Thursday, August 31, 2006

A few quick hits as I desperately strive towards 5PM and an exit.

1) Go see Little Miss Sunshine. Wife and I loved it. Both times.
2) Took another break in history reading to read Old Man's War by John Scalzi. Really good military sci-fi that transcends the military plot. Excellent, quick read.
3) Upon complaining about some really dumb questions UT asks scholarship applicants, I was asked to suggest some more. Here's a couple I have - please comment your answers or other suggested questions.
--If you could choose any single time and place to live in, when and where would it be? (thanks to coworker Trevor)
--Earth will be rendered uninhabitable in a week, and you have been chosen to select the 1,000 people who will be able to leave the planet to continue the human race. Who/How do you choose?
4) Um, why are you still here? You should be on your way to see Little Miss Sunshine!
posted by Unknown 4:01 PM | 0 comments

Tuesday, August 22, 2006

Work gets hard when the only skill I get to develop is patience.
posted by Unknown 9:05 AM | 1 comments

Monday, August 21, 2006

In the spirit of Instant History and VH1 reality shows, I present to you: Best Decade Ever. (I know you were hoping for Flavor of Chuck, but you'll have to settle.) (Also, I know this shoulda been a few weeks ago, but I'm slowing down in my old age.)

Things I Did For The First Time Last Decade:
Made more than $12/hour (apologies to all the teachers out there).
Visited New Orleans, Padre, Richmond, Seattle, Boston (woot Cape Cod!), Greenville/Farmville, NC; Minneapolis, Indianapolis, San Mateo.
Pulled 2 all-nighters.
Graduated from college.
Bought a car.
Bought furniture.
Got a career kinda job.
Had a non-college roommate (all kinds of subcategory firsts here).
Quit a job (and maybe a couple more).
Picked up a hitchhiker.
Got drunk (some might dispute this definition, as I remember the whole night and didn't do anything embarrassing).
Drove to DC and back, both in 24-hour stretches, and picked up a cat on the way home.
Bought a home.
Online dated.
Read the Bible.
Went to NCAA Regional Final games (watching UT cut the nets).
Cheered for the Colts.
Bought jewelry (in this case, a diamond ring).
Got married.
Drove to campus to celebrate a national football championship.

Things I Remember Happening In The Last Decade:
A commentator the night of Princess Diana's death talking about how no fuss would be made if Mother Theresa died, then Mother Theresa dying the next day, and the fuss felt obligatory as the commentator's clip was replayed ad nauseam.
My parents getting online, which still seems somewhat unreal.
Harry Potter.
9/11: I was taking the day off work in Houston to come to a scholarship dinner back in Austin. I was looking for something on TV to watch when I noticed CNN looked different. That afternoon, I tried to give blood, but every blood bank had more people than they could handle. That evening, I had to drive to Austin and back, and the silence was eerie.
Lord of the Rings movies (we'll ignore the other "major" trilogy).
Some TV actually worth watching: 24, Angel, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Family Guy, Firefly, Freaks and Geeks, Prison Break, Veronica Mars, West Wing.
Vince Young.
posted by Unknown 4:17 PM | 0 comments

Sunday, August 20, 2006

This is a great post by a friend who's visiting missionaries in Uganda. Reader Beware: it's about their group visiting genocide memorials and sites in Rwanda, so there's some difficult descriptions and such: http://bradinafrica.blogspot.com/2006/08/survey-safari-part-ii.html.
posted by Unknown 2:53 PM | 0 comments

Just thought this was cool, and I wanted to share: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuleshov_Effect. Let's hear it for context! (I found this as a result of this blog entry: http://ken-jennings.com/blog/?p=122.)
posted by Unknown 2:12 PM | 0 comments

Thursday, August 17, 2006

If you could travel back in time, would you mess with anything? I know there's the whole "unforeseeable consequences," but would you want to let the government know about 9/11? Or warn Lincoln? Or ask Hitler's art teacher to pass him, for the world's sake? Dunno why this question's been in my head lately, but it has been. Of course, my options would also include "Don't use another soap star for Buffy's sister. Please." Or "Mack, trust me, other schools need Chris Simms more. Can we recommend him to OU?"
posted by Unknown 5:22 PM | 4 comments

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Some notes on recent reading: I took a break halfway through Rise of the West to read The Prydain Chronicles, a 5-book series based on Welsh mythology and including The Black Cauldron, which most of us know as a cultural-history-bastardized-by-Disney-into-a-sitcom animated movie. The movie's actually not bad, but actively replaces the entire meaning of characters, plotlines, and the overall story. The books were great (and a nice relief from somewhat dryer history) - they surprised me a few times - and I highly recommend them.

