Pan Asia

Friday night, for our friend Vanessa's birthday, we ate at my favorite restaurant, Pan Asia, in Ridgeland. The stir fry bar rocks - I recommend the tofu. Julie rates their martinis incredibly high. Vanessa had the fish, and Todd the chicken. Pan Asia's web site is www.pan-asia.com. Now that I've posted this, I see the graphic looks like absolutely nothing. I am unable to capture any graphic from their site.

Tallpine Wreck

The house I grew up in, as it stood the Saturday after Hurricane Katrina. That day, the workers were there removing the pine trees from the roof and yard.

Tallpine Redeaux

This is the house where I grew up as it looks today. It has risen not literally from the ashes, but from an actual pile of crap following Hurricane Katrina. Although Hattiesburg is 90 miles from the Mississippi Gulf Coast, the winds were still strong when they passed through Hattiesburg on Aug. 29, 2005, causing 8 pine trees to fall on the house. My mother, who was in the house, survived. Luckily she did not lose absolutely everything, as so many people on the Coast and in New Orleans did. However, the roof was breached in many places and everything in the attic came down. Also, every piece of sheetrock and insulation was wet and strewn about everywhere. Anyway, she sold the house in April and it has been remodeled with a new roof, new fence and no telling what on the inside since I haven't seen that part. My mother is most dismayed because her 30 years of landscaping was actually scraped clean with a Bobcat. That doesn't explain entirely why the yard looks so bad...the uprooted pine trees caused a lot of the bald patches you see. So my final comment is, I hate the front door, but otherwise the house looks all right.

S-O-U-T-H-E-R-N

The past two weekends, we have traveled to Hattiesburg to see the home football games at Southern Miss. This is one of the campus street signs. Both games have been victories and worth the trip. Also on the trip, I have been able to visit with my mother, which has been good.

Downtown Chimney Rock

My brother Breck, his wife Jen, and Todd exploring downtown Chimney Rock, N.C.

Chimney Rock Gorge

We got this great view of the mountains from within the Chimney Rock Gorge in N.C. Since it was a Saturday, there was a small festival in the gorge, with people selling homemade goods. I bought some organic cat snacks, which my cats promptly decided were quite beneath them, thank you very much. That was $4 wasted.

Chimney Rock N.C.

Over Labor Day Weekend, we traveled to North Carolina, visited with my father, and got this view of the amazing Chimney Rock. Those of us who share my genetics were too seasick to navigate the winding roads which lead to the rock, so we didn't actually go there. Also I should mention that this area of North Carolina is near Lake Lure, which is where the movie Dirty Dancing was filmed.

We Have Access

For the past few weeks, we have had never ending trouble with our cable internet access to this computer, so that explains the long time between posts. We're back online now. We have given up on 'wireless' and have decided that 'wired' is the way to go!