Today I Learned a New Skill

I apologize for not posting in a while. Schoolwork has finally slowed down!

This morning I woke up and went to say hi to the rabbits as usual. I noticed Mercedes' nose was runny and as I got down to her level to pet her, I heard a quiet squeaking noise. I realized quickly that it was her breathing! Pobrasita! A wheezy runny-nosed bunny is never a good thing. I quickly called the Ridglea Animal Hospital, and they fitted Mercedes in for a 3:30 appointment.

She showed her usual sass during her exam, nipping that big Aggie vet twice. Whoops! Got his fingers too close to her choppers in the dental exam. He said that she probably had a little cold and that a round of antibiotics should do the trick. "Nurse, " he said, "fix up some [howevermany] mL needles of Penicillin." Whoa- needles plural? A shot at the office, no prob, but who is going administer the rest of those bad boys, I thought to myself.

"You'll need to give her these once a day," he answered my question. And my eyes widened. He explained the method: pull up the scruff, make a little tent of skin, get the needle close, and just pull the skin right over the needle. Job done. Then the nurse came in with the ten little neat syringes.

"I'd like you to go ahead and do this first one so I can watch," the doc said, of course. Go time! "OK! I can do this," I said aloud trying to pump myself up, trying not to give myself time to think about poking Mercedes with a needle. But, sure enough I just followed his directions and pumped the miracle medicine right under her quite tough scruff skin without even a flinch from the diva. How do you like that?

As soon as we got home she flopped down in front of the Count for grooming. He obliged, cleaning out her ears. What a good friend. Good thing he is so laid back that he doesn't mind a drama queen for a mate.

A trip to Bammy

We took a weekend trip to Alabama recently to visit old Negus family friend, Josh Payne, and to see the University of Alabama Crimson Tide football team. It was in Tuscaloosa, Al at a Bama game [coincidentally against Oklahoma] in September 2003, barely six weeks off the boat at Ellis Island, that Sam first fell in love with collegiate game of American football. The annual trip to visit Josh and the Tide in Dixie Land is a highlight of the calender. This year was a raging success. We had fun catching up with our friend, Bama won and are still unbeaten, and pulled pork sandwiches were eaten.

Sam with the statue of Wallace Wade, Bama's second national championship winning coach.

En route we stopped in Monroe, Louisiana for some delicious deep-fried only Cajun 'cuisine'. We do not know what a Pege is, but Ray has one in Monroe and it's a good time. If you go there wearing Bama gear on LSU-Bama weekend, or ever, you will get nasty looks. Your food may or may not be spat in, but you won't be able to taste it, so don't worry.

Laura with mountain of chubby goodness.

Fried shrimp, meet gravy. Yum!

The pejorative ethnic slur with which Louisianans are colloquially labelled in the south is "coonass," implying that they are all poor Cajun backwoodsmen who live off a diet of captured woodland critter. This is not always untrue. Fans of LSU football are also generally slighted for universally smelling of corn dog. This is not true, which is what makes it funny. Several Bama fans set up rope or box-based trap mechanisms baited with corn dog in order to capture unwitting coonasses. This one is actually labelled 'coonass trap' and for good measure has 'LSU' written on the dog in mustard. An unsuspecting LSU fan is about to take the bait... uh oh!

Josh, Laura and a Confederate flag in LSU colors. We also saw a U.S. flag in LSU colors being waved randomly in the middle of the street by a guy smiling at nothing. We made eye contact as we passed and he yelled: "I'm hammered" and nothing else. It was eight minutes past noon. That is basically game day in the South.


The obligatory visit to Gallettes - a shady, unmarked bar/club on the campus' main drag that had recently before our arrival had its floor cleaned by the popular hose method employed by the kinds of establishment at which one can expect to find ones shoes sticking to the floor.



As far as we could ascertain these boys genuinely believed they were Julio Jones and Greg McElroy.


