West Texas Water Rights Battles Continue

Pecos County is pulling no punches in making it known that it intends to protect its water from those who would try to sell it elsewhere. This article in the Fort Stockton Pioneer describes the reaction of county commissioners to a proposal by something called the "Texas Mountain Canyon Water Association" to pipe water "from the Hovey Trough - an area of land in Pecos and Brewster counties, which extends to within about 15 miles of Fort Stockton - to Permian Basin cities." More background on this story is available in this Pioneer article dated April 22, in this April 4 article from the Odessa American, and in this article dated April 15 in The Desert-Mountain Times.

Former Odessa mayor Jim Reese is a partner in this venture, as is former Pecos County judge Delmon Hodges. Reese apparently claims that the water is "rechargeable" and therefore, presumably, can't be depleted. I have a hard time believing that anyone in west Texas would fall for such a claim.

To his credit, Reese is calling for an independent assessment by the Texas Water Development Board. On the other hand, there are some who might argue that this injects a degree of outside influence that will likely be unfriendly to local interests (read that as "people living in Pecos and Brewster Counties who have grown accustomed to having water, however sparingly").

It was also interesting to note that the commissioners are painting this new association with the "Rio Nuevo" brush. This tells me that nobody is going to be able to sneak this issue by unsuspecting or unknowledgeable citizens anywhere in west Texas. The antennae are raised, the bogeys are being tracked, and the guns are loaded.

Delving the Mysteries of the Dishwasher

Is there any household appliance less trusted but more relied on than the dishwasher?

This thought came to me this morning as I was loading the breakfast dishes. We don't, of course, put dirty dishes into our dishwasher, as that would be an abomination. Who knows what goes on inside of those things? They can't possible work. I mean, you put the detergent into a little compartment in the door, and you might even put other stuff into a depression in that same door, and it all just drips or falls to the bottom of the machine when you close the door. So, what good is that? How does the dishwashing mechanism reconstruct the detergent in order to apply it to the dishes? No one knows.

Even How Stuff Works draws a blank when you ask about dishwashers. Doesn't this worry anyone? Besides me, that is?

Anyway, we've come to an understanding with our dishwasher. We'll put nothing but clean dishes in it, and it, in turn, will give them back no less clean. This arrangement seems to be pleasing to all concerned, and I recommend it to you.

Here's another thing I've noticed, as long as we're in the general vicinity of dishwashers. Our household uses more spoons -- many more -- than any other kitchen utensil. This morning, we used five (5) spoons for breakfast...and there are just two of us (on a good day).

This must not be a surprise to the utensil industry, however, as our set of "stainless" (isn't that how you refer to your collective everyday eating utensils?) comes with more spoons than any other type (unless you add the number of short forks and long forks, but that's not really apples and apples). Lucky for us.

Then there's the rather annoying issue of glass- and plasticware with concave bottoms. It irks me to no end to have to dry every glass in the dishwasher again, because each one collected its own personal puddle. (Say, is a "plastic glass" an oxymoron?) So what we have is the situation where we have to wash our dishes before putting them in the dishwasher, and we have to dry them after taking them out. I think if we'd known in advance how this was going to work, we might have elected just to have a teenager, instead.

Finally, here's a tip. Put your utensils in the dishwasher with the business end sticking up, except for pointy knives, which should have the sticking end pointing down. This seems to be counterintuitive to some people (well, not the knife part, surely), but...trust me on this...it works better this way.

Bible Book Haiku Meme Continues

We've now received submissions through 2 Kings in our Bible haiku meme-fest, thanks in large part to a burst of creativity from Jason. You can see the current list here.

So, if you want to jump in, I Chronicles is all yours (provided Jason doesn't get it first!). The process is simple: summarize in haiku form a book of the Bible or a theme of that book that's especially meaningful to you. Post it along with the following instructions, and either email or ping the Gazette so we can add your poem to our list.

Note that it's OK to do a book that someone else has already done; in fact, we encourage it. The Bible speaks to everyone in different ways, and the capture of those messages in verse is very cool.

I know that Jasmine was anxious to write a haiku about Ruth. I assume she's still planning on doing that, even though Jason has also created one. But, I also want to write about Ruth, because it's such a great story. So here's my submission:

Meme guidelines:

Your post should include...

1. the previous book's haiku;

2. a link to the post where the previous haiku appears;

3. your book and its related haiku; and,

4. these basic instructions.

1st entry besides a poem

Is it just a West Texas thing to always want sunshine? A southern or southwest thing? I am energized by overcast skies. Today’s cloudy weather was inspirational to me. The almost year round sameness of the typical West Texas sunshine, as pleasant and enjoyable as it may be, wearies the muscles around my eye sockets (that’s why West Texans get crow’s feet at 20something) and begs for contrast or change. At least I feel that way. Being a transplanted Texan rather than native born, I have found myself to be in the minority when it comes to appreciating a gray atmosphere. My own offspring, birthed under the Lone Star flag, respond with lethargy and an almost gloomy attitude if the sun is hidden very long. Born and bred West Texan Eric posted about his own experience with the mental/emotional result of daytime darkness on March 4 of this year. (When I learn to post links, I’ll be able to put one in my blog. But since you’re reading this on the Gazette, you can go to Navel Gazing and remind yourself of his feelings about inclement weather.) I wonder if folks in the Pacific Northwest identify with me or if they live emotionally “under the weather” much of the time?

Well, that’s my first attempt at a post other than a haiku.

New Respect for Soccer Moms

The kidsters went home last night, ending a five-day interruption of this household's status as a child-free zone. And I gotta tell you, I have a new appreciation for stay-at-home moms!

The first three days of this week, I averaged 90 minutes a day driving 30-40 miles per day (and, keep in mind, this is in Midland, Texas...not Dallas or Houston) toting the niece and nephew to and from school. Because of their different schedules, one trip rarely sufficed for both.

I know that working moms (and dads) have challenges of their own, and I don't mean to minimize those in any way. But, face it, sometimes the office can provide a very welcome escape or excuse, right?

Anyway, to you underappreciated van-living kid-toting soccer moms (and dads)... my hat's off to you! Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go gas up the car...again.

Another Bible Haiku: Exodus

Update: The current list of Bible haikus is available here.

OK...I'm going to continue the Bible book haiku meme, and submit one for the book of Exodus:

If you wish to continue this meme, your book is now Leviticus. Just include my Exodus haiku in your post along with a link to this entry, and provide the following instructions for those following you:

Your post should include:

1. the previous book's haiku;

2. a link to the post where the previous haiku appears;

3. your book and its related haiku; and,

4. these basic instructions.

Thanks, Eric, for allowing me to post this on the Gazette. I think your idea is a great one! I’m eager to read each haiku.

The Gazette is Pleased to Introduce...Jasmine!

That's right...the Gazette is no longer a solo act. Please allow me to introduce my friend and novice blogger, Jasmine.

I've been trying to convince Jasmine to start a blog for some time, and she's always had one excuse or another ("the dog ate my monitor"..."earthquakes in Hibernia"..."cicada season is just around the corner"). I finally found the one answer to all of her excuses: "become a co-blogger on the Gazette and see for yourself how good you are and how much you'll enjoy it!" She had no choice but to consent.

I'm going to leave it up to Jasmine to tell you about herself, to the extent she feels comfortable. I can tell you that she's already got a post in the works...a Bible book haiku, in fact, so check back in a bit if you have time.

And, above all, please extend to her the same friendly spirit that I've enjoyed. In return, you'll be blessed by her insights and creativity.

Meme: Bible Book Haiku

Update: The current list of Bible haikus is available here.

I've been thinking about this for awhile, and I've finally worked up the courage to propose it. I know there are a good number of Bible scholars on my blogroll, and a number of poets...but I wonder just how many poetic Bible scholars (or scholarly Bible poets) there are?

Here's one way to find out: I'm proposing a little blogging community exercise in which we attempt to create a haiku (short poem with three lines...5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables. But, you knew that.) for each book of the Bible -- in consecutive fashion (sort of) -- summarizing or capturing a main theme for that book.

Here's how it works. I'm going to begin with Genesis (duh), and since you're reading about this for the first time here, you get Exodus. But, if you encounter this meme elsewhere, you'll take the next book of the Bible. (Still with me?) Thus, if you read a haiku about the book of Joshua and decide to dive in, you'd then write about the book of Judges.

Your post should include:

1. the previous book's haiku;


2. a link to the post where the previous haiku appears;


3. your book and its related haiku; and,


4. these basic instructions.

