Looks like home. Tastes and feels as well.

I was checking the National Weather Service web site for the forecast today, and noticed this icon for the first time in memory:

Underneath it noted that Fort Worth was in for some blowing dust. I guess it has been dry this year. Still, it's like a little part of home has come to visit.

I bet they even took the picture in Lubbock.

Your own movie

This is interesting -- a web site that can turn your writing into little movies.

Here's a dramatic representation of Homer's all-important love letter to Marge from the Simpsons.



Eh. The voice simulator screws up the timing. Not a lot of inflection either.

Here's a dramatic representation of a recent conversation between me and my wife that I originally posted here:



I'm talking with an English accent because I pushed the wrong button. My wife is talking with an English accent because she's read so much Jane Austen she sometimes slips into one unconsciously.

Great food, did miss

I read this story in today's Star-Telegram with a mounting sense of frustration.

The Chef Point Cafe, hidden behind the gas pumps and beneath the Conoco sign, debuts tonight on the wildly popular Food Network program Guy’s Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives.

The title of the episode? Funky Joints.

To celebrate with their fiercely loyal customers, husband/wife owners Paula Merrell and Franson Nwaeze are hauling in a 72-inch television, throwing up a hasty satellite connection and somehow cramming 75 people into their convenience store to eat and watch the show, which couldn’t have found a more improbably successful dive anywhere in the country.

I have driven by this place many times, as it's on the way to the cheap bread store. I have scoffed at the little awning over the door and the bars on the windows. I figured they have hamburgers the way that Allsups has burritos.*

Nope. Apparently the chef there is credited with putting together one of the most daring menus around, while still serving as one of the best greasy spoon diners in the state.

I've been passing over the best hamburger-and-lobster-bisque joint in the D/FW Metroplex, and spending my rare restaurant money at Taco Bell. With my wife taking a slice in her paycheck, we now have even less to spend on the luxury of prepared food. I might have to exchange my pennies for cash. A good cheeseburger is a sacred thing.

* Yes, all West Texas males wax romantic over the Allsup burrito, but this is because it keeps for a week at room temperature, even under the car seat, as Pat Green noted in song. As food, it doesn't even qualify as a burrito.

5:30 a.m., UTA Library

A paper to write regarding the discovery of rules behind regular and irregular polyhedra, and 2 hours, 20 minutes to write it in. Meanwhile, I can't get TV show "Kings" off my mind. I can't decide if I should waste another hour on what I already know won't be worth the time.

***

I've discovered another signpost on my way to old age: I now prefer getting up early to staying up late. Staying up late means you want one more round, more time to flirt or you just want to see what's going to happen. Getting up early means you got stuff to do and not enough time to do it. On the other hand, the food at 6 a.m. is far better for than your average 2 a.m. fare.

***

I could feel like a loser for getting here at 5:30 a.m. But what about this guy two desks over? A college kid who's in the library before I am, apparently so he can watch South Park on the internet.

***

I heard a rumor last night that the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal would soon file for bankruptcy. I couldn't confirm this anywhere, but I did notice that the failure of it's parent company, Morris Communications, seems imminent. Sheesh. You hear about the fall of the newspaper industry going back to your college days. Then it happens to your own paper, and it's still a shock.

***

OK. To work.

Teaching fair

Going into my first teacher job fair, I attempted to adopt the attitude of the failed Cassanova.

A buddy of mine in college said he had an easy time talking to girls who were out of his league. He just assumed that the girl was out of his league, that nothing was ever gonna happen. He therefore removed all the pressure from any conversation and flirting with said girl. I think he even got a couple of dates this way.

Hence, I tried to get past my reluctance to sell myself, thinking all jobs were filled and I was way underqualified.

I felt like I had a few decent conversations.

Some observations:

• The fair happened at UNT's old super pit. My alma mater is hardly familiar to me nowadays, things have changed so much.
• I almost gave a resume to Glen Rose (only 25 miles from Hico), but I knew there was no way to work it out -- at least for now.
• The lady from Fort Worth ISD said I was the second ex-journalist she had talked to.
• They should have a time limit on refreshment restrictions. If the breakfast food is still out after three hours, take down the dang "school district representatives only" sign. I could have used one of those 80 bagels that you were about to throw away.
• I don't know if the dude from Hurst-Euless-Bedford was brushing me off, but two eyerolls is a bit rude.

Visual representation of terrible twos onset

Begin with this:



Add this:



Wait 10 minutes, and you have this:

So this is what people were talking about. Sam, at 18 months, now only wants to do things he can't do. And when he learns he can't do them, it's crying and stomping and yelling time.

Just saying, I'm thinking of gluing the dinner table chairs to the floor. (Sam's been moving them around and climbing them. This was annoying but cute, until my Mom recalled when I was doing the same thing, and would climb on top of the stove and set the burners to high.)

He was, on occasion, a very good dog

I was among of group of animal adopters at Carrollton's no-kill animal shelter, holding my right hand in the air like an idiot and ready to make a "promise."

Shelter Lady: Repeat after me. "I promise to keep my animal indoors when I am not present and to never take him outside without a leash."

Me: ... I have a fenced-in backyard?

The volunteer looked at me. Operation Kindness is known to be a demon with it's inside-only standards. A few years back Steve Blow of the Morning News wrote a scathing column after a man complained he was denied a puppy just because he planned to keep it outside.

On the other hand, I was adopting a dog named "Freckles," who had been brought in as one in a litter of puppies. He was now almost full grown, having spent the first nine months of his life in a shelter cage, after the rest of the litter had been snatched up early. He was not an attractive adolescent.

The volunteer ignored me and plowed on ...

Volunteer: "I promise to provide him regular veterinary care ..."

Me: ... and I'm going to let him run around on a farm?

I got the dog -- immediately renamed Jimbo -- because I'd been raised with two canines. I thought my other one, Ginger, could use the company, what with me being away at work all the time. Big mistake. The first time they met, they looked at each other, put their ears back, and started peeing on my floor at the same time.

I still have a couple of scars from the eight or nine times I had to keep them from killing each other. He turned into a tall, skinny dog, able to puff his hair up enough to scare the bejesus out of just about anybody. My family didn't like him. My wife worried about him.

He never stopped chewing. He'd go through an "indestructable" toy in a couple of weeks. Every house I kept him in has some little reminder -- a chewed-up floorboard, a hole in the shag carpet -- that he was there. He was a nervous dog. Any time I had him indoors, he would follow me from room to room, so quietly that I wouldn't know he was there untilI turned around and tripped over him.

He was an athlete, the only dog I've had who could reliably catch a Frisbee. He was so fast that no matter how far I threw a ball, he would catch it while it was still bouncing. Fetch was a life-and-death thing for him.

He didn't have much of a personality. He was awkward. He was either shy or guarded with strangers, and would start avidly licking their faces once he felt safe enough. He seemed happiest just to lie down beside (or on) me while I was watching a movie and drift off to sleep.

He was sick for the last two-and-a-half weeks. I kept thinking that I'd have him euthanized, but he kept acting like he wanted to stay around. He would always perk up and wag his tail when I checked on him. Two days ago, he spent his walk sniffing at bushes and garbage and marking territory, like he was getting back to his old ways. But he couldn't get past this illness, whatever it was. I found him in the garage last night. He had crawled into a corner and lied down, finally giving up.

Looking back, it was a mistake to get him, but it's a mistake I'm glad I made. I was going through some of his pictures today, after I dropped him off at the vet's. He seemed to be happy. He was well fed, comfortable. He had plenty of time to run around, and got to spend a lot of time exploring things on his own. He had 13 years. All in all, a decent life for a dog. I'll miss him.

What do dogs get sick as?

Jimbo, my faithful and utterly destructive dog friend of the last dozen years or so, has been seriously ill* for the last couple of weeks. I've been attempting to nurse him back to health, with some success, but we're not over the hump yet, and it may still be getting close to his time.

Him, and much more obviously my Grandad passing away a few weeks ago, has had me feeling kind of low, and I haven't been able to focus much on the writing or keeping the "30 posts in 30 days pledge." Sometimes the writing helps, but I've found I don't write much when in a general and districted state of bhumitude.

So, just thought I'd let y'all know.

