Car search Christmas holiday

A situation arose rather suddenly over this Christmas holiday where someone in our family needed a car on rather short notice. So Natasha and I scrambled a bit and then started searching for a vehicle. We ended up deciding the best thing was for us to buy a smaller car that gets better gas mileage than my large 4WD pickup. I would then give the family member my pickup to use while I drive the new car to work. While gas prices are low now, there's certainly no guarantee that they'll stay that way, esp. with Obama as President. I drive about 52-53 miles per day for my current commute. It works out to about 20,000 miles a year.

Anyway, rather than looking at new cars, we searched in 2-3 year old used cars with low mileage. This really is the better way to go financially because the much lower relative cost of the low-mileage used car versus the new car.


We decided on a 2006 Nissan Altima from Carmax with about 24,000 miles. It was only about $17,300, including a transfer fee from the Carmax location in Georgia where it was located. We drove a similar Altima at another Carmax location and really liked it -- nice and zippy. This one has a v6 3.5L engine with over 250 hp and light-colored leather seats. Should be here next week!

Now THIS is good tequila!

One of the most famous scenes from the 1986 movie Crocodile Dundee is where Mick Dundee (played by Paul Hogan) is confronted in New York by a 3 would-be robbers. One robber with a switchblade demands Mick's wallet, but Mick pulls out his huge bowie-style knife and says, "That's not a knife ... THIS is a knife!" and the robbers flee in terror.

I had my own experience with tequila lately. My previous post talked about how good the Cuervo Platino was. Well, that's a switchblade compared to the Dundee knife of a tequila I just tasted recently, a wonderful Christmas gift from my mom. It's the Don Julio 1942 Anejo tequila, a special reserve aged tequila. While the regular Don Julio anejo is itself a wonderful tequila, this 1942 kicks it up a notch even further in terms of smoothness, complexity, length of finish, and, of course, cost! It comes in a gorgeous bottle that evokes an agave leaf. See below or link here for more info.


After our rather busy Christmas day activities at home, and after going over to Stephen and Tami's house for Christmas dinner, we got back home and put the kids to bed. We were fairly tired after a long day and sat down to watch TV and have a snifter of our new (old) tequila. We were watching Discovery Channel's Mythbusters (link here), and were somewhat dismayed to see that one of the topics for that show was testing the myth that "you can't polish a turd." They were actually attempting to polish real animal dung. This is not the topic to be watching when you're trying to savor your anejo Christmas present!

By the way, they determined that, in fact, a shine CAN actually be put on a ball of feces. Who knew?

Cuervo Actually Makes Great Tequila

Jose Cuervo as a general brand is not really known to be a connoisseur's tequila. It's more known as a medium used to get college coeds drunk in Cancun so they'll take off their clothes and be featured in the next "Girls Gone Wild" video.

But Michael at my local Twin Liquors had a special running on this Cuervo Platino Reserva de la Familia. It's normally $53 but they had a special of buy two bottles for $70. This might be the best silver tequila I've ever had, and it makes one heck of a margarita / mex-martini (when blended with Cointreau and fresh lime juice, of course). It's certainly as good and perhaps better than Patron, Tezon, and Gran Centenario Plata (my other silver top tequilas). It also comes in a cool blue box.

How to Bond with Your Daughter

I took Lauren out to run a few errands a couple of weeks ago. It's sometimes nice to get Daniel and Lauren apart from each other so they're not fighting. They often seem easier to take care of with just one parent on one kid than when we're all together.


Of course, taking them to a fun playground and giving them Amy's Ice Cream doesn't hurt, either.

Daniel visits The Domain

I took Daniel with me one afternoon on a recent day off from work to look at nice watches at Ben Bridge Jewelers in The Domain shopping center in North Austin. Daniel agreed with me that the Omega Speedmaster moon watch was the way to go.

If one were to do a GQ style labeling of his fashion, it would be as follows:
-- Texas Longhorns cotton t-shirt, Target, $5.
-- Mister "The King" toy car, Target, $10.
-- Omega Speedmaster Chronograph, $4000.

Map of my "pretend" run

Here's a link to the run Daniel thought was a "pretend" workout.

Just pretending

I wanted to get some exercise Saturday afternoon, so I went for a run around my neighborhood ... maybe 4.5-5 miles or so. My son Daniel (age 5) was taking a nap when I left. After my run and shower, I went to the living room and was resting in a rocking chair. Daniel had gotten up from his nap and wanted to talk to me, and he wondered why I was so tired. I told him it was because I had just worked out.

He asked, "Did you go to the gym to exercise?" I said, "No, I just went for a run around our neighborhood." He replied, "So you were just pretending to exercise?"

Shaq, The King of the Brickmasons

In backetball, if you put up a really ugly shot that doesn't come close to going in, clangs off of the rim, wedges itself between backboard and back part of rim, etc., it is often said that you have thrown up "a brick". If that's the case, then Shaquille O'Neal, center for the Phoenix Suns, is coming up on a big milestone in bricklaying history -- his 5000th MISSED free throw. Shaq shoots about 52% free throws for his career, well below a typical NBA player who makes 70-90% of his free throws. See article on ESPN here, by John Hollinger.

To put this in perspective, Shaq has MISSED more free throws than many hall of fame NBA players have free throw total ATTEMPTS in their careers. Hollinger lists many of these players.

Photo credit: Nathaniel S. Butler/Getty Images

Only Wilt Chamberlain has more FT misses than Shaq. Apparently Wilt, who once famously claimed that he slept with 20,000 women in his life, was missing approximately one FT for every 3.4 women slept with!