If you want to send me an email or ping this post, I'll try to keep track of and accumulate all the resulting haikus, along with links to their authors. At some point, it would be great to have all 66 books of the Bible summarized in haiku. Of course, duplicates are inevitable, but that's part of the fun, seeing how different people summarize the same book...and you can also do more than one book, as long as you reference a predecessor's entry and write about the subsequent book.

OK. Let's kick this off and see where it leads, shall we?

More Cable Modem Ranting

It seems that several others believe that they are experiencing similar slowdowns in the speed of their Cox cable internet access, judging by the comments on my previous post.

As a follow-up to that post, I'd like to point to a seemingly objective resource for quantifying your connection speed (this works for all internet connections, by the way...not just Cox or just cable). Bandwidth Place performs a free test and provides results showing your communications speed in terms of megabits per second, download speed (kilobytes per second) and assigns a subjective rating of your overall connection speed. While you once could run an unlimited number of tests for free, the service now limits you to three free tests per month, unless you pay to upgrade to "premium service." (There's that term again.)

Anyway, I ran a test this morning and my storage speed was 182.8 kb/sec. It's been a year since I've done this test, but the last results were consistently between 250 and 350 kb/sec. This is a significant degradation in connection speed, especially considering that I'm paying the same price as before (if not a little more; who can really figure out their cable bill?).

My parents have a wireless internet connection in Fort Stockton (not exactly the center of the bandwidth universe) and, skeptic that I am, I ran this test on their connection about six months ago when it was first installed. It consistently gave readings in excess of 350 kb/sec.l

Realizing that connection speed is dependent upon many different factors in addition to the internet provider's infrastructure, this is still an issue that bears further monitoring. If any other Cox users want to begin checking their connection speeds and keeping track of any changes, feel free to let me know about the results. At some point, perhaps we'll accumulate enough data to warrant contacting the company for an explanation.

Paranoid...or Perceptive?

Cox Communications is my internet service provider (as well as my cable company). When I first signed up for their internet service a few years ago, I was amazed at the blazing speed of the connection. Not anymore; something has changed between then and now, and it's not a good change.

At the time I signed up, I was assured that service would never slow down due to increased subscribers on my "node" (my made-up word...I'm not sure what the technical term is for our little part of the network). This is supposedly the Achille's Heel of cable internet connections; the more people in your neighborhood who use the service, the slower it gets. The Cox rep assured me that Cox would stay ahead of the curve and keep adding capacity so we would never notice any such slowdowns.

I'm sure they would never knowingly fib to me...would they? So, what's causing the slowdowns? I really hope it's the increased subscriber load, because the alternative is just sickening.

Cox now sells a "Premier Package" for its "High Speed Internet" customers. For about twice the price, you get speeds "up to 30% faster" than what most of us subscribed to. See where I'm going with this?

What's the best way to get people to upgrade their accounts to faster speeds? Well, one way to do it is to slow down their current accounts. Is this possible? Beats me. All I know is that my connection is noticeably slower, day in and day out (regardless of the time of the day) than it was three years ago. I'd be very interested to hear if other Cox customers are experiencing the same phenomenon.

Hit Count Mystery Solved

I think I've answered my own rhetorical question in an earlier post, where I wondered if anyone else had seen a big increase in traffic from search engine referrals.

Until last weekend, when I spent quite a bit of time working under the hood of the Gazette, so to speak, I had never put the Site Meter counter script anywhere except the front page. When I copied the content seen in the right column of the page to all of the individual post archives, that counter script was included. I never gave it a second thought, but I now understand that what I'm seeing are the visits to the archived pages that were not being counted before.

This make sense. All visits from someone else's blogroll will land on the Gazette's front page. The only visits to the archived pages are those which originate either from trackback links in another blog's post, or from search engines.

The moral of the lesson is pretty simple: if you want your Site Meter stats to look as good as possible, put that counter on every page of your blog! (Not that any of us care about such things. Nosireebob; we're above that sort of narcissistic distraction.)

An Object Lesson In Search Engine Optimization

I've started getting a significantly increased number of visitors via search engines (anyone else noticing this phenomenon?) and one entry from my referer log caught my eye this afternoon. It was a Google search for "rodrigo rodriguez guitarist."

The Gazette comes up in the #1 position for this search, thanks to this post made last January. What's really interesting about this search result ranking is that my post is six places above Rodrigo's own website.

This raises all kinds of interesting questions, including the oft-discussed one about whether blogs are "polluting" search engine results (something I also posted about in January). But I'd prefer to focus on some practical truths rather than debating things I can't control.

The truth of the matter is that Rodrigo's website is simply not search engine friendly. The home page is the dread Flash Splash, and while the page title is good ("Rodrigo Rodriguez"), it's not ideal (much better would be "Rodrigo Rodriguez - Classical Guitar" or "Rodrigo Rodriguez - Christian Classical Guitarist"). The next two pages of the site are also Flash, with the only indexable text being the "Next Page" links. The fourth page has the main navigation links, but they are contained in a single image map (with no alt tags to give a spider a clue about their content).

The first time the visitor (or search engine spider) encounters Rodrigo's name in text is in the content pages...four or five clicks from the home page (and even then, only his first name shows up in the text for the most part).

I'm not trying to pick on Rodrigo's website, and I'm sure he's not at fault for its shortcomings in this area. He's a musician, and an incredibly gifted one at that, and has better things to do than stay current on search engine optimization. But he's been let down by his designer, who let artistry get in the way of usability and accessibility, with the result being that a simple country blog in west Texas outranks the musician on his own name and profession.

It's quiet...too quiet...

That won't last long. Our niece and nephew, ages 16 and 14 respectively, are coming this morning to stay with us for five days while their mom is on a business trip. My comfortable routine will, of course, be history.

That's not a complaint, though. They're great kids, at ages where you can actually have conversations, and they don't require (nor want) constant supervision. We'll do just fine.

I don't know how this will affect the blogging end of things, though. I won't be writing about them, in consideration of their privacy. But whether I can write anything remains to be seen, given the recent increase in my workload coupled with these new responsibilities that will require me to sort of act like an adult for a change.

Readers Write

The Gazette has been deluged with emailed correspondence from its faithful and perceptive readers, and having finally had time to read and digest the content of both messages, I find them to be blog-worthy. Plus it's Friday, and we've got that going for us.

Up first is the letter from my pal Will, who is a medic in the Texas National Guard, stationed in an undisclosed location somewhere in east Texas. Will is following the debate in Austin regarding school financing, especially as it relates to property taxes in our state. He knows a lot more about the issues than me, but we share a belief that, dang it, our property taxes are too high and somebody needs to do something about 'em.

The "somebody" Will points to is CLOUT (Citizens Lowering Our Unfair Taxes). CLOUT was formed last year (as far as I can tell) and is functioning as a PAC and lobbying group to get legislative tax relief. Its website appears to be fairly new, and some sections are still incomplete, but it looks like a good resource for keeping current on the issues. Drop by and take a look, if you're so inclined.

Then there's the communication from Lucy, who is by now world-famous for her win in the great Fire Ant Gazette Mystery Waveform Contest. As it turns out, Lucy was a ringer...she had an unfair advantage (if, by "unfair," we actually mean that she knew more than the rest of us).

It seems that Lucy -- a fellow Midlander -- shares some experience with yours truly, in that she was a DJ during the Golden Age of Vinyl Delivered Melodies. In fact, she once worked at KOCV (at Odessa College) and later at another local commercial station (using an on-air name that many in this area would no doubt recognize).

She shares this great anecdote by way of explaining how she knew that the waveform in the contest represented a needle stuck in a scratch in the record:

I always wondered how radio stations came up with their nicknames; I thought they were always based in hyperbole, but it seems that KOCV's had at least some foundation in fact!

Just as a footnote, Lucy is now looking for an "entry level Public Relations" position or something similar, so if you hear of anything, let me know and I'll pass it along to her.

Sin vs. Sleaze

Carol Keeton Rylander Strayhorn, et al, has not only accumulated a plethora of names for herself, but has made a name for the position of State Comptroller of Texas. Quick...how many other state comptrollers can you name? Anyone?

Ms. Strayhorn continues to skirmish with Texas Governor Rick Perry over just about everything. Some think she's setting the stage for her own run at the governor's office in 2006. I think she's perfectly qualified to extend the tradition of Texas' previous female governors, the group of which makes the adjective "colorful" seem woefully inadequate. The short list includes Miriam Amanda Wallace (Ma) Ferguson, the first woman governor of Texas, who once pistol-whipped a senator* over a perceived breach of etiquette, and Dorothy Ann Willis (Pa) Richards, who onced graced the cover of Texas Monthly, astride a Harley and sporting the most massively airbrushed makeover** in the history of the publishing industry. In a word, Ms. Strayhorn is a live wire, and makes Governor Rick look like a cardboard cutout in comparison.

