ve just somehow never seen. Alas, when the flick was over and I turned in for the evening, I neglected to leave a trickle of water running, as I’d done Thursday night. This, despite the fact [...]