Welcome back, folks. May we all have a better year than last, and let’s not forget our choice of attitude and mindset about how we respond to what happens. I often tell my kids, it’s not what happens to you, it’s how you decide to respond to what happens to you.
My holiday vacation started on the afternoon of the 21st of December. My favorite day of that period was the one in which all I did was complete various tasks and choirs I’ve been meaning to get to for the past ten months or so. Just little things like cleaning the garage and bagging and mulching leaves. It was also the same day all Christmas decorations were taken down and stored away.
If I recall correctly, there’s a BoN reader who starts the new year by throwing away all his old socks and replacing them with new ones.
I was happy and a little of envious of LiberallyLean and his wife’s trip to NYC to spend New Year’s Eve in Times Square. That’s something I’d like to experience. But I’ll be honest, and I know I’m letting the terrorist get the best of me, but I’d be fearful of going to a celebration like that because of safety concerns. In another effort to be honest, it bummed me out they didn’t tweet much from their week in NYC, but I’m more happy they have their priorities in line not having to document everything via social media and just appreciating the moment.
@darrenrovell – Amazing: 51 players on this year’s UCF team were on the team that went winless in 2015 (0-12). Two years later, they finish a perfect 13-0.
After Sunday’s games, “donations flowed into the Andy and Jordan Dalton Foundation (www.andydalton.org) in $17 increments, a buck for each year of the playoff drought.
There was a small Sears store in Mineral Wells. Back in the day, I thought it was so cool you could order anything from the catalog and it would be delivered at the store for pickup. Per their website, that store is still open, which is a bit surprising.
I get a kick out of the “Beef Bowl” the local Lowry’s Prime Rib puts on for the two Cotton Bowl opponents each year but didn’t notice any coverage of it this year. Here’s an old story on how the Beef Bowl came to be.
Before I ever got into coaching, I got my law degree at Pepperdine. I think the legal profession is getting somewhat corrupted. When it comes to lawyers, I think it’s kind of a Catch-22. On one hand, there’s so much process, procedure and mess caused by the legal profession. But on the other hand, the only way to sort through all that process, procedure and mess is through the legal profession. That’s why I think lawyers are both very destructive and very necessary. It’s like if you have guys coming after you with a sword, well, you better have a sword too. It’s a shame though. We definitely don’t observe the Constitution like we once did. Now we treat it as more of a suggestion — but that’s a whole other conversation.
Is Leach still a practicing Mormon?
About a decade ago we installed energy-efficient windows in our living room. Yesterday when the outside temperature was 22-degrees, my temperature gun provided a temperature of 65-degrees. The adjacent kitchen windows along the same walls had a temperature of 56-degrees.
Yet Texas law guarantees property owners access to roads that abut their land, and that includes highways. Greer wasn’t about to build on and off ramps according to property ownership, so instead lined every mile of highway with frontage roads that connected directly to all adjacent private property. And—bolstered by a 1946 amendment to the state’s constitution that directed three quarters of all special road taxes to be used on highways—he built them wide. “As far as I know, Texas is the only state with continuous frontage roads along all interstate highways,” says Polson. “It’s brilliant, and expensive, but it made landowners happy.”
But the frontage roads didn’t solve all the access issues. Due to space constraints in urban areas, many frontages run in one direction. That satisfied the law, but people who want to get from one side of the freeway to the other would have to drive to an under- or overpass, then make two left turns through intersections. “Left turns are the most complicated and time-consuming of any intersection activity,” says Marcus Brewer, a research engineer with the Texas Transportation Institute. They hold up traffic and disproportionately endanger both pedestrians and oncoming drivers. So, because urban frontage roads handle large volumes of traffic, even a small number of folks using those left turn lanes to flip their U-ies can cause major congestion.
Despite this near-ubiquity, some Texas road contractors have started questioning whether turnarounds are worth the additional construction costs. Each U-turn lane can add a million dollars or more to the price of an interchange.
“We definitely don’t observe the Constitution like we once did. Now we treat it as more of a suggestion . . . .” Tell me a lawyer said that, and I’ll bet you a steak dinner that it wasn’t a practicing lawyer.
And Happy New Year, Geeding family! May all your storms be weathered, and all that’s good get better!
Speaking of starting the new year by cleaning out the sock drawer, there are a couple of your recommended links that appear dead and could use cleaning up.
You weren’t kidding and I’ve been putting off updating the links section for quite a while. But you provided the motivation and the section has been updated.
My wife says every year that she wants to be in Times Square for NYE someday and I always respond that there are few things I would rather do less than that. I’ve been to Times Square on an ordinary Friday night in the summer and I found it to be crowded, dirty, and uncomfortable. I can’t imagine what’s it like with that many people.
“We definitely don’t observe the Constitution like we once did. Now we treat it as more of a suggestion . . . .” Tell me a lawyer said that, and I’ll bet you a steak dinner that it wasn’t a practicing lawyer.
And Happy New Year, Geeding family! May all your storms be weathered, and all that’s good get better!
Speaking of starting the new year by cleaning out the sock drawer, there are a couple of your recommended links that appear dead and could use cleaning up.
You weren’t kidding and I’ve been putting off updating the links section for quite a while. But you provided the motivation and the section has been updated.
The over the moon one was almost seizure inducing.
Also, a couple of more things regarding the links. I’ll miss the 22 words one. I learned of that website only through you, so I appreciate that.
With the others, I would be curious to hear what they once were, why they were important to you and what happened to them, if you know.
I mostly provided them because people nicely asked me and I knew they were loyal readers or they linked to me in the past.
My wife says every year that she wants to be in Times Square for NYE someday and I always respond that there are few things I would rather do less than that. I’ve been to Times Square on an ordinary Friday night in the summer and I found it to be crowded, dirty, and uncomfortable. I can’t imagine what’s it like with that many people.
I would guess Leach is still LDS as he reads his Book of Mormon daily.
https://www.deseretnews.com/article/865687408/Colorful-Washington-State-coach-Mike-Leach-says-he-still-reads-the-Bible-and-Book-of-Mormon.html