iCan't Tell Time Properly; How About You?

I've already posted this on Facebook, but I'll throw it out to the blog community as well: For the past few days, my iPhone's clock has been four minutes slow (compared to my computer, watch, the radio, etc.). Anyone else having this issue?

Some of the responders on Facebook have said that this does happen from time to time. One friend weighs in with the following:

it's a common 3G problem with AT&T, Kev. it has to do with strength of signal from "competing" towers and the phone being able to sync up properly. It will come and go from time to time (no pun intended).

Heh. Others have noted wild variations between phones in the same household (husband's phone slow, wife's not--or vice versa). It might even have something to do with time-zone changes, though I haven't been out of Central Time since last summer. (I did make a very short trip to Oklahoma on Saturday, so feel free to throw out your favorite Okie joke here if you so desire.)

The same friend who suggested the technical glitch earlier came back with this philosophical gem:

[I]s everybody's life so structured that you can't deal with a being a minute or two "wrong" in either direction? remember the good ol' days when we would say, "oh, it's about a quarter 'til", or "5:30 or so"...no exactness. Now we're concerned about being 1 minute off from the official Naval Observatory time.

My reply was that, well, since my entire professional life depends on people showing up for lessons in precise half-hour chunks or being at rehearsals on time, then, yes, my life is that structured.

Feel free to post your own "weird iPhone clock" stories in the comments below.

If You're Still Not Convinced We Need To Clean House (and Senate)...

...watch this.

It's not just that the congressman (I won't capitalize it in this case; he doesn't deserve it) takes the kid's camera phone away from him and grabs him around the neck (though those things are bad enough); it's not even that, as many people have already noted, the guy appears to be more than a little tipsy. The thing that stands out to me is the smarmy sense of entitlement that seems to ooze from every pore in the man's body, like he's some sort of royalty who can't possibly be bothered to field a question from a mere commoner.

There were so many better ways to handle this; simply saying "no comment" and walk away or inviting the questioner to call his office would have been the best way. But no, this guy did something that would appear to rise to the level of assault and battery, and I hope he gets brought up on charges for it (though I'm not holding my breath).

These guys need to remember something: You. Work. For. Us. A whole bunch of people need to get sent packing this November, and Etheridge is definitely among them. It's time to take our country back.

Not Drinking from the Cup As Of Yet

I have to admit that the World Cup has generated more interest among my friends than I would have imagined. Everyone's posting about it on Facebook, a lot of people are changing their avatars to either the U.S. flag or that of their ancestral homeland, and some are even getting up at ridiculously early hours to watch games that have nothing to do with either of the aforementioned places.

That last one--taking time to watch games played by countries with which they have no ties, throws me for a loop, because it flies in the face of the theory I was formulating this week. When I first saw all this World Cup buzz, my question was this: Are they truly soccer fans, or are they simply fans of the USA, who will embrace things like curling when it's on during the Olympics simply out of national pride?

Me, I've had an on again/off again relationship with soccer; I loved the indoor Sidekicks when they played here in Dallas (and even did a radio report on their triumphant return to DFW Airport after winning the league title), and I've seen a few students play high school games here and there. I went to an FC Dallas game back when they were the Dallas Burn (and, playing in the wide-open Cotton Bowl, "burn" was what happened to your skin after the game).

But my personal experience has been minimal. Youth soccer hadn't exploded when I was a kid, and I'm too far away from Austin to see my nephew play. I realize that it's "the only true international sport" and all that, but I'm not alone in not having been bitten by the bug yet.

I could trot out the stereotype: You sit there for a few hours getting all excited about a single goal being scored, or occasionally a 0-0 tie. Yet others might point out that I'm a big fan of baseball, a game which is also disparaged by many for its lack of action (at least in comparison to football and basketball). But maybe the difference is that I've actually played baseball. Oh, and baseball can't end in a 0-0 tie. (I'm just sayin'.)

So I'm sure that I'll tune in for something before long; I have more free time in the summer than during the school year, and I have a nice TV now. But I doubt you'll catch me getting up at 6 a.m. to watch Spain play Ivory Coast.

Have you watch a World Cup game yet? If not, are you planning to do so? Take your shot (heh) in the comments.

What Could Realignment Mean to the Green?

The sports world is abuzz this week--especially in this part of the country--with Colorado and then Nebraska opting to leave the Big 12 Conference for what they undoubtedly hope will be greener pastures. And that raises all kinds of questions: Will the bulk of the Big 12 South bolt to the Pac-10? Or will über-rivals Texas and Texas A&M actually head for different conferences?

But my question, as a proud (if long-suffering) alumnus of UNT, is this: Can the Mean Green find a way to benefit from all this realignment?

I'm not the only one talking about this, of course. Brett Vito of the Denton Record-Chronicle's Mean Green Blog weighs in on the subject, and he sees a few possible scenarios:

• The Big 10 raids the Big East, which raids Conference USA, which could then raid the Sen Belt to replenish itself; UNT would then move to C-USA as part of the deal.


• The Big 12 disintegrates, several of its teams go to the Mountain West and are joined by Boise State of the WAC. The WAC decides to add a few teams in the eastern area, and UNT joins them.


• Nothing changes; UNT stays in the Sun Belt.

Admittedly, reading things like Scenario #1 above will make your head spin after a while. But that's the nature of college athletics right now, at least until the fate of the Big 12 is determined.

Even if nothing more changes with the Big 12, I'd love to see UNT "move up" at some point in time. Sure, the Sun Belt has been more than enough competition for the Mean Green during the down cycle of the past few years, but with any luck, the new stadium will boost the level of excitement for the next several years, and hopefully, that excitement will translate into wins. And if that happens, I'd love to see UNT in a conference that's not quite so spread out. It's not always easy to get excited about seeing your alma mater play Troy or Middle Tennessee, and I still get Florida International and Florida Atlantic mixed up on a yearly basis.

What I'd really like to see is a conference with a lot of natural rivalries--say, the major Texas schools that aren't in the Big 12 (or a future Pac-16, or whatever): SMU, TCU, Rice, Houston, maybe UTEP. There would need to be a few more schools to fill out a conference, but I bet the games would be well-attended because of the short travel times and high likelihood of having friends or family who attended one of the other schools.

But none of this--besides winning more games in the future, of course--is in UNT's hands. It all depends on what happens with the Big 12, and Texas appears to be in the driver's seat there. Stay tuned!

Once Again Laying Claim to the Day

Today is mah birfday, and I have to say that it's a lot more normal of a day than either of the past two years. In '08, I began my special day in the air, on the rather turbulent tail end of a flight back from Vermont. Last year, I was staring knee surgery in the face. The first half of today has be much more normal, and I expect that the rest of the day will follow suit.

I know some people who don't make a big deal about their birthdays, but--even though I'm not usually one to blow his own horn, except in a literal sense--I'll make an exception for today. As I wrote last year,

Some say that birthdays lose their meaning after a certain number of years, but not for me; with 365 days in a year, it's cool to be able to claim one of them as your own. (And I may not be getting "caek" today, but I've been enjoying free food all week, thanks to being on so many restaurants' email lists. Most of them send out other stuff during the year, but this week is when everything comes pouring in.)

There is one different twist to this year, as I have a gig this evening, come out to the DMA for a celebration that's not really about me at all, save for the fact that I'll be one of 15 people on stage and doing what I love to do.

The Class of 2010

As of this morning, all of my students who were seniors in high school have now graduated. (It took a little bit longer this year, because not everyone was in the same district for once.) It's become an annual tradition to do a brief salute to them in this spot, and this year is no exception.

So happy graduation to Adrianne, Brent, Chase, Christian and Scott. You may be small in numbers, but you've amassed a lot of accomplishments--most notably, my first All-State Jazz Ensemble member in over a decade, and three-fourths of the best saxophone quartet I've ever had the pleasure of coaching.

Though most of you are not pursuing music as a career, I'm glad to see that most of you will continue to play (in one ensemble or another, as well as for your own enjoyment) in college and hopefully beyond. No matter what, keep music in your hearts, and put the discipline, teamwork skills and multitasking abilities you've learned from studying music to good use in other aspects of your lives.

As I've said before, I do a pretty good job of keeping up with my alumni, so I'm bound to see some of you before long.

Finally Time to Cut the Cord?

This isn't a new subject; I've been mulling this over for years, and I've even posted about it before. Today, I also posted about it on Facebook, and I'll ask it here again: Should I get rid of my land line?

Since cell phones got small enough for everyday use (I recall my first Motorola Brick from 15 years ago; it mostly stayed in the car), the land line has become less and less necessary, and now, it's reached the point where it hardly gets used at all. For one thing, I've gotten used to screening calls on my cell phone, to the point where I don't pick up for unfamiliar numbers at all, and won't return calls to them unless the owner leaves a voicemail. Since I don't have the luxury of Caller ID on my house phone (and paying for something that comes free on the cell would indeed be a "luxury"), I never answer it at all, letting the machine take calls instead. It's pretty much become the province of telemarketers and other people I wouldn't want to talk to in the first place.

