Edward J. Branley's Blog: Eloquent Profanity, page 4

UNO Thoughts 1

UNO thoughts – from LSU to U of L and beyond.

Lots of UNO thoughts today

So, I just donated the equivalent of a couple of weeks’ worth of Iced Chai Lattes (my afternoon go-to beverage of late) to the University of New Orleans, for “Give UNO Day.” I’m right proud to do so, because I still believe in my school’s mission. Louisiana State University in New Orleans became a major part of my life when my parents returned to New Orleans from Metro Boston in 1960. For most folks, the university years are a blip on the timeline. For me, UNO is so much more.

Big Ed and LSUNO

My old man learned electronics courtesy of the United States Air Force. After defending Biloxi, Mississippi from the Chinese during the Korean War, Big Ed married his NOLA girl and took a job up in Boston, as an engineer at Raytheon. He worked on the original Hawk missile project for the Army, earning a good salary, with a house in Danvers, the Boston suburb that was the original Salem. His NOLA girl, however, didn’t adjust well to winters in New England. After making two babies, I suspect the combination of spending the days alone in that suburban house (New Englanders don’t socialize much in the snow), along with post-partum depression, momma needed to go home.

Big Ed always did anything he could for Anne. Give up the good job? Go back South? Sure. He landed a job at the then-two year old LSUNO, as manager of its Electronics shop. The College of Science had some fantastic chemists and physicists, even in those early years. They invested in a lot of electronic equipment. It made sense to repair it in-house. Big Ed hired a team to do just that.

Teaching

Big Ed was an incredible teacher. He ended his time in the USAF as an E-6, teaching electronics. I’m sure he applied those skills at Raytheon. I saw him in action as I got older. It was an absolute blast to go with him to work as a kid. In a way, I had my first “job” at UNO when I was about ten, building Heathkit DC power supplies for the electronics lab daddy and his staff set up for the Physics Department. About the same time, the college invested in a DECSYSTEM 10 mainframe. Computer Science started under Physics, before branching out into an independent department in the college. Daddy kept going with computers. He bought one of the first Motorola integrated circuit learning kids available for the shop. He was always the perfect senior NCO to the officers (professors). I think he was happy with the relationship. It didn’t pay as much as being a “real” engineer, but momma worked as well, so we did OK.

Gentilly

I had two choices for high school. Momma taught many of the Brothers of the Sacred Heart when she was on the Education faculty at Loyola. Being an institution operated by the Society of Jesus, she knew many of the priests and brothers at Jesuit High School. I chose Elysian Fields over Carrollton and Banks. That decision process is an entirely different story that we’ll get to at some point. While LSUNO didn’t fit into that decision, the university’s influence in my life grew.

It was so much more than hitching rides home with daddy. Brother Martin High School operated in the shadow of the university. An example: In Composition II class as a sophomore, Brother Bernie piled us all onto a school bus and took us up to the Earl K. Long Library. The university’s library used Library of Congress rather than Dewey Decimal. We learned where everything was, and that resource was just twenty-five cents away for the rest of my high school years.

Connections

The Brother Martin Debate Team competed all over the metro area, but LSUNO’s tournament was special, because a number of the guys running the tournament were BMHS grads. I don’t know if my trophies from the 1974 tournament are the last items branded as LSUNO or not, but the change became official while we were competing. We were still high schoolers, but the excitement was infectious. It wasn’t a foregone conclusion that I’d go to UNO at that time. Loyola University was quite appealing to me, particularly because debate-team-me harbored that desire to become a lawyer. I got accepted to both schools. My parents would have found the money to pay for Loyola, but given just how much cheaper the state school was, well, that was a no-brainer. Daddy hooked me up with a job in the Chemistry Department my freshman year. I moved on from that to selling suits at Maison Blanche. I made enough money to pay tuition for every other semester.

So, yes, I am right proud to give to my school. While many people were upset when UNO left the Louisiana State University System, becoming part of the University of Louisiana System, I was OK with it. The mission continues.

(to be continued…)

 

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Knowing what it means…

Knowing what it means to miss New Orleans isn’t about the tourist stuff.

Knowing what it means…

It’s not always about Bourbon Street and Jackson Square. In so many ways, knowing what it means to miss New Orleans isn’t all that different from how others miss home. Bostonians don’t miss their “dirty water” as much as they miss a cannoli from a bakery in the North End, or sitting out on the sidewalk at a cafe in the Back Bay. You can make a list of similar experiences all over.

What struck me after two trips to Colorado over the last two weeks was conversation. I’ve been a denizen of coffee shops since the early aughts. After two-three weeks on the road, I sat down in a local place. I listened. I wrote. I regenerated my NOLA. A friend of mine would say, my New Orleans/Gentilly/Yat speech pattern neutralized when I was away for a couple of weeks, then returned within a couple of days at home.