So it was no surprise that she's come out with both barrels blazing in response to Perry's proposal to implement a tax on "sexually-oriented nightclubs" as a way of addressing the state's education finance problems. Interestingly, while she disputes that such a tax will raise the amount of money the Governor claims, her real agenda is nothing short of closing those businesses.

Here's what she says in an article in today's Midland Reporter Telegram:

The article continues...

I'll admit that I may not grasp her intended meaning of that last statement, but my interpretation is that she's pointing out that the governor's proposal lacks an important moral foundation. Her distinction between "sleaze" and "sin" is important and probably too subtle for many lawmakers to comprehend.

One definition of "sleaze" is "tastelessness by virtue of being cheap and vulgar." Compare that to a definition of "sin": "violate a law of God or a moral law" (verb) or "estrangement from God" (noun).

Sleaze is in the eye of the beholder, in other words, while sin is in the eye of God. One has a relative standard; the other is absolute. One is hard to define (but we'll know it when we see it...unless, of course, we decide not to see it) and the other is clearly spelled out in a Book.

Ms. Strayhorn isn't breaking any new ground by saying that we can't legislate morality, because a law hasn't yet been written by the hand of man that can change Man's propensity for doing the wrong thing every chance s/he gets. But it's a step in the right direction...a breath of fresh air...to hear a politician make a distinction between sleaze and sin, even if the motivation is simply political.

Pegged at the "Feast" End of the Meter

I've commented previously about how my business is subject to a "feast or famine" cycle. It seems that I'm either up to my eyeballs in work, or I'm blogging. And I've been blogging a lot lately.

The pendulum has begun to swing the other way, as I've landed two new clients today, with several others in the "thinking about it" stage. Both clients are well known names in the Midland community; that's all I'll say at this point. But it appears that blogging may be light for a bit, while I try to make a meager contribution to the bill-paying capacity of our household. I do have a couple of posts in mind for later today, but please bear with me if I seem to disappear for a while after that.

You could find a lot less enjoyable ways to pass the time than paying a visit to the good folks linked at right, by the way!

A Fire Ant Contest!

Update: We have a winner!

Lucy is the perceptive visitor who correctly identified the waveform shown below as representative of a phonograph needle stuck in a scratch on a vinyl LP. See the post comments for more info.

If you're too young to know what a "broken record" sounds like, here's a tiny (9kb MP3) sample from the recording from which this waveform originated.

Congratulations again to Lucy, who, as promised, will be memorialized for some period of time on the Gazette's home page, just under the world-famous Abbye pics.

And thank you to all who hazarded a guess in this little contest! We'll have to do this again sometime.

OK, everyone who's been paying any attention at all knows that one of my current projects is the digitizing of my vinyl LPs for transfer to CD.

In honor of that project, I'm proposing a little contest, the rules of which are quite simple. The winner will be the first person to identify via comment on this post what the following image represents (click on it to see a larger version):

And what, you might ask, does that fortunate one win? Well, nothing less than his or her name encased in genuine Fire Ant pixels just below the photo of Abbye on the right side of this page (Gazette home page only, that is) for as long as I forget to take it down, but for no less than one (or maybe two) weeks. Really, now...can you ask for anything more?

The contest will close at 4:00 p.m. (CDT) on Thursday, April 22. Enter early and often. It's fun!

Will You Read The Gazette A Century From Now?

It's a fair question, considering that Network Solutions is now offering 100-year domain name registrations.

That's right. For just $999.99, I can reserve fireantgazette.com* for a century, thereby ensuring that I can continue to blog to my heart's content well after I'm dead. That carries some mind-boggling implications. Extrapolating from the first 18 months of the Gazette's existence, in 100 years my faithful readers will have 47,000 entries to choose from, and will have left 80,000 comments. I have no easy way of computing how much disk space the blog will require, although the images alone will take up 300 megabytes. And, most importantly, if the current increase in readership continues, by the year 2104 every man, woman and child in the solar system will be reading the Gazette each day, along with a not insignificant percentage of residents of Sirius, irresistably drawn to the photos of Abbye. Frankly, I'm not sure I'll be able to afford the bandwidth charges, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

Seriously, though, aside from being a fairly imaginative marketing ploy, NetSol's offer has little to recommend it. On an economic basis, it's a bad investment. Even if you assume NetSol's exorbitant $35/year renewal fee (is anyone still paying that?), the NPV of making that payment on an annual basis for 100 years is about $972 (based on an average annual discount rate of 3.6%). If you run the numbers using something like GoDaddy's $8.95/year fee, the NPV drops to about $250.

Then there's the reality of the marketplace. How many companies in the world have 100 years of existence to their credit, let alone a century without a name change? That corporate name etched in marble today is simply a paperweight commemorating the good old days tomorrow. Why, even today I'm in serious preliminary negotiations with a corporate sponsor for the Gazette (I can't disclose any details, but I think the ointment tie-in is a natural).

So, ultimately, this is another example of man's hubris in thinking he can create a lasting monument to himself. One has only to read the 11th chapter of Genesis to see how God views such efforts. And, even if God doesn't find it necessary to intervene, man's own ingenuity will likely do the trick. In 100 years, the domain name may well be the 21st century's equivalent of the buggy whip, and a 100 year registration will be as valuable as a guaranteed 100 year supply of whale oil procured in the year 1904.

I wish I had the imagination of Jules Verne or Arthur C. Clarke in order to describe some of the ways our current "cutting edge" technology will be made irrelevant or otherwise consigned to a footnote in a future history textbook. But I suspect some of you have some ideas and so I pose the Rhetorical Question of the Week: What future development(s) will make Network Solutions' offer of a 100 year domain name renewal even more ridiculous than it already sounds?

*Yes, I have registered fireantgazette.com (but not for 100 years and certainly not from NetSol), but I'm not yet using it because, frankly, I'm too cheap to pay for another hosting account. But, if you wish, you can use the URL because it will lead you to this site. Ain't technology wonderful?

Thanks a lot, Alan...

The stock market continued its pathological codependency on Alan Greenspan yesterday, shedding over 100 points from the DJIA after contemplation of the nuances of the spaces between the letters of the words spoken by Mr. Greenspan in front of a Congressional committee. His subtle hinting -- as faint and insignificant as the rate of return on my 401K money market account -- that short-term interest rates could possibly be on the cusp of a potential examination for an assessment of appropriateness, leading to the definite chance that perhaps something different could someday ensue, sent institutional investors into smothering spells, forcing the Manhattan Rolls-Royce dealership to cut back on the free clotted cream being served with scones at the afternoon tea on the showroom floor.

For us little guys, the main effect is the proverbial "rock and hard place," as we get the hit on our meager stock portfolios without any offsetting actual interest hike in our meager money market accounts...the worst of both worlds, as it were. Good thing we're all in it for the long haul. Right?

One Word Away From Being A Writer

Deb Thompson is a writer who not only writes, but studies the art of writing. Perhaps all real writers do this; since I'm not a real writer, I wouldn't know. But, it makes sense that they would do this. She also shares what she learns.

Deb found this interesting little website called one word (yes...lower case). It presents you with the opportunity to write for 60 seconds about a word, a word it picks for you. You can then publish what you write for others to see, and read what they've written.

I've reconfirmed my suspicion that I'm just a poseur when it comes to real writing. But, it's still fun.

McDonald Observatory Scores Coup

This is mucho cool:

Congrats to the eggheads at McDonald's Observatory, one of my favorite places to visit in the Davis Mountains.

[Hey, Robert...you're falling down on the job! I went to your blog first to see what you had to say about this. ;-)]

DROA Gets Religion

The world of domain name registrations is nasty and sleazy, with a few exceptions, as a plethora of competing registrars employ every underhanded scheme imaginable in an attempt to enlarge their piece of the registration pie. If you own a domain name, then you've surely been spammed via either email or snail mail by a competing registrar enticing you to switch to them, because, well, they are swell and the others are all pond scum.

One of the worst of these, from an ethical standpoint, has been the Domain Registry of America ("DROA"). In the past, it's been their practice to mail an official-looking letter with the heading "Domain Name Expiration Notice" to domain owners. In it, they would list the dire consequences of losing your domain name, and provide an easy way to renew it. What they never disclosed was the minor fact that when you accepted their offer, you were giving them permission to transfer your domain from the original registrar to DROA. Sometimes the original registrar balked at the transfer and you ended up paying for a service you didn't get.

I've had at least two clients fall into DROA's trap, and these are not isolated incidents. Google "Domain Registry of America complaints" and you'll see what I mean.

