Bag of Randomness for Tuesday, February 26, 2019

  • Little did I know, I’ve been breaking a city code ordinance for the last fourteen-or-so years.
    • GeedingManor has a two-car garage at the back of the house. Like most houses in the neighborhood, it’s about darn near impossible to park two vehicles inside of it. And when we can manage to get two vehicles inside, opening the doors wide enough to get in and out takes Andy Dufresne like effort.
    • The houses in our neighborhood were built in the mid-Nineties and it boggles my mind why they all have small two-car garages. Meanwhile, the houses in my old neighborhood in Mineral Wells, build in the early Sixties, It think, could easily park two large vehicles and still have plenty of room for storage.
      • I looked up my childhood home on GoogleMaps. It appears to be the only house on the street with a car parked in the grass, under a tree. Man, that house hasn’t been taken cared for over the years and is full of overgrowth. I assure you, that yard was well kept by some previous tenants. Oh, that house doens’t have a garage, it converted into an apartment so grandma could live there.
    • I’ve always parked a little bit in the grass because I don’t want my one-eyed wife backing into our second vehicle (again). Back in college, she once drove into a bit yellow school bus. And, since we now have a basketball goal, I want to give the kids a bit more room to play.
    • It’s hard to tell from the picture, but when I park partly in the grass, it’s not viewable from the front street. There are some HOA rules which state certain things are acceptable in the back as long as it’s not visible from the front street, so I thought I was in the good.
    • Was I upset? Nah. It’s a small thing. As I said, I’ve been doing this for about fourteen years and only now have been cited, I just didn’t know I was doing something wrong. Do I think it’s a bit nitpicky of the city? Maybe a little, I understand why such ordinances exist and do recall some cars parked in the front yard of neighboring houses in Mineral Wells, and I was only partially parked on the grass on my own property. It’s just one of those things which you think you can do what you want on your own property only to find out it’s not quite that way.
    • Now that I’ve been cited by the city, I think this ruins any political aspirations I had. There’s no way I can survive this scandal. When someone searches for my name online, this grievance act will always be the first result which pops up. I’ve embarrassed my wife and kids, and they will have to live with this shame. The only just thing to do is to hire a lawyer and get their names changed to protect their identities and future.
  • I recently read somewhere that “liberal” in “liberal arts” is meant to be interpreted as “to liberate the mind from ignorance and to understand how to learn”.
  • The crash of a that Atlas Air Boeing 767 cargo plane in the muddy marshland near Houston reminds me of the crash of ValuJet Flight 592 in the Florida Everglades in 1995.  That crash stands out for two reasons. NFL player Rodney Culver was on the flight, and the plane was basically buried in mud and the crash site was especially hard to get to.
    • Additionally, recovery of the aircraft and victims was made extremely difficult by the location of the crash. The nearest road of any kind was more than a quarter mile (400 m) away from the crash scene, and the location of the crash itself was a deep-water swamp with a floor of solid limestone. The aircraft was destroyed on impact, with no large pieces of the fuselage remaining. Sawgrass, alligators, and risk of bacterial infection from cuts plagued searchers involved in the recovery effort.
    • Recovery of the passengers and crew took several weeks and little in the way of intact human remains was found due to the sheer violence of the impact, immersion in swamp water, and scavenging wildlife. About 68 of the 110 persons aboard the plane were identified, in some cases from examining jawbones, and at least one individual from a single tooth. 
  • President Trump will be meeting North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Vietnam for their second summit. The first summit was surreal seeing U.S. flags next to North Korean flags. It’s going to be even more surreal for me seeing U.S. flags displayed along North Korean and Vietnamese flags.
  • The first Trump-Kim summit was in Singapore, which had two months to prepare for the event. Vietnam only had about ten days of preparation. I’ve read several Secret Service books and all the planning which goes on for a presidential trip overseas. Think about all the logistics and safety concerns and coordinating with two communist governments. The agency is certainly up to the task, but I’m sure most people don’t realize how much work goes on behind the scenes to pull off such a thing.
  • Man emails Taylor Swift to sing at his engagement party — and she shows up
  • A dog reacts to the death of Mufasa. He’s not going to like the remake, I predict.

