Hire MacGyver:
And yes, I watched every single episode of MacGyver multiple times growing up...
Monday, May 31, 2010
Sunday, May 23, 2010
4 Years of Engineering
As of yesterday, I've worked as an engineer for 4 years. I graduated on a Saturday, got a job offer Monday, started the Monday after that.
I'm now eligible to take the P.E. Exam. Most states require 5 years of experience before you can take the Principles and Practice in Engineering Exam. Louisiana only requires 4 (and up until this year, you could take it with 3 years, 9 months experience and the time that lapsed between applying and taking the exam an getting the results would take care of the 4 years experience).
The application is due on June 1st and I have everything done. I was just waiting for the official 4 year mark to appear on my experience record, that way there could be no hiccups. You're given an extra month to finalize the application in case of an error or an incomplete application.
I'll take the exam in late October. I've been studying for November and there are times where I'd just prefer to go to the bar and watch baseball. I've gotten pretty frustrated sometimes because, at least for the mechanical exam, there is SO MUCH MATERIAL on the exam.
I've been pretty fortunate in that I've been switched around and gotten lots of experience in different areas; I haven't been pigeonholed doing just one thing. Despite this, I've had nowhere near enough exposure to everything on the exam. The three main areas on the exam are Machine Design, Thermofluids, and HVAC. I've never done any HVAC work and have been teaching that to myself.
The only thing that I've personally worked on enough where I feel like I could take the exam without studying is pumps and piping. Everything else, I have to study. I wonder how hard mechanical engineering is compared to some of the hyper-specific exams like nuclear or petroleum. It's not enough just to know the subject, but you also have to be able to work the problems quickly and efficiently without a computer. So far, I've worked out HVAC problems so quickly that, despite the fact that I've never done that for my job, I'm leaning towards taking that as the "in-depth" portion of the exam.
I'll be making lots of trips to Rue this summer to study...
I'm now eligible to take the P.E. Exam. Most states require 5 years of experience before you can take the Principles and Practice in Engineering Exam. Louisiana only requires 4 (and up until this year, you could take it with 3 years, 9 months experience and the time that lapsed between applying and taking the exam an getting the results would take care of the 4 years experience).
The application is due on June 1st and I have everything done. I was just waiting for the official 4 year mark to appear on my experience record, that way there could be no hiccups. You're given an extra month to finalize the application in case of an error or an incomplete application.
I'll take the exam in late October. I've been studying for November and there are times where I'd just prefer to go to the bar and watch baseball. I've gotten pretty frustrated sometimes because, at least for the mechanical exam, there is SO MUCH MATERIAL on the exam.
I've been pretty fortunate in that I've been switched around and gotten lots of experience in different areas; I haven't been pigeonholed doing just one thing. Despite this, I've had nowhere near enough exposure to everything on the exam. The three main areas on the exam are Machine Design, Thermofluids, and HVAC. I've never done any HVAC work and have been teaching that to myself.
The only thing that I've personally worked on enough where I feel like I could take the exam without studying is pumps and piping. Everything else, I have to study. I wonder how hard mechanical engineering is compared to some of the hyper-specific exams like nuclear or petroleum. It's not enough just to know the subject, but you also have to be able to work the problems quickly and efficiently without a computer. So far, I've worked out HVAC problems so quickly that, despite the fact that I've never done that for my job, I'm leaning towards taking that as the "in-depth" portion of the exam.
I'll be making lots of trips to Rue this summer to study...
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Deepwater Horizon / Macondo Blowout - Links
I've been a little hesitant to post anything about the Deepwater Horizon/Macondo Blowout. I tend to work on things from the Christmas tree up, but here are a few things to peruse for starters:
The Oil Drum has had some fantastic coverage of the blowout. Probably the best single website when it comes to clear, concise, timely, technically accurate coverage (although RigZone has been pretty good, too).
P.E. writes about about working on rigs and pulls from his vast experience to offer his thoughts.
