Frothing Indignation

I find myself missing New Orleans more than I thought I would, and a certain part of me feels fundamentally changed for the trip. I can't quite put my finger on the feeling, nor can I identify a single moment that precipitated this change. I barely came to know the city, yet it is a city I want to know; simultaneously, Fort Lauderdale is becoming boring to me.

I feel the need to massively change my environment, my vacation only helped push those feelings forward. Now just to decide to actually make the move.

What's the infamous story people tell about you? 
Submitted by Cherney.

Memorial Day, 2005, a day which shall forever live in infamy...

I won''t go into details, but it involved kegs, karaoke, good friends, redheads, a girl named Pepper, a 1.5 L bottle of jaeger, EMTs, friends hiding me from said EMTs, professions of love, girls in a hub tub, and some drunk dialing. Yeah, that was one hell of a night.

If you could have three wishes from a genie, what would they be? 
Submitted by tatteredhalo.

Three is a bit overkill. I'd only make one wish for myself, then probably set the genie free. Of course it would be a huge wish. Something along the lines of being able to manipulate all space/time :).

I just took full advantage of my employee discount and booked a trip to New Orleans to visit my dear friend E. Yes, this discount is one of the reasons why I so adore the hospitality industry. I relish in that while others are paying, at a minimum, the ridiculous sum of $400+ a night, my entire stay will be significantly less.

Now I find myself facing the important questions in life: Do I want to risk the first floor dining room at Galatoire without reservations? And which wine(s) should I bring along for that dinner?

Ah, I can't wait until 3/20. I haven't traveled anywhere in ages. It'll be nice to actually step on a plane again without a thought about business.

Well, I know it's been quite awhile since I actually posted anything on Vox (or anywhere for that matter), and having some free time, I figured why not?

Life has been interesting lately. The hotel has been consuming almost all my time, but aside from that I find myself missing someone I didn't expect to miss. Of course, once you love someone it's impossible to ever stop loving them. I am in a bit of an indecisive rut as to whether I'm going to contact them or not. At least these feelings are spurring up interesting thought.

I'm also planning a trip (when I can escape the hotel...ha!) on the Trans-Siberian Railway (preferably the 'Red Express' from Moscow to Beijing via Mongolia) with an old friend. I miss traveling. I haven't been out of the country in years, and so I need a grand adventure to start things off again.

Otherwise all is well. I've been swilling lots of good wine (the last was a splendid Mouton-Rothschild '96, though it was a touch young--still wonderful though), taking photos, and starting to pick up the pen again.

And now I'll leave you all with some photos: (Blah, this importing from Flickr needs some work)
Anyway, tell me what you think.

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Well, I've been absent for quite some time and I know I've probably missed many things here. For the last several weeks I've been caught up in the chaos of opening an aspiring 5-star resort (for which, I assure any of you who have not done so, nerves of steel are required). Needless to say, I've been living in a service industry bubble and have a lot of catching up to do with friends and family now that we're open and I'll be getting some semblance of a life back.

I promise to catch up with everyone sometime within the next week.

And, just since everyone is doing it, I might as well go with a 2007 resolution or two:

1. I fully intend to 'cross the Rubicon' of the literary world this year.

That's all :)

How do you take your tea or coffee?
Submitted by Vasquez.

 Well, I take my coffee black, unless it's cheap work-coffee, then I have it black with two teaspoons of sugar, or if it's Turkish coffee, then it just has to be sweetened and spiced and boiled thrice. And for cafe au lait I do like some milk and sugar, but for a French press give me but grinds and hot water. Then there's tea. Oh, I could go on here. Oolong needs honey, something mellow, black sage or tupelo while gunpowder green needs orange blossom honey and black spiced tea, how about some rum and wildflower honey? Assams take sugar, preferably rock, and white teas? Well, they're sweet enough. 

Okay, so I finally got around to watching the King Kong remake and I have to say, I was caught up with it. Peter Jackson had me, especially at the end. The last 15 minutes stirred up a lot of emotion. Lots of powerful images there. Then he lost me. He lost me at the exact end, with Jack Black and his frickin' line "The airplanes didn't do it; t'was beauty killed the beast." That line ruined the entire movie for me. Not even the line itself, just the delivery. I was into it, it, nearly teary eyed, then that line hits and full stop.

I'm annoyed by this. Sure, it may be nitpicky, but I can forgive faults in the beginning and middle of a movie, even in the last bit, as long as the ending, those last maybe 3 minutes, are done wonderfully. It's a bit like Casablanca. Is it a perfect movie? No, of course not, but the last ten minutes of it are amazing. And while this version of King Kong is no Casablanca, the end was pretty damn well done. Except for that line. Now, instead of being completely sad and contemplating all the symbolism and allegory in the movie, I'm just frothing about one silly line.

Grrr.

/rant

For the last three nights my telescope has assumed its battle station outside the house aimed down the street, elevated precisely to capture the shuttle as it would first clear the horizon (I won't even mention the hours I spent calculating the precise coordinates I had to focus on and programming my telescope to track it). Tonight my crazy shuttle-watching list was fully satisfied, as I traced it from its first appearance on the horizon into orbit.

Ah, I love shuttle launches. They make me happy. I was always that dorky kid who wanted to be an astronaut when I grew up. Of course, I've since relinquished that dream, but I still get giddy over every launch. They give me hope that one day humanity will beable to reach beyond it's own solar system and well into the stars.

I wondered, watching it lift off, what the world will be like in ten thousand years? Will we have colonized our own solar system? And beyond? Space is the ultimately the only viable solution to our species survivability.

I sometimes wish I was born ten thousand years into the future, even though it's a roll of the dice between existence in a massively advanced human society, or meandering in the ashes of self-inflicted total annihilation (or somewhere in between). I'd take that roll of the dice though, just to see what it would be like.

What are your superstitions? 
Submitted by lazywong.

I'm not generally a superstitious person, but I do carry two gold coins on me whenever I'm out and about, just in case the boat man ever needs to collect his toll.