Drown 'em, Tide.


The Million Dollar band 'bone section.


General aspect from the student section.

A man dressed as a Bear wearing hound's tooth pattern shorts hugging a man dressed as an Elephant. If you know about Bama this picture makes sense. If you don't, the explanation won't.

The Day Sam Got the Franchise or Adding A Dash of Lime to the Melting Pot.

Well, after 4 years of paperwork, check writing & waiting (mostly in reverse order of shown), Sam Negus became a citizen of the the good ol' US of A yesterday. It was a morning like any other, except that we woke up really early.

We then motored up the freeway with large quantities of E-quadrant drones to the USCIS office up near the airport. The man on security was exceptionally jovial. We took our seats in the big room, myself on one of the side aisles and Sam among the other 60 or some other multihued candidates in the middle. The ceremony was about 40 minutes, more laid-back than I would have thought, and generally a good time aside from the conspicuous absence of the national anthem and substitution by Lee Greenwood’s “Proud to Be An American” with accompanying video.

Before the ceremony I whispered to Sam, "What would the Queen think?" His reply, "She probably wishes she could leave, too."

Also, our friend's Snapple bottle cap yesterday portentously offered the old advice, "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em."

Below are some snaps of the day:

Some light, pre-ceremony reading. Note boots, classy choice.

Sam has his document inspected to make sure he has neither become a Communist or terrorist nor traveled anywhere shady since his interview.

Sam stands and waves his mini-flag when the UK is called. There were representatives from about 30 or so countries from Vietnam to Cote d'Ivoire to Belarus. Half the room stood up for Mexico.

Sam promising to bear arms for the US, etc.

The President welcomes everyone as citizens, urging them to embrace the civic responsibilities that come therewith. Pretty good speech.

Sam with official certificate of citizenship & official mini-flag with mini-Lady Liberty.

What new citizen would be complete without a t-shirt like this? Took literally less than 60 seconds to find at our local thrift store.

Champagne toast! "My fellow Americans...etc etc."

Beantown

I did actually do more than go to baseball games during my time in Boston. Apart from packing in a drink or two I also followed the Freedom Trail (Boston's historical site of interest walking tour) and hung out a little at Harvard in the hope of imbibing some extra IQ.

Beautiful Boston Common.

The Massachusetts State House.

The dome was originally plated in copper by Paul Revere's company.

The Old South Meeting House. Many gatherings of disgruntled Bostonians took place here in the run up to the Revolution. Basic items on the agenda included: "Is having a King totally dud?"

The tomb of the Winthrops, the first family of Massachusetts history.

Paul Revere's grave. Amongst many other interesting highlights in his career Revere led a group of riders out of Boston to warn the militia men in the Eastern Mass. country side that the British garrison had left Boston to come looking for them. This led to the 'battles' of Lexington and Concord, the first real shots of the Revolution.

Paul Revere's house. Not many cities of this size in the world retain any wooden house dating to the early 18th century. Good luck finding one in London.

The old North Church, which lit the first beacon of the back-up warning system lest Revere's famous ride fail.

Inside the North Church. Cool historic flags.

Faneuil Hall. Also a site of important meetings of grumbling.

The scene of many a grumble.

Charlestown, Mass. just across the bay and now contiguous with the city. At the bottom of this hill is a tavern dating to the early 18th century at which many revolutionary types including Samuel Adams are reported to have eaten/drunk. Me and Michael Wood are recent visitors of noteworthy note. Some grumbling was done, mostly about SEC football.

The Bunker Hill monument. There are 300 hundred steps inside to the top. It seems like a great idea to climb it. Let me save you if you've never been but one day will.

IT IS NOT WORTH IT. DO NOT CLIMB THIS.

Great view. Big whoop. Good luck walking home after.

