This Doesn't Make Census to Me

Like many Americans, I received my official census form in the mail yesterday. (For the record, I have no problem filling it out, and--as much as I'd like to move to a true post-racial society, where skin color is about as important as eye color, and national origin is celebrated, but doesn't define anyone--I'll avoid the temptation to be snarky and write "American" under the Race question.) But one thing struck me as bizarre: Despite the fact that the forms were timed to arrive this week, and the accompanying letter gently encourages us (in bold type) to "please complete and mail back the enclosed form today," the entire form is based upon a day that's over two weeks in the future! That's right--the opening statement declares that "The Census must count every person living in the United States on April 1, 2010."

So we're supposed to summon the crystal ball, are we? Granted, the size of my household has remained unchanged since the last time the spare room was rented out (which was around 7 years ago), but who's to say that something might not change in a few weeks? A friend could lose a job, become temporarily estranged from a spouse, have a flood in their apartment--anything could happen.

Obviously, I know that I'm supposed to fill out the form with things as they stand right now, but it still seems odd that they'd ask for a date that's several weeks away. Why not either date it as of March 15, or time them to arrive on April 1? (And the April 1 date itself is kind of funny; I wonder if it tempts anyone to indulge in a little foolery?) And if something were to change in two weeks, am I supposed to contact the Census Bureau and ask for a do-over?

A couple of other random thoughts regarding the census:

• The process really isn't that bad; I finished the form in one minute and four seconds (yay for the iPhone stopwatch!).


• The Race questions were unusual; after asking if Person 1 is of Hispanic origin, and then having three subcategories of Hispanic as well as "other," the next question asks "What is Person 1's race?" and then doesn't include Hispanic at all.


• Confused by this, I look up and discovered that I had glossed over the statement that seems to clarify this: "For this census, Hispanic origins are not races." So why ask for them, then? Or why not count every subcategory? (With St. Patrick's Day coming up tomorrow, I'd be especially proud to document my Irish heritage, although the English and French parts of me might demand equal time.)


• Despite reading about people who are complaining that the census is too intrusive, I can't find anything in this short form that fits that description. Maybe it might be an issue for two people living together out of wedlock and didn't want certain people to know, but that doesn't seem to carry the stigma that it once did. Asking for your name, birth date and telephone number doesn't seem unreasonable to me.


• On the other hand, it is good to know that the information won't be shared or sold. Besides the obvious potential problem for people who are here illegally, something jumped out at me: The form has room to list up to 12 people in the same household! In the city where I live, it's illegal to have more than three people in a dwelling who are unrelated to the owner, so it's easy to see why anyone in that situation would not want their census information to be shared with the city.

All in all, it was quick and painless; in fact, it took far longer to write this post than it did to fill out the form. So have you filled out your form yet? And if so, did you beat my time record? Your response is requested...in the comments.

This Teacher on Spring Break Says "No" to the Four-Day School Week

I read something over the weekend that appears to be such a bad idea that I can't believe someone actually proposed it: School districts are trying to save money by going to a four-day school week:

A small but growing number of school districts across the country are moving to a four-day week, in a shift they hope will help close gaping budget holes and stave off teacher layoffs, but that critics fear could hurt students' education.

State legislators and local school boards are giving administrators greater flexibility to set their academic calendars, making the four-day slate possible. But education experts say little research exists to show the impact of shortened weeks on learning. The missed hours are typically made up by lengthening remaining school days.

Of the nearly 15,000-plus districts nationwide, more than 100 in at least 17 states currently use the four-day system, according to data culled from the Education Commission of the States. Dozens of other districts are contemplating making the change in the next year—a shift that is apt to create new challenges for working parents as well as thousands of school employees.

And that's the real problem with the idea. What are all these working parents supposed to do? If the kids are too young to leave home alone, how will they manage to set up one-day child care? And if the older kids were home along, wouldn't crime, violence and other such mischief increase?

And it's not just the students and parents who would be affected. How about the teachers? Some of them would be hard-pressed to do things like graduate courses and other enrichment work if the day were nearly an hour and a half longer. (And yes, I have a personal dog in this hunt; I teach lessons in public schools in the morning and teach college in the later afternoon and evening; if my public schools went to a four-day week, I'm not sure that I could make enough money to live on with only four partial days of lessons; I'd have to do a slew of house calls on Fridays. And switching more college teaching to Fridays wouldn't be the answer either, as lots of my students have Fridays off anyway, and those days are used to work.)

