The Constant Care and Feeding of Old Homes

I love our house; but it's one of those old homes (I think it's close to 70 years old).  And this means lots of regular upkeep and maintenance.

Since this is the first winter holiday break I've had in a while that didn't involve traveling long distances or hosting relatives visiting from far away, I've had quite a bit of time to tackle some of those home maintenance duties.

And I have to say that I have been more productive in this regard than I thought I'd be.

Our house is one of those that has wood slats and plaster walls.  And living on a swamp with the earth constantly shifting underneath us means that we're going to have what are known as "settling" cracks over time in the plaster.  And where the plaster cracks, the paint peels.  So, I've been doing some paint scraping of the walls in our living room, puttying over the cracks, and repainting.  At least one of our living room walls (the one with the most visible need of repair) is now looking crisp and new.  So, I'm glad about that.

But I'm even more happy that I managed to get downstairs in our guest room and make some serious headway in doing some of that finishing trim work and painting that has been just crying out for attention for about 8 years now, since I rebuilt the room following the destruction of Hurricane Katrina. I just had to caulk some molding joints and do some fine trim paint work between door frames and walls (they're different colors, so it's a painstaking and laborious task).  I also painted three doors in that room which had been working just fine, but which were in the unpainted condition in which I first bought them.  And once I get on a roll with such projects, I tend to just add on other little side projects too.  In this instance, I decided to finally build for the room a desk made from an old door that I've had hanging around.  This involved an arduous process of sanding down the old paint off the door, and then repainting the door a fresh color to fit the room colors.  And it also involved building the frame for the door/desk that I can set it down on.  All of which is now done.  I'm just waiting for the semi-gloss paint on the door to dry and then get a piece of glass to lay on top the door, and I can install the door and have the desk ready to go.   I'll take a picture when it's all said and done (hopefully, it won't be another 8 years down the line!!!)

But this is all just the tip of the iceberg; and I hope to continue slowly, but steadily, working on these maintenance items over the next semester.  I'm horrible about before/after pictures (I always forget to take the "before" pictures); but I'll do my best to document the work visually and share it.

I guess I'm also motivated to do all this work because I'm back on a kind of diet (New Year's resolution) in which I'm trying to control meal portion sizes and I'm trying to wean myself from all forms of sweet and sour junk food -- which means I'm going through some withdrawal right now, and working on these home repairs helps to keep my mind off of my cravings.  I see it as a win-win: I'm committed to being healthier and my home is looking better!

Dog Tragedy

My youngest daughter, whom I call here Squirrelly-Girlie the Younger, is a great dog lover. She studies books about dog breeds, she visits the dog park regularly and makes friends with all the dogs there, she is getting ready to head out to see Barkus (a dog parade) with my B-2/3, and she's just a sweet, loving soul when it comes to "man's best friend."

That's why what she and I witnessed yesterday was so traumatic. We saw a beautiful "Pug" dog get hit and run over by a car. If that wasn't bad enough, the circumstances during which we witnessed this were, from my perspective, a bit creepy.

This is what happened...

I drop the two Squirrelly-Girlies off at their local Dance studio for their Saturday morning dance classes. Usually, they are at the studio from about 10:30am to 3:00pm, taking various different classes.

Yesterday, though, we had a bit of an alteration to our routine, because SG the Elder had won a Gold Key Prize for poetry and was being recognized at a city-wide ceremony held at the UNO campus at 1:00pm. So, I had to pick up SG the Elder a couple of hours earlier than usual from the dance studio.

After I dropped off the Squirrelly Girlies at 10:30am, I went to the gym for a workout. Once I finished with the workout, it was time for me to pick up SG the Elder. So I was driving back to the dance studio when, just 4-5 blocks from the studio, a dog (it looked like a dalmation to me) darted out in front of me. I slammed on the brakes and just missed hitting the dog. I was a bit rattled, but very glad that I missed the dog. From there, I proceeded to get SG the Elder, leaving SG the Younger at the studio. From there, my B-2/3, SG the Elder, and I went to UNO and participated in the ceremony for SG the Elder. This event lasted about one and one-half hours, after which we headed for home, where I dropped off my B-2/3 and SG the Elder and then continued on the way to pick up SG the Younger at the dance studio.

I picked up SG the Younger and we started for home. As we were about 2 blocks from the dance studio, I started to tell SG the Younger about my near miss with the dog earlier in the day. Just as I was telling her that a dog had darted out in front of me earlier, all of the sudden, right at that moment in the story, we saw just in front of us a young man sprint across the street being chased by the Pug, who must have broken free of her owner to give pursuit, because we saw her leash trailing her. As the dog sprinted across the street in front of us (and we were far enough back to slow down easily to miss her), I pointed to the Pug and said to SG the Younger as part of my story about the earlier incident: "Just like that dog there!" It was all so quick you have to imagine it like this...

