Delta Flooding

After three+ days of rain last week, you might imagine parts of Mississippi would be susceptible to flooding. The Delta region is no different. Since it is full of low-lying farmland/floodplain, with many streams throughout the region, it is particularly susceptible. Basically the Delta region is one big floodplain, which explains its particularly fertile soil (thousands of years worth of silt-laden water flooding an area tends to create soil on the fertile side). These are some pictures I snapped along Highway 6 in Panola and Quitman counties on Saturday morning and afternoon on my way to and back from a CPC church outreach/cook-out function in Lambert, MS (just south of Marks, in Quitman County). I forget which ones were taken where since Blogger didn't post them in the order I added them (go figure), but two of them are in Panola County, and the other three in Quitman County. Enjoy!

(p.s. I should probably see a therapist about my obsession with the Delta region).

haha...and right before bedtime...

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I may need a winter jacket this year

This is global warming? If so, I may need to get a winter jacket this year. (This is a screenshot of Weather.com's ten day forecast for Oxford, taken this morning around 8am). Pay particular attention to the forecast for Nov. 20th.

a few foliage pictures

I went out today before the Alabama vs. LSU game (ROLL TIDE!, btw) and snapped some pictures around Oxford of the foliage. It was breezy and cool, great Fall weather if you ask me. I wanted to get these pictures because I fully expect most (if not all) of the foliage to bee off the trees in the next few days (certainly by the next time I get a decent chance to snap some pictures of the foliage.

The first three are taken on the grounds of College Hill Presbyterian Church (PCA) just north of town in rural Lafayette County. Numbers 1 and 3 are attempts at artsy shots. I think they worked fairly well. Numbers 2 and 3 are of/around a ginkgo(?) tree. Number four is of a brilliantly yellow tree near The Grove on the Ole Miss campus. The third is of a squirrel eating the berries (buds?) off a crepe myrtle tree also near The Grove at Ole Miss. I have others (20ish?), but I think these are my favorites out of the lot.

Destiny/Roll Tide!

The cover to the first Sports Illustrated published after I was born (those of you keeping score at home: Nov. 17). Assuming these things are mailed out a week before their published date (this one is Nov. 23), this might well have been on the news stands at Roper Hospital in Charleston, SC the day I was born. Mom, Dad...did you pay attention to the newsstands that day?

Roll Tide!

Grove Pictures

The Grove on Gameday is one of those things that really cannot be explained: it HAS to be experienced. Here are a few pictures. The first two are general crowd pictures. The third is of the food spread at the tent I was invited to. The fourth is a picture of me with the accounting department at Slaughter & Associates: Tiffany. Bama won (not convincing, but a win none the less), Auburn lost (go `Dores), and unfortunately, Ole Miss lost. But it was a good day regardless.

RTR!

So here is what the tag looks like on my car. I got it today after a bit of a misunderstanding of what I needed to bring to the Lafayette County Chancery Building. I had to run home and get a socket wrench to get the old tag off to turn it over to them. There was a bit of a misunderstanding about when my renewal date would be, and how much I had to pay today, but that got cleared up and thus my renewal date is as it should be, August 2009.

Roll Tide!

Some Japan pictures...as promised

These are all ones in which I appear, sort of to prove to you (and remind myself) that I actually spent time in Japan, albeit years ago now (June - August of 2001). Most of all the pictures I now have a hard time remembering much about, but fortunately for me, I did keep copies of my e-mail updates, and have managed to keep in touch with a couple of the folks who also went with the same team, so between those and my own recollections, I can probably piece together a good chunk of the pictures. These, however, I can recall fairly well. I have something on the order of 200 pictures, and I placed all the negatives into one envelope with wanton disregard for the order. I figured I could do that in the future based on how they appear in my photo album (as I recall, those are reasonably close to being in chronological order).

So here now I describe these five pictures in pictorial (not chronological order):

1. Me with a gentleman who was involved in the church who had trained as a kamikaze boat pilot for the Japanese Navy during WWII, but the war ended before he could be put into combat. He immediately picked up on the fact that both my grandfathers had been in the US Navy at the same time.

2. The Mt. Fuji group. Judging from the fact that I have an Alabama sweatshirt on, it was after my ill-fated attempt to climb the mountain. This one is interesting because I haven't seen it in over seven years now. Take note that it looks like it was an end of the roll picture or something and the original folks who developed it felt it wasn't worthy of putting to print. (It looks like about 10% of the picture is cut off and 10% of either the next or previous picture is also in the frame).

