Monday Meanderings 2.28.2010

Happy hour at the Seaside Motel and Condominium (Pets OK) begins every evening at 5pm, when the occupants of  #207  bring out a board about 3 feet long and hook it to the wooden railing that goes around the perimeter. Folks start showing up bringing, chips, dips, pastries and whatever beverage they prefer and stand around and visit. I don't know if these people are traveling together, if they are Winter Texans, or just know a good social occasion when they see one. The serving board, seemingly made to fit that rail, suggests they have been at this a while. Interesting.

Alas, the best Gumbo anywhere is no more, and that's not the greatest tragedy. We were stunned to see on the news that the couple that owned the Mama Roux New Orleans Cafe both died in an apparent murder-suicide! Sort of makes it seems petty to whine about no more good gumbo under those circumstances.

Taxi seen on the streets of Port A had the usual lighted sign on top - but interestingly, it read "Intaxicated." I don't know if that means you should call this taxi when you are in that state, or if that is the state of the cab driver.

Item on the news about brides choosing funeral homes as the location for their weddings. We thought that strange, but one funeral director cleared things up when he stated, "There's not much difference between weddings and funerals." He said it - I didn't.

And Jon Acuff of "Stuff Christians Like" said a friend of his was keeping the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue right by his side, "...so he would know who to pray for, and have their... faces right at hand to help him remember.

And what do you think the odds are of rolling into Nixon, Texas (pop. 2,138) on a Sunday afternoon and finding someone to repair a rapidly deflating tire? Turns out, pretty good. The guys at Villasenor Tire Service #3 had us back on the road in minutes.

And here's why marrying a good speller is important:

Perfect pitch?

Watching a basketball game the other night, I heard the inevitable "Air Ball, Air Ball" mass chant when the visiting player whiffed a scoring attempt. You've heard the taunt many times, and in fact it has crept into other sports, such as "Air Puck, Air Puck" at hockey games.

But did you know that crowds world-wide always chant in the key of F, descending to D? Try it. Belt out a couple of "Air Balls" and then go check the piano. Or your pitch-pipe iPhone App. F to D. Every time.

Dr. Cherrill P. Heaton, an English professor first pointed this out way back in '95 in his learned paper "Air Ball: Spontaneous Large Group Precision Chanting," published in the journal Popular Music and Society. Heaton stated: "As any director of a church choir or secular chorus knows, getting a mere 20 or 30 trained singers to sing or chant together and in tune is not always easy. Yet without direction, instruction, a conductor or a pitch pipe, thousands of strangers, massed in indoor stadiums and arenas, are able, if stimulated by an air ball, to chant, 'Air ball,' in total and rhythmic unison."

His research also found that basketball fans always start chanting at the same time--prompted by the basketball's hitting nothing but air--and consistently remain on key.

Dave Barry picked this up and put his patented spin on the story. His version is funnier than my blog, so promise if you go there, you'll come back.

Turns out, this is not the only example of "Large Group Precision Chanting." Remember when Darryl Strawberry played for the Mets and the fans shouted "Dar-ryl, Dar-ryl?" How about John Elway's last name repeatedly during the 1986 American Football Conference Championship in Clevend? Well, play like you remember! Work with me here, people!

Same deal - F to D,  F to D.

And then there's "Na Na Na, Hey Hey Goodbye." D-minor. Always.

And here I make history with my very own suggestion  that "Nanny Nanny Boo Boo" is always sung in the same key - according to my reckoning -  F.

Remember, you heard it first here.

The $100 Question

I got an email the other day titled "The Stimulus Objectively Examined." It was intended as a political statement, and based on who sent it I suspect I know how this is supposed to be interpreted.

But that is neither here or now. Politics aside, it poses an interesting puzzle (like the old three guys renting a motel room)  and I present it to you here as such. Here's the email:

It is a slow day in the small Colorado town of Pumphandle and streets are deserted. Times are tough, everybody is in debt, and everybody is living on credit.

A tourist visiting the area drives through town, stops at the motel, and lays a $100 bill on the desk saying he wants to inspect the rooms upstairs to pick one for the night.