*He just stopped eating a couple of Sundays ago. I thought he'd get over it, but he hadn't four days later, at which point I took him to the vet. She took $400 from me, showed me some graphs and some neat little x-rays, and otherwise told me she hadn't the slightest.

I had him on drugs for a few days, but they just seemed to make him more sick, so I cut them off. Since then, I've been feeding him by hand, encouraging him to drink water, and taking him on slow short walks every day. He's improved, but not nearly enough. He still looks like a walking skeleton with black hair and drool. But at least he's here.

Diet update

Since I've received a lot of comments and questions on the diet, I think I should just pass along an update, instead of answering in comments.

The good part:

• I'm losing a pound a day (8 of them, so far).
• It's nice to feel my body having an easier time with basic functions.
• My wife says I look better.
• I'm no longer eating my family out of house and home -- the total cost of my average meal nowadays is about $1.

The bad part:

• Life has become a sad, depressing exercise with little meaning and no hope.

Man, I miss me some sugar. The granular kind you use to sweeten things.

I realize that eventually, the weight loss will hit a wall, at which time I'll have to add exercise. I still have a long way to go.

As to what the diet consists of, here it is in more detail than my first post:

• There has been a fairly severe cutback in caloric intake, but it's mainly the bad stuff. I'm eating more vegetables than before.
• I've decided that eating high quality meat rarely is much better than eating low quality meat all the time.
• I've cut WAY back on the carbs, allowing myself a cup of cereal for breakfast and a lunchtime sandwich on alternating days.
• The only occasional snack I allow myself is a cup of tea, or maybe, if I really need it, a cup of coffee. Plain.

I've received plenty of suggestions to not go hungry and just pig out on vegetables, but I'm wary. If I eat so many vegetables that I get sick of them, what exactly am I supposed to eat then? Besides, in some ways, being hungry feels good. Being hungry means that work is being done, fat is getting burned. Being hungry tells me I'm losing weight.

The worst part isn't the hunger, it's just the irritability. I think I'm getting a handle on that, but I'd like to go ahead and continue apologising to my wife.

Either New Zealand or Australia

Saw this on The Corner and had to share:



I imagine it's only a matter of time before someone in Texas tries this with longhorns. And things go horribly, horribly wrong.

It was a zoo at the zoo. Haha!

My wife suggested that we do a spring breaky thing this weekend by going to the Fort Worth Zoo. Yesterday made her doubt the feasibility.

From the Star-Telegram:

FORT WORTH — Springlike weather, spring-break timing and half-price tickets lured a record crowd to the Fort Worth Zoo on Wednesday, which also meant lines of traffic around Forest Park worthy of a professional sporting event.

By 5 p.m., about 23,000 tickets had been sold, a zoo spokeswoman said. The final tally won’t be available until today. That topped the single-day attendance record of 17,274 set last Good Friday as well as last year’s spring-break Wednesday attendance of 16,076.

I doubt that gorilla watching has ever caused this much traffic. Meredith got a call from a friend warning her to "stay the hell off of 35." And the zoo is not even on an intersection with I-35.

So, sadly, we'll have to find some other spring break activity to do. Which, if you include being able to bring your 18-month-old, doesn't amount to a whole lot of options.

The Diet: And so it begins.

I realized yesterday where the stress from not having a job lined up and starting a new career went. Mainly, it went into several dozen three-donut breakfasts, two-sandwich lunches and "Fire sale, take it all!" dinners I've had over the last year.

I know this because as soon as I cut off the food supply yesterday, the stress bounced up and started poking me in the eye like Curly in the three stooges. I'm hoping this is like breaking off an addiction -- the first day's the worst, then things get better. Thirty-six pounds to go.

Two things I hate about dieting. First, I really love food. I've lived my life surrounded by good cooks, and I've spent a good part of my adulthood trying to learn how to cook. And now that I can, it's boiled chicken and veggies time.

Second, it feels like my brain doesn't function good when I cut back on the fat. I don't know why this is, but it's definitely there. I recall my wife saying she felt like an idiot the entire time she was breast feeding. I think it's the same thing here. No food translates into bad mind thoughts. We're like Elaine on Seinfeld when she gave up sex.

Anyway, here's the official diet plan:

1. Eat healthy stuff.
2. Don't eat much of it.

I'm hopeful that'll get me through. All meals will be planned in advance, no deviations allowed.

Feel the love. Feel the love.

It's old, but I hadn't seen it

A highlight reel of all the best funny cat videos out there.



I just hope he didn't break the ceiling fan.

Relatives with interesting jobs

My cousin, Lance McIlvain, is the second one to jump in on the action, wearing the light blue.



He's the son of Aunt Melindy, who also sent the pictures in the last post.

Say what you will, but I bet he's never spent a day staring at a computer hourglass, hoping that when things finally boot up, the word document isn't FUBAR.

Sam shots

These are from a brunch we attended before my Grandad's funeral. The pictures were sent to me by my Aunt Melinda.

Sam with his Grandma.

Sam with my Grandma and my niece, Kacy.

You can't really tell from these pictures, but our hosts had a house that was a complete work of art. Glass walls staring out over Lake Joe Pool. Stacked rock walls. Vaulted ceilings. And a four-story tower with a lounge on top.

I guess that it's a sign that I now own a home and have seen what my Dad has gone through with the big house in Hico, but I couldn't stop walking through the place, cringing at the idea of maintenance costs.

Back to the treadmill

So, I started dressing for the funeral on Thursday and discovered that all of my good clothes had mysteriously shrunk since the last time I wore them.

By this time, it was just another in a mounting signs that my fatness has REALLY become a problem and it's time to get serious.

Learning to cook is great. The problem is that I wanted to learn how to cook my Mom's meatloaf, chicken fried steak, cookies, etc. And I've therefore cooked myself out of my clothes and into a situation where tying my shoe causes me to breathe heavily.

Really, it just gets annoying -- having to deal with the extra weight and the sudden loss of the ability to reach areas of yourself that you've always been able to reach.

And so, I've started on the treadmill. I had some chicken fried steaks in the freezer that I had to make, and the dieting and the keeping track of every little thing that I eat starts after I finish those.

My wife doesn't believe me either.

The service

All of my Grandad’s grandchildren got a chance to talk (shortly) about the man at his funeral on Thursday.

This is kind of summation of what I said, along with some addendums of things I wanted to say but forgot.

"You think of the typical Grandfather and you think of a man who wears suspenders, makes fun of uptight people, and otherwise uses a lot of phrases like, ‘By cracky.’

This is not my Grandad.

I always felt like I needed to stand up a little straighter anytime I was around him. I knew I didn’t want to be on his bad side, I just had a hard time figuring out exactly where his good side was.

It wasn’t until I was older and I began to see his humor and his intellect. And what an intellect. A degree in chemistry. A rank of major. He read War and Peace in a week. [My brother’s comment but I liked it.]

Looking back, I never really noticed his generosity – his gruffness tended to cover some things. But he always managed to pay for Grandma’s shopping trips for me, he somehow sent checks for $25 or $50 for all of my birthdays, even when he was decades beyond his working years.

And I can’t remember the number of times he sprung for a steak dinner for the entire family – all four of his daughters, all of their husbands and children and the children’s children.

He was the kind of man whose approval you sought because you knew it meant something.

My wife had a difficult time at the hospital when my son was born 18 months ago. She was worn out. Otherwise I would have driven by to see Grandma and Grandad on the way home. I was so proud of my kid, I couldn’t wait to show him off to my Grandad."

I had never witnessed a military honor guard at a funeral before. It was impressive and touching. Taps was played, the flag was folded and given to my grandmother, the soldier gave the "thank you" speech and it was the one moment I had to blink away tears.

It was a cold and rainy day. You notice these things at a funeral, I think, because of the old superstitious notions surrounding ceremonies -- What is God saying?

A cold day that brought much needed rain to a developing spring. My Grandad wasn’t exactly a warm man. But he was a good, tough man. The world needed and needs people like him to keep it in line. It’ll be worse off without him.

In mourning

Obviously, the usual humor wouldn't be appropriate at this point, but I'd like to report to those who have asked that the family is doing OK.

Really, whenever someone is 94, whenever he's had a peaceful stay at the hospice, whenever his family has had a chance to say goodbye, and whenever the final decision was his to make -- passing on doesn't hit like a collision with a brick wall.

