by edward | Dec 16, 2025 | Personal Log, Social Media
Reading someone end a greeting with “to those who observe” makes my ass itch.
Lightsaber menorah seen on Pinterest. Sorry to the creator, I know I shouldn’t use stuff from that copyright infringement cesspool.
Some criticism of “to those who observe”
It’s that time of year when folks in marketing-forward careers want to wish potential customers/clients good cheer and blessings. These folks often encounter a dilemma, though. If they wish someone a happy <insert holiday or religious occasion here>. will said well-wishes backfire? To put it bluntly, will Christians get offended when you wish them, Ramadan Mubarak?
Enter the subject phrase. Let’s say it’s the first night of Hanukkah, the Jewish festival of lights. I don’t know about you, but I’ve got more than a few friends who are Jewish. While some are more religious than others (imagine that, it’s more than just Catholics who do that), most celebrate Hanukkah.
This should be so bloody easy. The years when Hanukkah and Christmas directly intersect are rarer than rare. It’s December 14th, wish your Jewish friends well on their festival. Same for Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights. Wish your Hindu friends well in October or November (Diwali is determined based on a lunar calendar).
Overthinking
There’s no need to overthink this. Christians shouldn’t get upset that your circle of friends and associates extends beyond them. “But what about the ones who might get upset” you ask? I get that you might not have the immediate, oh-fuck-that-guy reaction I would. So, let’s consider the situation.
First, just how many people are we talking about? I note with interest that one of Earl Higgins’ 100 Catholic Things To Do Before You Die is to put a “Keep Christ in Christmas” sticker on your car. A lot of Catholics just ain’t gonna do that. Same for other followers of the Prophet from Nazareth. Still, we wish them “Merry Christmas.” We might even say “Happy Holidays” if we’re unsure just what they’re happy about during the winter holiday season. If they don’t observe another religion’s special time/celebration, their brains process it and move on.
Second, why are you worried about those who do care you recognize other religions? We’ve pretty much established that your “to those who observe” target audience is pretty small. Why do you give a shit? Is your mortgage brokerage limited to Our Lady of the Holy Bigots Catholic Church, or the First Evangelical Church of My Religion is the Only One? If so, well, you probably hit the X in the top right corner of your browser on me already.
Third, who are you looking for in terms of clients/customers? Muslims, Hindus, and Jews get in auto accidents and need PI attorneys. Their kids get into shit with cops and need representation. They buy houses and borrow money. While I admit that wishing someone, Ramadan Mubarak, isn’t all that much effort, it’s a start. The more we acknowledge the individual ingredients of the gumbo, the better it tastes.
Happy Almost Mardi Gras, to those who observe!
by edward | Aug 4, 2023 | Personal Log, Writing, Writing Prompts
My Personal Log for this week is a bit behind schedule. Imagine that.
Personal Log 20230804
I need to treat these log entries as self-care. IOW, practicing what I preach. I post inspirational memes that say, stop, work on yourself, then I start a three-part blog post on swimming pools for the history blog. Is that self-care? Arguably, but so is taking the time to stop and think. Maybe I’m stressing too much over a couple of days, I guess.
Trains
Y’all know I’m a railfan. I wear the “foamer” label as a badge of honor. I don’t apologize for it. One of the reasons I like the PJ’s Coffee on Canal Boulevard is its proximity to the “Back Belt,” the train tracks that run across the northern part of Orleans Parish. Originally built by the New Orleans Terminal Company, the Back Belt connects Jefferson Parish with the “five mile bridge” over Lake Pontchartrain. Canal Blvd. uses an underpass, so there’s no grade crossing. In fact, there are no grade crossings on the Back Belt in the city. It’s a wonderful train-watching location, even on furnace-like days in the summer.
So, I take a lot of pictures for the history blog and insta. While I record the occasional freight train, I regularly record the Amtrak Crescent. This is the train that runs from New Orleans to Penn Station in Manhattan. Trains from NOLA to NYC started in the 1890s. Southern Railway branded the route, “The Crescent” in 1925. When Amtrak took over in 1971, the national passenger rail corporation kept the Crescent.
It takes the train less than a minute to pass over Canal Blvd. I get up, record that minute, and then go back to work. Most days, Amtrak runs the regular consist, coaches, sleepers, and a cafe’ car. Some days, however, an engine with a special paint job pulls the train. Others feature a private railcar or two bringing up the rear. It’s sort of like panning for gold. You have to look (and in this case, record), to catch the nugget.