Best guitar ballad ever, Musical Wednesday

Since I'm taking a vacation day Friday, I'll do "musical Friday" a little early this week. Here's Lyle Lovett on Austin City Limits, singing one of my favorite, most beautiful songs of all time. A cheatin' song about Mexican food!

Family planning

Hilarious commerial from Youtube sent to me by my friend Vic.

Toyota Supports Bailing Out Weaker Competitors

This is a really interesting point of view from Toyota. See CNN article here. Toyota would prefer that the US government actually help bail out GM / Chrysler to keep them in business.

At first, this doesn't seem to make sense. Why would Toyota want to save a competitor? Well, if you read down in the article, you see why:

The final concern for the overseas automakers is a longer-term problem. The failure of a U.S. automaker could open the door for a Chinese or Indian automaker to buy up the assets of the failed company and create a new low-cost competitor in the U.S.

"You could open the door for foreign companies to buy distressed assets at rock-bottom prices," he said. He pointed to India's Tata (TTM) and China's Geely as two automakers in the developing world that are already on record as being interested in expanding into western markets like the United States.

So Toyota wants to keep GM / Chrysler in business because they think that they are EASIER TO COMPETE AGAINST than those who would replace them if they failed. Just think about that for a minute...

Dilbert on the financial crisis

Awesome comic strip from Dilbert on the financial crisis lately. I was alerted to it by Adam Bold's weekly mutual fund investing radio show, link here.

Dallas beats New York despite its O-line

When watching the 4th quarter of last night's NFC East Cowboys-Giants game, it had a very similar feeling to Dallas' loss at Pittsburgh last week. Link here for recap (I like the line Romo had in his press conference about meeting secretly with TE Jason Witten to draw up the key 3rd-and-9 first down conversion that sealed the win). It seemed that Dallas would make a key blunder / mistake to give the game to the Giants. Dallas' offensive line looked pretty bad against NY's d-line, and Dallas was even getting lots of false start penalties at a HOME game. One of the penalties backed Dallas up and indirectly led to a safety that made the game closer than it should have been, as poorly as NY's offense was playing.

Of course, NY's O-line wasn't faring any better against the Dallas D, so maybe that just speaks to the quality of each team's D-line. But still, the Dallas false start penalties at a home game seems to show a bit of lack of discipline.

Right now it seems to me that Dallas has a somewhat decent shot to make the playoffs, but I can't see them winning more than one game in the playoffs (or beating a hot team like Carolina) unless that offensive line improves.

Reality check on watch interest, GQ pimping

So I got very interested in learning about watches recently, and have posted about several really cool, beautiful mechanical watches in previous few posts. But the reality is that even some of the less-expensive Swiss mechanical watches (such as the Omega Speedmaster), at $3500-$4000, are way out of my budget any time soon. And my personal favorite, the Speedmaster Broad Arrow GMT (link here), would be downright nutty to buy at > $6000.

A much more realistic choice would be something like this Seiko quartz watch below in stainless steel with a perpetual calendar (date shows correct # of days each month including Februarys, leap years, etc. without manual correction) for about $250. Even $250 is more than I would spend right now.


In one of the original articles / primers I read about buying nice watches (link here for the online GQ magazine article), they recommend against buying battery powered quartz watches because they're not a collectible item, etc. However, most sane adults realize that you must weigh this article's opinion against realities of a single-income middle-class family. After all, GQ's raison d'etre is to show men wearing really good looking--and very expensive--clothes and to try to get people to buy them. GQ is an influential advertising vehicle for the luxury goods business. You'll often see a man--thinner and much better-looking than me, of course--wearing a great suit, with labels showing you what he's wearing. For example ... Suit, Tom Ford, $4500. Shirt, Polo by Ralph Lauren, $290. Alligator shoes, Gucci, $900. Just because that magazine says you MUST buy something that expensive to look nice doesn't make it so!

While browsing other Seiko watches I ran across some other really nice-looking models (link here and image below, or here) that were more expensive (maybe $750-$850), but my personal feeling is that if I'm going to spend more than $200-300 I'd rather just wait and get something like the Omega Speedmaster I'd really want, instead of getting something "intermediate" that's still quite expensive yet not really what I want.

World's Finest Watch Company NOT Swiss?

Very cool article here in Forbes on a German watch company called A. Lange & Sohne (link to their web site here). Swiss manufacturers are typically thought of as being the best watchmakers, with Patek Philippe being considered probably the best (link here for Patek Philippe's site).

The article suggests that maybe the Germans are outdoing the Swiss at their own game. Whenever I can afford to buy my first nice watch (certainly not today), it'll probably be one of the less-expensive stainless steel / black models of Omega or maybe an IWC Schaffhausen. But if I can ever earn quite a bit more, I'd love to one day get something like the Langematik Perpetual below. I do not know how much they cost, but I'm sure that it is very high, likely something over $60,000.


Even MORE astronomical (probably something like $500,000+!) is this company's most complicated piece, the Tourbograph Pour Le Merite, below, and link here for more info.


From the company's web site: When fully wound, the mainsprings of mechanical watches deliver more torque than when they are nearly unwound, and this can cause rate inaccuracies. The fusée-and-chain transmission is perhaps most elegant way to eliminate this phenomenon. But it is so difficult to craft that only Lange's master watchmakers have had the courage to integrate it in the confines of a wristwatch (it has previously only been used in larger pocket watches). Image below of the fusée-and-chain transmission. Man, no wonder a mechanical engineer like me is interested in this stuff!

