I didn’t have any interest in listening to the retirement press conference of Dallas Star Brenden Morrow, but listening to him speak was touching. One thing that stood out was thanking all the people behind the scenes that set stuff up do he could play a game. I always found it fascinating how he married a teammate’s daughter. I know that former NY Giants coach Tom Coughlin coached his son-in-law, but this is a different dynamic.
Political junkies will remember the name Lee Water. It wasn’t until reading this article that I learned he apologized to Dukakis for the “naked cruelty” he displayed in the 1988 campaign.
Arm-Chair Political Strategist – Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is denying confirmation hearings for President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland. I get that he wants the party to appear strong and united against Obama, but I think this approach is too much of a gamble and going to backfire in the long run because they are going to be viewed as obstructionists and can harm a future Republican president if he or she is placed in the same situation. McConnell has stated the Democrats started the SCOTUS war back in 2006 by attempting to filibuster Samuel Alito’s nomination, and Republicans are citing that Joe Biden argued for delaying a Supreme Court nomination due to the election season back in 1992. I’d suggest to McConnell and the GOP to use this ammo in a different way. At every opportunity state these two things over and over again, to the point of ad nauseam, then state that despite the immaturity and flip-flop nature of the Democrats and their unwillingness to work together for the good of the American people, he and his party are above petty politics because the American people elected them to get things done. But behind closed doors, make sure all Republican members of the Judiciary Committee are on the same page and vote down every nomination. This way he and the party appear strong and united and don’t appear as constitutional obstructionists and get the same result, keeping the Supreme Court vacancy open until after the election.
I remember when Obama was the president-elect and there was a lot of talk of what he should be saying in regards to the economy and Syria, and he stated, “The United States has only one government and one president at a time, and until January 20th of next year, that government is the current administration.” That statement always stuck with me and has come to mind since this SCOTUS nomination fight. It showed respect for the outgoing administration and displayed stability in our form of government.
Texas Agriculture Commissioner news – Less than a month after taking office, Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller flew to Oklahoma City with a top aide, billing the taxpayers at least $1,120 for flights and a rental car, budget records show. – I found this part quite interesting – “Miller, a former rodeo cowboy who suffers from chronic pain, told the Houston Chronicle earlier this year he has received the “Jesus Shot,” a controversial but legal medication administered only by a single Oklahoma City-area doctor who claims that it takes away all pain for life.”
Tyler man says he found fossils from Noah’s flood – One East Texas man believes he found fossils from Noah’s flood and a self-proclaimed fossil expert says he’s right. – I got a kick out of how the article ended – For the record, KYTX has not independently verified if the rocks are, in fact, historic.
This quote is mistakenly attributed to C.S. Lewis but I like it anyways, “Isn’t it funny how day by day nothing changes, but when you look back everything is different.“
That quote also makes me think of the adage, “The days are long but the years are short.“
Do it to do it, not to have done it.
Scans of King Tut’s Tomb Reveal New Evidence of Hidden Rooms – Radar scans on those walls have revealed not only the presence of hidden chambers, but also unidentified objects that lie within these rooms. These objects, Eldamaty said, seem to be composed of both metal and organic materials.
Several years ago the NCAA changed things up with March Madness by making all the basketball courts look the same, which I thought was a big mistake. The venue used to use their own court and you could easily tell one location from another. Then they made all the courts look the same with the exception of the host city name on the corner of the baseline, which was hard to see and you couldn’t easily tell what city or region the game was on. This year, I’ve noticed they finally took my suggestion of keeping all the courts the same but have some of the outside border a different color. Now it’s easy to tell the regions apart. Sure, there’s the “Info” button on the remote, but sometimes you don’t have that option when you are at a sports bar and looking for a certain team that’s playing in a certain region.
I’m sure Little Rock and Yale ruined many a bracket yesterday.
BoyGeeding had his first blastball practice yesterday, which is a simplified version of t-ball. Or if you think the world is evolving towards idiocracy, the future of baseball. Actually, I read somewhere a scene that didn’t make it into the movie Idiocracy was of one of baseball being so simplified it only had one base.
