Another Great Way to Fix Congress

It's pretty clear that Congress is broken; they've lost touch with how we "regular" people live their lives, and they tend to get corrupted by the cesspool that is Washington, gaining a sense of entitlement and, in many cases, setting themselves up to get re-elected for life if they so desire. There are a lot of ways to fix this, including term limits and voting out every incumbent, but op-ed writer Ralph Benko of the Washington Examiner came up with a great idea that had never even occurred to me: Let 'em telecommute!

We send our elected representatives far from home to conduct The People’s business. We send them to Washington, D.C. where they form what our flyboys (and flygirls) call “a target-rich environment” for the lobbyists and for the political party leadership.

We send them far from us … to conduct our business. There was no other way in the 18th, 19th, and most of the 20th century. In the 21st century, of course, this is absurd.

As things now stand, it is too easy for lobbyists and party leadership to “get at” our elected legislators. And too hard — impossible, on a concentrated basis — for voters to spend “face time” with their representatives.

We plain folks, and our representatives, would be well-served by changing the rule requiring our legislators to vote from the floor of Congress. And this could be done by a simple rule change, no legislation or constitutional amendment required.
The Constitution simply provides that “a majority of each [chamber] shall constitute a quorum to do business” and does not even specify “present,” much less what that would mean in the 21st century of webcams, Skype, videoconferencing, broadband internet or other technologies out there. The rules of both the House and Senate provide that a quorum is assumed unless a quorum call shows that it is not.

So how would this work? Benko explains:

By a simple rule change, our legislators could give themselves permission to vote from their district offices. Not require it. Simply permit it. From there, they could tele-speak, by Web, and tele-listen, by Web.

Now, they listen by closed circuit TV and speak rarely enough. They could speak more conveniently, and thus more often, by Webcam than they do now, and from home.

In fact, they could invite their constituents to form a “studio audience,” changing the chemistry rather dramatically.) They could make a district office home-base for most of their staff, instead of doing it backwards, as now. (Jobs for constituents! What a concept!)

Travel is such a hassle, the cost of maintaining two homes beyond the reach of most of our legislators. Under such a rule, it is highly likely that a lot of members would vote, more and more often, from their district offices. (Many of their wives, or husbands, would see to it!)

More time in the District means less in D.C., and it would be a lot harder, and more expensive (all that travel!) for the lobbyists to smooth talk them and for party leadership to twist their arms.

At home, they would be much more in touch with the people who they represent. With much less wear and tear.

(Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/Ralph-Benko-Give-the-people-the-home-court-advantage-84489672.html#ixzz0fpoIS9pt)

This sounds perfect to me. If they spend more time around regular people (especially those who voted for them) and less time around lobbyists--and each other--they would turn out to be much more effective at what they were sent to Washington to do in the first place, which is to serve the people--not themselves, as is too often the case nowadays.

Am I missing anything? This sounds like a great idea (for everyone except lobbyists and hardcore partisan "leaders," and I don't care about them, not one whit). Chime in with your own opinion in the comments.

UPDATE: Mr. Benko himself makes an appearance in the comments.

It's Taco Time in San Antonio, and Checklist Time Here

SAN ANTONIO--Another TMEA convention is in the books. And when it's done, I usually go back and look over my annual "checklist" to see how this year compared to past conventions. Said checklist is now conveniently posted in several previous years of this blog, so let's just use last year's as a template and see how it stacks up:

• Spend quite a bit of time in the exhibit hall? Check. It's pretty much mandatory to do this; some newbies even refer to the exhibits as "the convention," as in, "Have you been to the convention yet today?" even when outside another convention event.


• Spend way too much money at the Tap Music (rare CD store) booth? Once again, no; they haven't been here for two years now. (Which is just as well, as my CD budget would have been zero dollars this year.)


• Eat way too many big meals on the Riverwalk? Check. But this year I paced myself, so that even the traditional giant chimichanga at The Original Mexican Restaurant didn't do me in, for once.


• See some people I hadn't seen in several years at the UNT reunion? Check. This is statistically bound to happen nearly every year. (And man, was this year's reunion crowded!)


• Make jokes about how, when, I was in college, the free food at said reunion would serve as Friday night's dinner? Check.


• Watch someone propose to his girlfriend during the serenade at the Sinfonia sing? Nope--not for the past two years now, though we thought there was a "ring sighting" at first.


• Get to the convention center in time to see the high-school all-state jazz ensemble on Saturday morning, making it with just minutes to spare? This year, with a student in the band, I was über-early, to the point that I almost caught part of the previous concert. (And the Texas Ballroom at the Grand Hyatt was a perfectly serviceable concert venue.)


• Fight the crowds at the Rivercenter food court at lunchtime? Almost, but the crowds were still formidable at nearly 2:00, so we hoofed it down the street to Fuddruckers this time.


• Get a table there (the food court) by spying someone about to leave one and pouncing on it 2.5 seconds after they'd gotten up? Nope; see above.


• See the Andean Fusion band playing some sort of a classic-rock cover song on ancient wooden flutes just outside that food court? Check; but not until this afternoon; the cold rain of the first few days limited outdoor activities, and I wasn't at the Rivercenter as much this time.

And a few things returned to the tradition: DIning on the river at Casa Rio (where the "pigeon show"--flocks of the birds descend on a table and devour the uneaten chips as people vacate it--has become quite a spectacle, not to mention a common photo-op); visiting the big Starbucks on the Riverwalk, which is no longer a Hear Music store since that partnership was dissolved; and doubling the Starbuckage at the RIvercenter store--a nice chill break between the TJEA meeting and the UNT reunion.

As for traditions that have been put on hold this year: I didn't spend a dime at the exhibits (though I did a lot of looking and advised students on some purchases), and I wasn't around for the end of any business day in the hall, where the same announcer guy says "It's taco time in San Antonio!" and they literally start rolling up the carpets on people when it closes for the year on Saturday. I also didn't get to see any high school all-state "regular" band concerts (mostly because they conflicted with my own students' concerts), and nobody got to see anything in the stately Lila Cockrell Theatre this year, as that venue is under renovation. I sure hope it retains its aesthetic beauty and acoustical brilliance when they're done.

Needless to say, there was a lot of walking that took place in the past four days, and i guess it's good that, despite my "bad" knee, both of my legs ached equally throughout the week. It will actually be nice to get in the car and drive tomorrow and save the walking for later.

TMEA is, as always, a great musical experience and a great hang. It's easily the highlight of this time of year. If I have any other thoughts on the week, I'll save them until I return home tomorrow.

(This is a placeholder; I'll post a picture of me playing a bass saxophone in this spot once I get home from TMEA.)

So Far, It's Stock Show Weather at TMEA

SAN ANTONIO--As I tweeted just a bit ago, some mornings you wake up, look outside and say "What a beautiful day!" Others, your response is just "gross." With cold, rain and fog, it's the latter here at TMEA today.

Up in Ft. Worth, they have a term for this: stock show weather, as the cold, wet stuff seems to plague their annual event. Granted, I'd rather have this than the snow that they're experiencing back home right now (though a friend texted that it's like a picture postcard at the moment), and it is expected to clear up by late tonight. It'll never exactly be shirtsleeve weather while we're down here, but at least it'll hit the 50s tomorrow and there'll be a break from the wet. (Meanwhile, back home, Dallas is expecting more snow today than Vancouver, where the Winter Olympics are starting tomorrow.)

The trip down was uneventful, and we even made pretty much record time despite a late start at the rental car place. The locally-based Air Force jazz band Dimensions in Blue opened the event in fine form last night, with a guest appearance from Woody Herman alumnus Dave Stahl, whose high trumpet chops are still solid after over 40 years in the business. I also enjoyed the solo work of tenorists Cody Brown and Rob Karns, altoist Ryan Leatherman, bari player/spokesairman Ken Drefke, pianist Darrin Dziergowski, and trombonist Don Marchand, a former college classmate of mine.

It's about time to venture out in the muck and catch some clinics and All-State rehearsals (I have two students in the community college jazz ensemble and one in its high school counterpart), as well as the legendary exhibit hall, whose gigantitude was noted here last year. I'll try to post updates here and there (and maybe catch up on some unfinished ones from last week), and I'll wrap it all up when I get back.

Travel Advisory

I'll be blogging for the rest of the week from the TMEA convention in San Antonio (and likely missing the snow that's forecast for DFW for tomorrow). I'll probably get caught up on some older posts as well. (And yes, it's crazy to think that I'll have to go out of town to get caught up on everyday things, but that's how it goes for me at this point in time.)

Blowing out the candles: Happy birthday to my oldest nephew, Noah, who was born during TMEA nine years ago. I recounted that first day here, on his third birthday and in the second year of this blog.

I May Not Get Caught Up on Blog Posts Tonight...

...but I'll be tweeting my thoughts on the Super Bowl commercials throughout the game. (And thanks for your patience on the lack of blogging--really. I'll catch up next week during TMEA.)

UPDATE: OK, so there were a few good commercials on there tonight. My personal favorites were the one with Betty White playing football (even if, a few hours later, I can't remember who the commercial was for), a couple of the Doritos ads, the Coke spot with the Simpsons characters, the Bud ad with the Clydesdale and the Longhorn, and the Google spot that tracks a relationship from meet-up to buying baby supplies.

