Swamp Thing, Day Four: Man Arrested After Streaking Through Hotel Lobbies

(The Atlanta Journal-Constitution) Atlanta police arrested a 53-year-old man on charges he ran outside his Walton Street apartment without a stitch of clothing. He first ran into the Glen Hotel on Marietta Street, according to a police report. When hotel staffers called police, he ran down the street and into the lobby of the nearby Omni Hotel. Security guards detained him, called police and covered him with bed sheets until officers arrived, the report said.

He was arrested on a charge of public indecency. He also was taken to Grady Memorial Hospital for a mental evaluation, the report said.

For the record, it wasn't me and I have the alibi to prove it - I was in Cenla.

Actually, today was a rain out. As Abner Doubleday might once have said, "You win some and you lose some. And some get rained out." Today was the latter.

The cold front that had blown through Jena, Louisiana on Wednesday morning settled into rain by Thursday afternoon, and by this morning, a steady downpour made it near impossible - and certainly unsafe - to continue excavation work. The entire job site was turning into a a mud-slickened, soupy mess. We covered the stockpiled soil up with plastic sheeting to protect it from the rain and called it a day.

I used the time to visit what will likely be my next job site in Louisiana - another former wood-treating plant in the town of Colfax. I drove Louisiana Route 8 from Jena through the Kisatchie National Forest, a mostly flat stretch of second-growth pines, to Grant Parrish, arriving at Colfax at about noon. There really wasn't much to see there, so I went back to Alexandria and killed a couple of hours at a coffee shop with free wireless internet access to catch up on email, etc. until my flight back to Atlanta at 6 pm.

Eliot the Cat met me in the living room when I got home. I had left two large bowls of cat food for him and opened the trap door so that he could go outside as he pleased in my absence, but I still wondered if after four full days he wouldn't have just decided to move on, to cut his losses here and find another sucker to take him in. But no, I was happy to find him still occupying my house, patiently waiting for my return. Much purring ensued - and he expressed his happiness to see me finally returned as well.