So what's keeping me from going over the hump, in terms of ditching the land line? Pretty much one thing--emergencies. Meaning two scenarios: 1) Having a 911 emergency at home and not being able to have the operator locate me. I know that "E911" technology is close to being in place for cell phones, but from what I've read, it's not quite there yet. 2) It hasn't happened in years, but I'm concerned about missing the proverbial emergency call in the middle of the night. If I go cell-only, I'd have to keep the phone near the bed and turn the ringer on at night (it's on vibrate all the time because I'm teaching and rehearsing most of the day).

Still, I'm trying to cut costs, and I have to ask myself: "Self, is this type of peace-of-mind worth $33 a month?" Most of the time, the answer is no, but I still have yet to pull the trigger.

There's another angle to this, of course; I noticed it this afternoon when paying my phone bill online (and wondering how long I'd keep doing so). I could go all in with Verizon and start using FiOS for my TV and internet as well; it would be $20 cheaper than I'm paying for cable/internet now, and I'd basically get to keep the land line for no charge (thus kicking this problem down the road for two more years). I'd also be able to watch all my TV channels in HD without paying the cable company even more money than I already am.

So here's what I'd like to know from anyone with experience in this area:

• Is there anything you can tell me that would nudge me over the top in terms of ditching the land line? Are my concerns unfounded?


• Have you had any experience with FiOS? If so, how does it compare to regular cable TV?


• There's a third option here: I can switch to FiOS and ditch my land line as well. Do I really need to agonize over losing the land line for two more years?

Any responses would be appreciated.

"Be True to Yourself..."

"...help others, make each day your masterpiece, make friendship a fine art, drink deeply from good books — especially the Bible — build a shelter against a rainy day, give thanks for your blessings and pray for guidance every day.”

R.I.P., John Wooden. You don't find coaches like him too often anymore. For that matter, you don't find people like him too often anymore. He will be missed, but the legacy he leaves is gargantuan. The teacher is gone, but the lessons continue.

Breaking Up Is Hard to Do, Unless Someone Does It For You

I've been a fan of the Ernie and Jay program on KRLD since it started, and I listened to Ernie Brown solo for a number of years before that. (I've noted in the past that Ernie and I were Little League teammates in Houston as kids, though I didn't realize that teammate and talk-show host were one and the same until about five years ago.) Originally, Jay had a show from nine to noon, and Ernie's was from noon-3, and then they started overlapping for the noon hour; eventually, it grew into a full-blown four-hour collaboration, which gave rise to things like the "12:00 Flip-Off," a chance for people to rant about anything they wanted to, often with amusing results.

My listening is usually done in tiny chunks between schools, but I've been able to tune in a bit more since the school year started to wind down. And all week long, the guys were making these cryptic announcements about something ending after today. I was really concerned at first--surely they weren't tossing them out the way they did to Brad Barton earlier in the year and are about to do to Neil Sperry in a month! But finally, after yesterday's Flip-Off, they told us what's up: They're both staying on the air, but it's back to separate shows again.

Here's how it will work: Jay will be on from 9-noon, then an hour of news will take place at noon (evidently, some people were griping that they wanted more news in the middle of the day, even though there were always updates at the top and bottom of the hour). Ernie will be on from 1-3, after which the afternoon news will start, as it has for a while.

They said yesterday that the program didn't take off like people hoped it would, which surprised me, because there always seemed to be plenty of callers. I'll certainly listen to the guys separately, and I'm glad they both still have jobs in this economy, but it's disappointing that a team that seemed to work well didn't bring it home in the ratings area.

I've been listening to KRLD since the first Gulf War, though I actually stopped tuning in to anything except Ernie and Jay for a few weeks after they fired Brad Barton (which still seems like the most pinheaded move ever, especially since it was supposedly made not at the local level, but by a network "suit" in New York). If they had let Ernie and Jay go completely, my radio dial wouldn't have gone there except for weekend Rangers games. I'm glad that's not the case. (And the segment may have ended, but I have to say this: I'd like to flip off the KRLD management for breaking up the team.)

AT&T's New Data Plan Limits--Much Ado About Nothing?

I've been a happy iPhone user since I took the plunge right before Christmas of '08. Sure, there have been a few dropped calls here and there, and I had to learn how to keep the battery from draining too quickly (turn off location services, notifications, etc.), but otherwise, it's been nothing but positive. So I was concerned when the story came out this week that AT&T is planning to do away with unlimited data plans. But I had to know more--would this even affect me? Let's see:

AT&T will now offer a lower-end data plan, called DataPlus, for $15 per month. Users on this plan get 200MB to use for one month, and those that go over will be given an additional 200MB for another $15. According to AT&T's analysis, 65 percent of its smartphone customers use less than 200MB on average. Checking around the Orbiting HQ, all but one of us with an iPhone on AT&T fall into this category.

The new high-end plan, called DataPro, gets you 2GB of data use for $25 per month. If you go over 2GB, you'll pay $10 for each 1GB increment. For example, if you use 3.5GB, you'll pay $25 + 10 + 10, or $45 for the month. AT&T is not offering an unlimited data tier at any price. The company says that 98 percent of its customers use less than 2GB of data, so among these two plans, all but the heaviest data users should theoretically save on their monthly bill...

Hmm. I have no idea how much data i use, so I checked the settings on my phone. It said I'd used 1.5 GB. And when had I last reset my statistics? Umm...never. That means I'd used 1.5 GB since I'd bought the phone, a year and a half ago. So I'm good with the $25 plan. I later went to AT&T's website and checked my account for more specific usage; had I gone over 200MB in a month? Yup, most recently in February and December, the two months where I've done the most traveling.

So it appears that, not only will I not be affected by this new practice, but I could actually save money with it. Some recent iPad buyers who depend on the 3G network instead of wi-fi will undoubtedly be upset, as will those who are the true data hogs on the network. (UPDATE: According to another article on the subject, the people most likely to be affected by the new plans are "the 3 percent of customers who AT&T says are using 40 percent of the network assets," along with those who are using a cellphone as a modem.

So tell me, fellow iPhone users--will this affect you at all? And if you just got an iPad, are you disappointed? Fire away in the comments (you can wait until you find wi-fi if you want).

This VIdeo Had Me at the Title

I'm going to let someone else do the talking for me today while I enjoy my first true day of summer. But this is an important topic to which I've devoted quite a bit of time on this blog over the years, and it gives a lot of facts and figures to back things up.

The title is great: "There Are Too Many Bureaucrats and They Are Paid Too Much."



Well done. Watch and share, and I'll be back in my own voice tomorrow. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)

Heard in the Line of (Jury) Duty

Random thoughts upon the completion of a morning of jury duty (where, it should go without saying, considering the time stamp of this post, that I didn't get picked):

• The big flood in the basement of the Dallas County Records Building knocked out computer service to all of county government, which means we had to submit new forms by hand. Despite everything having to be done manually, it didn't really take that much longer than usual to get the jury pools assigned.


• As always, there was a lot of waiting in the hall. We noticed that a police officer was standing in the hall at the same time, and somebody said that it must be awful to have to stand out there doing nothing for so long. Imagine our surprise when he turned out to be a member of the jury pool! (There were some lawyers in there, too; I guess the only people who you don't see on a regular basis would be doctors.)


• Before our voir dire process began, there were many people who came in and out to submit pleas and do other non-trial business with the court, with friends and family waiting outside for them. Perhaps the most poignant moment was when a toddler started crying for his mother, who was obviously in one of the courtrooms, and he was inconsolable when the friend/relative who was watching him said that he couldn't go see Mama right now. (On the other hand, it was somewhat amusing that said toddler had a little Mohawk haircut.)


• Call me old-school, but it was amazing (and disappointing) to me how many people showed up for non-trial appearances in what I'd consider to be overly casual attire. I know it's summer, but you'd think that people would consider a courtroom appearance important enough to leave the shorts, flip-flops, baggy pants, etc. at home.


• I realize the importance of doing one's civic duty, but, as I've noted in the past, jury duty is always a bit scary to those of us who are sole proprietors, because, while most people will continue to be paid by their employers during their terms of service, that's impossible when employer and employee are the same and the business cannot open when the whole "company" is away. I deferred to this week for a reason--the college is out and the public schools are in exams--but it would have been bad for me if any trial I was hearing had lasted for longer than this week.

Some people have noted that it seems like I'm always being called for jury duty, and, while it does feel like that, part of the reason is because things have been postponed a few times. My federal on-call session that I served over Christmas break was delayed because of my knee surgery and the illness of a colleague at school, and this county service was also postponed because the original summons date ran concurrently with the federal service. So this is the first time in over a year that I haven't had the specter of upcoming jury service hanging over my head, and I hope that this situation will continue for a while.

So now it truly is summer for a few days; I can relax, work on the summer schedule, and get a few other things done.