Listening

It’s the best way to pick up a neighborhood vibe. Go to coffee shops in different neighborhoods for contrast. The PJ’s Coffee on Canal Blvd. attracts a different crowd than the CC’s on Esplanade. The former is a nexus of whyte people from Lakeview and cops. The latter is a gathering place for black movers, shakers, and influencers. Both teach you what it means.

Coffee shops in #themetrys also contribute to the whole. Those places are angrier now. With The Former Guy out of office, his voters in Jefferson Parish aren’t happy people. That leaves a dark aura over the coffee shops. While it’s helpful for writers to experience and understand the anger, those vibes also contribute to downward mood swings.

Neighborhoods

Lakeview and Faubourg St. John are quite different from the Quarter, Marigny, and the “sliver along the river.” Many black writers bring out the less-familiar parts of the city, as they relate experiences from growing up outside the white, middle-class areas that ignored and rejected them. Go sit out at the PJ’s Coffee by Lakefront Arena. Eavesdrop on SUNO faculty and UNO students while there. You’ll find a totally different world than hanging out on Oak Street, Uptown.

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Return to Business Travel #personallog

Back on the road, as I return to a bit of business travel.

Return to Business Travel

I traveled to Englewood, Colorado, this week and last, to teach. These trips were the first travel for me for work since February, 2020. That trip, just before Mardi Gras, was to Columbus, Ohio. Hitachi Vantara Global Learning operated a data center there, at a partner location. So, when I taught hardware install courses for them, off to Cbus I went. In the interim, Hitachi moved the training equipment to Englewood. While there were a number of reasons for this, none of them really mattered to me. Hitachi placed a number of travel restrictions on employees because of the pandemic. Now that vaccination numbers are up, companies returned to buying new hardware. That means technical staff need training.

Hybrid training

With travel restrictions still in place, install/configuration training presents a challenge. The field service staff prefer actually touching the hardware. This is quite logical, of course. once they pull it out of the rack and put it back in, they develop a confidence level.

Rather than simply show them photos and Powerpoint, Global Learning sent me to the data center. I set up the phone, TikTok style, then racked out the equipment. Best we can do at this time.

Road worrying

I booked flights on Southwest for these trips. I started looking at Delta. Social media updates on how Delta and Atlanta PD handle mask miscreants offered me confidence. Then I looked at Southwest’s fares! Not only did they offer non-stops to Denver, they were less than half Delta’s prices. I don’t mind Southwest at all. Their “Business Select” fares place me in the “elite” tier of flyers, like First Class on other airlines. Additionally, Business Select fares are fully refundable. While that is less useful now that most of my training is virtual, it’s still good to have.

Southwest didn’t play either with respect to masks. There was one plague rat on the first outbound flight. They did the “slow-chew” technique. They did pull the mask up when FAs walked by. At least they were on the other side of the aisle from me. Otherwise, everyone respected their fellow flyers.

Car Rental

It’s a 40ish minute drive from Denver International Airport (DEN) down to Englewood. While Denver has great light rail, the car was necessary. I didn’t rent cars in Columbus, relying instead on rideshare to and from the hotel. In Englewood, most of the hotels are on one side of I-25 and the data center stands two miles away on the other side. No leisurely walks to Short North for dinner, alas. No third glass of wine as a result.

Glad to be home

Overall, the trips worked out OK. I discovered both a Ramen place and a great Indian restaurant, as well as good pizza. The Marriott (Denver South at Park Meadows) treated me wonderfully. While MSY was a hot mess last night, the new terminal is so much better than the old airport. Three-day classes also give me some of my New Orleans routine as well.

 

 

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@BookNOLA – NOLA Book Club

Book Club!

Book Club for 25-August-2021

We’re discussing Orleans by Sherri L. Smith tonight, 25-August-2021, at 7pm CDT. Here’s the Zoom info:

Hi there,

You are invited to a Zoom meeting.
When: Aug 25, 2021 07:00 PM Central Time (US and Canada)

Register in advance for this meeting:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/regis...

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

See you tonight!

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NOLA Book Club JULY is TOMORROW! (27-July)

NOLA Book Club July is TOMORROW!

NOLA Book Club July

We’re gathering TOMORROW, 27-July-2021, via Zoom, to discuss Economy Hall: The Hidden History of a Free Black Brotherhood, by Fatima Shaik. Here’s the Zoom Info:

Hi there,

You are invited to a Zoom meeting.
When: Jul 27, 2021 07:00 PM Central Time (US and Canada)

Register in advance for this meeting:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/regis...