Now I'm back in Rise of the West. Interesting note on how European merchants differed from those of the rest of the world. In the rest of the world, warlords/kings arose through military and political power, and consciously hired artists to make things they like, and eventually traders from within the bureaucracy to acquire foreign things they like. So merchants were always within and part of the ruling body. In Europe, they started out as, well, Vikings. No, I'm not kidding. Vikings and other raiders would steal and plunder loot from farms. Often it wasn't a well-rounded enough haul to supply all their needs, so they'd trade excess for other food or supplies. As the knight nobility grew, the raiders could no longer steal, but they knew what was valuable where, so they morphed into traders (who also practiced plundering when the opportunity arose). Yep, Mighty Morphing Power Traders. Since they were definitely not part of the government, they provided their own protection and enforced their own rules, and formed a parallel authority to secular and church governments. So "independent" business today, and the victory of Halliburton over the federal government, is just an extension of medieval Viking raids. Sounds like bosses I've had.
posted by Unknown 6:14 PM | 2 comments

Sunday, August 13, 2006

Wow, it's already been one year. Can you imagine, a year ago, David Lange was still alive? Yep, the 32nd Prime Minister of New Zealand died on this day a year ago. Oh, yeah, and I got married. (In researching this joke, I also discovered August 13 is International Lefthanders' Day! So I have 2 reasons for this to be my favorite day of the year.)

So we celebrated (our anniversary, not Mr. Lange's death) by heading to Pleasant Hills, a bed and breakfast near Fredericksburg. Great place! We highly recommend it for couples looking to get away. We drove around Fredericksburg a bit - apparently kamikaze butterflies are in season as they assaulted our windshield all weekend long. I showed Wife Enchanted Rock, but due to my crashing my foot into the stairs last week, we decided to forgo any hiking. We window-shopped a little bit around town, and played mini-golf, a long-standing tradition since, er, um, about this time last year on our honeymoon.

We also enjoyed great sandwiches and desserts at Rather Sweet Bakery and Cafe. Service seemed a little slow there, but that seemed to be the theme of the town. The food was amazing. Actually Wife picked up our desserts from Rather Sweet while I got the car. She told me she'd gotten herself a cookie and me a "surprise" pastry. Being her, she told me about the surprise on the drive to Peaceful Hills as follows: "Well, it's got coconut, chocolate chips, graham cracker crust ... actually, never mind, I think I bought the cookie for you." This change of possession was later resolved in my favor. If you're ever at the bakery, I highly recommend the Hello Dolly.

We also had a good German dinner at Altdorf's. Unfortunately we also had one of our worst common culinary experiences at Der Lindenbaum. We get there for dinner, walk in - there's no indication whether to wait to be seated or just sit, but after a minute of the entire staff standing at the bar doing nothing staring at us, someone finally told us to sit wherever we'd like. At about the same time, an older couple sits down at the table next to us. The waiter, after about 5 minutes, takes both of our drink orders. Wife orders a glass of wine, and I get a Coke, and since we've had so much time, we also order our food. In the 10 minutes before he returns (I should notice the time in between these events is not spent helping other customers - it's standing at the bar with the other workers looking bored), they decide to leave. Smart them. We get our drinks - Wife's wine smells disgusting, and tastes to match. But that's German wine, you say! Can't disagree there, but the Coke tasted wrong too - and it was from a can! Not good. But we've ordered, so we wait. A couple with a toddler come in and sit at the table next to us - they too leave before ordering looking unhappy at the service. The couple on the other side of us doesn't even finish their cake and leave, looking unhappy with everything. Finally, after another half an hour in which several other tables' food arrives, we just leave cash on the table and walk out. Bad service, bad drinks, seemingly bad food - just an all-around terrible place. We assume they have large professional advertisements because they have no repeat business, and must attract all the naive tourists they can.