But wait...there's more! We haven't even talked about the educational implications yet. Aren't our students underachieving when they're compared with those in other countries? And wouldn't that achievement gap grow even larger if students were in school one less day every week? A few years ago, when year-round school was all the rage in some circles, proponents noted that the longer time off made students more likely to forget what they'd learned; imagine having a little chunk of that "vacation" every week!

Comments at this Wall Street Journal blog post, a companion to the first linked story above, are all over the map; some people are shouting that "schools are not babysitters," but others note that the current setup of schools--which provides for both learning and a safe environment away from home while the parents are at work--has been in place for so long that it's sort of an unwritten compact between the schools and the community, and changing this is somewhat like pulling the rug out from many parents. I also like the analogy made by commenter "AZ Anon," who says, "Another point is the issue of less repetition. When you want to learn a musical instrument, its not the same to pratice 3 hours once a week, vs. 30 min a day for 6 days. Over time we learn more vs. trying to cram in all the knowledge over fewer hours." Well said. And another commenter notes that, if this has to happen, put the off-day on Monday instead of Friday, and suddenly all the Monday holidays can be observed on days when students wouldn't be in school anyway. If the (IMHO) horrible idea of four-day weeks ever got implemented, that would probably be the best way to go.

But there is a solution to this which hasn't been discussed very much: It's time to cut the fat at the administration building. I'm a big fan of requiring administrators to teach one class every day, but there are probably some positions that just need to be cut outright. "Diversity" officers? "Green" specialists? The Deputy Associate Vice Superintendent for Curriculum Development in the Northwest Quadrant? You could get rid of these jobs and many others like them and nobody would miss them, and doing so is the first thing that needs to be considered whenever a district faces a budget crunch.

Would a four-day school week affect you personally in any way, and would you be in favor of such a thing? Chime in by hitting the comment button.

Spring Has Broken, and Daylight Is No Longer Wasted

Spring break may have started at the close of business on Friday, but I can finally celebrate it today. This past week has been consumed by preparations for the reactivation of a fraternity chapter yesterday (and congrats to the brothers of Sigma Omega!), so today is the "I can finally exhale" day. (In fact, the rest of the week is set to be pretty relaxed, minus practicing and the traditional spring cleaning.)

And with the break comes an extra perk: The first week of Daylight Saving Time. I've noted many times on this blog that I'm a big DST fan, going as far as to refer to Standard Time as Daylight Wasting Time. As I said in that 2003 post,

I think the really depressing part of DWT is that it almost always gets dark before I'm done teaching now. It seems to me that if you don't finish work until after dark, you've worked too long. In a way, I know my days are too long, but at least I can hide behind a little denial if I get home while the sun is still out. DWT blows that all out of the water, and I'm forced to come to terms with my workaholic self. Bleh.

So now, it will be light out at the end of nearly every teaching day (save for Thursdays when I teach a night class until 9:45), and I can enjoy the "saved" hour of daylight, rather than having it at six in the morning when there's pretty much nothing I can do with it. (UPDATE: A bit of the history of DST may be found here.)

With the break, I should be posting regularly and getting caught up on some unfinished entries from the past few weeks.

Enjoy a piece of Pi today: Today is also Pi Day, and if I'd remembered that a little earlier, I would have done this post about an hour ago (3/14 at 1:59).

Hey, Nancy: Here's One Artist Who Doesn't Want a Government Subsidy for My "Creative Time"

There have been a lot of crazy things said by people in the debate on health care reform, but this statement, as noted in a Weekly Standard blog post by Mary Katharine Ham that I read yesterday, distressed me more than a little bit. It's from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who already had one whopper quote ("We have to pass the bill, so you can find out what's in it") this week:

"Think of an economy where people could be an artist or a photographer or a writer without worrying about keeping their day job in order to have health insurance."

Umm, Nancy--in a word, no. While the phenomenon of "starving artists" may be a little too close to the truth for some practitioners, that doesn't mean that they should be allowed to create on the government dole. The unproductive class (along with its lesser sibling, the parasite class) has too many members already without suggesting that creative types become a drain on society as well.