3. My home stay family minus the father (he is taking the picture if I recall), plus the father's parents. I have a couple of pictures with the father in them, so I do remember (was reminded?) what he looks like. They took me out to eat at some Japanese restaurant. Yes, they have Japanese restaurants in Japan. (I forget the food that was served exactly, probably pretty standard fare, sort of like the equivalent of a Ruby Tuesday, Applebee's, O'Charley's, et cetera, but I think they had sake and made/let/allowed me to take a swig).

4. Me at the sign directing potential patrons to the Hard Rock Cafe in Nagoya. What better place for Americans in Japan to eat than at a place that serves American food. (For their part, they did have a Japanese flare...for example, one could get rice with their "All-American Cheeseburger" substituted for french fries).

5. Me with Kyoto (Japan's ancient capital, from AD 784 - 1868--it's been at Tokyo since) in the background. It was the only major city not razed during WWII, consequently it still looks much like it did circa 1941. It doesn't have all the hustle and bustle that a city like Tokyo, Osaka or Nagoya (the three largest cities in order) have.

Those are the highlights. Take note they all featured me. However, there are a few more that do feature me (me singing "Piano Man" at a karaoke bar), and a few more that don't feature me that I intend on posting in the near future, so keep looking!

In Biloxi...yet again (or: "My 100th Post")

No, I'm not staying at either the Hard Rock, Beau, or Imperial Palace...this time I'm staying at the Best Western--Oak Manor across the street from the Beau and Hard Rock. So once again, I get a room with a view...of the Beau (see first picture). No bother, we get better rates here and it's not nearly as asininely opulent. The two others are of my other view. Two nice quaint houses/offices, and part of a tall building in downtown Biloxi. If you ignore the big box right outside, it's a nice view...still with some of a small town feel to it. (Unfortunately, for the past three years or so, those big boxes outside are par for the course down here on the MS Gulf Coast). The pictures were taken on my cell phone camera, so I apologize again for the low quality.

Nothing particularly exciting going on down here. Just work. I did eat at The Shed over in Ocean Springs, which is a hole in the wall style BBQ restaurant, but is well known around these parts and almost always competes at Memphis in May.

I may actually head back to Oxford tomorrow afternoon...but I'm thinking it might be Friday morning still.

Oh, and I finally got the nerve to send my pictures from Japan in 2001 off to get on a CD (I had 200 or so 35mm negatives I sent off). I got a call today that they are ready. Just in time for my 7 year anniversary of being back. I may post some of the highlights here in a few days after I go through them and make sure Wal-Mart's photo processing didn't completely botch them. I suspect they will be all out of order (I stuffed all the negatives in one envelope), but I should be able to look through my photo album and get a general order.

UA Tag

So I got notice recently that the Alabama car tags in Mississippi have just been shipped out to the various counties in the state and will be available any day now. Its funny, way back when, when they were soliciting folks to cough up the money to reserve them, they said in the letter, "Auburn has their tags, so why don't we?". Well, by George, that was enough for me (and apparently the x number of people required to send the tag designs to print. Its a pity, really, I was hoping to be able to state issued tag with the Biloxi lighthouse on it (http://www.mstc.state.ms.us/mvl/LighthouseTag.jpg), it really would have "gone" with my South Carolina Native sticker on my back window...(see my post from September 16, 2006).

My current tag runs out here at the end of the month, and it is up for renewal in August anyway. IT's a good thing, because there is apparently some ambiguity as to renewal issues (i.e. if you get the tag before your scheduled renewal month, does your renewal month change, or does it stay as is? ). So, it may be next Friday (August 1) before I get around to getting this one, just in case there is a problem with it...they've advised us to wait until Friday anyway before calling ahead to make sure our reserved tags are indeed in. Or I could just call to make sure what the deal is with the renewal issue, and go ahead and have it on Friday.

The CT apparently stands for "Crimson Tide" (makes sense). Apparently the state requires two vertical letters on specialty tags. Supposedly they couldn't use either UA, RT, or and so forth.