No one sight reminded me how much Boston has changed over the centuries than this. The graves of Revere, Adams and other political heroes were highlighted prominently and well maintained. Me and Michael had to look around for this grave and found it in total disrepair. Increase and Cotton Mather were two of the three most important New England divines in American history. Their histories and theology were milestones in American thought and religious life. Now, they're just dead clerics.

Those changes to Boston at large began here, at Harvard. One time divinity school now elite university. Not so religious these days.

The Harvard boat house on the Charles River. Various domes and spires of HU behind.

Harvard Hall, one of the older buildings.

The first Parish of Cambridge, Mass., dating to 1636. Then it would have been Congregational. Now it is Unitarian Universalist. Another barometer of Harvard-led change.


I don't think the Parish's physical address is supposed to be a joke, but it made me laugh.




This is clearly the most important structure in all of Boston, though for some reason I was the only tourist looking at it. This is Harvard stadium. Built in 1903 it is the first purpose-built college football stadium in America. It hasn't changed since. No seats, no bleachers, no frills. Just a beautiful Greco-Roman revival style for the sole purpose of watching pigskin.

Shame about the fake turf.

Boston's tall ship festival happened to be going on while we were in town, but the harbour was so packed we did no more than walk past. This is the Eagle, the US Coastguard's training Brig.

And the Shakespeare award goes to...

This year's nominee for Best Line from a Love Postcard featuring the Harvard football stadium:

"It is dan having you on my sideline."

Fenway

I went to Boston last weekend. While I was there I was fortunate enough to be able to visit Fenway Park, the famed home of the once hapless, now resurgent Red Sox.

One of the last parks to fight off America's craze for knocking down old buildings and replacing them with modern crap.

Beer did not cost this much in 1912. It also was neither light nor Bud.

Keiran "K-Dog" Hassler. An old Bristol University pal. British born, Rochester, NY raised, Bristol 'educated', now a New Hampshire man. Basically nuts.

The infamous Green Monster. Basically Boston didn't have enough space in the neighbourhood around the park to put in a full sized right-field. So they built this. Right handed hitters hate it. Somehow I managed to see five home-runs over this thing in two nights. One cleared it by about 50ft. It was impressive.

Less impressive was our "restricted view" seating on my first visit.

Who needs to see the pitcher really?

Old-timey wooden seating. Takes me back to the football grounds of my youth.

This Washington State grad tool on the left features in the story later. He sucked.


A view from our brief sojourn in some temporarily unoccupied seats with a better view. We were soon bounced from these when the owners of the corresponding tickets arrived. We moved forward one row. Same thing happened. By this point we were annoying a few locals and becoming 'those guys'. But honestly, who doesn't try to get away from seats with a post between them and the mound?



The joke was on the grumpy types who objected to our attempts to emancipate ourselves from restricted view slavery when 2.5 innings into my career as a Sox fan I got a foul ball. It came into our section, landed in the aisle, and rolled past my crappy seat as a bunch of butter fingered dudes clamored for it. I just reached down and picked it up. I'll probably never get anywhere near a ball at a game for the rest of my life.
Later in the game, when almost the entire section behind us had emptied, we moved again. But we had the misfortune to randomly sit in our doochey Wazzu friend's seats while he was at the concession stand. Rather than ask us to move down a few seats he immediately called security, who returned us from the three rows of unoccupied space back behind the infernal pillar.

The view was a little better from the outfield on my second visit.

The game was also incredible, with about 800 hits and several dozen runs. Even better, all the Kansas City scoring madness commenced after the former Atlanta Braves legend, starting pitcher John "I refuse to age" Smoltz, had left the game at the end of five innings.

Michael Wood was in town from Fort Worth, largely to visit Fenway and generally have a rocking time. Which I think we managed to do, despite the pain he felt at seeing Smoltzy in a foreign uniform.

Or you could just knock your stadium down, build another one and slap 'new' on its name. Genius move Yankees. What's next? New Notre Dame stadium anyone? That thing's junk.

Sox fans are a very committed bunch.