More on Mechanical Watches, Omega

Good-quality Swiss or German made mechanical watches are not really about telling the most accurate time possible. In fact, most digital watches or battery-operated quartz watches are long-term more accurate than even the finest mechanical watches. The reason people like and spend lots of money to collect the much more expensive mechanically-driven watches is because of the jewelry / craftsmanship aspects of it. You certainly don't need to spend thousands to get something to tell time, but about $2500-$3500 is about the minimum to get something mechanical / collectable like the Omega Speedmaster Professional above, about $4000 (image on right is rear view of watch).

As you add more functions (called "complications" in mechanical watch lingo), this tends to increase the price because you have more moving parts / gears to add the additional functions. For example, this Omega Speedmaster Broad Arrow GMT below adds a second time zone and date and costs about $6600.


Adding more complications like a "rattrapante", or split-seconds, chronograph function, increases craftsmanship required and cost. Again, it's not about just having a watch that can do stopwatch split times -- heck, a digital Timex can do that for < $50. It's about having these functions executed with mechanical means that makes it desireable to watch collectors. The Omega Speedmaster Broad Arrow Rattrapante below costs closer to $10,000.

Career advice involving sheep scrotum

Oh my God, my side hurts from laughing at this excellent column from Mike Rowe, host of Discovery Channel's TV show, Dirty Jobs. Also check out Mike's blog here ... I really like his letter to a potential Eagle Scout a couple of posts back.

Mike offers a contrarian take and suggests that the typical advice about "following your passions" is nonsense. Money paragraph:

Enough already. Wall Street needs some new role models--and I nominate the men and women of Dirty Jobs, beginning with Albert, who I'm quite certain is still grinning behind his bloody mustache. Why? Because Albert knows that in a bear market, you can't grab the bull by the horns--you can only grab the sheep by the scrotum, and do the work at hand. That's right, boys. It's time to bend over, bite down, snap your head back and spit.

Man, I never thought I would type the words "sheep scrotum" as a blog tag (unless possibly doing a post about Texas A&M...).

Texas basketball team for real (for now)

I don't typically follow the college basketball regular season that much. I tend to get interested around the end of the season as the NCAA tournament nears. Right now there's still college and NFL football going on that is more interesting to me.

But #6-ranked Texas looks like the real deal this year, with recent wins over UCLA in Austin and #12 Villanova last night in New York (link here for recap). But it's still early. If we can beat Kansas or Oklahoma, then maybe we'll have a pretty special season going.

Snow day

I was hot yesterday morning -- it was only about 70F for a low temp yesterday. But one serious cold front moved in last night, and we actually had some snow / sleet accumulation this morning. None at our house really, but quite a bit on the side of roads and on other cars driving in to work. I guess Obama really has eliminated global warming!


Photo from Austin American Statesman home page, reader photo submission

The World's Most Horrible Golf Swing

I love golf, although I do not get to play nearly as often as I like. I often practice my swing and try to make it look like the pros I see on TV. Swings of players like Tiger Woods, Ernie Els, Trevor Immelman, and others are great to emulate.

Then there's this swing, the actual golf swing of former pro basketball / NBA player Charles Barkley. Watch if you dare.

Rear View


Down-the-Line View


World's Best golfer, Tiger Woods, imitating Barkley's swing

Why are you smiling? I am not left-handed either!

Cool golf story from Freakonomics (which is a cool book, link here) author Steven Levitt blog post on the New York Times web site, link here. An economist friend of Levitt's writes about a cool experience playing at the Old Course in St. Andrews.

What was even funnier to me than the story was the comments below the post, where readers began making jokes about the Spaniard from the 1987 classic comedy movie The Princess Bride, link here.

Links to Swiss watch manufacturers

Link here to the home page of the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry, or Fédération de l'industrie horlogère suisse FH (sounds cooler in French). Also link here for their list of links to manufacturer web sites for over 200 member companies.

F.P. Journe Centigraphe Souveraine

Bun Ga Xao Xa Ot

That was what I had for dinner tonight. In English, it's chicken stir fried with lemon grass, hot pepper, onion, and garlic in a Vietnamese Vermicelli noodle bowl from Pho Thaison, the new Vietnamese noodle restaurant that opened up here in our Kyle / HEB shopping center. Link here. This was also the very first Vietnamese dish I ever had with my friends Robert and Steve, when they took me for noodles 13 years ago when I was in grad school at UT Austin (mechanical engineering).

Kelso column on BCS

Austin American Statesman humor columnist John Kelso did a really nice job slamming the BCS for picking Noklahoma over Texas ... see here.

I like the comment about figure skating and the Polish judge...

Lauren's birthday, Sauza Tradicional

My daughter Lauren had her 4th birthday a couple of weeks ago, and I forgot to do a post about it. Like my mom's tequila-bottle birthday cake at Thanksgiving (see previous post here), we also got my daughter's cake from Erin McCormick. She did a really good job on a "Mater" cake, the redneck tow truck from the Disney movie Cars. We had a few friends / relatives over to our house for her party, and I made martini-style margaritas with jalapeno-stuffed olives. These turned out to be quite a hit and I may make these again for future gatherings. See photos below, more photos on Flickr here.

Margarita martinis I made were as follows:
2 oz Sauza Tradicional Reposado tequila (one of the least expensive 100% agave tequilas, about same price as Hornitos, less oak flavor than Hornitos)
1 oz Cointreau
Fresh juice of 1/2-1 lime
1-2 tsp simple syrup to taste
1-2 tsp juice from jalapeno-stuffed olive jar to taste

Combine ingredients in shaker with ice. Shake, strain into chilled martini glass. Garnish with jalapeno-stuffed olive.