So what was your favorite? Hit the comment button and talk to me. (And if you missed a few, or want to see them again, they're about to be posted here.)

Wrapping Up a Long Day

Since the college semester began last week, my Thursdays have gotten long again; throw in some nasty cold rain, and it makes the day seem even longer. If blog posting was spotty before, it's likely to be even more so for the next fourteen weeks.

But that being said, I'm here to quickly point you to an amusing picture: A street in England on which nearly everything wrapped in bubble wrap yesterday. The accompanying blurb notes that it was done to highlight concerns over highway safety, but I'm guessing that it also was timed to coincide with Bubble Wrap Appreciation Day earlier in the week. (There's even a virtual bubble-popping game at the link.)

That's all for today; sleep beckons. More later.

The iCouldhavehadabettername

As had been expected for a while, this morning marked the unveiling of Apple's long-awaited new tablet computer. And while there's been a lot of talk about the positives and negatives of such a device, a lot of people have been homing in on the name: the iPad.

This wasn't what a lot of people were expecting, at least from what I've been reading the past few weeks; the usual guesses seemed to be along the lines of the iTablet or the iTab. I can see Apple's logic in continuing the use of the "i(Monosyllabic word)" idea, since it's been with them from the beginning: iMac, iBook, iPod, iPhone. But iPad seems to have laid an iEgg with some observers.

I'm not sure they could have pleased everybody here, as they seem to have had a limited selection of cool iNames for something of this nature. The word iTab (and its longer sibling iTablet) sound too much like pharmaceuticals, but iPad sounds like, well, a feminine hygiene product. Is that really where they wanted to go with this? The name just seems to be overripe for parody (and yes, the parodies have already begun). And does anyone else wonder how this will all go over in the New England area? If you say "iPod" with a thick Boston accent, doesn't it sound too much like "iPad" to avoid massive confusion?

But I guess the big thing for me right now is that, for the first time in a while, Apple has come out with something that I'm not looking to buy right away. I owned one of the original teal-colored fishbowl iMacs (and mine was a great replacement for my previous computer, which I eventually dubbed the "MacAbacus"; it was pretty much an email reader on which I could also do word processing and play Tetris, while loading even the most rudimental webpage took several minutes). I didn't get an iPod right away, but it was always on my proverbial list (the thought of being able to listen to music on plane trips without carrying around my Discman, a big wallet of CDs and an army of AA batteries was appealing from the start). The MacBook Pro on which I type this was also acquired fairly soon after the line was launched, and i got my iPhone rather soon after the contract on my previous phone ran out.

But the iPad? My initial response is simply, "Meh." But I'm not sure that it's a matter of being disinterested in this product as much as it is simply having no need at the moment for the entire genre. My MacBook does certain things well, and my iPhone does certain things well; some of those things (email, certain websites, listening to music) even overlap. I don't read books or newspapers online (and if I did, I'd also have to check out the Kindle and the Nook), so I'm not seeing where this fits into my life at the moment.

Your mileage, of course, may very. Did you greet this announcement with a smile or a shrug? Tell me why in the comments.

UPDATE: I didn't realize it when I wrote this post, but I guess I've been enjoying my iPad nano for a while now. LOL.

Metheny Deserves a Pat on the Back for Latest Effort

As I said on Twitter a while ago, it's not often that I go to the trouble of buying a CD on its release date these days (for that matter, I rarely buy physical CDs themselves right now, thanks to my eMusic subscription). But a new Pat Metheny release is a big deal, especially one as unique as his new solo effort, Orchestrion. It's a "solo album" in every sense of the word, but--in contrast to his 1978 recording, New Chautauqua, where he also played all the instruments, overdubbed in the studio--modern technology allows him to "play" everything live.

So exactly what is this Orchestrion thing, anyway? I'll let Pat do the talking for a moment, from his website:

Orchestrionics" is the term that I am using to describe a method of developing ensemble-oriented music using acoustic and acoustoelectric musical instruments that are mechanically controlled in a variety of ways, using solenoids and pneumatics. With a guitar, pen or keyboard I am able to create a detailed compositional environment or a spontaneously developed improvisation, with the pieces on this particular recording leaning toward the compositional side of the spectrum. On top of these layers of acoustic sound, I add my conventional electric guitar playing as an improvised component.

[...] In the late 1800s and early 1900s, with the emergence of player pianos (pianos played mechanically by moving rolls of paper through a mechanism that physically moved the keys), the next logical step was to apply that same principle to a range of orchestral instruments, often including percussion and mallet instruments. These large instrument arrays were called orchestrions.

Orchestrions flourished in the era that directly proceeded the advent of sound recordings. In many ways, that period of time stands as an interesting middle zone; the first technology that brought a performer to an audience once removed, while retaining the essential characteristics of that performer's message.

[... ]For a number of years leading to this project, I have been gathering the forces of a group of talented inventors and technicians from around the country, and commissioning them to construct a large palette of acoustic sound-producing devices that I can organize as a new kind of orchestrion.

And to my ears, he's definitely succeeded with this project. Included in the mix are piano, bass, a variety of mallet percussion instruments, and some unusual things like a "guitarbot" and a device that blows air into bottles. And top of it all is Pat's signature guitar. (He explains more about the various devices and their inventors here.)

As for the music itself? I'm totally digging it. (As I said on Twitter, I can't imagine a Metheny album being released that I don't absolutely love.) Because no matter what's going on behind him, it's still Pat writing the music and Pat playing guitar, and I'm a huge fan of both of those areas. But here's the thing: There might be only one person playing live, but the music doesn't in any way sound contrived or fake; in fact, it has all the warmth and humanity that's always associated with a Metheny recording.

And the tour for all this starts this weekend. They're coming to the DFW area in April, and I intend to be there when it happens. Sure, it won't be quite the same as watching the interaction between Pat and Messrs. Mays, Rodby, Sanchez, et al., but one look at the setup of all the instruments featured on the CD cover is enough to convince me that this is a must-see, if for no other reason than to experience how this whole thing works.

I've been intrigued by this whole thing ever since it was announced on the Metheny website last year, and I'm happy to say that the hype is justified. Well done, Pat, and good luck with the start of the tour.

The "Strike Up the Bands" Marathon Enters a New Decade

Tonight, I continued the tradition of watching the All-Region bands from my area perform in their annual concert, and I'll also continue blogging about it, as I have for the past four years. As always, there may be some "rerun" material, and this is by no means an attempt to liveblog the concert (which would have been both inconsiderate to the other attendees and a royal pain in terms of all that typing on a phone); it's just a collection of things that went through my mind as I watched the proceedings:

• Once again, my proverbial hat is off to the organizers of the concert, which ran like a Swiss train (each band has a 45-minute slot, of which maybe 30 minutes are used; that allows bands to start at a precise time so that the families of people in the later bands can be on time). This year, even the breaks between bands seemed to go quickly.


• Eight players from my studio were in the concert this year; that's one shy of last year, but I'm also teaching at one fewer high school than before. While three of them are seniors, I also had two juniors, two sophomores and a freshman in the bands, and several others who came pretty close could conceivably make it next year.


• I was only there for four of the five bands tonight, as my player who had originally made the freshman band ended up making a high school band as well. (If a freshman does this, he or she automatically assumes the seat in the high school band, which is--rightfully--considered more of an honor.) This allowed me a slightly later arrival and a slightly less-wolfed-down dinner.


• So why don't I usually show up for a specific band if I don't have a student in there? Well, I've always been concerned that my doing so might possibly prevent some proverbial kid's Aunt Edna from having a seat. But any anxiety along these lines was assuaged immediately upon my entrance, as this auditorium was gargantuan; it even had a balcony!


• But the parking situation was as bad as the seating was good; the school is adjacent to a stadium, and I had to park near the far end zone of said stadium--a walk of about four blocks. There were other events going on at the school as well: A soccer game in the stadium and a basketball game in the other side of the school. The part of school that led to the game wasn't open to concertgoers, which made for an even longer walk to the front of the school. I'm glad this wasn't six months ago when I was hobbling around with a knee brace and a cane; even the good handicapped spaces were gone by the time I arrived.


• OK, on to the concert: The bands played well, especially considering that they had around a grand total of nine hours' worth of rehearsal time (last night and today; one of the perks of making Region is that you get to miss school on Friday to rehearse). The only negative of the evening was that some of the musical choices made by the clinicians were somewhat less than inspiring this year. It's not surprising for the students to tell me that their band's music was "boring," but it is a surprise when I agree with them as much as I did tonight.


• The above sentiment dovetails nicely with my annual statement of how much I like "wind ensemble music"--the newer stuff, written in a more orchestral/film score style--than "band music"--the older stuff, written more to make the individual colors more subordinate to the whole. And as always, nothing that happened tonight changed my feelings on this at all, though there's always room for a surprise or two.


