Kopaka's Ice Engineering

*votes for Pudge, just to irritate T* -KIE

The Coca-Cola has yet to been bought. There are no Krispy Kremes out there to move. (Why do you think I wanted to get out of there??) The Doritos were eaten and the Reese's melted: I've been saving on electricty by turning off the A/C when I get up in the morning, and not turning it back on until I return at night, usually 8 or 9 PM. -KIE

Eh, it's one of those things you wave off: Baton Rouge is not New Orleans. There is no 15 foot levee holding back a Gulf-connected-lake outside the city, just the Mississippi River to contend with. In other words, the massive >8-foot-deep, weeks-long flooding you saw take place in New Orleans? That can't happen in Baton Rouge. That said, there really hasn't been a storm as cataclysmic as Katrina. The most recent Katrina-worth storm to call the Gulf home would probably be Andrew, back in 1992 (I was in 8th grade that year.) The storm most people in the bayous of southeast Louisiana [foolishly] compared Katrina to (saying: "I survived _____, this Katrina can't gonna be any worse." (and after Katrina, they were saying "NEVER AGAIN")) was Betsy, in 1965. Given 40 years between major hurricanes, I'd say you're safe for the duration. I'll be quite curious to follow your career if you're wearing purple & gold: LSU has a fan base all its own: the winning tradition is so strong that this year was the first time since 1987 that the Tigers didn't make the NCAA baseball tournament. In light of that, fans called for [4th year head coach] Smoke Laval's job, and he was dismissed a few weeks ago. It is taken that seriously down here. And then there's those autumn Saturday nights in Death Valley. I didn't even go to LSU, and my skin's tingling just thinking about it. -KIE

*throws bucket of water* It's not that rare of a misprint: While the Kanohi Matatu and Kanohi Ruru in toa colors are all technically misprinted, the black Kanohi Ruru were made available through the PowerPack, with the tohunga Hafu. Sorry to burst your bubble.. -KIE

No zany email today, sorry. Today's moving items... 3 pieces of luggage and 3 duffel bagsa pair of slippers that my little brother and his now-fiancée bought me for Christmas last year (I don't wear slippers, though! )a laptop carrying case that my parents bought me....without buying me a laptop for it.another 12-pack....strawberry sodaa 2-lb jar of strawberry jam...and an 18 oz. thing of cherry preservesnot to mention 2 quarts of the best salsa east of the Sabine RiverNew shower curtainmatching hooks for said shower curtain (something I didn't have pre-Katrina)other miscellaneous bathroom stuff, like deodorant & shower gelnew bed spread, since the last one got rained on (my bed has been perpetually unmade for the past 10 months )a 96 fl oz. bottle of grape juicea canister of strawberry lemonade drink mix2 largeish bottles of pasta sauce (hooraaaay Sam's Club)a 1 L blue glass bottle from the ren faire last yeara wire metal strainer that can prop itself over the kitchen sink...nifty2 boxes of Easy Macone of those Banquet "dinner in a box" thingsand one of the dessert variety as wellbottle of barbecue sauce28 ½-liter pack of bottled watermy golf discs (1 Valkyrie, 2 Cheetahs & an Aviar, all are the cheap, opaque, doesn't cost as much to replace when I throw 'em into the lagoon plastic)Amazing how much stuff accumulates of the course of 10 months, no? -KIE

You want heat, cher? Come on down to New Orleans today. Highs in the mid 90's, the heat index (temperature and humidity combine to make it feel like this) should reach 105°F today. -KIE, who could end up hearing it from Omi anyway.

Louisiana State University and Agricultrual & Mechanical College - Baton Rouge: Perennial contender in the traditionally deep Southeastern Conference, 4 CWS titles between 1991 & 2000 And a rather rabid local following. There is my alma mater, McNeese State University, but the Southland Conference is almost JuCo, when compared to the national scene. Both are located in Louisiana, and if your grades stay where you portray them as currently being, you'd have no trouble being accepted, academic-wise. -KIE

More crazy email! Mind you, I don't live in Florida, but I have evacuated and not evacuated in front of hurricanes before: I can identify with just about everything, except house insurance. I don't own a house; I rent. I don't know about you, but I nearly passed out from laughing so hard when I first read it. Personal news: I GOT A KEY TO MY APARTMENT! WOOHOO! Maintenance ended up having to change the deadbolt because the keys in the envelope didn't match the installed deadbolt, but hey, I have a key to this place now. And thus began the moving of the stuff. Today: 2 12-packs of soda, 3 boxes of Zatarain's rice mix, 2 boxes of instant potatoes (one mashed, the other scalloped), 3 Yankee candles, an air matress and pump, sheets for said air matress, and a staff I bought at the renaissance fair last year. Power was on when I was there, but it should be turning off: I'm not paying for it until Friday. I would have rathered Entergy not turn it on until Saturday, but they don't work on the weekends. Bleh Internet was not on when I was there, or at least I had no way of checking: I would like Cox to have turned it on Saturday, but they can't get out there until next Tuesday. Bleh ×2 In any case, I'm off to box up some more...stuff. Saturday (and Tuesday) cannot come soon enough. -KIE