Mater Cake

Lauren and Daniel

75th Anniversary of Prohibition repeal this Friday

I read a very interesting article today in Forbes.com, link here, regarding 10 prohibition-era classic mixed drinks to make at home. The author, Eric Arnold, writes:

Some Americans will lift a glass of egg nog or mulled wine this weekend. Others are planning on breaking out the hard stuff. Jim Meehan is one of them. Usually found behind the bar at speakeasy PDT (Please Don't Tell), Meehan, 32, is one of New York's best-known mixologists. But this Friday is special for him and every other bartender--4:31 pm on that day marks Prohibition's repeal, 75 years ago.

Kind of a funny coincidence -- My wife is planning a holiday party this Friday night at our home for the families of our kids' daytime play group, and she wanted me to make some mixed drinks. Well, we will certainly raise a glass to that special occasion!

In the article, there's also a link to click through a slide show of the various classic mixed drink recipes. I'd have to buy some new stuff to make most of them ... I do not have absinthe, grenadine, or Angostura bitters in my pantry. Maybe I'll make some Sidecars, one of the recipes in the slide show:

The Sidecar
In The Night Club Era by Stanley Walker (1933), he writes that Sidecars weren't made by Prohibition-era bartenders since they were too much trouble to make. The drink enjoyed much of its popularity right before Prohibition, however, and remains a favorite of cocktail geeks today. The main spirit, Cognac, can be substituted depending on personal preference (Armagnac is the same as Cognac, just from a different region of France). Some recipes call for bourbon, others for brandy.

Recipe:
2 parts Cognac or Armagnac
1 part Cointreau
1 part lemon juice
Stir all the ingredients together in a cocktail shaker filled with ice. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass rimmed with sugar, and garnish with a piece of lemon rind.
Recipe from The Savoy Cocktail Book, 1930.

Texas scre-OU-d by BCS

Texas lost out in the tie breaker for the Big 12 South title to Oklahoma, a team Texas beat 45-35 earlier in the season. So Oklahoma will play Les Mizzourables (a team Texas destroyed) for the Big 12 title and, barring a miraculous upset, will likely play in the national championship game against the winner of the Alabama/Florida SEC championship game.

Boy, how heartbreakingly close was Texas to playing in another national championship game? All we would have had to do is have Blake Gideon catch the ball in the Texas Tech game, or tackle Michael Crabtree on the next play...



Texas will likely play USC in the Fiesta bowl. Doesn't seem like a BCS bowl should be a let-down, but it feels like it now.

Moon, Jupiter, and Venus conjunction

I saw this story a couple of nights ago on Yahoo, and have gone outside the last two nights to enjoy this rare conjuction of three of the brightest objects in the nighttime sky very near each other. See below for one photo (from AP), or link here for another shot from Flickr. The Flickr photo (taken by someone in Colorado) is actually much closer to the geometry / arrangement that I saw from my backyard than the photo pasted in below.

Thanksgiving + Mom's birthday, Donna Julio Anejo

My mom, Donna, turned 60 last week, and we celebrated her birthday during Thanksgiving at my wife's aunt/uncle's (Tami/Stephen) home. Thanks VERY much to Stephen and Tami for hosting a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner at their home!

Stephen smoked a turkey and a pork butt in his Big Green Egg smoker (link here and photo below). It was fantastic, and their delicious results have caused my wife to begin telling me that we need to get a smoker and preferably begin doing about 1 pork butt per week from now on until the end of time!


Instead of pumpkin or pecan pie, we had a special birthday cake made by a lady in our subdivision who has started making custom cakes. Her name's Erin McCormick (Cakes by Erin, ph 512-504-3868, email here), and she doesn't have a web site yet but I will post it if she creates one. My wife had the cool idea to make a cake like a tequila bottle, and we then thought up the idea of making a "Donna Julio Anejo" cake, based on Don Julio tequila -- this is the same tequila my friend Kevin Aymat downed in one shot, story here.

See below for the results! Note cake was actually chocolate and not tequila-flavored...link here for photo close-up of actual tequila bottle. BTW, this is a fantastic sipping tequila.

Watch me now, hey!

I've never owned a watch, but have been getting interested in owning one lately. Of course, my desires greatly outmatch my budget. Pretty cool article / slide show on the subject in GQ magazine online here. Go through the slide show to see lots of cool watches they like. My favorites in the < $5000 range are the Omega Speedmaster and the Tag Heuer Link Automatic, photos below:

Omega Speedmaster Broad Arrow GMT

Tag Heuer Link Automatic Chronograph

These types of watches are probably the most I could ever see spending on anything like this -- and it's not even remotely within reason today. Heck, right now I can't even afford to buy a $200 watch, much less one for $3000-$5000! Anyway, the above models are about the entry-level price ranges for real Swiss-made watches with real craftsmanship. Rolex is more expensive, with their least-expensive stainless steel models starting above $5000.

In even far less reasonable price range is this IWC Schaffhausen Portugese below, about $20,000...


Or this beautiful A. Lange & Soehne perpetual calendar in platinum:


However, the ultimate choice would be this Patek Philipe Sky Moon Tourbillon 5002S, the most complicated wristwatch in the world. I could not find any retailer listing a price, but I did find one selling on ebay for "only" 1.65 MILLION USD!! Can you imagine spending that much for a watch? Even for a billionaire this collector timepiece would represent 1/500 of your entire net worth. Another question is, would you trust buying something costing that much on ebay?