ME: "Oh, yeah, SG the Younger, I wanted to tell you that when I was coming earlier to get SG the Elder from Dance, a dog darted out in front of me, [and then the Pug chase scene instantly unfolds in front of us in a matter of seconds] just like that dog there!!!"

I didn't even have time to tell SG the Younger that I had missed the dog earlier and that it crossed the street safely when the Pug doubled back to go back to her owner and ran right in front of a car coming down the two-way street opposite the side we were driving on. That car had no time at all to adjust and ran right over the dog, right in front of our eyes. Being in the driver's seat, I saw the whole thing unfold clearly and saw the dog go under the tires of the other car. Fortunately, SG the Younger was in the back seat on the passenger side and didn't see the actual impact itself, though she did see the dog when it sprinted across the street in front of us the first time before it doubled back and she did see the dog on the street after it got hit.

Of course, we immediately pulled over to run and help the dog. SG the Younger got out and came with me. We were the first two to arrive at the side of the dog, who was still breathing. There was no external bleeding, but it was clear to me by the way the dog was laying on the street that her back was broken and that she had serious internal injuries. A few seconds after we arrived by the dog, the dog's owner and a couple of other witnesses had arrived and we quickly came up with a plan to put the dog in a makeshift stretcher (using someone's old sweatshirt) and carry it to the back of an SUV to transport to the animal hospital. This all took maybe 3-4 minutes. SG the Younger saw it all. Although she was quite traumatized, she was so glad that we stopped to help and it made her feel like we did what we could to comfort the dog and her owner. SG the Younger said a prayer over the dog, and petted her. She said that she petted her to make sure the dog was still warm, and thus -- in her mind -- still alive. And the dog was, of course, still warm. But, I had noticed that the dog had stopped breathing, and so I wasn't so sure about her still being alive.

The whole incident lasted about 5 minutes from impact until the time we left the scene, but it definitely made and impression. For my part, I just couldn't believe the creepy coincidence of the timing of telling my near-miss story to SG the Younger and witnessing at that very moment the incident repeating itself, but with a different and tragic outcome.

I'm not usually one to get emotional over pets, but I have to admit that I was very moved by this whole experience.

I only hope that today at Barkus, SG the Younger will get to see the happiness and joy of dogs in the streets on parade and be able to put yesterday's tragedy into its proper perspective.

Jim McCormick in Nashville

Kudo's to my high school and college classmate, Jim McCormick, for his growing success in the country music songwriting world in Nashville.

I just had a chance to catch up with Jim during our annual Class of '86 Jesuit High School Christmas lunch (In the picture I posted there, Jim's the guy in the back row under the wall-mounted TV set, on the right.)

I'm so glad for Jim's success.  Couldn't be happening to a nicer guy.  Jim's performing this weekend at Carrollton Station, and I'm gonna try to get out to see him.

Way to go, Jim!

Universal Calendar/Universal Time

Imagine the simplicity of a world where every day of every month falls on the same weekday every year in perpetuity.   Imagine the simplicity of a world where everyone is on the same time clock.

Steve H. Hanke and Richard Conn Henry have come up with just such a plan.

With regard to the need for regular time adjustments in the calendar that currently necessitate the need for an extra day in February every 4 years -- the "leap" year?  Well, Hanke and Henry account for that as well, adding an extra week to December every 5 or 6 years.

They conclude their article thusly:

Our proposed temporal and calendrical changes would eliminate the sources of an untold number of errors and generate immense benefits. Conference calls would be unambiguously scheduled. At present, a conference call is, say, scheduled for 3 PM Central Daylight Time, and conferees across the U.S. have to figure out when to pick up the phone. All that would be history — no more time zones, no more daylight savings time. One time throughout the world, one date throughout the world. Refill dates for prescription drugs would be the same day of the month, every month, every year. Business meetings, sports schedules and school calendars would be identical every year. Today's cacophony of time zones, daylight savings times, and calendar fluctuations, yearafter- year would be over. The economy — that's all of us — would receive a permanent "harmonization dividend."

Ingenious, if you ask me.  I can't see a downside to this other than the temporary confusion that might occur initially in making the shift; but we humans are very adaptable creatures and I'd bet we'd be just fine after a few months or so.

I'm 100% on board!

