Out of Gas

Blogging live from a parking lot on Montlimar Drive. I just ran out of gas. Right in the middle of Mobile. Yes, I like to push it sometimes until I can make it to a preferred gas station. Didn't make it this time. The engine started sputtering and when I was sure I couldn't make it to a station, I pulled off into the nearest parking lot. Ironically, it's Baehr's Auto Shop. Too bad nobody's here. But their parking lot has wireless! So here I am, waiting for AAA...

Heat Wave

It's hot in Mobile! The whole southeast is sweating under a nasty clump of high pressure, and it's made for two weeks of hot, hazy, beige skies. Temps have been around 95-100, with the humidity making the heat index around 110 most days. Our nice summer afternoon thunderstorms are gone, and now it's just dirty and sweaty! It's August in Alabama!

Going back to the recap, not much has been going on here. Weekdays are pretty mundane and monotonous...just working. Every now and then I might go down to the river in the evening or have a pint at Callaghan's, but basically weeks are pretty slow.

Weekends have been a little more interesting. I've been down at the beach a bit; went to the Blue Angels show off Pensacola Beach a few weeks ago. The following weekend I had a CLE in Birmingham and spent a leisurely weekend up there and in Montgomery. Not a bad getaway, it turned out. The weekend after that I went to DC for a couple of days then to New Orleans for a friend's moving-away party. The last month or so has almost been like living in Mobile is my Day Job and getting out on the weekends is when I live my real life and eat good food.

Not that I haven't been trying to enjoy being here; I go out to eat once in awhile and try to find new, interesting people/places/things, and it's great to be by the water, and I'm glad to see downtown improving. But it's still fairly bleak people-wise. You know, there's basically nobody here to do much with. I see Trev from time to time, and my family, but not having a dynamic, interesting community is a drag. So it's energizing to get out when I can to places where I do find such a community.

Alas, the sedation here just means I have more time to work on projects and try to figure out my next move. Good self-improvement time.

I leave you for now with a site we all can enjoy: Manboobs.
Back again soon for more backlog-clearing.

Been Awhile

Hey hey. Long time no post. Well, June wasn't a great month and July was a bit up and down, and I just never did feel like sitting down and writing much. I did keep a running list of things to post about, though, many of which are now not so pressing. Some topics were:

- That series in the Post on Cheney entitled Angler, which I found via Chris Hayes, and which Dan eventually posted on too.

- Another disgusting example of big business trying to ruin something good. In this case, good ol' chocolate. See Chocolate Fake.

- iPhone...the mania continues. It's amazing what hackers have got the thing doing already. And a new iMac came out last week. Up next: new iPods!

- Gordon Brown came to America! That was excting! See also, Beckham!

- David Pogue posted on how bad US cell carriers are. No surprise, but still, their gall is impressive. Get a load of this quote Pogue recounts:

As longtime Pogue’s Posts readers know, my biggest cellular pet peeve is the endless recording you hear when you reach someone’s voicemail: “To page this person, press 2 now. You may leave a message at the tone. When you finish recording, you may hang up. Or press 5 for more options”—and so on.

At the conference, I asked one cellular executive if that message is deliberately recorded slowly and with as many words as possible, to eat up your airtime and make more ARPU for the cell carrier. I was half kidding—but he wasn’t fooling around in his reply: “Yes.”

And finally, one more disgusting bit of news from last month. It seems that the former Surgeon General was frequently gagged from addressing important public health issues if they didn't accord with the current administration's political considerations. And to boot, "Dr. Carmona said he was ordered to mention President Bush three times on every page of his speeches." Brilliant!

That's all for now. Just wanted to clear some backlog. But I'll be back soon with more on what's been going on here in hot-and-humid-land.