In the end, the document that should be the most read is the Coast Guard/MMS Board of Inquiry findings. Here's the one for the Ocean Ranger [PDF]. While we can make some very good hypothesis about the technical causes of the blowout and what could be done better to protect the environment and personnel, remember to keep an open mind until all the data is in, especially when the Blowout Preventer is pulled and carefully analyzed on the surface.
60 Minutes. The 60 Minutes piece on the Deepwater Horizon is well worth a watch. It fills in a few holes, but remember it's just a few pieces in the giant puzzle of what went wrong (and for a disaster of this magnitude, there's many, overlapping modes of failure).
Here's a couple of my old posts worth a read, too:
Engineering Disasters: The Demise of the Ocean Ranger
The Offshore Imperative
________________
UPDATE- MMS engineer warned of the danger of deepwater blowouts in 2009. Note that the odds of a deepwater blowout were calculated to be roughly 1 in 400 chance; that's about the same as a Category 5 hurricane destroying our crappy 100-year-level storm protection...
Oil Reaches Shore - Boston.com's Big Picture
The Oil Drum has had some fantastic coverage of the blowout. Probably the best single website when it comes to clear, concise, timely, technically accurate coverage (although RigZone has been pretty good, too).
P.E. writes about about working on rigs and pulls from his vast experience to offer his thoughts.
In the end, the document that should be the most read is the Coast Guard/MMS Board of Inquiry findings. Here's the one for the Ocean Ranger [PDF]. While we can make some very good hypothesis about the technical causes of the blowout and what could be done better to protect the environment and personnel, remember to keep an open mind until all the data is in, especially when the Blowout Preventer is pulled and carefully analyzed on the surface.
60 Minutes. The 60 Minutes piece on the Deepwater Horizon is well worth a watch. It fills in a few holes, but remember it's just a few pieces in the giant puzzle of what went wrong (and for a disaster of this magnitude, there's many, overlapping modes of failure).
Here's a couple of my old posts worth a read, too:
Engineering Disasters: The Demise of the Ocean Ranger
The Offshore Imperative
________________
UPDATE- MMS engineer warned of the danger of deepwater blowouts in 2009. Note that the odds of a deepwater blowout were calculated to be roughly 1 in 400 chance; that's about the same as a Category 5 hurricane destroying our crappy 100-year-level storm protection...
Oil Reaches Shore - Boston.com's Big Picture
Thursday, May 13, 2010
The F-N Diagram
I was going to do a bigger post on this, but I've sort of let it slide, but I didn't want to completely forget about it.
From here: Managing Risk to Humans and to Floodplain Resources (PDF). The chart shows chance of a levee breach on the vertical axis and number of fatalities on the horizontal axis.
When this chart was put up at the Tulane Engineering Forum, the audience took a second to process it (note the log-log scale), but when they did, there was a gasp. It's not every day you see a graph of fatalities on a logarithmic scale. Each line is 10 times worse than the line preceding it. You don't want to see the New Orleans levees in the upper right quadrant of this chart.
The big point I was going to make in the long post I never wrote was we need MUCH more than 100-year level levees.
Related: Residual Risk / YRHT. Very good quote from Dr. Bea.
More here:
Risk-based design of flood defense systems (PDF).
Remember, hurricane season is less than 3 weeks away.
UPDATE- Some minor edits.
UPDATE 2 - Presentations Online
From here: Managing Risk to Humans and to Floodplain Resources (PDF). The chart shows chance of a levee breach on the vertical axis and number of fatalities on the horizontal axis.
When this chart was put up at the Tulane Engineering Forum, the audience took a second to process it (note the log-log scale), but when they did, there was a gasp. It's not every day you see a graph of fatalities on a logarithmic scale. Each line is 10 times worse than the line preceding it. You don't want to see the New Orleans levees in the upper right quadrant of this chart.
The big point I was going to make in the long post I never wrote was we need MUCH more than 100-year level levees.
