Category Archives: Memphis

Homeowners Confederation…

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It seems that there are now enough lots in the subdivision sold to warrant the handover of the homeowner’s association from the builder to the actual homeowners. Actually, it’s not the builder… Two of them went bankrupt trying to build the place out, so we’re actually dealing with the a holding company who probably can’t get the place handed over fast enough.

Usually I wouldn’t bother with these meetings, but in the interests of trying to hold the usual extremists at bay, I figure showing up is the least I can do. Given the level of neighborly involvement here, I fully expect this to be a homeowner’s confederation rather than an actual rule-making or enforcement body. Once I’ve assured myself that the couple of activists aren’t going to run away with things, I plan on going back to ignoring 99% of what goes on here.

Reliability…

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One of the aspects of life in memphis you learn to respect (or at least expect) is that the tension between city and county government is going to, at the very least, be entertaining. Last week, the city’s elected school board gave up in disgust and handed in their charter to operate to the city. In theory, that means that the responsibility to educate the former city school student should fall to the Shelby County Board of Education. Of course dumping 150K+ urban students into the happily suburban school board’s lap was something they wanted no part of. Enter the State of Tennessee in the form of the legislature that swiftly passed a law postponing any actual changes. The assembled wise men of the legislature were followed by the lawyers – which almost guarantees that the issue could continue to provide almost limitless opportunities for entertainment for the foreseeable future.

I bust on Memphis alot, which as a taxpayer I consider both a right and a duty, but I suspect the issues at work here are less about Memphis as itself and more about the urban/suburban/exurban dynamic at play in cities across the country. I won’t even pretend at knowing the answer to those issues, but I think recognizing them is at least a starting point. Memphis is the classic city that still thinks of itself as a small town on the edge of the river, the cycles of agricultural boom and bust gave way to industrialization, which is sliding sideways into the post-industrial era without much of a plan or even a sense of itself as a city. This is going to get ugly, but it should be fun to watch. Memphis is reliable like that.

Criminal class…

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Dear Criminals,

I get that times are a little tough lately and that maybe you’re having a hard time keeping food on the table, or filling the tank so you can get to your regular job, or for whatever other nobel reason you have felt compelled to turn to the life on an outlaw. I know that Memphis is usually a criminal’s playground, but in the future we’re really going to have to insist that you keep that stuff inside the loop. The nice suburbanites out east don’t like it when you start robbing their banks. It makes us all nervous and jerky and in a state that has so many soccer moms with gun permits, nervous and jerky is not a good thing.

While we’re on the topic of banks, you might want to reconsider your mark. Sure, Willie Sutton robbed banks “because that’s where the money is,” but lets face it, this isn’t 1933 and most money is electronic now. Basically, by robbing a bank all you’ve done is make sure that instead of just Memphis police looking for you, the local FBI office now has a flag raised on you too. Maybe you’re not public enemy number one, but when it comes to criminal enterprise, the fewer people looking for you the better, don’t you think? You’d have been far better off knocking over a couple of Kwik-E-Marts and a liquor store. I’m just sayin’.

In selecting a life of crime, I understand that your long range planning skills probably leave something to be desired, but in the future I hope you will consider that most banks actually have working alarm systems and cameras and that instead of having a lonely retail clerk giving them a description of your unmasked face, the police and FBI now have you on film from several angels and a remarkably detailed description of the late model Pontiac you used as your getaway car.

In closing, I hope you’ll remember in the future that you suck at crime, probably at life too… But at accessorizing, you’re a champ. The apron really makes a statement.

Sincerely,

Jeff

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Cold (Hearted)…

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The City of Memphis and surrounding Shelby County has decided that it is too cold this week for people who have had the power turned off for non-payment… So the local governments and Memphis Light, Gas, and Water are turning their meters back on… and “worrying about getting the bills paid” after the cold passes. Of course that sounds brilliant in theory… everyone in Memphis will be warm and cozy while the temperature takes a dip. And those of us who are paying a power and gas bill and who pay the ridiculously high combination of city and county taxes are the ones who are going to foot the bill for the City’s “generosity” in the end.

I know some whiny liberal is going to tell me that we need to take care of each other, but what I really need to do is take care of me and mine, keep my own nose clean, and my own bills paid. I know it’s the same song and dance I pull out every time government takes another step in the direction of being everything to everybody, but at what point does the average taxpayer reach their carrying capacity? When does enough become too much? Or does it all march on until we are nurtured from cradle to grave in the warm embrace of bureaucracy? I live every day in the belly of that beast… and it’s not something I want controlling the other 16 hours of my day… and that’s the perspective from inside a department that’s actually pretty good at carrying out it’s core missions.

By now I’m probably sounding pretty heartless, but after bailouts, home loan modifications, debt forgiveness, and now making sure all of the City has its lights burning I can say well and truly that I’m tired of paying for other people’s poor decisions. I make enough of my own mistakes to keep me and my checkbook occupied without help. I just wish others would do the same. That’s my pipedream for tonight.

Batten down the hatches…

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With only a few words published by the National Weather Service, West Tennessee is working itself into fits of panic. Those words: EXACT SNOW AMOUNTS REMAIN UNCERTAIN AT THIS TIME… BUT PLANS SHOULD BE MADE FOR THE POSSIBILITY OF AT LEAST A COUPLE OF INCHES OF SNOW WITH ROADS BECOMING HAZARDOUS.

Now the south is a funny place when it snows… The usually slow-paced locals become something close to possessed. I’m sure if it hasn’t happened by now, by this time tomorrow there will be a crush of people buying everything from 60-roll packs of toilet paper to diesel generators. It will be the only thing people will talk about this week and when the worst happens and the snow hits, everyone will forget anything they ever learned about driving.