• But if some of the programming was less than inspirational, there were a few tunes that caught my ears tonight: Air (Dublinesque), a work originally for piano and orchestra by Billy Joel (yes, that one) and nicely arranged for band by a Texas band director (who went unnamed in the program; was it this arrangement?); a twisted circus march entitled Clowns, Clowns, Clowns by someone named Babrowitz (the reader will note that this writer laments the lack of detail in the composer column of the program); a rollicking Dimitri Shostakovich composition called Galop from Moscow Cheremusky (arranged by Donald Hunsberger, whose version of the same composer's Festive Overture goes back to before my high school days); and the second movement of Clocking by John Mackey, which contained some extremely cool colors, most notably the solo appearances by soprano, alto and tenor saxes (not that I'm biased or anything). And kudos to the top band for bringing new life to the old standard Chester.


• Speaking of Chester, I'll never forget how dissonant that sounded to me when I played it in high school; our ears, they do grow up.


• Most admirable audience behavior of the night: Nobody clapped between the six movements of Ron Nelson's Courtly Airs and Dances, despite the exact number of movements not being listed in the program.


• Most bizarre clinician behavior of the night: One of them didn't say a single word during his band's performance. Sure, we've had clinicians in the past who didn't come to the mic until right before the last number (due to time constraints?), but after a thirty-minute set, the audience didn't even know what this guy's voice sounded like.


• Here's a perennial: It's always cool when they recognize the teachers before every band (by having all the directors and private teachers of the students currently on stage stand up for a moment). Most of the work that my colleagues and I do is behind the scenes, and that's ok; the real reward is watching them progress over the years and develop a love for music that will hopefully last far beyond their public schooling, no matter what their major will be in college. But I'd be a liar if I said it wasn't nice to be among those standing up every year.

As I've said before, I try to make this a must-see on my calendar; I may not get to see too many individual schools' concerts, but I like to be there to support the students who have put in the extra work to earn the chance to play on this night. (And it's crazy to think that I began the tradition of blogging this concert in 2006, when tonight's seniors were in eighth grade.)

In January, I resolved to have my March played in May: While linking to the previous years' editions of this post, I noticed that I wrote last year...

I'll be the first to say that a Sousa march is three minutes of perfection--the absolute pinnacle of the genre. They may get maligned a bit in some circles for being impossibly old-school, but each one is a little gem in its own way. (Hearing four of them tonight reinforced this thought, and it also gave me a mini-clinic on how I would rescore my own march that I wrote in high school if the occasion ever came up.)

While writing that paragraph, I hatched the idea that would in fact result in that march of mine being performed at one of my schools a few months later. I'm really glad it turned out that way.

From band to Orchestrion: Pat Metheny's highly-discussed Orchestrion project drops next Tuesday; listen to some samples at Amazon.

I Was Going to Do a Specific Post Tonight...

...until a friend sidetracked me with the site Not Always Right. Having spent some time in retail, I can totally relate to this kind of thing (and I'll have to go back in the cobwebs of my mind and see if there's anything I could contribute).

Here are a few of the funniest ones I saw tonight:

Customer at the drive-thru window: “I’d like my order to-go.”
* * * * * * * * * * *
Library Patron: “Do you guys have books?”
Me: (I turn and give a side glance to the shelves of books on my right) “Nope. It’s all online.”
* * * * * * * * * * *
Disgruntled Bank Customer: “What do you mean I don’t have any money? I still have checks in my book!”

You get the idea. Read and enjoy, and try to get other things done tonight in spite of it. I'll be back with my intended post tomorrow.

Today, I'll Let Others Do the Talking

Being a holiday for some (mostly, for me, though I taught a bit here at home), and having seen a video of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr's "I Have a Dream" speech for the first time in a while, yesterday in church, it seemed only fitting to devote today's blog post to him. But what should I say? To start things out, I defer to the wisdom of two people whose words I encountered today, who state their case in a far more eloquent manner than I probably could. On a national level, here's Scott Johnson at Powerline:

When Martin Luther King, Jr. brought his nonviolent campaign against segregation to Bull Connor's Birmingham, he laid siege to the bastion of Jim Crow. In Birmingham between 1957 and 1962, black homes and churches had been subjected to a series of horrific bombings intended to terrorize the community. In April 1963 King answered the call to bring his campaign to Birmingham. When King landed in jail on Good Friday for violating an injunction prohibiting demonstrations, he took the opportunity to meditate on the counsel of prudence with which Birmingham's white ministers had greeted his campaign. King's "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" was the result.

[...] n addition to King's witness, King's prophetic call permeates the "Letter." Why did King presume to come from Atlanta to Birmingham? King writes:

I am in Birmingham because injustice is here. Just as the eighth century prophets left their little villages and carried their "thus saith the Lord" far beyond the boundaries of their home towns; and just as the Apostle Paul left his little village of Tarsus and carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to practically every hamlet and city of the Graeco-Roman world, I too am compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my particular home town. Like Paul, I must constantly respond to the Macedonian call for aid.

King's prophetic call must have been both a source of strength and of concern. His strength was manifest; he rarely let his concern show. Perfection is not a condition of the prophet's call, and King was both imperfect and aware of his imperfections. His unbending strength is all the more remarkable.

And much closer to home, here's Garland city councilman Douglas Athas:

I think too often King is remembered as a man that fought for the civil rights of black people. But I don't remember him that way and don't read that message in his speeches. Certainly the crowds that gathered for his speeches were heavily black but his words were always to a broader audience, the audience of all people, and his message was of freedom and equality for all people.

He knew that inequality for any man meant there could be inequality for all men and, also, that what we openly grant to all others, we preserve for ourselves.

On this day that we celebrate his birth, I wish to recognize the huge gift that he secured for all people in this country and for so many across the planet.

I know he did see the promised land, and, by the power of his message, he took many to view the promised land. Our journey since his death has taken us closer to the promised land. We have not arrived but we are closer than we have ever been in history. If we keep our path forward to the promised land, we shall arrive. We, as a people, will get to the promised land.

I'm proud that the vision and promise that Martin Luther King, Jr, shared with all of us is closer to reality today than ever before. I'm not worried—we will get there.

I believe that as well. My only editorial comment today would be that there are plenty of people out there who are ready, willing and able to judge people not by the color of their skin, but the content of their character, and it's a shame that some people try to perpetuate the former for their own political gain.

I'll let words from Dr. King himself close out this post:

Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. And I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.

Words to remember. Rest in peace, Dr, King, and may your dream live on.

Is It Time to Forgive Big Mac?

With the Cowboys' season coming to such an inglorious end today, I guess it's time to start talking baseball again.

Earlier in the week, Mark McGwire owned up to having used steroids off and on during his baseball career. Since then, the question has been whether or not people would forgive him; he's snagged a job as a hitting coach with the St. Louis Cardinals, his last team as a player, so he was undoubtedly hoping that the fans there would embrace him at least a little bit.

Well, his first public appearance in St. Louis seemed to go well:

Dressed in jeans, a sweater and running shoes, the 46-year-old McGwire walked on stage to "Welcome to the Jungle'' by Guns N' Roses, the hard-rock song played before his at-bats with the Cardinals. The team's new hitting coach was cheered by fans who secured seats as much as 3 1/2 hours earlier.

"I've learned a lot,'' McGwire told fans. "Especially to kids out there, steroids are bad. I made a huge mistake in my life and it's something I want you guys to learn from. Don't ever, ever go down that road.''

Jessica and Sarah Schaaf were in the front row of a downtown hotel ballroom jammed with perhaps 1,000 fans, and wore T-shirts made for the occasion that said "Welcome back, Big Mac Land,'' with a photograph of McGwire.

"He did wrong,'' Jessica Schaaf said. "But we still love him.''

In a brief appearance on stage, McGwire said he was happy about his chance to put on a major league uniform again. The former home run king headed over to Busch Stadium, just blocks away, for an afternoon hitting session with Colby Rasmus and Ryan Ludwick, and pledged to immerse himself in his new job.

"Like I told them, I'll be the first one in the cage and I'll be the last one to leave,'' McGwire said. "I'm there for them, I'm there to pass on my knowledge.

I tend to be in the forgiveness camp; if what he's saying now is true, he seemed to be using the steroids mostly to speed up recovery from injuries rather than for undue bulking up. And even if there is a bit of a taint on the home-run record (which of course would be broken by an even more tainted Barry Bonds a few years later), the race to the top between McGwire and Sammy Sosa in '98 was something that baseball really needed; coming off a crippling strike a few years earlier, the game was far overdue for a spark. McGwire and Sosa provided that spark, and then some; the baseball world was truly enchanted by the whole thing.

I'm willing to give McGwire a second chance here; how about you?

How to Help Haiti

Fellow blogger and tweeter Theo Boehm Made a great point today: Far too many blogs are doing business as usual, even though there's been a major disaster in Haiti. So I'm chiming in quickly today to alert people to a very easy way to help, by doing something that a lot of people do every day:

You can donate $10 to Haiti relief by texting “Haiti” to 90999.

And yes, it's legit, and 1005 of the donations go to Red Cross relief efforts over there. According to the Red Cross's blog, they've received over $3 million as of this morning. They also have a map which breaks down giving by state.

For those who are always on the go, and may not have a checkbook or stamp handy, this is a great way to help. I applaud those who are involved with this effort, and my prayers are with the people of Haiti and those involved in the rescue effort.