This really is a disorder...I'm sure

You'll have to excuse my fascination with the Mississippi Delta region. Something about it just seems different, like they never made it past the Great Migration (circa 1940). There is one notable exception, Cleveland. Cleveland shows, more than any place else I've seen, how much a university (in this case, Delta State University) impacts the community. There may be other bright spots in the Delta (Greenwood, I'm told, is a bright spot too because of Viking Range being headquartered there; Robinsonville/Casino Center in Tunica County is also a bright spot, but ONLY if you consider that a community). The rest of the Delta (excluding DeSoto County which though it is technically a Delta county, doesn't really count as Delta; and Vicksburg which again doesn't really count as Delta, even though Warren County is a Delta County), is pretty blighted across the board. Having been now to a number of Delta cities/towns/villages, I can vouch for this (Clarksdale, Lyon, Ruleville, Marks, Mound Bayou, Yazoo City...the list goes on). One can see why so many folks had the blues there, and why it thus produced SO much good music.

Cleveland is a nice town, a bit of an anomaly in the Delta if you ask me.

However, the pictures I am posting now weren't taken in Cleveland, rather, they were taken somewhere between Cleveland and Marks. I believe they were mostly taken in Sunflower county, but it is likely that Tallahatchie or Quitman County are also where these pictures were taken.

I will try and describe these pictures the best I can remember them. You'll of course notice, they're all flat. The first one is of of sunflowers I belive (which leads me to believe it was in, you guessed it, Sunflower County). The middle two are of rice fields, I believe. The last one is of corn I believe.

Again, forgive the quality of the pictures, they were taken on my cell phone camera, and I was more focused on driving safely than framing a picture well.

Proof!

Ah hah...

So you see...

I CAN beat Kelly in a word game...

This is just a test...

This is just a test of a blogger widget

Had this been an actual post


It would have been followed by bold text


REPEAT:  THIS IS JUST A TEST

I blame Kerry for this

What was I doing ten years ago

Finishing my sophomore year of high school. Starting work at the Turtle Shell. Saying good bye to Robert "Bob" Young for good.

5 things to do on my "to do" list

1. Finish straightening up my room and get it in reasonably presentable condition
2. Get a detailing job on my car
3. Vacuum
4. Explore some places in Oxford that have been packed for the past 9+ months (class is out now here in Oxford, so students aren't hogging all the good places)
5. Travel to Virginia and Florida (I'm contemplating a trip to one on a yet to be determined long weekend)
   

5 snacks I enjoy

• These are actually amazingly healthy for snacks:
  
• Kashi dark chocolate chip and cherry granola bar
• Apples
• Sun Chips
• popcorn
• triscuits with cheese and olives
  

If I had a billion dollars, I'd...

1. Tithe
2. Fund the construction of a building exclusively for the Geography Dept. at UA, and provide funds for the upgrade of equipment
3. Buy a mountain villa
   
4. Put some away for interest and live off it (and allow it to transfer to children)
   

5 Bad Habits

1. Playing video games
2. Watching too much TV (though I wouldn't say what I watch is "mindless", except Scrubs and The Simpsons--everything else is quasi-educational at the very least)
3. Not reading as much as I should
4. Biting finger nails
5. Not putting clothes up after I wash them (even though it takes like, maybe two minutes total)
   

5 Places I've Lived

1. Charleston, SC
2. Prattville, AL
3. Tuscaloosa, AL
4. Oxford, MS
5. Nagoya, Japan (yeah, so I didn't "live" there, per se, but I haven't lived five places, and this is the longest I've stayed anywhere else).
   

5 Jobs I've had

1. Miscellaneous help at The Turtle Shell
2. Filer at Uni-Care in Prattville
3. "Coach" at a day-camp
4. GIS Technician at ALDOT
5. GIS Specialist Grad Student at the U of A Cart Lab and Office of Land Management
6. (yeah, six jobs...I didn't want to leave this one out), Planner/GIS Specialist at Slaughter & Associates in Oxford.
   

What did you have for dinner tonight?

I don't know yet, I'm eating at a fellowship group, so there's no telling.

Who is in the room with you right now?

No one.

What do you hear right now?

The cars on Highway 6, my windchime, the wind, and Robert Johnson's "Whiskey Blues" from iTunes.

Guess who I met today?