However, I'm happy to report that someone has finally gotten DROA's attention, and explained to them the error of their wicked ways...and convinced them to make a change. Hence the unsolicited letter I got from them today was a much more ethical piece of junk mail. Even though it still has the arm-waving "Domain Name Expiration Notice" heading, the text is much different than in the past:

I wonder what "incentives" (ie, "threats") were brought to bear to bring about this change of heart? Whatever they were, I applaud them.

Of course, their rates are still way too high, but that's another topic for another time.

Christian Blogging Survey Results Online

Michelle Johnston has just published the complete results from her recent survey of "Christian bloggers," and the paper contains a lot of food for thought. I hope to digest it a bit and present some of my own thoughts regarding the survey results.

I had hoped that Michelle would receive more responses than she did...115 usable responses doesn't sound like a lot (Blog4God, a Christian blog directory, has almost 1,000 sites registered), but this is still one of the more comprehensive blogger surveys I've seen, Christian-oriented or not.

Michelle has also created a new blog devoted to a discussion of the survey results, and specifically how Christian bloggers can break out of their "exclusionary bubble." You can read the survey results to get the context for that; I'll probably be blogging about it later.

Loco Lunes

It's been, as they say, Monday all day around here. I've been busy with a half dozen projects and I can't see any discernible progress on any of them.

Well, that's not entirely true. I did a quick reskinning of the blog early this morning, only to find that one of my faithful readers thought that someone had performed an exsanguination on his monitor. (Maybe the skinning allusion is more literal than I intended.) I apologize if the color scheme is a little, um, dark. This, too, shall pass. Just give me time.

I spent several hours over the weekend tinkering under the hood of the Gazette, fiddling with the templates and style sheets. I made at least fifty changes, some of which you might notice if you're really perceptive, and many others which aren't intended to be noticed but which should make things a tad more accessible, usable or just workable.

I wish my graphic design skills were stronger. Heck, I wish I had any graphic design skills. That's not my forté ("your forté is a gift for stating the obvious!"). It might have something to do with my being just a tad color blind, but it goes deeper than that. I suffer from a basic lack of design creativity.

OK...I did accomplish something today, after all. I finally got organized and motivated and am now digitizing my LPs in order to burn the music to CD. I'm using Roxio's CD Spin Doctor to grab the signal via my PowerBook, then editing the resulting AIFF file in Felt Tip's Sound Studio, the most capable $50 sound editing software on the face of the planet, IMHO.

I tested the setup on a few tracks from a cassette tape by George Thorogood and the Destroyers, a perfectly awful recording. To call this a garade studio recording gives garage studios a bad name. (Even the label has a misprint: "I'll Change My Style" ended up being "I'll Change My Sty," which could be an ode to swine farmers, I suppose.)

Once I confirmed that the process worked, I got serious and have now recorded a mediocre offering by one of my all-time favorite groups, Blood, Sweat & Tears. The album is "New City," recorded in 1975. Overall, the album leaves much to be desired, but it does feature several excellent cuts, including a high-energy arrangement of the Beatles' "Got To Get You Into My Life" and another of "Ride, Captain Ride."

One down, 150+ to go. Perhaps this day wasn't such a waste of time, after all.

Abbye Update

I'm happy to report that Abbye is doing fine today, apart from being sore in the shoulder area. She was a little slow out of her crate this morning, but the recuperative powers of a scrambled egg and a little bacon (for medicinal purposes only, of course) are amazing, and she even consented to a morning walk before we headed off to church.

I think we may have found one potential defense against the apparent epidemic in canine assaults. Of course, Abbye will have to gain about 30 pounds, but that's one area where she's never lacked motivation!

Lightning Strikes Twice

My wife, Abbye and I were halfway around the park during this morning's walk when the old man hobbled out from the cul-de-sac and onto the sidewalk ahead of us. He had a dog on a leash...a wiry medium-sized female of indeterminate breed, perhaps a terrier mix. We hung back, to let them move further ahead of us; at that point in our walk, Abbye wasn't leashed, as she is well-trained to heel, sit and stay...as long as she's not too close to other dogs.

The man appeared to be in his 80s and limped as if he had severe arthritis or, perhaps, an artificial hip. His dog, whom we heard him refer to as "Ginger," was active, darting back and forth ahead of him at the end of one of those retractable leashes.

We continued on our usual route around the park, at a safe distance behind the pair. They stopped briefly while Ginger did her business, and the old man stooped with a plastic bag in hand to pick up after her. They resumed their hobbling and darting progress until they came to the fork in the sidewalk where we intended to exit the park and continue on our usual route through the neighborhood.

I was a little puzzled as the old man passed by the trash can just off the sidewalk (he was still carrying the poop-filled plastic bag), and it struck me that he was heading for the dumpster just ahead of us, across the alley. But to get there, he'd have to step over a low slung cable strung between posts set in the ground to act as a simple barrier between the park and the alley. He didn't appear to be spry enough to complete that maneuver -- especially with an active dog on a leash -- but I figured that appearances were deceiving. In addition, by that time Ginger had spotted Abbye and was acting a little frantic about it. In fact, we elected to put Abbye back on her leash as we walked past them. I thought it was overly cautious, since we were at least 50 feet away and heading further away, but my wife insisted.

We came to the end of the sidewalk, which intersected with the same alley that the old man was attempting to gain access to, and we glanced over just in time to see exactly what we feared: he caught his trailing foot on the wire, and in seemingly slow motion, fell heavily forward onto the pavement of the alley.

As he hit the ground, he lost the leash. In the blink of an eye, Ginger darted toward Abbye and in a horrible flash of deja vu, snapped at her, sending golden fur flying. My wife screamed and Abbye yelped before I managed to grab the loose end of Ginger's leash and jerk her away.

Having temporarily dealt with one crisis, we turned to the other. The man was still sprawled on the pavement, although he was attempting to get to his feet, and did so by the time I could get over to check on his condition. About that same time, Ginger jerked on her leash hard enough to pull out of her collar and headed back toward Abbye, who was in my wife's protective grasp. Ginger kept running, crossing the street and continuing down the alley on the other side.

The old man said he was OK, although his arm was scraped pretty badly. He said that Ginger wouldn't return while Abbye was still around, so we took that as a hint and left him to his own devices to retrieve his dog and make his way home.

Needless to say, we were absolutely dumbfounded. We've had Abbye almost eight years and have never had an encounter with an aggressive dog, and now we'd had two in less than three weeks.

This one has turned out to be a little more serious, too. The other dog actually managed to get to her skin, unlike the black lab. The skin wasn't broken, but it was red, and she's really sore this evening, as I write this. In fact, we've given her a Rimadyl to take the edge off the pain. We'll watch her closely and if she's not better in the morning, it may be time for a visit to the vet.

I know this is just a bizarre set of coincidences, but if anyone knows where we can find a set of body armor for a gentle little dog, give me a holler. We're not taking anymore chances!

Minor Makeover

I guess it's the "spring cleaning" urge that makes me want to change the look of the Gazette, mitigated by my comfortable-in-a-rut mindset that keeps me from doing anything drastic. In any event, I've added a splash of color to the blog, although I'm not sure I'll keep it this way. I have something else in mind, and this was just a warmup to remind me of how the Movable Type templates work.

I've also added a little link at the bottom of each post on the main page to let you jump back to the top of the page. This is a very minor touch, but should make it easier to return to the random photos of Abbye, which I understand is the real reason 99% of my visitors come here. But I'm not bitter...just resigned.

As always, comments and suggestions are welcomed.

Book Meme ("Meme Too!")

Multiply the meme:

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 23.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.

Courtesy of Mysterium Tremendum.

Mac "Virus" [Not]; Gurus vs Bloggers

Coupla great items courtesy of Jon Gruber's Daring Fireball.

First, some of you may recall a recent report that a new virus had been found, one of the first potentially serious threats to Apple's Mac OS X. This report elicited glee in some Windows users (you know who you are) and trepidation in some Mac users. Jon does a great job of clearly and concisely explaining why neither reaction is warranted. He goes on to grade the various media outlets who reported on this story, some of which should be ashamed of themselves.

Second, he points us to a very funny post by the estimable Andrei Herasimchuk at Design By Fire. Andrei pits a team of web usability gurus against a team of bloggers to determine which has the better websites. The whole thing is tongue-in-cheek, but also manages to make some good points about the relationship between good design and usability. If you are interested in either topic, stop by and take a look; the comments are worth reading also.

Strictly Hairstyling

What do you get if you take "Strictly Ballroom" and substitute:

• British accents for Aussie...
• Melting combs for judge fixing...
• Over-the-top hairdos for over-the-top costumes...
• 60s pop music for, um, 60s pop music...
• the British Hairdressing Championship for the Australian Pan Pacific Ballroom Dancing Championships?

