Paul Ryburn's Journal

Yesterday was my last day at ACB. Even though I’m looking forward to starting with the City Schools on Monday, a job offering more money and new challenges, it was weird/sad to have to leave a company I really like. I have nothing but good things to say about ACB – the work environment was casual, free from office politics, and everyone got along.

I’ll take a moment to tell a quick story: Several months ago I was at the Tap Room on a Friday night, and ACB’s general manager came in with a couple of friends, who also happened to be mutual friends of mine. “Oh, you know Paul?” they asked the GM.

“Yeah, Paul works with me,” he said. Not works for me, but works with me. I always appreciated that little sign of respect – kind of a way of saying, hey, outside the office we’re all equals. That kind of thing was indicative of the way I was treated at ACB.

My boss was great too. He gave me projects that expanded my knowledge and skills, he was always there to answer questions and to let me bounce ideas off him, but he didn’t micromanage. Even when he made suggestions on how to improve, he did it the right way, always accentuating the positive. He’s one of the good guys. I’ll miss working for him.

After work, I celebrated at Big Foot Lodge with a deep-dish chocolate chip cookie a la mode. Here’s a pic:

Guys, if you have a girlfriend you need to bring her to Big Foot to share one of these cookies. Unless she’s one of those girls who will whine about how many calories it has – in that case, call and tell her you have to work late, and then go to Big Foot and eat the cookie by yourself.

And if you have kids, it goes without saying that you need to take them to Big Foot – take a look at the skillet desserts and other desserts on their menu.

Every time I go to Big Foot, they make me feel so welcome there. Not even the presence of The Most Annoying Woman On The Planet could ruin my good time last night. I watched the Grizzlies game on their TVs and hung out afterward until almost 12:00.

I have a friend who is looking to sublet her apartment in Midtown for a couple of months, and after that, once the lease is up, you may be able to take over a new lease. It’s on the top floor (6th floor I think) of a very nice apartment building (I’ve been in the building before, although not her apartment). I don’t want to quote an exact number but rent would be less than half what I pay at No. 10 downtown. She’s even willing to leave basic furniture in if needed. This offer is open only to people I know personally – I don’t want to send her some random person who may turn out to be crazy or irresponsible. If interested e-mail me and I’ll pass on the info.

So, today is the Overton Square crawfish festival. I’m trying to decide whether to drive my car or ride my bike up there. Hmmm… last year I walked, although it took an hour to get there. Here’s a money-saving trick: they’ve been price-gouging on the beer (4 bucks for a 16 oz. Budweiser draft) in recent years. But, you can walk across Cooper to the convenience store and buy a 24 oz. can of beer for 99 cents and sneak it in.

I’m trying to decide if I’m going to go to Hollywood South, Mpact’s annual fundraiser tonight at Don’t-Call-It-The-Plaza-Club-Or-Someone-Will-Correct-You. On one hand, it’s kinda expensive ($35 a ticket, or $65 for a VIP ticket which gives you access to the open bar; I’m sure you can figure out which kind of ticket I’d be buying). But on the other hand, Mpact threw one HELL of a party last year when they did Mpact Impacto. It really was the place to be. Hopefully they can pull it off again. Hmmm… I know there are some people talking about going to Raiford’s afterward… and I’m always up for Raiford’s.

I’ve just been kind of bored with Mpact lately… I’m coming to realize that they made a mistake when they got rid of the pillars, and I feel partially responsible because I was on the board at the time and voted for it. And if they tried to bring the pillars back, corporate donors would see it as, “oh, they’re reconfiguring themselves yet AGAIN” and they’d think the organization has no sense of direction. Not sure what the solution is.

Time to get going… I’ll be back tomorrow with Deal of the Week, and there may be a major announcement coming soon concerning that weekly blog feature. Have a good weekend everybody!

New Orleans/Oklahoma City Hornets vs. Dallas Mavericks, 7:30 pm tonight.

If the Hornets lose, by my calculations the Memphis Grizzlies will be guaranteed a spot in the playoffs for the 3rd consecutive year. The Hornets have a sub-.500 record, and will be playing against the team in the NBA with the 3rd best record (Dallas, 57-19) on Dallas’s home court. I’d say our playoff chances are looking real good.

Those of you who have been around the Internet for a while may have heard of SETI@home. It was a project that analyzed data from space to look for possible communications from extraterrestrial life. It was the ultimate distributed computing project – 5 million volunteers installed SETI software on their computers, which allowed their computers to download and analyze SETI data when idle. It didn’t disturb the volunteers’ work at all, because the SETI program only ran when the computer was not being used, as a screen saver would. Over 2 million years of computing time were eventually donated to the project.