Take a Moment to Remember

It's easy for the true meaning of Memorial Day to get lost in all the barbecues and "first day of summer" celebrations (even if the latter's not true anymore here in Texas, thanks to the state-mandated later start to the school year). But we need to remember that we wouldn't have the freedom to chill out today if a whole lot of people hadn't made the ultimate sacrifice on our behalf.

Ironically, some of the people who best understand the solemnity of this day are those who make their living as humorists for most of the rest of the year. Dave Barry links to both a set of instructions as to how to properly celebrate Memorial Day and a good collection of Memorial Day quotes. Let me share a few of the latter:

I have never been able to think of the day as one of mourning; I have never quite been able to feel that half-masted flags were appropriate on Decoration Day. I have rather felt that the flag should be at the peak, because those whose dying we commemorate rejoiced in seeing it where their valor placed it. We honor them in a joyous, thankful, triumphant commemoration of what they did. — Benjamin Harrison

The patriot’s blood is the seed of Freedom’s tree. — Thomas Campbell

The Flag still floats unblotted with defeat!
But ah the blood that keeps its ripples red,
The starry lives that keep its field alight.
– Rupert Hughes

And James Lileks, who hasn't had any family members who died in service, posts a picture of the closest thing: The man on whose former farm Lileks' house was built (he didn't die right away, but was seriously wounded for a time).

It's still possible to properly observe this day amidst the cookouts, of course. A White House decree from 2000 explains how to participate in a National Moment of Remembrance today:

Encouraging individual department and agency personnel, and
Americans everywhere, to pause for one minute at 3:00 p.m.
(local time) on Memorial Day, to remember and reflect on the
sacrifices made by so many to provide freedom for all.

It's nearly 3:00. Will you stop and remember?

Today's Situation in a Nutshell

I've talked quite a bit here about how many of the problems faced by our country have to do with the fact that the people running things may have plenty of political experience, but little actual time spent in the productive part of society.

I've meant to blog more about this recently, but time has been at a premium. Thankfully, there are others out there who share this opinion, and The Anchoress states it very well:

[T]hat is the problem in a nutshell. Our government is top-heavy with people who have never “done” anything.

The Obama administration is loaded down with academics and lawyers who have spent their lives theorizing about things like economics, markets, social order and crisis management–and criticizing methods with which they disagree–but who have little practical experience in doing.

In fairness to the White House, many members of congress (and their leadership) have never done anything but talk, pose and run for office, too, but perhaps it behooves a president to have a few people in place who know how to (as any successful capitalist would) find the people who have an acquaintance with practical applications and who know how to yell, and how to dig in with both unmanicured hands.

Admittedly, it is difficult to put such people in place. Can-do capitalists are jawboners; they tend to want to lead, rather than fall-in-line. But any administration should have a couple of them discreetly in the background, so that when things hit the fan, there are more than mere theorists on board.

And a commenter to that post, who goes by the handle of "J" lays out a possible solution to this problem:

I’m generally not big on changing the constitution, but I’d support a change that barred anyone who hadn’t spent at least half of their adult life working in the private sector from holding any federal elective office.

Well said. And I'll repeat my own response to "J" here: It’s time to diminish the unproductive class in dramatic fashion and let members of the productive class be in charge. (The only reason this doesn’t happen more often is because those in the productive class are too busy, well, producing things.)

It’s also a good argument for term limits for all in government, legislator and bureaucrat alike. Start out in the productive sector, learn a skill that can be shared with the government for a brief time, and get back to producing things again.

A lot of us out here don't want the amount of government we currently have; few truly need it, and none of us can afford it. It's time to give everyone in government a 15% pay cut across the board, with the potential for more cuts based on productivity and accomplishment (or, more precisely, lack thereof)*. It's time to cut the bureaucracy in half; anyone who receives their salary the public dime needs to be working very, very hard. And the term-limits-for-all idea described above needs to be implemented as soon as possible.

These ideas need to be shared with those who are running for office in November; elections have consequences, and it's time for the unproductive class to be shown the door.

*I realize that raising or lowering pay based on productivity rather than number of years spent on the job would require that the influence of unions be cut to the bone. I consider this a feature, not a bug.

Commence Summer

As of this afternoon, the public-school portion of my academic year has concluded; the college semester having ended two weeks ago, I can officially say that it's summer (which, for someone in academia, does not correspond with the beginning of that season as stated on a calendar). There are a couple (literally, two) of non-exam days next week, but I have jury duty on Tuesday, so it's pretty safe to say that any teaching that goes on next week will be at Casa de Kev and not inside a school.

There were a few challenges this year--most notably during the fall semester, when I was doing some extra teaching in relief of an ailing colleague while undergoing my own recovery from knee surgery--but there were a lot of rewarding moments, and some really good music was made.

It's not a true vacation, of course; summer teaching starts a week from Monday, and the schedule still needs to be finalized. But I'm looking forward to a few days of doing very little, starting now.

Don't Book Me, Dano

I made mention of this on Facebook earlier, but I think it warrants a slightly longer rant: I wish it were possible to opt-out of receiving phone books.

I'm sure they're useful to somebody, but to me, phone books are as outmoded as the rotary-dial phones they used to serve. If I want a phone number, I get it from the Internet--and if I do so on my iPhone, I can usually just click a link on the webpage to make the call; no more writing down or memorizing numbers anymore.

The worst thing about phone books is their bulk, along with the fact that, at least in my city, you can't put them out with regular recycling. Instead, they can only be dropped off at the big recycling center, which is almost never open when I'm not working. There's a grocery store that will take them about twice a year, but I always seem to miss it.

They used to just sit in a messy pile at the edge of my dining room, but I finally realized that there was an unused kitchen cabinet where they could go. Still, that cabinet is almost full, and it's almost as if "out of sight, out of mind" has taken over, because I always forget to take them to the center even if it's a day off.

So I'd be a happy camper to never receive another phone book again. How about you--any use for them, or have they gone the way of the dodo for you as well?

(The) Crossing (of) Jordan

I'm one of those old-school guys who still reads newspapers (even if I almost totally ignore the front section, save for op-eds, letters from readers and lotto numbers; everything else, I read yesterday online), and since our local Dallas Morning News does a good job of high school sports coverage, I tend to read about up-and-coming athletes long before a lot of the rest of the world has heard of them.

Obviously, the DFW area has produced a lot of marquee names in football over the years (think Chase Daniel, Matthew Stafford, Graham Harrell and so on), and their exploits were chronicled in the paper throughout their prep careers. But there's also been a strong tradition of young golfers in the area--think Justin Leonard, the Kuehne siblings, Hunter Mahan and so on. And one of the people I'd been reading quite a lot about for the past few years is a 16-year-old named Jordan Spieth.

And after today, a whole lot more people will have heard of Jordan, because he made the cut at the Byron Nelson today:

Spieth is a high school junior from Dallas who cut class this week to play in the Byron Nelson Championship, becoming the first prep to take on the pros in this event since [Tiger] Woods in 1993. He's handled his nerves and the TPC Four Seasons course quite nicely, shooting a 3-under 137 through two rounds to become the sixth-youngest player to make the cut at a PGA Tour event.

I should point out that even Woods didn't make the cut at the Nelson during his prep days.

Jordan's having an exceptional week--and, so far, an exceptional life. One of his good buddies, whom he met at a pro-am earlier this year (and was in attendance today), is a certain golf-crazy local pro athlete named Tony Romo. And he ended up having a rather ginormous gallery today, as the Jesuit brass evidently sort of winked at the absenteeism of any of Jordan's fellow classmates (as well as a few teachers) who showed up to cheer him on.

Sure, nobody knows what the next few years will bring, but from what we've seen so far, Jordan likely has a bright future. He's playing in another tourney in South Carolina next month on a sponsor's invitation, and he still has another year of high school golf left before likely heading off to the University of Texas.

And while it's not likely that he'll win on Sunday, stranger things can happen. And his attitude is certainly in the right place: "I don't want to think of myself as an amateur out there," he said. "I want to think of myself as a contender." I'm certainly not going to doubt him.

Jordan Spieth--remember the name. We could be witnessing the start of something big.

SATURDAY UPDATE: Jordan continues to contend after today's round, ending up tied for seventh place. Way to go!

The Big Seven-Oh to My Brothers

Happy Chapter Day to my brothers in the Gamma Theta Chapter of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia--a fine brotherhood of musicians serving the University of North Texas since May 19, 1940.

While the full roster of the chapter since that time includes some people who have made great contributions to the larger world of music (Jimmy Giuffre, Herb Ellis, Bob Dorough, Frank Mantooth), there have been plenty of unsung heroes who have made (or still are making) great contributions in much smaller worlds, but who are still heroes to many. It's a privilege to be an alumnus of such an esteemed group of gentlemen.

May your banner proudly "float for aye" for seventy--no, seven times seventy--more years!

