Slip sliding away

The New Orleans times picayune has a good article on
the Morganza spillway, with a map showing where the water
will be diverted to lower the risk of flooding in New Orleans.

I didn't know that the Morganza spillway and Atchafalaya spillway
cover almost the same route. I lived for a couple of years
in the atchafalaya spillway in Butte La Rose (french for Rose's
Butt, I don't know who Rose was). It was pretty stupid to live
there, it was a great fishing camp, but I was single and working
offshore. When I got home, there was no food and it was 15 miles
to henderson on a levee road, so I subsisted mostly on what I could
buy at the local bait shop, beer and chips.

When I first moved there I fished almost every day from the dock.
Fishing and drinking is quite respectable, but after a while catching
fish really just got in the way of drinking. Also, since
my water discharge line was right below the dock I never ate anything
I caught, I think I just caught the same 5 fish over and over.

I crushed all my cans and kept them, thinking I would recycle them.
Finally I gave them to an old guy collecting cans on the side of the
road. Two 50 gallon bags of crushed cans, I thought the old guy was
going to kiss me.

Luckily, the owner asked me to move out because someone wanted to buy
the camp, and I moved back to Lafayette, otherwise I'd probably still be living
out there, or working as the assistant of the old guy picking up cans
on the side of the road.

I'm glad it looks like Butte La Rose won't be as flooded as
they were predicting earlier in the week. I really liked it out there,
it's just not a good first home.

Not brave

A bad day here in rainy italy. A typical italian day in this strange
summer that hasn't seen much sun yet. I was walking to lunch with
coworkers, my hung-over taste buds starting to awaken at the thought
of some gnochetti, when I heard a !crack! from down the street and I looked
up to see a semi truck had hit a motorcycle. The motorcycle exploded off the
front of the truck and I didn't see where the rider went.

We stood in shock for a second, and since the accident was only about 100 meters
away I could see that the people getting out of the truck and a couple of cars were
still in shock as well. No one was rushing to the motorcyclist. I started to walk towards
the accident thinking that if no one else was going to help then I should, I had the weirdest
thoughts because I couldn't see anyone hurt, was the guy unhurt and walking around,
or was there no rider and just an empty motorcycle was crushed?

As I got closer I could see the victim. And I was glad to see that people were starting
first aid and speaking with the emergency operators. My italian isn't normally good enough
to offer first aid advice but I could not think of a single word in italian to say. I was so relieved
that I didn't have to try and give first aid that I felt nothing but guilt, all the first aid classes
and buddy care classes coming to nought. Relief and the knowledge that I would probably
be sick if I stayed made me back away then walk back to my coworkers trying to control the
shaking in my hands.

happy 4th of July

Lileks has a visit to a fireworks stand up on buzz.mn which reminded
me of my unsuccessful stint working on a fireworks stand. One christmas
break in school I was only living off of my air national guard monthy
paycheck and GI bill ($250 total) Since school was closed my student job was closed
too, and it turns out that if you don't work they deliver no checks.

I needed some beer and food money, so I called a number on a flyer
for "do you want to make money" and it turned out to be a fireworks
stand down in Prairieville, which is about 30 minutes south of LSU and
is only otherwise famous for the titty bar 'Suthern Cumforts'.
I went down and interviewed (I don't remember if I wore a tie) and
I got the job, with $100 guarenteed plus a possible bonus if I sold well
working the two weekends before new year's eve.

Since the main determinant of success seemed to be whether you were
crusty, tattoed and smoked half a carton of marlboro reds in the box per day, I was
not successful. The crusty old carnies had no problem lying to kids,
mothers with kids, parents with grandparents holding american flags,
they would say anything to anyone to push the fireworks off the shelves.

My sales pitch ended with me telling the truth of what I thought of each
item, eg, that tank just fizzes and pops, it really doesn't do much.
apparently 20 year old catholic boys don't do well at that sort of thing...
(I'd probably sell the shit out that stuff now). The second weekend ended
and I had worked 4 - 12 hour days for total earnings of a crisp new $100 bill...
even with my shitty sales techniques I had sold at least $2k worth of
crap, I felt like I had been robbed.

What made up for my being violated was the owner let us shoot off about $5k worth of stuff before we closed down, which was certainly the best fireworks show I've ever participated
in. The cannons boomed, rockets swished and M-80's banged as we fought
our own little war, with the only witnesses being the traffic on Airline Highway
and the titty dancers from Suthern Kumforts.