Jaded or Normal?

I had to stop for gas on the way home tonight (no complaints; I'd gone six days between fill-ups). Having some extra cash in my pocket (thanks to the combination of a student paying me that way, and the fancy new ATM not accepting my bills), I decided to pay for my gas in cash. It had been years since I'd done this (save for the occasional top-off), and I was trying to remember the most efficient way to do this. The following conversation resulted:

ME: OK, I want to fill up on Pump #1. Do I just leave you a deposit? (pulling out a twenty as i say this)
STORE CLERK: That's gonna stop at twenty if you do that.
ME: Hmm...it might be a bit more than twenty, I'm not sure. I can't predict it down to the dime. How should I work this?
CLERK: You give me more than you think you'll need; that way, you don't drive off and leave me hanging.
ME (laughing): Oh, there's no way I'd ever do that.
CLERK (frowning): I don't know that; I don't know you.
ME: Yeah, I guess you could get kinda jaded in a job like this.

Afterwards, I realized that this exchange left me with a whole bunch of questions:

1) Wasn't there a time when you left a certain amount of cash to fill up as sort of a "deposit," and then, when you came back in, you either paid the balance or received the change? Or am I just imagining that this used to happen?

2) Was the store clerk in any way being a jerk for seeming to automatically brand every customer as a potential drive-off, or is that just part of their training?

3) And was he really jaded by his job, or is that normal in retail these days? (I've been out of the loop for a while.)

Feel free to share your opinion in the comments.

Two Years Later, This Car Is Still a Great FIt

Today is a festive occasion on many levels; among other things, it's my two-year "cariversary" with Kevmobile 2.0 (detailed story here, better-quality pictures here). I've been happy with the Honda family ever since I bought my Acura in college (the legendary original Kevmobile, on which I hung 338,000 miles), and I'm extremely happy with the Fit.

Really, I have no complaints at all. The gas mileage is really good (even if the smaller tank sends me to the station a bit more, the MPG itself is superb), the capacity to haul various combinations of people and stuff has worked out really nicely (take note of the time I was able to haul 17 cases of laminate flooring in a single trip), and it's a lot of fun to drive. (I missed this a great deal when I was recovering from knee surgery and couldn't drive a stick; nothing else was quite the same.)

I also got in on this during a good model year. To me, there's something not quite as appealing about the design of the newer ('09 and later) models; the older ones have more personality, I guess. (My buddy Coop, who got me into this whole Fit thing in the first place, concurs with this, and we've noted in the past that neither of us anticipates buying a new car until ours are around ten years old or so.)

So here's to many more fun years of trouble-free driving.

Blowing out the candles: Happy birthday to my protege and li'l bro, Aaron (whose birthday party I arrived late to when I was buying the car two years ago). Also happy birthday to one of my favorite bloggers, Ann Althouse, as well as two very different radio hosts, Rush Limbaugh and Howard Stern.

All-American Idol?

I've been watching a lot of football on TV this winter, and a game today caught my attention: the U.S. Army All-American Bowl, a high school all-star game held at the Alamodome in San Antonio. Over the past ten years, the game has given a national audience to future pro stars such as Vince Young, Reggie Bush, Adrian Peterson, and Brady Quinn, and recent college satndouts such as Tim Tebow and Terrelle Pryor. In addition, it's become a tradition for many of the players to make the announcement of which college they'll attend to a national TV audience during the game, and there's another cool tradition as well: Presenting the ball used to score a touchdown to one of the soldiers in the stands. (And closer to home for me, there's also an All-American marching band that's selected for the game, and they perform at halftime.)

They divide the players into East and West squads, and since Texas falls in the West in this game, that's the team I was pulling for, and they were already in the lead by the time I turned on the game. But it was an East player who eventually caught my attention--first, for the reason that he was in the game, and second, for what he did once he got to play.

While most of the players are selected by a traditional process, the broadcast team kept mentioning one guy on the East squad who had actually been chosen to the squad by appearing on a reality show. (We've seen this before, of course; a guy named Jesse Holley won a spot in the Cowboys' training camp--and ultimately on the practice squad--after appearing on a reality show hosted by Cowboys alum Michael Irvin,) That sounded kind of unusual, and I was wondering whether or not to take this kid seriously...and then Cole Marcoux took the field.

Besides the reality show angle, Marcoux has some other interesting elements to his story: He's from a small private school in the Bronx, New York (not exactly a football hotbed), and he wasn't recruited by a Division I school, if for no other reason besides nobody knowing who he is. He's made an oral commitment to Dartmouth, but he thought that maybe a little exposure on national TV might turn some heads (and it didn't hurt that he snagged a mention in the New York Times a few days ago).

Well, Marcoux definitely turned some heads in today's game; in fact, he nearly brought the East back in a game that they trailed 14-0 before he took the field, throwing two touchdown passes in short order (the first one a 50-yarder). All in all, he was 5-of-8 for 99 yards, and his stats would have been even better if another long pass hadn't been dropped by the intended receiver. If anyone doubted his ability because of the American Idol-type manner in which he got on the team, all doubts vanished after today's performance.

So is Marcoux still headed to Dartmouth (where, like all Ivy League schools, they don't offer football scholarships), or will today propel him to a larger stage? Here's his reply:

"I would welcome interest from any D-I schools, but I am really happy with Dartmouth," Marcoux responded. "The Ivy League would be a great spot for me to be successful. But if any other schools come along and they want to recruit me, I would give them my attention, definitely."

Living here in Texas, where high school football is king, it's easy to think you've seen it all. So it was a pleasant surprise to be inspired by a player from the unlikeliest of places and in the unlikeliest of situations.

Best of luck, Cole, wherever this improbable journey may take you, and know that you have a fan here in Texas.

And the proverbial back-monkey is gone: Speaking of football, there's much joy in Cowboys Nation tonight after the 'Boys dispatched the Eagles a third time. December curse? Gone. Playoff drought? Gone. Bring on the Vikings...

I'd Like to Hang Up on This Idea

I tweeted about this earlier, but let me expand my thoughts: I'd like to find a way to opt out of getting phone books delivered to my house. I don't want or need them anymore. Ever. Let me repeat, in my best "lolcat" voice: DO NOT WANT.

I'm sure there are people out there who find these things useful (and I also bet that most of them are over 60 years old). Me, I have the Internet. In fact, I have the Internet on my phone, and on some webpages, the phone number shows up as a link, which, by clicking on it, can be dialed automatically. There's simply no need for a big, bulky book full of phone numbers that I'll never use, when all the ones I do use can be found in a device that fits in my pocket (if they're not stored there already). And I sure don't need a fresh copy of the big book every year, never mind the five or six different ones that are out there.

The worst thing is that it's nearly impossible to get rid of these things. You can't put them out in the regular recycling, nor does the place where I recycle newspapers and magazines take them. The only place I've found that does is a nearby grocery store where I don't shop all that often, once or twice a year...so I have to happen upon it by accident, or not. (The store where I shop regularly never does this, of course.) Then the things just pile up.

Sure, I've found a place to store them that's not in the open; they've taken over around half of an unused kitchen cabinet. But eventually, that's going to run out of room as well. And even if I get to the special recycling bin on time, the whole mess just starts all over again in a month or two.

Does anyone else think that the phone book should be allowed to go the way of the dodo? At the least, there ought to be some sort of opt-in process. And if anyone knows an easier way to recycle these things--or if you're as annoyed by this as I am--fire away in the comments.

Coming Up on Tonight's Twin Bill: Pat Metheny and Metallica

The New York Times' Ben Ratliff finds common ground between jazz and metal music. Laughter may ensue for a moment, but perhaps the writer has a point:

Currently, making it in jazz means playing a circuit of sit-down supper clubs and comfortable midsize theaters booked by nonprofit arts presenters, and, in summer, at European festivals. If you make it in metal, you play a circuit of decent-to-horrible stand-up clubs. (And, in summer, at European festivals.) The aesthetic ideals couldn’t be more different: jazz is about subtlety and, one wants to say, beauty; metal is about intimidation, alienation and assault.

[...] Jazz stages and metal stages are places where a certain kind of experimentation happens: brainy and cabalistic, with a hint of a smile. Both increasingly depend on educated virtuosos. In both genres you can develop curious harmonic worlds, warp the tempos, brush against folkloric or conservatory music, play many notes very speedily and engage sturdy American grooves or a more studied system of fitting odd-number beats into even-number meters. Pat Metheny, jazz guitarist, meet Paul Masvidal of Cynic; Jeff (Tain) Watts, jazz drummer, meet Tomas Haake of Meshuggah. Both forms seem to have a neatly divided audience: maybe two-thirds respectfully fixated on the music’s past, one-third concerned about building paradigms for the future.

Read the whole thing; it presents some interesting ideas. And I wonder--despite a perceived antipathy of either genre's audience towards the other music--how many people are devout fans of both forms?

(Hat tip: Darcy James Argue, who's mentioned in the article.)

This is my twin brother; he's a year younger than I am: You always hear about New Year babies, and the first one born in any given city/county almost always gets his/her name in the paper. But this one is unique: Mom gives birth to a son right before midnight on December 31, while his identical twin brother waited until the new year to be born. (As the twins' dad pointed out, each kid gets his own birthday party that way.)

