The Tennessee State Legislature voted this week to make milk the official state beverage of Tennessee.

Really? Milk?

Now I have nothing against milk (it makes my cereal even tastier after all) but I really don’t see how milk is supposed to represent Tennessee.  I suppose the law makers are trying their hands at some relatively benign social engineering but I for one would like to see an official state product truly represent the people of the state.

So, to that end, in no particular order, I give you my five picks, each of them better than milk, for the Official State Drink of Tennessee:

• Coke (which is defined as any carbonated beverage regardless of flavor, brand or copyright.)
• Moonshine
• Jack Daniels
• Sweet Tea
• Mt. Dew

While we’re at it I have some other gripes about my beloved home state’s ‘official’  bric-a-brac.  In most circles Tennessee is known as the Volunteer State, a reference to the disproportionate number of volunteers Tennessee sent to the War of 1812. Up until WWI we were more commonly known as the Hog and Hominy State, a title I suggest we return to.

We have a lot of official state songs and interestingly, none of them are the Tennessee Wig Walk which is totally unacceptable.

I used to hate math but the older I get the more I see the attraction of a system of rules and logic that make for predictable solutions. My job has forced me to embrace math in ways I’d never imagined possible. I’m responsible for making sure all the numbers line up; financials, performance indicators and staffing all rest on my shoulders and all boil down to equations in a spreadsheet. Maybe I should say I heart Excel….

My improved relationship with the mathematics has influenced my sense of humor as well. I actually get some of the math jokes in XKCD comics, I used a math joke in my Facebook status update the other day (Jeremy is thinking of a number between Absolute 0 and the square root of -1) and, though not really math, I think Craig Damrauer’s New Math site is one of the funniest websites I’ve ever seen.

Selected favorites:

Layed off = It’s not you, it’s me + Job
Nepotism = Who’s your daddy / Ability
Brunch = Breakfast + Lunch + Cantaloupe
Good Dog = Bark / Bite
Bad Dog = Bite / Bark
Uncle = Dad + Fun
Credit Card = I can’t afford it – I can’t afford it
Good Meeting = (Time Saved / Time Wasted) + Snacks
Bad Meeting = (Time Wasted / Time Saved) + Snacks
Car Jacking = Can I borrow your car? – No you can’t
Life Insurance = God Forbid + Jackpot!

Apart from five years in Cleveland, two in Florida and three months in Texas I’ve lived in the greater Knoxville area my entire life. From Claxton, to Louisville and finally here in Oak Ridge my footprints have generally fallen in a thirty mile radius centered right in the middle of the Tennessee Valley.

As a native I thought I knew most of what there was to know about my beloved home. I was mistaken.

Here are some recently discovered items about my part of the world:

• Prior to 1942 the area known as Oak Ridge was made up of seven communities, all of which were destroyed during the development of Clinton Engineering Works and later The Manhattan Project. Until this week I’d assumed the destruction had been complete. While reading wikipedia articles Tuesday night I discovered that there is still a church in what was the Wheat Community that was standing prior to 1942. The George Jones Memorial Baptist Church was founding in 1901. I’m planning a visit and will post photos.
• Rocky Top is a real place. Located on the Appalachian Trail and one of the peaks of Thunderhead Mountain, Rocky Top is the lowest of the three peaks at 5400 feet.  I will be checking this out as well.

That’s it. Have a good week kids.

So I’ve been somewhat muted lately; I’ve barely made a peep since the new year. I was toying with the idea of taking the sites down, both the main site and the music site, but I just got hit with my annual hosting and domain fees so I guess I’m going to keep going for at least another year.

The music site was updated this morning with a new post. Check it out if you’re interested in what I’m listening to these days. Check back later today for a increasingly rare Sunday Sampler.

Later folks.

I’ve been accused of being less than compassionate when it comes to dead celebrities and I’ll admit that it is normally true. This time though, all I can really say is that I’m going to miss Paul Harvey. He was one of the good ones.

Paul Harvey: 1918 – 2009 (link)