No, it was because I called the wrong number, Sir "I'm-too-good-for-golf." -KIE

YAAAAAYYY!! "Snickerdoodle" was the inaugural "Word of the Day" back in the summer of 2001. Whenever someone says the word of the day, everyone [in on the joke] within earshot would respond with "YAY!", to the bewilderment of everyone else. Oh, how I miss being a summer missionary sometimes. But in any case, the meaning for the utter YAY-ness of this post: I signed a lease for my pre-Katrina apartment today. People, I have not been happier in the last 10 months than I am right now. This nightmare is finally ending, and Lord-willing, Katrina will not happen again. At least not until we've built cost-effective houses that can withstand such a storm. Played a softball game last night. With 8 guys. Not cool. I'm putting it in a code block, only to keep formatting straight. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 R Riverside BC 2 4 0 0 1 1 2 10 FBC Kenner 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 Myself, I went 1-3, batting eighth. Lined out to pitcher with the bases loaded to end the first, popped out to short (second ball hit in the air all season long) in the fourth, and ran out a slow throw from short to lead off the sixth. I was on deck when the game ended. It's just not good to play with only 2 outfielders, though. Anything down the line or straightaway is an automatic triple for the other team. Nate did a knockout job in left, but he had to shade center, and not everything was right at him. *sigh* At least it wasn't the 18-1 drubbing we got 5 weeks prior, first time through the schedule. And then, we had 9 people. But it's all good, because I HAVE AN APARTMENT NOW !! :happydance: -KIE

Just now noticed something: Turakii, it's called a "modulation." Okay, I promise to shush on this topic -KIE

This is softball. Overhanded pitching, but softball none the less. 4 outfielders, and we had a DH batting eleventh. On the season, I'm batting in the vicinity of .200. My problem is bat speed: I can do nothing but hit grounders, and have to hustle down the line to hope the second or third baseman makes a bad throw. Although, at just over (well, under) 6 feet tall, when I do get on base, I'm pretty good at blocking off double play throws to first. And I'm wont to take suicide leads anyway. -KIE

5 minutes ago, the rental office of my apartment called. Saturday, 17 June, after 11 AM EDT, I can go by the office, sign the lease, pay first rent, et cetera. Monday, 19 June, I can pick up keys. ...and by the end of the day Saturday, 24 June, I should be moved back into my apartment. My 10 month nightmare will finally end. Anti-climactic, yet, I am too drained to emoticonize it. -KIE

Eheh. The last time I played soprano clarinet was sixth grade, 15 years ago. I started playing bass clarinet in 7th grade, and was generally available for contra clarinets through high school. Why? Well, my hands are too big for an E-flat clarinet, and almost too big for the soprano clarinet. No, I've not been on HGH or some other steroid, but I've had large fingers & hands: my high school class ring was a size 11. Besides, I didn't practice that much: I'd already lined up a life-path that was not music-based, and had convinced myself that I wouldn't need the clarinet to fall back on. As the music got more difficult, I kept dropping half-octaves. It was, and still is, more pleasing to my ear than the tones eminating from the soprano clarinet attached to my mouth. I am a hack, don't ever let me get away without saying that. -KIE

I know, I'm a day later posting this than I expected. Yesterday I went to Baton Rouge to meet my mom & dad, and my brother and his fiancée. Watched some World Cup, got the replacement computer desk and the chair I mentioned in the last post on the proper side of the Mississippi River (My dad was just tired of it taking up space in the store room at the house.), and went to play disc golf at Highland Road park with little brother. (Yes, Omi, that was when you messaged me.) As far as Friday night's game, well, I rode the pine to start off. I was subbed in to right field in the bottom of the third, batting 10th and replacing the pitcher/manager, who had to go manage his twin girls in a softball game of their own. The line score: FBC Kenner... 2 0 0 0 0 3 5 10 FBC NOrleans.0 1 1 0 4 0 0 ..6 Myself: 1-2, R, ROE Translation: 1 hit in 2 at-bats, scored a run and reached on an error. In other words, they didn't keep me from reaching base either time I got to the plate. Pretty dang good for the bottom of the order. What's more, my misplays in right field were responsible for the 4-runs in the bottom of the fifth. Also, I got to score the tying run in the top of the seventh: those 5 runs were all scored with 1 out. Still, I was sucking too much wind on the basepaths. I have GOT to lose some weight off my gut. With 2 games left in the season, FBC Kenner improves to 3-5, while FBC New Orleans fell to 1-7. The team they beat was the team we play next week, who also beat us 18-1 the first time we played them. -KIE

Your problem is in the spelling: it's résumé, not resume. é is Alt+0233 I did list being on staff of BZP once, in a very discreet fashion, for a job that had nothing to do with my degree. Being as I've gradjitated frum kawllij and all, it has no place on my professional résumé. No offense to the site at all, just that it's out of place. -KIE