It’s going to be a long week if this forecast holds fast. Batten down the hatches… There’s weather ahead.

Long haul…

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Driving long distances by yourself tend to lend itself to thinking deeply about things that usually don’t occupy much time. It occurred to me yesterday that I’ve officially lived here in Memphis for three years now. Of course I’ve really been here about six months longer than that, but for purposes of keeping the official record, I’ve decided not to count time spent living in a hotel in that figure. Buying a house seems to be the definitive announcement that you have arrived somewhere and are digging in for the long fight. The ironic thing is that I really never had any intention of staying here as long as I have. I had planned on coming to Memphis, picking up a promotion or two, making a quick buck on a house that should appreciate, and heading back to the DC area in a year or two and get back to my life. The first part of that plan worked out fairly well at least.

The recession and housing collapse have seen to it that the second part of the plan wouldn’t work out as I had envisioned. And, as usual, something unexpected happened… I got comfortable here. That’s not to say that I love Memphis as that would be an outright lie. Memphis is a necessary evil much like every other city I’ve ever lived or worked in. But the ridiculously low cost of living, relative ease of getting around, and ability to get “back east” within a day’s drive or a three hour flight have really made me question whether I’m willing to go back to DC… and the two bedroom condo and three hour round trip commute that I would find there. The fact is that I rather like getting to the house 30-minutes after leaving the office.

I dearly miss the proximity to power that you can only find in DC and given my druthers, Memphis would have a more sophisticated feel and figure out a way to get itself unstuck from 1953, but for the foreseeable future, I think I’ve slowly come to accept that I’m going to be here… Until something comes along back east that’s just too good to pass up. So if anyone up there is in need of a slightly used logistician/process improver/policy writer/strategist let me know.

When did that happen…

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Somewhere between Lexington and Bowling Green, Kentucky yesterday it occurred to be that I today was the 2nd anniversary of closing on my house here in Memphis. I know it’s a true fact because I pulled the stack of paperwork out of the file this afternoon and checked because it didn’t seem quite possible. Add to these two years the addition six months when I was spending three weeks of every four in a hotel here and I’m at a bit of a loss to identify where, exactly, the last 30 months have gone. I know I’ve been doing stuff but the two year mark kind of snuck up and surprised me. If you would have asked me five years ago where I would be living, Memphis wouldn’t have even shown up on the list. Ask me where I’m going to be five years from now and I wouldn’t even want to hazard a guess. For the time being, I’ve found myself to be reasonably happy to knock around down here. Ask me again in August when its 110 degrees and I’ll probably give you a different answer, though.

Scheming…

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Is it bad that I have only been back to work for three days and I’m already scheming about where I want to go on vacation next time? In between now and then, though, I have a few obligatory trips I need to make. One of my cronies from the office is getting married in October in Williamsburg so I anticipate being up there for an extended weekend and probably a “pass-through” visit to Western Maryland on my way back to Tennessee. Then of course there is the obligatory Christmas visit. After that, though, it’s pretty much an open slate. Maybe somewhere warm with a rum economy in the spring. If the euro would ever stop beating up on the dollar, I’d love to go back to Europe but I don’t foresee that happening any time in the immediate future.

It’s not so much that I’m out of good ideas as it is that I want to make these trips count since they’re getting to be pretty damned few and far between. One of the biggest problems with west Tennessee is that getting anywhere is an expedition that involves an overpriced airline ticket (for a hub airport, MEM is ridiculously expensive) out of the city or an all day drive in any direction. In the interim, I’m hoping to coax a few old friends to Memphis with the promise of world-class barbecue and… uhhhh… Bible study.

Liver…

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… as in “I’m going to crack open your rib cage and feast on your liver.” The entomology of this phrase has several branches. The first and most obvious, is as a reference to Hannibal Lecter’s famous liver and fava bean dinner, the other is the ancient practice of eating the body of a slain enemy to gain his strength. In my case, this is a phrase almost exclusively reserved for those who quite simply have not demonstrated the ability to drive a motor vehicle.

Usage of this phrase reached its zenith with the daily commute between central Maryland and DC. At this time it has almost entirely passed from regular use. That’s not to say that drivers in Memphis are any better than those in the DC suburbs… there are just fewer of them and rush hour is considerably shorter. Drivers in the DC area are aggressive, that makes sense to me. If you know your fellow drivers are aggressive you can plan accordingly… In Memphis, on the other hand, it seems that many drivers tend more towards being oblivious to what they are doing and the world around them, which makes them unpredictable. Come to think of it, maybe I throw this one around more often than I think.

Suburban Motorcross…

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I don’t have a problem with kids who ride motorcycles. I mean I was one of them growing up. I was a holy terror on my little Honda and even later on my four-wheeler. Of course as a kid my house backed up to thousands of uninterrupted acres of places to ride. There was a time when I knew trails that would take me from Frostburg to Westernport in an afternoon’s ride. With that being said, I don’t know what would possess a parent to give their kid a dirt bike in a subdivision of ¼ acre lots.

I don’t fault the kid for ripping and tearing around the cul-de-sacs, but I sure as hell have a problem with the parents who are teaching him that it’s ok. I’m not gonna be the guy who calls and gets the kid in trouble with the law, but I wish there was some legal way to smack his parents in the back of the head. I’m just saying, if you want little Billy to be the next Motocross champion, maybe you should have considered buying a house that was… I don’t know… outside the city limits? Asshats.