Bag of Randomness for Monday, June 20, 2016

Screenshot 2016-05-22 at 10.22.23 PM

  • @g_huschke – “Father’s Day is not a day to tell your dad you love him. It’s a day to tell your sons and daughters that you do.” Great quote @gordonkeith
    • I was feeling pretty selfish on Father’s Day. The Wife and kids surprised me by having me take them to LEGOLAND and its connected splash park on Sunday morning. I really wasn’t in the mood to be in a playpark with roudy kids waiting in lines to do this and that. What I wanted to do was work on some stuff in my garage before it got to0 hot in some solitude. However, I read the above tweet and it put things in perspective, and it made me think of this quote from the second season of ‘Fargo’ about Sisyphus compared to the role of a husband and father. 
      MYWO1tzzzedo1_500

      • Here’s the best summary or editorial of that ‘Fargo’ quote:
        • In Greek mythology, Sisyphus is the crafty king who managed to chain Death himself, ushering in a brief age of immortality for humankind. As punishment, Zeus forced Sisyphus to free Death and cursed him with a different kind of immortality: An eternity spent rolling a boulder up a steep hill, only to see it roll back down — forcing him to start the process anew — without ever reaching the top.Sisyphus’ eternal “futile and hopeless labor” might sound like the worst kind of punishment, and for centuries, that’s basically how it was treated. But Camus’ 1942 essay recasts Sisyphus’ efforts as a kind of absurdist heroism. As Camus sees it, Sisyphus drew meaning, and even happiness, from the mere process of the struggle. The greater pointlessness of the act was, well, beside the point. And, he argued, the struggle to push a boulder up a hill isn’t really so different from how the average person struggles through life — knowing, all the while, how their story is going to end.
  • NBA Finals thoughts
    • Not that ever needed it, but LeBron finally earned my respect.
    • Speaking of earning things, unlike his other championships, I felt like LeBron “earned this one.” And my goodness, he had some amazing blocks this series.
    • But I did think he over-hyping getting hurt when he fell to the floor in the last ten seconds. I’m sure he was hurt, but he made it look like he fell from an eight-story building.
    • I’m guessing the city of Cleveland has forgiven him by now.
    • Best example of the sports prodigal son?
    • Six consecutive NBA Finals for LeBron? No one has played more basketball in that time period, and you also have to account for Olympic play.
    • Golden State lost nine games in the regular season and nine game in the post season.
    • @RealSkipBayless 9 May 2014Johnny Football will one day be bigger in Cleveland than his buddy LeBron ever was.
    • @junior_millerFour teams with best regular seasons (’16 Warriors, ’07 Pats, ’01 Mariners, ’96 Red Wings) all failed to win the title in those years.
    • And to think before the playoffs even started, all the talking heads of sports were asking if Golden State was the best team in the history of basketball. Granted, they did earn the best regular season in basketball, but all you have to finish it. I was also getting a bit peeved people thought Golden State could beat that Bulls team. There’s no beating Jordan’s killer instinct, nor his or Pippen’s offensive and defensive ability, and then you add in Rodman’s rebounding, defense, and head games he’d play, there’s no way Golden State would win in a best of seven series.
    • I’m really, really happy for the citizen of Cleveland. They’ve been the butt of jokes for decades and have gone through some heart aching defeats.
    • Funny Cleveland shirts – Won Before I Died
    • But did Cleveland really have to wear those awful jerseys?
  • And Cleveland still gets to host the RNC! Does it get any better?!
  • WifeGeeding and I have childhood memories of riding in cars in which the fabric roof of a car started to droop. I don’t think cars today have that problem.
  • While driving past Fellowship Church in Grapevine it was hard not to noticed the hugh sign on the building promoting a series about the church  and cinema. I’m just not sure if you need the pastor’s profiles right next to it. While driving deal 635/75 later in the day, we saw the same poster but on an actual billboard.
    Screenshot 2016-06-19 at 8.59.40 PM
  • Hat Tricks is only two miles from GeedingManor and despite it being right across from where DaughterGeeding takes Taekwondo lessons and we’ve lived in the area for 13 years, I’m surprised I’ve never tried it out, but we gave it a shot on Saturday.
    • It used to be own by former Cowboys special teams coach Joe Avezzano and now his son runs it. We used to run into him all the time at Jason’s Deli during lunch, and he’d often invite to his place, but for some reason, we never took him up on his offer.
    • There’s a banner outside that states its burger was voted the best in Lewisville. I never really gave those “best of” lists much credit, but my gosh, that place had the best burger and fries I’ve eaten all year.
    • To our surprise, the School of Rock uses Hat Tricks as a venue to play gigs. The School of Rock is much like the movie, kids learning to play rock music. So during our lunch, we got to listen and watch preteens rock out to a bunch of tunes from David Bowie, Queen, Journey, and some other artists. It was quite entertaining.