Just a Little Reminder...

...of why I do what I do. And yeah, it might be lame to copy and paste stuff from Facebook, but this pretty much stands on its own, and I wanted a chance to share these sentiments with the part of the blogging world that's not also part of the Facebook world.

This was how my teaching day ended today:

This afternoon, a sixth-grader came in and played his B major scale, which he'd totally learned on his own just by "knowing what scales are supposed to sound like." I then showed him how to add more sharps and assigned F# for next week. If I ever needed a reminder of why I teach music, just watching the metaphorical l...ight bulbs go on like that will always do the trick.

That's what it's all about, folks. May you love your job as much as I love mine.

A Light at the End of the Blog Tunnel?

OK, I've been pretty bad at blogging (or at least being able to finish posts that I've started, before looking at the clock and saying, "Yikes, I have to get to bed now!") for quite some time now. As I looked over my list of posts tonight, I realized that I have more "pending" ones than real ones for the past month or so.

So why is this? Certainly, joining Facebook is (as expected) partially to blame; my online time is still finite during any given day, and I've devoted a lot of that time catching up with people I haven't talked to in years. Some of it can also be attributed to having a new TV and wanting to watch programs as they air in HD, rather than catching them later on a (greatly inferior) VCR rendering (yes, I'm still in my pre-TiVo phase).

But despite all the new distractions, I'm still firmly committed to doing this blog, and I have a solution to the time problem: If I'm going to watch TV during the week, then I can certainly blog during the time on the weekend when I'd normally be watching those taped shows. This weekend looks to be pretty chill, so I should get at least half of the 12 pending posts done in that time, and I'll link to all of them in a giant "catching up" post like I always do.

I've said this a lot, but, to those who haven't given up on The Musings yet: Thank you for your patience.

Experiment

It's really late in the semester to be trying new things, but here goes: Instead of going to bed 'round midnight (hey--that'd be a good song title!) and hitting a bunch of snooze alarms, I'm going to bed 'round eleven and seeing if I can wake up on time. Any bets on whether or not it will work?

Blame It on the Sun?

I did a decent amount of driving this weekend (though nothing like a week ago, when I notched 375 miles between Friday afternoon and Sunday evening), and, while I usually love to drive, one thing got in the way of my enjoyment, and no, it wasn't traffic or weather. (Well, OK, it was sort of weather. But read on...)

The problem? Radio reception. It was just hideously bad all weekend, especially yesterday. I'm used to a lot of static on the iPod converter whenever I go on really tall bridges or get within a few miles of downtown Dallas, but yesterday morning, it started this awful whining sound from the moment I drove south of LBJ. And it wasn't just iPod reception, either; the financial show I always listen to on the radio after church took on an otherworldly aspect this week, as the host sounded like he was talking in a computerized Stephen Hawking voice.

Needless to say, I was curious as to whether I was the only one having these problems, so I did what pretty much any red-blooded American would do nowadays: I posted a query to Facebook. And one of my old college friends gave me what's likely to be the answer: There was heavier-than-usual solar flair activity this weekend. And yes, that meant that radio was likely affected:

On May 5th, a pair of solar flares bathed Earth's upper atmosphere in X-rays and caused a double-wave of ionization to sweep over the Americas. This improved the propagation of low-frequency radio signals, which use the ionosphere as a reflector to skip over the horizon.

(Check out the cool pictures and an oh-so-brief video at the link.)

So there you go. I would've never guessed something like that, but I had the answer within a very short time. Thank you, Tom K., and thank you, Facebook.

The principal got a detention: I've been known to tweak school administrators on this blog when they make goofy professional decisions. But here's a Ft. Worth middle school assistant principal who made two really bad off-campus choices: First, she got busted for public intoxication outside a Dallas nightclub after getting in a scrap with the bouncer. Then it was discovered that, while she was trying to get into the club, she left her two small kids alone in a hotel room (all this while her husband is on active duty in Iraq). But here's the kicker: The reason the club bouncer wouldn't let her in? She wasn't in compliance with the club's dress code! (I wonder how many times she's enforced that rule at her own campus, and how little credibility she'll have in that area if she happens to get her job back.)

I, Road Warrior

I'm one tired puppy right now, but the long weekend of going everyplace under the sun is finally over. Since Friday afternoon, my travels have taken me to Ft. Worth, Denton, McKinney, Frisco, Plano, Southlake and Bedford. I've driven around 375 miles all told, while still spending each night in my own bed.

More later, but at least you might be able to understand why I haven't blogged much lately.

This Week is TAKS-ing to My Wallet Once Again

Since it's the week of standardized testing in Texas schools, I posed the question on Facebook: Which April event is more evil--Tax Day or TAKS week? (My set of responders--mostly teachers--were almost unanimous in declaring the state tests as being even worse than opening up your wallet to Uncle Sam. (But for those in my area of teaching--at least the public school part--I have to open up my wallet either way, since I'm teaching maybe half of my private students ths week, although that's an improvement over years past.)

What say you? Tell me in the comments.

The Next Thing I Need to Arrange Is a Nap

It's nearly four in the morning, and I'm awake. And I'm not getting up early, either; I'm still up from last night.

So what am I doing up this late? Arranging music. I have a few things that absolutely must be read today, and I've been putting them off until this week (since I won't see a lot of my private students thanks to state standardized testing). And I knew that I was slow on the music notation software, but I had no idea I was this slow.

The good news: The tune I've been working on since midnight is finished and the parts are printed out. The less-good news: I have another one to complete in the morning.

I'm glad my livelihood doesn't depend on this, since I write and arrange at a glacial pace. (They say the hardest part of practicing is opening the case; the hardest part of writing has to be sitting down and opening the software or putting pencil to paper.)

I feel good about getting this done. Now let's hope that what I wrote sounds at least as good, if not much, much better, than the way it sounded on the sequencer.

Immig-Rant 2.0

My blogging time is limited today, but I had to chime in about the tough new immigration bill signed into law by Arizona's governor this afternoon. This whole thing brings up a few questions that I'd love to see answered:

• Why do so many people appear to care so much about the so-called rights of people who are breaking our laws simply by virtue of being here?


• And why are so many "activist" groups rallying for criminals' rights simply because they happen to share an ethnicity with the criminals? (It's way past time for this nation to move beyond race.)

My take on illegal immigration is can be summed up by the signs that appear throughout Six Flags and other amusement parks: "LINE JUMPERS WILL BE REMOVED FROM THE PARK." You want to come here? Get in line like everyone else. Of course, the ridiculous bureaucratic policies that have people waiting a long time to become legal citizens should be streamlined, but people also have to realize that we'll never be able to let everyone in who wants to come here, especially the high number of refugees from the nearly-failed nation to our south. It's too bad some of the people who would sneak in here can't put some of that time and energy into reforming their own corrupt government.

And again, please stop it with the tired argument of "illegals are just doing jobs that Americans refuse to do." With around 10% unemployment in our nation right now, and a job market for high school/college students that's been abysmal for nearly a decade, I think there are plenty of people who would be more than happy to work at McDonald's or mow lawns. We can help out the rest of the world when we have money or resources to spare, but we have to take care of our own first.

I don't go off on things on this blog like I used to (if nothing else, I do have limited blogging time, and I like to talk about positive stuff as much as I can), but sometimes, things just have to be said.

A review of what should be a great jazz concert I'm about to attend will follow tomorrow.

(My original "Immig-Rant" from 2006 may be found here.)

'Book 'em, Kevo!

(If you're my friend on Facebook, you can probably skip this one. See ya tomorrow!)

As I expected, it's taking a little while for me to properly organize my admittedly meager time spent online since I joined Facebook a few weeks ago. It hasn't hit the blog as hard as it's hit Twitter (and maybe I just need to link Twitter with my Facebook feed, even though some of my status updates are more than 140 characters long), but there have been times where I've been even more behind on blog posts than usual, if that's even possible.

But sometimes, these worlds do merge; there are things I post on Facebook that might be interesting to my blog readers, so let me recap a few of them here:

• This may be a rerun, but I'm going to have to do a full post on why cars and trucks don't mix on the highways. My trip to Waco last weekend convinced me of this beyond any doubt.


• Is there any roadside treat in Central Texas that's better than a kolache from the Czech Stop?


• Situation: My school district's audition music is only available online this year, putting the onus on the students to print it out. Problem: First student of the day on Monday hasn't printed his copy yet. Solution: We go over the music by reading it off the screen of my iPhone. Gotta love modern technology!


• I was getting very frustrated with one of the tires on my car this week; the "low tire pressure" light was coming on every morning since Sunday, and I couldn't see or hear evidence of a leak. I brought it in yesterday, and we found the culprit: The smallest of nails.


• The nail-in-the-tire story spawned another one from a while back: The last time I lived in an apartment complex, they spent over a year replacing the roof on all the units, so there were stray roofing nails all over the parking lot. One of them found its way into my tire, so I took it in to be fixed. A while later, the tire guy called me and said, "Well..., sir, it turns out that you didn't have a nail in your tire--you had *five* of them."