When one chooses to go into the creative arts--music, visual arts, theatre, writing, etc.--it's almost a given that such a person will not be wealthy, at least not right away; if anything, it will be a struggle at times. But that's not necessarily bad; in fact, the struggle may call upon the creative powers of artists even more, as they try to find different angles to get their work out to the world. I might even go as far to say that the struggle can sometimes make for better art; someone who got paid to sit around and create all day without any additional effort on his or her part might well get fat and happy, and the art would likely be compromised in the process, ending up more like G-weasel than Charlie Parker.

And with that choice to go into the creative arts, one needs to come to terms with the fact that a "day job" will be required, at least for a while. For myself and many of my colleagues, that day job is teaching, and it comes with its own set of rewards. But there are plenty of musicians out there who work in music stores (I did that myself for a while, until it led to a teaching job at the same store for double the pay), do computer consulting, or all kinds of other things (I've also known people who worked as repo men or loaded UPS trucks). It's a big sacrifice sometimes, but for those who work in the less-commercialized facets of the arts (i.e. my fellow straight-ahead jazz musicians), it's a better tradeoff than pandering to the masses. (On the other hand, a protege of mine plays in six commercial bands precisely because he doesn't want to have a day job; it may not be as musically rewarding to play "Brick House" four nights a week as it would to play "Giant Steps," but, as he says, it's better than flipping burgers.

Don't get me wrong--it's not as if Pelosi's overly-utopian idea doesn't have some appeal. Sure, it would be great to sit around and practice and write music all day and get paid for it. But with tax dollars? Other people's money? People who didn't choose to pay to support me? Not on your life! Society doesn't owe me, or anyone else, a living. If I want the above situation to happen, I should seek out private grants--which would be awarded in a competitive fashion, based on merit--which obviously come from people who voluntarily donate their money to such a cause. (And let's not forget that, if our tax burden were lower, there would likely be more such donations.)

And there's one more scary thing about Pelosi's idea: If government can finance more artists, it can also control what they do. Never forget that; everything comes with a price.

I'll let Ham have the final word from the linked post:

If liberal Boomers such as Nancy Pelosi insist on creating government incentives for a generation of people to be unemployed artists who nonetheless have their health care paid for by productive members of society, there will be fewer productive members of society.

[...]These are the workers—and I may soon be using that term loosely— upon whom liberal Boomer Pelosi must rely to pay her Social Security through their working years. The ratio of workers to retirees has already shrunk from 41:1 in 1942 to 3.3:1 in the mid-2000s, and is expected to dip into to 2:1 in the next decades. Does Pelosi really want one or more of those young people supporting each worker to be a really keen charcoal sketch artist whose earning potential went as thoroughly unrecognized as his genius?

Good point, but I doubt that Pelosi and her ilk are smart enough to realize it.

As I've said before, it's time to grow the productive class and drastically shrink the unproductive and parasite classes. It's too bad that those in Washington want to do the exact opposite of that, all in the name of increasing their own power and control. We the People need to send them a resounding "NO!" in November of this year.

Fry Street Update: Non-Rant Version

Yesterday, a commenter tipped me off that there had been an update in the seemingly ongoing Fry Street saga. When the story had last been discussed here back in late December, it appeared that a massive apartment complex for students would be taking over the block:

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.

As bad as the proposed Fry Street Village had been, this seemed even worse, because the former commercial block would have nothing commercial on it at all. And of course, the usual concerns about traffic were raised by those who live in the area.

In my post back in December, I had a suggestion of my own for a possible compromise:

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? [Former council member and area resident Mike] 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 hadn't read anything else about the proposal since then, but, prompted by the commenter's tip, I found out that a lot has been going on this spring. First, a recap of the original proposal:

City planners and some residents criticized the developer’s initial plans, filed with the city in December, which showed a four-story apartment complex and multistory parking garage but no retail shops, despite the area’s history as a hub for independent shops and restaurants.

Believe it or not, the developers listened:

The latest plans are largely the same as those presented at the last public meeting Feb. 17. They show more than 10,000 square feet of ground-level retail space, an outdoor patio and some wider sidewalks along with the 194-unit apartment complex and 700-space parking garage.