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

 

Yes, we’ve gone to requiring registration, to combat Zoom-bombing. See you tomorrow!

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BuJo with WindowTree!

Bujo = Bullet Journal, and I use a journal customized by WindowTree Stationary.

Weekly view from February

BuJo with WindowTree

Aly gets me

I’ve been keeping my daily task list/diary/journal using the “Bullet Journal” style, “BuJo” for short. I’ve discussed BuJo and my general struggles to get the right format for a daily task list before. Unlike my more creative friends, my BuJo looked like a grocery list tacked up on the side of the fridge with a magnet. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, if the job gets done, but the aesthetics make even me cringe.

Thing is, I’m just don’t have the skill to add pretty things to my BuJo. I followed the InstaBook pages and creators in this sphere. I finally adopted a grid layout my friend Grey uses. Prismacolor pencils kept things interesting, as each month was a bit different. That kept me going for a full two years.

WindowTree Stationary

windowtreestationary.com

In the Fall of 2021, my editor, the lovely and talented Dara Rochlin, told me her daughter, Alyson, my beta-reader for the Dragons novels, started selling customized journals and notebooks. Alyson’s got the imagination and the skills for this. So, I ordered a few Leuchturm 1917 notebooks and sent them to her. The blanks were payment for her making me a WindowTree journal.

And was I ever rewarded! This notebook is exactly what I need. While it’s a less-flexible format than just the very-forgiving BuJo, I feel like that’s a good thing for me right now. I always felt like I wasted the money on pre-printed inserts for my Franklin-Covey binders. Even if I miss a day with my WindowTree notebook, I still get the smiles Alyson’s creativity generates.

Using my Journal

On the technical side, I pair up my WindowTree BuJo with Trello. While I consider the paper notebook my primary task manager, I still double-enter online. I’ll do a full update on how I’ve adapted Trello into a daily manager, but, suffice to say, the combination works.

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@BookNOLA is WEDNESDAY for The Boyfriend Project @FarrahRochon

Our March Gathering is WEDNESDAY, MARCH 31st! We’ll Zoom at 7pm to discuss The Boyfriend Project by Farrah Rochon.

Here’s the Zoom info:

Edward Branley is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: NOLA Book Club – March Gathering
Time: Mar 31, 2021 07:00 PM Central Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/5043835087

Meeting ID: 504 383 5087
Passcode: boyfriend
One tap mobile
+16468769923,,5043835087#,,,,*781460975# US (New York)
+13017158592,,5043835087#,,,,*781460975# US (Washington DC)

Dial by your location
+1 646 876 9923 US (New York)
+1 301 715 8592 US (Washington DC)
+1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago)
+1 346 248 7799 US (Houston)
+1 408 638 0968 US (San Jose)
+1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose)
+1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma)
Meeting ID: 504 383 5087
Passcode: 781460975
Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kbeq6ALiZq

See you Wednesday!

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The Boyfriend Project by @FarrahRochon – NOLA Book Club

The Boyfriend Project by @FarrahRochon is next up for NOLA Book Club!

The Boyfriend Project

Mark your calendars, invite your friends…

Wednesday, March 31st, 7 pm CST (5pm PST)

Farrah Rochon’s The Boyfriend Project is our March 2021 book of the month for NOLA Book Club, over Zoom. We will put out the zoom credentials as we get closer to the date.

Blurb

Here’s the blurb for The Boyfriend Project:

Samiah Brooks never thought she would be “that” girl. But a live tweet of a horrific date just revealed the painful truth: she’s been catfished by a three-timing jerk of a boyfriend. Suddenly Samiah — along with his two other “girlfriends,” London and Taylor — have gone viral online. Now the three new besties are making a pact to spend the next six months investing in themselves. No men and no dating.

For once Samiah is putting herself first, and that includes finally developing the app she’s always dreamed of creating. Which is the exact moment she meets the deliciously sexy Daniel Collins at work. What are the chances? But is Daniel really boyfriend material or is he maybe just a little too good to be true?

“A smart, funny digital-age romance about real women living in the real world. Couldn’t put it down!” –Abby Jimenez, USA Today bestselling author of The Happy Ever After Playlist

*Listed as a Best Book of the Year from: NPR, Cosmopolitan, Buzzfeed, Frolic, Insider, BookRiot
*Book of the Month selection
*LibraryReads selection
*O, The Oprah Magazine: Must-Read Black Romance Novels
*Cosmopolitan: Best Summer Reads 2020
*Insider: The Best Romance Books of 2020

April/May

Also, if you want to get a head start:

April 21st we will be doing Mosquito Supper Club: Cajun Recipes from a Disappearing Bayou by Melissa M. Martin.

