rustypants speaks

Scott & Lise Try to Find Vegetarian Food @ McGuire’s Irish Pub in Destin, FL from scott rust on Vimeo.

What did they find? What did they eat? How does it end??

Well, click play and find out.

Stick around – it gets rather silly at the 4:00 mark…

During our Saturday trip to Pensacola Beach today, we got our first glimpse of what’s here, and what’s to come with the oil spill in the Gulf.

Using some of their product, I have tried to articulate how we and many of our friends here in Pensacola feel about BP and the oil spill / death of millions of animals / destruction of habitats / screwing over of lives:

To be certain, this is only the tip of the iceberg. The blobs of oil we saw / stepped in / couldn’t avoid today were nothing compared to what’s a couple miles off shore, and even that is nothing compared to what’s slowly moving our way.

To say that we’re heartbroken doesn’t even begin to cover it.

We’re heartbroken for the wildlife that is being killed by this tragedy. We’re heartbroken for the lives ruined (those killed on the rig; the families left behind; those whose businesses and dreams are shattered; those of us who live on the Gulf coast who will be directly and indirectly affected financially for many years to come).

And we’re heartbroken for selfish reasons, too. When Lise and I moved here back in 2007, we did so for mental health reasons and because we had fallen in love with Pensacola Beach. Many long-time residents we’ve friended here think we’re somewhat crazy – coming to the beach three, four, even five times a week is not unusual for us. We watch the sunset. We collect shells. We sit together and dream dreams. We watch pelicans, terns, and other seabirds fly and live. We watch dolphins, schools of fish, sharks, cownose stingrays, and a vast number of other sealife swim with what seems to us like carefree abandon. We swim. We love. We are still in awe of the incredible diversity that the seasons bring to the shoreline. The peace and comfort we receive just being in the presence of the Gulf shore is indescribable.

Taking pictures today of Pensacola Beach littered with the first wave of tar balls / oil blobs hurt. Picking up a small amount of the oil and seeing how difficult it is to get that shit off of my hands was shocking. I still have oil stuck under / around my fingernails after washing my hands several times.

We’ve both cried. I’m sure we’ll be crying more. The pictures coming out of Louisiana are so painful that I’ve had to stop looking at them. The ramifications for our future here (mental health, financial, job-wise, etc.) are so shocking that we’ve not been able to have a coherent conversation about it yet. But we’re going to have to face this soon.  I don’t know how we’re going to be able to stay here.

And for that: Fuck you, BP.

no matter how awesome of a tan i get

i will always be a pasty white-boy from ohio somewhere.

no nude beaches in the area. :-(

wouldn’t the money being spent on these ridiculous t-shirts be put to better use to help his victims?

thank goodness we americans have our priorities straight.

quote of the day:

“To all those who name the name of Christ who plan to willfully disobey Him by voting for Obama, take warning… No, this election is not about race. It’s not about the economy. It’s about obeying God… Obey Him in the voting booth and out of it. If not, do us all a favor and quit calling yourself a Christian.”
– radio host and commentator Janet Porter

i suppose i’m helping to send this country to hell in a handbasket. DANG it!!

truth is, though, it’s folks like this who scare the crap out of me. single-issue voting is unwise, and folks like this – the zealots – they worry me more than either of the candidates.

and these folks also embarrass me as a christian.

maybe i ought to take her advice and stop calling myself one.

the last two weeks have been interesting as recent transplants to pensacola.

first, tropical storm fay was supposed to blow into town and terrorize us with huge storms. this was exciting, right? i made plans to sit on the front porch all day and watch storms blow through one after another! we stocked up on water and food just in case, watched the beginnings of the storm move in on saturday and braced for the coup de grace on sunday. i went to sleep that night in childish anticipation of storm watching on sunday (and everyone was talking about how school would surely be closed monday, etc – not bad!)…

woke up sunday morning, ran to the window, threw open the blinds and…! AND!!!!

sunshine. big fluffy clouds. birds singing. flowers blooming.

what the frick? who took my storm??

by the next weekend, the news has hyped up hurricane gustav to the point that gas stations were literally OUT OF GAS from the frenzied rush. grocery store lines were ridiculous. windows were being boarded up on our street and generators were tested in driveways.

now, hurricanes are different than tropical storms. i wasn’t exactly looking forward to a hurricane, but by the weekend it looked like we would just get some nice big-ass storms. woo-hoo! storms! YES!! the following pics were taken on saturday on the beach – just before The Big Storms were supposed to move in. water like glass. incredible.

so monday comes and again, excitement is in my heart as i think about sitting and watching storms all day. the hype has worked its way into my brain and we’re fully vested in this. again, reports of schools closing on tuesday were rampant, so icing on the cake, right?

monday comes. some clouds. no rain. no big storms.

now, wait a minute!! WHAT DID YOU DO WITH MY STORM???