[H/T: Andrew Sullivan]

Happy New Year!

May your 2012 be the best year ever!

My New Year's Resolutions coming soon.

Ironic Times-Pic Letter to the Editor

It is pretty noticeable that 9 out of every 10 letter writers from Mandeville are very conservative.  What always kinda bugs me about this is that these folks on the Northshore depend so heavily on New Orleans for their livelihoods, but are some of the loudest complainers about the city out there.  I understand that their role in keeping the economy of the New Orleans area thriving is just as important as the city-dweller, but I just wish they would at least acknowledge the fact that they benefit from us liberal urban-dwellers and that if they want to abandon New Orleans for the suburbs, they have very little business complaining or commenting about New Orleans and its liberal citizens.

Anyway, that rant above isn't really related to the content of one of today's letters to the editor of the Times-Picayune except that the letter writer is from Mandeville, and so the predictable conservative tilt of the letter is all-too-predictable.

This time, though, the letter writer is complaining about Maureen Dowd's latest column, which was a critique of Newt Gingrich in the typical Dowd style: biting, cynical, and left-leaning.

Suffice it to say that the letter-writer is mounting some kind of defense of Newt Gingrich from the rantings of Maureen Dowd. Fair enough, I guess. But the last sentence of her letter is the ironic kicker:

He's not everyone's choice for president, but none of the candidates deserve the sarcasm and negativism with which Ms. Dowd reports.

Given that the Times-Picayune regularly publishes columns from the likes of Charles Krauthammer, Cal Thomas, and other conservative pundits whose "sarcasm and negativism" in their criticism of Obama make Dowd look mild by comparison, I have to wonder if this letter-writer holds the same view about how Obama is treated by the conservative pundits out there.  I'd bet dollars-to-doughnuts that this letter-writer, given that she writes from Mandeville, thinks Obama deserves whatever "sarcasm and negativism" is lobbed his way.  If this is the case, it only highlights once again the ironic hypocrisy of the rightwing when it comes to Obama.

Blue Jay Fellowship

One of today's highlights was the Christmas lunch for the Jesuit High School Class of '86 graduates.  I, along with maybe some 25 other classmates, managed to get together at the Crescent City Steakhouse for a good meal and some great fellowship.

Not many people have good high school experiences; but I can say that high school for me represented some of the best years of my life.  I thoroughly enjoyed high school.  And that experience owes itself in no small part to the gentlemen who were my classmates.

Just about every one of these men are real stand up guys who with boundless goodness.  I am so fortunate  to count them among my friends and to be able to get together with them every so often to break bread and catch up with one another.

Thanks, '86 Blue Jays, for a great afternoon!

Here's a picture of the crew at the restaurant:

A Week of Christmas Lunches

This week is filled with Christmas cheer and with lots of breaking bread with family and friends.

It starts today with a "Cousin's" lunch at Zea Rotisserie Grill on St. Charles Avenue.

Then Friday brings with it a Blue Jay Class of '86 Luncheon at the Crescent City Steak House.

Later on that evening, following a late afternoon Huck family photo shoot, the family will be gathering for a casual early evening dinner at Koz's.

Sometime in the midst of all this eating, I have to do a bit of shopping!

Two Worst Physical Ailments

I've said it before and I'll say it again ... The two worst experiences of pain that I have ever had are (1) toothache and (2) backache.  Two days ago, I threw out my lower back.  Not sure what the heck happened.  I was doing some sanding on the front of my house and after I quit and was relaxing in the easy chair, something must have happened because as soon as I moved to get out of the easy chair, my back had stiffened and gotten sore.  I didn't feel anything snap or pop.  It was just sore.

That was two days ago and it has only gotten worse.  It's such that I can just barely walk.  I think I may have a slipped disc or something along those lines.

I haven't been to see the doctor yet, but I can feel that this is where I'm headed.

What a bad time for this to happen.  It's the last week of classes and final exams are approaching.  Not to mention that the Christmas season is here, which means lots of Nutcracker dance performances to attend.

I hope I can get some relief soon.

Toothaches and backaches.

And I'm dealing with one of those now.  Bummer.

Squirrelly Girlies on TV

Dancing in "Jingle Bell Rock" for the Children's Dance Theatre.  Squirrelly Girlie the Elder gets a bit of face time.  She's in the white outfit with a white side feather headpiece in her hair (at about the 38 second mark). And Squirrelly-Girlie the Younger is the little blur of yellow in the back row:

MBH Pottery at the Blues & Barbecue Festival

In Lafayette Square. Michele will be there all day tomorrow. If you plan to attend, stop in and say hello. Tell her The Huck Upchuck sent you. Buy a pottery mug and then listen to some great blues. Best thing about it: free and open admission.

