13 January 2007 – Chip At Paradís

by Jim on 2012/01/12

[Jimbaux is not making a shameful metaphor.]

Hey!  How’s everybody doing?  It seems like it’s been a really long time since the last post, but it’s only been a few days.  I’ve just been so crazy busy.  I need to report now that we have had yet another threat to legal photography from public property in 2012 here in southern Louisiana; lies were told to me (that I couldn’t take the pictures), and he attempted to intimidate me further, but I’ll write more about that later (along with the pictures) when I get to it.  For now, let’s take a look into the colorful past.

It’s Chip!

Here’s a picture taken on Saturday 13 January 2007 of the Union Pacific Railway train LLS51, the Morgan City Local – the “Chip Local” – working out of Avondale.  I caught it at Paradís as I was either on my way from Woadieville to Bayouland or on my way from Bayouland to Woadieville.

Yes, I like those blue lease units, don’t you?  One week before I got this Saturday shot, I was south of the border in Monterrey taking some pictures there.

Philosophical Commentary

Here are some musings on two very different topics that are on my mind, one of them (the latter) forced upon my mind.  Those of you who come here just for the pictures (or, in this case the picture) can close the window and go do something else now.

Gifts, Morals, Talents, Sloth

Lately, I’ve been pondering the gifts that I have been given, the gifts of being able to see – since, afterall, as I recently wrote, photography is about how to see, not how to take pictures – and many other things too, how best to use them, how to sustain one’s self with them, how to use them in a way that serves humanity as best I can, how much to focus on stuff like that while trying to put food in my belly as well.

Well, Grumpy wrote a great piece on these issues that encapsulated what I have been thinking far better than I have been able to say it.  Check it out, and let me know what you think?  For those of you who have paid attention to my work for awhile, you can probably understand why that piece really hit home with me!

Thoughts?

Panem Et Circenses, Louisiana Style!

So, some of you were shocked by what happened at the BCS title game Monday night in New Orleans?  I am not writing this to talk about football or this particular game at all, and the reason is simply that I did not and still do not care at all about it.  (I’d rather go foaming or go to a concert.)

Rather, what disgusts me is some of the reaction by my fellow Louisianians.  (Yes, there were a few nasty Alabamans too, but not only was that for different reasons than I’m about to describe, but they weren’t “my” people doing stupid stuff, hence the fact that I don’t feel the need to get involved in calling them out.)

What’s so ridiculous and shameful is the hatred heaped upon one quarterback and a head coach so that these haters can cover up for the embarrassment they feel in putting so much emotion into a team, a team that was up against a team that was indeed better than the team it defeated.  (Again, I don’t care at all to talk about Xs and Os; I’m talking about the hypocrisy of people’s reactions, but I will say that a game that had only one touchdown at the end is not a sloppy game, just one with two very good defenses.)

The insults from Louisianians thrown at this “terrible coach” who “needs to be fired” for leading his team to a conference title and a 13-1 record are ridiculous!  The coach’s own success with the team leading up to the game is paradoxically what led to people have such ridiculous expectations that some are now calling for his resignation.  That’s silly!

Oh, he should have changed quarterbacks, you say?  Again, I’m not writing this to talk about the game at all.  The only thing he’d have accomplished by putting the backup quarterback in the game would have been to remove from his haters their ability to criticize him for not doing it.  Does that make sense?  That some of you don’t admit what you deep down know, that a quarterback change would not have made a difference, are taking your denial and turning it into nastiness.

Those haters – and I’m getting sick of them with their incessant tweets and status updates – are just covering up for their own fault of creating too high expectations and for investing so much of their emotion into this game (which is why I totally don’t do that) and their inability to admit that the winning team really was that good (and would have likely won the November game were it not for kicking woes.)  You’re blaming a coach and a college student for your own misplaced emotion.  Yes, maybe both could have done better, but this is “college” sports, and all of these are essentially kids, for heck’s sake!  The world has unloaded onto them a tremendous and unrealistic amount of pressure on them to perform.

By the way, that gets to the point of why I no longer care much for college sports (or just about any sport as a spectator event.)  I did care plenty some years ago, and, when I was in college, Saturdays would be spent in front of the TV all day watching football, but I don’t think that the fact that I rather suddenly lost interest in these games – stopped seeing them as remotely significant, relevant, important, etc. – and the fact that that quick loss of interest occurred as soon as I was a few years older than any of the 18-22-year-old boys in the game is a coincidence!

