Book Report: Dirty South by Ace Atkins

Dirty South is the fourth novel in the Nick Travers series. Nick Travers is an ex Saint football player turned music history professor at Tulane. He fills in his spare time by doing investigatory favors for people a la Travis McGee. In this case, he is helping an old team mate and rap music producer track down money that was stolen from him and his newest teenage rap star, ALIAS. Dirty South is a reference to his style of rap music and the novel takes you on a tour of the seamy side of the music industry in New Orleans.

If you like the writing style of James Lee Burke, with his earthy descriptions of the south, you will like Ace Atkins. His depictions of New Orleans are colorfully vivid and geographically accurate. You can almost smell the funk of the French Quarter coming off the pages.

Ace Atkins has written a total of nine novels. Four are the Nick Travers series. He has also written four "historical faction" novels dealing with actual crimes from the 20's, 30's and 50's. His latest novel, The Ranger, is set is present day Mississippi.

It's only a matter of time before someone decides to buy the movie rights to some of his work.

And here's the lagniappe: Ace Atkins has been chosen by Robert Parker's Estate and publisher to continue writing the Spenser series.

Coyotes 3, Cats 0

I am not a cat person. I am polite to cats and will even give them a rub, if they belong to a relative. I even like those silly LOL Cats. But I am not a cat person. I am particularly not happy with the three cats that my neighbors let run loose who spend most of their time shedding icky cat hair on the furniture on my back patio.

And then one day I noticed that they weren't coming around anymore. And that the squirrel population seemed to have diminished as well.

And then I saw this on the evening news.

It looks like Wiley Coyote has found a source of easy meat!

Ocean Engineering Again

The video on my post showing the underwater salvage was taken down so here is another showing the removal of a damaged deck.

Reading the Signs

You don't need to be a Boy Scout or a trained tracker to recognize the signs:

1) Purchase Orders for new equipment have been put on hold
2) We've been told not to perform any more drawing approvals for equipment currently on order
3) Engineers assigned to this project have suddenly started work on other projects
4) The head office has gone radio silent
5) Key personnel who have recently left have not been replaced

Yep, I doubt that this project will continue much longer. Bad project economics and some poor decisions by management have conspired to kill it. I have my parachute packed and am ready to go.

Ocean Engineering Stuff

This video shows the salvage of Taylor Energy's Mississippi Canyon 20 platform topsides. The platform was toppled by a mudslide. Mudslides are underwater avalanches and can be triggered by a hurricane. In this case, Hurricane Ivan was the culprit. You can see that the lower part of the structure is clean, indicating that it was embedded in the mud. Note how they had to build a special frame to transport the deck. This saved them the problem of having to turn the thing while it was on the hook.

The lift is being performed by Versabar using the custom designed lift barge, VB 10000. The weight of the lift is 3000 tons. The water depth is about 800 feet.

"Live Free or Die" - It's More Than a Motto

Bayou Renaissance Man has a link to an interesting study that ranks the 50 states with regard to the freedoms they give their residents. The state of my birth and my youth, New Hampshire, is first overall. It is interesting to note that only 4 of the Original 13 rank in the top half. Alaska, which you would think would be a haven for personal freedom and individuality ranks 44. Louisiana is 35th - not a great showing. New York, not surprisingly, is Tail End Charlie.

Headcount

Saudi Arabia rid the Middle East of 4 murderers and 2 rapists in May. They doubled their year to date head count which is now up to 12.