Bag of Randomness for Friday, September 20, 2019

  • Within a month, two of my friends have moved to the Austin area for different reasons. I’m a bit envious, a new chapter in life and a change in setting sounds fun and adventurous.
  • It always throws me off when the drive-thru speaker with a peppy American accent greets me and after I place my order it’s followed by a person with a foreign accent. I don’t understand why those restaurants simply don’t let the person wearing the headset do the greeting. But, I guess the actual human taking the order at the drive-thru will be replaced by some sort of AI within the next ten years.
  • It’s gonna cost about $12,000,000 to convert the Rangers ballpark, Globe Life Park, into an XFL stadium. Renovations on Globe Life Park will start on October 10th with a completion date of February 14th. The XFL season starts Feb 8th. It appears the renovation will add 4,000 bleacher seats, two new locker rooms, and an upgraded broadcast suite. I have a feeling Randy Cody could do this for half the price and get it done before the start of the season.
  • September 21, 2019, is Museum Day, which means many museums are free to visit with a Museum Day ticket, more details at Smithsonianmag.com.
  • Twitter rolls out ‘hide replies’ to let you tame toxic discussions
  • A fun question on Twitter – @Rev_Norespect: What’s the craziest committee you’ve seen in church?
    • I got a kick out of some of the answers, like the ones below, but I was annoyed by the prosaic response of the “Committee on Committees” but they do exist.
      • Parking lot committee. They wrote “tickets” for cars that were not parked between the lines. This was to make sure there were enough spots for all the cars. It worked because many people didn’t come back.
      • Fried Chicken committee. Their job was to make sure there was enough chicken at all the church fellowships.
      • Carpet committee. They were tasked with “updating” the look of the sanctuary by replacing the cardinal red carpet. A few families left because they couldn’t bear to see the red carpet go.
      • Cemetery Committee
  • Google offshoot Wing is teaming up with FedEx and Walgreens for drone deliveries
  • Logarithms explained Bob Ross style (with a pretty Australian accent)
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Bag of Randomness for Thursday, September 19, 2019

  • Brisket is king in Texas. Wagyu is the pinnacle of steak. There was a chance to combine the two for the expert meat smoker. Fewer than 50 of these rare delicacies were available for import into the US and cut in half (from over 30 lbs to 15-16 lbs — for easier shipping) with the slice made lengthwise to preserve portions of both the point and flat. The cows were raised in Kagawa on an olive-rich diet (which adds umami flavor to the marbled cuts) and the briskets ranged in grade from A3 to A5.  This ultimate piece of beef would only set you back $690.
  • With Brad Sham missing Cowboys-Saints, son of late Cowboys public address announcer Roger Emrich will call the game
  • I like how photographer Claudio Piccoli was able to capture this dog totally stretched out.
  • Totally uncool, even if they are trying to bring about awareness – A New York clothing company has introduced school shooting hoodies that have bullet holes in them and feature the names of four schools where nearly 100 students were shot to death, including Sandy Hook, Columbine, Marjory Stoneman Douglas and Virginia Tech.
  • Navy Confirms UFO Videos Posted by Blink 182 Rocker Are Real and Should Not Have Been Released
  • I’m a skeptic and my mind often thinks about possible conspiracy theories (though I usually don’t subscribe to any), so I’m skeptical that Iran sent those drones to damage a Saudi Arabian oil field. Governments, including our own, have done some crazy things to cast blame and start a war. For instance, there’s the 1953 Iranian coup d’état our CIA helped orchestrate.
  • In a conversation yesterday, the Sesame Street pinball number count video was referenced. I still like to count to 12 in the same fashion as the song. I had no idea the Pointer Sisters did the vocals.
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Bag of Randomness for Wednesday, September 18, 2019

  • Apparently the substitute teacher in BoyGeeding’s class doesn’t like for him to shorten his name on any of his paperwork.
  • If you are a local and totally out of date night ideas, here is something new to try (at least for me), it takes up two hours and costs $45 per person – (WFAA) Body-painting artist Breanna Cooke’s ‘Paint Your Date’ events are a new idea for date night in Dallas.
  • Today’s dose of ‘MURICA! – Pizza Hut and Kellogg partner to create stuffed Cheez-It pizza
  • Another Texas pickup truck owner venting about highway traffic with blunt stickers on their vehicles. And to think our state motto “Friendship”.
  • I know absolutely nothing about the Texas Secretary of State, but compared to other secretaries of state, she’s the most attractive that I can recall.
  • I would have been more impressed if he used sign-language in his recorded message, but hey, nice move, Peyton – Texas School for the Deaf wins new football equipment, message from Peyton Manning
  • Journalist Cokie Roberts died yesterday, President Trump offered his thoughts, “I never met her. She never treated me nicely. But I would like to wish her family well. She was a professional and I respect professionals. I respect you guys a lot, you people a lot. She was a real professional. Never treated me well, but I certainly respect her as a professional.” Well, at least he wouldn’t say anything of the like about the death of a senator of his party who was a POW. At least the man is consistent.
  • Speaking of journalism, it’s been excruciating watching Norah O’Donnell anchor The CBS Evening News. One criticism I have is the number of times she says “Breaking news.” I’m almost certain she says it at least twice a broadcast, and the news isn’t even breaking. Yesterday, at the top of the newscast, she said it was “breaking news” that a hurricane has hit Texas. Dude, a forecasted hurricane is not breaking news. If the hurricane suddenly lifted a great white shark from the Gulf of Mexico and it landed on the roof of the Astrodome a few minutes before the broadcast, that would be breaking news.
  • I’ve really enjoyed watching HGTV’s four-episode series on renovating the Brady Bunch house with the cast of the children actors on the show.  I was a bit surprised at this fact, HGTV filmed over 9,000 hours for the four-hour series.
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Uncovered CT Scanner at Work

We had a technician doing some small repairs on our CT and I asked if he could take it for a spin while it was undressed. So big forces at play here. Imagine how important it is to balance the weight distribution inside that machine. It starts off accelerating to 1s and then 0,5s and ends at 0,35s

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