Related: Residual Risk / YRHT. Very good quote from Dr. Bea.
More here:
Risk-based design of flood defense systems (PDF).
Remember, hurricane season is less than 3 weeks away.
UPDATE- Some minor edits.
UPDATE 2 - Presentations Online
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Wedding Photos are in...
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(picture courtesy Tiffany Coker)
We went on a walk through the Garden District at sunset after the wedding. We got some great photos. This is my favorite.
Monday, May 3, 2010
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Don't forget to go vote today
There's a special election for state rep.
Got this attack flier the mail about the Eagle Scout.
Got this attack flier the mail about the Eagle Scout.
Monday, April 19, 2010
How an Engineer Eats Oysters
Grasp the lemon in your hand. Firmly squeeze the lemon juice all over the oysters.
Next, mix your cocktail sauce. Add approximately 40/60 ketchup/horseradish and stir. The real judge is the smell and the color. The cocktail sauce should have a pinkish hue.
Next, open a package of crackers. Take one out. Spread on a layer of cocktail sauce 1/8" thick. It should look like this:
Every hole on the cracker should retain some cocktail sauce.
Take your oyster fork and free the little guy from the shell. Place him on the cracker.
Down the hatch!
Repeat at least 11 times.
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Notes on the 2010 Tulane Engineering Forum
Got a chance to attend the 2010 Tulane Engineering Forum yesterday. It's been evolving into the most interesting engineering conference in the city. There's a good chunk of the city's P.E.'s that attend it every year, including lots of business owners. There's also always at least one presentation every year on the state levees. Partly because of the technical proficiency of the audience, you get some extremely in depth and thorough debate.
Last year's introductory session {PDF} was given by the Corps and I'm told they spent the whole time praising all the things that are being fixed up and all the good things the Corps has done. I'm told that there was some interesting back and forth at the end of their presentation, but I don't know the details, so that's all I'm going to say about that for now.
This year's presentation was by Dr. Dalrymple, Dr. Bolard (PE), Dr. Christian (PE), and Dr. Reed. They were a part of the National Research Council's team that worked for the Corps on LACPR, basically the task force that Congress appointed to design "Category 5 Levees."
As we all know, to date, there is no solid plan for Category 5 Levees. The most up to date thing the Corps came up with was a "menu of options" (111 in total) that was slammed when it came out. The Corps, despite billing themselves as the premier coastal engineers in the country, left it up to Congress to make the ultimate determination of what would get done. While there are some political implications (see Oyster's post), the panel went through some of the scientific and engineering challenges that also pose problems.
First to present was Dr. Dalrymple. His main points were the lack of a "sediment budget" for the lower Mississippi River. The loss of sediment load and sedimentation action is the #1 coastal loss issue, according to him. This was one of his slides:
Source
As a side note, if you were to poll the top 100 coastal Louisiana experts on what the biggest problem is, probably 95 would say either canals, primarily for oil and gas exploration, or sediment loss, primarily due to levees confining the Mississippi River. When you have someone from the Corps speak, they tend to play up the canals and when someone from the oil industry speaks, they tend to play up the sediment loss. All four presenters, while nominally affiliated with the Corps, were heavily into the sedimentation camp.
Dr. Dalryrmple went on to comment about to designing a "Category 5 Levee" system. It would be more accurate to describe what New Orleans needs as a 400-1,000 year level of storm protection. No matter what is built, some local cooperation is needed for non-structural mitigation strategies, such as zoning, building codes, and buyouts.
In the end, Dr. Dalrymple held a fairly pessimistic view of the future. When asked what was the NRC's influence on the Corps' plans, Dr. Dalrymple described it as "subtle." The audience of engineers nervously laughed.