Easterbrook's ESPN "TMQ" Rocks! -- Literally

Just spent a little time reading this week's Tuesday Morning Quarterback, one of my favorite sports columns of all. His column (link here for this week's) is mostly on the NFL action from the previous week, but he also delves into other thought-provoking topics, often science-related. As a sports-fan who also loves science, space, astronomy, etc. and has an MS in Mechanical Engineering (originally started off in college with an Aerospace Engineering degree plan), I think this is a really cool combo of things to write about.

Side note, I don't AGREE with everything TMQ writes (for example, I think he's completely full of crap about his liberal idea of raising gas taxes), but it's still very interesting on a wide variety of topics.

One interesting paragraph is about why NASA isn't spending more money to prevent dangerous Earth strikes from asteroids / meteors. He also links to a very interesting full-length article in The Atlantic here. Maybe some of those movies (e.g. Deep Impact) about asteroid strikes are not so science-fiction after all!

Later?

My son Daniel has begun the habit of asking for something that he wants, such as a cookie, his Superman costume, a Porsche, etc. Then when we tell him no that he cannot have that, he immediately says, "Later? ... Maybe later I can have it?"


I think he's somehow found a book on negotiating skills and is using it on me.

Musical Tuesday, Backyardigans sound like Queen

Since this is a holiday week and I'm taking off from work Wed-Friday for Thanksgiving, Musical Friday this week becomes Musical Tuesday ... TGIT!

My kids really like the Nickelodeon Jr. show "Backyardigans", and often sing and dance along to the songs. It's a show about 4-5 kids that use their imagination to pretend to have fantastic adventures while singing and dancing. It's usually a 30 minute show, but recently they had a 1 hour long show called "Tale of the Mighty Knights" (link here). It caught my attention because most of the episode sounded like a tribute to a Queen rock opera! See clip below for one of the characters, Austin, pretending to be a "Grabbin Goblin". This isn't even the most "Queen-sounding" song from the episode, but the only one I could find a good clip of.

S--- Happens!

We all know that (as Forrest Gump famously stated) that S--- Happens. But usually I'm not so happy about it. About 1-2 weeks ago ago, my daughter Lauren began pooping in the toilet regularly! She'd known how to do it for a while, but still insisted on getting a Pull-Up (training pants / diaper) to "make a poo-poo". We'd tried to argue with her about this initially, but with Lauren we've found that we really have to pick our battles to maintain sanity.


She's all excited now about being a "big girl", so much so that she now has begun pooping about 4-5 times a day -- apparently just for fun. My wife also says her Pull-Ups she's been wearing as preventive measure at night have been dry the last several mornings -- I think I have actually purchased my last diaper! Cue music:

Texas #2 in BCS standings! (Subject to change)

Wow, what a complete and total beat-down the Sooners laid on Tech. OU lead 42-7 at HALFTIME! I thought that OU might win, but had no clue that kind of beating was coming ... Lord, that was a whippin'...

The BCS standings were released just a few minutes ago (link here), and Texas moved up to #2, a slim lead just ahead of Oklahoma. Although OU is one spot ahead of Texas in the AP and coaches poll, the computers have Texas ahead and give the Horns the edge to play in the national title game!

Only problem is, this week's BCS ranking isn't the one that counts, and this is subject to change next week. OU plays 9-2 OSU next Saturday and Texas plays 4-7 A&M Thanksgiving night. Thus if both Texas and OU win their upcoming games, OU will have a better strength of schedule in the computers (which make up a portion of the BCS calculations) next week than this week, likely enough to pass Texas. Texas needs to lay an absolute arse-whipping on A&M just like OU laid on Tech to have a chance to win the Big 12 south. We also need to pray for OU to beat OSU, but just barely.

Unfortunately we can't root for OSU to beat OU. If OU loses to OSU, then Texas Tech will play in the Big 12 championship game with the tie-breaker over Texas.

The fact that I even have to type a post like this is sad. Why is there not a playoff? If an 8-team playoff were held now, we'd have the following great games:

#1 Alabama vs #8 Penn State
#2 Texas vs #7 Texas Tech (rematch! kind of like Pats / Giants in 2007 NFL season)
#3 Oklahoma vs #6 Utah (would OU lose on a 2-pt conversion like Boise State?)
#4 Florida vs #5 USC

The ratings for this would be through the roof and I bet would match ratings for NFL playoff games.

OU Giving Texas Tech the Bird

Since Texas is forced to root for Oklahoma to beat The Pirate Tortilla-Chuckers (Texas Tech, coach Mike Leach pictured above) this weekend, I give you the following video to get you in the mood:

Martha increases her street cred

Ran across this funny video on Youtube of rapper Snoop Dogg. A commenter said that since Martha's been to prison, she now has lots more street cred. Indeed ... In-dizzle?

More things a man should not do

From Jeff Ward's radio show, more things a man should not do (I agree with most of these):

A man should not:

• Wear a Speedo
• Line dance
• Drive a mini-van
• Have a downloaded ring tone for their cell phone
• Wear gold chains
• sing karaoke
• Ask for a spot at the gym
• Wear a sports jersey above college age
• be caught without cash in his wallet

Clarification to backpack = dork post

In an earlier post here, I comment that grown men in a professional job should not wear college-style backpacks to work.

I should clarify one thing. If you're riding a bike or motorcycle to work and have a legitimate physical reason that a backpack makes sense, then that's cool. I'm pretty sure that you need both hands on the wheel on a motorcycle! What I'm talking about are the guys who I see getting out of their car, truck, or SUV in my covered parking garage at work, wearing nice, professional clothes and have at most 1/4 mile to walk to their desks, wearing their backcountry hiking pack to their desks.

Save, er ... indict the cheerleader!