Well, you get a movie called "Blow Dry," and if you liked "Ballroom Dancing" you'll want to give it look. This 2001 movie stars Alan Rickman ("Harry Potters," "Galaxy Quest," "Die Hard") and Josh Hartnett (with a passable Brit accent, no less), along with several others whose names you may not know but whose faces you will recognize. The plot is silly at times, manipulative at others, and overall quite predictable, but that doesn't mean it's not worth renting on DVD... if only to see how similar it is to "Strictly Ballroom" (which, for the record, is the superior movie).

["Blow Dry" is also rated R (language and brief nudity) while "Strictly Ballroom" is a "mature" PG (some of the costumes were pretty racy).]

On the other hand...

Having just taken the [Dis]Loyal Opposition to task, in the interest of balanced coverage, I must express displeasure with something else I heard today on one of the local morning shows.

The story was about reactions to the recent flareup in violence in Iraq, and what the citizenry thought the US should do about it. The reporter interviewed one of the people who is often called upon in such cases to serve as a de facto spokesman for local veterans, and he had this disturbing quote with which he justified his view that the best reaction was to level the Iraqi cities where the violence was occuring: "I can't think of a single person in the entire country of Iraq who is worth the life of one US soldier."

Well. Now, I'll admit that I've never served in the military, much less fought in a war. But, I can't believe that such utter contempt for the citizens of the country we've liberated is widely shared by our troops. Am I just naive?

I'm trying to give this gentleman the benefit of the doubt, and assume that he spoke rashly out of a sense of legitimate frustration and anger over the atrocities commited against our troops by the criminals in Iraq. It's hard to visualize a punishment too extreme for those people. But to paint the entire Iraqi population with this brush is going too far, plain and simple. If we can't respect the people for whom we're fighting, then we need to pack up and leave.

"There's No Crying in Baseball!"

I'm rapidly running out of options for morning news programs. Having ditched Katie & Co. some time back, we've been tolerating Charlie and what's-her-face on ABC, but after this morning, I'm through with them, as well.

Gibson was interviewing General George Casey, the Vice Chief of Staff for the US Army. The focus of the interview was the Army's decision to extend the tour of duty for many troops stationed in Iraq. Gibson's leadoff question lowered the bar considerably for journalistic standards as he asked the General "isn't this unfair?"

Unfair? Unfair? Where do they get these guys? That question brought to my mind the quote that serves as the title to this post, taken from the excellent movie, "A League of Their Own." Beleaguered coach Tom Hanks is attempting to explain baseball to one of the players on his team of women, said player sniveling after a tongue-lashing given for bad play.

In similar fashion, Gen. Casey attempted to explain to an obviously simple-minded talking head that war is not about fairness, and every soldier understands that his or her duty is to the mission.

Gibson dug his hole even deeper by persisting with a question about "broken promises" in regard to when the troops were told they would get to return home. Again, the General patiently explained that there were no promises made, and, further, none expected by the troops.

Gibson's performance epitomizes the situation most of the mainstream media seems to have become rooted in: an inability (refusal?) to acknowledge that there is a war going on...not a police action, not a response to civil disobedience, not a training exercise, and certainly not a political tactic crafted for election purposes. Gibson, like so many others whom I can no longer tolerate on-screen, Just Doesn't Get It.

I was, however, pleased when Gibson tried to end the interview and the General insisted on getting in one last word (more of a paragraph, really). He ended by thanking those Americans who continued to support the troops and their mission, and by challenging us to extend our support and caring to the families of those troops. This was his way of reminding us that our attitudes and actions at home have effects -- good and bad -- on our troops in Iraq. Unfortunately, those who most needed to hear that probably weren't listening.

I toad you not to do that!

[Things are looking up, thanks to some herbal therapy. No, not that. I'm sipping a big mug of hot Kousmichoff Earl Grey Smoky tea (it comes in linen tea bags, you know...very civilized), and suddenly the world seems a lot more bloggable.

The Kusmi Earl Grey is the best I've found. Most EGs have too much Oil of Bergamot for my taste; this blend is very subtle, and it has a nice smoky flavor to boot. It's also hard to find, so I shepherd my stash very carefully.]

OK...just one more Abbye story.

The first night at our little Hill Country B&B, Abbye was in the yard being queen of all she surveyed. After a while, MLB peeked through the front door window and called for me to come see some unusual behavior on the part of our dog.

Abbye was staring intently into the flowerbed lining the sidewalk, occasionally pawing at something hidden from our sight. After about twenty seconds of observing this behavior, my curiosity got the best of me and I went outside to see what she was up to.

As soon as I stepped onto the porch, she grabbed something in her mouth (apparently as a defensive measure to ensure that I didn't get it first), and stepped up on the porch, intending to come inside.

MLB said "Does she have a stick in her mouth?" It was a good question, as something long and thin was protruding out from either side of her mouth. "Surely it's not a snake?!"

I didn't think so, but I yelled at her to drop it, which -- amazingly -- she did. She dropped a big fat toad onto the porch...a toad which she had taken headfirst into her mouth until only the hindlegs stuck out sideways like a fetched stick (which, by the way, she would never pick up!).

Here's the kicker: after she dropped the toad, she shook her head and scrunched up her face into a doggy expression of disgust...then attempted to pick it up again!

I called her off, sent her inside and helped the dazed lumpy amphibian back into the grass. We never saw it again, although Abbye searched for it each time she went outside thereafter. And we were reminded once again that we have an animal living with us.

I'm here...but not really...

Sorry for the lack of blogging. I think I inhaled too much pollen or flower fragrance or something, but I'm really dragging. I'll try to climb back to my usual level of incompetence soon.

In the meantime, the least I can do is thank the good folks over at The Briefing for adding The Gazette to their blogroll. Can't identify their exact location for sure, but they're definitely Texas bloggers, and that makes 'em good uns (even if they are Methodists! ;-)

Easter Hill Country Tour

As I mentioned earlier, MLB and I spent a long Easter weekend in Fredericksburg, in the heart of the Texas Hill Country. It's been our tradition for the past two decades to participate in the Easter Hill Country Tour, a bicycling event alternately sponsored by the bike clubs in Fort Worth, Lubbock, Houston and San Antonio. This year's event was organized by the Fort Worth club.

Unlike many similar events, the EHCT is a self-paced event that allows for a lot of individual creativity in scheduling and participation. Routes of various lengths and difficulty are mapped out in advance for Friday, Saturday and Sunday. You can generally choose from mileage that varies from 25 to 75 miles, with a century (100 mile ride) each Saturday thrown in for good measure. The Sunday rides are shorter...25-40 miles. However, you can also make up your own routes; there is a seemingly infinite number of combinations of backroads around Fredericksburg and Kerrville, and the fun is often in trying to come up with new variations that still allow you to enjoy the periodic rest stops (complete with food and drink and -- most important! -- Porta-Potties) that are placed along the "official" routes.

After more than 1,500 miles of biking through this countryside, we're pretty comfortable doing our own thing. In fact, we don't enjoy riding with large groups of people that much anyway. For one thing, pacing is problematic, and there are some associated hazards (watch any Tour de France video to get an idea). We usually arrive early and ride on Thursday, before the Tour begins. We'll then generally ride one of the organized routes (or a variation thereof) on Friday and Saturday. Depending on how we feel, and the weather conditions, we may or may not ride on Sunday morning before returning home.

This year, we rode with the Tour only one day, on Friday. We rode alone on Thursday and Saturday, and the weather kept us off the bike on Sunday. We ended up with just over 125 miles of riding. More about that in a moment.

The EHCT is actually based in Kerrville, which is about 22 miles south of Fredericksburg (hereafter referred to as "Fburg"). But we stay in a bed and breakfast just outside of Fburg that's so wonderful that we're willing to tolerate the drive to Kerrville as needed. Fortunately, in most years the Tour has one day of routes that all begin and end in Fburg, so that's one less car trip we have to make.

[Note: Hereafter, the thumbnail images are linked to larger versions of the photos...some are much larger, in case you're on dial-up. You can also click on the first image below and begin a photo tour without all my boring narrative if you wish. But you'll have to backtrack in order to return here, as there are no links leading back to the Gazette.]