Rafael Delgadillo

The power of forgiveness.  The power of love.

An inspiration.

My friend.

Himself a miracle.

Rafa.

Why Do Some Conservatives Resent My Success?

I have lately been reflecting on my life, where I came from and where I've ended up; and I find that what I consider to be a crowning achievement tends to be viewed by many conservatives as something to belittle.

From the Archives: 7 Random or Weird Facts about Huck

(1) I swoon for Commander's Palace Bread Pudding Souffle With Whiskey Sauce. (Recipe here.) I think it's the best dessert in the entire universe.

(2) I was strip-searched by Swiss immigration authorities in Geneva after an overnight train ride from Barcelona during my undergraduate Junior Semester Abroad program travels. Given how I looked at the time, I can't say that I blame them. But, truth be told, I was very nicely treated during the whole process. Seriously.

(3) I gave up a full-ride academic merit scholarship for undergraduate studies at Tulane University to pay to go to Georgetown University. I almost gave my working-class father an aneurysm. (You must remember that I am the oldest child of six kids, with the youngest only 7 years my junior. My parents were looking at a steady stream of college tuitions for six kids spread out over 11 years. To his credit, my father now looks back on that decision and recognizes that it was the best thing I could have done.)

(4) I wrote a Sestina in honor of American writer Bernard Malamud. If you want to read the thing, I've posted it in the comments.

(5) When I was about 12-yrs-old, while playing a street version of cricket that we used to call "Cool Can" in my hood, I ran teeth first into a basketball goal post, suffering nothing more than a cracked front tooth. (Don't ask me how that was even possible without a busted lip and stitches, but I assure you it happened.)

(6) I think this is the greatest breakfast cereal of all time.

(7) Many, many years ago I studied ballet. Really and truly. Still thinking I had the ballet chops many years and many fried shrimp po-boys later, in a fit of Mardi Gras (2005) madness, after having disembarked from my float [I ride in the Thoth parade] on Magazine Street (around State Street), so that a flat tire on our float could be repaired, I gave a brief performance, which some of my graduate students captured on video and, to my horror, posted on YouTube. (Be duly advised: I neither confirm nor deny the authenticity of this clip. Also, you click and watch at your own risk).

MBH Pottery at the Palmer Park Arts Market Today

Well, it's once again that time of the month when my lovely bride will again be out at the Palmer Park Arts Market setting up her booth to sell her pottery. The market will be running today, Saturday, from 10am-4pm, and the weather forecast looks perfect. It promises to be a beautiful day and ideal for a visit to the Arts Market. My B-2/3 has been hard at work all month and has added significantly to her inventory of pieces. So, if you want to support a great cause and pick up some wonderful pieces of handmade, high quality pottery as wedding gifts, birthday presents, early Christmas or Hannukah gifts, or any other kind of gift, please do come out to the Arts Market today at Palmer Park on the corner of Claiborne and Carrollton Avenues and look her up. Of course, as usual, Michele will also be doing live demonstrations at her pottery wheel, so please come out, enjoy the market, and stop by to visit Michele to see how pots are thrown (and hopefully not at you!)

Headline of the Day

Republicans turned off by the size of Obama's package.

LOL!

3436: A Father Remembers

Though I do think publicly remembering 9/11 is important, I hesitate to overhype such things. I worry about memory movements becoming cultish and what can emerge from the overhype. But I think this StoryCorps memorial hits just the right tone for this sort of thing:

Busy Day

Since I can't seem to get myself back to sleep (I always have these bouts of fitful sleep the weekend before the start of a new semester), I figured I'd summarize my hectic Saturday, not because it's any more special than any other day, but because there were some unusually memorable moments about it.

First things first: I started out the day observing both the viralizing spread and the subsequent fallout of my post about the sad and nasty business at St. Charles Avenue Baptist Church. By referencing my blog post on my Facebook page, and having sympathetic FB friends link to the post on their own FB pages, my blog had its single best day of activity in its 9 year history. I reached up to some 150+ visits just today, which (sadly!) represents a 600% increase in my average daily blog traffic, with the vast majority of these visitors being referred to the Upchuck via Facebook. Given the rather tragic and sad nature of the events discussed in that posting, I'm not sure such a dramatic increase in blog traffic is something to be happy about. But I guess it's always these kinds of moments that draw the most attention. Anyway ...