What I'm left with, at this point, is just a blank spot in my conscious, that itches and can't be scratched anymore. I didn't visit or talk to my Grandad enough, like everyone else and their grandparents, but I'm realizing how much comfort and strength I drew from the simple knowledge that he, and the part of my heritage he represents, was there, in real life. Memories will be a poor substitute.

William Harold Garvin, RIP

I'll post a tribute eventually. Here's the obit I put together on my grandfather.

William Harold Garvin of Arlington died early Monday, March 9, 2009, at Arlington Memorial Hospital.

Harold Garvin was born Dec. 28, 1914, in Dustin, Okla., the son of William David Garvin and Margaret Harris Garvin.

He graduated valedictorian of Weleetka High School and attended Georgia Tech University, where he earned a Bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering in 1939.

Garvin was a member of the ROTC at Georgia Tech, and entered the Army with the rank of second lieutenant upon his graduation in 1938. The next year he married Theda-V Sanders. They would stay together for 70 years, until his death Monday.

He began his military service in the Signal Corps and was stationed at Camp Bowie in Brownwood on Pearl Harbor Day.

In the 2nd Army Division, 53rd Battalion, he served in North Africa, Italy and France before leaving the military with the rank of major at the end of World War II, having earned the EAME Theatre Ribbon with seven bronze service stars.

He began his civilian career by moving to Dallas and working as a petroleum engineer at Mobil Oil. Later, he opened Garvin’s Hardware and Paint Company at the old A. Harris Shopping Center in Oak Cliff. After selling the business, he sold Gold Bond Trading Stamps and was named as the company’s top U.S. salesman in 1963.

He finished his career as a purchasing agent with Dairy Queen Stores Inc., and later owned and operated three Dairy Queen franchises. He retired in 1987.

He was a longtime member of Glen Oaks United Methodist Church, later joining Duncanville UMC so he could attend services with his family. He was an avid fisherman and Boy Scout volunteer. He spent his retirement traveling with his wife and doting on his grandchildren and great grandchildren.

He spent much of his spare time solving crosswords, assembling puzzles and growing vegetables in his garden. His family will remember his strong work ethic and his sense of humor.

Watchmen's drawer

I have no plans to see "Watchmen" at the multiplex. It's definitely a Netflix kind of experience for me, albeit one where I'm not scanning the catalog in hopes that it pops up.

To me, the most interesting thing going on here is the guy who drew the comic in the first place.

This guy. Alan Moore.

Yeah. You look at him and you think deranged hermit. And yet.

He can't stop himself from noting that he's put a curse on the movie and that he hates Hollywood and the media. And yet he keeps on showing up for interviews and finding ways to get his quotes in the paper.

He kind of reminds me of Kurt Cobain, always muttering against the corporate media, yet constantly calling MTV to play his videos more often.

I find it kind of fascinating, when people choose an image of disfunction in order to make their business function better. And if you don't believe me, check the hair. Do you have any idea how much time he has to spend every day getting that hair into some kind of functional state? He must have a drawerful of combs and high-pressure water sprayers just for his beard. I bet his bathroom has five different work stations.

The truly disturbed would just chop the thing off and be done with it.

Anyway, I have never been gaga for comic books. The promotional blitz and fanboy reaction for "Watchmen" had me puzzling over the possible reasons why. Comic book fans tend to be aggressive about their love for the graphic novel. Lord knows I've heard a lot about art, theme, style and impact. I've also heard the word "awesome" too many times to count.

I tend to be able to at least appreciate and enjoy some aspects of other people's passions, but comic books? Eh.

Why I'm not into comics. No, it's fine if you are. It's just not my bag. Don't hate.
When I was 10 and first gave the serious comic books a look, I remembered being off put by the violence. And most of the stories just followed a color-by-numbers plot:

1. Show Peter Parker at home relaxing with scantily clad wife.
2. Show villain killing somebody while giving a speech that smells like B.S. even to an eight year old.
3. Alert Peter Parker, who shows his concern with an "OH NO!" expression.
4. Change into suit.
5. Zip around. Somehow cause civilians to question your worth/good intentions.
6. Find villain.
7. Hear another speech from villain that even politicians would find meaningless.
8. Kill/chase off villain.
9. Parker appears back at home, looking somewhat fatigued. The end.

Today, what bugs me about the comics is just the non-sequitor to reality they require us to make. They introduce you to a tough, grity, urban setting with drug dealers, prostitutes, mobsters, etc. OK, I can believe that there are some pretty mean places out there.

But then, you're expected to believe that some buff dude in a skintight, flamboyantly colored outfit would show up and beat the crap out of everybody. That just doesn't follow for me.

My wife, who is somehow more into comics than I am, tells me "Watchmen" is a great story and deserves the recognition, and that "a great story is a great story, no matter the format." This made me think, for some reason, of Huckleberry Finn told through '50s beat poetry.

Curse the thought, but maybe my wife isn't right on this one.

Back in the saddle

Yep, I'm home, after driving my ole Saturn 99 wagon for two whole hours with no breakdowns and no new strange noises.

It's like I have my wings back. I felt like I was one of those characters with a broken wing in a cartoon about birds. The bird looks longingly at the sky as the others fly high above him. Sometimes he has to hitch a ride with his lady bird. Sometimes he and the lady bird get into an argument over just whose damn time it is to fill up the gas. And finally, the healing is over.

I'm lucky in two regards here. One, my father-in-law is a retired military mechanic, and, two, he's incredibly charitable with his time.

The whole screwed up story: After my car broke down, I took it to a shop, where they diagnosed a cracked engine block, and had pretty much written the car off as salvage. My father-in-law, hearing my wife discuss the symptons over the phone, calls that a bunch of hooey. Two weeks later, my car is back, working better than before the problems started. (His diagnosis: Something wrong with the head gasket, and replace the radiator.)

There is only one payment for such a man. And that would be cookies. And about $300 and change for the materials and such.

And another cut! And another cut! And ...

I'm beginning to compare my wife to a soldier -- albeit a soldier who becomes physically ill at the sight of a roach and who really likes to talk about emotions.

But mainly because I can see the mental wear and tear she's had to go through, as the Star-Telegram made its fourth(?) round of cuts in the last two years on Thursday.

Mainly, I see the comparison with the combat veteran who sees his friends get shot, but keeps going on, feeling guilty because he survived.

OK, the metaphor's a stretch, but I can't really imagine working in an environment where the staff keeps getting pared down and the survivors just have to keep on taking on more work. And half the people leaving are in "worst possible time for this to happen" phase in their life. It's not fun to work for a newspaper right now.

I admire her a great deal for being able to hold it together, put me through teacher certification, and spend baby time with the boy. I know I'd have said to hell with all that a long time ago and retreated to the farm, middle finger angrily in the air.

Announcing: 30 posts in 30 days.

Because I couldn't think of a more inclusive unit of time.

I've been slacking off big time here lately, and while I could throw plenty of excuses at you, I realized yesterday that I'm supposed to come here because of my excuses -- as therapy. Life's been busy throwing a lot at the Segrist (Fort Worth Branch) lately, and part of the reason for this blog to exist is for my own naval-gazing purposes.

Therefore, starting today, I'll be posting something for the next 30 days straight. There will be pictures of Sam. Videos of Sam. References to Hico. Ruminations on Texas Tech athletics, derision for Aggie football, western literature, and various idle thoughts on fantasy sagas, the middle ages and all that rot.

Also -- dogs.

Starting today. (This post don't count.) Please join me.

A few more notes

Teaching test
I put this up on Facebook, and then remembered that some of you have managed to avoid becoming ensnarled in that black hole of sentimentality and unnecessary updates.*

Anyway, I got the results last week from TExEs test, and managed to pass. The TExES test is a competency exam for wannabe teachers. It isn't the end of the road for becoming a certified teacher, but it is an important step, showing that you have a clue about the things you'll be teaching.

It's not easy, by the way. The questions are very extensive and the answers to choose from are often barely discernible. It was a long, focused, all-day exam and felt like having a baby. And I feel like I have the authority to make that statement.

*"I'm going shoe shopping. I think I'll share that with 68 people I haven't seen in years. Perhaps they'll wish me luck."