Recent changes include the addition of a new facade on the parking garage facing Oak Street and bay windows and pitched roofs on the apartments facing Welch Street, [Dinerstein Cos. partner Josh] Vasbinder said.

There are still some things to be worked out; the four-story plan is one higher than is allowed in the area by current zoning. But the Council was enthusiastic about the project, even praising the developers for incorporating suggestions from a couple of community meetings held last month. It's also nice to see that other landowners in the area are on board as well:

The meeting also brought news that the developer has the entire block under contract except for the Cool Beans lot, which isn’t part of the project.

“At our last community meeting, we only had the United Equities property under contract,” Vasbinder said, referring to the Houston-area company that bought most of the block several years ago in a failed attempt to redevelop it. “We were in dialogue with both the [Gene] Hartman property as well as the [Joe] Normile. I can tell you today we have all three properties under contract.”

I don't think there's any chance of pleasing everybody here, but this latest idea seems like the best possible compromise (and not just because it's exactly what I suggested back in December, LOL). There's no ugly chain drugstore at the Hickory/Fry corner; the retail mixed in with the residential is a nod to the history of the area; and the patio and wider sidewalks seem like a nice touch. It's better than the United Equities plan, and it's better than the big empty field of mud that's there now.

The developer hopes to get final approval by December, break ground next year and open by the summer of 2012, which would finally bring to a close the sad saga that began when United Equities bought the block in May of 2006.

And I close with a simple, five-word request to Vasbinder and his colleagues: Please invite the Tomato back. (Thank you.)

JJT vs. UNT: Why Be So Mean to the Green?

(I wanted to post this yesterday, on the day it actually happened, but I just couldn't follow a positive post like the birthday salute to Ebby Halliday with a rant, so I saved it for morning.)

I've had issues with some of the things written by the Dallas Morning News sports columnist Jean-Jacques Taylor in the past, the most recent one being his bizarre foray into politics when he lambasted the Vancouver Olympic organizers for not using some of their money to aid the local homeless population. Today's column started off innocently enough: He lambasted SMU and TCU for not playing well enough to be in the upcoming NCAA tournament. Fair enough; we get a lot of that around here, and the teams have frequently underachieved in recent years.

But just a few paragraphs in, the alarm bells start to go off when Taylor writes the following:

Common sense says our two local Division I programs should be pretty good. Who couldn't build a quality program with Dallas-Fort Worth as its main hub?

Umm, JJT, you need to be a little better at math; we have four local Division I programs--UNT and UT-Arlington also hold that status, not just SMU and TCU. (And even if he's trying to pretend that UNT isn't "local," it's hard to discount UTA when you practically have to drive past it to get from SMU to TCU. What gives?)

But then Taylor goes completely off the deep end as, in an attempt to make a point about SMU and TCU's low RPI (Rating Percentage Index), he spews out this ridiculous statement:

Each school is behind such noted basketball powerhouses such as North Texas (120), Stephen F. Austin (163), Texas A&M-Corpus Christi (176) and UT-San Antonio (181).

Look, it's not just alumni boosterism to note that UNT has four straight 20-win seasons and hasn't lost a game since January. Where in the world did you pull that statement, JJT? (Umm, don't actually answer that, OK?) And then the Mean Green made an even bigger fool out of Taylor by winning the Sun Belt Conference championship tonight and earning another trip to the Big Dance. Hey, JJT, want some bacon to go with that egg on your face?

Quite a few UNT alums (including myself), not to mention a few from SMU and TCU, take Taylor to task in the comments. As I noted over there, it's not just JJT who seems to forget that UNT is part of the Metroplex; that seems to be a recurring problem among local sports media. But to slam the Green on the very day they earn their way to the NCAAs is a ridiculous gaffe, and not only that, it hurts the brand; say enough bad things about a program, and a lot of people (i.e. those who still trust the media to deliver news without bias) will believe it. Thankfully, the Mean Green's actions on the court tonight outweighed one man's ill-chosen words in today's paper.

Congrats to the Mean Green, and best of luck at the Dance; I'll be watching! And JJT, you should hang your head in shame for this one. There's no reason for you and your colleagues to not want all the local sports teams to do well, not just your seemingly-anointed ones at SMU and TCU. We deserve better journalism than that.

