Fortune Cookie for today's job market

Perhaps unreadable due to sorry-ass iPhone camera, but it says:

"Poverty is no disgrace"

Dixie

From friend-of-friend Stephen Ready - statue in New Orleans.

Flight 1549: Best view

If I'd have been there (and not had access to a boat), I'll tell you where I'd have wanted to be. On the shore in the background from this pic:

(vid capture image - click here for the actual video, from a surveliance camera, where you can actually - if barely - see the landing - long clip)

That's the Intrepid Museum, which has its own Concorde, as Flight 1549 floats by. The plane hit maybe a 1/4 mile up the river from there perhaps 90 seconds before. The boats you see there are just arriving.

And I can't help but imagine standing on the pier checking out the Concorde, thinking about the modern miracle of jet flight, then turn around to look out at the river and.... hey, is that a.... plane?

Here's a better pic of the Concorde at the museum - from this angle, there's a good chance you're actually looking at the impact spot behind it.

iPhone review Preview

Seth here, who runs the outstanding 9to5mac.com, says the Palm Pre is faster than the iPhone.

http://blogs.computerworld.com/palm_pres_processor_beats_apple_iphone

To which I say:  so what?  What, exactly, is the iPhone slow at?  It does movies, all manner of web surfing and essentially limitless connectivity.  Are game apps running slow?

Much more to come with an iPhone review, but that's to get you thinking.

Best Food in Raliegh/Durham/Chapel Hill

Not much to look at, but this is exit 278 on I-40, between Durham/Chapel Hill and Raliegh.


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It doesn't look like Walnut St. in Philly, but in the Triangle, it's Restraunt Row.

Thanks to the serpentine town borders, I believe this one actually falls in Chapel Hill, though if you leave central Chapel Hill, exit 278 is one exit past the mall that sits in Durham.

Tax rates aside, its the exit for the best food in the Triangle in at least two highly competitive categories, Thai and BBQ, though you'd certainy never suspect it as you exit the highway. You immediatly get a couple of bad strip malls (C-properties, they'd call them in the biz), a long-stay motel, a midgrade business hotel, a Chick-fil-A on the most prosperous corner, some garages, empty storefronts and poorly thought-out traffic lights.

Don't be deterred. You are about to find two absolute gems.

For the first, you certainly don't need to take my word for it - I found this place by asking the Thai students in my school where they go for good food. They all said the Thai Asian Buffet.

Look for it carefully. It's shoved in the elbow-corner of the Food Lion strip mall on the north side of the road.

Be sure you find it at 4900 NC Hwy 55 Ste 200. None of the map sites will pinpoint it correctly, and there are several Asian restraunts in the surrounding area, all with similiarly vague names, including the word 'Buffet.' Again: As you travel away from I-40, it's on your right.







For $7, you get full run of their 20-item buffet, which includes several kinds of dumplings, vegetable, chicken (orange, peanut, garlic, green bean, etc), and - the make-or-break for any Thai joint - Pad Thai. It's thick and on the hot side, with plenty of egg, peanut and chicken.
Also, the drinks are HUGE (tack on 1.50 for them), and you'll need them.

$7, killer food, lunch buffet on weekdays (menu at night and Satuday),

Or you could go just down the road a few miles, well past anything that might be called 'developed', down to an industrial-looking shop with a sign out front that says "Backyard BBQ Pit."

I found it from H. Kent Craig's remarkable North Carolina BBQ Reviews, where it was awarded the widely coveted:

Four-pig Approval!

Here's the full review.

We went in and met the new owners last year. They bought the place a year prior, and absolutely everything - greens, mac and cheese, sweet potatoes, cobbler, etc - gets made fresh, from scratch in the kitchen everyday.

And the BBQ is ridiculous. Soaking in flavor but not in sauce, moist and fresh and lean and just perfect.
I've eaten at every other 3- and 4-pig site Kent has on his site, and nobody is close.

Bonus Exit 278 Food tip: Head back up Highway 54 a few miles and you'll find the cloest Dunkin Donuts to Chapel Hill. Within a few clever turns and a mile of there is the best Chinese in the Triangle at China Palace.

Best easy dish: Sesame Chicken.
Best off the "Chef's special" menu: Squid Kung Pao. Holy cow, is that a terrific dish. Do NOT think you are getting anything like calamari. You are getting large, meaty strips of the octopus that attacked Captain Nemo. AWESOME. I've read everything else on the special menu is good, too.

Happy Epiphany!

Today (Jan 12) is Epiphany. I wanted to mention it before it gets away, so you can remember to celebrate it, if you are so inclined in your faith, or at least to have one, which never hurts.

Today is the 12th day since Christmas (hence the song...), and supposedly the day the three wisemen got to Bethlehem (Western Christianity) or he was baptized in the River Jordan (Eastern Christians, although Eastern Christians apparently are on the Gregorian Calendar, so they'll be having their Epiphany on our Jan 19.). That overlap of calendars also means that today is, for Eastern Christians, Christmas Eve, so all you Eastern Christian Orthadox kids reading this - go to bed!

These events, depending o n which one you are celebrating, marked the revelation of Jesus as God, again, if you're so inclined.

More practically, its traditionally a Feast Day!! Hope you ate yourself stupid.

I know all this (or, rather, went and found out all this) because I bought a $1.99 pocket calendar at CVS a few weeks back to track workouts and apparently the pricing structure on this calendar is one cent per listed holiday. Below is the picture (30 minutes on the tread, 30 mins of Yoga, 3 sets of pulls - solid day).

So while I though maybe I was going to come to great realization about something today, it turns out that its 12 Drummer's Drumming (and for the Paul is Dead-on-Abby-Road hidden religious meaning of that song, check this out: http://www.cresourcei.org/cy12days.html). It also dovetails perfectly with my recent recommitment to learning impractical but interesting things.

Best Thai food in chapel hill/Durham

Thai china buffet located in a perfectly disreputable shopping center

$7 eat until you die. Pad Thai comes pretty hot so have the drink ready

http://maps.google.com/?q=Thai+China+Buffet&cid=9801800321865918768

Sent from my hoverbike

Ethnic restaurant Fail