On the TV
Just a couple of recommendations. One, I went through the first season of "Flight of the Conchords," last week. It's often comedy gold. It's a different kind of funny than what I've gotten used to seeing. Mainly, it's not really all that hostile. I think the success of Seinfeld turned just about every comedy offering over the past decade into a contest of insult throwing. This Conchords just seems gentler.

I posted a video of their's a while back, here's another one, "Tape of Love." Ignore the first seconds of black.



I'll just note that the songs aren't as strong at the end of the season as they were at the beginning. Joke songs must be hard. I imagine that's why Wierd Al generally waits a decade between albums.

Also: Friday Night Lights. Best Season Ever.

Hope for the Aggies
This man has hope in spades. And by "hope," I mean "apparent head trauma."



The main funny is in the first couple of minutes. But he does a good job of keeping it real all the way through.

Notes and Sam shots

Just a few things:
I surprised myself by watching a good portion of the Oscars on Sunday. This is mainly because I was reading a blog that was making fun of it, and had to see what they were talking about. I'd also like to point out here that I watched none of the movies nominated, and have no plans to watch any of the movies nominated for best picture. This is because I don't really care about any of them. Just wanted you to know.

Hico trippin
I've gotten a few questions (OK, one from Tom) as to whether or not I've made it to Hico and done my little Indiana Jones expedition for the lost marker of the original Segrist home site. Short answer: Nope. As we have only one car right now, I can't take it for an overnight trip and leave the wife and boy without transportation. It's also the nice car, which means I can't take the dogs. And not being able to take the dogs to Hico seems kind of pointless. Hopefully, (very hopefully, I must admit) we'll get my car back this week and I'll be able to make it Hico before the end of March.

If the car refuses to work, I dunno.

Midieval trivia
The popular concept of the "village tavern" is wrong, at least up to around the 1500s. Dark Age folks living in rural villages typically got their drink on at one anothers' homes. Families, mostly the women, would brew their own batches. Once the brewing process was over, they'd open their homes to their neighbors.

Though the atmosphere was not, "Dude! Party at Aelfric's." Rather, the family sold their brew and would often count on it as a major source of income. It was also a highly regulated affair. "Brew tasters" were supposed to sample the ale before it could be sold, and the court records are full of fines for those accused of selling "weak ale." (Ale making was by far the most penalized activity in midieval courts.)

Sam climbs, scares parents
So the boy has become kind of an expert on getting into a chair at the table. He acts like he's part of the conversation and enjoys being out of the baby chair. Meredith's set up some activity things for him to do once he's climbed up there. Still, kind of nerve wracking not seeing your boy strapped in.






This is also a note to all parents: Your parents will probably want to buy your kid various $80 toys that they saw in some fancy schmancy catalog. While nice, you should tell your parents that your child's favorite toy will most likely be a stick. Or, in Sam's case, a stick and beat up rain guage that he found somewhere.

For a while Sam couldn't see a bird without flapping his arms. Now he waits until he hears a plane.

Wahoo!

LUBBOCK, Texas -- Texas Tech and coach Mike Leach agreed Thursday on a new contract after months of contentious negotiations.

Leach signed the contract shortly after he and Kent Hance, the university's chancellor, met for about two hours Thursday afternoon to hammer out an agreement. Hance said the negotiating part lasted only about 15 minutes.

I don't care that it was hard. I'm just happy it's over.

Because "Texoma" sounds better than "Oklexas"

I followed a link yesterday to a speech by man named Dmitri Orlov, who's written a book called "Reinventing Collapse." Orlov believes the United States is on the verge of implosion, much like the Soviet Union in the 1990s, and he writes about how America can implode "smarter, not harder."

My reactions:

1. It's not going to happen.
2. If it does happen, I say Texas and Oklahoma combine to make their own country. We already have a lake named after the new nation.

Yes, I realize a great deal of antipathy flows both ways over the Red River. But let's look at the other options:

• Louisiana is like the crazy uncle you invite over for parties, but you don't let him sleep on the couch.
• Arkansas is like the crazy uncle you have four restraining orders against.
• Kansas
• And Texans who get annoyed by Oklahomans simply haven't met enough New Mexicans.

Besides, I've never hated Oklahoma. I think most of the disdain for the Sooners is Austin-based, and most Oklahomans focus their hatred on Austin.

The fact of the matter is that Texans and Oklahomans have a lot more things in common than not, and our economies and culture would mesh pretty well. Texas has the Gulf Ports, Oklahoma has Tulsa. We've both got excellent universities, good natural resources, music, and barbecue.

When I pitched the idea to my wife, we had the following conversation:

Mer: I don't want Oklahoma. I want Colorado.

Me: Pah! Bunch of lazy, Elway-lovin', mountain boys. Besides, it's geographically impossible.

Mer: No it isn't. We just mount an expedition and ...

Me: That's fine, but you still end up with at least part of Oklahoma.

Mer: Fine! I'll take Oklahoma if it means we can have Colorado.

I think the British created Iraq in the same way.

Nitpicking "No Country for Old Men"

So why do this review now? Because the film has been out a couple of years and everyone who is going to see it has done so.

I'll just break it down into several West Texas nits and a few points:

• First off, it was a great movie. Finding problems with it is just a form of entertainment.
• The opening speech by Tommie Lee Jones refers to how his Daddy was proud that he was sheriff of Terrell County at the same time his Daddy was sheriff in Plano. Problem: Terrell County and Plano are eight or nine northeastern states away from each other. I don't really see the political connections working out there. And Plano isn't even a county. Now, I realized while I was writing the last sentence that Jones could have referred to LLano County. In which case, no problem.
• Jones goes on to talk about the sheriff "up in" Comanche County. That should have been "over in." Small thing, but if you're just pulling these names off a map, how hard is it to actually look at the map?
• The Coen bros. show a great deal of love for the West Texas landscape, and let the wind provide the primary soundtrack. I like that.
• I don't buy Josh Brolin's hair cut. Or really, for that matter, his character. His actions make for a good story, only they don't make any sense. There's no evidence of any internal struggle happening when he makes the decision to take the money and endanger his family and every motel clerk within a 500-mile radius.
• The women working the clerk jobs look like the women working the clerk jobs in those far West Texas towns -- polyster flower shirts, obesity.
• I have honestly seen maybe two men in my life dressed in a gray suit with a cowboy hat and boots. How did this get to be our uniform?
• My favorite line comes from Tommie Lee Jones: "My Daddy said, 'Once you stop hearing "sir" and "ma'am", the rest is soon to foller.'" I think the line was meant to show the sheriff's naivete and his inability to deal with a world that seems bent on cruelty. I personally think he's got something there.
• I hope that Barry Corbin gets his own movie someday.
• I heard a lot of complaints about the ending, so I wasn't disappointed by it. If you see the movie as a story about the Sheriff and the killer and their missions, it makes sense.
• I'm definitely old. I watched the movie wondering if the graphic violence was really necessary. I just recently saw "The Third Man," an Orson Welles black and white movie. They were able to effectively convey the horror of an injured infant simply by showing a man looking into a crib, without showing you what was inside.

Speaking of the perfect actress

Fiddler on the Roof's been on my mind since reading about it a couple of days ago.



The sound isn't great and he's out of costume, but Zero Mostel's performance blasts through those limitations. At least if you like "Fiddler." And how the hell could you not like "Fiddler?"

I need to Netflix that ASAP.

Interesting weekend

At least as the word "interesting" relates to the old curse, "May you live in interesting times."

Eh, things weren't that bad. I was just miserable because of the contrast with the fun I was going to have.

Here's my weekend, in a nutshell:

On Friday, I had the car loaded up with the dogs and various outdoor gear and headed out to Hico. There were a couple of causes for concern -- the car's radiator had been acting a bit strange and I had a minor head cold. But none of these things seemed that serious.

About five miles south on I-35W, my car's temperature guage had hit the red zone. I pulled over, cooled things down for about 10 minutes, started again. No dice. The temperature guage immediately jumped to the red zone. I drove into a truck stop and forlornly watched the tractor trailers coming and going, knowing my weekend had just become much more complicated.

I nursed my car back home, found a shop that installed radiators, and dropped the car off.