• And finally, one from Facebook itself: My reaction thus far to the new Facebook terminology of "liking" a band/business/whatever (vs. the old "becoming a fan of" said entity) ranges from "meh" to "that's a silly idea."

As I said a while back, I promise that what I blog here won't be Facebook-driven all that often, but I will do these little updates every now and then.

Giving In to Their Bass-er Desires

Cool and unusual: Ten jazz double bassists onstage at the same time. Even cooler: One of them is Rufus Reid:


(This was the post-intermission special at the Baylor Jazz Ensemble concert last night. Needless to say, the whole concert was quite enjoyable, and during the bass group's two selections--a lush ballad and a playful romp on Duke Ellington's "Just Squeeze Me"--they produced some unique sounds. Kudos to director Alex Parker for putting the whole thing together.)

Travel Advisory

I'm going to Waco for a fraternity workshop this weekend. Can't wait to satisfy my Fazoli's fix while I'm there (it's been over a year now) and chill with the brothers. I'll also be seeing the Baylor Jazz Ensemble with special guest Rufus Reid tonight. Back sometime tomorrow.

Blowing out the candles: Happy birthday, Mom! As I mentioned the other day, she and her sister are celebrating together for the first time in eons; wish I could be there.

A/C, or Not A/C: That is the Question

OK, I promise that what I post on Facebook won't always drive what I post here (though it may well have a lot of overlap with Twitter). But this seemed like a timely topic for both forums (and I've blogged about it here before), so here goes:

I posed this question today: "How long will I hold out before turning on the A/C in the house? It has yet to get above 78 in here--my usual spring/summer setting--even on the hottest afternoon."

The first response I got, from an old high school classmate, was "Are you green or broke?" I pointed out that it wasn't really either, but that I had managed to acclimate myself to 78 in the spring/summer and 68 in the winter. And I was quite surprised to find out that many people in my FB circle keep their houses at rather Arctic temperatures compared to mine. (73? 70? Really? I'd hate to pay their electric bills. Maybe I'm both green and broke compared to some of these folks.)

So feel free to place predictions on how long you think I can hold out before cranking up the A/C in Casa de Kev, as well as sharing the average late spring/summer temperature of your own domicile in the comments.

Blowing out the candles in a special way: Happy birthday to my Aunt Nora from Indiana, born a day before Tax Day and two days (and a year) before her younger sister, whom I call "Mom." This year, they're doing something unusual: Nora's in Houston visiting my folks, so the two sisters get to celebrate their birthdays in the same location for the first time in decades.

Failliversary

Just as yesterday was a good day in my personal history--celebrating seven years of blogging--today is a much more dubious anniversary: The first anniversary of my accident.

Rather than recount the entire tale, I'll direct those who may be new to this blog here, and if you want to follow the whole thing, click the tag at the bottom of this post called "The 'Accident of Gravity' Chronicles" and everything related to the accident and recovery periods should come up.

As I noted just a little while ago on Facebook, my "celebration" of the anniversary was capped off by something I didn't--couldn't--do a year ago at this time: Walk through my front door at day's end under my own power. And while I may not have hit the racquetball court yet, my knee is something that I don't really think about all that often. Life has pretty much returned to normal.

May there be a continuation of this "normal" for the foreseeable future.

Blogiversary

It was seven years ago today that I started The Musings of Kev. I began blogging for several reasons: To have an outlet for creative writing; to vent about a few things in a larger forum; to satisfy the journalism bug that bit me in college (writing CD and concert reviews, among other things); and, well, because a lot of my friends were blogging at the time (I guess that's the "all the cool kids are doing it" line of reasoning).

I started out doing very short posts--things that would probably be Tweeted today. Eventually, the Blogger software went through a few updates, and suddenly, my posts had headlines, tags and so on. As I learned more and more about HTML, things like links and embedded videos would make their way into various posts. As I read more and more "A-list" bloggers, some of their styles inevitably crept into mine.

There have been a few pleasant surprises along the way: I never expected for this blog to get a hundred hits from all over the place in a single day, as has happened a few times when a post was linked to a prominent site (among the most-viewed posts are the one supporting the UNT stadium referendum and my review of the Maynard Ferguson tribute in St. Louis. And while I still have yet to receive the beloved "Instalanche" (a link from Glenn Reynolds' mega-blog Instapundit, I have been frontpaged by Althouse in a post about lolcats--something I discovered at Althouse in the first place.

And it has certainly been a pleasant surprise to occasionally meet people via blogging who have morphed into friends in real life; that was something I never expected when I first started putting my "random thoughts and rants" online.

Nowadays, my biggest challenge is finishing the posts that I start in a timely fashion. My teaching days are long, I occasionally still have work to do when I get home, and things like Twitter and, for the past week, Facebook, are competing for my online attention. But my commitment to this forum remains unwavering, even if I seem to get a lot of it done on the weekends (indeed, the only reason this post is going out so early is that the public schools have a holiday this morning).

Thank you for your attention and continued visits. I'll work hard to make what you read here worthy of your time.

For Many of Us, This Program Was a Real Clunker

This morning, I attempted (along with the rest of the state of Texas, so it would seem) to take advantage of the government-sponsored "cash for clunkers" program that's not for cars, but rather for appliances. While my refrigerator, washer and dryer are still going strong (he types with crossed fingers), there's a dishwasher in my kitchen that's long past its prime. (What that means, of course, is that the dishwasher in my house is called "Kev," but let's not make any jokes about that dishwasher also being past his prime, OK?)

So my parents alerted me to this thing a few weeks ago, and it turns out that the Big Day was today. The idea was to go to the website texaspowerfulsmart.org and get on the rebate list; after that, you had two weeks to buy the new appliance starting on the 16th of this month, and you'd get an even bigger rebate if you managed to recycle the "clunker" in an approved manner. It sounded like a good deal, and, even though I knew a lot of people would be taking advantage of the program, it didn't hurt to try.

Looking back, this was probably doomed from the start as far as I was concerned. For one thing, the sign-up period didn't start until seven this morning, which gave me all of fifteen minutes to try and sign up before I had to leave for teaching. I don't have a computer in my public-school teaching (and this is one case where the iPhone in my pocket doesn't count, never mind the fact that it would be rude and unprofessional to keep using it during a lesson), and I knew that the program would probably be over by the time that I got home for my afternoon break.

Sure enough, I couldn't get on before I left; the website kept dropping connections left and right. (I felt like I was having flashbacks to the days when I was on dial-up.) And sure enough, when I got home, I found out that the program had already run out of money--all $23 million of it. They did have a waiting list, though, so I tried to get on that...and experienced the exact same problems--dropped connections and so on. Eventually, the link that was supposed to take me to the application form started defaulting to the main page; I was stuck in an endless loop. A quick check back to the site a while later showed that the waiting list was full as well.

So my question is, couldn't they have anticipated the increased traffic and come up with some extra server space for the day? I heard on the radio that people who tried to access the system by phone had just as many problems--pretty much a nonstop busy signal for hours on end. (Now I'm having flashbacks to college and the Saturday mornings I spent ordering concert tickets!) Sure, I wasn't necessarily expecting to get on and complete the application process in my tiny fifteen-minute window this morning, but I would have thought that the system would have been a bit more crash-proof. And yes, this is the government we're talking about, but state government is supposed to be more efficient than that.

I guess the long and short of it is, I'm still my own dishwasher. And that's fine, at least until the point where I need to sell the house. But I'd be lying if I said a little rebate today would have gone a long way towards this upgrade for me.

To my fellow Texans: Did you try and get through to this site today? And if so, were you successful?

A Line from One of the Lions of Jazz

On this day in 1927, Gerry Mulligan was born. The world of jazz, and baritone saxophone playing in particular, is far better for that event having taken place. He's no longer with us, but his music lives on.

I posted this video to Facebook this morning, and I thought it was worth sharing here as well:



"Line for Lyons" is one of my favorite Mulligan tunes, and he's in particularly fine form in this 1983 video from Italy, playing with a fire that belies his reputation as being solely in the "cool" school. Watch, listen and enjoy!

Overworked and Underblogged?

I have quite a few major projects that I'll be working on this week, so I don't know how much blogging will take place in the next few days. As always, I thank you for your patience.

A Different Kind of Spring Cleaning

Blog posting has been pretty scant from me recently, so there's nothing like a lazy Saturday on a three-day weekend to get all caught up. As always, so that my work won't go for naught, here is a list of posts I've completed today:

• When Firewheel opened in '05, some people lamented that New Urbanism would be the death of downtown Garland. But another such project may well revive it.


• As expected, my household status did not change between the time last month when I filled it out and April 1, the day it was supposed to reflect.


• My thoughts on the controversial Erykah Badu video.


• Dallas/Ft. Worth finally rises above 80 degrees for the first time since last October.


