Gen Xer with iPod

I got an iPod for my birthday. Can you believe it? I'm 39 (today), I shouldn't be falling for that crap. Well, I love the damn thing. I got some speakers for it because I have a serious phobia about sticking anything in my ear. Also, walking around listining to music that nobody else can hear is just a little too close to being genuinely psychotic for my taste. Anyway, by the end of the first day I had about 600 songs on there and put that thing on shuffle. It's like having your own little radio station! I now have almost 1300 songs loaded up. The literature says that it can hold up to 15,000 songs. I told my buddy Jeff that I was going to try to fill it up. "Then what happens?" he asked. "The void," I said, "Oblivion. I throw it away and go buy the next shiny thing that strikes my fancy" I pity the poor kid that steals my iPod. What is this crap? Blind Willie Who? Norman Blake? Cat Power? The Be Good Tanyas? I am rocking to Tuvan throat singing, the anthology of American Folk music and the Clash. I was listening to a six-year-old describe the Black Death to me the other day, only he kept calling it the Black Dot. Good name for a band, I thought, The Black Dots. Sort of a rip-off of the White Stripes.

New Place

Here are some pictures of the house we am going to be renting in Mississippi. It reminds me a little of the house we used to own on Nunn St in Chapel Hill. The landlord lives next door and apparantly has quite a gun collection. It's good to know we will be safe and protected. I guess that means I won't need any guns myself. As I have for my entire life, I will rely on my razor-sharp wit and keen awareness of my surroundings to protect me and my family.

It is now or-fishal, we's movin tah Missippi.
Mississippi is the maganolia state. The state bird is the mocking bird. As you ornithologists know, a mocking bird can pretty much whup a cardinal's ass. Hell, I once saw a mocking bird damn near kill a cat! The name "Mississippi" is derived from an old Indian word meaning, "I'm not sure, but I think my uncle is my brother-in-law." Here is some more of the straight dope on the home of the delta blues from my old buddy Keef Pickly:

As for Mississippi, you'll be quite close to Tuscaloosa, where they have the Kentuck Folk Art Festival in October. I can highly recommend the event. Loads of artists sellin' their wares, plus top rate entertainment for very low cost (Norman Blake one year, Roger McGuinn the next). You'll also be about six hours from the Angola Prison Rodeo. You'll also be close to Tupelo, home of Elvis and Greenville - where I believe they have a good blues festival. In any event, you'll be close to the delta, home of the blues.

You'll be 2.5 hours from Holly Springs, home of Graceland Too, a museum dedicated to the King. You'll also be close to Birmingham, home of Joe Mintner's Art Yard, a sculpture garden by a self taught artist with a civil rights theme. Alabama is also home to the Ave Maria Grotto (on the way to Nashville) at a Benedictine Monastery - it has miniature replicas of various famous buildings and some mythical ones (i.e., Hansel & Gretel). You'll also be close to Montgomery, where the late Reverend Rice has his "Garden of Crosses" - a yard full of fundamentalist signs, such as "hell is hot" "no ice water in hell" "sex kills" etc.... He's gone, but hopefully his scary signs carry on.

Yeah, you're headin' to some great country. Best of luck to you guys.

roll call

Wife left town again, I am home alone with boys. Everything OK except that we are out of orange cheese, which is kind of a major thing since cheese and crackers keep everything rolling around here. Fortunately we have half a can of black olives, and naturally plenty of the green olives, to keep things more or less quiet until we can replenish the orange cheese stocks. We are also out of the boys preferred toothpaste, but let's just keep that between us shall we? The trick is to give them my toothpaste, and get their teeth brushed quickly while they scream that the lovely peppermint flavor is burning their mouths apart. We have also run out of the cats dietary supplement, and god knows what else, but I still have my keen wit and the classic Juniper Tree version of Grimm's fairy tales with the Maurice Sendak illustrations, so survival is assured. Mrs. Tobit is in the deep south, seeking out Faulkner's grave. Perhaps we will pilgrammage to the wispy contrails of the Old South as summer turns to fall...

What have I been up to?

Adding boulders to a slope with my trusty Bobcat 463...

After

Boulders and plants installed.