Dr. Bolard was the next to present. He once again railed against the failure to take advantage of sediment, both with beneficial use of dredged materials and how we're still directing the majority of the sediment load that comes past the city off the continental shelf into hundreds of feet of water. 125 Million Tons per year of sediment are wasted in this way. Dr. Bolard pointed out that all of the plans from the Corps assume that we'll have basically the same coastline as we do now in 50 years, despite the fact that we lose 24 square miles of coastline per year and that trend has been more or less unchanged for 80+ years! The bulk of Dr. Bolard's remaining presentation was a complicated discussion of the Corps' attempt at using MCDA to whittle down the 111 plans into one or a few actionable items. He described the multiple attempts as failures, for a variety of reasons.
Dr. Christian was next to present and he had by far the best presentation of the group. I'll actually skip over most of his presentation because I want to come back to it in a later post. He mostly talked about the "600-lbs. gorilla in the room: the Corps' performance before during and after Katrina." He started off by listing things that Corps has done into 3 categories: things that have been blamed on the Corps, but aren't really their fault, things the Corps has done well, and thing the Corps has done "not so well."
On the things the Corps gets blamed for, but isn't really their fault, he claimed: split responsibility, Louisiana politics, and a few other minor things. He gave one example of a specific floodgate that has 5 different entities "controlling" it (railroads, roadways, the local levee board, and the Corps). He said that they looked up the operation procedures of each of the organizations and each one assumed that someone else would close the gate in the event of an approaching storm! Also, Louisiana's political scene doesn't do us any favors nationally when hunting for funds to build the levees.
Dr. Christian's list of things the Corps does well were Task Force Guardian, IPET, and the Corps' hydraulics and hydrology understanding. He particularly singled out the Vicksburg office for their understanding of hydrology.
Dr. Chrisian's list of things the Corps does "not-good" was pretty scary. First, he says that all too often you'll have a representative from the Corps, say that the Corps has never had a failure. He says that if you put enough modifiers and adjectives in there, you can get a strictly factual statement, but, in the end, THE LEVEES FAILED!
NOAA via Wikipedia
It's sad to say, but the Corps failed, the Corps failed, the Corps failed. He said it needs to be drilled in that the Corps' levees failed from Katrina's glancing blow under stresses far below their design capacity. The Corps-built levees resulted in the worst civil engineering disaster in American history. Dr. Christian was adamant that that fact not be overlooked in any way.
Dr. Christians other two serious criticisms was the Corps' geotechnical and soils analysis, especially with the New Orleans office is fundamentally flawed. He said that was his professional opinion and that he knew there were lots of people with the Corps that would take strenuous objection to the statement. Note that the debate safe water level in the outfall canals has been extremely contention because of just this issue.
Dr. Christian's last "not so good" Corps procedure was that peer review, while successfully implemented under TF Guardian and IPET, has become a "box-check" and not a real concerted effort. Getting any information out of the Corps is like pulling teeth and there's outright hostility to "outsiders" looking over the Corps' design process.
Dr. Christian made a lot of bold statements, but between the slides and his response to engineers' questions, he seemed to back them up, IMHO.
Dr. Reed was the last one to present. She spoke of the need to manage flood protection, navigation (remember, the reason New Orleans exists), and coastal restoration. We managing the lower delta (where to chop it off) is the big issue for the next 50 years. We don't have the sediment load to preserve everything that exists today, so we need to do some triage. She also mentioned that Mississippi is extremely concerned with any effort to gate the mouth of Lake Pontchartrain because of its effects on Mississippi Gulf Coast storm surges (probably increasing them).
Where does all this leave us? One attendee who saw both plenary sessions (2009 Corps and 2010 NRC/LACPR) described them as presenting "quite a different picture." Currently, we have no plan for Category 5 Levees. The Corps says they'll come out with a plan 'this summer,' but we'll see if/when it comes out and if it's just another "menu" of options. The full presentation will also eventually be uploaded to this page.
NOTE- Minor edits. Also, Dr. Christian praised the Times-Picayune coverage of the situation. He says they've done a better job of informing the locals of the challenges facing the city than anyone has ever given them credit for (and it's not like they've been ignored).