Celebrating the Grande Dame of Dallas

Most people don't get a lot of attention the year before their 100th birthdays, but in the case of iconic Dallas Realtor Ebby Halliday, the hoopla is completely deserved. And despite her desire to "keep things low-key" this year, Ebby's birthday celebration is lasting an entire week:

The festivities kicked off Friday night at American Airlines Center. She met her favorite Dallas Mavericks player, Dirk Nowitzki, who presented her with a team-signed ball at center court before the game.

The team offered to courier the ball home so she wouldn't have to worry with it, but she refused to let it out of her sight the rest of the night. She's ecstatic that it represents the team's 10th win in a row.

On Saturday, her longtime physician, Dr. Hugh McClung, hosted his annual birthday hoedown for some of her closest friends, including Ellen Terry and Ron and Nance Chapman. They dressed up in Western wear and loaded up in a party bus for the trek to and from Terrell.

And that was just the first two days; on Sunday, she had a post-church reception and a Sunday school class party (with belly dancers; seriously!), and her "official" party was last night at the new Winspear Opera House. Today, it's lunch with buddy T. Boone Pickens and a board meeting at her namesake realty headquarters (yes, she still works every day), and it all wraps up tomorrow with a luncheon at City Hall.

And remember, this is "just" for her 99th birthday. I wonder what they'll do next year...

(Be sure and check out the picture of Ebby side-by-side with Dirk Nowitzki at the link above, and you can send her birthday wishes here.)

Get Your Nanny State Out of Our Stadium Implosion

If you're here in the DFW area, you've probably heard about the upcoming demolition of Texas Stadium, set to take place in the early morning hours (yawn) of April 11. And you might have even heard that Kraft Macaroni & Cheese is the official sponsor, and they're having a contest to pick a lucky kid to push the button that will start the whole process.

While there was some (not wholly unexpected) griping about the whole idea of having a kid blow up a stadium, that pales in comparison to the actions of a so-called physicians' group, which is looking to pay the city of Irving the same amount of money to replace the Kraft advertising with its own ad, which would basically say that cheese is making people fat:

Susan Levin with the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine says they have sent a letter to the mayor suggesting that they remove Kraft as a sponsor of the event and for the same $75,000 allow them to warn children of the dangers cheese poses to their health. Levin says dairy products are the number one source of saturated fat in America.

Thankfully, Irving Mayor Herb Gears isn't taking the bait (Get it? Bait? Like cheese in a mousetrap?), especially when the advertising the group has proposed (which can be viewed at the link above) shows a fat guy eating cheese and wearing an "I [heart] Velveeta" shirt, with a caption reading "Cheese really blows you up."

More on this at the Dallas Morning News Irving blog, where the commenters have already done a lot of the heavy lifting, exposing this "doctors' group" as an radical animal rights group, less than 5% of whose members are actually physicians. And others have pointed out that Kraft is donating $75,000 to local food banks, as well as another $75K in sponsorship fees to the city, which will be donated to local charities. I'd like to see the "doctors" match that one...

When I heard this story on the radio this afternoon, two thoughts came to mind: 1) I'm glad that Mayor Gears said no, because this would have been yet another example of nanny-statism run amok, and 2) This group is probably some sort of wacko "activist" organization. I'm glad to see that my suspicions have been proven. (And I look forward to the day when "activism" no longer pays, and all its practitioners have to actually go out and get real jobs.)

A Barely Passing Grade in Advertising 101

While driving through the High Five this morning, I saw a billboard for the Verizon Droid phone, with the caption describing it as a "BARE-KNUCKLED BUCKET OF DOES" (example here), and the point of the ad completely missed me for a second.

If you've seen other Droid advertising, you may have noticed the shorter catchphrase "DROID DOES," and such ads go on to list all the features of the phone, especially in comparison to their main competition, the iPhone. (Even as an iPhone owner, the description of the latter as the "iCan'ttakepicturesatnight" cracks me up.)