As soon as he walks upstairs, the motel owner grabs the bill and runs next door to pay his debt to the butcher.

The butcher takes the $100 and runs down the street to retire his debt to the pig farmer.

The pig farmer takes the $100 and heads off to pay his bill to his supplier, the Co-op.

The guy at the Co-op takes the $100 and runs to pay his debt to the local lady of ill repute, who has also been facing hard times and has had to offer her "services" on credit.

The hooker rushes to the hotel and pays off her room bill with the hotel owner.The hotel proprietor then places the $100 back on the counter so the traveler will not suspect anything.

At that moment the traveler comes down the stairs, states that the rooms are not satisfactory, picks up the $100 bill and leaves.

No Jobs were created.
No one produced anything.
No one earned anything...

However, the whole town is now out of debt and now looks to the future with a lot more optimism.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how a "stimulus package" works.

Now, here's the $100 question. In this scenario, who did not come out ahead? Anyone? Anyone? Let me know who, if anyone, came out a loser in this little story? Did everyone really win?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Monday Meanderings - 2.21.2011

Stopped at a Torchy's Tacos the other day (which I recommend you try, BTW). The logo and signage all say "Damn Fine Tacos." But inside, I noticed a wall was covered with tray liners featuring the little devil art work and the slogan - and they all had been decorated  by elementary school students. Uh Oh! What about the "D" word? Not to worry; the slogan on all these works of art said, "Darn Fine Tacos."

I was working with a new director at the RFB&D studios, and at the break he told me that "listening to you is like enjoying a smooth Guinness." Thanks. I think.

I bought a new desktop computer the other day, to replace my 11- year old dinosaur that is slowly grinding to a halt. The new machine has a processor that is 77% faster, has 1,100% more memory and has a hard drive that is 1,200 % larger. And it cost less than 1/3 of the machine it is replacing. Wouldn't it be great if that were true of all the things we buy? Funny thing, though. Even though the main Dell plant is almost in my backyard, this computercame from El Paso.

Barb left at 8am the other morning for an appointment. I did not see her off. About 9am she texted me to ask if I wanted to meet her for breakfast. I was up at 9 (barely) but did not hear the text alert. So she texted again and said, never mind, she would get something and go on to class. About 9:30 the phone rang.
"I need you to come. I've locked my keys in the car."
"Okay, where are you?"
"Uh...well...Krispy Kreme."
Busted. But after she bought me some donuts, it was all okay.

Love the fajitas at Pappasitos, but it is SO noisy in there. The other day we decided that if we were going to have a conversation at the dinner table it could only happen if we texted each other.

I played football for Emory Bellard

Emory Bellard passed away last week. He was a legend in collegiate football circles, credited as the inventor of the wish-bone offense. Sometimes the newspaper articles will mention in passing that he was a successful high-school football coach, at Breckenridge High School, and at then at San Angelo. It was during his tenure at BHS that I played football for Coach Bellard.

I have written before about the football program at Breckenridge; about how in the period from 1951 to 1959, the Breckenridge Buckaroos football team won four State Championships outright and tied for a fifth. How 8 of the 27 team members were named to All State. Well, I was not one of those 8, and that's not the football team I was on. My team was the gang of boys taking a Physical Education class under none other than Coach Bellard himself. You see, athletic coaches in those days also had to carry a class load. The assistant coaches taught things like history and civics, and the head coach had a heavy schedule of supervising one or more PE classes.

Every morning we would go out to the athletic building and suit up in shorts and tee shirts, do calisthenics for 15 or 20 minutes, then scrimmage each other in a pretty crude version of touch football. Then it was hit the showers and rejoin our classmates for more mundane activities, such as study hall.

During the football season, the drill changed somewhat. On Fridays when there was a home game scheduled, we would head straight to Buckaroo Stadium and line up across one end zone, then we would duck-walk to the other end zone, pulling up any grass burrs we encountered. Goat heads, we called them. This was West Texas, and goat heads were pernicious and lethal; I patched many a bicycle tire flattened by these thorns, and they sprang up like... well, weeds. But there weren't any in the grass at Buckaroo Stadium. The PE class saw to that.