UPDATE- Looks like Mike Schleifstein made it. His article looks along the same lines as mine, but I've got a few more details and he's got a few more links. Also, he caught that the new due date for "Category 5 Levees" is July. I just caught summer.
UPDATE 2 - Presentations Online
UPDATE 3 - The Corps' summer plan is out and it's yet another "Menu of Options"
Last year's introductory session {PDF} was given by the Corps and I'm told they spent the whole time praising all the things that are being fixed up and all the good things the Corps has done. I'm told that there was some interesting back and forth at the end of their presentation, but I don't know the details, so that's all I'm going to say about that for now.
This year's presentation was by Dr. Dalrymple, Dr. Bolard (PE), Dr. Christian (PE), and Dr. Reed. They were a part of the National Research Council's team that worked for the Corps on LACPR, basically the task force that Congress appointed to design "Category 5 Levees."
As we all know, to date, there is no solid plan for Category 5 Levees. The most up to date thing the Corps came up with was a "menu of options" (111 in total) that was slammed when it came out. The Corps, despite billing themselves as the premier coastal engineers in the country, left it up to Congress to make the ultimate determination of what would get done. While there are some political implications (see Oyster's post), the panel went through some of the scientific and engineering challenges that also pose problems.
First to present was Dr. Dalrymple. His main points were the lack of a "sediment budget" for the lower Mississippi River. The loss of sediment load and sedimentation action is the #1 coastal loss issue, according to him. This was one of his slides:
Source
As a side note, if you were to poll the top 100 coastal Louisiana experts on what the biggest problem is, probably 95 would say either canals, primarily for oil and gas exploration, or sediment loss, primarily due to levees confining the Mississippi River. When you have someone from the Corps speak, they tend to play up the canals and when someone from the oil industry speaks, they tend to play up the sediment loss. All four presenters, while nominally affiliated with the Corps, were heavily into the sedimentation camp.
Dr. Dalryrmple went on to comment about to designing a "Category 5 Levee" system. It would be more accurate to describe what New Orleans needs as a 400-1,000 year level of storm protection. No matter what is built, some local cooperation is needed for non-structural mitigation strategies, such as zoning, building codes, and buyouts.
In the end, Dr. Dalrymple held a fairly pessimistic view of the future. When asked what was the NRC's influence on the Corps' plans, Dr. Dalrymple described it as "subtle." The audience of engineers nervously laughed.
Dr. Bolard was the next to present. He once again railed against the failure to take advantage of sediment, both with beneficial use of dredged materials and how we're still directing the majority of the sediment load that comes past the city off the continental shelf into hundreds of feet of water. 125 Million Tons per year of sediment are wasted in this way. Dr. Bolard pointed out that all of the plans from the Corps assume that we'll have basically the same coastline as we do now in 50 years, despite the fact that we lose 24 square miles of coastline per year and that trend has been more or less unchanged for 80+ years! The bulk of Dr. Bolard's remaining presentation was a complicated discussion of the Corps' attempt at using MCDA to whittle down the 111 plans into one or a few actionable items. He described the multiple attempts as failures, for a variety of reasons.
Dr. Christian was next to present and he had by far the best presentation of the group. I'll actually skip over most of his presentation because I want to come back to it in a later post. He mostly talked about the "600-lbs. gorilla in the room: the Corps' performance before during and after Katrina." He started off by listing things that Corps has done into 3 categories: things that have been blamed on the Corps, but aren't really their fault, things the Corps has done well, and thing the Corps has done "not so well."
On the things the Corps gets blamed for, but isn't really their fault, he claimed: split responsibility, Louisiana politics, and a few other minor things. He gave one example of a specific floodgate that has 5 different entities "controlling" it (railroads, roadways, the local levee board, and the Corps). He said that they looked up the operation procedures of each of the organizations and each one assumed that someone else would close the gate in the event of an approaching storm! Also, Louisiana's political scene doesn't do us any favors nationally when hunting for funds to build the levees.
