10 August 1965 (one year old):
10 August 1970 (six years old):
10 August 1975 (eleven years old):
10 August 1980 (sixteen years old):
10 August 1985 (twenty-one years old):
10 August 2000 (thirty-six years old):
10 August 2005 (forty-one years old):
Rather makes you wonder what happened to the lost birthdays of 1990 and 1995, doesn’t it? Actually, I don’t remember either, which is not surprising given the time period…
It’s comforting to know that some things never change. The fried squash at Gus’ Sir Beef is the best you or I will probably ever eat. Independence Boulevard at 5:30 PM is still a raging nightmare. And Representative Sue Myrick is still the same simple-minded reactionary (and crass political opportunist) she was twenty years ago when she was still just plain Mayor Sue Myrick…
Her new “10K Run for the Border Act” (I’m not making that up, I swear…) would dig down to the root cause of a Gastonia teacher’s recent death at the hands of a drunk driver: illegal immigration. Not lax DWI enforcement within her home state, mind you, but illegal immigration. Thus, Scott Gardner was killed not so much by a drunk driver, but by a filthy, illegal Mexican immigrant…
Per the Charlotte Observer: “No more excuses,” she said at a news conference. “You’re drunk. You’re driving. You’re illegal. You’re deported. Period.”
Representative Myrick offered no suggestions as to what we might do with repeat DWI offenders who aren’t illegal immigrants. Presumably, I guess we should consider electing them vice-president or something like that. But it’s ultimately of little consequence; DWI is not really the issue. Any moron can see that. Sue Myrick certainly does…
We didn’t already have enough records. Oh no, not by a long shot. So we had to claim an extra couple hundred that my friend and ex-roomie Dan was clearing out of a storage shed while visiting his family at Lake Norman this weekend. And we ended up not only taking his stuff, but his dad’s as well…
We’ll be digitizing ’til 2008, but there was definitely some good stuff…
Today on Inside Edition:
They call It Gas And Dash– High gas grices are driving some people to fill up and take off! But wait- some gas stations are taking extraordinary steps to stop them!
What “extraordinary steps” are necessary other than the one most gas stations in most civilized parts of the US took fifteen or twenty years ago: make people pay before pumping their gas. What could be more fucking simple?
I’m sorry, but I’m really sick of hearing about this big “controversy”. This whole issue was being argued in Charlotte even when I lived here before, almost two decades ago. Local police announced in the late 1980s that they would no longer pursue “drive offs” beacuse it was such a waste of resources given that this particular crime is so totally preventable…
I didn’t even know there were stations left which let you pump before paying. Those that do pretty much deserve what they get just for rank stupidity. Gas station owners whining about “drive offs” are worthy of about the same level of sympathy as fat people who complain that McDonald’s “made us this way”…
Another downside of being unemployed and home all day: I just can’t stop watching the damned hurricane on CNN…
I’m also thinking about how I made my first visit to the area less than three months ago, and just happened to be editing my video of it this weekend. I’m glad I sw it while it was mostly still there…
CNN just mentioned that they were able to have some reports filed from within the storm area using a “new” and incredible technology called “FTP”. Wow. I didn’t realize I’d been such a trailblazer; I’ve been posting this site using the same technology for almost a decade, and using it to download dirty pictures even longer than that…
Three years ago today, I stopped living alone. I couldn’t be happier with that decision…
I love you, baby…
New additions to the Charlotte photo section. Enjoy. Or don’t…
Methinks someone at the Journal may have had one too many at the cookout yesterday…
Just got home from the Charlotte Observer Cattle Call Career Fair downtown. For those of you who have never attended one of these shindigs, it’s an event where several thousand unemployed people wait in a long line to get into a big room where they then wait in multiple smaller lines so that prospective employers can tell them they need to apply online rather than there in person…
Which, of course, may make you wonder why thousands of people show up at these things when they could just as easily have stayed home in front of their computers rather than putting on suits and ties and paying two bucks for parking. Me too…
I did, however, land an interview with a pimp temp agency next week…
My first (rather small) set of Charlotte photos is now online, should you be interested in seeing them…
I took one of my patented very long drives today and wound up in Shelby, after also passing through King’s Mountain and a fair chunk of Gaston County. I always liked the sort of dowdy mill towns around Gastonia when I lived here before, and I still do. While big cities in the south often look somewhat smaller and less urban than their counterparts in California, I’ve always found it interesting that the small towns read much bigger and more dense than similarly-sized towns in California. I’m not entirely sure why this is, but I’m guessing it has a lot to do with the fact that many small towns in North Carolina are somewhat more industrial than agricultural in character…
Shelby is nice. I hadn’t been there since about 1988, and it was nice to give it a more thorough once-over this time around. I have also developed a slight obsession with the broccoli casserole at Jackson’s Cafeteria (three inconvenient locations to serve you: Gastonia, Rock Hill, and Shelby) and I was able to have it for dinner again tonight…
I may have more musings later about small towns, cafeteria ladies, white teenagers, and other things. Right now, I’m gonna watch some TV, take a shower, and go to bed without my favorite cuddle toy again…
Sigh…