Food Network Star, Alton Brown signing a book for me at Off Square Books here in Oxford.
Of "Good Eats", "Feasting on Asphalt", and "Iron Chef--America" fame (just in case you didn't know who this was):

Running on empty

The last time I filled up my gas tank (before this afternoon) was Sunday afternoon. That doesn't sound like a long time, but that was in Bay St. Louis, MS (for reference, that is on the MS Gulf Coast, and I am a county and a half due south of the Tennessee state line). During this stretch, I went from Bay St Louis into New Orleans, across the Lake Ponchartrain Causeway (because I'm a geek, I admit it), over to Hammond to pick up I-55, then I-55 up to Batesville (this is nearly all the way up Mississippi, and across fourteen Mississippi counties and a couple of Louisiana Parishes). Then I went into work today, back home at lunch, then back home at around three to check on something, THEN about halfway back before finally putting something in because my needle was below "E". All told, this was nearly 441 miles. Figuring on a 15 gallon tank, that means nearly 30mpg. This is good because gas prices are on the rise ($3.19/gal. at the BP and Texaco stations at Lamar and Hwy. 6). Here are a couple of pictures, first my console showing the location of my needle and the tripometer (and no low gas light came on, so I could have gotten more, but I doubt it would have gotten my all-time record of 483 miles on a tank). The second is a picture I snagged of Lake Ponchartrain from the twenty five mile causeway. This one isn't as good, but you can see that there is a lot of water out there. When you get on you can't see the other shore, but on a clear day (like Sunday was) there is a point when you can see both shores at once (about twelve miles along...the halfway point or so). ENJOY!

First post since NYE

Ok, so this is my first post in two months. I admit, I don't post much, but I can say that my life isn't nearly as thrilling as Kerry's. Here are, however, three quick pictures I took yesterday (or the day before yesterday...either way, it was Feb. 29th). I took them on my cell phone, so I apologize for the quality. First, this is looking from the Hills of Mississippi onto the Delta. This is interesting because it is a sudden drop off and not sort of a gradual slope. I saw something similar to this in Yazoo City (this is near Horn Lake...which is near Memphis). If you look closely, you'll notice a hill that is coming just over the side mirror, then when you look a little farther to the right, it is flat. The second picture is similar, but looking the other way back from the Delta to the Hills. The sudden cliff is more noticeable here looking toward the hills. (Incidentally, I got out of the car for a couple of minutes and noticed that the soil was VERY soft and presumably rich/fertile...much different from the clay infused soil I am used to). The third is one I snagged just west of Memphis as I was FINALLY CROSSING THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER!!!!! (sans when I went to Japan and had layovers in Dallas and Los Angeles). This is along the I-55 bridge. Yeah, I just went into West Memphis, and yeah, I turned around at the first opportunity I got (that area of Arkansas is very bleak). I have a couple of pictures of the river from the bridge (with me driving at 55mph), but from there they aren't particularly impressive, especially since I wasn't looking at the display screen, just sort of aiming and hoping for the best.

Highlights of Memphis from last night: Ate at the BBQ Shop in Midtown upon a recommendation. I'm all for trying new places and exploring new areas. I was told it was the best BBQ in Memphis. I'm not sure I've done the proper leg work to confirm that statement, and the scientist in me wants to try everything, and everything multiple times to make sure I get it right. I also drove down to Beale St. and spent an hour or so down there (though my feet got a mere one foot at maximum off of Beale and not the 10 feet Marc Cohn brags about). Went out to a Whole Foods Market out toward Germantown I believe (this is near the Corky's we at at Mom if you are reading this...in fact, I think it is just about two blocks further in toward "Memphis"). I picked up some Kashi cookies, Tupelo Honey and some African red tea I had interestingly not when I was in Ghana (to my knowledge at least), but last time I was in Starkville. My drive back was foggy, and almost involved me getting off at a random exit between Memphis and Batesville that I hadn't intended to get off (I was following the headlights on a truck...at a safe distance mind you...and he started drifting off to the right...I realized as I JUST got into the ramp that I was exiting the highway, but it wasn't too late to recover and get back onto the highway safely). This last one is actually from the trip mom, dad and I took up to Memphis a month or so ago. This is me in Sun Studio standing in the spot Elvis cut his first song and record. The unfortunate thing is he had musical talent to speak of, I have none (but do enjoy listening to it). I apologize for the little purple strip on the left side of the picture, my camera is doing that now-a-days. It may be time to get a new one.