There’s absolutely no way I could ever coach a team of kids that young. I can deal with my kids, but I can’t deal with other people’s kids.
On an internal government website, I had to select a security question and provide an answer. One question was, “Where were you when you first heard about 9/11?”
That same government website asked for my Selective Service registration number. Uh, I have no idea, but I did tweet my grandfather’s the other day which he signed in 1917, the year the department was created.
With my new position at work, I’ve been working longer hours, and the desire to blog and the quality of my posts have suffered. Sorry.
Last month I mentioned I bought some of Cumulus Media stock (owner of The TICKET) since it was hovering around a quarter, just for the heck of it. Yesterday it closed at $0.568. But there is no retirement for me as I didn’t buy many shares.
Map – Where ‘Anglos’ are the Minority – The most-recent population estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau show that non-Hispanic whites (or “Anglos,” as my Texas friends call them) are the minority in more than 364 counties. There are 151 that don’t have a single racial or ethnic group in the majority, making them the country’s most-diverse places.
Frank Sinatra Jr died yesterday, which made me think of his father who was buried with a roll of dimes in his pocket – The kidnappers demanded that all communication be conducted by payphone. During these conversations, Frank Sr. became concerned he would not have enough change. This prompted Frank Sr. to carry a roll of dimes (10 cent coins) with him at all times for the rest of his life; he was even buried with 10 dimes in his pocket.
Edie Brickell & New Bohemians’ “What I Am” came on the radio yesterday morning on my way back from dropping DaughterGeeding off at school. I think it’s been a good decade since I heard that song. And then right before I went to bed, I saw that she and Steve Martin was going to be on ‘The Late Show with Stephen Colbert’. I don’t know why it always surprises me that she’s married to Paul Simon and a Dallas product.
AdvoCare seems to be pretty popular in the area, at least from all the stickers I see on cars, so some might find this ESPN article interesting which starts off with a scene in Fort Worth. – With the Saints QB leading the way, AdvoCare is using its sports ties to build a nutrition empire. But is the company really pushing false hope?
I’m looking forward to watching the new season of FX’s ‘The Americans’ tonight.
The Republican Convention will be in Cleveland this year, yet Dallas was one of the strong contenders to have hosted the event. That circus could have been in our backyard. And I’m only saying circus if Trump doest get the needed points to win and if there are locked door room conversations going on.
I can see Speaker Paul Ryan emerging as the Republican nominee if there’s a haywire convention in Cleveland – House Speaker Paul Ryan decided not to run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, but he declined to rule out accepting it if a deadlocked party convention turns to him this summer.
Ryan hosted an Irish event yesterday and President Obama had some nice words to say to him “Speaker Ryan, you and I don’t agree on a lot of policy. But I know you are a great father and a great husband, and I know you want what’s best for America. And we may fiercely disagree on policy — and the NFC North — (laughter) — but I don’t have a bad word to say about you as a man. And I would never insult my fellow Irish like that.“
Today’s dose of ‘MURICA! – It is no surprise that 80 percent of U.S. consumers vote for American-made. But over 60 percent of Chinese consumers also say that they are willing to pay more for products labeled “Made in USA” than for those labeled “Made in China,” according to new research released by The Boston Consulting Group (BCG).
One of Whataburger’s biggest fans dies of cancer; visited over 730 locations – A Rockport woman who visited every Whataburger location in the country with her husband died of cancer this past week. Carol Hoepfner’s husband Karl Hoepfner had won the title of Whataburger’s biggest fan in 2010 after he wrote on essay about how he had visited Whataburger at least 7,000 times in his lifetime dating back to 1963.
Colt McCoy wrote a piece for The Players Tribune about how he went from a small Texas town to the NFL. Reading his version of his shoulder injury during the championship game against Alabama was most interesting to me. His father also wouldn’t allow him to play football until the seventh grade, an age he thought Colt could finally learn how to properly hit and take a hit.
In my world, the last Indiana Jones movie never happened, and my hopes for the just announced new one are pretty high.