You ever have that feeling where you're expecting the Phone Call of Bad Car News? About an hour after taking the car to shop, my cell rang. I cursed, picked it up. The mechanic said the engine block had cracked.

I know nothing about cars*. Growing up, my Dad taught me the techniques of throwing a baseball, shooting a gun, grazing cattle, and the importance of matching the right actress with the right 1950s musical. We didn't cover cars. I'd kinda like to get into car repair and restoration as a hobby, but I have about 200 other things I'd like to get into as a hobby. How do you pick one or the other? Maybe my interest in making goat cheese will pan out sooner.

Anyway. I know nothing about cars. I do know, however, that "cracked engine block" is to a car as "pancreatic cancer" is to a person and "Let's see other people" is to a relationship.

In the meantime, the head cold launched and landed somewhere just short of a flu. I picked up the car from the shop, drove slowly home and spent the night, and most of the next day, in bed.

I was drugged up and missing a rare chance to be in Hico, tromping around and building a fire outside.

One silver lining: Meredith's Dad is an old Navy mechanic, and after telling me the engine block might not be cracked, agreed to tow the old girl to his place and attempt to repair it himself. (His theory is that the head gasket is blown. I nodded like I understood, then asked for a definition of "head gasket." And "blown.") So we have hope. I like my old Saturn wagon. It's the perfect car for me -- room for the dogs and backpacks, and it's old enough to where I don't really have to take care of it.

Meanwhile, for the time being, me and the wife will be living 1950s-style. As far as only having one car. Not so much the lack of feminism.

*One comedian had this line: Now, I don't know nothing about cars. At all. Once this lady told me her car wouldn't start, and I said, "Maybe someone is trying to kill you."

Wal-Mart observations

You can never find bok choi when you're looking for it.

Is anyone else bugged by seeing kids riding around in shopping carts? I'm not talking wee ones, I'm talking kids who look like they could be doing algebra homework. In my memory, as soon as we were too big for the cart seat, we walked. I realize that maybe it's a safety issue and you want your kids where you can see them, but that means keeping your eyes open, not infantilizing your pre-teen.

My mom expected us to walk and to stay with her, to the point where she once got tired of waiting up for me and drove off, making me walk home. True story.

Ever notice how big a difference the cashier makes? You either get the generally happy with life cashier, or the I'm-so-miserable-that-the-path-of-life-has-led-me-to-a-job-at-Wal-Mart cashier. I had one of the latter today, and I really could have done without the self-pitying sigh while handling my chicken, thankyouverymuch.

Notes

Woe is us Raiders
The contract negotiations between football coach Mike Leach and Texas Tech turn ugly. I won't give any analysis here, because you probably don't care and can find much better coverage elsewhere. (Note the Double-T Nation link on the blog roll.)

But I'll say it's ugly, and things like this tend to bring out the bad things on each side.

Bad thing for Leach:

• He's a lawyer and really lets his agents act like lawyers. One of his agents (meaning he has more than one guy, I guess) goes over everyone's head and sends a whiny e-mail to the board of regents. And every season ends with the movie, "Coach Leach goes shopping for a new job."

Bad thing for Tech:

• You have to shut down all negotiations and publicly proclaim that you're doing so? After deciding to hold off on negotiations when you had the chance to wrap things up before the season started? This SportingNews story says a lot:

"A close friend of Leach told me a story last fall that sums up the situation. When Bob Knight arrived at Tech in 2001 to coach basketball, (Athletic Director Gerald) Myers gave Knight Leach's university parking spot. Even though Leach was given another spot in the same lot, the move didn't sit well. For the rest of the semester, Leach parked in a commuter lot and walked to work."

Even if this ends well, it points to major problems down the road.

My boy can emote
Sam has had another of those mental leaps where things just all of a sudden seem to line up in his head. He's got about six vocabulary words and can basically do what we tell him to do, unless it has to do with his developing motor skills. Or the fact that he's still very short.

What's fun is watching his personality develop through his reaction to things.


He opened his first Valentine card today -- from his baby-mama's mama -- and went through a set of intensifying reactions:

• First he has this paper thing, and that's cool.
• There's a picture of a bell on the paper -- all right!
• We can tear it up! Yaay!
• BUT WAIT, THERE'S A PICTURE OF A DOG ON ANOTHER PIECE OF PAPER ON THE INSIDE! UN-FREAKING-BELIEVABLE!

Hico Jonesin'
Headed to the farm this weekend to check and see if we recieved any damage in Tuesday's storm. Should be fun, unless we have a gaping hole in the roof.

I've planned an expedition of sorts. Years and years ago, my father and his father planted a marker of the spot where, supposedly, the first Segrist homestead was built in 1868. It's on a part of the land that I've never explored. This weekend, I aim to find it. Should have pictures next week.

Have a stimulating, non-pork-laden, day.

Scotlyn takes her place

Congratulations to my brother, Scott, on the birth of his third girl, thus completing a set of "Angels."

Her name is Scotlyn, and I hope that's the right spelling. The family in Lubbock attempted to e-mail me pictures, but the only one that got through was this one on my phone:

Looks just like her Daddy.

Like toast on a campfire

It was Meredith who pegged it. "You're just really burnt out, aren't you?"

And I asked myself, "How does an unemployed man get burnt out?" Well, here's the situation in a nutshell, without too much whining:

Over the Christmas break, I had to sprint through about half of my on-line teacher
certification coursework to make the required deadline. A week after that, I had to take a certification test. I studied and then spent four hours taking that sucker, and have no idea if I passed as much of the content covers stuff we just kinda barely covered in the on-line course.

And then my head hurt. Like brain death. I didn't want to think much about much. I dropped my calculus course at UTA (in time for a full refund) and will probably take a simpler course in the summer. Right now, I need to focus on finding a job.

Otherwise, things are getting back to normal. The fun of Facebook peters out after the friend requests dry up, so I'm spending less time with that. I've decided to really make an effort and learn about landscaping and gardening this spring, something I've been meaning to do for a while.

I'd post a picture of the current state of our yard, but I'm afraid the image might result in action taken by the municipality of Fort Worth. So here's one of Sam in the leaves.

Sentimental journey, in two parts

Part 1 – Joining Facebook

The last few years, I had been happy to stay off of Facebook the way some people had been happy to not have a mobile phone:

• I can live without it.
• It’s a big distraction.
• It’s part practical device, part vanity project.

I knew plenty of folks on Facebook, and heard about everyone else who was there and how they were reconnecting and meeting people blah blah blah.

And I resisted. Do I need new friends? Why should I try to virtually collect them? I have five good friends. I don’t need any more.

Besides, Blogspot has been an excellent outlet for the writing. I post something here, we don’t have to be buddies for you to read it.

The problem has been a rising sense of sentimentality (see next post) within me over the last few months. I generally think that Sentimentality can suck eggs -- so long as I can wax poetic about the middle ages, West Texas, Texas Tech sports, and kicking field goals.

I blame Dave for pushing me over the edge. Last week, Dave posted about his favorite Austin bar shutting down, and it left me thinking of my youthful experiences of doing stupid, ignorant things to kill precious time ... and suddenly I was thinking that song in my head:

Memories,
Of things that happened in the past,
Misty, Skittle-colored,
Memories,
Of the way we ...

And I realized that I had given Facebook my name and e-mail address, and was staring at the personal profile page.

"Eh, what the hell."

So I filled out the basic information – city, college, high school – and Facebook gave me a few alternatives for finding friends. Then I did the bad thing I didn’t want to do – I clicked on the link that showed people from my high school senior class, and I scrolled down, rendering judgment:

Never knew her ... Never knew her ... Balder than me ... fatter than me ... richer than me ... Vaguely remember ... Nice hat ... ugly baby ... That’s a lot of cleavage for a wedding dress ... Paris? La-di-freakin’-da ... Pretty wife ... Good match ... Dude, college was two decades ago. You can stop trying to look like a frat boy ... Don’t remember ... Oh my! Look what happened to Miss Ain’t-I-All-That! (Snap fingers while making diagonal motions with arm, until deep sense of shame causes me to stop.) ...

And so on and so forth. So far I’ve been disciplined enough not to look up ex-girlfriends and the ones that coulda been ex-girlfriends. But my wife says it’s a matter of time.