Beauty is in the eye on the scales of the beholder: The dating/social networking site BeautifulPeople.com revoked the memberships of some 5,000 members after they posted pictures that showed they had gained weight over the holidays.

Sit, Bella, sit. Good dog! Veterinary Pet Insurance Inc. released its annual list of the most popular dog and cat names in the U.S., and, for the first time in a while, Max is not the most popular dog name--supplanted by Bella, which evidently came from the Twilight series (which, not being a teenage girl or having any in my household, I haven't ever watched). Max is still, however, the most popular cat name. (Check out the entire set of lists at the link, which also includes Most Unusual. "Doogie Schnauzer, M.D.", anyone?)

Consider Me a Big Fan of This Proposed Amendment

I meant to blog this right after Christmas, when a friend emailed it to me, but I neglected to do so in all the holiday busy-ness. But I was reminded of it again when it was linked by Instapundit yesterday. It's a proposed amendment to the Constitution, and it reads as follows:

Congress shall make no law that applies to the citizens of the United States that does not apply equally to the Senators and/or Representatives, and Congress shall make no law that applies to the Senators and/or Representatives that does not apply equally to the citizens of the United States .

I think this is absolutely correct; the trick, however, would be to find two-thirds of the current members of Congress to vote for it. (Yes, two-thirds of the state legislatures could technically call a Constitutional Convention, but--seeing as how that's never happened in the 333 years of our nation, there are plenty of questions as to exactly how that would be run.)

But it's definitely an idea whose time has come. The most obvious current applications of this amendment would be that members of Congress would be on Social Security rather than the gold-plated retirement plans they have now, and that any health care legislation would apply to them as well, instead of the gold-plated package they have now (hmm, I'm sensing a theme here). Far too many people in Congress have forgotten that they serve us rather than rule us.

The interesting thing about this proposed amendment is that the original email that I received about this was sent by someone who is often on the polar opposite end of the political spectrum from me. If it's getting support on both sides of the aisle, perhaps it really is time to get this done.

So what do you think? I'd love to hear some comments on this one.

Notes from the Road (Victoria Edition)

As I said earlier, I had a quick trip down to South Texas for my New Year's gig, and, as always, there were interesting things along the way:

• There's no direct way to Victoria from Dallas by freeway. For that matter, even though it's roughly a two-hour drive from three of Texas' major cities--San Antonio, Houston, and Austin, you can't access Victoria by freeway from any of them. Yet there's a freeway loop surrounding the town.


• That being said, the Dallas route only requires a few U.S. highways once you leave I-35 (either by the new SH 130 tollway, SH 71 or the just-opened SH 45 South tollway): U.S. 183 to Cuero, then U.S. 87 into Victoria. Not too many small towns or stoplights along the way.


• Speaking of the SH 130 tollway, the part south of SH 45 South is starting to take shape. It will run concurrently with 183 until Lockhart, where it veers off to the southwest, where it will ultimately connect with I-10 in Seguin. Clearing work and bridge pylon construction is already underway in some areas. (And yes, SH 130 has its own website.)


• I mentioned that I stopped at a Buc-ees travel stop on my way to Houston for Christmas, and I did so again on this trip, at one just outside of Luling. And if I thought that one was crowded, this one was a complete madhouse. (Oddly enough, there's a much smaller Buc-ees--about the size of a regular gas station, really--in Gonzales, a bit down the road.)


• Speaking of Luling, the town is famous for its annual Watermelon Thump. (No, really. I remember going through town as a kid and laughing about that.)


• South of I-10, there are some towns with amusing names, such as Concrete and Nursery, as well as a few roads that lead to a place called Cheapside. ("I bought a new weekend place in the country. It's nice, but it's a little on the Cheapside.") A bit of Googling shows that Cheapside is now pretty much a ghost town, and driving through Concrete (but on asphalt, LOL) shows it to be much the same, save for a few houses, a cemetery and a church.


• In that same area, the town of Hochheim includes what has to be one of the world's smallest post offices; it's basically a storage shed. I didn't have time to stop and take a picture, and I couldn't find one online, but trust me, it's small.


• The mascot of Cuero high school is the Gobblers. This is even funnier if you know that cuero is Spanish for leather; just picture a leather turkey and you'll know what I mean.


• Lamar Advertising, a billboard company, has been doing a campaign in the area between Waco and Belton that basically reminds parents to hang with their kids, by showing said kids poised to play catch, swing on a swing set, and so on.. But I was particularly amused by their billboard in Temple that reminded families to hang with their pets as well. The company's website features some very clever examples of their work.)

I'll return to regular blogging once I've gotten a chance to relax a bit; I'm fairly road-weary from all the travel of the past week.

You Say "Two Thousand Ten," I Say Tomahto?

So a new year is upon us and for the first time in a long time, I rang in said year outside the DFW area, thanks to an out-of-town gig in Victoria, which--at least the part of it that I saw--is a really nice place. And now that the new year is upon us, the burning question that's on a lot of people's minds is this: How the heck do we pronounce the name of this year, anyway?

This question was posed in a Dallas Morning News article by Eric Aasen in yesterday's paper (which I'm just reading today because of yesterday's travel), which points out the two main possibilities:

In one corner, weighing in at three words, four syllables and 14 letters is ... two-thousand-ten. It continues the tradition over the past decade of using "thousand" to pronounce the year – such as two-thousand-one for 2001 or two-thousand-nine for 2009.

And in the other corner, weighing a svelte two words, three syllables and nine letters is ... twenty-ten. It's a comeback for a classic, the way we used to pronounce the years before Y2K arrived. (Remember, in 1999, it was nineteen-ninety-nine, not one-thousand-nine-hundred-ninety-nine.)

That's a good point, and, while I find myself going back and forth, I hope to end up in the twenty-ten camp before year's end. So do these people:

[P]romoters of twenty-ten have created a Web site, twentynot2000.com, hoping to put a stop to two-thousand-ten. Twenty-ten is easier, faster and shorter to say, the Web site says.

"If we don't fix this now, we'll be stuck saying years the long way for the next 99 years. Don't let that happen!"

The article notes that the "two thousand and..." pronunciation may well have originated with the famous movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, which came out in 1968. But it's also possible that the decade of the '00s (and what do we call that--the aughts? The naughts?) was called "two thousand and" whatever because it would have been awkward to call the year 2000 "twenty hundred." But I agree with the twentynot2000 people that it's probably time to go back to the "classic" pronunciation.

Of course, there's always the possibility that this will self-correct in a year, no matter what:

Some suggest that we just give it one more year. They believe this will all be cleared up by 2011 when "twenty-eleven" will simply roll off our tongues.

But will it?

Surely we'll figure this out by 2020. Think about how we already say "twenty-twenty" when we describe the TV news program or ideal vision.

I think that's probably right; I live near the Eastern Extension of the Bush Turnpike, which will be completed by the end of next year, and when people have asked when it's going to be done, I've been saying "twenty-eleven" all along.

Feel free to weigh in on the argument in the comments if you wish. And Happy New Year, no matter how you say it.

2009: The Year in Blogging

Seeing as how it's New Year's Eve, it's time for my annual roundup of "posts of note" from the past year. As I've said in previous editions, a post may have been chosen because I think it bears repeating, or it's my favorite post of that month, or maybe it brought this blog quite a bit of traffic. At any rate, here we go:

JANUARY: Drunken Lemur Alert
FEBRUARY: More Than Just a Place to Lay Your Head
MARCH: With This Blog, I Thee Wed
APRIL: An Interesting Day
MAY: A New Take on "Old Home Week"
JUNE: PETA Peeved by Pike Place's Piscatorial Projectiles
JULY: Let's Wish This Iconic Jazz Educator a Happy Birthday, Starting in "1, 2, 1, 2, 3, 4"
AUGUST: There's Still No Place Like Home
SEPTEMBER: Last NIght, We All Got Wiested
OCTOBER: Happy Halloversary, KNTU!
NOVEMBER: Thinking About This Dress Code Makes Me "Emo"
DECEMBER: Christmas Lights and Music: The Next Step

I actually have a New Year's Eve gig this year for the first time in several years, but it'll take a few hours of driving to get there. Back tomorrow with more, and remember, if you celebrate tonight, be sensible about it.

Now It Can Be Told

A huge weight was lifted off my shoulders this afternoon when my two weeks of on-call service for federal jury duty came to an end. It's actually a better deal than the county courts because of the on-call thing (which they do because they compensate you a little better than county, including mileage and parking money, so they don't want you there unless you're absolutely needed). Still, the whole process meant that I never knew my status for any given day until after 3 p.m. on the day before (or the Friday before if the next business day fell on a Monday and so on). Granted, I was able to take my trip to Houston for Christmas with no problems, but I didn't know what day I'd have to come back here until last Wednesday.

But now it's done, and--like many people I talked to, I never ended up having to go in. But still, it's been hanging over my head for a while (seeing as how I had to postpone it a few times because of my accident and surgery), so it's nice to have it in the past. And oddly enough, county ended up wanting me for their own jury duty the same week, so that one had to be postponed until March.

