Personal – Page 5 – Letter Never Sent

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27
Jan 06

Return to the ATX

I’ll be coming back to Austin this weekend for a whirlwind return. I have a few errands to run Saturday and will be staying with my friend, Kyle. We’ll probably head out to Dave & Busters for some large-size beers, which seems to be Kyle’s preferred watering hole. Hopefully, Shelus and a few of the NCSoft crew will be able to make it out. Then it’s back to Dallas Sunday for dinner with my Aunt Becky.

By the way, the company where I work has season tickets to the Stars and Mavericks, so I got to see the Stars play against St. Louis Wednesday. It was a great game. Tied up, went into overtime, then ended in a shootout with Dallas winning. Hockey is one of those games I have a hard time following. At least I can see a basketball as it moves around the court. I have the hardest time following the puck.

Cool Tools / Personal / Technology — Comments Off
26
Jan 06

Minutiae

1. Running on impulse. I broke down today and bought a black, 60gb iPod video. Right now, I have 20gb loaded, which is equivalent to 15 days of music. This is my one big gadget of the year, having resisted a new computer, a digital SLR, and many many other equally unnecessary purchases. Now my last remaining excuse for using the exercise facilities is gone. I still hate Apple and they’re effete hipster smugness. Fact is, the competition just plain sucks for portable digital media. The gadget industry is ceding the entire territory to Apple, when many people (like me) just want a good alternative. It’s not that difficult. The “iPod alternative” needs to have a spacious hard drive, some sort of display so I can tell what’s playing, and a head phone jack. It’s really that simple. Make it super cheap and the iPod has some serious competition. As it is, you can get an iPod or an incredibly lame alternative for the same price. What kind of choice is that? The main draws: I needed something with massive hard-drive space and small size, and nothing really comes close except the iPod. Add to that the video playback, simple interface, and iTunes mojo, and it’s a no brainer. By the way, the clerks at Best Buy are ridiculous. No, I don’t want a service plan for the 3rd time. No, I don’t care about the accessories or anything else you want to upsell me on. No, I don’t want to bond about having an iPod. It’s a consumer device, not an opportunity for group identity reinforcement.

2. While driving down the road during lunch, in front of a high school an inexplicable animated sign advertises: “Now presenting Urinetown.”

3. Tuesday at the apartment after work, while I wait for the elevator with the day’s mail I observe a large-nosed girl in a ponytail pass by in full workout gear complete with white iPod earbuds. I can hear her opening the door to the workout room, but then she’s back again walking angrily past in the reverse direction. “Full?” I ask. She keeps walking and yells, “I guess I’ll just be fat forever!” then slams the double doors. I couldn’t help laughing, but only because she was completely serious and not actually fat.

Personal — 3 Comments
18
Jan 06

Is your man on the floor? If he ain’t, let me know.

I’ve had that song in my head for days. And, I like it. Please go away, Chris Brown.

Personal — 1 Comment
13
Jan 06

The kind of thing only I should be worrying about

I’m about ready to toss the current “look” of the site. I’m going to strip out the current theme and stylesheet and start with the basics. The cluttered nature of the site is really bothering me more and more lately, so here’s the plan:

1. Completely strip out the current styling. Reduce everything to the WordPress markup.
2. Keep two-column layout arrangement with some sort of header
3. Markup will contain only arrangement of DIV’s and content.
4. Develop new stylesheet

How the new theme will be different:

1. Main content (both columns) should fit within 700px or less.
2. Color pallette should be black and white, specifically black text on white.
3. Design will contain my own original drawings and art work. I want to create a more humanistic feel.

Personal — 2 Comments
12
Jan 06

Roxette hair

Sometimes people are stuck in a state of suspended fashion animation. Spikey Roxette hair is still big in Dallas having survived since the late 1980’s. I have at least ten confirmed sightings including a jogger this morning on my way to work. Most of the women I’ve seen sporting spikey do’s have been in their mid to late forties, which seems about right. They found a style that worked for them and have been wearing it for twenty years. If you’re going to be anachronistic go out on a limb; wear a peruke or tight flapper curls. I always thought it would be neat to kick it way old school: 17th century breeches, powdered wig, and tri-corner hat. There has to be a market for this. Why are we stuck in the same old pants and shirt paradigm?