  • I finally caught the David Letterman interview with Tom Brokaw:
    • Of all things, Dave will be hosting a National Geographic special in which he spent two weeks in India.
    • He spoke about the last time he was was Johnny Carson and how Johnny had too much to drink and Dave could sense how Carson was about to go off on things and turn the moment and possibly relationship bitter. Dave stated he steered the conversation to Jack Benny, Carson’s idol, and then it was smooth waters.
    • “I always told my friends I would like to go to Somalia and unload sacks of rice out of the back end of a C-130. I don’t want it to be ‘the David Letterman this.’ I’m not going to have a big fundraiser where people are, ‘Oh, you get to play miniature golf with Regis.’ We’re not going to do that.”
    • He thought he’d miss doing the show, but after Colbert’s first show, he felt an energy just leave and realized it’s not his problem anymore. For some reason, that’s good for me to hear.
  • I spoke with a person who served as a university president and provost who now works as a principal consultant for a higher education firm. He spoke openly and candidly about the Baylor situation, and I underestimated the power and influence, and political party influence, major donors have on an institution. I don’t feel right revealing a lot of what was discussed, but I was surprised to learn that Ken Starr will not be taking a salary deduction from president to law professor.
  • I’ve got that feeling that someone I know is upset at me but acting as if everything is okay, but I’m not sure what I may have done wrong.
  • Man, Michael Strahan is everywhere. He had a gig on ‘Good Morning America’, will be hosting the revamped ‘Pyramid’ game show during primetime, and also has a new clothing line at JC Penny’s.
  • Every Texan knows the first President of Texas was Sam Houston. But if one were to get technical, he was the first elected President of Texas. The first President of Texas was actually David G. Burnet.
  • It wasn’t until I saw this tweet from the LBJ Library that I knew LBJ’s sons-in-laws, Chuck Robb and Patrick Nugent, served in Vietnam.
    • I was trying to find information to see if they served in a combat role. All I could find on Nugent was that he was an airman first class serving with the  412th munitions maintenance squadron. Robb was a Marine who serve a tour of duty in Vietnam, where he commanded a rifle company in combat and was awarded the Bronze Star. Later, he became a U.S. Senator and Governor of Virginia.
    • I’ve seen this picture a thousand times but never really knew the context. LBJ was listening to a tape from Robb, then a captain in the Marine Corps, who asked Robb to send him reports of what was really happening on the ground in Vietnam.
      Screenshot 2016-06-19 at 6.59.18 PM
  • 13 Behind-the-Scenes Secrets of Professional Window Washers‏
    • I didn’t find the article all that informative, but learned high-rise widow cleaners make about $35 an hour. Heck, I don’t think there’s a salary I’d accept to do such a job, I don’t do heights. I wonder if their life insurance rates are higher than the average person because of their profession.
  • LG’s new TV repels mosquitoes, allowing you to sit in front of the TV forever
    • This “mosquito away” technology doesn’t canvas a room with bug spray, but rather uses sound waves that mosquitoes don’t like to get them to buzz off.
  • The Atlantic  – Against Sports Analogies at Work
    • Athletic metaphors may seem motivational and accessible, but they can promote some counterproductive messages about success.
  • Spoiler-free ‘Game of Thrones’ – thoughts, though you may seem some harsh language
    • While watching a major scene, something very climatic, the screen went blank. I watched the NBA Finals live but recorded GOT on my DirecTV DVR. As I fast-forwarded there was nothing but a black screen, all the way to the end; however, the moment I hit the rewind button the show displayed. It was weird. All I had to do was rewind to the part in which it went blank and then it show fully displayed as if there was no error. Perhaps it’s related to this issue, though I wasn’t using HBO Now – Anger as HBO Now goes down during ‘Game of Thrones’
    • While watching the NBA Finals and having GOT recorded, I thought with ten seconds left to go in the game I could check Twitter to see what everyone was saying, but one little fucker from The TICKET decided to tweet out a major spoiler that pissed me of royally.  My plan was to watch the game live and then watch my
    • Actor Anton Yelchin, 27, who played Chekov in recent “Star Trek” movies, was killed in a freak accident early Sunday morning, police told CNN.
      Yelchin died outside his home in Los Angeles, according to law enforcement.
      Yelchin stepped out of his car in the driveway of his Studio City home at around 1:10 a.m. PT when the car slid backwards and pinned him against a brick pillar and a security fence, causing trauma that led to his death, said Jennifer Houser with the Los Angeles Police Department.
Posted in Personal | 4 Comments