• I had a lot of fun last weekend performing with Tom "Bones" Malone at the college jazz festival last weekend.


• My thoughts on the upcoming end of 24.


• I also weigh in on Keith Jarrett's latest anti-audience outburst.


• The NFL's new overtime rules for playoff games--good idea/bad idea?


• Count me as one teacher who's opposed to the idea of a four-day school week.


• One more New Urbanism development has joined us this spring; this one's in Fairview.

With any luck, I'll have regular posts up again now that things have calmed down.

And if I'm still behind in posting next week, I have a new excuse: After literally years of people bugging me to do so, I finally joined Facebook last night. Feel free to friend me if we have that status in real life or fan me otherwise. (And if either of the above makes for too much Kev in your online life, you can always stick with the old stalwarts known as MySpace and Twitter and this very blog...)

New Urbanism in an Old Urbanist Setting

I've lived in Garland for a long time now, but I haven't spent all that much time downtown. The area has experienced various degrees of "deadness" over the years, and when Firewheel Town Center opened back in '05, it appeared that the fake downtown would supplant the original one as the major center for activity in the city.

But Garland's a big place, and downtown always had a few cards to play (the DART station, the Granville Arts Center, the Plaza Theatre, and so on). And about a year ago, when I played a wedding reception at the Granville complex, I was able to observe the rise of a mixed-use development that's certain to help revitalize downtown: It's called Fifth Street Crossing, and it's up and ready to go.

The location really couldn't be better, as it's within easy walking distance (as in two blocks or less) of the three places listed above, as well as the downtown square, which seemed remarkably busy today. (Was it the holiday, or have things improved that much since the last time I was downtown?) I look forward to seeing what types of retail establishments go in the street-level spaces below the apartments, and the square and surrounding blocks are already home to some really good eateries, including Vetoni's on Main Street, where I ate last week, and the Corner Pocket Sandwich Shoppe, which was the site of today's lunch.

There's still a bit of work to be done in the surrounding area (the old freight rail station to the north of the property needs some big-time sprucing up), but the new development is an instant improvement to the area, and despite its new-ness, it blends in just fine with the surrounding architecture. And while the atmosphere is pretty subdued at the moment, as more people and businesses move in, downtown Garland should be hoppin' in a way that hasn't been seen in a long time.

My only gripe about all this? The prices, of course. I've long said that, as an unabashed New Urbanism fan, I'd consider living the lifestyle myself if a few things could happen: 1) I could afford a Wenger module to dampen the sounds of my practicing ( this would be a prerequisite of my ever sharing internal walls with another household), and 2) I could afford the residences themselves. A look at the floor plans for Fifth Street Crossing reveals an unfortunate truth: Their least-expensive unit (an efficiency) is a shade less per month than my mortgage payment, but it's also around half the square footage of my house. Meanwhile, their unit that comes closest to my house in square footage (but still falls short) is $600 a month more than my mortgage. (And yes, I probably wouldn't consider this place specifically since it's all rentals, and, being firmly ensconced in the world of homeownership, I still view renting--where, at the end of the day, you end up with no equity to show for your years of payments--as a step backwards. But it's not like I could afford a Southlake Brownstone or any other resident-owned New Urbanist dwelling, either--not unless my salary magically sextupled overnight.)

So, while I may not be able to afford to live this lifestyle anytime soon, I'm still going to patronize places like this and sing their praises in places like this blog and Twitter. These places are great for the community, and I'll do what I can to walk the walk (often literally) and spread the word.

The Census Didn't Make a Fool Out of Me After All

A few weeks ago, I noted the ease of filling out the 2010 Census form, even as I wondered what the point was of sending it out in mid-March when it asked for a report on the status of one's household as of today, April 1 (no foolin'). After all, someone could go through a dramatic change in household status in the two weeks between the time the forms hit our mailboxes and today. Marriages begin and end, people are born and die, people move, and so on. I wondered how many times that happened--how many people filled out their status "as of April 1" two weeks ago and were then made into liars when life got in the way of their plans.

Well, I can happily report that, here at Casa de Kev, my report of two weeks ago remains accurate today. Since I wasn't expecting marriage or babies in the past two weeks, this is a good thing; it also means no friends got kicked out of their houses and had to move in, which is also good.

Did you fill out your census form yet? There sure were a lot of signs around reminding people to do so. And if you didn't get to chime in a few weeks ago, feel free to tell me if you think the process is too intrusive or if it's OK.

Not everybody plays the fool: Did you participate in either end of an April Fool's prank today? A lot of people are noting that, in this tight job climate, it might be a really bad idea to pull one at work. I didn't see any at the schools or the college today, though, being payday, a public school kid certainly could have pretended to forget to pay me. (Alas, those who said they forgot their money weren't pretending.)

Is This Video Controversy Simply Much Badu About Nothing?

I finally got to see the much-talked-about new Erykah Badu video tonight. If you've been living in a cave for the past few days, it's for the song "Window Seat" off her new album, New Amerykah Part Two: Return of the Ankh, which (not coincidentally, I'm sure) dropped yesterday. For most of the video, she's walking down a city street doing a gradual striptease, completely oblivious to the presence of passersby, including kids. That's the controversial part for most of the nation.

But here in Dallas, it's a double shot of controversy: The street she's walking down is Elm Street, through Dealey Plaza and past the old Texas School Book Depository. That's right--the place where John F. Kennedy got shot. And just in case somebody misses the connection, there's spliced-in audio of a gunshot near the end of the video, and the naked Badu falls to the ground.

Even though it's been nearly fifty years, the collective psyche of Dallas has never quite gotten over being the site of the Kennedy assassination, and, as you can imagine, reactions here are strong in many circles. A lot of people wonder how Badu, who grew up here and graduated from the Booker T. arts magnet, could possibly do such a thing knowing how sensitive some people are to the subject.

So why did she do it? She offers an explanation:

Badu said in an interview Monday that the video for "Window Seat" was a "protest" and "about liberating yourself."

She said she chose Dealey Plaza as the backdrop because "the grassy knoll was the most monumental place in Dallas," and she compared the criticism she expected to receive to Kennedy's murder.

"I tied it in a way that compared that assassination to the character assassination one would go through after showing his or herself completely," she said. "That's exactly the action I wanted to display."

Hmm--sounds kinda fuzzy to me. I wonder if she also just wanted to get nekkid in a busy public place in broad daylight just to say that she could get away with it.

As I said, a lot of people were outraged. Here are a few samples:

"I don't understand how someone who lives here, who is a resident of this city, could do such a thing," said Lindalyn Adams, a longtime civic volunteer who is credited with rescuing Dealey Plaza from neglect and exploitation in the 1980s.

John Crawford, president of the nonprofit Downtown Dallas, added: "It's in poor taste and poor judgment, in my opinion."

But Dallas City Council member Angela Hunt, whose district includes Dealey Plaza, called the incident trivial in comparison to the many complex issues facing the city today.

While some people wondered if the video wasn't in fact some sort of videographic trickery--meaning that Badu could have stripped in front of a blue screen indoors and been inserted into the street scene by an editor--she confirmed that it was real, taking place on the afternoon of March 13, a Saturday. She noted that she was petrified the entire time she was doing the shoot.

So far, Badu hasn't been charged with anything, though she did violate several ordinances (being naked in public, doing the filming without a city permit, etc.), and city officials say that she won't be unless one of the bystanders files a complaint. And while my own reaction to the whole thing is pretty much "meh," there is one thing that bugged me--the presence of kids in the background. Here's Badu's response to that:

Asked about the presence of minors, Badu said when she saw them, "I tried to telepathically communicate my good intent to them. That's all I could do, and I hoped they wouldn't be traumatized."

Wow. Makes you wonder what she might have been smokin' beforehand, doesn't it?

If you haven't seen the video yet, a version of it is here. (The nudity has been pixelated, but it's probably still NSFW.)

UPDATE: A few days later, someone did file a complaint, so Badu will be charged with a Class C misdemeanor for disorderly conduct; the charge is so mild that the citation--which carries a $500 fine--will be mailed to her.

In DFW, We're Livin' in the 80s

No, I'm not talking about parachute pants or Flock of Seagulls haircuts or acid-washed clothing, but rather the weather. Everyone knew that it had been a pretty cold winter here in DFW, but only in the past few days did we realize that we were flirting with a record: Most consecutive days where the mercury stayed below 80 degrees.

Alas, the record was not to be ours. This afternoon, we hit 80 degrees at the airport for the first time since October 20 of last year. That's a string of 160 days, five shy of the record set 91 years ago.

I can only speak for myself, but I've been happy with the colder winter. My gas bill has never been ridiculously high, and it's nice to have some slightly better-defined seasons in an area where we usually only have "summer" and "not summer." And the wind today made it feel warm but not hot; no complaints about the day at all, save for the fact that I had to spend quite a bit of it teaching indoors.

How was the weather in your neck of the woods today?