The B&B (which shall remain nameless in order to protect our ability to get future reservations...it does not suffer from a dearth of business! ;-) is a couple of miles out of town and has about a quarter mile of riverfront along the Pedernales (see photo at right). It's got its own nature trail, and we've spotted deer, armadillo, rabbits, fox, snakes and turtles while wandering through it. You can sit on the screened-in back porch and watch the deer wander past in the morning and evening, or relax in an outdoor hot tub with the same view. It's a one-family B&B, so we have the run of the place to ourselves; the proprietors live in a separate house 100 yards distant. The breakfasts are hand-delivered each morning by the owners, and range from German pancakes with peach syrup, to poached eggs with bacon, to fresh fruit and yogurt parfaits. Yep, we really rough it.

We arrived mid-afternoon on Wednesday, following a drive of unsurpassed beauty. The wildflowers began appearing just south of Midland, and for the next 300 miles we were treated to a visual feast that only occurs in those infrequent years where copious spring rains combine with an early final freeze to bring out the best in the landscape.

What we viewed is essentially the legacy of one woman, Lady Bird Johnson, whose tireless campaign to beautify America beginning in the 60s still pays dividends to highway travelers across the nation. Texas has perhaps benefited the most, as one might expect given the Johnsons' roots in the Hill Country. The Texas Department of Transportation has an ongoing wildflower seeding program, and maintains a website providing up-to-the-minute reports on flower and foliage status across the state, and the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center is a native plant education and research facility located in Austin. Thanks to efforts from these organizations, one can view bluebonnets, Indian Paintbrush and many other native wildflowers in a literal non-stop parade for hundreds of miles through Texas. (However, some believe that events -- natural and otherwise -- are conspiring against the continuation of this legacy.)

In any event, our drive to Fburg was wonderful. I insist on taking a route that most Midlanders eschew: I head south to Rankin, then on to Iraan, meeting up with I-10 just west of Sheffield. It's a slightly less direct route, and it puts us on the interstate for most of the trip. However, I really enjoy the drive from Rankin to Iraan because of the vastness of the scenery, and I'm always interested to see how the condition of the landscape compares with previous years. The windfarms atop the mesas west and north of Iraan are also pretty spectacular in their own right. The juxtaposition of the old energy sources (the 75+ year old Yates oil field, active but declining, provides Iraan with its raison d'être) against the new (the hundreds of shining white wind turbines generating electricity 24/7/365 give area ranchers a new and badly needed source of revenue) is fascinating to consider.

We unloaded the bike and I got it ride-worthy while MLB unpacked and Abbye attempted -- unsuccessfully -- to make friends with the farm cat. Abbye is the epitome of eternal optimism. She's convinced that the cat will eventually become her best bud, given enough time and effort. The cat remains skeptical.

The weather forecast called for a cold front to move in on Saturday, with possible thunderstorms. We decided to do our long ride on Friday, and the wisdom of that decision was later confirmed. Before that, on Thursday, we headed out on our own to ride some of our favorite roads as a warm-up. We cycled through some densely wooded areas (see photo at left; as I was taking this photo, we were rocked by a blast from a nearby granite quarry...so much for a pastoral setting!) where we've spotted deer and wild turkey in the past. We didn't see any wildlife this trip as our midday arrival was not the best time to catch the critters out and about.

We broke out of the woods and into some cultivated pastureland, occupied by the obligatory herd of longhorn cattle (photo at right). We then headed back to town, making a side trip to the local bike shop to replace MLB's "hydration system" (water bottles are so old school). Total mileage for the day: about 30.

One thing we discovered was the coolness of MLB's Garmin Forerunner, which is a GPS you can wear like a sportswatch. I had bought it as a Christmas gift, thinking she'd primarily use it during her snow shoe outings and hikes, but we discovered that the altimeter and grade computation feature were perfect for cycling through the hills. There's something reassuring about knowing that the reason we're moving only four miles per hour up a hill is due to the fact that it's a 12% grade. I mean, we always knew that hill was steep, but now we knew how steep. (It was also interesting to learn that Midland's elevation is actually higher than Fburg's, and by a thousand feet, no less.)

My parents came into town that evening, completing another tradition where they join us for the weekend. In the past, they've pulled a camper and stayed at the beautiful Lady Bird Johnson (she's everywhere!) city park, but I think their camping days are now behind them. They stayed instead at a new hotel built on the grounds of the local airfield, and named, appropriately, The Hangar Hotel. It's very nice, and recommended if you can't get our B&B (which, of course, you can't). Dinner that night was German cuisine (Rind Roulade with pan fried potatos and sauerkraut for me) at Friedhelm's Bavarian Inn. One can't spend a weekend at Fburg without eating German food.

We were in a quandary concerning our Friday ride. If the weather report was to be believed, it was likely that we wouldn't be able to ride on Saturday afternoon, so we'd need to keep that day's route short. That seemed to call for a longer ride than usual on Friday. We had four choices of routes for Friday; the longest was about 75 miles and we knew we weren't adequately prepared for that (we'd been able to ride only about 150 miles this year thanks to bad weather and other schedule disruptions). The next longest ride was 62 miles (a metric century...100 kilometers), and that was probably at the outer edge of our capabilities. However, the shorter routes covered territory we'd ridden on Thursday and just didn't look that interesting.

The bad thing about the 62-miler is that it included what's known locally as the Willow City Loop. This loop is one of the most beautiful, treacherous and difficult courses in the area. It's beautiful because it has the most dense concentration of wildflowers -- primarily bluebonnets -- to be found in the area. It's treacherous because it has a number of blind curves and steep drops which are often made worse by sand on the road from recent rains (and, yes, it had rained recently). In fact, we'd had a bad experience on this route a few years back, when we were still riding our upright tandem. Coming down one of those steep hills, we hit a cattle guard and flatted both tires simultaneously. Fortunately, I was able to maintain control while we came to a shaky stop. We had to be trucked off the course, the first (and only) time that's happened to us. We had not only punctured both tubes but also ruined a tire, making an on-course repair impossible.

To compound that unnerving experience, we came to a halt just a few yards from a low water crossing where a short time before we arrived a cyclist had hit some sand and taken a nasty fall...nasty enough, in fact, to be awaiting the arrival of an ambulance. That served to intensified our shakiness from our near miss, as we saw how bad it could have been.

The treachery of the course is made worse during this time of the year by the non-stop vehicular traffic of flower-gawkers. People come from miles around to view the wildflowers, and, of course, their minds and eyes are not necessarily on the cyclists with whom they are presumably sharing the road.

I mentioned that the route is also difficult. Most of the terrain is gently rolling, but at the end there's a long and steep climb out of the canyon that completely destroys whatever goodwill has accrued from the beauty of the first part. And, to set the proper context, it should be noted that the end of the Willow City Loop comes with almost 30 miles left in the overall route, so you can't leave it all on that climb.

So, MLB wasn't crazy about the idea of re-visiting the route but she let me make the call and I decided we should go for it. The first part of the ride was uneventful, covering some of the same roads we traveled the day before, but in the opposite direction... a minor physical change that makes a world of perceptive difference. The weather was perfect... cool, mostly cloudless and nearly windless. The only disruption to our enjoyment was the long line in front of the Porta-John at the first rest stop. This was poor planning on someone's part; there should be at least two of those units at the first stop of the morning, for what should be obvious reasons.

If you look at the larger photo linked to the thumbnail above, you'll see the usual brightly colored, Lycra'd-up cycling crowd. MLB and I are drab dweebs compared to these folk: no Lycra, baggy shorts, cotton t-shirts...decidedly lo-tech apparel, in keeping with the usual recumbent rider's reputation as the geek of the cycling world. OTOH, you'll never overhear us complaining about aching shoulders, necks, backsides or hands, thanks to our relaxed riding positions, and we get to see the world around us as we ride, rather than staring at our front wheel or the pavement six feet ahead. Yeah, we're slower than the rest, but we like to think that we get superior sensory input, overall. (Although I sometimes wonder when we're still out on the course an hour after the others have loaded their bikes and headed for the hot tub!).

We pedaled onward, and at the end of a long downhill, we came to the start of the Willow City Loop. There were no surprises. The flowers were just as beautiful as advertised. At times we rode past such thick patches of bluebonnets that the air was heavily perfumed with their scent. The following photos are just a sampling of the scenery, and fail miserably in doing justice to reality.

Bluebonnets are, of course, the state flower of Texas, despite some early attempts to assign that honor to the cotton boll, of all things. There are actually five species of bluebonnet, all of which are designated as "State Flowers." Contrary to popular belief, it is not illegal to dig up a bluebonnet (although there are often right-of-way restrictions on any such activity along public roadways).

The photo at right is one that really fails to convey the amazing display of wildflowers. The field in the background appears to the casual eye to be a nice pond or small lake, the blue water contrasting nicely with the surrounding green vegetation. Of course, in reality, this is a large stand of wildflowers...a literal "sea" of bluebonnets.

