Mardi Gras Po Boys

I tried out another restaurant in Greenville tonight. There is a relatively new place called "Mardi Gras Po Boys". I tried a muffuletta instead of a poboy. It was not a great muffuletta but considering that I am in the Delta it was not too bad. Oh yeah, if you don't know what a muffuletta is check here. The bread was not quite right, but close. The olive salad was the biggest weak link, not soft enough or enough oliver, more oil then anything else. Oh yeah, they needed more meat and cheese, but it was successful enough I might try a poboy from there soon.

Hot Tamale Heaven.........NOT!

I was driving home from work tonight and noticed a restaurant, Hot Tamale Heaven. The thing about this particular restaurant that caught my attention was that it is simply a portable metal building (like a construction site trailer) parked on a gravel lot with a drive up window and walk up window installed.
I guess I should explain that tamales are a big thing here in the Delta for some reason, not sure why, but you can check out Alton Brown's Feasting on Asphalt 2 for some information.
Anyway, so I was intrigued by this place and decided to give them a shot. The menu was interesting for a drive up shack: tamales, wings, burger, ripper dog, fish platter (it is the Delta), hush puppies (again, it is the Delta), country fried steak sandwich, fried tamales, and tamale pie. I decided to try some tamales and some wings. The tamales were ok, not too bad, the wings were just not worth a second try although they did smell really good.
I will probably go back and try some more items off the menu though. For those not familiar with a ripper dog, it is a hot dog tossed in a deep fryer until the skin rips open......mmmmm cardiologist friendly. I will also probably give their hush puppies a try because I still have not found any really good hush puppies here yet.

Weekend Update!

Just back from a nice 4 day weekend in NO. Four days flies by but was a lot of fun and I got a lot done. So we will start in a random spot:

Congratulations to Anna and Sean on their new marriage and very lovely wedding. La's singing was spot on. I need to thank Beau for the text message updates on the LSU-Alabama game during the wedding, because who gets married in NO during the LSU-Alabama game?

I did a ton of plumbing on the addition for the new bathroom and laundry room. Check out the newest pics on Picasa. Ron, I could have used your help. It is sort of like figuring out a big giant 3-D jigsaw puzzle. The vast majority of the DWV (drain-waste-ventilation) is done. I need to tie in the shower drain (need to buy it) and plumb the vent for the shower, which is also going to serve as the wet vent for the toilet. I also need to add a vent stack for the laundry room sink and tie all the vents together to go through the roof. The only other plumbing left for the addition is to do the supply lines, but that goes so much faster.

La has been trying to leave NO for 24 hours. I just got a text message that she is boarding the flight, so it looks like she will be successful. She was supposed to board a flight last night that was postponed and then canceled. La was rescheduled for tonight and when she got to the airport her flight was announced as being delayed. She needs to get back to work to keep Alcasco going, especially since I am heading to Chicago this Friday so she will be having a short work week anyway. Much beer is awaiting me in Chicago.

New Toy

It has been a number of years since I bothered to have a printer hooked up at home. The new job has me limited in my internet access and free reign to use the computer and being that I am stuck in the Delta for a bit longer I finally broke down and bought a new one. I need to be able to print thesis stuff and scan a few things so I decided to buy a multi-function printer. Long story short I ended up buying a HP LaserJet 3050. I got a good deal on it and then spent a chunk of time getting the drivers installed tonight.
I scanned and then edited the picture above from the original that survived Katrina. For those who don't know what it is, that is the tensile testing results from the nanocomposite fibers. There were a number of curves on the plot that were no good because of clamp slippage. The other problem is that all the curves were the same linestyle....that would suck for black and white printing so I had to convert one to a dotted line. For all your image manipulation needs I recommend the GIMP. I also resized the picture using one of the few good and free tools from Microsoft, the Image Resizer. Just scroll down and select the ImageResizer.exe. Once installed you can select one or a group of pictures and when you right click an option (besides cut, paste, etc) will be to resize. Super simple, super quick.

Oh yeah, this means I can now put this image into both my thesis and the latest paper I am working on!

WTF?!?!

Another boss rant....consider yourself warned! Actually it is 2 rants!

Friday my boss comes to see me with a paper that he has finally agreed to let go out to a journal. He has it in his hand and asks me "You do still plan on learning more about statistics don't you?"
Me: "Ummm yeah, why is there something wrong with the statistics in the paper?"
Boss: "No"

WTF?!?! Where did that come from? I mean really!

So today he brings me a Plan of Work that he was reviewing. I should explain that the Plain of Work is an internal document used to outline a project including such things as literature search, hypothesis, sampling and testing, etc.... This was an update of a previous Plan of Work. I added a part 2 to something he had previously approved! He admits as he comes in the room that he only has a few small things.....mostly grammatical. Now, I will admit that the grammar was not 100% spot on. I threw together a quick document for internal use....I guess I should have done better. Oh by the way, all of his grammar comments were in the original part of the document and not the new part of the document......he missed them the first time.
That is not the problem though, if all you can pick on is my grammar so be it. But no! He then tells me "you know, you don't need to do all variables for all projects" Ok, this may be, but this is a pretty big project and it is designed to allow us to establish some fundamentals, so I think it would be best to do all the variables we can. I explained this thought and he agreed that for this project it is important but he was "...just saying for future reference...." WTF?!?!?! I mean really!

I think Beau and Leslie have hit the nail on the head for this one.........ARGH!

Good news is that it is a short week for me....Wednesday night I am out of here for the rest of the week.

Ahead or Behind the Curve

My boss asked me and my co-worker to turn in our abstracts for a conference for him to review. The conference deadline is Friday and he is asking us to turn them in on Thursday. I told him mine had been in his mailbox since Tuesday and he said he did recall my telling him that on Tuesday. My co-worker said he had not started one yet and was not sure that he was going to do one.
My boss then began "telling us a story" about a previous employee who always had his papers and presentations finished 4-5 months ahead of schedule. Now let's forget that I have only been on the job for a few months, and we can forget that I am head of the publication requirements for an entire year on the job in that short time, but WTF? I turn mine in before he asks about it (oh yeah, did I mention I found out about it on Monday?) and get lectured while my co-worker does not plan on doing one and it is all good.
My response to the story was that once you get ahead of the curve and have been doing the job for awhile you should be able to prepare presentations quickly and ahead of schedule. Perhaps I am ahead of the curve or perhaps I am permanently behind the curve....ideas?

Save the Haus!

Deutsches Haus is home to the best Oktoberfest in New Orleans. The Haus has been a New Orleans fixture since 1928. The city of New Orleans has created an asinine plan to build a new LSU/VA hospital complex right on top of the Haus.

Now I have a few issues with this:
1) I am not a conspiracy theorist, but is it a coincidence that someone was buying up the property all around the Haus right before the announcement of this plan?
2) The city wants to spend $50 million out of $200 million in federal funds dedicated to repair streets and public buildings damaged in Katrina to buy the area around and including the Haus. The city would then give the land to the VA in exchange for the old VA property for the city to lease out or sell. Something does not smell right in that deal............ read about it here.

You can sign a petition to Save the Haus online.