Make breakfast in rapid-fire fashion: Want to liven up your morning meal? Here are the instructions on how to cook bacon with a machine gun.

An Un-Bear-able Finish, But a Great Season

As I pointed out earlier today on Twitter, I've been a fan of Duke basketball since a friend turned me onto them in college. I have a lot of respect for Coach K, and the teams are always fun to watch. But I just couldn't root for them today against Baylor.

Call it Texas pride, I guess; the Lone Star State had seven teams invited to the Big Dance this year, even though several bowed out in the first round (including my own alma mater, UNT) and my adopted school (via my sister), Texas A&M, went out in round two. Baylor was the last of the Mohicans, so it was hard not to root for them.

And I had a few other reasons: Baylor is home to one of the fraternity chapters I supervise, and I probably know people in their pep band, even if I couldn't recognize them because nearly everyone had a painted face. And besides that, Baylor hoops is a great story; coach Scott Drew has built the program up from the depths of despair after a series of scandals rocked the team under its previous coaching staff.

For all but the last two minutes, Baylor hung tough. The game was tied when I went to my car to leave for my gig tonight, which is why it was quite shocking to find out that, in the time it took me to get in the car, start it, and find the station that was airing the game, Duke had suddenly gone up by six points. It was pretty much all over by then.

But congrats to the Bears for a great season. And Duke, I guess I'm back in your corner again.

UPDATE: In a weird coincidence, the Baylor and Duke women's teams met the following night (with a Final Four berth also at stake), and this time, Baylor won. (It was the first time in the history of the women's tournament that both the men's and women's tournaments featured the same matchup in a regional final.)

This Was a Great Weekend, No Bones About It

Actually, that headline isn't true at all; Bones was a really big reason that this weekend has been great so far.

It was time for our annual jazz festival at the college, and our guest was Tom "Bones" Malone, best known for his work with the Blues Brothers, Saturday Night Live, and his current gig with the CBS Orchestra on the Letterman show.

As his nickname implies, Malone's main instrument is the trombone, but he plays quite a bit more than that:

A versatile musician, Malone plays piccolo, flute, alto flute, soprano sax, alto sax, tenor sax, baritone sax, piccolo trumpet, trumpet, flügelhorn, bass trumpet, euphonium, trombone, bass trombone, tuba, electric bass, and synthesizer programmer.

And I'm pretty sure that list is incomplete, because Bones himself says that he plays a total of 41 instruments.

On Friday night, Bones joined the college faculty in a re-creation of his 1992 CD Standards of Living (which appears, sadly, to be out-of-print). It's a septet date with unusual, Gil Evans-inspired takes on eight familiar standards that featured lots of room for blowing, and that's how we approached the gig as well. The only things rehearsed were the heads and endings; even solo order was not determined until Bones pointed at someone.

During the big band portion of each evening, Bones did something that was very much expected from someone who plays the number of instruments that he does, but the crowd (especially last night's roomful of middle- and high schoolers) still ate it up: During a blues tune, Bones would alternate soloing with different members of the band, but each time he came back, it would be on another instrument. After opening on trombone, he also soloed on tuba, piccolo, trumpet and baritone sax (I should mention that all but the piccolo and trombone were borrowed, since current airline regulations make flying with multiple instruments very cost-prohibitive; he just brings mouthpieces for the rest). It was fun to watch the crowd's reaction every time he came out with a new horn.

I had gotten to meet Bones a few years back when he was initiated into Sinfonia at UNT, but it was great to spend a good part of the weekend with him, both on- and offstage. He's a really great guy and a fabulous musician.

The weekend isn't over yet; I have one more gig tonight that's completely unrelated to the festival, and after that, I'll be looking forward to a four-day school week and a very unscheduled Easter weekend.

Say It Ain't So, Jack!

This will be a very busy weekend, with Jazz Festival coming up tomorrow and Saturday and yet another gig on Sunday night. But I'm chiming in just long enough to note today's announcement that the current season of 24 will be its last. Here's the announcement, via MySpace:

In a joint decision made by 24’s star and executive producer Kiefer Sutherland, executive producer and showrunner Howard Gordon, Twentieth Century Fox Television, Imagine Entertainment and Fox Broadcasting Company, it was determined that the acclaimed series will end its remarkable eight-season run. Jack Bauer’s last day on FOX will conclude when the final two hours of “Day Eight” air Monday, May 24 (8:00-10:00 PM ET/PT). As the countdown to the series’ climactic conclusion races on, the final 11 hours will air uninterrupted Mondays (9:00-10:00 PM ET/PT) on FOX.

Multiple award-winning series star Kiefer Sutherland reflected on the show’s run: “This has been the role of a lifetime, and I will never be able to fully express my appreciation to everyone who made it possible. While the end of the series is bittersweet, we always wanted 24 to finish on a high note, so the decision to make the eighth season our last was one we all agreed upon. This feels like the culmination of all our efforts from the writers to the actors to our fantastic crew and everyone at Fox. Looking ahead to the future, Howard Gordon and I are excited about the opportunity to create the feature film version of 24. But when all is said and done, it is the loyal worldwide fan base that made it possible for me to have the experience of playing the role of Jack Bauer, and for that I am eternally grateful.”

I started watching 24 in its fourth season (and I'm sure I'll catch up on the first three via DVD eventually), and I've been hooked ever since. The writing has had its ups and downs over the years, but the action (not to mention the roller coaster-ish pace of the show) has never failed to provide enjoyment. I've taped the show every week (yes, I'm still in my old-school pre-TiVo era over here) and even gotten to watch it as it aired recently, and this news will make me even more vigilant about setting my VCR properly (to catch things such as the two-hour episode set for April 5).

Congrats to Keifer and company on a job well done. I look forward to the conclusion of this seasons and the eventual movie.

Performing for a Less-Than-Perfect Audience?Perhaps Keith Should Just Grin and Jarrett

The legendary jazz pianist Keith Jarrett is known for a lot of positive things: Dazzling technique, musicality approaching the sublime, the ability to improvise solo for an entire evening and leave the audience enchanted. But he also has a few quirks: The distracting, nasal vocalizing that's often done along with (and sometimes as a major distraction to) his playing, and, especially lately, a rather prickly relationship with his audiences.

You might have already seen his rant against an audience in Italy (often known simply as the "no effing flash photography!" incident), and last week, he railed against a California audience, seemingly because of the high crime of excessive coughing:

Good thing Keith Jarrett had the piano on his side Friday night. Otherwise, things could have gotten really ugly.

The jazz piano legend was at Davies Symphony Hall, performing one of his rare solo concerts, where the conceit is that every improvised piece is an act of pure, spontaneous creation. (Although, judging from Jarrett's comments, he does prime the mental pump a bit in his rehearsal studio.)

The approach often leads to moments of incandescent brilliance, as documented on a growing canon of recordings. Lately, it also tends to bring out the artist's cantankerous side, expressed in free-form kvetches about various unsatisfactory aspects of the performance set-up.

Friday night, it was the audience's turn to take the hits, as Jarrett frequently broke stride to complain about coughing and other seemingly minor distractions. The climax came in the second set, when Jarrett scolded the audience for so long that some members started shouting "Shut up and play," along with a few choicer epithets.

This need for absolute quiet is not peculiar to Jarrett, of course; classical performances generally demand the same silence, as do professional golfers. But few people seem to take it as personally as Jarrett. David Becker of the Bay Area Jazz Examiner, who wrote the story linked and quoted above, noted a few other things:

Fact is, you can't put 3,000 living animals into an acoustically sensitive space and expect absolute silence. Life makes sounds.

And Jarrett's apparent belief in the artist needing needing and deserving absolute control is a romantic fossil, at best. Not to mention a delusion for anything with a price tag attached to it.

Besides, doesn't improvisation at least partly mean working with what's there?

Good point. If you want absolute perfection with regard to your environment, stick to the recording studio. While some of the commenters at the linked story defended Jarrett's demands, others fall in line with my own thinking: If someone is being intentionally disruptive, then yes, go ahead and toss 'em. But for those who paid to see you and happen to have an unfortunate moment of humanity...well, maybe they should be treated a little bit better, or they'll stop coming to see you and tell their friends to do the same.

More thoughts from Becker may be found in this later story.

(Hat tip: Christian McBride, via MySpace; I told you people still use it!)

"Welcome to Chipotle. Please select your meat, beans, salsa...and energy."

I saw this on MySpace today (yes, some of us still use it!), and I thought it was cool: The Collin Creek location of Chipotle (a legendary haunt in the early days of this blog) is about to have solar panels installed as part of the company's new energy initiative:

The solar panels would reduce the restaurants’ traditional energy consumption during peak hours of energy use – 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. The amount of power produced will eliminate more than 41 million pounds of carbon dioxide emissions, according to a Chipotle news release.

Chipotle has purchased enough solar panels to install in about 75 restaurants, Arnold said, but identifying which Chipotle locations receive them is an ongoing process.