Then, I helped my B-2/3 set up her booth at the Palmer Park Arts Market, which was a hot, sweaty affair so early in the morning.

After that, I did the regular Saturday morning chauffering duties with my Squirrelly Girlies, transporting them to the NO Academy of Dance for their many Saturday dance lessons.

And from there I rushed directly over to Xavier University, arriving with just a handful of minutes to spare before I needed to be on stage to participate in a Social Media, Social Justice panel for the Rising Tide 6 conference.

I accomplished all this by 10:15am. For once, I felt like I lived up to that military motto: we get more accomplished before 7am than most people do all day.

The RT6 Conference was awesome this year (as it usually is), at least the parts of it I was able to experience. Having the conference at Xavier this year gave it a conference feel that I am more accustomed to. I actually liked the venue extremely much, to be honest. And the folks at Xavier, in collaboration with the planners of the RT6 conference, did a truly outstanding job of putting this conference together. And the content of the conference was as fascinating as always. I thought my particular panel went well enough. [ASIDE: I had a revelatory moment about the theme of my panel, the content of my own presentation, and the whole situation with St. Charles Avenue Baptist Church. Here I was talking about the importance of the use of Social Media in promoting Social Justice for the undocumented immigrant community having just witnessed the power of Social Media to inform, mobilize, and editorialize around the controversy taking place at SCABC, and the immediate and far-reaching impacts that Social Media tools possess.]

Back to the details of my day: I was able to stay around the RT6 conference for the Oil Spill panel, for the delicious pulled pork lunch buffet provided by J'anita's (I believe), and for David Simon's (one of the creators of the HBO series Treme) keynote talk. I also took a few minutes to check out the vendor area. I was happy to see a lot of familiar faces and even to reconnect with an old High School friend, screenwriter, and film producer/director, Charlie Brown.

I was called away from the RT6 Conference by the Squirrelly Girlies right after David Simon's Keynote, and so had to leave to pick them up at the NO Dance Academy after their lessons. Which was just as well, because it was also creeping up on the end of the Palmer Park Arts Market, where I had to be to help my B-2/3 break down her booth. (She's a potter who makes beautiful functional pottery pieces.) Which, again, was another hot, sweaty affair. By the time everything was unloaded at the homefront and stored away in its proper place in my wife's pottery studio, it was getting towards evening time and I was exhausted.

And tomorrow promises to continue the madness (which is why I'm a little concerned about this bout of insomnia). We'll be hosting an alternative prayer/faith gathering tomorrow morning among the SCABC folks who can't (or won't) attend regular services at the actual church. Then, I'll be heading up to Tulane to participate in a bit of Freshman orientation events. And I'll end out the day by taking my Posse group (some incoming Freshman for whom I'll be serving as a mentor over the next couple of years) out to dinner before classes start in earnest on Monday.

So there you have it. Busy, busy, busy. But not unusual and to be expected for this particular weekend of the year.

Sudoku Mastery

I have been an on-and-off sudoku practitioner. Right now, I am in one of those sudoku fixation periods. I've gotten to the point that the challenge for me, even for the most difficult sudoku puzzles, is to complete the puzzle without making any notations in the margins or in the boxes themselves. I try to keep the patterns and counts in my mind. And I've gotten pretty good at it. So good, in fact, that it is not a question of my being able to solve any puzzle, but rather how quickly I can do it. So, if I really want to push myself with the game, I time myself to see how many minutes it takes me to do a puzzle from start to finish.

I got to this point, though, not because of any particular intellectual ability. Rather, it is through repetition and increased familiarity with the patterns of logic particular to this specific kind of puzzle. If I would give a tip to any sudoku aficionado who would like to improve his or her facility in puzzle solving, it would be this: don't work with single numbers, but with clusters of numbers, as many as you can hold in your mind's eye. For example, when you look at a row of nine squares, perhaps there are 3 numbers that are visible in that row. If you can memorize the 6 numbers that are missing in that row and hold that number combination in your mind as you cross tabulate those six numbers with all of the numbers in the 9 columns, you will more often than not be able to go through a process of elimination that could give you the one number of the six that fits in a particular square of that row.

I know it sounds kinda cryptic, but just keep in mind the idea of working with sets of numbers as opposed to single numbers and I think the value of doing that will become apparent and your sudoku puzzle solving abilities will grow exponentially.

Michele Benson Huck Pottery

At the Palmer Park Arts Market, this Saturday, from 10am-4pm. Drop by and say hello. Until then, you can get a glimpse of Michele (at the 0:35 point) in this nice video plug of the Arts Market: