Know Your Bartender: Katie Redditt (from TLV #161)

Know Your Bartender: Katie Redditt (from TLV #161)





Bar where you work and your shifts: Two Stick, six days a freaking week, so come see me! I love it when I have a FUN bar crowd! Doesn’t even have to be a big one, just fun.

Where are you from, and how long have you lived in Oxford? Vicksburg, been here one year.

In your experience, what is the most common reason to have a drink? Celebration, bad day, pretty much anything.

What’s your favorite drink? Screwdriver made with Cathead vodka—we love Cathead around here.

Where’s your favorite spot to sip in Oxford? Two Stick. I know that sounds silly but if you’re there every day you pretty much have no other options.

What are your specialties? Car Bombs, Lemon Drops, and all of Two Stick’s specialty drinks. So stop by and let me show off my skills—I’m young but I’ve got ‘em!

Early alcohol experience: The drive-thru daiquiri bar at the Daiquiri World, every weekend. Speaking of Daiquiris: come by Two Stick this weekend. I’ve learned how to make traditional homemade daiquiris and will be serving them up Thursday and Friday. Peach, Strawberry and Plum with a raw sugar rim served straight-up, yum yum! And for you old-schoolers, I even know how to make a Hemingway, so named because daiquiris were among his favorites.

Most famous customers you’ve served: John Sinclair (beat poet from the 60s), Joey Lauren Adams, and Eli Manning and family.

Who would you most like to have a drink with? Shea, if and when I can coordinate having a night off and having a babysitter at the same time, I will! (I’m a mother of a very energetic two-year-old!)

What have you been listening to so far this year? Reggae and Jazz—that’s about all my boss lets me play. Don’t get me wrong, it’s ok by me.

What band could your ears not live without? Widespread Panic!

Have you bought anything awesome at The End Of All Music yet? Not yet, but whenever I get that day off I keep talking about, I’m headed straight there. I’ve heard it’s AWESOME!

Favorite movie of all time: Almost Famous (“It’s all happening.”)

Favorite sport & team: I like football, Ole Miss obviously, but UT also because my brother is the kicker—I kind of have to out of default.

What mascot would you have picked for Ole Miss? COLONEL REB!

Whatcha been reading this summer? Bartending books. I’m loving being a bartender and want to try to learn as much as possible. (I’ve found out really quickly what kind of money a “professional” bartender can make, and I like!)

What do you like best about living here? The small-town atmosphere.

What would you like to see change in Oxford? Not being pulled over everywhere I go! Also, definitely parking for the Square-this limited parking crap is for sure hurting the Square’s business, especially during the day.

What’s the funniest thing you’ve seen in your bar lately? The cops being called by a customer who did not think they should have to pay for their ticket after a mistake had been made (that was corrected, of course). The police were very annoyed with this man. He also had been drinking our 2-for-1 drafts for a while, hence his unrealistic approach.

Where would you be if you weren’t behind a bar? Waiting tables.

- See more at: http://www.thelocalvoice.net/oxford/?p=2688#sthash.LaNZMWtV.dpuf

Know Your Bartender: Hugh Jones

From the Local Voice in Oxford, Mississippi:

Know Your Bartender: Hugh Jones

What do you wish people would order more often? Less often?More often: whiskey. Less often: carbombs.

Early alcohol experience: 14 years old, drinking Kokanee and jumping pick-ups over the hills ofWhitman County, and pulling a friend on a saucer (device for sled-type activity) through stubble fields. Almost killed Cody Herman.

Most famous customer you’ve ever served: Ben Power

Who would you most like to have a drink with; where and what would you imbibe? Dr. Howard S. Becker; Hunter S. Thompson; Major T.J. “King” Kong, The Bomb.

What have you been listening to this year? Goodnight Girls (new Unwed Teenage Mothers album)

Favorite movie of all time: Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

Favorite sport & team: Idaho Sportsorcity Sportsball Sportcercisers

Who’s your favorite Rebel? Mary Wollstonecraft

Read any good books lately? Acts of Resistance, Pierre Bourdieu

What’s the funniest thing you’ve seen in your bar lately? “He hasn’t even had that much to drink, he just ate six Klonopin.”

Where would you be if you weren’t behind a bar? In my office, or anywhere but a church. 

Events and Happenings at Ernie's on Gull Lake: April 11th comedy

Check out this link to some of the comedy and live music at Ernie's on Gull.


I am looking forward to the live comedy they are bringing to the place.  Ernie's on Gull offers great food and a nightly happy hour. It is a great place to sit by the water and have a tasty bloody mary and the lobster bisque is not to be missed.

Here is some video of the comedians appearing at Ernie's this month:
This is a Tim Harmston on The Late Show:

This is Dan Mogol:

They will be performing at Ernie's on April 11th.  Check the link to their site for more information.

Human Powered Ferris Wheel

This is great exercise but dangerous...to say the least.   I am impressed by the way they incorporate exercise into work in countries like Myanmar:
Check out the video.  They don't make carnival folk like this in the United States:

Hotshot Truck DOT Compliant Sleeper Berth pictures

I found a picture of some really cool sleeper berths that are DOT compliant and can be used for one ton or bigger trucks. The company lists them as affordable, but they may be an opinion.  Here is a photo of this company's sleeper option, and some other pictures of hot shot sleeper options.

Check the company website for more information: woodhouse.com

Here are some other pictures of hot shot trucking sleeper designs:

 

 This is an interior view of a sleeper in a one ton hot shot truck.

 I like the design of this truck sleeper combination, as the attention to detail and the matching paint makes it look professional and very nice.

I would like to know more about his truck, as the size of the sleeper would make it a great choice for longer trips pulling hot shot loads.   I have always liked the looks of cabover trucks, and this one would provide maneuverability and comfort!

This is a picture of a Cowtown sleeper on a Chevy K3500 hotshot rig and another one of the exterior below:

Check out more sleeper options for hotshots with pictures after the jump:

Freelance Writing Jobs and Helpful Links

Here is a link to paid writing gigs:http://www.freelancewriting.com/freelancejobs/freelance-writing-gigs.php



And a good blog with more information on how to write query letters and other helpful information for freelance writing success: http://creativegenius101.blogspot.com/

Slabwood slab wood cabins

Here are a few pictures of different slabwood construction methods. I find the ingenuity of these builders to be very inspiring and wish I could build a small slabwood and log cabin of my own. We have a dead pine in the driveway that needs to be removed. Once I cut her down it will be essential to cut her to length and crib the logs so they can dry in the sun.   Once they are dry, I plan to use them as a framework for a timber framed cabin, and I will use birch and oak slab wood for the siding.  Should be a nice little deer hunting shack.  Here are a few slabwood cabins I like:

This is a photo of a six sided cabin built by a hippy on some land out in New York.

This looks like the ultimate cheapskate cabin and I really like the way it is pieced together. This is a person I could learn from as they used all the available resources and made a kickass cabin. This is a cool looking spot to chill out in the woods. It reminds me of some of the deer hunting shanties I see up in Northern Minnesota and this kind of cabin is next on my summer build list. It looks pretty damn cozy!

Poems by Jim Harrison

From his book, Songs of Unreason

American Sermon


I am uniquely privileged to be alive
or so they say. I have asked others
who are unsure, especially the man with three
kids who’s being foreclosed next month.
One daughter says she isn’t leaving the farm,
they can pry her out with tractor
and chain. Mother needs heart surgery
but there is no insurance. A lifetime of cooking
with pork fat. My friend Sam has made
five hundred bucks in 40 years
of writing poetry. He has applied for 120
grants but so have 50,000 others. Sam keeps
strict track. The fact is he’s not very good.
Back to the girl on the farm. She’s been
keeping records of all the wildflowers
on the never-tilled land down the road,
a 40-acre clearing where they’ve bloomed
since the glaciers. She picks wild strawberries
with a young female bear who eats them. She’s being
taken from the eastern Upper Peninsula down
to Lansing where Dad has a job in a
bottling plant. She won’t survive the move.




Dan’s Bugs


I felt a little bad about the nasty earwig
that drowned in my nighttime glass of water,
lying prone at the bottom like a shipwrecked mariner.
There was guilt about the moth who died
when she showered with me, possibly a female.
They communicate through wing vibrations.
I was careful when sticking a letter
in our rural mailbox, waiting for a fly to escape,
not wanting her to be trapped there in the darkness.
Out here in the country many insects invade our lives
and many die in my nightcap, floating and deranged.
On the way to town to buy wine and a chicken
I stopped from 70 mph to pick up
a wounded dragonfly fluttering on the yellow line.
I’ve read that some insects live only for minutes,
as we do in our implacable geologic time.




Brutish


The man eating lamb’s tongue salad
rarely thinks of the lamb.
The oral surgeon jerking twenty teeth out
in a day still makes marinara sauce.
The German sorting baby shoes at Treblinka
writes his wife and children frequently.
The woman loves her husband, drops two kids
at day care, makes passionate love
to an old boyfriend at the Best Western.
We are parts. What part are you now?
The shit of the world has to be taken
care of every day. You have to choose
your part after you take care of the shit.
I’ve chosen birds and fish, the creatures
whose logic I wish to learn and live.




Doors


I’m trying to create an option for all
these doors in life. You’re inside
or out, outside or in. Of late, doors
have failed us more than the two-party system
or marriages comprising only one person.
We’ve been fooled into thousands of dualisms
which the Buddha says is a bad idea.
Nature has portals rather than doors.
There are two vast cottonwoods near a creek
and when I walk between them I shiver.
Winding through my field of seventy-seven
large white pine stumps from about 1903
I take various paths depending on spirit.
The sky is a door never closed to us.
The sun and moon aren’t doorknobs.
Dersu Uzala slept outside for forty-five years.
When he finally moved inside he died.




From Songs of Unreason


When young I read that during the Philippine War
we shot six hundred Indians in a wide pit. It didn’t seem fair.
During my entire life I’ve been helpless
in this matter. I even dream about it.


***


In summer I walk the dogs at dawn
before the rattlesnakes awake. In cold weather
I walk the dogs at dawn out of habit.
In the pastures we find many oval deer beds
of crushed grass. Their bodies are their homes.


***


I left this mangy little
three-legged bear two big fish
on a stump. He ate them at night
and at dawn slept like a god
leaning against the stump
in a chorus of birds.


***


The fly on the window is not a distant crow
in the sky. We’re forced into these decisions.
People are forever marrying the wrong people
and the children of the world suffer.
Their dreams hang in the skies out of reach.

Peter Bradley Adams-The Longer I Run

Oscar Wilde and kitty wampus photo.

“All authority is quite degrading. It degrades those who exercise it, and degrades those over whom it is exercised. When it is violently, grossly, and cruelly used, it produces a good effect by creating, or at any rate bringing out, the spirit of revolt and individualism that is to kill it. When it is used with a certain amount of kindness, and accompanied by prizes and rewards, it is dreadfully demoralising. People, in that case, are less conscious of the horrible pressure that is being put on them, and so go through their lives in a sort of coarse comfort, like petted animals, without ever realising that they are probably thinking other people's thoughts, living by other people's standards, wearing practically what one may call other people's second-hand clothes, and never being themselves for a single moment.”Oscar Wilde