You Caught Me With A Sausage In My Mouth...

was a quote from Bo, the MC, at this year's Natchez Powwow It was a nice dance on a warm and sunny Saturday and Sunday. Normal powwow antics ensued. However, there were some slightly extraneous events to note on Saturday:

• Late night run to Shoney's is not possible because you discover 11:55 is too late to enter the restaurant, but not too late to go to Taco Bell. (Shoney's hours go until 11:30)
  
• If you're Mexican and you try to order food at Taco Bell in Spanish, the African American cashier just looks at you funny.
  
• If I offer you a soft taco that I didn't eat, and you reply that you were really in the mood for a burrito, I'll promptly re-roll the food item and offer it to you again, since all Mexican food is really the same.
  
• I still think Slot Machines are dumb. I don't understand the enjoyment of pressing a button and watching numbers roll by, only to find out I didn't win anything. Would someone please explain the enjoyment of trying to beat a RNG?
  
• So, instead of thinking I was gambling, I prefer to think I drank a $10 Bud light, and the ratio of my drinking was in direct correlation to the rate at which the credits of the aforementioned slot machine dwindled.
  
• BlackJack is an interesting game to watch. I'm probably too cheap to play at $10 a hand, but I can watch other people play while I attempt to apply the MIT BlackJack Team's methodology of counting cards. With the 3 decks in play, I was able to determine the dealer would bust on the last hand before the re-shuffle, only to realize the re-shuffle changes the count. :-/
  

Sunday concluded with CrawFish done Mississippi style at the Borum house. This was a southern plantation style home on 14 acres that had some unique history about it. As I'm not a history buff, I forget all the history. Ask Val, she's good with that history stuff. I did try the crawfish, and I realize that I do not like most seafood. Especially seafood that requires you to eat it with your fingers. I much more prefer to eat meat that came from an animal with hoofs, and use utensils.






Some other memorable quotes and antics:

• Cheerleader Beer: Jeff
  
• Ring the bell, that was funny: Chris
  
• Visit the Houmas House. It's down this street a ways, you turn at this grocery store, go a little further. (Great Directions from a southerner): Lance
  
• Warfighter Interface Division? That's impressive: My Generation of Hugebecks
  
• How to eat a frog: Mark
  
• "Beignet, This is Frybread!!!" (Mark) "I know, add some meat, cheese, lettuce, and tomato and you have a Navajo Taco" (Me)
  

Stay tuned for more updates, and be sure to check out the pictures on flikr. Off to watch Big Brother now. :-)

Rum tasting at...

11 in the morning on a Friday is an excellent way to start a weekend. My parents and I spent a couple days in New Orleans and Natchez last weekend. We made up our agenda the night we landed in GulfPort/Biloxi. Not a normal Dukes thing to do, arriving without a true plan, but it turned out excellent. Rum tasting was the first event, and it took place at the Old New Orleans Rum Distillery This is the only rum distillery on CONUS and it "was conceived by a band of artists and musicians better known for consumption than fabrication." How can you argue with a statement like that? The palette cleanser was their spiced rum in iced tea. Not having inherited my Dad's affliction for the cold crazy concoction, when a spiced rum is added, it definitely peeks my interest. They currently distill 4 types of rum, Crystal, Amber, Cajun Spice, and a 10 Year Special Edition. The special edition is a result of Katrina and lost paperwork. After the storm, some barrels were discovered and through a process of elimination it was determined they were fairly well aged, and have now developed a strong, unique flavor on the level of a bourbon. I was a fan of the Cajun Spiced brew and brought a bottle home. (We returned a few days later, as Mom wanted a bottle as well. Clearly, I wasn't sharing) :-D They had a cool Tiki bar for the tasting, and, if your a fan, you'll realize that the shirt I was wearing was appropriate:




Backing up a bit; we flew skybus out of c-bus. I left work a bit later than I had wanted, so I had to rush to the airport. It's a good thing I know how to get through security thanks to TSA Bob I was out of the car and through check-in and security in roughly 20 minutes. Plenty of time to spare. However, upon landing in Gulf Port, I realized the top portion of my checked luggage had come unzipped, and my custom fit sunglasses were missing. Picked up the rental car, and my parents convinced me to check with the skybus counter and see if my sunglasses had been recovered. Low and behold, they had them, so I'm not 100% like my father. (He's lost like 3 pairs of sunglasses while on vacation) Evidently that was the last skybus flight I'll take. They have decided to discontinue service:




We strolled around the French Quarter for the rest of Friday. Stopping in the art shops, Hoodoo shops, and assorted souvenir sellers. Be sure to ask my dad how he got glitter on his face. It's a great story.

The evening came to a close after an amazing group of musicians in Preservation Hall The combined age of these gentlemen had to be a least a millennium. It was interesting though, we waited outside of the venue for over an hour, just to cram ourselves into a tiny space to watch these guys perform. You would think that would cause the spectators to respect the wishes of the performers. They politely asked for no flash photography during the performance, but some people missed that and there were some flashes, and some of the "red eye reduction lamps" during their first two songs. During the second song, the trumpet player started clapping during the saxophone solo. ::RANT WARNING:: I don't know who thought this was a good idea, but a large number of the audience started clapping as well. In my opinion, never clap during a musical performance, unless it's truly obvious that the performers want you to. For example, if the performer says, "Everybody, clap your hands" feel free to do so. All the same, if you're going to clap to a song, be sure to know what the @#$% you're doing. During this second song, an audience member attempted to clap along, and really only got about every third beat to line up. I don't know how in the world someone could rhythm that terrible, especially when said audience member is only 15 feet from the musician clapping. This guy was more than just a beat off, and he couldn't even watch the trumpet player for the timing. The drummer finally pointed a stick at the guy, and started shaking his head. The guy promptly stopped, and I busted out laughing. This dude in the audience just got pwned by a New Orleans drummer. Excellent.

The evening officially ended with us leaving Preservation Hall and walking down Bourbon street, just as things were starting to liven up. No, we didn't stay long, and no, my Mom did not make any of the "Bourbon Street Style" videos. I would like to go back and party with some people who are not my parents, so if you're up for it, I can at least show you around. Let's find some cheap plane tickets!

Small, Medium, and Large. . .

can describe the current Laptop's in my life. A few months ago I bought a MacBook to replace the ailing Tina ThinkPad I've had for 4 years, and now I've also been able to get a MacBook Pro for work. Yes, the new model with 512MB dedicated video memory, and MultiTouch. Glorious. I've been setting up Virtual Machines so that I can still do my Windows development, and I decided on a theme to help name them...Battlestar Galactica Characters. I have Adama, Apollo, Gaeta, Helo, Starbuck, Tigh, Number Six, Roslin, Batlar, Cain, Boomer, and Dualla. All with different software configurations so that I can prevent having to run Visual Studio 6, 2003, 2005, 2008, and the XNA IDEs all on one machine. And I can have access to Office 2003 and Office 2007 simultaneously now.
I've taken the gateway and turned it into a VM that I run on the MBP now. So if I need access to something I used to have on the gateway, I just fire it up on the MBP and away I go. (In other words, I don't like backing up my SQL Server settings, now I just run it in a VM)

Check the pic:

Finally figured out...

what to do with the large wall space in my living room behind my couch. I'd been considering different mirrors to make the space seem larger. I have 3D rendered the living room in solidworks, just do I could get a visual reference for the size of the mirrors I was considering. I know, totally geeky to 3D model your home, but I just can't visualize what some would look like without actual dimensions. So I found some cool mirrors at Bed Bath And Beyond and used 2 20% off coupons they keep sending me in the mail. Check the pictures: