Recent Flickr Photos
Surprisingly Aggressive Windows 8 Attack on the iPad
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Rail Road Bridge Fire and Collapse Over the Colorado River in Lampasas County Texas
When fire broke out on Sunday afternoon on a railroad bridge that spanned the Lower Colorado River between San Saba and Lometa, Texas, local officials had no choice but to let the structure burn to the ground.
The intense heat of the creosote-soaked structure kept volunteer firefighters a good distance away. The fire started about 4:00 PM, and the entire trestle was engulfed within 20 minutes.
Video below, taken by one of the first responders, shows the domino-like collapse of the bridge.
You see the collapse start to happen around the 24-second mark . . .
Posted in Interesting, Texas
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Police officer dies in the line of duty days before his daughter’s kindergarten graduation, but his fellow officers stood in for him
Hundreds of Phoenix police officers showed their support for a fallen colleague by attending his daughter’s kindergarten graduation in Anthem on Wednesday.
Officer Daryl Raetz was killed in the line of duty while working the scene of a DUI arrest near 51st Avenue and Cambridge early Sunday morning. Raetz, 29, an Iraq war veteran, joined the Phoenix Police Department on June 8, 2007.
Phoenix police officers, showing how much the Raetz family means to them, greeted a motorcade at the school carrying 5-year-old Tatum Raetz.
“The purpose of us is to be here in proxy for Daryl and to let her know that we’re here for her,” said Phoenix police Officer Keith Garn.
Uniformed officers three deep lined the walls of the room where Ridgeline Academy held the ceremony.
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Bag of Randomness
- The Boy Scouts of America held a meeting at the Gaylord Texan to decide whether they should drop its long-standing ban on openly gay members. Surely I’m not the only one that sees the irony of the name of the venue they decided to use to discuss such a thing.
- WifeGeeding, honestly, it wasn’t me, made the observation that CBS11 has the most top heavy on-air talent than any other station. When you compare Karen Borta, Tammy Dombeck, Whitney Drolen, Suzy Solis, and Gina Miller, they totally outweigh the competition. I’m surprised they haven’t reached out to Macy Jepson.
- The one million dollar donation Kevin Durant is giving to the Red Cross will actually cost him $640,000 since he gets a write-off. Per Buzzfeed: It’s roughly the equivalent of someone who makes $50,000 up and writing a Red Cross check for about $2,000, of which they’d get $500 back at the end of the year after taking the cost of the donation off their taxable income.
- Spanish golfer Sergio Garcia’s racist comments towards Tiger Woods reminded me of Spain’s 2008 Olympic men basketball team’s insensitivity while competing in Beijing Olympics.
- Top 10 coolest companies to work for in Dallas-Fort Worth - Andy and BibleScholarGeorge are fortunate men.
- Tim Cook confirms: Apple spending $100 million to build new Macs in Texas
- Apparently the San Francisco Fire Department only uses wooden ladders because of all the low hanging power lines and trolley cables. This article also states they are all hand made.
Posted in Personal
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What it looked like before entering the storm shelter, and what it look like after exiting the storm shelter
I failed to post the second video earlier . . . so here is the updated and corrected post. It really brings home the before and after.
Posted in Interesting
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I wasn’t aware MLB gave out Lifetime Passes
This week, Toronto Blue Jays slugger Jose Bautista instagrammed a photo of his recently acquired MLB “Lifetime Pass.” These extremely rare and relatively unknown cards are issued by the commissioner’s office “in appreciation of long and meritorious service” to the league.
These cards have been presented to players, umpires, scouts and other friends of MLB as far back as the 1930s, and grants owners and a guest access to any Major League baseball game as long as they live.
Posted in Interesting, Sports
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Bag of Randomness
- Is there a certain stage in life where people just call their medical doctors by their first name? I went to go see our family medical practice doctor, but he was absent so a “substitute” doctor was in the office, and when she introduced herself, she did so by just saying her first name.
- I usually one see one or two blue birds or cardinals a year, but this year there seems to be more than usual. But then again, I may just be seeing the same birds.
- Sen John McCain had a funny question for Apple CEO Tim Cook, “What I really wanted to ask is why the hell I have to keep updating the apps on my iPhone all the time and why you don’t fix that?” Speaking of Cook, I don’t think Apple could have found a better CEO to follow Steve Jobs, and from what I read, he dominated Congress yesterday. Here’s a decent read about it – 10 Reasons Tim Cook Dominated Congress. But how interesting would it have been to see Jobs answering questions in Congress, I’d be it would be very Howard Hughes like.
- When a major storm is about to hit my house I usually make sure to put on a pair of shoes or boots just in case my house is blown away. I don’t want to be walking through debris barefoot or in sandals.
- One of the most peculiar pictures of the tornado damage
- A Texas Prayer
- For you ’30 Rock’ fans/mourners – The 204 hats worn by Frank Rossitano during seven seasons and 122 episodes
- With Twitter, Facebook, and Google+, sometimes I wonder if I should keep this blog and just adopt one of those platforms.
- These wind tower blades look like bowling pins.
- Whataburger humor from The Onion – I have to admit I do the same thing with Chicken Express.
- Whataburger is also mentioned in this article about NYC bars buying more and more Texas spirits. That’s spirits as in alcohol, not ghosts.
- Hillshire Farm has a cool barcode
- A somewhat interesting article about German influence in Texas and how it’s dying out.
- I prefer saying “chicken-fried steak” as opposed to “country-fried steak”, but there might just be a difference between the two.
- I think it was just an fad in Texas during the the 80′s, but does anyone remember those Tiddies sandals? They are celebrating their 40th anniversary and you can still buy them, though for much more than what they sold in the 80′s. And as I kid, I didn’t quite get the double entendre.