(And the reason that I say "now it can be told" is because, once I logged in the first day and didn't have to go, I decided not to blog or tweet about it until it was done, to keep my luck going. Superstitious a bit, you say?)

Maybe I can use some of these in the future: Here's an intresting list of excuses that usually worked to get people out of jury duty. (And may I say that I'm glad I don't live in California; from that list, and other stuff I've read, they seem to have no regard for small business owners or sole proprietors in this regard.)

Another Chapter in the Urban Legend

On Saturday night, my parents and I went out to eat at a restaurant that could qualify as an "upscale sports bar," due to the number of TVs in the room and the fact that said TVs were all tuned to sports programming. And the one story that kept on going in true Energizer Bunny fashion was the surprise announcement that University of Florida head coach Urban Meyer would be "resigning his post after the Gators' upcoming bowl game for "undisclosed health reasons" (more and more of which were disclosed throughout the evening). Though I'm not a huge Florida fan, I'd followed Meyer throughout the years, since he coached at my parents' alma mater a few years ago. Though the health problems were not considered life-threatening, it was apparent that the guy needed a break.

For the rest of that night, the sports news was pretty much all-Urban, all the time; Dad and I both commented that it was really getting to be overkill after a few hours (and no, we weren't watching the whole time). So it was even more surprising to read Sunday's paper (which I didn't get to until Monday because of the travel day) and discover that Meyer had already changed his mind, downgrading his resignation into a mere leave of absence and stating that he hoped to be leading the Gators again in the '10 season.

After the screaming, front-of-the-sports-page headlines of the original story, it was certainly strange to see the resolution buried a few pages in. But I wish the guy all the best, and I hope that the time off does him some good. I've certainly tended toward workaholism myself on occasion, but the stage has never been as large as that of an NCAA Division I football coach at a top-tier program. May 2010 be a better year for you (and for the rest of us who have had challenges in '09).

Speaking of coaches hoping for a better 2010: One guy who is undoubtedly counting the seconds until New Year's Day is the Cowboys' special teams coach, Joe DeCamillis. Not only did the team's indoor practice facility fall on him during that big storm in May (fracturing four vertebrae in the process), but he had to miss Sunday's game against the Redskins because he was undergoing an emergency appendectomy at the time. And with the same fighting spirit that brought him back to the practice field 15 days after the practice facility collapse, he actually wanted to coach the game first and then get the appendix taken out (the doctors, of course, refused that request). Here's to another quick recovery, Joe D.

The Fry Street Saga: Here We Go Again?

It's been a while since I blogged anything about Fry Street, because there hasn't been much to say; the out-of-town owners, United Equities, have been sitting on the project ever since their request for a drive-thru for the CVS drugstore that was to be bulit on the footprint of the Tomato at Hickory and Fry had been denied, and a lot of us were hoping that they would eventually sell to someone who would create a development that was more appropriate to its location across from campus (i.e. things very similar to the stuff that was torn down in the first place).

Well, we may have been half right, as it appears the property may be sold, or at least a development may be going up on the site. This time, somebody wants to build...wait for it...more student apartments:

The Dinerstein Companies of Houston and Winkelmann & Associates Inc. of Dallas filed a pre-application with Denton city officials on Monday to build 210 student apartments with 586 beds in a four-story complex split by a multistory parking garage. Attempts to contact spokesmen from both companies were unsuccessful.

Mike Cochran, a former City Council member who lives in the nearby Oak-Hickory Historic District, criticized the proposal. Cochran, a vocal opponent of the Fry Street Village project in 2007, said the new project would have the same disturbing result: increased traffic on roads already stressed beyond their capacity.

“The only way to get to it is through residential neighborhoods,” Cochran said.

Cochran also called the proposal a waste of prime commercial land.

“It just seems a shame to almost squander the commercial potential for that property with apartments when there’s so much other land around that would be excellent for students,” he said. “It is, of course, completely incompatible with the neighborhood as well.

Well said, Mr. Cochran. So maybe this isn't quite as bad as a generic chain drugstore, but it's still not the best use for the site. For one thing, there are already plenty of new, upscale student apartments near UNT (go a few blocks up Fry Street itself and you'll dead-end into some). Student apartments aren't special, and this corner is special, because of its heritage--a heritage that may have been sullied at times, but it's there nonetheless. Go to nearly any university and there'll be a little mini-downtown across the street, in buildings that are about 80 years old and filled with student-friendly businesses. That's the part that United Equities took away, and it's time to bring it back.

So why not split the difference here: Since New Urbanism is all the rage, how about a mixed-use development with businesses on the ground floor and apartments above it? Cochran is right--apartments would be a waste of prime commercial land, so that might as well be included in the plan. How about it, folks?

I'm sure there will be more on this in the weeks ahead; in the meantime, I'm going to go leave the previous paragraph in the comments to the DRC story.

Down on the Farm: Check out music from James Farm, Joshua Redman's new band. Very cool stuff. (And yes, there's a Denton angle to this, as Redman has played the Denton Arts and Jazz Festival in the past.)

Notes from the Road (Big Triangle Edition)

I'm back from my Christmas trip and looking forward to a few more days off here at home. This time, I did the BIg Triangle on my way back, going from Houston to Dallas via my sister's place in Austin. Unlike two years ago, when Kevmobile 1.2 suffered the breakdowns that would lead to its replacement a few weeks later, this one went without incident.

Here are a few random notes from the trip:

• The traffic was only bad in a few places (I-10 heading out of Houston and I-35 around Temple), but, being a Sunday, the typical "Sunday driver" added to the slowness of things.


• A lot of hurricane-related infrastructure has been put in place on I-10 since Ike hit the area a few years ago. Among the amusing things were the little hurricane-shaped logos painted in the right shoulder, allowing its use as an extra lane in that situation, and the signage that allows all traffic to head westbound during evacuations. They're known as "contravac" lanes (a combination of "contraflow" and "evacuate"), which sounds like an industrial-strength vacuum cleaner.


• I was on a bit of a tight schedule, seeing as how I wanted to get back in time for the Cowboys game. But if I hadn't, I would have taken a picture of a fireworks stand I passed on Hwy. 71 between La Grange and Bastrop; I swear the front of the building said "BUY 1 GET 11 FREE."


• I also would have stopped to photograph things like the giant Texas star atop the front gate of a ranch in the same area, and the giant golf ball on a tee a few miles down the road, not to mention the giant pig statuary outside of Eddy. (They do say that everything's big in Texas, ya know.)


• For the most part, the trip from west of Houston to Austin along Hwy. 71 has been improved a great deal since I was a kid, with freeway-type bypasses in Columbus, La Grange Smithville and most of Bastrop (I don't miss the stoplights in La Grange at all, though the Smithville bypass makes me less likely to stop at the old Dairy Queen, which was a common haunt on our way to/from State Solo and Ensemble in high school).


• But that being said, they really need to get the freeway done in front of the airport--pretty much the area between the new SH130 bypass and Riverside Drive, where the stoplight lasts for an eternity--as soon as possible. It's being studied as a toll road at the moment, and that's one toll that I'd happily pay.


• I also noticed something interesting driving past the airport: There's a huge disparity between the businesses on the north and south sides of the freeway. (Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, located on the site of a former Air Force base, opened in 1999.) On the south side, where the airport is located, there is a big, nice hotel and lots of green space. But on the north side, dilapidated old gas stations and a couple of XXX video stores remain from the area's pre-airport days. I bet the airport officials can't wait until those places go out of business so that the area can be redeveloped, and I'll bet they're glad that part of the freeway infrastructure has already been built, to separate the two sides.)


• Speaking of freeways that need to be improved, it seems that there's really no excuse (save, of course, money) for I-35 not to be six lanes in each direction all the way from Dallas to San Antonio. It's getting done little by little, but the area that seems to need the most immediate attention would be Temple, where post-Christmas traffic made for a rush-hour-like scenario on a Sunday afternoon. The Temple segment will also be the most difficult to widen because it's either embedded in concrete canyons or on elevated bridges that already cover part of the service roads. TxDOT is talking about it already, but it's likely to take a while before it gets done.


• Continuing the road rantlet for just a moment, I wonder why the beautiful reconstructions of I-35 between Dallas and Waco--the recently-done section near Italy, the section currently under construction between there and Waxahachie, and the part between Hillsboro and Abbott that took at least a decade to complete--were only done as four-lane facilities instead of six; it seems like they'll just have to go in later and add the extra lane. (My guess is money; it's a real shame that the Texas Legislature keeps raiding the gas tax revenues to use on other projects; there oughta be a law...)


• And to end on a more positive note, the kolaches at the Czech Stop were, as always, superb. And I'm glad that they have the Little Czech Bakery next door, which helps one to avoid the long lines at the Czech Stop--which was packed, as always--when kolaches are the only thing being purchased.

With hopefully a few relaxing days this week, regular blogging should continue without interruption.

Notes from a future road: While researching the SH 71 improvements above, I came across a page devoted to the extension of SH 249 in Montgomery and Grimes counties, which would alleviate almost all the traffic problems I experienced last month at the Renaissance Festival (save for getting out of the festival's parking lot, of course). Build away, folks...