But here's the thing: "Does" (the verb) isn't usually found in buckets, so when I, the casual driver keeping at least one eye on the road (being on a very tall bridge and all), saw the phrase "bucket of does," I didn't immediately think of "does" being a form of the verb "do," but rather as the plural form of a female deer. And for a moment, the thought going through my head was "Why would you want a bucket full of deer?", along with "Wait--deer don't even have knuckles."

So what do you think--does (as in the verb, not the deer) this ad miss its mark? By the time I got what they were talking about, I was well past the billboard and thus lucky to remember who made the phone in the first place. Would this ad work better on TV or radio, where you could hear the word "does" pronounced? Or does everyone else in the world get the context, and I was just way too tired on a Sunday morning. Talk to me in the comments.

UPDATE: It appears that The Language Blog beat me to the punch on this subject a few months ago. Great minds think alike...

New Urbanism on the Rise in Fairview

When errands took me to the Allen/Fairview area today, I took advantage of the recent opening of The Village at Fairview, a New Urbanist center that's directly across the street from, and a sibling to, The Village at Allen, which is itself a big-box center that opened last fall (and also features a full-service hotel and the new Allen Events Center).

Unlike Firewheel, which opened about two-thirds full, Fairview did what I suppose could be called a "soft opening": the "Coming Soon" signs still vastly outnumber the actual businesses at this point, but with the recent opening of Dillard's at the west end, the three major anchors (J.C. Penney and Macy's being the other ones) are now in place. Besides a wide variety of shops and restaurants, the center will boast a movie theatre and bowling alley by year's end, and the east end of the development will feature a new town hall for the host community of Fairview.

The architecture of Fairview is much more modern in nature than the "classic" designs of Firewheel or Southlake, but it's well-designed and pleasing to the eye. Like Austin's Domain development, Fairview features luxury apartments above several portions of the street-level retail, along with another section just to the north. And since the entire main streetscape is already in place, the area is ripe for walking, even if you have to dodge a construction vehicle here and there.

As I said, there's not a lot there yet, though the directory promises much more to come (the listing of when each store is slated to open is very helpful), but in the meantime, I'm psyched to see that a The Purple Cow has already opened. It may not be any closer to me than the North Dallas or north Plano locations, but the lack of traffic (Dallas) or extra tolls (Plano) is welcome.

As I've said many times before, I'm a big fan of New Urbanism, and it's encouraging to see new projects of this kind open up, especially one that's as well-designed as Fairview. I look forward to more openings here throughout the year.

This Morning's Fire Burned a Hole in Dallas' Live Jazz Scene

Waking up from a night of insufficient sleep after this weekend's long trip, I didn't want to believe my ears at first when I heard the news on the radio this morning about a fire consuming a block of businesses on Lower Greenville Avenue. My first thought was: Oh, no--I hope it's not the place where I've been playing every month since last fall. And while I was relieved that it wasn't there, the actual news wasn't much better: Among the venues destroyed this morning was the venerable jazz spot Terilli's.

I've been to Terilli's on a number of occasions; many of them in years past were to hear the late, legendary tenorist Marchel Ivery, who was ensconced in the Sunday night slot for eons. I also caught my old schoolmate Wayne Delano out there quite a few times before he moved out of state a year or so ago. While it wasn't exactly cheap, their Italian fare was always tasty, and it was possible for even the average college student to afford it every once in a while. I never got to play there myself (in part because of their tendency to hire trios, whereas my bands tend to be quintets or sextets), but it was always a place I aspired to hit the stage at some point in time. And now that time will have to wait for a while.

The business expanded for a few years, opening a second location (also with live jazz) in Frisco, where I went to see Delano at least once a month for a while. That location had a lot more square footage, as well as ample parking (for me the only downside of the original Terilli's was the necessity to use valet parking, of which I'm not a fan). It shuttered its doors a while back, supposedly "closed for relocation," and I wonder if this morning's events will hasten that move.

According to everything I've read thus far, all four of the affected businesses are planning on reopening somewhere down the road; there's even been talk that the facade of the 1930's-era building might be able to be preserved. I certainly wish them all the best, and I hope the employees can find work in the interim. And as for the musicians who were scheduled to play there this month, I hope another venue will open their stage to them. Maybe the idea would prove so popular that the second venue would keep the jazz going after Terilli's reopens, which would give us another place to play. Would anyone like to step up to the plate?

