Random Randomness (is that a word?)

Once again the folks in da 'hood got together and fought the big bad apartment developer and won ... YEA!
Things I found out from the developer:
His apartments if sold individually would be worth more than the houses in the neighborhood ... Ummm yeah when have you seen a 250K or more apartment in Midland?
Large Apartment complexes raise the values of homes in the area ... thats a "national statistic" they said
Apartments cause less traffic cause they have only one car and go less places ... Then why do people have to park on the street in the 3 complexes already in my area? And Oh I forgot they will ride bikes to Cotton Patch for chicken fried steaks ....
Shhhhh .... there virtually no crime around apartment complexes
and last but not least ..... Traffic has been REDUCED by up to 5,000 cars a day on Loop 250 between Garfield to Midland Dr. ..... ummmm have they driven the loop lately?

The Madman Pres of Iran knows how to make Iranian stews and dishes and people like them and he hardly ever visits his family because he is to busy making threats to wipe Israel off the map.

Gordon Ramsey didn't call us American's pathetic, he called the sue happy sensibility of some looser manager pathetic and He is right.

Speaking of cooking .... Isn't Top Chef on Bravo getting a little long in the tooth? I mean Hell's Kitchen has come and gone in the time they've been on or you know it's been on to long when you have a "review show" in the middle of it's summer season.

Picked up season 1 of Heroes on dvd, season 2 starts September 24th, if you haven't seen the show take a look at it, its fun, kinda geeky and is a great story all in one. Plus, in season 1 the story ran through Midland and Odessa, with Claire being the indestructible cheerleader from Odessa, Save the Cheerleader, Save the World!

Thats is all, now get back to your random randomness ...

On The Road, Larry and the Wii.

Last weekend(make that the weekend before last) I took a road trip, one that in my mind would have been a mini "On The Road" experience. Next month, Jack Kerouc's On The Road will celebrate it's 50th year in print and I've always loved the idea as millions of others of the open road, no particular schedule or destination. The roadtrip didn't turn out quite like I had envisioned, still fun but not reminiscent of that show Route 66. So I thought of some rules for the ultimate "On The Road" roadtrip:

1. No roadtrips that involve stopping to see family. I'm not saying its bad to see family just that it kills the open road "explorer vibe" when you see some familiarity.
2. Don't take parents with you. Even if they're nice, still have that "authority" figure riding shotgun.
3. Pick your friend carefully. See any "road movie" and this proves to be true
4. Destination not really important. Just pick a place with something to see when you get there.
5. You have to travel in a convertible. To experience the open road you must get a feel, smell and the wind of the open road.
6. Stop and eat. Find that little hole in the wall place in a little town, you might be surprised just how good the food is.
7. Ipod. Packed with road tunes ... Freebird, Roll on down the highway, Ramblin' Man, any and all Bob Dylan etc.



So back to the weekend before last roadtrip, I finally made the pilgrimage to Booked Up in Archer City, TX. I hoped to find some really rare editions to add to my cookbook collection, turned out not to be so. The selection for cookbooks was a little thin, but typical, since really the cookbook category of the market really didn't get hot until the 80's and now is very hard to get published. I did get a book on the "Butter Industry" and a "Treatise on Baking" both from the 20's. While looking over the VAST and I mean VAST other selections of books, I was in the back "garage" of Booked Up no. 1 when I had my brush with greatness. I went to look for Texanna books and mystery books when I noticed a man that looked vaguely familiar sorting and pricing books. We had a pleasant exchange about how hot the weather was and if any more cookbooks could be found elsewhere, nope all looked at already in no.4. So, it was time to go and check out and when I did I asked the nice lady there if that was in fact the man himself back there sweating away pricing books, She why yes thats Mr Larry McMurtry himself. I told her that I didn't want to bother him but my father-in-law who is an avid reader of McMurtry told me to pass along that the only book that he did "get" was "All My Friends Are Going To Be Strangers", she laughed and said she would pass that along. So there folks was my brush with fame, the most recent Oscar winner for co-writing a script to a movie I'll never bother to see, but a damn good writer anyway.

As for the Wii, FINALLY got one and talk about FUN, it's fantastic! The Wii has wireless networking built right in and with the expenditure of 500 Wii points (5 bucks) you can download the Wii Opera browser. I checked all the local bloggers with the browser and that all work and look great. The only thing the browser can't do yet is things like Flash, Java, Quicktime, yet it CAN run YouTube videos without a hitch. I'm looking foward to see how Nintendo expands the platform with things that aren't just shoot'em up, but with games that expand your brain and minimize your waistline (Wii Fitness makes ya break a sweat).