None of the glowing articles I've read mention that coach Bellard was blind in one eye. I don't remember which one, but all the guys in PE knew that if you got on the correct side, he couldn't see you. That was important, because while doing calisthenics, it gave you the opportunity to slack off. One morning I was taking advantage of Coach's limited eyesight during leg lifts and would only lift one leg at a time. It was not as good a plan as I hoped, though, because I got caught. The punishment for lazy leg lifts was to put 'em both up and hold 'em up as long as you could. If you couldn't hold them up long enough, you got to run laps. I surprised even myself at how long I could hold both legs up, but as I recall it wasn't worth it.

Coach Bellard came back and spoke to the 45th reunion of the class of '58. He was gracious and warm and spoke of his years at BHS as being among the best of his stellar career. He even mentioned the fight song that I wrote the dumb words for. He didn't mention my goofing off in PE. A true gentleman.

Monday Meanderings - 2.14.2011

Last Friday I had a simple medical procedure which involved injecting a dye into the arteries. That's called an angiogram, though this had nothing to do with the heart - it was to facilitate an eye exam. At the time, the technician told me that this dye would show up in my urine later, and might even give me a jaundiced pallor.

Sure enough, that evening, you might have heard this conversation:

He said: "HOLY COW! Would you look at that! Barb! Come take a look!"
She said: "What? What are you talking about?"
He said: "My pee! You got to see this!"
She said: "Absolutely not. I'm not looking at that."
He said: "But it's bright yellow!"
She said: "The technician told you it would show up in your urine."
He said: "Yeah, but he didn't say it would glow in the dark. You gotta see this!"
She said: "Just flush, dear."
He said: "If this shows up in my skin I'm going to look like a day-glo banana!"
She said: "Yes, dear."

A new iPhone app to assist Catholics penitents is getting quite a buzz.  Apparently the text-based app takes you through the 10 Commandments with a slew of questions about each. You respond accordingly and the app comes up with a list of sins and displays a written act of contrition. I'm really, really tempted to plunk down the buck ninety-nine just to get a look at the questions, but the app would probably ring me up for squandering money. I'm guessing questions like: "Did your horoscope really tell you to skip church this morning?" "Watch Two-and-a-Half Men a lot?" "Called your mother lately?" "Alone, or with others?" 

I have mentioned that we think it would be very helpful to old folks like us to keep a little wrist-band white board and make notes so that when we get to the other room we would know why we were there. I noticed that Barb was trying out the concept, but she may have to adjust the form factor.

Serve Out

Time once again to hold the laptop up and shake it to see what falls out.

This seems appropriate after the recent snowpocalypse-

As does this.

And this.

Wait. I'm confused.

This was NOT taken in my daughter's classroom!

Nor was this.

Those boomerangs can be a problem.

Really?

Sign fail.

The retirement pie chart.

And can anyone tell me the medical service being offered here?

Have you seen this sign?

Well, yes, I know you have seen this picture of the sign (if you have faithfully followed my blog). But have you seen the sign itself? Seems that it is missing. Sort of swam off, as it were.

The sign was intended to draw interest to Amazonia Aquariums, on North I-35, and apparently it succeeded. The owner, Caroline Estes, figures it was a fraternity stunt, as there is really limited use for a sign like this. Ms. Estes put it up to grab attention since Amazonia Aquariums is "right next door to a massage parlor that says ‘Girls Girls Girls,’ so we’re just trying to compete with the neighborhood advertising, It’s hard to compete with ‘Girls Girls Girls.’ “

Ms. Estes liked the sign because she says it was effective. It brought the curious into the store, although not always for the proper reasons. Not everyone who stopped in was looking for guppies. There was some confusion about the “nude” message, she said.

And actually, Ms. Estes is an expert on the "nude" message. She has been active in a number of demonstrations to protest the prevailing rules about female toplessness in Austin. Yes there are some. Well, a few. Al least enough to stage a good sit-in, only that's not what they called it.

So, if you see the sign, let Ms Estes know. If she's not off protesting somewhere.