May : we will be doing Economy Hall: The Hidden History of a Free Black Brotherhood, by Fatima Sheik.

There’s a method in the madness for scheduling. Mosquito Supper Club is a bit pricey ($35), but it’s been out there for a while. So, folks who might want to borrow it from their library (or do an ILL) will have time to get that. Economy Hall doesn’t drop until the 15th of March.

We’ve got dates in mind for April and May, but they’re open to discussion. For March, we’ve got two gatherings under our belts, and we had better attendance on a Wednesday than a Thursday. If we’re wrong about Wednesdays being better, please give us some feedback!

Happy reading !

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NOLA Book Club is WEDNESDAY

NOLA Book Club gathers Wednesday, 24-February.

NOLA Book Club

Our second gathering is Wednesday! We’ll discuss The Yellow House by Sarah R. Broom. The gathering will be via Zoom:

Edward Branley is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: NOLA Book Club – February Gathering
Time: Feb 24, 2021 07:00 PM Central Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/5043835087

Meeting ID: 504 383 5087
Passcode: crawfish
One tap mobile
+16468769923,,5043835087#,,,,*84836164# US (New York)
+13017158592,,5043835087#,,,,*84836164# US (Washington DC)

Dial by your location
+1 646 876 9923 US (New York)
+1 301 715 8592 US (Washington DC)
+1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago)
+1 346 248 7799 US (Houston)
+1 408 638 0968 US (San Jose)
+1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose)
+1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma)
Meeting ID: 504 383 5087
Passcode: 84836164
Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kbeq6ALiZq

The Book

The Yellow House is a critically acclaimed memoir by Sarah R. Broom. It’s set in the New Orleans East neighborhood. Bring your thoughts on the book and Da East, 7pm Wednesday!

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NEXT BOOK and GATHERING – The Yellow House: A Memoir 24-Feb

NEXT BOOK!

 

More NOLA Book Club!

Our next book for NOLA Book Club will be The Yellow House, by Sarah M. Broom. A 2019 National Book Award winner, “The Yellow House” is a memoir of a family living in a shotgun house in New Orleans East.

Our Gathering (via Zoom) to discuss “The Yellow House” will be WEDNESDAY, February 24th. That’s the week after Mardi Gras.

Get the book

You can purchase “The Yellow House” through all the usual suspects. Since NOLA Book Club fully and passionately supports Local/Indie booksellers, may we suggest (if you’re local to New Orleans) these shops:

Octavia Books – Go to their website, they do curbside pickup. They’ll also ship.Blue Cypress Books – They’ll also bring the book out to you.Tubby & Coo’s Mid-City Book Shop – ping them for info on ordering/pickup.

We had a lot of fun discussing Maurice’s novel last week. This story will be quite of a change of pace from “We Cast A Shadow.” It’s guaranteed to get you choked up a bit if you have memories of Da East. Since Ms. Broom received a great deal of recognition for “The Yellow House,” some of you may have already read the book. That’s great! You’ll have a month to refresh your memory and be ready to talk it up.

The Yellow House: A Memoir

Here’s the trailer for the book:

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

Winner of the 2019 National Book Award in Nonfiction

A brilliant, haunting and unforgettable memoir from a stunning new talent about the inexorable pull of home and family, set in a shotgun house in New Orleans East.

In 1961, Sarah M. Broom’s mother Ivory Mae bought a shotgun house in the then-promising neighborhood of New Orleans East and built her world inside of it. It was the height of the Space Race and the neighborhood was home to a major NASA plant–the postwar optimism seemed assured. Widowed, Ivory Mae remarried Sarah’s father Simon Broom; their combined family would eventually number twelve children. But after Simon died, six months after Sarah’s birth, the Yellow House would become Ivory Mae’s thirteenth and most unruly child.

A book of great ambition, Sarah M. Broom’s The Yellow House tells a hundred years of her family and their relationship to home in a neglected area of one of America’s most mythologized cities. This is the story of a mother’s struggle against a house’s entropy, and that of a prodigal daughter who left home only to reckon with the pull that home exerts, even after the Yellow House was wiped off the map after Hurricane Katrina. The Yellow House expands the map of New Orleans to include the stories of its lesser known natives, guided deftly by one of its native daughters, to demonstrate how enduring drives of clan, pride, and familial love resist and defy erasure. Located in the gap between the “Big Easy” of tourist guides and the New Orleans in which Broom was raised, The Yellow House is a brilliant memoir of place, class, race, the seeping rot of inequality, and the internalized shame that often follows. It is a transformative, deeply moving story from an unparalleled new voice of startling clarity, authority, and power.

See you on Wednesday the 24th of February!

 

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