(Pictures of the way Terilli's used to look before this morning can still be viewed on the restaurant's website, which does not mention the fire as of now.

Off the Road Again

The long bus trip that consumed last night/this morning has come to a close, and I've already had a nice nap in my own bed this afternoon. I knew that this final leg of our jazz tour would be exhausting, and that prediction certainly came true.

We left Elmhurst around six last night, and--with the exception of a few stretch breaks, a gas stop, and two meals--were on the bus nonstop all the way back to Dallas. Bus sleep is never good sleep, but at least I was able to get a little bit of it anyway. (The one thing I forgot to bring on this trip was a pillow for the bus. Thankfully, one of the travel-stop places had little travel pillows--about 3/4 the size of a usual one--on sale for four bucks. That thing paid for itself within an hour as far as I'm concerned.)

The trip itself was great; the bands played well, Elmhurst is a cool little town, and, as I noted earlier, I finally got to see my snow for the year (it was on the ground the entire time we were in the northern half of Illinois). I may elaborate a bit more on this trip later on in the week, but for now, it's time to watch Leno's Tonight Show re-debut and then try to get on a normal sleep schedule again.

If You Squint Really Hard, You Can See Chicago from Here

Downtown is at the very back of the picture. Really.


I may not get into Chicago proper on this trip, but at least I got to see my snow for the year.

Here Are My Thousand Words for Today

This is the place where we performed a few hours ago:


Hammerschmidt Chapel, Elmhurst College (IL)

The performance went well, and now we'll get to enjoy the rest of the festival on this lovely campus just outside Chicago.

A Colorful Wind Blows Here

POCAHONTAS, ARKANSAS--It's been a fairly uneventful trip so far; indeed, the only reason I'm posting now is because I don't usually end up in a town with such an unusual name. (And yes, there's a statue of her in a downtown park that we're likely to pass on our way out of town.)

One performance down, one more performance and a clinic to go. The trip's been uneventful so far, but I'll post pictures of anything interesting as time permits.

Travel Advisory

I'll be on tour with a few of the college jazz groups for part of this week, so blogging may be light for a while. Ultimately, the usual travel photos and concert revues are likely to follow, though I can't guarantee they'll be done in a timely fashion (as if that's anything new for this blog lately, LOL).

I suppose once the Olympics are over, I'll get back on a regular schedule, but for now, I'm really transfixed by the Games, and I'm looking forward to having something to do during a chill night or two in the hotel.

So Far, Today Was a Snow-Go

One to two inches of snow expected in the Metroplex today, they said. I prepared myself for long drives between schools, even possible closures (and as I tweeted last night, I did not want a snow day today because of some important rehearsals for upcoming performances that were scheduled to take place). Starting around 5 a.m., they said last night. Moving in slowly from the west, they said this morning as I drove to school at 7:30.

So what did we get from this? Bupkis, so far. It was supposed to be heavier just to our south, in Hillsboro and Waco, but it actually stretched as far south as Austin, which got a rare snow day today. (My sister sent a picture of one of my nephews with the snowman he'd built; everyone say "Awww!") I have a feeling that the whole system ended up a bit further south than expected.

So if the DFW area is to break the record for most snowfall in a season, they'll need two more inches before spring, and it looks like today is out of the picture. And looking at the 10-day forecast, it's not supposed to drop below freezing again (after tomorrow morning) through at least March 4, so barring anything really unusual (spring break snowball fight, anyone?), the old record will stand.

Hey, fellow DFWers--anyone get snow today? Post your accounts (and cool snowman pictures) in the comments.

The Latest Roadblock (Road-Blog) to Blogging

I've been really bad about starting posts and not finishing them lately (because of sleepiness, overscheduled days, catching up on work, or a combination thereof), but I have to say that the Winter Games have created a logjam of, well, Olympic proportions on this blog. I like the WInter Games a lot more than their summer counterparts (Michael Phelps notwithstanding, of course), so it seems like there's always something cool to watch. But the end result is, once again, more unfinished posts at the blog. Hopefully, I can catch up in the next few days.

But in the meantime, I've been tweeting quite a bit about the Games and some other stuff, so if new material is slow to come up here, please feel free to visit me there.

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.