A journey of a hundred miles:

is about to begin. Walking through rural Kentucky for ten days, with lovely people, bringing attention to the horrors of mountaintop removal mining.

Super excited. More soon.

Saccaminnow bound

Okay, at the airport, and once again thinking the annual 50k miles I spend on Sky Club access is worth every penny. If nothing else, dear readers, it provides free wifi for me to blog. I know, tantalizing, right?

First: the TSA Pre Check program is pretty damn nice: to be able to walk through security without taking out my stupid 3-1-1 compliant toiletries, leave my shoes on, leave my laptop in my bag. OH, WAIT: that's what it was before all of this ridiculous security theatre. Okay, neeeeeext...

 The Atlanta airport has a pretty nice Atlanta history installation going in in the pedestrian walkway between the B and C terminals. As many of you know, I'm a big fan of history museums, and this stuff is pretty solid. That said, it sort of pretty paints some of the uglier parts of Atlanta history, e.g., highlighting the 1996 Olympics without mentioning Christian Right terrorist Eric Robert Rudolph's bombing in Centennial Olympic Park that killed two and injured 111, and doesn't bother to even mention a formative part of Atlanta history, the 1906 Atlanta Race Riots.

But actually, one of my main gripes is that it puts an ellipsis my favorite part of my favorite Atlanta quote:

The complete quote: 

South of the North, yet north of the South, lies the City of a Hundred Hills, peering out from the shadows of the past into the promise of the future.

 -- W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk, Chapter 5: Of The Wings of Atlanta

In other news, here is what an angle grinder and set of cheap bolt cutters can do with a little time an initiative. No, I'm not a bike thief. But my plane is about to take off, so more later.

mapleoatmealeggsandwich

File this emailed coupon under "Absolutely Fucking Opposite of Food Porn".

No, I don't think they're being ironic, or facetious. Some genius actually thinks that (a) this is a food product that (b) is going to sell.

Seriously: who eats this crap?

Not that impressive, but: FOOD PORN!

Okay, they don't look that impressive, but these stuffed tofu steaks were pretty damn tasty:

 

 I mean, they started out as this:

Well, actually, they started out with this: ONIONS, broccoli stem, and fresh jalapeno, stuffed in the slit tofu steaks:

Pan fried, braised with a sauce of tamari, chili garlic, and sesame oil, then baked for about an hour. Delicious.


And here is some other random food porn, since I was on a stress-reduction cooking binge last night:

$1 @ a time. Or $5.

My little holiday season project was to give at least $1 to everyone who asked me for money in San Francisco and the East Bay. I didn't keep track, but since i was mostly staying with A & R in the Tenderloin, it wasn't an inexpensive undertaking, and I'd estimate out of pocket around $45.
This was in part inspired by A, the first morning i was in SF, giving a guy selling Street Sense in the Civic Center BART station $10. We had just heard the overhead announcement "Attention BART Police, attention BART Police, panhandler on the platform, panhandler on the platform!" Except it was a little more shrill than text can capture. Then this guy shambled up, and could barely articulate the offer to buy Street Sense for $1. Without going in to too much detail, the guy had clearly had a very rough time of it.
A gave him $10 as i was going to my wallet, and said something like "What kind of a heartless motherfucker do you have to be to kick that guy out?" Indeed. So i decided i would give money to everyone who asked me on this trip.
Walking toward the BART station this morning to head to SFO, i found a folded $5 bill laying on the sidewalk in front of the Great American Music Hall, possibly from last night's Primus show.
The next guy who asked, half a block later, had a fairly big ask: "a couple bucks to get me something to eat?" He got the $5, and thanked me all the way down the block. It felt great, as did every other one of the 40+ gives.
Happy New Year! May all of yours be bountiful, gratifying, and unpredictable.