Pulling myself away from the class list, I went and found a profile picture – something that would make people think I was wealthy and holding on to my sense of hipness. Basically, a visual lie.

Later, I sent friend requests to the folks that I e-mail on a regular basis*, my childhood friends, and left it there to bloom. And it’s gone a little nuts.

I’m getting notes from people I haven’t seen in decades, it’s kind of fun. But the problem is, what happens when you get a note from somebody that you were kind of friends with and who now lives maybe two blocks from your house? What happens when you get a friend request to someone you only vaguely remember as someone else’s girlfriend?

Are you obligated to meet them? Do you have to sum up the past 20 years of your life to a relative stranger?

They ought to have a button to push that says “Let’s do lunch.”

*At least the ones I could find. If you’re on Facebook and haven’t heard from me, let me know.

Still here

Just kind of cocooning right now. (You know. Thinking about stuff, like things, you know.)

Enjoy the Star Wars trilogy told by someone who's never seen it.

See more funny videos and TBT Videos at Today's Big Thing.

Comments

Starbuck calls her "Stardoe"
Goodness gracious. Dirk Benedict, the original Starbuck on the original Battlestar Gallactica, rips the present incarnation of the show on the conservative site Big Hollywood. The tone of the piece will offend most women, and probably all men born after 1980.

It's funny. I kinda like Benedict's piece, even though I disagree with just about everything in it. The latest Battlestar Gallactica was my favorite show until they lost me in the third season. (I hear the fourth is better.)

I dunno. I like rants.


Yes, you can have fun in Vegas
"Do you know where Cranfills Gap is?"

The question came from my father-in-law, who was visiting over the weekend. He expects me to have a store of West Texas knowledge.

And of course I know where it is -- all of 30 miles southeast of Hico.

My father-in-law told me he had learned about the town on the web and watched some of the commercials. Then I remembered -- or realized that I had forgotten -- about the place and how the town had won a trip to Las Vegas as part of a promotion.

They now have episodes of the trip up on a visit Vegas web site. I guess the best term for it is "reality advertising." The bits have some cute moments in them -- lots of people saying "yeehaw," old women acting inappropriately with male strippers, etc. My favorite part is when an old man refers to the bubbling wine as "cham-PAG-nee."

It's nice, but what struck me about the trip was that the Cranfills Gap people were given the full VIP treatment. They stayed in the luxury suites, ate at the best restaurants, got free trips to the day spas.

In other words, they got a vacation that 99 percent of us could never afford. The overall effect is like watching an ad that explains the good points of winning the lottery.


Friday Night Lights
The season premier Friday was a whole lot of awesome. I'll admit I felt kinda cheated. The show stopped in midseason last year, and they didn't bother settling all of the plot points before starting this season.

On the other hand, the plot points of the last season were never that strong in the first place. Nerd guy Landry kills guy, joins football team, dates hottest girl in school. Uh-huh.

I like the idea of nerd-quarterback getting competition from new stud-boy quarterback; I enjoy watching the white-trash girl claw her way towards college; and I hope that Smash gets his Mojo back.

Which is why the show is great. These are real characters they've created. You care about what happens to them.

I don't get how Lyla bounced from good Christian girl to not-so-much girl, but, whatever. Half of the show's charm comes from the feeling that it's all about to fall apart.

Hallucinations can be fun

John sent me a blog post from the Dallas Morning News Technology Blog(?) on coffee.

It seems that drinking coffee can stave off alzheimer's, but it will also give you a higher chance of suffering hallucinations.

Nothing else to add here, tho I'm waiting to see what the blog has to say about the health effects of eating a five-pound bag of Cheetos every day.

Now You May Type! With Honor!

Jeremy sent me this ad for -- great blessed Shatner -- a keyboard that uses Klingon.

Funny how Klingon would develop 26 letters, just like English. They're on a different planet or something.

Craddick

The other day, me and my wife were discussing the outster of Tom Craddick as speaker of the Texas House. (We usually discuss these things because the only other conversational option is the state of the fluids coming out of our child's body.)

He always seemed, according to virtually every news source out there, to be an honery old cuss that bogged down practically every initiative. He somehow managed to rule with an iron fist, and at the same time prove wildly inefficient.

It hit me then: "So now the Texas Legislature might be able to do the things it wants to do."

Me and Meredith looked at each other, ominous movie music playing in our heads.

Dude. Look what Brown can do for you.

A story sent to me by Scott, detailing an incident in my alma mater's hometown:

30-pound marijuana brick delivered to wrong address in Denton

Sure to be nationwide news before lunch.

Updates, notes, TV and whatnot ...

It's one of those things where I haven't written for so long, I got too much stuff on my mind and not enough energy to write it.

First, with the whatnot ...

A video that combines the two great passions of dog lovers and those who like the movie "Grease."


"Woof" is the word. Haha! Kill me!

Updates:
-- Grandad had surgery Monday. They basically went in and did their best to clean out his lungs. And he seems to be recovering pretty well and will hopefully be able to go back home soon. He's 94, and a tough, tough man.

-- School begins Wednesday. I'm taking calculus, and wondering about the ratio of out-of-shape body to out-of-shape mind. Perhaps it's inverse. Exponentially so, even. I can hope.

I'm nervous about the subject matter, but my focus has been shifting over the Christmas break. I'm mainly thinking about just where in God's name I'm going to end up this fall and how I'm going to do at teaching basic geometry, factorization and whatever to 13-year-olds. The closer you get to the actual thing, the more you worry about it, wonder about what road blocks are going to be thrown in your way.


TV
-- In case you missed it, and you probably did, the Food Network covered Hico's Texas Steak Championship Cook-off and aired the piece earlier this month. I haven't seen the clip, as we don't have cable and the Food Network hasn't bothered to put it on the internet.

Still, as this blog calls itself "News from Hico" -- even though it has little to do with actual news in the actual town of Hico -- I felt kinda obligated to mention it.

-- For me, two great programming events happen this week. First off, Rifftrax, the web site that was formally the people behind MST3K, is doing a live riff at 8 p.m. today (Thursday), online. For free. The guys are just riffing on a short, educational film, but I still feel the need for popcorn.

Secondly, Friday Night Lights finally premieres on Friday. It's about *@&*%^$ time. This show had some serious problems before the writer's strike shut it down last year. A lot of the plot exists just to give some characters face time, and the show generally seems to be flailing along without any overall storyline to drive the action. Also, the marketing angle of the show has given me a man-crush on the guy who plays Tim Riggins, which I find disturbing.

Still, it's the best West-Texas-based show on TV today.


Notes
-- This computer is just about dead. Tends to lock-up once every 15 minutes, causing me to -- Oh, you're kidding me. It locked up as I was typing that sentence. Arh.

-- Ricardo Montalban insert your own Khan or Fantasy Island joke here. Still, you got to admit the guy was likable. Made me smile anytime I saw him. I remember the joke Burt Reynolds made on the Tonight Show.

"You can't lock Montalban alone in a room, because he'd literally charm himself to death."

RIP.

-- Eh. I should get back to studying. Happy Thursday.

Just a note on the inactivity around here

A lot of things have been happening lately to keep me distracted -- we've been dealing with the holidays, I've been trying to cram in work on my internet teacher certification during the time off from school, etc.

But two things have kept my mind off of blogging. My Dad recently had an "episode" or something, though it sounds like a mini-stroke. It happened before Christmas, and he's had some difficulty talking, walking and using his left hand. It's hard for anyone in my family to see this.

On the other hand, Dad being Dad, he's just kind of shrugged the whole thing off and kept on doing what he does. And he's rapidly gotten better -- he was almost back to normal when I saw him two days ago.

The other thing is my Grandad ending up at the hospital in ICU on Wednesday with pneumonia. The doctors have indicated that his health is failing, just how badly we'll know after some tests come back next week.

It's sad for everyone, but Grandad's had some health difficulties for a while, and at age 93, you kinda have to consider every day to be a gift. On the plus side, he's been lucky enough to have kept his mind in good shape. When I saw him in ICU, I asked him how he felt and he said he was good except for the pneumonia. Then we got into a discussion over which sister of mine the nurse most closely resembled.