This model is now being expanded to other projects. You can choose to volunteer your unused computing time to research cures for human disease, analyze climate change, participate in chemistry or physics research, or analyze signals from space. Check out their website – it’s a project of the University of California, Berkeley.

Cancelled Flight: 101 Tried and True Pigeon Killin’ Methods

Regular reader Don e-mailed with a question I don’t know the answer to, so I figured I’d pass it on: Is there a Madden Playstation league in Memphis? It’s a league where people play each other over the Internet, and it mimics a real NFL season.

If anyone has info e-mail me at paul@paulryburn.com and I’ll pass it on. Thanks.

This morning Tom DeLay announced that he is resigning his seat in the House of Representatives. As the Democracy for America website pointed out, if he is innocent of all the ethics charges being levied against him, why would he feel the need to resign?

Congratulations to Democracy for America for all the hard work they did over the past year, work which helped lead to the downfall of one of America’s most corrupt Congressmen. Democracy for America is taking contributions today, with each contribution of $50 going to send DeLay a rubber chicken, to commemorate him being a big chicken and running away from the charges.

This week’s Deal of the Week is postponed due to technical difficulties – specifically, the Commercial Appeal boxes in the area (along Union near Front and Main) did not have the Sunday paper yesterday. They still had Saturday’s edition, as a friend of mine found out after dropping two bucks in the machine.

Most of the major advertisers publish their ad circulars online, so it’s possible I may be able to search for a deal later today, without actually having the Sunday paper.

This afternoon I went wine shopping at the Corkscrew. While there I picked up a bottle of Rogue Imperial Pilsner. This is the beer that sells for $30 a bottle at the Flying Saucer.

At the Corkscrew it was $12.99, which means at the Saucer you’re paying $13 for the beer and $17 for having it served to you by a waitress in a miniskirt.

Makes sense to me.

This thing is 8.8% alcohol by volume, which is why it’s being sold in a liquor store. It’s 1 pint 10 ounces, which is enough for several people to share, so I figure I’ll bring it up on the roof one night this week when some of the neighbors are up there, and we can have a tasting.

I also went to the Happy Mexican this afternoon, but the restaurant review will have to wait until later because I’m about to head down to Beale Street.

We’ll start this off with a few pics I snapped last night at Earnestine & Hazel’s. These are menus from March 1983, when South Main was still very much a red light district, and E&H was a restaurant downstairs and a brothel upstairs.

The menu at E&H has since been cut to just one item, the Soul Burger, so don’t expect to go there and order “Pig Tails.”

I had a good time hanging out with fellow blogger Kat and her friend KH at the Trolley Tour last night. Kat wore a tube top as promised. Dammit, I forgot to take a pic! Kat, did KH take any? Don’t forget, two months from today, we’ll kick off Tube Top Month in this blog. Every post will make a reference to tube tops, no matter how irrelevant.

I also had to take steps to avoid The Most Annoying Woman On The Planet last night. I’ve written about her before: This is the woman who brought her damn dog to Cooper-Young Fest, despite numerous “PLEASE, NO PETS” signs and ads. This is the woman who routinely makes plans to meet you at 9:00 and then shows up at 10:50. This is the woman who made a New Year’s resolution not to be more than a half hour late when meeting people. Anyway, I won’t get into all the details of our conversation last night, but I’ll just say that I had to take evasive maneuvers to get away from her. ATTN C. AND I.: I’m really starting to see your point about her “using” me

MyMemphis.tv, the website connected to Wednesday night’s premiere of the My Memphis movie, is now online. It contains interviews with young, hip Memphis professionals about what they like about the city, and should be a tremendous marketing piece for Memphis. Check it out.

The latest news from Romania is that their president is meeting with the leader of China to improve Romanian-Chinese relations. They’re even building a Chinatown near Bucharest. How cool is that? Now, if I go to Romania, not only will I be able to hit on hot Romanian girls, but hot Chinese girls as well.

That reminds me… I was surfing some websites recently, and I came across an ad for a video that teaches American men how to seduce Asian women. Its marketing tagline read,

“Ah, so GI! You like make ficky, ficky with sexy Oriental girl? Well now you can…”

Good god… that’s just completely politically incorrect and totally wrong. It made me laugh really hard though, so I thought I’d include it.