Scary Story With Mineral Wells As A Character

There’s a subreddit named NoSleep. Authors write short scary stories and people read with a suspension of disbelief. So what’s written is fiction, but people who comment pretend it’s real to add to some of the horror element.

Recently I discovered one story in which my hometown of Mineral Wells, TX is not only the setting but is actually a character. The protagonist is a Mineral Wells police officer that writes from the first person and cites several real locations and includes pictures. I’ll be honest, when I first stumbled upon this I had no idea the stories were fiction and commenters were playing along – For a while, I thought I actually knew some of the characters.

Here’s the short story which broken up into five parts. Below are some samples of the story, and you’ll run across a handful of swear words. The author is no Stephen King, but it was still an entertaining read, at least for me.

  • Mineral Wells is a small town in Texas where I’ve been working for 5 years as a police officer. It’s located somewhere north of interesting and south of scary as shit, where the citizens are strange, the events are stranger, and the past is never past.
  • There was also the curious case of Brad Delaney, city council president and member of the First United Methodist Church, who one night took the .45 he had hidden under the mattress and killed his wife in cold blood while she slept. One shot, right to the temple. Brad “confessed”, saying it must have been him that shot her, seeing as how it was his gun and no one else had been in the house, but he didn’t remember doing it. They had found him that morning, still asleep next to his murdered wife, the mattress stained in crimson red.
  • I walked back to the bedroom and opened the door, and for a split second, I thought I saw a face in the window across from the bedroom door. The next moment, it was gone. I searched the room, the closet, and the bathroom, but no one was there. Aside from a slightly strange smell, which I attributed to the age of the house and its contents, nothing was amiss. I checked outside – no one to be found. The place was empty except for the owner and there was no sign than anyone had been inside the home. The craziest thing? The face I saw – I swear, I will go to the grave with this memory – it was the exact same face I’ve seen a thousand times, standing in front of that damn mineral well. It was my great-grandmother’s…”
  • In the middle of the room, standing perfectly still, was a group of children. I was paralyzed, not by any external force, but by the grip of unadulterated fear. They looked back at me, eyes blinking almost in unison, with gleeful smiles.

Part 1: I’m a police officer in a small town in Texas and I have some strange stories to tell.
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6

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Man Slams World’s Tallest Glass Bridge With A Sledgehammer

The makers of the world’s longest and highest glass-bottomed bridge pulled off a highly unusual yet impressive PR move to draw visitors to the new attraction ahead of its opening next month.

The 430-meter-long and 300-meter-high structure, which hangs over Zhangjiajie Grand Canyon in Central China, can reportedly support the weight of 800 people at once. However, in order to reassure visitors of its safety, the company challenged the BBC’s Dan Simmons to stop over and attempt to shatter one of its panels with a sledgehammer.

Full Article

Posted in Goofy, Interesting | Comments Off on Man Slams World’s Tallest Glass Bridge With A Sledgehammer