Monday Meanderings - 2.7.2011

Woke up to less than a foot of snow Friday morning. You can judge how much less by the fact that it was mostly gone by noon. Saturday we were in shirtsleeves again. Gotta love Texas weather.

How 'bout them... uh, well. Packers. Three turnovers will do that to a team. We had a big Super Bowl Party here. Served the ever-popular Rotel and Velveeta queso, chips, dips, snacks and ice cream. Next year we may invite others to join us, but they will have to promise to watch the game and no yakking!

Rozanne posted this regarding the Super bowl: "As for all this ice and snow I think I know what happened.... Early this week, Jerry Jones was talking about the upcoming Super Bowl. Meanwhile up in heaven, Tom Landry leans over to God and says "You know what would be funny?"

Recently someone in Orpington, England downloaded the 10 billionth app from Apple's iStore. Okay, I have to stop and think about that for a minute. Apple's last quarterly report indicates that they have sold just over 51 million phones. Let's see... 10 billion divided by... wait my calculator (on my iphone) can't compute that! Never mind. The point is downloading the 10 billionth app entitled this account to $10,000 in credit, either iTunes or App store - the news is not clear about that. I hope it's good for anything Apple sells. How long would it take you to buy 10,000 songs?  By the way, the person who won thought it was a sales call and hung up on Apple initially.

This week we finally caught up on our TV programs that we have been recording. Took a while, but pickings have been slim sports-wise, so we've been knocking off a couple of episodes a night. Did I mention that we had a LOT of programs saved? Now that the Super Bowl is over all we have coming up is March Madness. Maybe we should have kept back a few programs to watch.

I mentioned that my family raised rabbits. The rabbits that ended up in Mom's "Chicken" casserole were around while I was still at home. Later Mom and Pops kept rabbits as pets. Saw an article in the paper about the Chinese now observing "the Year of the Rabbit." Article stated that if you started out with 1 fertile female rabbit it is theoretically possible that in 7 years you could have more than 95 billion rabbits. That puts Apples 10 billion apps in the shade, doesn't it.

From time-to-time I check out a forum that posts tech support/customer interchanges. Here is one of the better ones:

Customer: “I plugged a mouse into my computer, and it died. Now I can’t get it out.”
(We review for a few minutes and I deduce that he has plugged a mouse into his USB port, but it’s stuck inside and won’t work.)
Me: “Okay, so grab the cord and try to pull on that.”
Customer: “You mean the tail? That’s already in the port.”
Me: “Well, the cord shouldn’t be. You’re supposed to plug in the other end.”
Customer: “You mean the head? I don’t think it would fit.”
(Suddenly realizing what the customer has done.)
Me: “Did you plug in a live mouse to your computer?”
Customer: “Yes, I believe I said that.”
(I put customer on hold for several minutes. When I recover I realize I don’t know what to tell the customer I call my supervisor who instructs the customer to bring the laptop into a repair shop. I get the customer back on and tell him this information.)
Customer: “But Mickey’s gone for good now, right?”

Yes, he is. Have a good week.

Blizzards, Blackouts and Brrrr!!

I know why I live in the southern part of the United States. I simply do not do well in cold weather. I am aware that a great many people exult in snowfall and frost-nipped noses. I am not one of those people. My response to cold weather is to throw another log on the fire, brew some coffee, get a good book and snuggle deep into the blankets. Wake me when it's over.

Alas, it's not that simple, even in my current state of don't-have-to-be-anywhere-ness. Cold weather has a way of sneaking under the door and pulling the blankets off.

I had the heating system checked in the Fall. I covered all the outdoor faucets a while back. I opened the cabinet doors below the sink on the outside wall. I set several faucets dripping. I put a heat lamp on the washing machine connections (again, an outside wall).

I checked all these things off my list and lay in bed worrying about the water line to the ice maker that goes up an outside wall and crosses the kitchen ceiling in the attic. As I recall, this line is uninsulated. Wait, I've had additional insulation blown in. Surely it is covered up. Is it? How cold does it get in the attic? Oh, no. There's no turn-off valve where this line begins; it's totally enclosed in the wall. I know. I'll go make the ice-maker cycle and see if it fills up again. But what if it doesn't? Would I rather know it's frozen now, or do I not want to know? Now. Now is better. Isn't it?