In other news… it appears that Conte’s, the Italian restaurant on Madison just east of Second, is now staying open for dinner until 9:00 every night they are open (Tuesday-Saturday). Good for them! We need to support businesses that see themselves as part of the downtown neighborhood and stay open late so its residents can get a good dinner.

I also have a restaurant review from regular reader and former neighbor Don… he says that he recently ate at Sgt. Jalapeno’s Tortilla Company on Adams (inside the Comfort Inn) and the fajitas are excellent.

All right… it’s a beautiful day and it’s time to go outside. See you tomorrow with “Deal of the Week” and possibly other news.

I wonder if they have next-day air delivery for that tape on seducing Asian women?

Summer weather is here. The high was 82 today and it’s only dropping to the 60s tonight… I love it because that means I can run my air conditioner all night. Some people look forward to being able to open their windows and doors in the spring and let nature in, but honestly I look forward more to turning on the A/C. I keep blankets and comforters on my bed year ’round and turn the air down to 68 in the summer months… that makes for the best sleeping. Of course, as a tree-hugging liberal I guess I should try harder to conserve energy, but I’m willing to compromise moral values when it comes to air conditioning.

Speaking of summer… it’s rooftop time! Looking forward to hanging out with the neighbors on No. 10 Main’s roof. Of course, some of the best neighbors are gone, like the chef who cooked gourmet meals for us on the grills, and the cute blonde who sunbathed in bikinis. But it’s time to make new friends. Gotta go out this weekend and get some bottles of wine in the house to share. If you have any good wine recommendations let me know (particularly wines that come in 1.5 L magnums – the regular 750 ml bottles don’t last long on No. 10’s roof)

It’s also rooftop time for the hotels… the Peabody’s rooftop parties start next Thursday, April 6. However, it will be the 13th before I get there, because I’ll be in Midtown at Side Street Grill attending a friend’s birthday party on the 6th. Not sure when the Madison parties start.

Rumor has it that Memphis may get a Whole Foods Market soon. Whole Foods is an organic foods supermarket, a competitor to Wild Oats but much, much better. Midtown or East Memphis are likely locations.

Belly dance teacher Sadiia will be giving an introductory class at Jack Robinson Gallery tomorrow night during Trolley Tour. Class is $8 and starts at 7:30. It’s on the gallery’s second floor – gallery is located on Huling between Front and Main. When I taught at the U of M a couple of my students danced in Sadiia’s troupe, and I know it brought a lot of expression and fulfillment to their lives.

The Corkscrew will be giving a free wine tasting at Alice’s Saturday from 1 to 3:30. Free wine is not to be passed up, and as I said I need to buy some bottles anyway, so I might actually make the transition from moocher to customer. The Corkscrew/Alice’s are located next to the empty pit that used to be the Blue Monkey on South Front.

There’s an art opening Saturday night that sounds interesting… “mFAC 001,” located in a former medicine factory at 85 W. Virginia. The 15 exhibiting artists have pieces on display specifically designed to fit in with the theme of a medicine factory. Even though they didn’t use the magic words (“free alcohol”) I may show up.

Libertyland update… the Mayor’s Office has received an offer from the people who run Magic Springs in Hot Springs, AR to keep the park going. However, the Mid-South Fair Board has refused to turn over basic info about the park’s revenues, attendance, and on-site assets to the City Attorney’s Office. This information is needed for any serious inquiry. Sounds like the Fair Board is impeding progress and standing in the way of the public will.

Remember, it’s important that we support Libertyland, because LIBERTYLAND HIRES RO… never mind, I’ve mentioned them enough in this blog recently. And now that I think about it, I’m mad at the two girls, because before they went home they both said they would e-mail me pictures of their hometown. Almost six months later and no pics yet. Not that it does any good to complain about it here – it’s not like anyone from Romania ever reads this blog.

We have a new bum downtown (actually he’s not that new) who sings at the top of his lungs. He’s on the street singing right now and I can hear him 13 stories up, with all the windows closed. I feel sorry for the people who live on lower floors and have earlier bedtimes than I do (it’s 11:24 pm as I type this).

(Cell phone rings)
“Hello?”
“Hey Paul, who’s working the Tap Room tonight?”
“Uh, let’s see… it’s Thursday, should be Niles.”
“Okay, thanks, bye.”
That’s probably a sign that I spend too much time in bars, when people call me to find out which bartender is working.

11:52 pm: Took a break to proofread this post and brush my teeth. The bum is still outside singing. Time for bed. Maybe the noise of the A/C unit will drown him out and allow me to get some sleep.