WOW! Never truer words

New iMacs and other cool stuff

The new look is growing on me, It has a nice brushed metal look kinda iPhone-ish. The new keyboard is borrowed from the MacBook and is very thin and simply beautiful. I bought a 24" iMac about a month ago and I don't regret the purchase, its very fast and does what I need and the new iMacs aren't that much faster. What I'm excited about is the new "i" apps, iLife '08 and iWork '08. I ordered them as soon as the online store reopened and just received iWork, with MyLife I mean iLife on the way tomorrow, hopefully.

 iWork adds a new app that has been missing in the past, Numbers. I can't wait to get into the finer details of Pages, it really feels like a true desktop publishing program like Quark or the ole Pagemaker. Keynote gives you some new animation, so you can animate maps and use them in other projects. Anyway I'm excited about it.

It's a Deja Vu all over again ...

At the end of June my neighborhood joined together to contest yet another very large apartment complex and extending a street through to the Loop 250 access road. In our neighborhood between the major streets that border us we have 3 apartment complexes, 1 hotel and a handful of various retail stores and restaurants. During the city council meeting in which we had a very large contingency we were told that basically the council would look into resurrecting a former council ordinance on making Whitman a Cul-de-sac and the present council took no action on the complex, thus killing the project. The mayor himself said we need to give these folks "some relief" and make a final decision on Whitman and the vacant land. When we left the meeting everyone had the general impression that the project was DOA and was hoping some day to see a cul-de-sac built. 

NOT SO FAST, today once again the neighborhood will have to join together to fight the very some project that we contested before, exactly the same. This time we hope to "nip it in the bud" so to speak with the Planning and Zoning Commission and finally put this thing to bed forever. While at the meeting we were informed that traffic on our relatively quiet street would go from a typical 200 cars a day to an enormous 700 PLUS! basically ruining our neighborhood. So I hope the city can live up to what the mayor said before by "giving these folks some relief" but based on some other issues they have "resolved" recently, I wonder...

Update: The Planning and Zoning Commission approved a slightly different plan, Whitman would be "walled off" and some buildings would be reduced to 2 stories to maintain privacy for neighborhood backyards. Our concerns and petition did not concern the PZC saying that locating the complex there would not effect home values, crime, traffic etc. anymore than it would effect any other neighborhood. I was reminded of a quote when I read our neighborhood bulletin board ... The City Council promised us that NO apartment complex will be built there while the current council is in control, let hope they can keep their word better than what they told us one week about the City Mgr. and did the very opposite the next. August the 28th we'll find out.

Texas: 6 places been, 6 places to be

Hey, everybody's doing it, Eric and Jimmy so here's mine:

6 Places I've Been:

1. Caddo Lake - in a flat bottom boat with a 5 hp johnson outboard with my brother at sunset. The images of birds, turtles, alligators and beautiful swamps are still painted in my memories.

2. A French Bistro in Austin - I think it was on 7th, what a memorable meal it was, everything cooked to perfection and an apology for running out of squab (pigeon, which I didn't want anyway).

3. The Salt Lick - Driftwood, one of the grand halls of bar-b-que, be prepared to wait, sign in and they will call out your number eventually. When seated you get 45 mins to eat as much as you can then you are out, they have another 2,000 people waiting to eat on a typical saturday night.

4. The State Capitol - I drove by it many times and am still in awe of it. When I was attending culinary school in Austin I would gauge the weather by my ability to see the dome from a part of my commute.

5. The Riverwalk - The first "date-trip" my lovely bride and I took. Still remember the uhum great service at Dick's Last Resort.

6. Marfa - Mod Art in the middle of nowhere.

Places I need to go:

1. Lost Maples State Park - Get the impossible camping spot during october when the leaves change.

2. Any curvy road - I need a curvy road that I can safely feel the g's the Crossfire can take.

3. Dr Pepper Plant in Dublin - I need to make that pilgrimage for the best carbonated prune juice you can get.

4. Booked Up - I can only dream of the cookbooks they have there

5. That Museum at Thurber - Every time I drive to Dallas, I say to myself I'm going to stop and I can't use construction as an excuse anymore.

6.  Meyerson Symphony Hall in Dallas - One of I.M. Pei's masterpiece buildings, I've seen bits and pieces from afar but I want to fully experience the building and go inside.

Close Down the Internets!

Sir Elton John says we need to close down the internet because his musical tastes haven't changed since the 70's, when he last had a hit. He finds dismay in the ability to record professional music in your home and put it out on the internet for all to hear, He thinks we should just sit around listening to old scratchy vinyls of Goodbye Yellowbrick Road. This is yet another case of somebody so out of touch with the realities of modern society, no wonder his last "album" flopped. The internet has brought out more music THAN EVER, people can share their talents with the world without the need of a middleman record company taking all the profits and stealing a little bit of their soul. I for one believe the internet has increased the flow of music, it allows you to find what you like and purchase directly from the artist, you can "social network" your music with services like iLike.com, find old out of print albums etc. the list goes on. So, Sir Elton you are wrong! go back to being a 70's has been where you belong.