Most of the trees along this route are live oaks and mesquite. If there are any willows along this route, I missed 'em. (Willow City is actually a tiny hamlet -- the proverbial wide spot in the road -- at the beginning of the route; I'm sure it's overrun with willows.) Mesquites are the Rodney Dangerfields of the tree world, but I find them to be amazing and beautiful when allowed to assume something other than shrublike proportions.

In the photo at right, MLB consents to be a part of the tableau. Actually, that was a role we played throughout this part of the ride. The other side of the road was lined with people taking photos of the flowers, and more often than not their cameras swung around to us as we came upon them. After all, bluebonnets are a common sight, but how often do you see a tandem recumbent? And, at that point early in the ride, we were still somewhat photogenic, at least compared to the mewling, quivering, debilitated creatures we would soon become.

In this photo you can see rows of white flowers that formed a natural backdrop for the bluebonnets. MLB thought they were a mallow of some sort; she's much more knowledgeable than me about such things. They looked like weeds to me, but that's the general nature of most wildflowers anyway.

We rode deeper into the Loop and the terrain got more challenging. Through the pedals, I could feel MLB tensing up as we swooped into the draws and around the aforementioned blind curves, and I kept a close rein on our speed to reassure her. At one point we were passed by three young women who were obviously serious about their riding -- and their lycra. A couple of minutes later, we dove into a particularly nasty-looking curve and spotted some sand at the bottom. I braked well in advance and we eased through it, to find that one of the women who had just passed us wasn't quite as observant. She was stretched out across the road, bike on top of her and a nasty bruise already appearing along the entire length of one leg. Her partners were turning around and coming back to check on her. We asked if she needed help and she waved us on. It was a reminder of the consequences of inattention and/or bravado.

On we went, passing an endless stream of cars and motorcycles making the Loop in the opposite direction. That was a blessing...the bicycle route ran the opposite of that of most of the motor-driven vehicles, which greatly minimizes the chances of unfortunate encounters. But it still took some of the luster from the beauty of the surroundings.

It finally came time to climb out of the valley, and we could see clearly what lay ahead. I stopped to take a couple of pictures (and to try to summon some extra energy), then we made our slow way up the hill.

It might be edifying to understand what it's like to climb a really steep hill on a bicycle. Unless you have the legs and anaerobic threshold of Lance Armstrong, your climbing success will be directly proportional to your gearing. If you can gear down low enough to spin up the hill, even at very low speeds, you can likely climb any hill of reasonable gradient and length. Of course, the definition of "reasonable" will vary.

This applies to all bicycles, recumbent or upright. However, the advantage the latter holds over the former is that the rider can, as needed, stand up on the pedals and bring the whole body's weight to bear for additional power. This advantage can be significant.

The only glaring weakness of the recumbent riding position comes to the fore in these climbing situations. We have no choice but to use our legs and only our legs to spin up the hill. Standing up on the pedals is not an option. This particular hill was long...perhaps a half mile...and steep; the grade was 11-12% for much of the climb. We were undertrained, sweating profusely in the midday sun, and had the incredible pleasure of being passed at low speeds by a long string of Harleys going our direction. At one point, we were struggling to maintain four mph. It was torture...for me, anyway. Did I mention that MLB was just chattering away on the back of the back, describing the flowers on the side of the road and the view of the canyon below?

Without belaboring the point, let me just say that this was the closest I've come in over 15 years to hollering calfrope and getting off and walking the hill. We've ridden up Vail Pass from Vail, and that wasn't as painful as this climb. But, we made it, even as my legs started flirting with cramps.

The rest of the ride was almost anti-climactic, a blurred series of steep ups and downs that eventually led back to town. We ended the day with 67 miles, thanks to the fact that we were staying a couple of miles from the official starting point and elected to bicycle in rather than load the bike on the car and drive in. In hindsight, given our lack of training mileage coupled with the difficulty of the route, it was a very foolish thing for us to attempt. We perservered, however, and emerged exhausted but somehow gratified by the experience.

Dinner that night was at Pasta Bella, a competent little Italian restaurant just off the main drag in Fburg. I had a very good Veal Parmigiana (although, frankly, I'd have eaten boiled shoe leather by that time and enjoyed it), followed by homemade strawberry, peach and pecan ice cream at the Fredericksburg Bakery.

We awoke to heavily clouded skies on Saturday morning, and the weather forecast seemed confident in the mid-afternoon arrival of the cold front and rain. We elected to skip the rides originating in Kerrville, and set off on our own route, hoping to get in a couple of hours before the weather intruded.

I'll forego the excrutiating detail of the Saturday ride. It was much less demanding than the day before, and we covered some roads we'd never before seen, which is always fun. However, one downside of doing that kind of exploring is that you sometimes find yourself confronted with uncomfortable decisions about which way to turn, and during this ride we ended up traveling down a very busy State Highway 87 with no shoulder for about five miles before finding the bailout road that I knew existed...somewhere. "I'm sure it's just over this next hill...and around this next curve..."

We eventually found our way onto a familiar backroad, and enjoyed riding past the full ponds that dotted the pasture through the entire route.

In the meantime, the clouds got heavier and the winds calmer, and we couldn't help feeling that this was a sign of impending change. We came upon the water crossing shown in the photo at right and took that as a sign to turn around and head home, which we did, and without incident.

About an hour after getting back home, following 25 miles of riding, the calm came to an abrupt end as the front blew in, with gusty winds out of the north. An hour after that, the skies opened up and it rained...and rained...and rained. Other than an occasional lull while the front regrouped, it rained until we left for home mid-morning on Sunday. We had guessed right, and beat the weather. We hoped that no one got caught miles from home in the middle of the Kerrville rides when the front hit. Been there, done that, and it's no fun.

As soon as we finished our Saturday ride, I trekked down the nature trail a ways to get a photo of the tree shown at right. This gnarly oak tree is probably 100 years old, and I've always intended to take a picture and try to do something artsy with it. One variation of my Photoshopping is shown here (warning: the big image is really big). I tried to capture some of the inherently spooky quality of the tree with its moss-laden branches and Blair Witch Project-starkness.

Dinner that night was forgettable...a decent but not compelling chicken-fry at the Plateau Cafe. I would have preferred to drive to Kerrville to eat, but the weather had everyone skittish and we elected to stick close to home. Another bowl of that wonderful ice cream made up for the less-than-stellar meal.

Sunday morning came in wet and cold, and we loaded up in a steady drizzle. We ran in and out of rain all the way to Sheffield, with occasional sprinkles during the last 100 miles. We were out of bluebonnet country, but even the normally drab landscape just south of Midland was still yielding surprises. I'll leave you with this field of yellow flowers, set out for no apparent purpose other than to enthrall passers-by, in the middle of nowhere 40 miles south of home. I don't know the species of the flower, but we'll take all of it we can get every spring, since it means that God has again blessed our parched land with some life-giving rain.

Checking in on My Little Friend

Being the faithful, perceptive reader I know you to be, you no doubt recall that about six months ago a spot on my lung was confirmed to be nothing to worry about. Probably.

Being the every-silver-lining-has-a-cloud types that we know doctors to be, I was advised to have a periodic check-up just to make sure that nothing untoward is occuring. Today's the day, as I have a CT scan scheduled for later this morning.

I expect the same negative results (boy...doesn't that wording always seem wrong, somehow? Negative medical tests are really positive, generally speaking.). I mean, I'm feeling fine, overall. Sure, there's been a little coughing up of blood, but who hasn't experienced some of that lately? And the blackouts are really more annoyances than anything of real concern; it's not like I'm piloting a commercial airliner and have to be conscious pretty much continuously.

OK...just kidding. No symptoms. Nothing to justify pessimism. Just another thousand dollar visit to the hospital, which will take care of my deductible for the year, so I've got that going for me.

I'll let you know how it turns out, if I can just stay awake...

Texas in Bloom

We just returned from our annual bicycle trek through the Texas Hill Country. I hope to have a more detailed report complete with photos later this week.

I was reminded of just how beautiful this country can be when blessed with a decent amount of rainfall. The 300 miles between Midland and Fredericksburg (we take a slightly longer route than most folks) is defined this year by one color - green - and it's a sight for sore eyes after so many dry years. More on that later. The Pecos and Llano Rivers were flowing assertively; we arrived in Fredericksburg just a few days after the Pedernales had jumped its banks and created quite a stir.

Something else struck me more than ever before and that's the sparseness of population in this part of the state. I did some quick computations using the Texas Almanac and a couple of government websites, and came up with these stats:

• Our 300 mile drive took us through only 8 towns (I'm leaving Midland out of all of these figures). That includes Sheffield, which you can't even see from the interstate.


