When I saw the Coke Bottle Green sky, I knew something was up, so I grabbed one of my cameras and shot this video and pictures. So far, they're saying straight line winds, and not a tornado. Listen to the wind when I finally run inside and as I struggle to close the door against the pressure of the wind; when I looked at my sliding glass patio door, I was afraid it might blow in on me.
I built a small sailboat called a "Puddle Duck Racer" from plans downloaded off the Internet at pdracer dot com.
One of my law school buddies helped me out by letting me use his truck to carry the little boat to the resevoir. There wasn't any wind, so the sail was no good, so we just rowed with the oars.
I don't think we "floated" so much as merely "sank very very slowly"
Jeff and Patrick, from Louisiana, put together an enormous crawfish boil at the end of the sememester. It is our final year of lawschool.
250 pounds of crawfish were consumed, and a good time was had by all.
We stop to check out Emerald Mound, the second largest Indian Mound in the country. This was once a center of commerce, religion, and culture. John decides to roll down the mound, and I slide down the rail of the stairway. I weep for the future.
At our lawschool's Libel Show, a very good skit of four of our professors in a Jeopardy game. Hosted by "Professor Jackson", the contestents are "McCann", "Challener", and "Hetherington".
We finally reached the ghost town of Rodney MS, site of the only time in US Navy history that a small group of cavalry captured the crew of a Navy ship.
This is our trip out of Tupelo, and some of the trip to Birmingham. You can get an idea of the size of the pack, and see some of the cars peeling off to shoot video from the roadside, and then catching up to pass everyone so they can do it all over again.
A lady found this baby raccoon by her dumpster, and brought it to the pet store, where this nice young lady is feeding it. Apparently raccoons can be raised up and then released back into the wild without too many ill effects.
It's not terribly dramatic... except that she was located in Hattiesburg MS, 70 miles inland. The damn thing was still a Category 1 Hurricane when it reached me here in Jackson MS. We were outta power for four days or so.
In order to keep expenses down on a working trip out west, I've got various food items packed into the car, including some MREs that are a minimum of three full years old (they're pre Katrina). I illustrate the typical contents, and (poorly) how to heat up the entree using the heater bag. :)
Windsor Ruins used to be an antebellum home. It was deemed too beautiful to destroy by the Union forces. In the 1890s, however, a partygoer's cigarette ignited something and the whole place burned down. In today's dollars, it was a 3 million dollar home.