- I think us folks in the Southwest all know the difference between an F1 and F5 tornado, but in case you don’t.
- It’s kinda of strange to think that the oldest sports venue in our area for professional sports is Rangers Ballpark, and it’s held up quite well since it opened 19 years ago.
- Remember about a year ago when that homeless man in Miami got his face eaten off by a drug up man? His hospital recently released photos of his progress.
- Asked by Wolf Blitzer if She Thanked God for Surviving the Tornado, Oklahoma Woman Responds: ‘I’m Actually An Atheist’ – I thought it was nice of her to add, “And, you know, I don’t blame anybody for thanking the Lord.”
- Right-wing writer shoots himself dead at altar of Notre Dame after marriage equality passes
- Bicep size may determine political beliefs
- Mickey Mouse to Star in New Cartoon Shorts with Classic Comedy, Contemporary Flair – Here’s the first of the videos.
- Best DFW Donuts?
- The best burger in DFW tournament is down to the final eight.
Posted in Personal
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Report Litterers in Texas
I had no idea you could literally report a litterer in Texas through the Don’t Mess With Texas website.
This is what happens after you report the litterer:
TxDOT compares the information through the Department of Motor Vehicles registration database, and when an exact match is located, we send the litterer a Don’t mess with Texas litterbag along with a letter reminding them to keep their trash off of our roads.
I would actually like to see what the letter says.
Oklahoma senator: Tornado aid “totally different” from Sandy aid
Sen. James Inhofe, a Republican from Oklahoma, argued that there is no comparison between Hurricane Sandy relief, which he voted against last fall, and aid for his state in the wake of Monday’s devastating tornado because the two are “totally different.”
Inhofe contended on Tuesday that the Hurricane Sandy relief bill was different because it was filled with pork. “They were getting things, for instance, that was supposed to be in New Jersey,” he said on MSNBC. “They had things in the Virgin Islands. They were fixing roads there, they were putting roofs on houses in Washington, D.C. Everybody was getting in and exploiting the tragedy that took place. That won’t happen in Oklahoma.”
To his point, I’m not a fan of government pork and have a hard time understanding how so much of it gets into bills. For instance, when the health care bill passed, a change regarding student loans was attached to it. It should have just been two different bills. I’m guessing it’s done for efficiency, like voting for 100 bills instead of 10,000 bills, and the likelihood of them getting passed or overlooked is increased.
Posted in Political
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Domino’s Pizza DVD Campaign
Domino’s printed special labels with flavored varnish on movie discs including Argo, James Bond, and The Dark Knight. As the discs heat up, the label’s movie title is gradually replaced with an image of a pizza. And, once the movie is over and the disc is removed from the player, the user is also treated to the smell of fresh pizza along with the message: “Did you enjoy the movie? The next one will be even better with a hot and delicious Domino’s Pizza.”
Posted in Interesting, Pop Culture
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The New Spiderman Movie is Filming, Andrew Garfield Took a Break to Play Basketball in the Park
I can imagine those kids going back and telling all their friends about this and none of them believing an ounce of it.
Posted in Pop Culture
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For those of you that are into live storm chasing
From my understanding they travel all over the place, but right now they are around Decatur.
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Bag of Randomness
- Over the weekend SisterGeeding asked me why I gave up on Flickr, and I gave her a list of reasons, one of which being cost and another that it has just lost it’s cool. Yesterday, Yahoo! announced the overhaul of the site and that they will now provide every Flickr user with 1 terabyte of free storage. I’m baaaack.
- The last 15 minutes of the season finale of ‘Rectify’ sure was a downer.
- When you look at old television series and whatever happened to the cast, the ‘Cheers’ bunch seems to have done pretty okay.
- I’ve made mention of the number of Teslas I’ve spotted around DFW and how there’s not a dealership in the area. This article states that Tesla doesn’t go the route of using franchised dealerships, but selling directly to the customer through showrooms, and in Texas, you can find one in Houston and Austin. But here’s the thing, in those Texas showrooms, Tesla employees can only show off and explain the car, they can’t provide test drives, take orders, or mention the price at all, even if customers ask. Here’s an article that goes into a bit more detail.
- When I was 18-years-old I didn’t do anything cool like create a device that can recharge a cell phone in 20-30 seconds, but then again, it was hard to get your hands on a cell phone back in my day.
- When Bobby Draper asked this, I thought of this.
- The Wikipedia page about the doctor administering those injections on the previous ‘Mad Men’ episode.
- A&W Is Paying To Put Mini Ads In Men’s Beards
- Wells Fargo Forecloses On Homeowner Who Made Payments Too Early
- Hang in there, Oklahoma.
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An unarmed Ronald Reagan beats up an armed James Dean
Jame Dean was one cool dude, so cool, he got beat up by a future president that didn’t even have a gun to defend him and his family. And Dean could never pull off this look.
Posted in Political, Pop Culture
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What it would be like to be a grizzly’s lunch, without the pain
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Some Monday Morning Inspiration
If they can make beautiful music out of garbage, imagine what we can do with our resources.
Close your eyes and listen to Juan Manuel Chavez launch into the Prelude of Bach’s Cello Suite No. 1, and you would never guess that, instead of spruce and maple, his instrument is crafted from an old oil can, a beef tenderizing tool, and a discarded pasta making device—all of it scavenged from the landfill that surrounds his home in Paraguay.
Chavez is a cellist in the Landfill Harmonic Orchestra in Cateura, an Asunción slum where bottle caps, door keys, and paint cans have been given new purpose. Under the supervision of local musician Favio Chávez, these utterly impoverished kids make beautiful music on instruments constructed almost entirely out of materials reclaimed from the dump.
Feel free to just skip to the 30-second mark to be inspired, and just give it 30-seconds of your time.
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