Wild Tangents
Marc talks about life in Nashville, life as a Catholic and life as a geek.

As I sit here watching the news coverage of the various ceremonies to commemorate the terrorist attacks on my country, I think back to that day.

I had been living in Seattle but had to move back to Memphis due to being laid off (ironically from the same company I work for now). I had made that trek across the country just a couple of weeks prior. It was a wonderful drive that made me proud to be an American. Seeing so much of this wonderful country filled me with that pride and a certain sense of awe. Even in my despair at loosing my job, I knew that everything would be OK. On 9/11 I was still so newly returned to Memphis that I was staying with my aunt and uncle. They had gone with their kids and grandkids to San Diego to visit my cousin. They would be over a week late getting home.

I had slept late that morning. It would be another week before I would start a new job. In my groggy half-awake state, I was really confused. Wy was the news on all the channels? Not just the news channels and the network’s morning show, but ALL the channels. Just about then the phone rang. it was my mom asking, “Are you seeing this???” It took a moment for it all to sink in. It took a really long time for to accept that this was deliberate attack on the US. I was shocked and stunned. I attribute my reaction to this tragedy as being one of the two big catalysts for my reversion back to the Christian faith.

On this day six years later, my prayers continue to go out to the victims of this attack. My prayers also go to a conversion of the people who would do this sort of thing. THat the Lord will soften their hearts and make them come to hope for the same peace I do.

It’s been a long time since our Vegas trip. I’ve been a little busy and a little lazy. But I am fianlly getting around to posting some of the pictures. Here’s a sample:

Our first stop after getting to Vegas was the Hilton to go to the Star Trek Experience. They had Klingons and a Borg walking around. Here’s one of the Klingons.

Not long after getting there, Suzette was suddenly attacked by a Gorn!

I was able to fight him off, but I worked up an appetite so we had lunch. MMMM……Iguana burgers!

Exchanging war stories with with a crusty old Klingon warrior.

This was Suzette’s main reason for going to Vegas. She really wanted to ride the Gondolas at the Venetian. She got her wish. Here we are. This is inside BTW. They had a huge indoor shopping area that was made to look like an open air mall.

I managed to meet up with Vegas favorite and the king of rock and roll, Elvis Presley. Here I am showing him some new dance moves. He was standing around at this place that must have been a big hang out for celebs. It was Madam something or other.

Here’s Suzette getting a little too close to her favorite actor at that celeb bar.

Here we are with a nice scene of the strip behind us. I think this one was taken from one of the walkways that go over the street.

We took a lot more pictures. Some of them I’ve posted up on Flickr. Take a look at the whole set!

Technorati Tags: Elvis, pictures, Klingon, vacation, Vegas

I want to thank everyone for your hopes and prayers on our trip down south to Columbia. We spoke with a number of people down there and were very please with the staff and the campus. Unfortunately they would not budge on allowing Suzette to submit her application for the spring semester one day late. She is planning on applying for the fall semester of ‘08 at both Columbia and Vol State.

We have been happy with the folks at Vol State. They have been kind and courteous though out the past year and half she’s been attending classes there. The big problem is that the nursing program at Vol State is administered through TSU. The folks at TSU have been nothing but difficult and rude through the process of Suzette trying to apply for the nursing program. Between the stories we have and the stories told by her friends at Vol State who are trying to get into the nursing program, I also wonder if finding out about Columbia State wasn’t a double blessing.

My only fear is that Columbia State is pretty far away. Even the Franklin campus is pretty far. We might have to move again. I really love Gallatin, but if it’s best for Suzette, we will do it.

I just cleaned up the style sheet a little bit. I changed the unvisited links to the same color that visited links used to be. I then changed the visited link color to something that looks a little more orange to me.

I also put that horrible picture of me that I use everywhere up in the upper right hand corner. That way you might recognized me when you visit here, if you’ve seen one of my comments or otherwise noticed my presence somewhere else.

I’m also going to to be working on the “about” page. Don’t expect it soon, but know that I am working on it.

Technorati Tags: news, marc

Everyone lately it seems is down on bottled water. They complain that the plastic bottles are bad for the environment. I’ve heard many arguments against drinking bottled water. Some of them I agree with. One I don’t is that bottled water is no more or less healthy than drinking tap water. Then I read this today.

Unsafe levels of toxic chlorine pollutants were found in 40 percent of the District of Columbia tap water samples tested during a spring chlorine surge, according to a study released Thursday.

Obviously the folks that compare bottled water to tap water have also never tried the water in Austin. I travel a lot and usually use bottled water on the road. Even if the local water doesn’t upset my stomach, it could have local allergens I might not be able to fight off quickly.

I just found it interesting that there seems to me to have been a recent uproar over bottled water, then this news story came out. Timing is everything….