Link here to a story in the Houston Chronicle about hazing at Morton Ranch High School in Katy, TX. I first heard about it on Jeff Ward's radio show yesterday. I have actually driven by this subdivision on the way to visit my uncle in Richmond, TX. Gotta love those Texas cheerleaders.

I really detest hazing in any form. I think if I had been the dad of one of the JV cheerleaders bound and thrown into a pool that there would be some dead people once I found out!

I am free / three / four

My daughter, who just turned 4 recently, likes to sing quite a bit. Photo in previous post here. She memorizes pretty long songs and actually carries a tune pretty well. Anyway, she really likes the Newsboys' song "I Am Free", link below. Chorus lyrics are "I am free to run / I am free to dance / I am free to live for You / I am free / yes I am free."

I was kind of singing / humming this song in the kitchen while doing a few dishes, and my daughter, sitting at the table finishing her dinner, heard me and started singing it, too. But instead of "free", she was saying "three" (I am THREE to run ... yes I am THREE), and holding up 3 fingers.

But I pointed out to her because of her recent birthday that she's 4 years old and not 3 ... so she promptly began singing "I am FOUR to run / I am FOUR to dance"!

A beautiful thing

I saw a most beautiful sight at my local HEB gas station in Kyle last night. Hard to be believe it was only 4-5 months ago that this same sign said $3.96! (2nd price is E-85 and 3rd price is diesel)

Cool jogging map tool

I overheard some folks down in the gym discussing their run they did that day, and one guy mentioned he mapped out his run using a web site called "Map My Run." Link here. So I checked it out later and thought it was pretty cool. I discovered that my run at home (which should not be combined with pizza and beer) is about 2.5-2.6 miles, and my run at work is about 5 miles, see below. It also can show elevation changes and show approximate calories that run would burn. For example, my rather hilly work run has about 270 ft of uphill climbing and burns about 700 calories.

Pizza, beer, and jogging

I learned a quite painful lesson Sunday afternoon. The lesson was as follows:

Pizza + beer = good.
Pizza + beer + jogging = bad.

For lunch after our long Sunday morning service, I had some leftover pizza and a cold Duvel. Duvel (web site here) is a very tasty Belgian ale that happens to have the alcohol content of about 1.8 Shiner Bocks in a 11.2 oz serving.

Because it was such a nice weather afternoon, my wife and I wanted to go for a run. So we took turns while the kids were down for a nap. She went first, then I went next, about 45 minutes after I'd had my pizza and beer.

I won't go into any details of exact symptoms, etc. Let's just say I do NOT recommend doing what I did. Do the run, THEN have the pizza and beer.

Red Raiders are who we thought they were!

OK, so I didn't vote for the Big O, but I do appreciate his position on a college football playoff. On a recent Monday Night Football interview with Chris Berman on ESPN, he said we need to get rid of the BCS and do an 8-team college playoff. OK, that is some change I can believe in. Call it The Audacity of a National Championship Decided on the Field. I think I can reach across the aisle for this issue. I think I even got a little tingle in my leg. That position, stated to a national audience the night before the election, might have even helped him carry Ohio ...

In football news, Texas Tech played Oklahoma State this weekend, and Tech looks like the real deal this year, with both an explosive offense and an actual defense. Beating Texas was not a fluke! Also gotta love the interviews with Mike Leach -- is he on some sort of combo of Vicodin and weed? Last year when Tech played OSU, we got one of the all time great coach rants after the game, the Mike Gundy (OSU's head coach) "I'm a MAN, I'm 40!" rant. Mike Gundy original rant here, version edited into very funny unofficial Coors Light commercial here.

So OSU and Mike Gundy (now 41), found out that the Red Raiders "are who they thought they were", and "let 'em off the hook". OK, that's another classic coaching rant joke (Dennis Green, Arizona Cardinals coach, after loss to Chicago Bears), see that original rant here, and official Coors Light commercial here, or see below.



So this sets up a big showdown in 2 weeks where Texas finds itself in the position of rooting FOR the Oklahoma Sooners (which just feels somehow wrong and icky) to beat Texas Tech. It will be interesting to see how Tech plays in a big road game without their great home crowd. Hopefully Texas doesn't take out all of the drama by choking and losing to Kansas or the Aggies.

We got DirecTV installed Friday. I get my first chance to see how the picture does in rain tonight -- weatherman said we might have hail and even possibly tornadoes. I will be very upset if I lose picture on Monday Night Football during a tornado ... will have to call DirecTV and complain about that one... (e.g. "I never lost picture when a tornado was hitting my house with Time Warner!")

Musical Friday!

Due to the wild popularity of my previous musical Friday (link here), I proudly present the following submission of a cappella John Williams movie themes, sung with lyrics from Star Wars movies.

Awesome clip forwarded by my friend Susan!

Markets, Like Oceans, Beginning to Lower Already!

In response to Obama's historic election, the markets are showing confidence in his ability to, like the planet, heal the economy:

I'm feeling you

I saw another interesting car sticker on the way out to the parking garage. Not sure if it was as interesting as this one was, but it was close. It was a new breast cancer awareness campaign. See below for sticker, link here for web site. When I told her about it, my wife asked me if I was planning to volunteer to help out with the campaign...

Backpacks at work

OK, I have a problem with a trend I'm seeing at the office -- that of grown, professional men bringing their stuff (laptop, files, etc.) to work in a backpack, as if they're a college student. I often see these men wearing both straps and walking from the parking lot to their office very quickly, faster than normal people walk. The pack is often one with daisy chain loops and other features that come in handy when hiking in the backcountry.