Dr. Christian's list of things the Corps does well were Task Force Guardian, IPET, and the Corps' hydraulics and hydrology understanding. He particularly singled out the Vicksburg office for their understanding of hydrology.
Dr. Chrisian's list of things the Corps does "not-good" was pretty scary. First, he says that all too often you'll have a representative from the Corps, say that the Corps has never had a failure. He says that if you put enough modifiers and adjectives in there, you can get a strictly factual statement, but, in the end, THE LEVEES FAILED!
NOAA via Wikipedia
It's sad to say, but the Corps failed, the Corps failed, the Corps failed. He said it needs to be drilled in that the Corps' levees failed from Katrina's glancing blow under stresses far below their design capacity. The Corps-built levees resulted in the worst civil engineering disaster in American history. Dr. Christian was adamant that that fact not be overlooked in any way.
Dr. Christians other two serious criticisms was the Corps' geotechnical and soils analysis, especially with the New Orleans office is fundamentally flawed. He said that was his professional opinion and that he knew there were lots of people with the Corps that would take strenuous objection to the statement. Note that the debate safe water level in the outfall canals has been extremely contention because of just this issue.
Dr. Christian's last "not so good" Corps procedure was that peer review, while successfully implemented under TF Guardian and IPET, has become a "box-check" and not a real concerted effort. Getting any information out of the Corps is like pulling teeth and there's outright hostility to "outsiders" looking over the Corps' design process.
Dr. Christian made a lot of bold statements, but between the slides and his response to engineers' questions, he seemed to back them up, IMHO.
Dr. Reed was the last one to present. She spoke of the need to manage flood protection, navigation (remember, the reason New Orleans exists), and coastal restoration. We managing the lower delta (where to chop it off) is the big issue for the next 50 years. We don't have the sediment load to preserve everything that exists today, so we need to do some triage. She also mentioned that Mississippi is extremely concerned with any effort to gate the mouth of Lake Pontchartrain because of its effects on Mississippi Gulf Coast storm surges (probably increasing them).
Where does all this leave us? One attendee who saw both plenary sessions (2009 Corps and 2010 NRC/LACPR) described them as presenting "quite a different picture." Currently, we have no plan for Category 5 Levees. The Corps says they'll come out with a plan 'this summer,' but we'll see if/when it comes out and if it's just another "menu" of options. The full presentation will also eventually be uploaded to this page.
NOTE- Minor edits. Also, Dr. Christian praised the Times-Picayune coverage of the situation. He says they've done a better job of informing the locals of the challenges facing the city than anyone has ever given them credit for (and it's not like they've been ignored).
UPDATE- Looks like Mike Schleifstein made it. His article looks along the same lines as mine, but I've got a few more details and he's got a few more links. Also, he caught that the new due date for "Category 5 Levees" is July. I just caught summer.
UPDATE 2 - Presentations Online
UPDATE 3 - The Corps' summer plan is out and it's yet another "Menu of Options"
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Books on Edwin Edwards
One of the things that always frustrates me is learning history that's too recent for the history textbooks, but before I started to regularly read the newspaper. I've been interested in reading up on some recent Louisiana history and the Leo Honeycutt biography caught my eye:
Leo Honeycutt's "Edwin Edwards"
The book features extensive interviews of Edwin Edwards made while he was in prison. Frankly, the book stinks. The beginning is actually quite good and the book covers quite a lot of non-EWE-related Louisiana recent history, which I appreciated. The chronicling of the media's influence on campaigns is one of the best parts of the book. I also like how much the anti-Edwards camp is exposed as hypocrites (Foster for being pro-Duke, pro-gambling and Buddy Roemer for being the "father of legalized gambling in modern Louisiana"). Towards the end, though, the book became unreadably bad. James Gill was quoted extensively, but only at the end when it served the author's bias. There were a couple of quotes that, when a fuller quotation was given, would have conveyed the exact opposite of what Honeycutt was trying to portray. The book also had some minor typographical errors throughout, but for a first edition that was sort of rushed out, I'll forgive. The blatant pro-Edwards bias ruins the book towards the end. I couldn't finish the book, it was that bad.
