If you live or work downtown, you gotta check out this site: Street-People.com. It’s a website that takes a different tactic to draw attention to the homeless problem in Memphis, by turning the homeless into celebrities via the Internet and fighting homelessness with humor. In addition to a photo gallery and special features on the homeless, it also contains “Bum Finds,” where they auction off items the homeless have found around town. The site also allows street people to make money by creating their own clothing lines. This site is starting to get attention (both positive and negative) in the local media. Check it out and decide for yourself. Personally, I applaud them for thinking outside the box in dealing with this issue.
Here’s another event to add to an already jam-packed calendar for this week: Josh Lemons, Bobby Durango, and Crash Kole perform at Sleep Out Louie’s this Friday, October 6, at 7:30 pm. You may remember Bobby from the ’80s band Rock City Angels. You may remember Josh as the guy behind the bar at Sleep Out’s. You may remember Crash as the guy who frequently sits at the bar at Sleep Out’s. No, not me, the other guy.
Speaking of Sleep Out’s – I’m sitting at the bar right now as I type this. The lunch special is chicken alfredo pasta, which I got with a side of broccoli. Yummy. On the downside, there doesn’t appear to be any Romanian representation among the staff this morning.
Regular blog reader Mallory writes, “Hi, I hate to be selfish and take the fire out of anyone else for Halloween. So, with my encouragement, I would like to extend the invitation for Paul Ryburn Halloween costumes. You have become so diverse over the years, and it will be interesting and beneficial to see which ‘Paul’ different people may come up with!” So there ya go. Carmel and other readers, you’re free to be me for Halloween without stepping on Mallory’s toes. Although, Carmel told me last night she has an alternate costume in mind, an ultra-tight outfit with very short skirt. Can’t remember who she was going to be exactly, but who cares. I encourage her to continue on with that costume instead of dressing as me.
Can’t believe I didn’t get an “Oh Paul, I wish you wouldn’t drink so much” e-mail from my mother after last night’s drunk post.
Semi-Charmed Kat has posted a pic of herself with Elmo and the Cookie Monster. She needs to upload a video of herself doing her Microsoft Excel dance with her big boss and her mini-boss. That would be entertaining. Well, not really, but I’d still watch it.
Back to the rat race. Although, I have to say, the City Schools are not a bad place to work at all. They’re sending me for three days of Microsoft SQL Server 2005 training next month. First programming/web development job I’ve ever had where management saw the value in spending money to train employees on the latest technologies. And, I suggested they might want to send us to a class on Visual Studio 2005/ASP.NET 2.0 as well, and it looks like they’re going to take me up on it. Cool.