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Sink or swim

For 35-year-old Patrick Fellows a skiing accident months before his 29th birthday was a wake-up call. Fellows admits he used to be “a lazy, anti-everything malcontent who smoked and drank too much.” He recovered and never looked back.

Today, he is the picture of good health: a triathlete and swimmer. His restaurant, Rocket Fajitas, prides itself on providing healthy, fresh meals to its downtown customers (although a name and cuisine-style change are in the works).

On March 31 he will swim 32 miles along Mississippi’s coast, from Bay St. Louis to Ocean Springs to raise money for the Rocketkidz Foundation. Its mission is to educate children and families about childhood obesity, rebuild fitness centers on the coast and promote physical education in schools.

Keep track of Fellows’ training now until the day of the big swim on his blog, rocketboysthirtytwo.blogspot.com.

—SARAH YOUNG

Clearly, not a local trend

The Wall Street Journal recently exposed the “it” accessory for Spring 2007: transparent designer handbags. Instead of brandishing a trademark monogram across the entire surface, famed fashion houses are deconstructing their designs (although not their prices), preferring see-through plastic over leather. That’s right—you can peer into and even through these purses. Perhaps this recent trend is less about aesthetics and more about safety. After all, knowing what is in your bag is arguably the same as knowing what is not in your bag! Practicality and style aside, the fact is that local retailers have steered clear of the transparent trend, opting instead for the obvious and opaque.

—JILL MARTINEZ

And the winners are...

Ellie Avegno and Debbie Buchanan were the lucky winners of concert tickets from 225batonrouge.com. Avegno won a pair of tickets to see Billy Joel, and Buchanan won tickets to the John Mayer concert Jan. 31.

Lizard in a haystack

In the dark, damp basement of Foster Hall, shelves are lined with a little boy’s dream, and Chris Austin, Ph.D., is fulfilling his childhood ambitions. “I liked catching lizards and snakes as a kid. I figured if I could get a job doing it as an adult, it would be a good deal,” says the curator of the LSU Museum of Natural Science. For 18 years Austin has worked in Southeast Asia as a biologist, studying, classifying and cataloging biodiversity. His hard and intensive work led to his discovery of a new species of lizard off Borneo Island. It’s from the Schincidae family of skinks. Austin and his colleague, Indrineal Das, received the honor of naming the new species, which will be made public later this month.

—AMANDA JOHNSON

‘KISS’ the cook

Local caterer and restaurateur Yvette Bonanno filmed a TV pilot in January that may air on the Food Network. Bonanno, owner of Bonanno’s Fine Catering and Yvette Marie’s Café, teamed up with her father, Gary Bonanno, for the pilot. Cooking up Rachel Ray-style, the father-daughter team based the show off the colloquial KISS principle, which is used in the kitchen to mean, “keep it simple, stupid.” The pilot featured fresh Gulf caught yellowfin tuna. Any seafood lover can pucker up to that.

—A.J.