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07
Jan 06

Toll tag

One thing about taking the tollway in Dallas is that it helps to use a tolltag. Basically, this is a credit-card shaped plastic transponder you paste to your windshield. When you go through a tollgate it automatically debits funds for the toll from an account you have with the North Texas Tollway Authority. This ends up being quicker for everyone since you don’t have to scramble to find change for the toll. In exchange for using the transponder, you are given a slight discount on the total cost of the toll. So, for example, if the toll starts out at 75 cents when you enter the tollway, you might pay only 60 cents, which ends up being a sizable discount of around 20%. As you use the tollway, the funds in your account are replenished from the credit card you put on file with the tollway authority.

The North Texas Tollway Authority (NTTA) is a self-supporting political sub-division of the State. The NTTA receives no tax funds from any source. Debt service, operations and maintenance are funded entirely from user fees (tolls).

I’m growing to like the tollway. It’s less crowded than the other major highways in Dallas and it is a straight shot to where I work up in Addison. It’s pretty much due north and it saves me about 20-25 minutes every day. Judging from the amount of traffic during the day, the tollways must be a big money maker for someone. If you figure each car is paying anywhere from $.75-1.50 per trip, twice a day you start to get some huge numbers.

Since the NTTA is a quasi-governmental entity you can review the financials on the NTTA website. From there you find some interesting information:

Total operating revenues were $165.3 million and $152.5 million for FY 2004 and FY 2003, respectively. System toll revenues for FY 2004 were $160.7 million, a seven point six percent (7.6%) increase over FY 2003 compared to an eight point two percent (8.2%) increase in FY 2003 over FY 2002. Traffic on the System continues to grow, with approximately 863,100 and 811,000 average daily transactions in FY 2004 and FY 2003, respectively, and almost seventy-one percent (71%) collected electronically. Collection of tolls electronically increased over 2003, which was sixty-eight percent (68%). Actual traffic on the PGBT continues to exceed Traffic & Revenue Engineer estimates.

It’s interesting to see what kind of funds are flowing into the system. Traffic and highway systems are hugely complex and important systems involving millions of people and trillions of dollars. Everything we enjoy about modern life is made possible by the ability to get people, goods, and services in and out of the city.

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05
Jan 06

Dryclean me

Second day of work at the new job, I’m in the deli by myself reading an old issue of Time magazine during my lunch break. The meatball sub I ordered is brought out and I take a bite as I read about the “best gadgets of 2005” or some other such nonsense. As I bite down, a thick jet of hot spaghetti sauce spurts onto my lap and chest covering me with tomato gore. It was one of those laugh or cry situations, but being an old hand at embarrassing myself, I did my best to play it off. When the crowd thinned out I snuck out with my jacket in front of me and called the office and told them I’d be working from home for the rest of the afternoon since I wasn’t about to go back to the office looking like an extra from the set of Carrie.

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04
Jan 06

Living in the Big D

I’m in Dallas now. Officially. I’m living downtown so the commute isn’t bad at all. I just hop on the tollway and 20 minutes later I’m there. Up here you hear horror stories about people getting up at 4am to drive an hour and a half to work from the burbs. Luckily, I’m able to stay on the tollway going in the opposite direction as everyone else.

Personal / Religion/philosophy — Comments Off
28
Dec 05

Communion

You may remember a mention I made over a year ago about bottlefeeding a newborn calf who had lost his mother. During my visits to Oklahoma over the past year, I watched him grow from a wobbling baby into a solid young bull. He went from tugging on the bottle to shoving you out of the way while you tried to pour feed into his trough. As he grew, he became more standoffish; glowering from his corral like a sullen teenager.

Two weeks ago he was “put up”, which is to say slaughtered and butchered. And last week we had him for dinner.

After eating the same animal you helped raise it leaves you with a feeling of ambivalence. I understand now why primitive people honored the animals they hunted. They lived with an intimate connection to the natural world.

When I was a vegetarian, I thought I could buy my way out of the world’s cruelty. If I could just stop eating meat, I would somehow store up some credit with the universe. Nevermind that I wore leather shoes. This moral fiction provided a way for me to avoid the pain of reality; that I am a fleeting bloom of life like everything else in this bloody world.

Gospel of Thomas, saying number 60: “They saw a Samaritan carrying a lamb going into Judaea. He said to his disciples: Why does he carry the lamb? They said to him: That he may kill it and eat it. He said to them: So long as it is alive he will not eat it, but if he kill it and it become a corpse. They said: Otherwise he will not be able to do it. He said to them: You also, seek for yourselves a place within for rest, lest you become a corpse and be eaten.”

the old stuff