But idiot restaurants aside, it was a great weekend, as it's been a great year. Many thanks to Wife for putting up with me this long (it's Day 633 since we met, if anyone's counting), and to all of you for putting up with my sentimentality. Tis fun. :-)
posted by Unknown 5:02 PM | 2 comments

Tuesday, August 08, 2006

VERY IMPORTANT REQUEST: Central Dallas Ministries is trying to renovate a downtown office building for the main use of low-rent apartments to help people in need. They've actually qualified for help from the stingiest of stingies, the Texas Government. To get that help, they need to raise $100,000 by October 31. More details, including how to donate are here.

I've read the CEO's blog for a couple of years and looked up the organization's performance. It does great things to both empower people long-term and address short-term needs. If you like what they're doing and are able to, please help with any donation you can manage.

I've stored up a bunch of blog topics that I'll try to start tomorrow - today this was too important to wait a day. Thanks!
posted by Unknown 9:29 PM | 1 comments

Saturday, August 05, 2006

Woot! Happy (Belated) 30th Birthday To Me!!! I know I've been off the radar for a while - I'll try to make it up to all 3? 4? 5? of you who still read this thing.

My 30th birthday rocked. From my perspective, the birthday on Monday, July 31, started Friday, July 29, when Wife showed up at my office with a Hoody's Sub cheesesteak and Coke Slurpee for lunch. She deserved a thank-you post just for that (ya know, since these posts are worth so much in free publicity), as it was tasty and well-enjoyed. Little did I know wheels were turning.

The next day, we were heading to Reale's for lunch. I, being somewhat slovenly, had neglected to shave, so Wife spilled the beans: "We're meeting Craig and Brooke for a surprise Leo Birthday Lunch - now go get cleaned up!" Craig, Brooke, and I, along with currently-Ugandan missionaries Spencer and Emily, all have birthdays falling between July 24 and August 6 (speaking of which, Happy Birthday Spencer! if you read this), and being a prideful pride of Leos, have celebrated many years with a meal together. Well, Spencer and Emily won't be returning to America, much less Austin, until maybe 2008 (personally I think Spencer's waiting out OU's now-traditional "rebuilding years"), so the rest of us had decided not to wait. It appeared they'd connived with Wife to do it as a surprise for me. So I followed orders and cleaned up and we went to Reale's.

Brooke and Craig had just gotten there when we arrived, and I tried to act surprised although Wife had spilled said beans. When we went in, they didn't take us to a table - they just waved us towards a back room which, oddly, had blinds closed over the windows. Yep, this was just a layered deception (like an onion!) and about 30 of my friends had been pulled together by the more-devious-than-I-expected Wife for a surprise birthday lunch and bowling. The attendees represented my old high school classmates, college friends from my dorm and the business school, coworkers from 3 of my 5 post-college jobs, my old church, and family, including 3 out-of-towners (although they all live in Houston, where everyone tries to escape as much as possible). It should also be noted that the last time I was surprised was my high school graduation party (my parents rented out the entire Jeffrey's restaurant on a Sunday), when Craig was also the delivery mechanism. So an impressive confluence of the different parts of my life. And a little scary, but nothing scary happened. A great time was had by all (including Beth's ominous and more than a little unsettling Old Age Survival Kit - since she turned 30 last December, I assume she's needed all these things).

Most of the assembled folks joined us for bowling too. It was the worst of times (4 gutterballs in a row) and the best of times (followed immediately by an 8, 4 consecutive strikes, and a 9 to finish with 152), and cake was involved. :-) And I got to give Aggie Cousin Vaden the bowling name "Lost 6 In A Row". I've printed out that score and might frame it some time.

That wasn't the end (an excellent extended family party at the in-laws' Saturday night, dinner with my folks Sunday, and taking the day off work plus more Hoody's cheesesteak on Monday itself), but the party was one of the coolest things anyone's ever done for me. Thank you, Wife! And all my friends who keep a secret far better than I ever suspected.
posted by Unknown 11:37 PM | 2 comments