Welcome!

ahm, beh, cah, lum, mu, om, ra, summ....

Okay, so I can't pass myself off as a gypsy in Austin City Park. I definitely don't have the right tarot deck.

Come to think of it, I don't have any tarot decks.

</obscure reference>

Before anyone jumps down my throat, I was making a reference to Ultima IX: Ascension, a single player RPG published a few years ago by Electronic Arts & Origin Systems. The tarot in question are only 8 cards for the eight in-game virtues, not the typical tarot deck.

Anyway welcome to my blog.

To the left, you can read the reason why I borrowed the title "Chocolate City". While the reference is nigh a year old, and more or less a footnote in local history, the name struck me as so catchy at the time, I've persisted with it. By "outskirts", I mean that I don't live in New Orleans proper, but unless you're familiar with the area, you'll won't recognize anything more specific than "New Orleans".

I am what one could call an AFOB, Adult Fan of Bionicle. It is to say, unless you have kids, I'm older than you.

I live in southeast Louisiana, effectively New Orleans. I am a civil engineer, which means I design stuff that typically doesn't move, or shouldn't anyway. Mostly, I'm working with wastewater in Jefferson Parish. Modeling, not physically interacting.

I've been on staff at BZP since before it was BZP. I'm currently the longest-tenured moderator, though it seems I rarely have time for moderating per se. However, I like to think the staff wants to keep my perspective. I hope so, because it's not like I've got any sort of blackmail material on them with which to keep that Hau next to my name on the boards.

I feel I should give a little roadmap to my blog. I rarely post more than one entry per day, so while I will strive to stay current, I tend to lump a day's events into one big entry. However, some entries take on certain tones, so I divide them into categories, as follows:

Local Goings On is where I lump some local news, weather, elections, et cetera. It says "politics," but it really should be "news". If you only read 2 categories, read this one second.

From KIE's laboratory is where I post the odd recipe. I like to cook. I'm not very good at it, but I do like to cook.

Oversized Eyes is a collection of anime posts. Oh come on, doesn't every blog here have an anime section?

Office Hijinks: I am an engineer, though not of the locomotive variety. I work in an office most of the time, and sometimes the chatter is too much for me not to share with you. Consider it another take on the comic strip "Dilbert", but without the sarcastic, futility-of-it-all edge, and far less frequent.

Required Reading is the category that, if you take anything away from my blog, it should be this. Inside these entries are little life lessons that I have learned, and want very much to pass on to you, so that you don't have to relive these mistakes I have made, or nearly made.

the saga of KIE's computer: I built a computer during the spring/summer of 2007. It cost $2,400, spread out over 5 months. I'm very proud of it, as not only did I save about $1,000 in the process, but I know how to construct a computer now, and can now moonlight a new career.

Lyrically speaking: because music is good, and good lyrics that already say what I wanted to say are better

Catharsis & Rhetoric: Sometimes I need to vent too.

Life in general is everything else that is relevant.

For those of you who have heard about the funny email, yes, I do get some pretty funny email, and I love to post the safe-for-BZP stuff here. It's in there, but you'll have to go hunting for it.

Hikari-tsuzuke yo

ano hoshi no you hi!

I feel so....validated.

-KIE