Walking in Memphis

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Okay, so “rid­ing” more than “walk­ing”.  My wife and I accom­pa­nied her grand­mother and brother to Mem­phis to tour Grace­land and the city as a whole.  We hit all the major “touristy” spots:  The Peabody Hotel, the old Lor­raine Motel (where MLK was assas­si­nated), Sun Records, and of course Grace­land and Beale Street.

We even stopped at St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hos­pi­tal.  I felt kind of like a jerk, because while we were walk­ing around the grounds tak­ing pho­tographs of the beau­ti­ful facil­ity, a small red car stopped at the front door of St. Jude’s…a small child with can­cer, wear­ing an oxy­gen mask, was assisted out by his/her par­ents.  It really made me won­der why on God’s green earth St. Jude’s is included as a tourist attraction.

I had never been to Mem­phis, and I’ve lived in the South all my life.  I guess I took the city and its rich his­tory for granted.   But I did enjoy it, and for the most part it is nice.  (We kind of got lost on Sat­ur­day and ended up in the not-so-touristy spots of Mem­phis.  We even ran into a funeral procession.)

The next time we go, it won’t be to do the tourist thing.  It’ll be to soak up Beale and hit Ren­dezvous for some deli­cious BBQ.

Rising Stars to Perform at a Local Benefit

Two of Nashville’s hottest new acts will be home in Lucedale, Mis­sis­sippi, on Fri­day night to per­form a ben­e­fit for a fam­ily deal­ing with bone cancer.

Cold­wa­ter Jane and Bran­don Green, of the duo JB Rocket of “Can You Duet?” fame, will be per­form­ing at the George County Fair­grounds Fri­day night at 7:00 P.M. for Yulanda Coo­ley.  Mrs. Coo­ley was diag­nosed recently with bone can­cer and is receiv­ing care at the MD Ander­son Can­cer Cen­ter in Hous­ton, Texas.

From the Mis­sis­sippi Press:

For sis­ters Bran­don Jane and Leah Crutch­field, who make up Cold­wa­ter Jane, their par­tic­i­pa­tion in the con­cert is a fam­ily mat­ter. Both grew up in Lucedale and Coo­ley is their aunt.

She is a won­der­ful, won­der­ful lady,” Jane said dur­ing a phone inter­view on Wednes­day. “She is such a bless­ing to our fam­ily, and she means so much to us.”

Cold­wa­ter Jane has just released their first sin­gle, “Bring on the Love”, which they are pro­mot­ing through their label, Mer­cury Records.  Bran­don Green was awarded a con­tract with Big Machine Records.

So if you want to heard some good coun­try music and help a fam­ily in need, come to Lucedale on Fri­day night.  Tick­ets are only $5.00 at the door and all pro­ceeds will be going to the Coo­ley family’s med­ical expenses.

President Calls Kanye a ‘Jackass’

Nice — a war of words between two brothas has just started.  Pres­i­dent Obama has called Kanye West a ‘jack­ass’ for the way he treated Tay­lor Swift dur­ing the MTV Music Awards Sun­day night.

It was tweeted by Terry Moran of ABC’s Night­line:  “Pres. Obama just called Kanye West a ‘jack­ass’ for his out­burst at VMAs when Tay­lor Swift won. Now THAT’S presidential.”

Why can’t the Prez keep his nose out of petty crap?  Is he going to host a ‘Beer Sum­mit’ for Kanye and Tay­lor?  I would pay to attend that one.  More on this as the story devel­ops!  (ha, ha!)

Patrick Swayze, 1952–2009

Patrick Swayze lost his bat­tle with pan­cre­atic can­cer early this morn­ing.  The star of such hits as “Dirty Danc­ing”, “Ghost”, and more recently the series “The Beast”, passed away at his home sur­rounded by fam­ily and friends.  He was 57.

His courage and deter­mi­na­tion should be an inspi­ra­tion to many.  He fought hard to make the world aware of pan­cre­atic can­cer and how vital it is to find a cure.  Fox News has a nice arti­cle on him.  I am keep­ing his wife, Lisa, and all of his fam­ily in my thoughts and prayers.