we did go to the beach which was totally nutso. here’s the exact same spot 2 days after the above pics, and 20-30 feet of the beach has been washed away by 15-20 foot waves…

so now people are talking about hurricane ike, and my reply: i’ll believe it when i see it! it’s like cincinnati weather forecasters and snowstorms – until it hits land, i’ll reserve judgement.

gimme my storm back!!!

unfortunately, it sucks. bad.

a friend mentioned seeing a sign for A Taste of India (authentic indian cusine!!) at the ramada inn on scenic highway at I-10. a quick phone call confirmed that there was, in fact, a new restaurant there serving indian food!

woo-hoo! dance of joy!!

we spent the week planning our trip there for a saturday lunch. it was going to be pricey – much more than any other indian restaurant we’d ever been to: $9.99 for the lunch buffet. but hey, INDIAN FOOD!!

giddy excitement wouldn’t be exaggerating how we felt as we pulled into the parking lot. lise looked suspicious because there was nothing different about the place except the sign – but when we opened the door, oh my goodness – the smell of curry was in the air. suspicion gave way to our soon-to-be-happy rumbling stomachs.

and when we walked in…

…well, there wasn’t much of anything there. rice. chicken curry. lamb curry. dal makhani. cold naan. and salad. lots and lots of salad. find your own seat. get your own utensils and plates and napkins. it looked like we were supposed to get our own water, too, but the owner(?) came over and abruptly offered to get it for us. limited sauces (2 peppery chutneys) meant there was little to do to spice up some of the most bland and boring curry we’ve ever had. the dal makhani was heavy and flat. the naan was cold and thin. the owner(?) abruptly comes over most of the way through our meal and loudly (did i mention abruptly) says, “the food is good, yes!” – please note the punctuation.

we were hoping for at least some kheer to work some of the flavorless food down at the end of the meal but it wasn’t meant to be. dessert choices were cored and candied whole apples or pineapple upside-down cake. it was the final nail in a disappointed coffin.

we go to pay, vowing never to return, when the owner(?) announces the cost will be $22.00 – then, as i hand him $25, says, “i keep the change, yes!”

i believe the look on my face must’ve prompted him to give us our change and stop talking.

look, i’m all for giving second chances to places having an off day, but this was flat-out awful. the price, the quality, the variety, the atmosphere, the attitude – there was nothing there that could convince me to try it again (and realize that the closest we can get to indian food anywhere else is 50+ miles away in mobile, alabama).

put that extra couple of dollars in your gas tank and drive to mobile – it’s worth every dime!

the above quote comes from jim rohn.

i’ll apply it to a small (but large) portion of the move / closing of the house in cincinnati.

while we were back in cincy two weeks ago to pack, it was clear we had a lot of stuff to move. in conversations while packing, however, we continued to pack and pack, throwing/giving away some stuff but for the most part, hanging on to things with a “one day we might wish we had this…” philosophy.

when i logged in to rent a penske truck, i went with the biggest i could get, figuring we’d not come close to filling a 26′ monster but that i’d rather have too much truck than too little. when we picked up said truck, i laughed out loud. when my dad came over to help with the move, he suggested i call and see if we could get the next smallest so as not to waste space / money / gas.

and four hours later, we were left looking at the back of this truck with still more things to put in there… and no room left to put it. literally. we had come to the end of this huge-ass truck and were in need of even more space.

and believe me, i’m not beating myself up or feeling excessively foolish, but i am disappointed in me. i’m disappointed in us. we have been living in pensacola for 10 months now without any of this stuff. we’ve gotten back to the simplified living that we needed to in order to survive. when we started packing that truck, i knew we were in trouble. here’s all the crap that we did not need being loaded into a $$-guzzling truck that would require almost $500 in gas to go 750 miles to be put in a storage space (costing us even more $$).

and while i spent the day saturday asking repeatedly, “where did we get all this shit?” and “where did all this stuff come from?” i already knew the answer.

we’re not hoarders. we do survive on simple things. much of this stuff we’d not used in years.

but when we bought that house, we told everyone who would listen: we’ve found The House and we’re never leaving it. we were determined to live and die in that house. we had 1500 square feet on the first and second floors. include the basement and it went up to 2500 square feet. lots of space. closets. rooms. things to fill. and did we fill ‘em!

and now i’m disappointed in myself because of all that stuff. it’s ridiculous and unnecessary.

when i went to rent the storage space today, i rented two. a 10×20 and a 10×10. we’re going to wade through all that crap over the next month and purge the unneeded junk and find folks down here who could use it.

to all our family and friends who helped us pack and move in cincy: i’m sorry you had to put up with all that. i’m even more sorry that things folks up there might have been able to use are now down here. we spent the day talking about being more disciplined in the future as we continue to try living as simply as we need to.