It's wierd how you get into a routine and then everything just falls down on you, like big cars being dropped on you by renegade aliens in a dumb movie. (Eh, metaphor bank is empty right now.)

On Wednesday, Vivi (of V Marks the Spot) happened to be passing through and droppped by for a short visit and to see Sam. Hadn't seen her in about five years. Then our water heater goes kaput, and we have to spend the morning trying to get a plumber out. Then Meredith's sister and husband come by before they ship out to Virginia. Meredith's parents were coming, but they had to cancel at the last minute. Then I get the call about Grandad being ill.

Seemed I had spent the last month doing nothing but taking care of Sam, gaining weight, and then trying to lose weight.

This isn't a blog where I lay down my troubles and send angry missives to God. This is a blog where I pick out aspects of life to inspect and go "Ha!" Or talk about Tech football.

But since my audience basically consists of about 8 old friends and random people looking for information on dead cougars, I'd thought I'd let y'all know what was going on.

Yes. The Cotton Bowl did suck. Thanks for asking.

Good riddance to that beat down piece of junk.

Anyway. If you could write a script as to how to take a team from the middle ranks of college football all the way to the elite and then back down to where they started, in only one season, you'd have the '08 Texas Tech Red Raiders.

I'm not going into analysis right now. I'm not that insightful and other people are already doing it better. At least we get to keep Coach Leach. Yaay.

I'm off. Tequila needs to be shot and video game nazis must die.

Random thoughts before 2008 kicks it

Sam:
Picking up heavier and heavier stuff. And throwing it farther and farther. And usually at the cat.

Cotton Bowl:
I'm nervous. Tech tends to start out slow in bowl games, then catches fire at the end. I don't know if that'll be enough this time. I'll be yelling enough to scare the neighbors anyway. Onward, ye Raiders of Red.

Speaking of football:
Here's a funny sketch that answers the question, what if you personified all the Big 12 schools, and had them throw a New Year's party? (I'm constantly asking myself such questions.) Dirty language warning.

To tell you where this site is coming from, Mizzou and Kansas State come off as the most normal, which is kind of laughable. I'll warn Aggie fans, A&M is given the role of Boo Radley. I also took some umbrage at the insults flung in Shiner Bock's direction.

Still speaking of football:
DoubleTNation pointed out this video preview of Mike Leach's upcoming interview on 60 minutes. Should be fun. Hope he's still working for us by then.


Watch CBS Videos Online


Kinda still speaking of football, which means the Cowboys:
I like Tony Romo. The fact that he refuses to go into an emotional meltdown solely to satisfy the postgame media is a good, good thing. We need more people to basically say that a football game is what it is. And especially that it really isn't that important.

I agree with Randy Galloway, who says you really can't get a decent read on how good or bad anyone on this team is, because Jerry Jones meddles with everything, and makes terrible decisions in the process. And until he steps away -- which he won't until he's five years dead -- the team is never going to be anything other than a bit better than average.

I also disagree with Galloway, who dismisses any notion that the media is too hard or overreacts to everything that happens to the Cowboys. You try spending a year with thousands of people shoving a microphone in your face and second-guessing every decision or analyzing every quote down to the last syllable and latin root, and then say you don't feel mentally tired.

T.O. seems like a jerk. I don't care. If he catches the ball and scores, other people I like can jump up and down and dump Gatorade on each other. It's not complicated. Good Lord, from the endless moaning I hear from all quarters, it's like we need to resurrect Freud and get the entire Texas sports media to sit down and talk about Troy Aikman and their mother.

Speaking of Shiner:
Tonight I got a six-pack of blond, along with New Year's champagne, to tide me over during the Cotton Bowl. I understand that Shiner Blond is actually the original beer created in Shiner, and therefore the most authentic to its Texas roots. Of course, a guy from Oklahoma told me that, so you don't know ...

The official News from Hico list of beer preferences:

1. Some $10-a-bottle junk that has a picture of a monk or a court jester on it.*
2. Give me a Rahr.
3. Got any Shiner?
4. Miller Light.
5. Bud whatever.
6. Give me a glass of water and punch me twice in the face.
7. Coors Light.

* Don't drink that often, so I make it special when I do.

Travian:
I'm currently playing a free internet based game called Travian. I'm not providing the link, and am therefore doing you a favor.

Resolutions:
Will make some time somewhere to go backpacking in Far West Texas on some trail I've never tried before. And to be a good father and husband.

Happy New Year
And remember not to get shot.

Good point on newspaper and the intertubes

A paper shuns the web. Publisher says putting content on the web for free is stupid.

And the paper is making double-digit profits and just published its largest edition ever.

From the New York Times.

It is, of course, a newspaper with a staff of 3.5 people, and is therefore almost wholly local.

But, really, it makes sense. Why would you give away your product for free, in the exact same format where other organizations are kicking your tail?

Worst combination of light saber/holiday special ever

Vanity Fair talks to some of the people behind perhaps one of the worst things ever to be on TV, the Star Wars Holiday Special.

Some interesting stories, such as the fact that Princess Leia didn't just sing, she demanded that she sing. Otherwise, you notice how everybody still refuses to take responsibility for it.

I have a fuzzy memory of the show when it aired. I remember it coming on, being thrilled when Skywalker made an appearance, and then ... Well, the other members of my family drifted off. And I didn't put up too much of a fight to change the channel.

The piece points out why things were so bad -- the writers tried to combine a serious Lucas-created plot with the usual schmaltzy holiday special-type fare.

You can't really watch it now for the kitschy fun of it. It's just too boring, unless 10 minutes of wookies talking to each other, with no translation, is your idea of fun.

Rocket ships and horsees

This one was too much fun not to pass on:

Bureaucracies live forever. So the next time you are handed a specification/Procedure/Process and wonder “What horse’s ass came up with it?” you may be exactly right. Imperial Roman army chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the rear ends of two war horses. (Two horses’ asses.)

Here’s the twist. When you see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are solid rocket boosters, or SRB’s. The SRB’s are made by Thiokol at their factory in Utah. The engineers who designed the SRB’s would have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRB’s had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site.

The railroad line from the factory happens to run through a tunnel in the mountains, and the SRB’s had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track, as you now know, is about as wide as two horses’ behinds.

Let's begin Christmas week ...

With the great Texas song writer Robert Earl Keen ...


Hmmm ... Robert Earl seems to have put on a little weight.

And in other news ...

No wonder the prairie dogs have been actin' funny.
Along with other fields and playgrounds across the nation, Odessa's famous football field is sick with lead. To me, the strangest part of the story is that China apparently has nothing to do with it.


At least they didn't go nuts with *&*%#@ exclamation points.
The Abilene Reporter-News is saying nah-nah to the city's marketing department. The paper ran a poll that asked Abilenicans if they preferred the city's new marketing slogan, "Abilene Frontiering," or Fort Worth's new slogan, "You get it, when you get here."

Voters heavily favored Fort Worth's slogan 90% to 10%. The poll even got the Star-Telegram's attention. I don't know. The paper's kinda kicking a dead mule there, but I agree it's not a great slogan.

Abilene has a history of adding random exclamation points to name events, supposedly to make them sound more exciting, but everyone knows that the guy who screams all the time is eventually the guy you ignore the most. And so people see the "Celebrate Abilene!" festival and the "Frontier Texas!" road signs and just shrug their shoulders.

(I should also add that it's a real nightmare for copy editors, forced to "correct" a perfectly correct phrase by making it incorrect. I remember having to write "Celebrate Abilene! will feature face painting this year." As if that sentence deserves an exclamation point.)

This time they've made up a word -- "Frontiering." I don't mind people occasionally adding a word to the language, but "frontiering" in this sense does not mean putting ma and pa in a wagon and going off to fight Injuns for the farm. "Frontiering" in this context means putting your surly, suburbian kids in the car and going to look at old stuff. And maybe buy new cheap stuff that looks like the old stuff.

Kinda takes the ooomph out of the word "frontier."


And that's what we do
I just realized that this blog has been real heavy lately on West Texas, football, and West Texas football. Then I looked at the name of this blog. "Duh," I said.

Sammy Baugh, RIP

Arguably the greatest quarterback who ever lived passed away Wednesday in Rotan.