Christmas Greetings

SUGAR LAND--Merry Christmas to those who so believe (or even celebrate secularly). I hope you're getting to spend the day in relaxing fashion with family and/or friends, and let's not forget a group of special people today: Those who don't get today off (law enforcement officers, emergency medical personnel, fill-in broadcasters, convenience store clerks, etc.), and those in our military in areas where conflict never takes a holiday. Here's to a joyous day!

Glories Stream from Heaven Afar,Silent Monks Sing Hallelujah

SUGAR LAND--I got to sing with Dad in the choir tonight, which is always fun, even if, as a singer, well...I'm a really good saxophonist. I think I sing well in groups, but if I were set to sing solo, you'd probably want me to take a vow of silence, like these guys did:



I had a true LOL moment when I first saw this a few days ago; hope you enjoy it just as much. (Hat tip: An Althouse commenter from a few days ago whose name escapes me. I'll look it up later and update.)

It Was a Dark and Stormy Night Trip

SUGAR LAND--I made it here with no problems today, but my gosh--the middle of my trip (roughly from Fairfield to Huntsville) was among the stormiest trips I've driven in quite some time. At times, it was impossible to see a few yards in front of me (the drivers who inexplicably had their lights off didn't help), and I'm pretty sure that a decent portion of the trip was spent not touching the pavement at all.

As I said on Twitter, Godspeed to my fellow travellers whose journeys haven't yet begun.

Travel Advisory

I'm headed to the Land of Sugar for a few days to celebrate Christmas with the family. I should be able to catch up on all the unfinished posts while I'm there, and regular blogging will continue as well.

Safe travels to all who may be on the road or in the skies today as well.

The Claus That Refreshes

Via a tweet from Lileks, I find myself enjoying this collection of old ads from the Coca-Cola Company. While they didn't invent the modern incarnation of Santa (artist Thomas Nast, among others, can be credited with that, along with the descriptions found in Clement C. Moore's "A Visit from St. Nicholas," better known as "The Night Before Christmas"), the Coke ads by the artist Haddon Sundblom certainly cemented his current image in popular culture, especially the "jolly" part (some past Santas looked strict or even scary).

Read the whole story, and check out the pictures; it's fascinating stuff. And thanks to Lileks for sending me there.

All is Calm for the Palm

Among all the other news stories of the week, sometimes it's the simple ones which catch your attention the most.

I'd read a while back about the Division Street Palm, a tree in Arlington that was way out of its element, nestled as it was in a highway embankment near the Division Street bridge over State Highway 360 in Arlington. But the reconstruction of that interchange left the palm's future in doubt. Still, the tree had cultivated (heh) a lot of fans over the years, and one of them, Richard McMullen, did something about it. And now, the tree is out of harm's way in its new home in Carrollton. The Dallas Morning News' Jacquielynn Floyd has more:

As it turns out, the Division Street Palm (as it has been informally christened) had a little community of fans that had marveled and wondered about it over the years. Many of them wanted the tree saved.

Deliverance was offered by Carrollton city arborist Lorrie Dennis, a former Arlington resident who knew about the tree herself.

"I thought, if it was growing like that by the bridge, with no irrigation, with all that carbon monoxide, I wanted it," she said. "That tree wanted to live. It had a will."

Dennis had a perfect transplant site: Carrollton's city-owned swimming pool and water park at Rosemeade Parkway and Old Denton Road. The landscaping there already included smaller palms; the Division Street Palm would be a perfect landmark for the park's main entrance.

"I can imagine people dropping their kids off and saying, 'I'll pick you up by the big palm at 5,' " Dennis said – kind of like meeting under the clock at the Biltmore.

Read the whole thing, which obviously has a happy ending. Also interesting is the story of how the tree was planted in that oddball place to begin with; it involves a musician!

Hair We Go Again...

It seems like we were discussing the Mesquite school district's dress codes on this blog just a few weeks ago. Oh yeah--we were.

But this time, it's not something as new as emo pants, but rather the latest volley in a game that's been going on for decades: Hair length on guys. But what makes this one especially goofy is that the "guy" in question is a pre-kindergartner:

Four-year-old Taylor Pugh, in prekindergarten at Floyd Elementary School, likes his hair long - just below his ears and along his collar in the back. He likes it longer in front.

That length is outside the school district's dress code so the boy has been having lessons alone in the library. And his mother says the district has said he will be kicked out of school completely on Tuesday.

"He only goes two and half hours a day. He's not a distraction. He doesn't get teased," his mother, Elizabeth Taylor, said.

She spoke to the Mesquite school board Monday night, asking for help with her dilemma. But the board could take no action because the item was not on the agenda.

I love that last sentence--bureaucracy at its finest.

In case you're wondering--yes, Taylor does have some Native American blood, and his father wears his hair long (though the playing of this card is negated somewhat by Taylor's short-haired older brothers). But thus far, Mesquite refuses to give him a pass on that (the ACLU has gotten involved, for better or worse).

As you can imagine, the comments are running strong on both sides in the DMN blog post linked above, though it alarms me how many people just blindly accept the "rules are rules" idea, no matter how idiotic the rules in question may be. Such nice little sheeple they'll make! Perhaps the best points are brought up by a commenter who goes by the name Squanto:

1) This is a gender biased rule. Why must boys wear short hair? Hair grows on both males and females, period. This is not corporate America, if the kid decides to work on Wall Street then he will need to conform in order to be rewarded. And wear a tie, a strip of material that has no function.

(2) If there is an ethnic reason, that it is an indigenous practice, it's time for Mesquite to grow up. There is no reason boys must wear their hair short. There's no biological reason, it's culturally conditioned conformity.

(3) Making him learn apart from his peers is "shunning." That is an old Protestant practice used to make non-conformists conform.It has nothing to do with rules and regulations that are debated openly by community members.

Indeed. Let me reiterate something that I said in the "emo pants" post:

Look--I understand the arguments from the other side: Kids need to learn how to obey rules; they're in school to get an education, not show off their fashion sense, blah blah blah. (And the worst one of all: They're never going to get a job in the business world if they don't dress more nicely. Never mind that many kids will never set foot in the business world, and, as I've said before, with some of the things that have happened on Wall Street in recent years, I'm not so sure that we should be holding up the business world as a role model in the first place.)

But it seems like those in charge should pick their battles a little more wisely. I still believe that there are a lot of kids out there--not the extremely smart kids, not the thugs-in-traning, but the big, big middle--who wouldn't mind school so much if it didn't seem as if the administration weren't throwing roadblocks at them every step of the way.

Blogger "Hall Monitor" of DetentionSlip.org (who became familiar to me after visiting The Musings during that earlier post) also posts about this and offers the following:

Once again, the length of a child's hair becomes the center of our education woes. If only every student would come to school with a neatly-trimmed haircut, we would be able to start focusing on the other problems our schools face. After all, it's a well supported fact that NO ONE with long hair has ever been successful.

Heh--well said. (And did anyone notice that the kid's hair just really isn't that long? This is much ado about nothing, methinks.)

By now, it probably goes without saying that I have a solution to the problem of administrative idiocy...and wouldn't Mesquite be a great place to start this practice?

Tom Hicks Hits One Out of the Park

The long-awaited deadline for Rangers owner Tom Hicks to announce his choice for the team's new ownership group was made last night, and I was extremely pleased to see that his selection is the group led by Pittsburgh lawyer Chuck Greenberg and current team president/local hero Nolan Ryan.

Having Ryan on board pretty much says it all for me, or I guess I should say that not having Ryan on board would have been a deal-breaker for me, had I been in Hicks' shoes. As a player, Ryan was a class act, and he brought the team a great deal of credibility that it had not previously enjoyed. As team president the past couple of years, he was well on his way to helping the team restore said credibility, even if the effort on the field fell short. Ryan's involvement had me pulling for Greenberg all along.

As I read over the profiles of the various competing groups over the past few months, I was always a little leery of the group led by Dennis Gilbert. Maybe it was his former profession (sports agent); maybe it was his ties to the Chicago White Sox (you know us Texans, not wanting them dad-blasted furriners comin' in here and messin' things up). Or perhaps it was the fact that he wanted to run baseball operations himself, which would be bad for two reasons: 1) It would guarantee Ryan's departure from the team, and 2) The Metroplex sports scene already has one Jerry Jones and doesn't need a second one. (And maybe I just have bad vibes about people named Dennis coming in from outside an organization and messing things up--part of my personal history that won't be blogged any further here.) And I didn't know enough about Jim Crane, a late re-entry into the race, except that Ryan might have stayed if Crane were the winner, so that put him as #2 on my personal list.

At any rate, the Greenberg/Ryan group sounds like a good fit; once the lawyers, accountants and fellow MLB owners go through the process, maybe we'll see the new ownership group in place by Opening Day.

Tom Hicks may have made a few questionable moves from time to time during his tenure with the Rangers, but if this is indeed his finale as top dog, he's going out on a good note.

I'll Get Caught Up on Posting Again...

...when I stop getting detoured by sites like this. (Don't get me wrong--it's a great read, and tons of local information, but it can become a gigantic time-suck if one is not careful.)

Tomorrow is a fairly easy day, so I might well get caught up then.