Tyler Bridges' "Bad Bet on the Bayou"
Instead of finishing Honeycutt's book, I picked up Bad Bet on the Bayou. It is a history of gambling in Louisiana from the Louisiana State Lottery Company to the conviction of Edwin Edwards. The earlier history is fantastic. I loved how it described pre-suburbanization Jefferson Parish as nothing but thugs, scoundrels, and prostitutes. Sometimes, you'll hear suburbanites complain about all the corruption in New Orleans, but the shit that went down in the 'burbs is amazing.
Tyler Bridges really stuck it too Edwards. He got a little too preachy at times. His most effective passage was when he chronicled the damage done by gambling addiction to a half dozen Louisiana families.
After reading both books, first off, I would have never read nearly as much of the Honeycutt book had I read Bridges' book first. I'm also ardently anti-gambling and Bridges' book only reinforced my views. The best way to stop gambling is math education, but if we did that, half the state education budgets would be in the red!
As far as EWE goes, I think that Edwards' first two terms were OK, at least he didn't push gambling. His third was crap, but then again, it was the oil bust, so anyone would have had a hard time. Edwards' fourth term, well, I'll let the man describe it for himself:
"The best thing that could happen to me would be to win the election and die the next day"
-Edwin Edwards to John Maginnis, just before the runoff election against David Duke
Leo Honeycutt's "Edwin Edwards"
The book features extensive interviews of Edwin Edwards made while he was in prison. Frankly, the book stinks. The beginning is actually quite good and the book covers quite a lot of non-EWE-related Louisiana recent history, which I appreciated. The chronicling of the media's influence on campaigns is one of the best parts of the book. I also like how much the anti-Edwards camp is exposed as hypocrites (Foster for being pro-Duke, pro-gambling and Buddy Roemer for being the "father of legalized gambling in modern Louisiana"). Towards the end, though, the book became unreadably bad. James Gill was quoted extensively, but only at the end when it served the author's bias. There were a couple of quotes that, when a fuller quotation was given, would have conveyed the exact opposite of what Honeycutt was trying to portray. The book also had some minor typographical errors throughout, but for a first edition that was sort of rushed out, I'll forgive. The blatant pro-Edwards bias ruins the book towards the end. I couldn't finish the book, it was that bad.
Tyler Bridges' "Bad Bet on the Bayou"
Instead of finishing Honeycutt's book, I picked up Bad Bet on the Bayou. It is a history of gambling in Louisiana from the Louisiana State Lottery Company to the conviction of Edwin Edwards. The earlier history is fantastic. I loved how it described pre-suburbanization Jefferson Parish as nothing but thugs, scoundrels, and prostitutes. Sometimes, you'll hear suburbanites complain about all the corruption in New Orleans, but the shit that went down in the 'burbs is amazing.
Tyler Bridges really stuck it too Edwards. He got a little too preachy at times. His most effective passage was when he chronicled the damage done by gambling addiction to a half dozen Louisiana families.
After reading both books, first off, I would have never read nearly as much of the Honeycutt book had I read Bridges' book first. I'm also ardently anti-gambling and Bridges' book only reinforced my views. The best way to stop gambling is math education, but if we did that, half the state education budgets would be in the red!
As far as EWE goes, I think that Edwards' first two terms were OK, at least he didn't push gambling. His third was crap, but then again, it was the oil bust, so anyone would have had a hard time. Edwards' fourth term, well, I'll let the man describe it for himself:
"The best thing that could happen to me would be to win the election and die the next day"
-Edwin Edwards to John Maginnis, just before the runoff election against David Duke
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Scott Cowen: "You're not going to remember your major"
On January 17th, 2006, after students were back, Scott Cowen held a meeting with the engineering students to explain the Renewal Plan.