The company is looking at the restaurants’ access to sunlight, the lease terms, as well as neighboring buildings. Considering multiple criteria and parties involved, including municipalities, can make the process tedious, but it’s what the corporation deems right, Arnold said.

The solar power initiative stems from the restaurant chain’s core principle of “food with integrity,” Arnold said. It has been known to serve naturally raised meat from antibiotics- and hormone-free environments and is looking to expand in its use of local produce.

As I said, there was a time when I was at this Chipotle pretty much every week; the personnel knew me and my cohorts so well that they would tell us our orders before we even said anything. (This location, usually referred to as "15th Street" because of the exit off Central Expressway used to access it, was also the site of one of my craziest gastronomic accomplishments: the successful completion of the Two-Burrito Challenge, or 2BC for short.)

With the exception of special visits with the jazz combo (especially during exam week), I don't get to this location quite as often these days (especially since one opened up in my own neighborhood back in '05), but it's great to see the location doing well, and, as a freestanding building, it makes sense that this location is one to receive the solar panels.

And while I may not be a "greenie" or anything (even if I do own a pair of Birkenstocks), it's still nice to see a building become self-sustaining in this manner. So it's cool to think that, while any trip to Chipotle offers the choice of "black or pinto beans?", going to 15th Street will also give the option of "regular or solar power?". My proverbial hat (which is made of foil on Halloween) is off to them.

DId the NFL Brass Work Overtime Thinking Up This Idea?

It's been a busy week already, so I haven't had a lot of time to follow the news, but this sports story caught my eye: The NFL will be change the rules for overtime during playoff games:

Starting next season, if a team wins the coin toss and then kicks a field goal, the other team gets the ball. If that next series ends with another field goal, play will continue under the current sudden-death rules.

If the team winning the toss immediately scores a touchdown, however, the game is over.

Team owners voted 28-4 on Tuesday in favor of the proposal at the NFL meetings. Minnesota, Buffalo, Cincinnati and Baltimore opposed the change.

It appears that they're operating on the idea that the coin toss has become too big of a factor in who wins the overtime game, and the new rule change is supposed to provide a more level playing field (pun slightly intended) for the team that loses the toss. It's also expected that, if this change works out well in the playoffs, it will be implemented during the regular season in the future.

I'm inclined to give this rule a chance before deciding whether or not I like it, though my first thought was, "That's wimpy!" (In the linked story, Brandon Stokley--a receiver for the Denver Broncos--seems to agree when he says, "If you're on defense first and you don't have the ball, you've just got to stop them.'') But I certainly like the sudden-death variety of overtime better than the convoluted "start on your opponent's 20-yard-line" process that they use in college, even if my alma mater's seven-overtime thriller in '06 was quite entertaining). I'm sure the first team that wins the toss, kicks a field goal and then loses by a touchdown on the next possession will complain, but we'll just have to see how this works.

What are your thoughts? Good idea, bad idea, or indifferent? Let me know in the comments.

Today's pathway leads to Holland: Today was the release of the long-awaited debut from the Dave Holland Octet, Pathways. It's the traditional quintet of Holland (bass), Chris Potter (tenor/soprano), Robin Eubanks (trombone), Steve Nelson (vibes/marimba) and Nate Smith (drums), with three more horns: Gary Smulyan (bari), Antonio Hart (alto) and Alex Sipiagin (trumpet). All three of the latter are in Holland's big band, and this group appears to be a nice bridge between the smaller and larger ensembles. Thanks to Dave's label Dare2 Records affiliating with eMusic, I was able to download the album over breakfast this morning, and I'll try to have a review of it posted in the weeks to come.

Walking in a Spring Break Wonderland

I knew that it was supposed to get colder this weekend and maybe even rain yesterday, but the idea that there might be snow this weekend was unknown to me until a friend complained that his outdoor gig got postponed yesterday because of the possibility of the white stuff. But it's easy to be a weather skeptic here in North Texas, thanks to years upon years of screaming headlines on the ten o'clock news about the upcoming ARCTIC BLAST! that rarely, if ever, pan out the next morning.

I did see some precipitation that could be called a flurry-raindrop hybrid during yesterday afternoon's errands, and by the time we went to a late dinner last night, there was quite a bit of blowing snow, though the forecast seemed to have the heavier stuff to the north and west of the Metroplex. The roof was covered when I got home last night, but everything was supposed to stop by this morning, when the winter weather advisory was set to expire.

So imagine my surprise when I woke up to this:


(I love how the landscape lights look like giant mushrooms...)

So it turns out that Chicago wasn't my only snow experience in the Winter of '10 after all; I had been bummed when I missed the mini-blizzard here last month while I was away at TMEA, but who knew that winter would make an unauthorized trip across the border of spring (which started yesterday at 12:32 in the afternoon).

And now they're saying that there's a 50/50 shot of more snow throughout the entire day. But it won't quite hit freezing tonight, so there's little if any chance of spring break being extended by an extra day (which would be made up in a few weeks, on The Holiday That Schools Aren't Allowed to Call Good Friday Anymore). And to top that off, tomorrow's high is supposed to be 60. Gotta love our Texas weather...

To Me, The Latest Rangers Controversy Is a Wash; Let's Move On

I couldn't believe it when I read the headline on Twitter yesterday: Ron Washington Tested Positive for Cocaine. Say what?

But sadly, it's true. It happened in the middle of last season, in July of last year. And since then, the local sports outlets have been in a frenzy, to say the least. Here's what we know so far:

• Washington says it was a one-time thing, an "attempt to dodge personal anxieties and personal issues.'' I have no reason not to take him at his word, for now.


• He informed the league, along with team president Nolan Ryan and GM Jon Daniels soon after the incident, noting that he would likely fail any drug test that might be given to him shortly thereafter.


• Such a test did take place, and he did fail it. He has completed the MLB's drug treatment program.


• He offered his resignation to Ryan and Daniels after the positive test, and that request was declined.

You can read the full statement made by Washington at a press conference yesterday at the link above.

Our local paper, the Dallas Morning News, is all over the story. Among other things, they report that Ft. Worth Star-Telegram columnist Randy Galloway has filed a story that a disgruntled former employee tried to blackmail the team by threatening to expose the results of Washington's test, but Ryan and Daniels have refuted that story. (Still, it makes one wonder how the results, which are supposed to be confidential, were leaked.) The DMN's Tim Cowlishaw thinks that Washington may not be long for the Rangers. as the team can't afford to stand by him for very long. And the newspaper's nattering nabob of negativity, Jean-Jacques Taylor, thinks that thinks Wash should have been fired right away, no questions asked (although JJT later predicts on his blog that the manager is likely to finish the season with the team. Meanwhile, the players seem to have his back. And the key points of the story are summarized here.

One of the underlying themes of this whole thing is the idea of second chances, and the fact that the Rangers are willing to give them can be summed up in two words: Josh Hamilton. I'll agree with Cowlishaw that a manager snorting coke seems to be uncharted territory (whereas far too many players have gotten in trouble for such a thing), but it seems that Washington has done everything properly since the unfortunate incident. I say let him manage, and if the team falls far short of Ryan's projected 92 wins, Wash will be outta here anyway. In the meantime, I wish the best for the man, who obviously had some big problems and chose a very, very bad way to solve them.

Erin Go Blog

Happy St. Patrick's Day to all my fellow Irish, and anyone else who feels like being Irish for a day (as I noted on Twitter, a "day pass" is free). Not only am i wearing green, but the green in question is a T-shirt that came from Ireland itself, when Mom and Dad went there a few years ago (Mom and Dad went to Ireland, and all I got was a pretty cool T-shirt...and some Guinness, though I would have enjoyed the factory tour they took even more). My T-shirt says Sláinte!, which is an old Irish toast roughly meaning "good health." As I noted a few years ago, it was a popular slogan for the Bennigan's restaurant chain, which lost its good health a few years ago. (UPDATE: Someone at a place where I ate later in the day saw the shirt and immediately asked me if it came from Bennigan's. Heh.)

Once again, it's spring break, so I don't get to see the amusement that takes place when the kids at school who forgot to wear green find creative ways to avoid being pinched (safety-pinning a green ribbon to one's shirt--or even a piece of green construction paper--was a popular avoidance technique). But I imagine that there will be a lot of green to be seen when I'm out and about later in the day.

So what do you plan on doing to celebrate the day today? As I've said before, I'm not a big fan of group identity politics or anything of the sort, but I'm perfectly happy to spend one day a year celebrating the most outward portion of my heritage (I'm only a quarter Irish, with the rest being English and French, but my name is pretty much all Irish, all the time).

Another celebration of Green: Best of luck to the men's basketball team from my alma mater, North Texas, which is playing Kansas State in the first round of the Big Dance tomorrow. It'll even be on TV locally, at the expense of the Baylor game that's slated to tip off around the same time. Kudos to CBS 11 for realizing who the "home" team is between the two.