I'm sorry, but if you wear a backpack to work at a professional, engineering-type job, you're a dork! Just because it's leather like the guy in the photo below doesn't make it ok.

Side note: Woman in photo is telling dork wearing backpack, "Oh, is this your first day on the new job out of college? Your mommy must be very proud!"

Unless you actually have to walk several miles to your desk, a man should have a briefcase, worn on ONE shoulder only. Thank you. That is all.

Up and coming food capitol?

Another interesting story on Forbes.com about up and coming foodie havens. Check out which small town they had listed as one of their finds! Link here to story.


Fredericksburg, Texas
About an hour north of San Antonio, Fredericksburg might not strike some as an emerging culinary destination. But the city, which is in the heart of Texas hill country, is home to a handful of creative restaurants. At August E's, the menu features a mushroom salad with warm baby oysters and a champagne and sherry mignonette. At the Fredericksburg Herb Farm, pork tenderloin is wrapped in bacon, dressed with a green apple glaze and served with a smoked cheddar-apple crisp.
--Chosen by Erik Wolf, president of the International Culinary and Tourism Association.

Dude, where's my flying car?

Very interesting video article on Forbes' web site (incidentally, one of my all-time favorite web sites). See here:

I could sing of Your love forever

I had a very moving, powerful, and emotional experience in our church's worship service yesterday. After doing a very cool song called "revelation song", we went into an extended time of "free worship", just playing a 1-2-3-4 (E-F#m-E/G#-A) pattern. We then modified it and went 1-2-4-5 (E-F#m-A-B), which is the base chord pattern for Delirious' "I could sing of Your love forever."

People were coming down front to sing and get prayed for, and we did this song for a long time. After a couple of minutes, I noticed Ivy and her two kids, Angel and Ivy-Lynn, down in front singing, raising their hands and worshipping. Ivy-Lynn was crying quite a bit. I had not seen them much in church since their husband/dad Kevin was killed back in July. This blog was started partly in his memory. See very first post here for details.

Anyway, when I saw the three of them down front, it just really hit me how much I still miss Kevin, and I also started feeling like that this worship service was for him. I was envisioning that Kevin could hear us and that it would bring him some joy. Anyway, I just kind of lost it and started crying quite a bit -- it had been about 4 months since his death and I had not cried about it since his funeral. It was a really neat experience. Of course, no one had any Kleenex on stage so Wes had to go down and get me some so I could keep playing...

Video of "Revelation Song":


Video of Hillsongs / Darlene Zschech with Delirious' Martin Smith:

Arrrrrgh ... Pirates send Longhorns to Davey Jones' Locker

I couldn't decide on a pirate analogy in the title or something involving Texas getting "tortilla-wrapped". That loss to the Red Raiders was painful. See here for game recap and highlights. At least I got to experience the feeling of Texas having won this hard-fought game -- for about 1.5 seconds (when Texas freshman safety Blake Gideon dropped what would have been the game-icing interception -- a ball my 3-yr old daughter Lauren could have caught). Texas Tech thoroughly spanked the Horns for 3 quarters, leading 19-0 initially and leading 22-6 at halftime. It had the makings of a similar blow-out that Texas put on Missouri earlier this year.

Three posts earlier, I mentioned that getting lots of good press and being #1 does not suck. Well, losing a heart-breaker like this and the #1 ranking DOES suck.

But credit the Longhorns and Colt McCoy for coming back and making it a game. I respect them for that (but would have respected them more if they had shown up ready to play in the first quarter). I knew Texas wasn't as ready as they should have been on the first offensive play when Texas, pinned at their own 2 after a nice punt downing, allowed their O-line to be blown back on a running play and Ogbonnaya was dropped for a safety. Texas Tech has a DEFENSE? Who knew?

At least Texas only dropped to #4 in the BCS standings, meaning they still have some chance to play in the national title game if Texas tech loses. And it's very likely that they will -- the Pirates still have to play Oklahoma State and Oklahoma. Tech is a great team, but I'm not sure they'll have the same fire and passion in Norman against the Sooners as they had at home against then-#1 Texas. That was Tech's Super Bowl. As Texas demonstrated, it's hard to get up for 3-4 "games of the century" in a row. We'll see!

The Death of Freedom?

Man, I would love to support an African-American candidate for President. In fact, I even took a little test on "implicit / automatic" biases recently on a Harvard web site, link here, and found I have a slight automatic bias towards black people versus white people. This project is also mentioned in Malcolm Gladwell's fascinating book, "Blink", which deals with decisions humans make at a subconscious level.

But while I'd like to support a black man or woman for President, that candidate first and foremost must be someone that will uphold the Constitution and freedom, which is the main concept I feel has made America great. I don't feel Obama does this. Here is an article on National Review that captures my feelings almost exactly. A couple of paragraphs I like:

Freedom accepts that we are different. The endless variety of life assures that. I had every opportunity to become just as good a basketball player as Michael Jordan, but he has natural gifts and worked harder. If we played a hundred times, he would whip me a hundred times by about 500 points. No Change, no matter how rapturously framed, could alter that result without chaining him to the bench and rendering the game no longer recognizable as basketball. That would be perversion, not justice.

Yet, this is just what Obama’s “economic justice” envisions: that the government can hamstring Michael Jordan and give me enough freebies that, despite his talent and industry, he can only play me to a tie, destroying his incentive to excel while the Bulls go out of business, no longer able to afford even my mediocrity. Naturally, such an absurd system requires change. Redistribution smothers the freedom our Constitution is designed to foster. It is therefore antithetical to our law.