The entire meeting, IMHO, was to blow smoke up our ass and not run away with our tuition dollars ($40K/year at that point). Tulane had already pissed off a lot of parents by keeping the Fall 2005 tuition money.
The meeting ticked off the engineering students quite a bit. Fortunately, some of us recorded it and caught a real gem from Cowen that pretty much sums up his fuckmookishness:
"Question: 20 years from now, 30 years from now you will remember you came to Tulane. You're not going to remember what you major was or ... [garbled] ... but you will remember Tulane University."
-Scott Cowen
January 17th 2006
Meeting with engineering students
That's the quote, word for word (23 minutes in on Side B). Told to a bunch of ENGINEERING students. It doesn't matter what, say a Civil engineer learns in school, it only matters that they went to Tulane.
Unfortunately, the quality on the tapes is terrible. Cowen's booming voice is the only thing that the mic picked up.
Side A:
Side B:
If anyone would like to give a stab at cleaning up the audio, that would be greatly appreciated.
NOTE: Some minor edits. Also, the noladishu.blogspot.com version of this post has embedded audio players that don't seem to show up in Google Reader.
The entire meeting, IMHO, was to blow smoke up our ass and not run away with our tuition dollars ($40K/year at that point). Tulane had already pissed off a lot of parents by keeping the Fall 2005 tuition money.
The meeting ticked off the engineering students quite a bit. Fortunately, some of us recorded it and caught a real gem from Cowen that pretty much sums up his fuckmookishness:
"Question: 20 years from now, 30 years from now you will remember you came to Tulane. You're not going to remember what you major was or ... [garbled] ... but you will remember Tulane University."
-Scott Cowen
January 17th 2006
Meeting with engineering students
That's the quote, word for word (23 minutes in on Side B). Told to a bunch of ENGINEERING students. It doesn't matter what, say a Civil engineer learns in school, it only matters that they went to Tulane.
Unfortunately, the quality on the tapes is terrible. Cowen's booming voice is the only thing that the mic picked up.
Side A:
Side B:
If anyone would like to give a stab at cleaning up the audio, that would be greatly appreciated.
NOTE: Some minor edits. Also, the noladishu.blogspot.com version of this post has embedded audio players that don't seem to show up in Google Reader.
Emerald Coast Food
Candice and I enjoy vacations to the Emerald Coast in Florida. One of the problems we encounter every time is where to eat. Most of the restaurants there are, frankly, terrible. I know I'm spoiled because of New Orleans, but the restaurants are over-priced, poor service and the food just sucks. What makes it so inexcusable is the abundance of incredibly high quality ingredients. They have vegetables from Georgia, citrus from Florida, and seafood from the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic isn't too far away, either. The measure of most restaurants in the area is now how good they are, it's how little to they screw up the top-quality ingredients.
Fortunately, in the land of mediocre restaurants, there is one redeeming one: The Red Bar. From what I understand, it's one of the oldest restaurants in the area and was founded by a Belgian guy (who made sure the bar kept Stella Artois on tap!). They serve breakfast; the waffles are wonderful with house-made whipped cream, strawberries, and powdered sugar. They also are just the only place along the coast that knows how to cook vegetables. There are only about 6 or so main items on the menu at dinner time, but by keeping it simple, they don't screw it up and they're amazingly consistent. The Red Bar is the only place I'd recommend to another New Orleanian in the area without reservation. The prices are good, the service is excellent, and the food is great. I'll give it my highest compliment: it could survive as a pure restaurant in New Orleans, even without the beachside locale.
The only drawback is if you don't eat dinner there early, it gets really jammed up with an incredibly long line.
There is also one alternative to The Red Bar: get the great ingredients and cook it yourself. The groceries there are pretty good and cheap.
Goatfeathers in Blue Mountain is the seafood supplier to most of the restaurants in the area. The grouper-type fish are local and very fresh. You can generally get something in the afternoon that was swimming in the morning. Try this recipe, for one.
Thursday, April 8, 2010
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