Earlier this week, I saw the Crescent coming, pretty much on-time, around 0925. I got up and saw AMTK 164, a GE “Genesis” engine in the lead. This particular engine bears an older livery, the “Phase IV” scheme. Amtrak painted it that way to mark the 40th anniversary of the railroad, in 2011. So, there was an empty parking space on the side of the coffee shop. The train approached and I had a solid angle for that special engine. Then I hear a bunch of horn honking. There’s only about 20 seconds left before the train goes by, so I ignore it.
I hear the horn stop and a car door opens and closes. A woman comes up to me, demanding I get out of the parking space so she can pull in.
Ten seconds left in the train’s passing.
I turn to face her, still recording (not really thinking about that, but I did want to finish the train). I said, I’m just trying to record the train. She says she knew that and asked if she would have to go into the property management office where she said she works and get the manager.
Knock yourself out, I’m thinking, since by now, the train was gone. I returned to my outside table around the corner of the building and continued writing.
It’s the first time I’ve ever recorded a Karen. I shared the video to a couple of Amtrak groups on the Book of Zucker, since the lead engine is of note, without editing the woman out. She amused some of the viewers.
Is there a moral to the story? I dunno. Actions have consequences? Careful when you’re having a bad day? For me, show some empathy? The encounter is now in the writing, as y’all will see later today.
Weekend intentions – kick off the Patreon content! Tomorrow we’ll drop the Prologue and Chapter 1 of “Hidden Talents,” the first of my Urban Fantasy novels. I’ll drop two chapters a month for folks at the $1 level on this website. We’ll also feature new content, a short story, monthly. When it’s time for the new novel, that may go in at a higher subscription level.
Be safe this weekend!
by edward | Jul 27, 2023 | Personal Log
Updates and things.
Dirty Coast t-shirt
Personal Log 20230726
Distractions! Well, partly. The other part is that I tend to use my Chromebook to write on this website, and other work had me working on the “real” laptop. Yeah, I know, that sounds lame, but hey, it’s one of those things. So, the bag with the Chromebook sat as I used the Ubuntu laptop, and Personal Log 20230726 had to wait.
Trivial Tacos
One of the reasons this smaller laptop stayed in the bag was the romance novel, Trivial Tacos. My authoring software, Scrivener, requires Windows or MacOS. So, that means I have to run it in a virtual machine. That’s not exactly something the Chromebook can handle. There are times when I get a writing idea when I’m on the smaller computer. I get it down in the word processor, then copy/paste into Scrivener. Extra steps are distractions!
More on the Chromebooks coming when I write something for the Linux blog. Back to the novel. The first draft is done. Finished. Hit the save button. It’s twelve chapters, a bit over 50K words. That’s short in comparison to the Talents novels, but it’s romance. I had so much fun with it, and my writers group got a kick out of my takes on the genre. Next steps: I set up a Trello board for editing and production. I started on the first chapter on Monday. Went back through it, made some small changes, and followed my checklist. I’ve relied on Dara for character continuity, etc., for other works. I start a character as Anne, and by the third chapter, she’s Susan. Usually this is minor characters, so it’s easy to clean up.
Ethnicity decisions
This story presented a challenge. One of the main characters told me she’s a Navy brat, and her mother is brown (therefore so is she). I was four chapters into the story before it was clear she’s Indian. That’s required a lot more continuity checking, and I’m sure Lady Duchess of the Red Pen will find the stuff I haven’t.
Cancer
Yeah, the wife has breast cancer. It’s an extreme distraction. Still, not going to hear much about all that online.
Back to the editing…Personal Log 20230726 out.
by edward | Jul 5, 2023 | Personal Log
Stuff happening in Personal log for Wednesday, 5-July-2023.
Current background on the chromebook.
Personal Log 20230725
Can sum up things this week simply: things are happening, nothing overwhelming, but still, well, stuff I would rather not be happening. Family medical situations aren’t going away. While these aren’t my stories to tell, they still have an impact.
The Crescent #20 just passed by here at the coffee shop. The trains provide continuity. Things keep rolling along.
Distractions
I blew up my Mastodon accounts on mstdn.party. They were sort of starter accounts, experimental. Now that I’ve sorted out what I want to do on Mastodon, I started my own instance. So far so good, but it takes patience. Since Mastodon is “federated,” it takes time for other sites to pick up mine. That federation, that distribution, is the magic of the platform. It’s not one centralized site run by a crazy billionaire. While the larger sites offer immediate gratification, I like the control of my own little island. Hard to tell if others will want accounts on nolabooks.social, but that’s off in the future anyway. The server needs details.