Phillies win 3-1/2 inning game to claim World Series

Last night I watched the Philadelphia Phillies beat the Tampa Bay Rays to end the World Series 4 games to 1 and win their second overall championship (first was in 1980). Game 5 had started Monday night, but had to be postponed after 6-1/2 innings of play due to very heavy rain / cold (a "Nor-easter"? -- aw, hell, I'm from Texas, I don't know anything about Yankee weather patterns...). Link here for game recap / highlights. My analysis? Tampa would have had a much better chance of winning had they not allowed leadoff doubles to Philly in the bottom of the 6th and 7th innings.

So last night they finished game 5, on Fox TV. It was unusual to go through a pre-game show then start the game in the middle of the 6th inning. But actually, it turned out to be about the perfect length of time for me to watch a baseball game -- about an hour (with some DVR-ing of commercials). My favorite moment was just after closer Brad Lidge got the strikeout with a wicked slider to end the game and dropped to his knees in celebration, then 1st baseman Ryan Howard (who, to quote the movie Fargo, is "kind of a big fella") tackled Lidge from the side to start the traditional baseball championship dogpile. Nice hit!

Anyway, this short game got me thinking about doing this with other sports. NBA games should begin in the 4th quarter, or maybe even the final two minutes. NHL games could start in the 3rd period (or perhaps should skip straight to the penalty shoot-out phase). Soccer should definitely just skip to the shootout. Football is cool -- we'll keep full-length games for that.

ESPN Gameday covers Texas again

ESPN's premier college pre-game show, College Gameday, is going to Lubbock covering the Texas / Texas Tech game (on ABC this Saturday night at 7pm central). Link here for their web site. This will be the 3rd time this season that Chris Fowler, Kirk Herbstreit (on right in photo below), and Lee Corso (wearing Bevo head to indicate he's picking Texas to win the game) have come to a Texas game this season. This is a pretty enjoyable year for a Texas fan -- being #1 does not suck.

My kid could paint that

I'd kind of like to see this movie, link sent to me by my friend Corey. So if I tried to sell Lauren's work for thousands of dollars, I would not be the first!

KXAN / Time Warner, Ben White / I-35

Two stories I saw of definite interest to me in the local online paper (Austin American Statesman) this morning:

1) KXAN (our local NBC affiliate) seems to be back on Time Warner cable. Thing is, I already have an order placed for DirecTV next week. I think I'll probably go ahead and switch, because DirecTV gets the NFL network (who shows some Thursday night NFL games), while Time Warner does not. Link here for story.

2) Under the category of news "About Freaking Time!", there's some sort of vote going on tomorrow to get approved the funding to start the the I-35 / Ben White overpasses completed, link here.

Umm, how 'bout them Cowboys?

I watched most of the Dallas / Tampa Bay game (and I use the word "game" loosely) Sunday, and had to take some anti-nausea medication near the end. Not because the game was close / nerve-wracking, but because the low-quality offensive play was offensive to my stomach. Dallas definitely won that game (13-9) merely by sucking less than Tampa Bay. See here for game recap.

Brad Johnson missed some pretty easy throws at times, and rumors are saying 3rd string QB Brooks Bollinger may start against the defending champ Giants next weekend. Good news is that the Dallas defense played very strong and saved the game. But the Boys will have to figure out a way to play much better against NY or they'll lose by 27. At least they'll have a bye week and Tony Romo will be back the following week.

Iron Maiden

They say the heart of rock and roll is the beatin'

Art genius or vandal?

My daughter Lauren went on a recent decorating spree in our house with a pencil. She definitely got in trouble, but now I'm wondering ... do we have a potential art genius on our hands? This particular "work" looks pretty cool -- wonder if I could sell it for about $50,000? I could title it "It Looks Like A Three-Year-Old Could Have Drawn It".

Horns roll on to face Pirate Tortilla-Chuckers

Texas played a very close game at home against a really good Oklahoma State team, winning 28-24, recap and highlights here.

After watching the game on TV and noticing the nice weather we had this weekend, I commented to Natasha about how it would have been a really cool game to see in person. I didn't know that Darren, David, and Bill (our church's pastor) had actually been there. I was quite jealous!

Had that game been in Stillwater instead of Austin, I think UT might have lost. I think Texas was also fortunate that OSU went away from a running game that had been working pretty well. That's a good team.

In other news, #3 and undefeated Penn State played well to beat Ohio State in Columbus to ensure their spot, umm, on their knees begging to God for #2 Alabama or #1 Texas to lose! Alabama's biggest test will be against likely Florida in the SEC Championship game, and Texas' biggest test is next week. Penn State may face yet another year of having a perfect season but being shut out of the national title game, which has actually happened several times to them.

Now, for Texas, it's on to Lubbock to face undefeated Pirate Mike Leach and Texas Tech. I think if Texas can win under the Tortilla Rain that they'll be in the BCS title game. I wonder if Tech will bring out the flour discs for #1 Texas:



My prediction? Texas wins a "defensive struggle" 63-60.

Pricing in Change

Hmmm, I think that the forward-looking stock market (link here), seeing latest poll averages (link here), seems to be anticipating and pricing in some Change they can believe in!

My children, er, I mean ... kids!

Whenever we put our kids to bed, they like to get together in Daniel's bed for bedtime prayers. Before I pray for them, I kind of lay down on top of them and hug / squeeze / kiss them and say, "My Children!!", to which they laugh and respond "We're not children! We're KIDS!". I don't think they mean young goats...

Other times they say, "We're not children, we're DOGS!" referring to themselves as Pongo and Birdie, the dad and mom Dalmations from the animated classic "101 Dalmations".