I don't have a personal Sammy Baugh story, and I didn't even learn who he was until I was in high school. It was easy, however, to get your own personal Sammy Baugh story. All you had to do was drive up to his farm house outside of Sweetwater and honk your horn. He'd come out, take you inside, give you a drink, and talk for hours -- without having any idea who you were. Buddy Jeremy spent an afternoon at Baugh's place for an Avalanche-Journal story, about a week after Peyton Manning had been flown in for a photo shoot.

Robert Duvall copied Baugh's mannerisms to portray Gus McCrae in the Lonesome Dove miniseries.

He was a great quarterback, but having someone who combined his fame with gregariousness and a laid-back attitude made Baugh a model for West Texans, someone people were proud to have in the extremely large metaphorical back yard of the region.

A south plains moment

Guess where this happened ...


Highlight below for answer.
Brought to you by Queensland, Australia.
Always wanted to go there. Seems kinda like home.
The video calls it a tumbleweed vortex. If Hitchcock ever wanted to make a movie in Texas, he missed a great title.

Of Santa and sadness: Terry Pratchett’s illness

I heard the news a couple of weeks ago that my favorite living writer has been diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s Disease.

Terry Pratchett writes the Discworld series, a line of humorous fantasy books that I’d like to write my master’s thesis on, if I ever get around to it. The series is that good – as in that funny and that deep and that imaginative.

I stumbled onto the series about three years ago, and have been working my way through it since. I didn’t write anything here after I heard about Pratchett's Alzheimer’s, as it was announced several months ago and writing news travels slow.

His website’s here. They have a link to speech he gave to a disease research group, which is kinda heartbreaking to watch because he’s funny and everyone in the room is too sad to laugh.

Anyway, my own story little of how a good writer can affect your life:

A few years back at the Abilene Reporter-News, we had an intern on the copy desk from Oklahoma U. Smart guy – the college intellectual type you’d expect to see wearing a Che T-shirt in a most definitely not-ironic-to-him kind of way.

One night I heard him in an argument with another copy editor, who was teasing him because he had recently announced that he would never tell his children about Santa Claus. "Because I will NEVER lie to my children."

I didn’t join in, just thought about what a serious, humorless childhood is in store for some kid in the future. But the question remained with me – why teach kids about Santa? Tradition? It’s a fun thing to do? Tradition?

A couple of months ago, I Netflixed the Pratchett books that had been turned into films. (All the films are terrible, by the way.) The best was Hogfather, a live-action take on Pratchett’s bizarre take on the Santa myth.

As mentioned, it wasn’t a good movie, but it made a point that I’ll remember. Borrowing from the phraseology that’s still in my head, it went something like:

You can sift through every inch and all the matter that makes up the universe, and you’ll never find a single atom of justice or compassion. These things exist only because men believe in them. And before you can believe in the big things, you have to be taught to believe in the small things.

It’s a great sentiment. A guy who writes about what trolls drink to get drunk came up with it.

And a moment of focused hope ...

Update: Mules win.

For another West Texas town. Muleshoe is playing today in its first state championship game. This is a long-odds, never-saw-it-coming deal, for one of the best little towns of the South Plains.





Give 'em hell.


Another story brought to me by the Avalanche-Journal's George Watson.

Everyone please remove their hats and take a freakishly large moment of silence

The man they called "Hoss" would've been 80 years old Wednesday.

Dan Blocker's hometown O'Donnell, which I understand has a museum exhibit in his honor, recognized the event, and will recognize it some more this weekend, according to the Avalanche-Journal.

True story -- this morning my wife got back from shopping, and noted, "It was slim pickens at the bread store today." And I had this brief vision of Slim going over the baked apple pies and expressing consternation at the Boboli. Then I remembered his glorious beatdown with Hoss on Bonanza, pretty much my favorite TV western fight in anything until Deadwood.

And then the A-J reminded me it was Hoss's b-day.


Fight starts at 4:47.

Note: The A-J reporter meant to refer to Hoss as a "gentle giant" but added an "i" in the wrong spot, thus noting that Hoss was a large man of the Christian persuasion (since corrected). Several people showed up to jeer in the story's comment section, thus hacking off this former copy editor. I feel the urge to show some surliness.

Snow hits Houston

You know, in some parts of the state, people may say that hell really has frozen over.

Not me, of course. Just some people. In some parts of the state.

On the other hand, an El Paso high school team made it to the area round of the football playoffs this year, so very strange things are happening.

Sagitarians (Sagitarriuses?) get off to a great start

So my wife read me perhaps the most doom-laden "If your birthday is today" bit I've ever heard, in this morning's Star-Telegram horoscope section. It said basically, "You no longer listen to anyone, you jerk. And don't even think about making any major changes until next year."

Then I read in the news that I share my birthday with a very special someone:

Gov. Blagojevich was born December 10, 1956, on the Northwest side of Chicago.

A spree of obscenities would be fitting here, but I fear my future employers will read this someday.

Gun Loaded? Check. Pepper-spray? Check. Riot shield? Check. All right, we're off to see the robot mouse.

Greatness in the Wall Street Journal, on the rash of violence at Chuck E. Cheeses.

"The biggest problem is you have a bunch of adults acting like juveniles," says Town of Brookfield Police Capt. Timothy Imler. "There's a biker bar down the street, and we rarely get calls there."

The primary cause? I blame the fact that children of baby boomers are now trying to raise kids, and are doing so poorly.

Small thoughts, small posts

And the rest were about Christmas costumes for dogs ...

Standing in the Wal-Mart checkout line the other day, looking at the magazines and tabloids. Hmmm ... let's see ... one ... two ... three ... four ... five. Five magazines with Britney Spears prominently on the cover. Three about her on drugs or gaining weight. One about her turning over a new leaf. And one about Kevin Federline turning over a new leaf after his ex-wife got on drugs and gained weight. Of course there might have been more, but I couldn't see all the covers.


Cranfills Gap goes to Vegas

Yaay. Maybe you've heard of the promotion -- people from Las Vegas searched for a town that would be entertaining to take gambling, and they settled on this little crossroads about 20 miles away from Hico. My only reaction was -- of course. Reality shows (and lately, reality-PR campaigns) have been happening with such regularity in the Cross Timbers region that people are going to start counting on it as part of the economy.

The reasons for the attention: The people are genuine when they say things like "all hat and no cattle." They make for good pictures when they see a dancing woman in a sparkly headdress and nothing else except for a few well-placed nickels. ("Well, gosh," they might say. Or perhaps "Yee-haw." Makes good commercial dialogue.)

I also think that they keep going to the Cross Timbers because, as a population, the people have a pretty good ratio of the ugly to the good-looking. As opposed to, say, Missouri, where the ratio is about 80-20 in the wrong direction.


Tom Bodet -- not dead, yet spinning in his grave

Motel 6 is changing its look to something its CEO describes as Eurochic.

I heard the roar of a billion rolling eyes.


Christmas shopping. Easier.

Don't know if it's good or bad, but since everyone in our family just buys each other gift cards, the buying of presents this year was easier than ever, and is already over. At least that's what's my wife tells me. I had nothing to do with it.


Fall semester ends

And boy is my brain tired.


Happy mark-your-approach-to-death day, to me

I'm posting this shot not so much to let people know that my b-day is soon, so much as to show off Meredith's cupcakes. She made them from scratch and referred to the recipe -- a devil's food cake -- as "intimadating." They came out mighty tasty. Meredith was proud. Proud enough to demand I post a picture. So, here ya go.

Picture of fire

These were taken at the annual family eatathon in Hico. At which Sam got his first look at two of the funnest things in the whole wide world ...

Fire!

This experience was accompanied by a great deal of "Hey! Back! No touch! No touch! Danger! Hot!"

And offroad vehicles

The boy definitely loves the machinery with wheels. We have a children's book that has nothing in it but pictures of things that "Go." Sam's brought it to us so many times that we've started running in the other direction anytime he bends down to pick it up.

We also did a grandchildren/college affiliation shot. (A few Baylor kids would have been perfect for the season, but ain't none of us that rich.) Everyone took a shot and my Mom's planning on using the best for this year's Christmas cards.

This is my best. Eh. A few of the children got caught at an awkward moment.

After looking at this picture, I remembered that we had an impromptu kickball game that afternoon. All family members not in this shot suffered age-related injuries.