Chapter Twelve
Trivial Tacos reaches a conclusion! It contains a lot of continuity issues. Several chapters started life as stand-alone stories. Weaving these together is fun, but challenging. For starters, the cats finally have names! It’s sort of a rule that, if you introduce a cat into a story, it requires a name. Unless the lack of a name is the story, that is. So, the cats have tentative names. When my brain processes the ending of the story, we return to the prologue and re-write. There are a few things unsettled at the start that are now clear. The characters told me the full stories. Now they go into the novel. The action stuff of my other fiction made it easy to update. More personal feelings require more weaving.
OK, back to Mastodon and Bob Mann’s book on Huey Long.
by edward | Jun 28, 2023 | Personal Log, YatCats
A lot of stuff going on that I don’t want to talk about in a Personal Log.
Personal Log 20230628
Gotta fix the truck for El Gato Metairie. Not like Arwen’s going to do it, as you can see. She’s a sweet kitteh, but often lacks motivation. Unless she’s chasing a twist tie, that is. Nala’s doing well, too. Ever see a video on the TicTacs where you draw a box on the floor with masking tape and a cat will sit in it? That’s Nala, but with sunshine. A sunbeam creates a box on the floor, she sitz. They still come supervise me when I’m in the study, teaching via WebEx. Arwen even jumped up on the desk the other day. She hasn’t done that in ages. They’re on Da Twittah, as @yatcats, if you haven’t abandoned the hellscape.
Patreoning
I’m working on a romance novel. Currently writing the twelfth and final chapter. Then it’s back to the beginning, for revisions. I’m in a fun writers group who gives me great feedback. So, I figure, it will be ready for publication by December. Elysian Fields Press will publish the story, but I’ll also release it serially here on this site.
The site connects to Patreon now, with a $1 tier. So, if you’re reading this entry, about 120 words should be visible. Support the work, you see the whole thing. I’ve been doing this with NOLA History Guy for some time. It works well for the history blog, because an image or an ad can be presented in a hundred or so words. Want the deep dive? Support the work. The approach is a success. This site will be a bit stricter, though.
#swampass
I’m of two minds when it comes to not traveling as much these days. On one hand, the Travel Hassles are gone. Sure, the glass(es) of wine in First Class are gone as well, but it’s an overall win.
Except for #swampass.
Sure, it’s hot in Columbus, OH, or Atlanta, or Manhattan. But they’re different, with interesting restaurants and pubs. That’s the part I miss. The other side of this is, I’m in shorts and a t-shirt, here at the coffee shop, and that’s how I’ll teach today. When I’m done, I’ll go schlep out into the #swampass and watch trains. It could be worse.
by edward | Nov 4, 2021 | Books, Personal Log
Maurice Carlos Ruffin reads and signs books! Maurice at Melba’s this Saturday.
See Maurice at Melba’s
This Saturday, November 6th, Author/Professor Maurice Carlos Ruffin will be at Melba’s Po-Boys, 1525 Elysian Fields Avenue, in Gentilly, meeting folks and giving away his latest book, The Ones Who Don’t Say They Love You. He’ll be there from 12pm-1pm. If you haven’t met Maurice, you’re in for a treat.
Melba’s Memories
The current incarnation of Melba’s has little to connection to the original, other than the name. While this Melba’s is a po-boy place, the original Melba’s was an ice cream place on Franklin Avenue, a couple of blocks on the lake side of Claiborne. It was right near where Franklin and Almonaster came together. Forgive my memory on this. I first learned about Melba’s in the summer of 1973. The Brother Martin High Debate Team got together once a week or so, that July and August. We had some guys who were good at both Debate and the various individual Speech events. So, we worked on a bunch of different things, ranging from research on the national debate topic to practicing Extemporaneous Speaking.
I was a rising sophomore at the time. Debate broke out into two levels of competition, Junior Division for 9th and 10th grades, Senior Division for 11th and 12th. The team nurtured a culture of helping out the new guys. I made the most of that.
Oh yeah, Melba’s. It wasn’t like we could go out for beers after practice, but ice cream was just fine. We all lived in different parts of the city, but we deferred to the choices made by the seniors. A ride down Elysian Fields, then over to Franklin wasn’t all that complicated. Melba’s hit the spot. For a white kid who lived in Metairie, going down to the Ninth Ward was significant. So many kids from the suburbs don’t get out much. Going to school in Gentilly offered opportunities to understand what New Orleans was all about.
Saturday!
Anyway, come out and see Maurice. It’ll be fun.
