Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Evan sleeps through watching the Peach Bowl


Posted via email from Cade Roux's posterous

Sunday, December 28, 2008

My favorite Chrimbo pressie, I think


I only hope it gets cold enough to wear it on New Year's Eve or Mardi Gras.

Posted via email from Cade Roux's posterous

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Lucky penny and snow in New Orleans


All by herself Sydney put a penny outside on the sidewalk early this morning and then led me outside to find it. Then it snowed - for the first time in her life. The last time it snowed in New Orleans she hadn't been conceived and we missed it, spending Christmas in Orlando with the family.

Posted via email from Cade Roux's posterous

Monday, December 8, 2008

New Orleans is The New Golden One http://www.kalimedia.com/Atlas_of_True_Names.html


I guess since Orléans is the French version of Aurelianum, named after
the Emperor Aurelian.

Posted via email from Cade Roux's posterous

Thursday, November 6, 2008

It's not change until it happens

http://www.change.gov/ is a great start, but I think we all are going to need to pull together and work for it, including holding the government to a higher standard and participating in telling Obama what needs to be done.

He claims he'll listen.

Bush was not a listener.  The no-bummer-zone from SNL was funny because it was true.

If we give people the education they need and get our country out of the dark ages, this would be the dawn of a new period of more reasoned and thoughtful discourse, where we talk about our priorities and make the hard choices of what we can have now and what we will need to wait for.

If Obama leads among people with degrees now, imagine what greatness he can achieve amongst people who don't have degrees now in four or eight years when they do have degrees, thanks to new priorities on investing in American capital - our people.

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Can anyone say reformation?

http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-31/1225171460189970.xml&coll=1

http://docbrite.livejournal.com/641798.html

Apparently, there are several churches in Boston that have been doing this for four years.

New Orleans, meet Henry VIII.

As an atheist, it further confirms the current research on the evolution of established religion as a self-preserving and reproducing meme.

I guess sometimes the symbiotes revolt and have to be repressed.

New New Orleans Web Portal and Content Coming Real Soon!

http://humidbeings.com/

Monday, October 20, 2008

Political Compass



My political compass, apparently. I have some issues with the test. There are questions where it can be treated as a factual question and the question is simply false - would I strongly disagree or just disagree? There are cases where I would also disagree with the opposite of the question - "is it better to control inflation over unemployment?".

Saturday, October 18, 2008

Somehow this other fruit-bearing passion vine sprouted in our yard


It will be awesome if we get passion fruit off this (it's competing with a monster ginger, papyrus and a clematis!). The flowers are tiny, pale, but unmistakeably passion flowers.

Posted by email from Cade Roux's posterous

Friday, October 17, 2008

Joe the Plumber has Palinitis - Not Smart Enough to Keep His Mouth Shut

Proverbs 17:28: "Even a fool is counted wise when he holds his peace; when he shuts his lips, he is considered perceptive."

"Better to be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt."

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/17/us/politics/17joe.html

So now he has the media attention all over his ass (and we all know how unpleasant plumber's crack can be) and everyone knows:

He's not even a licensed plumber, nor has he completed an apprenticeship. (I hope he doesn't lose his job)

He has no clue about small business accounting or taxes. (The business is not likely to be making $250,000 profit - taxes are paid on profit - after expenses, not revenue, so all these expenses you can't afford because of taxes - natch - nothing to do with that!).

He doesn't even pay all the taxes he owes - he has a tax lien.

He doesn't understand enough about government policy to vote in his own interest (to avoid electing someone who dances as well as Sammy Davis, Jr. - I'm sure the next words out of his mouth will be - I'm not prejudiced/a racist).

Despite the pundits who think this is not working for McSame, I think this plays perfectly into the Bush - Cheney - McSame - Pain campaign to allow anyone to do anything, whether it is a small-minded, self-serving, small-town mayor (who overthrew one network of self-dealing to create her own) being (Vice) President of the United States, or a Generation Kill Iraqi veteran who can teach our children without taking any of those annoying tests. It is clear there is a demand out there for unqualified teachers, plumbers, etc because like Palin says - we need to feed our hungry markets with crap.

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Adam Smith - Great Blog - and The Concept of Delegation

Pedantic and obsessed with objective truth as I am, I am totally in love with the Adam Smith's Lost Legacy blog.

In a world of sound bites and misrepresentations and folksy concepts with no basis in reality, I often get extremely frustrated. Modern people are so obsessed with delegation - we delegate our political decision-making, we delegate our childcare, we delegate our manufacturing - at some point one has to wonder what exactly we produce.

I also like The Simple Dollar blog, and the primary reason I decided to fix up my blog and start writing is that he points out that creating value, actually producing is the only true growth. I think that at some point along the way in the dotcom boom and the economic miracle of Clinton capitalism, we lost sight of the fact that the value of something is still independent of its monetization via Google AdSense or some IPO.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Sydney Turns 3

Sydney is an awesome little girl, and although there were some difficulties in the past few months making the transition to "big girl" status, she finally turned 3 today.

It must be tremendously difficult to go through so much in such a short life.

Just in the past few months, she has:

  • Moved from baby bed to big girl bed (although this involved a retrograde trip to mommy and daddy's bed for a while)
  • Welcomed new baby brother Evan
  • Moved to binky only during nap and bed time
  • Evacuated due to Gustav
  • Went to Disney World and finally sent on more rides than Small World
  • Went to first football game in the SuperDome
  • Still trying to get potty trained
  • Been subjected to the Magic-1-2-3 discipline technique
  • Rode on a roller coaster at the Carousel Gardens in City Park
  • Moved up to pre-school room at Abeona House

Sydney Cade Roux, we love you!

Monday, September 22, 2008

Life and Luck in New Orleans - originally posted in 2006

This is my long overdue blog about living in New Orleans.

I've been a homeowner in the City of New Orleans since September 2002, and have lived in the Greater New Orleans Area since 1993. Prior to that, I lived around the States and in England, as my father was in the Navy. My family has lived in New Orleans and the surrounding area since the 1700s - one of my ancestors was a carpenter who helped build the St. Louis Cathedral. I met my wife in New Orleans, we married in New Orleans, and we bought a home in New Orleans.

On August 28, 2005, we evacuated from Hurricane Katrina's path. On September 21, 2005, we evacuated from Hurricane Rita's path. On September 24, 2005, our daughter was born. On October 24, 2005, we were affected by Hurricane Wilma and we returned to our home in New Orleans on November 5, 2005.

Our street was very fortunate, in that it is relatively high ground - almost all around us received more water from the design failure of the levee system, some four and five feet more. Even on our street we were one of the luckiest houses, receiving about a foot of water. Because our house is raised and the basement is stucco, we did not have to remove any sheetrock or have any water in our main living areas. Our losses included a car and a number of possessions in the basement.

I called this blog Last Magnolia because I tend to be a very "lucky" person. On our street, I think about eight magnolia trees died. They were all large, mature trees, but the salt water apparently doesn't treat them well. They weren't on our property and the other homeowners took them down - they were in a sad brown shape and they weren't going to survive. However, we do have a magnolia tree on our property. It's a little bit larger, maybe on a little higher ground, and it still appears healthy and blooming, one year after the flooding caused by the failure of our federally-funded and designed levee system.

It's the last magnolia on our street.