See? How am I going to stay warm and snug when I have issues like these running through my mind? And I do apologize to my children for whatever anxiety-genes I passed their way.

I am happy to report that the ice-maker line seems to be fine, but as I crawled back under my blankets the electricity went off. No fair! Now I must worry about all the things I thought were taken care of. Oh, good, it's rolling blackouts, they say - maximum of 7 to 10 minutes. Oh, now it's 45 minutes to an hour. "For some it may be longer." It seems that of Austin's 350 "circuits" only 75 were eligible for blackouts and Austin Energy seemingly does not have the wherewithal to evenly distribute the rolling blackouts. More like "run-over blackouts." We had four of them.

Okay, today there have been no more blackouts. Fingers are crossed and I'm back under the blankets.

Do you hear water running? Remember that heat lamp? Yep. Melted the cold-water hose to the washer. I outsmarted myself. Fortunately, I was checking regularly and there's no flooding, but I might as well fold the blankets up. It's off to Home Depot for new hoses.

What's that you say? It's snowing? Stay off the roads or I might end up like this guy.

Where did I put those blankets?

Family Recipes

My thanks to my sister Pat for suggesting this fun blog while I was searching for Mother's Date Loaf recipe. Yes, the one I turned into Fuzzy Date Lump.
 
Every family has them - recipes handed down from your mother, or perhaps her mother. If you are my age, you grew up eating your momma's cooking. We didn't have much choice back then -  in my home town when I was growing up there were a couple of hamburger stands, George's Cafe downtown and a coffee shop or two. That's it. But primarily it was the culture of the times. Families ate meals that moms prepared, using recipes that were tried and true. The kind of recipes that instigate phone calls that go, "Momma B? Merryanna is sick and she is really craving your potato soup. Can I get that recipe?"

Sometimes you ate other mothers cooking too. Church-wide dinners were common, and we have a family recipe labeled "Chicken Crunch for 20" and one for "Funeral Casserole" that begins "3 million potatoes, peeled and sliced." Really. A well-kept family secret is that for years my mother's Chicken Casserole, served at many a church function, contained no chicken. We raised rabbits, you see. I don't know who was first brave enough to bring KFC to a church dinner, but it didn't happen when I was growing up.

Sometimes the church ladies published a cookbook, and those books are guides to straight-forward, no-nonsense home cooking. You won't find arugula and portobello mushrooms in these dishes: "Fayla Brown's Meatloaf," "Mary Donohue's 5 Cup Fruit Salad" and "Cora Anderson's Bean and Cornbread Casserole." These books tend to be heavy in the pie and cake sections; in one of them is my Grandmother Anderson's Angel Food Cake recipe - with instructions on tending the wood-burning oven she baked it in!

Often, there's a comment or two in addition to the ingredients. Here's my mother's recipe for what we call her "White Ball" candy. She starts out with a message to the recipient: "Say, I got the recipe for the candy you tasted. Here it is."

And after the list of ingredients she instructed "Mix with hands (This makes a terrible amount. I made half  & that was lots)." Then some instructions about the paraffin "Paraffin comes 4 blocks to pkg. Use one." And she finishes with "Yum, Yum."

As my mother's abilities declined, my father took over the cooking duties. Here's his recipe for Taco Soup.

Jason doesn't remember, stressed as he was, but it was a batch of Pop's Taco soup that we enjoyed the evening we met our son-in-law-to-be for the first time, out at the lake.

I myself have prepared several batches of "Copper Carrots" - far and away the favorite of both our children - and Mom's "What's Quacking" shoe-peg salad for company pot-luck meals (much to the surprise of my co-workers).

And sometimes the recipes become heirlooms. Julie has framed two of my mother's recipes; one a very delicious and very famous (at least in our family) Apple Pie recipe, and this is the Fresh Apple Cake recipe. Equally delicious and now a treasure on her grand-daughter's wall.