Technorati Tags: news, water

That’s right, I am taking the plunge and developing my own podcast.  Here is how I am describing it.

The Catholic Vocations Podcast is a podcast which focuses on the people who answered God’s call to a religious way of life within the Catholic faith.  It includes news and information on vocations, as well as an interview with someone who has answered God’s call to just such a religious vocation.

I’ve got some ideas for some others too, but we’ll have to wait and see how this works out first.

I don’t plan on having this podcast dominate Wild Tangents, it will be on a different domain.  It’s just that I haven’t set that one up fully yet and wanted to test the Podpress plugin.   Let me know what you think of the clip (if I get Podpress working that is).

 

 Catholic Vocations Podcast - Teaser [0:35m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (149)

Was I wrong?

Technorati Tags: America, freedom

The fourth of July is considered the birthday of America. Despite all her troubles over the past 231 years, she’s still the greatest place to live. Let be sure to keep it that way.

Technorati Tags: America, fourth, holiday, US

Two big hangouts of mine when I was in high school were the Mall of Memphis and the Antenna Club. Neither one of them still exist. But memories can be had on the interwebs. Yes, it seems both of them have fans crazy enough to dedicate whole web pages to them.

The Antenna Club’s fan page can be found here.

To put the description in basic terms, the Antenna Club was a live alternative music venue. I know I saw many more infamous than this, but the shows for All (which was a band that picked up the pieces after Milo left The Decendents) and Pigface are the ones I remember most. I also remember an all local band show on Halloween of 1987. Sobering Consequences headlined.

To be honest, the place was a dump. The restroom, aside form being alive stunk up the whole place. But it was “our” dump. Plus we had the Piggly Wiggly parking lot next door that we could “hang out in” when there wasn’t a show. There was also a wall on one side of a parking lot down the street that would always get graffitied. It was a cool place. Of all the similar venue clubs I’d been to in my youth in other cities, “home” was the best. Nobody had anything as cool as the Antenna.

The Mall Of Memphis fan page can be found here

Really I started hanging out at the MOM (Mall of Memphis) well before I started high school classes. We moved into a house just around the corner when I was seven or eight. We moved away when I was fourteen. It was close enough to ride our bikes. I spent many weekends and summer times there.

I didn’t really spend much high school time there. I do remember this one time. A group of had ridden up there with my friend Mike Blumenthal in his car. Well, somehow someone lifted his keys from him and drove the car around to the other side of the mall without him noticing. It was so funny because at first he was freaked out, but then he got a little excited at the fact that he might be getting new car. His car was a piece of junk Chevy Caprice. It was in really bad shape. He was actually disappointed when they guided him around to where they had moved the car. I was of course not in on it. I was with Mike the whole time, so they didn’t have a chance to let me in on the joke. So in a way the joke was kind of on me as well. I seem to recall be a little put out by the experience. I had to get up early in the morning or something. Looking back on it though, it as pretty funny.

So if you have memories of the Antenna Club or the Mall of Memphis, leave them in the comments. I’d love to hear from you!

Technorati Tags: 80’s, eighties, malls, Memphis, punk, web

I’ve got this poem stuck in my head. you see, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about podcasting. What I’ve thought about is testing the waters and learning the ropes by doing a podcast of poetry. I have been known to write a line or two in the distant past (a small sample can be found here). It seems that all these thoughts of poetry have brought back something from high school. I went to Ridgeway High School back in Memphis. For senior English we had this very “no nonsense”, “tell it like it is” teacher by the name of Harry Raney. Some people said he was crazy, but I always just thought he really cared about preparing us to go to college. One of the first (of many) big assignments Mr Raney would give every year was memorizing the prologue to Chanucer’s “The Canterbury Tales“. “Memorize it you say, that ain’t so bad”! Well, it does get worse. The reason why you had to memorize is so you could recite the whole thing in front of the class, in Old English.

Here’s the first few of the over 800 lines from this prologue:

Whan that Aprill, with his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote
And bathed every veyne in swich licour,
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours yronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open eye-
(So priketh hem Nature in hir corages);
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages
And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes
To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;
And specially from every shires ende
Of Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende,
The hooly blisful martir for to seke
That hem hath holpen, whan that they were seeke.

I don’t remember how much of this Mr. Raney had us recite. What I’ve put above is all I remember. I’m trying to decide if it is unfortunate or exciting that remember that even.

My wife and I saw Mr. Raney a couple of years ago. He had retired and was working on his “second career”. He seemed happy enough, but it also seemed that he might be missing being up in front of a class preparing them for what awaits after graduation. It unfortunate that he’ not teaching anymore as he was a great teacher.

As for the Canterbury Tales, don’t expect to hear me talking about it on iTunes anytime soon. But I suspect my voice may be coming down in a feed near you soon!

Technorati Tags: Chaucer, highschool, poetry, english, schools