Russ McBee

Last night, an electrical storm threatened to cancel my family's annual July 4th fireworks extravaganza. We had everything ready to go: the launchers were set on the ground, and six of us sat in two trucks on top of a hill with the fireworks in covered boxes in the truck beds. The storm came, the rain started, and lightning surrounded us. We ...

Here are snippets of an ongoing conversation thread that happened on Twitter today; it involves five different people. These updates were interspersed with other ''tweets'' from me and the 62 people I follow, so the meandering, cloudy nature of Twitter is masked by my selective edits. (A name preceded by an @ symbol indicates that the person ...

This is a true story, but I'm changing the names to protect the innocent. A co-worker, whom I'll call ''Mark,'' has been on assignment recently about 10 or 11 time zones away. Back home, his co-worker ''John'' sent him an email about a meeting that transpired in Mark's absence. Here's what John meant to say to Mark: While you were sleeping, I ...

As I mentioned recently, the Northshore Brasserie is one of two authentic French restaurants in Knoxville. Tonight, I joined four friends for another evening of exquisitely prepared classic French dishes. Just like the last time the five of us dined there together, the food, the wine, the atmosphere, the service, and the presentation were all ...

Last night, I joined four friends for dinner at the Northshore Brasserie for a birthday celebration. The verdict: wow. The Northshore Brasserie is one of two authentic French restaurants in Knoxville (I'm not including The Orangery in that list, since it is neither strictly French nor particularly authentic). Although it's a bit surreal to see a ...

As I've mentioned a few times before, I don't watch television at all. About six years ago, I finally got tired of the vapid content that passes for entertainment, the virtually fact-free content that passes for news, and the incessant bombardment of mindless advertising. It had all become just too condescending to bear, so I turned off the TV. ...

Yahoo announced today that their on-demand Yahoo Music service is being taken over by RealNetwork's Rhapsody. From the sound of it, Yahoo may be using Rhapsody only as an interim solution, pending resolution of Microsoft's offer to buy Yahoo. I don't think I should be happy about this. Maybe ten years ago, I became a subscriber to the Musicmatch ...

For several years now, I've had breakfast every Saturday morning at Italian Market And Grill here in Knoxville; it's become a regular ritual for me over the last three or four years. Their omelets have been consistently among the best in town, and I've always held their gravy in such high esteem, I consider it practically a beverage. This ...

I've had my new computer set up for about a week now, so I've had some time to play with Windows Vista (Home Premium, not that the version matters very much). So far, so good. I have an HP with an AMD 64 X2 dual core processor, 3 GB RAM, a 400 GB SATA hard drive, and an NVIDIA video board with 256 MB of video memory. With that hardware, Vista ...

My paternal grandfather was a curmudgeon throughout his entire life. Christmas seemed to aggravate the condition. For nine or ten years, from the late 1950's through the mid-1960's, he taught at Gibbs High School here in Knox County (at that time, Gibbs housed grades 1 through 12 together in one building). One of those years, a few days before ...