Patrick Swayze sites:

A Century Ago: The Year 1909

I receive an e-mail here at work about what life was like in the year 1909.  So, I fig­ured I’d leave you with some inter­est­ing and fun facts:

Busi­ness and Industry

Gov­ern­ment and Military

Sports

  • The Pitts­burgh Pirates win the World Series 4–3 over Detroit.
  • The Ottawa Sen­a­tors win the Stan­ley Cup.
  • Win­ter­green” wins the Ken­tucky Derby.

Eco­nom­ics

  • A loaf of bread costs $0.05.
  • A first-class stamp costs $0.02.
  • The aver­age price of a house is $4,500.
  • The Gov­ern­ment Bud­get was a mea­ger $690 million.
  • Unem­ploy­ment was %5.1.
  • U.S. issues the first Lin­coln penny.

World Events

  • Joan of Arc is beat­i­fied in Rome.
  • Ernest Shackleton’s expe­di­tion finds the mag­netic South Pole.
  • Amer­i­can explor­ers Robert E. Peary and Matthew Hen­son reach the North Pole.
  • Ger­man bac­te­ri­ol­o­gist Paul Ehrlich finds a cure for syphilis.

Jon Gosselin: Cheating on his Wife?

I hardly ever com­ment on enter­tain­ers, or those on TV. But this story grabbed my atten­tion. Appar­ently, the TV star hus­band and father of eight was seen leav­ing a club at two o’clock in the morn­ing with a “lady friend” while his wife was pro­mot­ing her new book elsewhere.

[Read more…]

Quick Update — Currently in Northrend

I know it’s been a full 3 weeks since I’ve last posted.  I have been play­ing World of War­craft — a lot.  I have been hav­ing a won­der­ful time play­ing the game; I don’t think I have ever enjoyed a game as much as I have this one.

But things are about to change in-game that I think have been com­ing for quite a while for me per­son­ally.  I will be leav­ing the guild I’m in tonight.  They just aren’t the type of peo­ple that I want to be asso­ci­ated with.  I’ve been tol­er­at­ing them for way too long, I think.

Also, I’ll be look­ing into switch­ing from a Pacific Time Zone server to a Cen­tral Time Zone (or maybe even East­ern) server, since I live in the Cen­tral Time Zone.  How­ever, I do not want to pay $25, maybe even $50, just to change my char­ac­ters over.  So I think I’ll be start­ing a new char­ac­ter.  So the pace in which I’ve been play­ing the game is about to slow down dramatically.

I also have some screen­shots that I’ll be upload­ing this week­end from the game.  So, until then, adieu!

Cruisin’ the Coast is Underway

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Yes­ter­day the 12th Annual Cruisin’ the Coast began in Gulf­port.  In case you don’t know what Cruisin’ the Coast is, it’s a week-long event where clas­sic car own­ers get together, show off their pride-‘n-joys to the gen­eral pub­lic, and pose for pic­tures.  It’s a free event, and every­one is welcome.

Here’s an inter­est­ing sta­tis­tic:  CtC started with on 396 cars in 1996.  In 2004, the year prior to Hur­ri­cane Kat­rina, 5,300 clas­sic cars were involved.

If you’re in the area this week, stop by and check out the antique cars and eat some good cookin’.  You’re sure to have a good time.

Map to Cruisin' the Coast

Source:  The Sun Herald

O.J. Simpson Guilty on All Charges

This just in at 1:00 a.m. on Sat­ur­day morn­ing — O.J. Simp­son has just been found guilty on all charges regard­ing the armed rob­bery case in Las Vegas.

Accord­ing to the Fox News Chan­nel, he’s going away for a long, long time…Fifteen years to life.  He’s 61, by the way.

Thir­teen years after he got off for mur­der (I believe), jus­tice is finally being handed down.  Hallelujah!

I’ll have more on this later.

Update (9:02 a.m.): I decided it might be a good idea to post the video of the trial ver­dict being read.  So here it is:

Oops — wrong one. (Hehe.) Thir­teen years to the day later:

Quite a dif­fer­ent reac­tion, isn’t it?

Want it more!

This has got to be one of the fun­ni­est par­o­dies I’ve seen in a long time.  Get ready to laugh your butt off.