• We passed through only six counties en route. The combined area of those counties is 12,581 square miles, an area which is greater than that of nine states and the District of Columbia.


• The total population of those six counties, according to the 2000 US Census, is 53,741 (the nine towns we passed contain a total of 21,770 souls).


• This gives those counties a combined population density of 4.3 people/square mile. (I'm sorry; I have no clever punch line to characterize the third of a statistical person.)


• By way of contrast, the population density of Texas in total is 64.9. For New York, it's 381.0; California is 190.8; and Rhode Island's population density is a whopping 960.3. (Population densities are from the 1990 US Census.)

I realize that many people look at the west Texas landscape and the only adjective that comes to their minds is "desolate." Nine years out of ten, that may be technically true (even if it's always debatable from an aesthetic perspective). But, this year...well, it takes a real cynic to miss the beauty of a green Texas. (And I haven't even started on the wildflowers!)

Early Easter Greetings

The Gazette will be on holiday for the rest of the week. Please accept my wishes for a blessed and joyful Easter. I'll leave you with a reminder of what it's all about:

SAD, But Improving

Man...four days without sunshine and I'm already suffering from a self-diagnosed case of SAD.

I'm not complaining about the rain, mind you. Rain is good. Rain is a blessing. We'll take it anytime we can get it.

OTOH, if I wanted to live in the rain, I'd move to Seattle. C'mon, sunshine!

[And, speaking of sunshine, it was announced on one of the local TV news shows this morning that studies show that crime drops whenever Daylight Savings Time is instituted, because "most crimes are committed in the dark." Silly me; all this time I've never realized that we get one less hour of dark beginning on the first Sunday of each April!]

I Need A Better Accountant

Hot on the heels of this whiny post about all the FIT we've paid over the years comes an article in today's Wall Street Journal entitled "Many Companies Avoided Taxes Even as Profits Soared in Boom."

The emphasis in the above quote is mine, intended to highlight this comparison: over the past 30 years, our family's federal income tax burden has averaged 21% of our adjusted gross income. The percentages ranged from a high of 29% to a low of 9% (in 1974, when we were full-time college students).

We're obviously using the wrong tax accountant. That would be, um, me.

Big Ideas in Small Packages

Dawn Eden has started a series of posts which she entitles "The Truth in Small Things." I might quibble about the title, as the subjects she's addressed thus far are hardly small: our priorities in life; love and hope; hunger for God, and so on. But she's approaching the topics from the perspective that we deal with these issues in the details of our daily lives, perhaps without realizing or thinking about them. As always, her observations are worth spending some time reading and thinking about.

Get caught up here:

  The Truth in Small Things, Part 1

  Part 2: Beat the Clock

  Part 3: Hungry I

Ski Midland: Making Lemonade from Lemons

Excerpted from a story in today's Midland Reporter Telegram:

This brings up an issue that I've occasionally pondered, for lack of interest in daytime TV. We in Midland are quite fortunate not to suffer from the land subsidence problems that plague many other parts of the state, notably Houston and some of the boggier parts of the Metroplex. Rather, we have just the opposite situation.

Thanks, I suppose, to our frequent windstorms which import massive amounts of dust, dirt, small boulders and other natural landscaping material into our fair city, I have every reason to believe that our elevation is increasing...imperceptibly, perhaps, but inexorably nonetheless.

Accordingly, I'll go out on a limb (the distance from which to the ground is growing smaller and smaller) and predict that within only a few million years, Midland will actually be a mountain community. In fact, with the proper foresight and planning (MDC, are you listening?), we could be a ski resort.

I don't think it's too early to start building a lift. I'm sure the Scharbauers would be happy to make a deal on a plot of land on the outskirts of what will eventually become Mount Midland.

30 Years of Income Taxes

I put the finishing touches on our 2003 federal income tax return and realized that this marks our 30th year of filing those returns as a couple. Being the irredeemable record-keeper that I am, I have a running total of some of the more relevant numbers going back to 1974. Here's the one that puts a big lump in my throat when I think about it: since 1974, we've paid the federal government a total of $708,789 in income taxes. Ouch.

Note to Congress -- We could have done a heck of a lot of economy stimulating with 700 grand, if left to our own devices. What did you accomplish with our money?

"The [Potty-Mouthed] Ladykillers"

Thanks to the scheduling quirk I complained about earlier, we made the short drive to Odessa with some friends to see "The Ladykillers."

My four word film review is "Good Movie; Bad Language."

This could have been such a classy, quirky comedy, and I guess to those whose ears aren't easily offended, it probably is. But, I somehow expect more - something better - from a Tom Hanks movie.

We did have a bit of a warning...about 60 minutes worth...as I happened to read this review over at The Thinklings just before our friends pulled into our driveway. But it was the first review I'd read that focused on the language (and, somehow, the fact that it was R-rated simply never registered with me). So, if you aren't willing to tolerate long stretches of graphically offensive language (courtesy primarily of Marlon Wayans' stereotypical "hippity-hoppity" bad dude character) in order to enjoy some truly entertaining portrayals and outstanding music, then you'll want to skip this one. This might be one instance where the "cleaned up for broadcast TV" version turns out to be superior to the original.

Or, better yet, rent "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" to see how the Coen Brothers can really get it right when they want to.

Secret Garden

This morning as I vacuumed the mini-blinds over the windows that are on either side of my computer desk, I happened to peek through them and was greeted with a wonderful sight. Our Lady Banks Yellow Roses (Rosa banksia lutea) are in full bloom, and the blossoms are pressing in towards the window panes.

What I don't know about roses could fill a book. In fact, I really don't like roses, except as cut flowers. Our plants are pretty much on their own, and seem to be well adapted to our strict regimen of benign neglect. They're never fertilized, but they are watered regularly and pruned with reckless abandon during the summer months, when they'll grow an inch per day. They are in bloom for only a couple of weeks each spring. And I often miss their flowery phase, because I tend to keep these blinds closed to avoid the glare on my computer monitor.

But, today I'll make an exception, and enjoy a bit of unexpected color (despite the fact that I can also see how dirty the windows are. A domestic god's work is never done.).

[Note: I just realized that I've now posted today on flowers and women's fashion. While being completely confident in my sexuality, I nevertheless feel a need to write about welding and/or power tools in order balance things out.]

Dawn Breaks [It Down]

[Note: I tried to post this last night, but mySQL was having a hissy fit and wouldn't take it. It's still relevant.]

I've been reading Dawn Eden's blog for only a few months now, but I can state with unequivocal certainty that nobody -- nobody -- can hold forth on 60s pop like her. Exhibit A is her flawless review and reminiscence of Wayne Fontana & The Mindbenders' "The Game of Love."

Warning: Don't read this post unless you're fully prepared to deal with the resultant earworm.

Shopping for the Invisible Woman

Having exhausted my usual source of reading material (the back of the cereal box), I grabbed a catalog left on the counter by MLB, and proceeded to half-heartedly thumb through it while finishing breakfast. Being the perceptive guy I am, I immediately noticed a glaring absence from this women's clothing catalog: women.

That's right; Coldwater Creek®, a semi-upscale retailer of women's clothing and accessories, uses no actual women in its catalog, nor on its website, for that matter. I find that vaguely troubling, if not downright spooky.

I can think of a few possible reasons for this strategy, each of which is cause for concern and, possibly, a governmental investigation:

• It's a money-saving ploy. But, in its corporate greed, Coldwater Creek® is taking badly needed money from the pockets of hard-working models, money that would be used to buy uneaten food and clothes made by someone else.


• It's the ultimate in politically correct expression. What's safer and more benign than removing completely any trace of humanity? No one can be offended by skin color, body type or grooming superiority. Is this what our brave new world is coming to...a world without people? The implications are staggering.


• The company hates women. Could it be that an entire corporate empire has been founded on a lie? What sort of misogynistic self-hating corporate hacks would market clothes to a population that they obviously despise?


• The target market is a very focused, very exclusive: women who are invisible. This seems to be the most plausible explanation, and I suspect that Chris Carter was closing in on the truth, and that's why The X-Files was canceled.

In the end, I suppose it's not really important. What's really important is that this trend is not picked up by Victoria's Secret®.

Why He's Lileks and I'm Not

The air smelled like raw potatoes when I retrieved the paper from the front drive shortly before dawn.

OK. That right there...that's why I often question my fitness to occupy the same blogosphere as James Lileks. He gives us this exquisite fisking of Kerry's MTV appearance; I note that our neighborhood smells like a vegetable.

So what are you waiting for...go read the Bleat, all the way to the end. If you want to return here later, that's fine. But salvage at least part of the day first.

Signs of Spring in West Texas

• I saw the first snake of the year d