The Baton Rouge Zoo

Yesterday, Steph and I were both off, and we decided to go visit our local zoo. We were not expecting much, but I'm happy to say that we were pleasantly surprised. The zoo had quite a few animals, including this bear, and it was not hard to get around. Also, there were very few other people there, which made for a rather pleasant experience. Some areas where the Baton Rouge Zoo could improve would be the landscaping. I guess you come to expect great landscaping at zoos, but this one needed some work. Maybe it's because I've gotten very critical of landscaping since buying my first house (and first landscaped patio), but I saw entirely too many areas that needed weeding and just general fixing-up. Another area of improvement for the zoo is the information posted outside each exhibit. Only a few exhibits had all of what you expect, a map, the animal's common name along with the scientific name, and a 2 paragraph write-up about the critter. Some signs only had the common name, and some exhibits didn't have any signs at all!

Those things said, I think Baton Rouge had a good zoo. With a little more community involvement, I think it could be great.


jigawatt's zoo rating, 8 out of 10.

The move to Red Stick

Our advise on moving. . .hire someone else to do it for you. This was the forth time James and I had moved since we got married, so you'd think we'd be pros at it by now. Not so. The problem began when the UHAUL was not big enough. We had to leave a lot of things behind. We had the UHAUL full, the cab of the UHAUL full, my car full, James' car full, my mom's car full, James' mom's car full, and and 20 year old pick-up truck that leaked every kind of fluid that it could possible leak full. . .and we still couldn't fit everything. We had given a number of things away too, including two beds, a dresser, a recliner, and a desk.

The caravan mentioned above headed down to Baton Rouge. I drove my car, with the two dogs and what ever else I could cram in it - including a coffee table. James drove the UHAUL, and my poor dad drove the 20 year old leaking pickup. . .with no AC, and a window stuck in the up position. I was the first to arrive at the house, and I found that one of the windows had been broken and the water in the bath tub was running full blast. I called the police, but it didn't accomplish much.

James didn't move in for good for over a month. He kept his job in Arkansas while we waited for me to get my license. In that period of time, he drove the old pick-up and brought more of our things down to the new house each weekend.

All in all, the whole experience was a headache.

Cruise

We left out of Galveston, TX the day after graduation. We'd never been to Galveston before, so we took some time to look around town before boarding the ship. We spent a couple of hours looking around in the historic Strand district, which sadly suffered severe fire damage due to hurricane Rita.

Our first stop on the trip was Progresso, Mexico where we had the opportunity to visit Myan ruins. We climbed to the top of the pyramid pictured here.

The next stop was Cozemel. We didn't book any excursions there, we just spent the day shopping.

The last stop, which was our favorite, was Belize. We went snorkeling in two different places. First, we went to a magnificent barrier reef and then we got to go to an area where we could swim with stingrays. The stingray were amazing to watch. . .They were so graceful, but dangerous if you got too close.

Graduation

Well, we're finally getting around to updating you on what's happened in our lives since May. I graduated from UAMS on May 21. It was a long awaited (and fun) day for me. We had a lot of our family come to visit and share the day with us. The 21st was also James' grandmothers' birthday, so we had a casual birthday party for her before we headed off to graduation.

James had a couple of suprises up his sleve for me that day. First, he reserved a limo to drive us to graduation. It was the first time I'd gotten to ride in one. I was glad we had it because we were running late for the ceremory and the driver knew a shortcut that got us there in time.

The next surprise was dinner at Gaucho's after graduation. Gaucho's is one of our favorite restraunts in Little Rock. If you live in Little Rock, you've got to try it. We had a great time with our family and friends that evening.

The last surprise James had for me was a cruise to Cozemel, Progreso Mexico, and Belize. . .more later on the cruise.

Amazon URL Shortener

It is quite easy to make an amazon.com URL very short. Here's how it works:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASIN

I've found that you can also take off the "www" at the beginning.

For example, Hamlet by William Shakespeare can be found at:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/074347712X/qid=1125766451/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/102-5933287-8656156?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

OR

http://amazon.com/o/ASIN/074347712X

Funny comment

I was at Albertson's, waiting for Steph to get through being a pharmacist for the day, and I was reading my new textbook Digital Communications, for which I paid much less than $136.27. Then, said reading was interrupted by a young male voice saying "we got a fellow nerd in the house, yo, yo!" I have no idea who the 7 year old was refering to, but I laughed.

Hurricane Katrina

Wow. There is no other word to describe the awesome power that this hurricane unleashed on the Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama Gulf coast. Watching the trees in my new yard bend and sway in the wind that was a good 150 miles from the eye of the storm renewed my respect for our awesome and sovereign God. For those questions that must be asked during this time, I refer you to 3 articles written by Dr. John Piper, the Pastor for Preaching at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
1. Tsunami, Sovereignty, and Mercy.
2. Is God Less Glorious Because He Ordained that Evil Be?.
3. Why I Do Not Say, "God Did Not Cause the Calamity, but He Can Use It for Good".

None of these articles were written specifically about Hurricane Katrina. The first was written about the Tsunami in the Indian Ocean on December 26, 2004 that took the lives of about 200,000 people. The second is a good defence of God's total control of all events, both moral and amoral. The third is a response to the oft repeated phrase after after the 9-11 attacks. Obviously the hurricane and the terrorist attacks are different because the terrorist attacks were executed by men, and the hurricane was not, but the point of the article is still very timely.

On a personal note, Steph and I are doing fine. We lost power at our house at 07:14 on Monday and didn't get it back till 10:09 yesterday, but that was the extent of our "damage" from the storm. I was able to move all of our food in our freezer to our deep freezer and to take it to a friend of a friend's house who had power, so we didn't lose as much as we might have. On the other hand, things seem to be getting a little uneasy here in Baton Rouge. I don't know how much the city has swollen in the past couple of days, but I suppose it's at least doubled in population from all of the evacuees. There have been reports of increased incidents of robberies and violence in the town. Even the Wal-Mart Supercenter on Siegen (usually a 24 hour store) just a few miles from our house closed at 22:00 (that's 10pm) tonight. Also, it seems that you can't buy gas anywhere in the city. Every gas station I passed today was shut down. Steph has been going back to work, and I've been helping out the folks at The Oaks Community Church. They are running a shelter there, and I have helped serve food, clean some bathrooms, and mostly work on the computer, looking up phone numbers, doing data entry etc. By the grace of God, I have been able to help 2 families get in touch with their loved ones. There are two forms at nola.com that people are using to try and connect with family and friends, Missing Persons Forum, and the I'm OK Forum. One lady was very upset that her daughter might not have made it out of New Orleans alive. We posted on the site but heard no response, and later found that her ex-husband was posting on the site as well, looking for the same daughter. Please pray that Paco and Diane and Janie and Keith Munster find their daughter (and sister), Roxanne.

I've had a long day, but maybe I'll have some updates later.