Posted in Personal | 10 Comments

Bag of Randomness for Monday, February 25, 2019

  • DaughterGeeding is a third-grader and this weekend participated in her first school-related competition. I’ll be damned, she and her team came in first place and are now going to state.
    • At the beginning of the school year, a parent of a classmate approached us to recruit DaughterGeeding to be part of their Destination Imagination (DI) team. We were skeptical since we never heard of it, but after some research realized it was a legitimate and well-organized activity and agreed she could participate if she wanted to. It reminds of something I participated in back in middle-school, Odyssey of the Mind, and focuses on teamwork, creativity, and STEM concepts. Their challenge was a medical mystery.
    • Her team worked hard and spent a lot of after-school hours together. A few of us parents joked we were glad the competition was this weekend and was ready for all of this to wrap-up, none of us had any expectation for them to come in first to be eligible to go on to state competition. After all, this is the first year their school has competed in DI, as third-graders they would one of the youngest to compete (it’s open to grades 3-5), and they were competing against 12 other teams. Some of those teams were from impressive schools from some very well respected school districts.
      • Speaking of school representation, there were a lot of teams from Decatur. Wise Country was very well represented.
    • The competition was an all-day affair and it was one of those moments I looked back at my childhood and could appreciate all those times my parents sacrificed their weekends attending my events. It was held at Flower Mound Marcus High School. Just walking the halls was an out-of-body type of experience since the school shares the same colors as my high school. A plethora of high school memories came back yet, I never been inside that school before. Sure, my high school used the letters MWHS and they used MHS, but it’s all the red and black colors and seeing the phrase “Go Big Red” everywhere made me feel like I was a teen in Mineral Wells again.
    • I watched a few of the other teams DaughterGeeding’s team were competing against and was very impressed. I thought her team didn’t stand a chance and already had an idea what to say to her about how it’s important to just compete and what you can learn from losing.
    • Each team chooses its own name. One team made entirely of South Asians played off the book and movie Crazy Rich Asians and called themselves “Crazy Smart Asians”.  I thought DaughterGeeding’s team name was a little prosaic, “DI Einsteins”.
    • At the awards ceremony where the winners are announced, medals are awarded from sixth to first place. As you’d expect, they start with sixth place and work their way to first. When second place was announced, I felt bad that her team didn’t even place in the top half. But on the off chance the might win, I quickly pulled out my phone to video record their reactions if they won. And I’ll be damned, they won. And man, my back was aching after that long day and sitting in bleachers without any back support.
    • Huh, that’s now two weeks in a row I’ve posted a picture of DaughterGeeding wearing sunglasses indoors while performing at a school event. I’m making her out as if she’s a free spirit and very out-going, but I’d actually describe her as being reserved and shy. All my photos are to the contrary.
  • Jerry Jones has now owned the Cowboys for 30 years. If someone told me at the time the new ownership would win three Super Bowls in that time period I would have been very satisfied. It’s well documented that when Jerry bought the team, he had the lights turned on at Texas Stadium to walk the field and to lay down on the star on the 50-yard line. What I didn’t know until last night’s CBS11 broadcast that it cost $2,500 just to turn Texas Stadium’s lights on at the time. Adjusted for inflation, that’s about $5,212 today. But now there’s a new stadium with bigger lighting, which probably operates a bit more efficiently. I reckon it’s still more expensive to turn the lights on at AT&T Stadium than Texas Stadium, even with the big HDTV turned off.
  • I think the way Jerry let go of Tom Landry was respectful. He flew down to Austin where Landry was and personally told him. I guess some people didn’t like the idea of interrupting Landry’s golf game was tactful. I think if anything, Jerry’s enthusiasm at his first press conference as the new owner looked insensitive and too giddy.
  • My pastor will retire soon. He preached his second to last sermon yesterday as the founding pastor of the church that’s been around 30-ish years. It was beautiful and most likely the one I will remember most. I’ll share more thoughts and details about it later this week.
Posted in Personal | 1 Comment

Bag of Randomness for Thursday, February 21, 2019

  • ”Don’t Forget Me (When I’m Gone)” was already a damn good song, but the surprise Bryan Adams backup vocals puts it over the top. Heck, Bryan Adams isn’t even in the official music video.
  • Was Burgess Meredith better as The Penguin in the ‘Batman’ television series or as Mick in the Rocky series?
  • Anytime Minneapolis is referenced I immediately think of it being shouted in Janet Jackson’s “Escapade”.
  • Chris Hemsworth to Play Hulk Hogan in Biopic for Netflix
  • Wisconsin high school under scrutiny after cheerleaders given ‘Big Boobie’ and ‘Big Booty’ awards
  • ESPN.com – The Year of Bo – Thirty years ago a run of events happened that would turn Bo Jackson from a brilliant enigma into an international icon. Jackson was known before 1989, but in 12 months, everything changed.
  • A Software Update Is Breaking Nike’s Expensive, Auto-Lacing Sneakers
  • Amazon’s $0 corporate income tax bill last year, explained
  • And I said, “What about Breakfast at Tiffany’s?”
    She said, “I think I remember that film
    And as I recall, I think we both kinda liked it.”
    And I said, “Well, that’s one thing we’ve got.”
  • The one dollar bet between Harry Truman and Humphrey Bogart
    • Truman, by then the president and running for re-election, was joined by Bacall, Bogart and actor Ronald Reagan – still a Democrat at the time – at a rally at Gilmore Stadium in Los Angeles. At some point, the president and Bogart made a bet over what the gender of Bogart and Bacall’s first child would be. “Truman bet that it would be a boy and it was, so Bogart sent him the check,” Sowell said. The correspondence is, to this day, kept on file at the Harry S. Truman Library and Museum. Writing to the president, with the check enclosed, Bogart made an ask: “Would appreciate it if you endorse it and cash it so I may frame it for my son who will undoubtedly run for President on the Democratic ticket in 1999 unless you still hold office.” Truman replied by mail two months later. “I am returning the check which you sent me endorsed to Mr. Bogart, Jr. I hope you will buy him a Savings Bond with it and put it in his educational fund with my compliments,” the president said. “It is a rare instance when I find a man who remembers his commitments and meets them on the dot.”
Posted in Goofy | 4 Comments