All for now . . . .

Jimbaux

{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }

1 Daryl Brown January 12, 2012 at 23:38

Nice pic as usual. It brought up a question maybe you can answer. Why does a railroad use lease locomotives and keep their own stored? There are a bunch of UP locomotives lined up in Houston. Also got the new issue of The railroad press today and they have a section on street running titled Road Hogs. I thought those great pics you took in the New Orleans area would have looked great in that section. Keep the pics coming……Daryl

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2 JIMBAUX January 13, 2013 at 20:22

I don’t know about keeping their own stored, but most railroads have locomotives on long-term lease because tax laws make it cheaper to have locomotives on long-term lease. In that case, the railroad cannot claim the locomotive as an asset.

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3 Howard January 13, 2012 at 00:35

again… thought-provoking…
really wondering if you read “George Will” a political columnist of conservative persuasion, yet a man with both integrity and interest in sports and all manner of human foibles…
nice job there, sir!

Keep at it… Howard

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4 Tom Beckett January 17, 2012 at 09:52

I agree about the ridiculousness of sport fans. It’s just as bad up here in NW Arkansas where I live-you can’t turn around without seeing a dozen vehicles that have some form of Razorback insignia. What’s ironic is that some of the most vocal fans are people who have never seen the inside of a college classroom, and have no hope of ever doing so. Nothing like local pride!! I agree, though, that the fans can get stupid about team performance. A 13-1 record and getting to the BCS is not exactly a record of failure. But I’ve seen this before-I lived in NY during the Steinbrenner era, when he would fire managers for winning the division, but not making the World Series. No matter what the coach does, if the team loses, he should have done something other than what he did. If he had pulled his first string QB for the replacement, and they still lost, the same fans who complained that he DIDN’T change the QB, would be saying he should have left the first stringer in. Lose-lose. Like most things in modern life, the money has corrupted what was originally a friendly rivalry, to the point where it now becomes big business, and the fact that it’s only a game has become hopelessly lost.

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5 JIMBAUX January 13, 2013 at 20:16

Right, I ‘love’ the phenomenon of people with no connection to the University being so passionate about that school’s team.

No, actually, the QB controversy last year at LSU was a little bit more specific than that. The starter who played that whole game was a black guy who had gotten involved in an off-campus fight, Jordan Jefferson. The senior QB who did not get to play was a clean-cut white guy, Jarrett Lee. Much of the criticism was quite disgusting, calling Jefferson a thug, etc, after the BCS game. He might indeed be a thug, but that’s irrelevant to his performance in the game. We do not know that he did not do the best that he could have done. But, yes, you’re right, as there is simply not guarantee, not even close, that Lee would have performed any better.

The way that I see it, and the way that I think the rabid fans are unable to see it, all of that nasty criticism that they give – especially in their fierce criticism that Lee should have been given a “chance” – is their way of dealing with how they have placed so very much of their emotion into a game and its outcome. It can’t be their fault that they misplaced all of their time, energy, money, and passion; so, it must be the fault of the coach and-or the “thug” quarterback, right? The coach must not have respected how much emotional investment the fans placed into the game, right?

There were even conspiracy theories wildly spreading on the internet that some of the players demanded that the coach start Lee, but the players whose names were mentioned in all of this denied it! Of course! Again, that’s just people’s way of dealing with the fact that they put far too much faith and heart in the first place into a game that they have no obligation to give any attention in the first place!

Some people can’t find or create their own entertainment, the way that many of us photographers and railroad enthusiasts and musicians can; so, they blame others when THEIR entertainment doesn’t turn out the way that they want it to end. (That’s different than being merely upset at a loss in a game, which is the point of playing the game, of course, and I’m not criticizing that at all.)

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6 Eric Monier May 28, 2012 at 06:05

I remember that day very well. Jennifer and I had just met 6 days ago when that picture was shot. We were in Saint Charles Parish (Des Allemands/Bayou Gauche) that day as well. I think that is pretty cool, that this picture was shot in a place me and Jennifer were. Later that evening she said she wanted to marry me. 2 years and 362 days after that she did.

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