Christmas Lights and Music: The Next Step

Ever since that guy in Ohio set his Christmas lights to music (and was featured in a beer commercial), all the cool kids started doing it. I spend a pretty decent portion of my annual Holiday High-LIghts post talking about this type of setup, and I wasn't sure anyone could top Jeff Trykoski in Frisco (both at Frisco Square and his own house) or the Zephries or Gordons in Plano, but someone's sure put a new twist on things: Check out Christmas Light Hero:



That's right, the lights can be run by a Wii guitar controller by a live human being, like the kid in the video. As developer/dad Ric Turner (formerly of Disney) notes, passersby who tune in on the FM channel can hear all your mistakes!

Some background on this may be found here. And my annual lights post will be up once I get a chance to see everything this year.

So Far, This Is Not a "December to Remember," and the Cowboys May Be More Yugo than Lexus

Things we learned from watching the Cowboys game tonight:

• Head coach Wade Phillips may well be out of a job in three weeks.


• Plackicker Nick Folk will almost certainly be out of a job before that.


• Those naysayers who talk about a Cowboys' "December curse" may well have a point. *sigh*

This wasn't the worst game the Cowboys have played this season, but there were a few things that I bet they'd like to take back: Four shots at the end zone (running the same play?) without breaking the plane comes to mind, as do yet another missed field goal and scoring that final touchdown with only two seconds left. I'm not ready to throw in the towel just yet, but things are getting dicey.

And all the best to DeMarcus Ware; I hope he's OK.

Hey, Greenies: You Can Have My Starbucks When You Pry the Mug Out of My Cold, Dead Hands

From Aussie blogger Tim Blair comes this post about the latest way that environmentalists would like to control our lives. And this time, they may have gone too far:

An Edinburgh scientist has revealed the best way for coffee lovers to help save the planet – drink old-fashioned instant.

Dr Dave Reay, a world-renowned expert on carbon emissions, has calculated that filter coffees pump 50 per cent more carbon into the atmosphere than cheaper instant coffees.

And he says that ditching expensive filter coffees could help reduce your carbon footprint by the same amount as a gas-guzzling flight across Europe.

The full story that spawned Blair's post is here, and it contains one more distressing quote from Reay: "If everyone ditched their pre-work coffee fix that would do wonders for the planet." Yeah, and there might also be more car wrecks from people falling asleep at the wheel minus their java jive, not to mention the fisticuffs that might ensue from those people who are pretty grumpy before their first morning cuo o' joe (and we know who we are) getting rubbed the wrong way by people who are naturally perky in the A.M. (Of course, some environmentalists think that the planet would be a lot better off if people weren't on it at all...but didja ever notice that those same people are still alive as they say that? To roughly quote the comic-strip character Pogo, isn't it funny how the people who gripe most loudly about overpopulation already went to the trouble of being borned theirselves.)

Starbucks fights back in the linked story of course. And even more interesting is that the story right below this one in the Scotsman link notes that developing a coffee habit could help men prevent prostate cancer. Interesting.

(And yes, I know that Starbucks does in fact have its own line of instant coffee, but good heavens, have you priced that stuff? I'd have to go back to the swill-in-a-can my parents drank when I was a kid if instant were the only option.)

So I have an idea, Dr. Reay: Why don't you live the lifestyle you propose but not try to require everyone else to do the same; some of us have our own way of doing things, and just because they're not your way doesn't mean that they're wrong.

And a Scotsman commenter makes a good point:

how on earth does he think they actually get instant ? ..does it come gowing on the coffee bush in tins ?

Well said. And a Blair commenter expands on this idea:

And, not for nothing, but no way does traditional coffee use more energy. Instant coffee manufacture is a far more energy-intensive practice than roast and ground, for the simple reason that it is the roast and ground process plus several more steps.

But I guess the good Dr. Reay isn't one to let a little truth get in the way of his activism.

In the meantime, the hour is late, so I'm going to bed. And when I wake up, I'm going to have a generous cup of drip coffee, just like every day. And when I go from my 68-degree house to my 30 MPG car, I won't feel guilty about my coffee habit in any way, nor will I begrudge my neighbors (who might drive SUVs or have their thermostats set at 72) their own comfort and happiness. If only the über-greenies would be so tolerant...

The Best 13 Bucks I've Spent in a While

For the past several days, the trackpad problem with the computer (which I mentioned here had reached a critical stage; it got to the point where I could hardly get anything done at all on here. The increased level of frustration made for an awful way to start the day, and productivity was truly suffering (and the iPhone wasn't always a good substitute; trying to copy and past multiple links into my web-based school email took a good ten minutes this morning).

This whole time, I was really hoping that the problem was strictly with the trackpad and would thus be solved by simply obtaining a mouse. Thankfully, I was correct. Having both a little bit of time and money, I headed to the Giant Corporate Electronics Concern and Tech Geek's Nirvana Spot Which Shares Its Name with a Futurama Character after rehearsal tonight and parted with a mere 13 simoleons, acquiring a perfectly serviceable USB mouse in the process. (As convenient as a wireless mouse would be, I can't part with that kind of money during the holidays, and as much as I'd like to stay all-Apple, all the time with the MacBook, I knew that such things weren't a requirement.)

Sure enough, I got home, plugged it in, and the problems of the past several weeks vanished right away. (Do I really need to download software from the manufacturer, as the installation instructions suggest? It appears to work fine as it is, and I don't need to do anything fancy like programming the buttons to do special things.) I still have a few small things to work out, such as the lack of USB ports (since I'm also running a peripheral keyboard--yes, this laptop is acting more and more like a desktop these days--and my speakers, and I'm trying to find a way to use all three simultaneously without messing with the extra wires and cables of the old powered USB hub left over from my old iMac), but it's nice to be able to do things on here on demand again. I can feel the wave of relaxation settling in already.

I'll try to use some of the next few days to get caught up on old posts and the like. As always (how many times have I said this during this semester alone?), thanks for your patience.

One More Metaphorical Graduation

Early last week, I "graduated" from physical therapy; the rest of the work that needs to be done to rehab my left quads can pretty much be done on my own. And today, I passed another milestone: Seeing the orthopedist for the first time in two months, I was told at the end of the visit (after receiving very positive comments about how everything is healing) that I would only have to go back there again on an "as needed" basis.

As I've said in earlier posts in this saga (which is hopefully winding quietly to a close), nearly everything that's happened since surgery--and really, even during the initial healing between the accident and that time--has been extremely positive. I do have some work left to do in the strength department, and I won't be taking stairs two at a time or returning to the racquetball court quite yet, but for the vast majority of any given day, I don't even think about my knee anymore. (It's true that I can feel a little something on really cold or rainy days, so I guess I'll grow up to be one of those old guys whose knee can predict the weather, but that often comes with the territory.)

There's probably not much more to post on this topic, though I'm sure I'll make note of the day when I go down a staircase without using the handrail or hit the racquetball court again. Thanks for hanging in there with me through all of this.

Great News from Denton

Glad tidings from my alma mater travel in pairs this week:

• The One O'Clock Lab Band's latest Release, Lab 2009, has been nominated for two Grammy awards: Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album and Best Instrumental Composition (for director Steve Wiest's "Ice-Nine"). My own comments on the CD, and the release party held for it earlier in the semester, may be found here.


• And from the athletic department comes the news that Todd Dodge will continue as head football coach of the Mean Green. As I've said before, I'm a big believer in Coach Dodge, and--despite this season's six heartbreaking losses by a touchdown or less--I think he's getting the program on the right track. Seeing as how the Mean Green were among the youngest teams in the conference this year, I predict only good things for the future, and I hope to see him on the sidelines in 2011 when the new stadium opens.

It's a busy four days of concerts and other things coming up; more later.

Trying to Get Back on Track(pad), or I Wish There Were a Mouse in My House

Apologies for the lack of posting so far this week; it's not even the usual excuse (lack of time), though that certainly figures in. Rather, this week, it has to do with a computer problem--namely, the trackpad on my MacBook Pro. It just won't, well, track sometimes. I'll move my finger around and around, but to no avail; the arrow just stays in place for a while. It's almost like a very mild version of what it must feel like to be paralyzed in a limb.

The idea has hit me that perhaps the hard drive is getting full, which I realize could affect performance somewhat. To that end, I've been doing the Great Music Purge of '09 whenever I've been on the computer during the past 24 hours. I topped out at 25 days of music, so I've been deleting anything that I already had on a physical CD, saving my iTunes space for things I've gotten through eMusic or Amazon Downloads or the iTunes Store. I'm seeing slightly better performance since I've done that, but the occasional paralysis continues.

So, a quick bleg to my fellow Mac users: Is there anything else that I'm not thinking of which could be causing this problem? A repair is not really in the cards right now, due to budgetary concerns. I also realize that I could just throw down for an actual mouse, bypassing the trackpad altogether, but I'd like some information about that as well: Of the Apple mice, which one have you found to be the best? And how about any other mice that aren't made by Apple but work on Macs--any yays or nays there? Feel free to enlighten me in the comments, as this is driving me nuts; it's taking up to five times as long to do simple tasks, and there are just some things that I can't farm out to the iPhone. Any suggestions would be appreciated.