I played utility low clarinet (B flat Bass, E flat Contralto, and BB flat Contrabass) in high school, and have played treble clef baritone in college, and every year since 1997 for TubaChristmas. Except 2002: I was on the road that year. -KIE

Nah, it's not really a shunnable offense until you reach the age of 34, as opposed to 17. Mid 30's, then we'd worry about you. -KIE

I'll tell you like I told Amber (who's not on this board) back in 2001: *waves hands around* And then I'll translate it from ASL into English, like I did then: "I'm not awesome. Only God is awesome; I'm just Byron." Though, I did see this as funny-worth-a-link, even if it's not FF: http://www.manatheater.com/200/SOM264.swf -KIE

Yes, I did get this via email. Amazing that the saying still holds true: "There are lies, there are dang lies, and then there are statistics." -KIE

Draft: I don't have any names, but I do keep an eye out for ball players from my alma mater: McNeese State University. The current player of note in the majors is Tribe first baseman Ben Broussard (IF - CLE), although a Cowboy pitcher was taken in the first round of last year's draft. And baseball play-by-play men wonder why the MLB draft doesn't have the coverage that the NFL & NBA get: it's 40 someodd rounds long! No casual fan has that kind of attention span! -KIE

I know, I said I wasn't gonna post until Saturday, but I just had to pass this along: Lovely. That is not, however, why I dub myself "no longer uninitiated." I bought my computer about 3 weeks before joining BZ. Or it might have been a year before. Or the year after. I can't really remember, just that it was for my birthday. $800, and it's not worth half that much now. When I evacuated my apartment ahead of Katrina (August 27, 2005), I unplugged the CPU and left with it, but not the monitor or peripherals. This turned out to be a good thing, because the roof over my top-floor apartment didn't hold, and while I didn't get any brackish floodwater from Lake Pontchartrain <PON che trane>, there was mold all up & down the walls when I got back. Peripherals can dry out. CPUs can not. In any case, the computer itself has not been plugged in since the day I evacuated. Why? Most of the outlets at the rental house where I have been staying for the past 9 months (a whole other story) are of the 2-prong variety, and have no grounding plug. Well, with my impending move back, I'd decided to make good on that promise I made to myself to upgrade my computer, if only to make Ultima IX run better (even though I haven't played it since 2004). Last night, I bought a stick of RAM for $100 at Circuit City and installed it myself. Right now, I'm pretty sure I have a half-gig of RAM in it. This is significant because, despite my technical expertise, I'm rather scared of the inside of a computer case. The only times I've ever opened the case were to: 1) install a Cisco wireless network card to access the school network while I was in grad school at the University of Akron, back in the Spring 2003 semester. 2) directly cool off an over-heated power supply last summer. I have since learned the virtues of not letting the temperature in my apartment go above 85° and of sufficient circulation space behind the box. And now 3) install a stick o' RAM. Wow, to think in a few months, I could be building a new box from scratch or something. Just not with that RAM, as that motherboard is likely very antiquated. Like the computer chair I refinished last weekend (86 years old, and has weathered two Cat IV storms (Audrey 1959, Katrina 2005)), just not as durable. Okay, time to do something that resembles what I'm getting paid to do.

http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/multimedia/gal...rs_to_Earth.jpg I've been considering what to do with this little cubbyhole of the internet, and, I'm still considering. In the future, expect me to post some stuff about the politics and happenings of south Louisiana. Also, some news stories & columns I pick up. No, nothing that would be rated M for Mature, but some of it would be over the typical high schooler's head. (If it's not, well, I feel sorry for the loss of your innocense.) In any case, the above link is what you look like to the little green men from Mars. Amazing, no? My Astros lost again last night, but it's okay, because Jason Giambi (IF - NYY) is on my fantasy team and Josh Beckett (RHP - BOS) is not. The Moss Bluff Cruisers remain in 6th place (ahead of only the Maddogs and the umpalumpas (sic), dead and utterly hapless teams respectively). I was late for work today. However, my computer is just about to finish the work I started it doing Thursday night, so I'm finally gonna get started. Next post will likely be Saturday, after FBC-Kenner (my team) knocks off FBC-New Orleans (the winless team) in softball Friday night.

And then, the shrubberries... Life of Brian is another one of note, but it must be viewed with hearty humor: if you're laughing already, prepare to bust a gut. But if you're not, it's just not as funny as it's billed.

I'm sorry to hear that. It's not so much traffic as it is just a long way to drive to get to work. Cars lose value according to their use and mileage: the more a vehicle is driven, the more wear and tear and the less it is worth. I bought a new car on March 30, and today the odometer will reach 10,000 miles on the way home from work. 10,000 miles is usually what a car gets in a year, and I've done it in 3 days shy of 10 weeks. Believe you me, I'm ready to move back. -KIE