Baton Rouge, L'uisiana

I had the gator.

The money was in Baton Rouge this week.



Our first exit in the Pelican State.

Britney Spears was born just up the road from Exit 61 in McComb, Mississippi but she was raised in Kentwood, Louisiana.

Aside from the Pumpkin Center/Baptist exit there's not much else along the interstate 'til you get to Baton Rouge and it's Live Oaks...



If left alone, the limbs'll get so long that they bow down and start to grow along the sandy ground. There are whole neighborhoods and roads canopied under these things draped with Spanish Moss...it's one of the most beautiful sites in The South.

Of course the most beautiful site in The South is one of these....



Tiger Stadium, Death Vally, where it never rains and where in 1988 the fans caused an earthquake to register at the geology center after a game winning touchdown against Auburn.

Baton Rouge is home to Louisiana State University...LSU, The Tigers, Bayou Bengals, founding member of the SEC. They're named after Wheat's Tigers. Recruited mostly from the waterfront in New Orleans they were a L'ousiana unit of zouaves in the Confederate army...so rowdy that they had to be dispersed after Wheat was killed. It's a legacy the LSU fans carry on with ridiculous enthusiasm.

Me and Martha went down for a game against Mississippi State a few years ago. The first thing we saw as we pulled onto campus was an actual gator hanging from the limb of a live oak. The president of the school regularly has to write letters of apology to visiting teams and their fans. While most schools in the SEC are known their sharp dressed fans (ties and cocktail dresses)...at LSU you'll find purple and gold pimps and Elvis impersonators.

First of all they're mostly Cajuns...it's just how they are. Secondly, it takes an act of congress or millions in tv loot to get 'em to play a game during the day. Saturday night in Death Valley is a brutal place to try and get a win...mainly because its 92,000 seats are mostly filled with Coonasses that have been drinking bourbon since before the sun came up.



Edit: I had to add this one...so perfectly over the top.


It's an unqualified blast.

The Money really was in Baton Rouge this week...or more specifically in Gonzalez. I love my job...that's all...and I found out just how satisfying it can be this week. I ride with sales reps. I bring new products and we talk to their customers about bringing them on. I spend a day or two with the reps and get to know them, their goals, about their families...and I get to help them make money. Wednesday, just a couple of hours after meeting a reps wife and daughters, he got a call from a customer we'd talked to that morning...they were going to buy.

He was so excited...jumpin' around, high fives..and then he thought about the money...got his calculator out, ran the numbers...2 grand in annual salary. That's what our morning turned out to be worth for him and his family.

Like I said I love my job.