Once again, our friends at TXDOT are closing I-35 at Ben White this weekend.
Fortunately, we’ve already picked our SDC venue, and it is almost as far away from that mess as we could get.
Yet another public service announcement.
May 17th, 2011Sold!
May 17th, 2011Sorry, not really much to say beyond that.
Art, damn it, art! watch. (#21 in a series)
May 16th, 2011The LAT has a short, but interesting, article (tied to a book
I swear, I think I saw something very much like the Druzhba Sanatorium being used as the bad guy’s hideout in a James Bond film. As for the Institute of Robotics and Technical Cybernetics…wow.
Meanwhile, by way of Popehat, I discovered this MSNBC article summarizing a study by some folks at Muhlenberg College (in Pennsylvania) involving…well, let’s just say it involves the paintings of Georgia O’Keeffe. I’ll leave it to the curious reader to click through for more details.
Sunday morning photo tinkering.
May 15th, 2011Messing around a little, so I decided to catch up on a couple of things I’d been intending to blog.
That was my present to myself for maintaing a 4.0 average: a Ruger .22/45. This should make a nice practice gun, and I got a good deal at Tex-Guns. There’s already a older Mark II in the family gun safe, but I like the idea of having a Ruger .22 pistol of my own. Also, I understand the .22/45 is a very hackable gun…
Also pictured: two things to make liberals angry. Left front, a 22-round .40 S&W magazine for my Glock 35. Right front, a 33-round 9mm Glock magazine. I don’t have a 9mm Glock at the moment, but I decided to go ahead and pick up one of each after the unfortunate events earlier this year. I placed the order on January 12th. It shipped April 27th.
Speaking of timing: I’d been hearing horror stories about how long renewals take through DPS. I sent in the paperwork for my CHL renewal on April 11th. My new license was in my PO box when I checked it on May 12th. (I’d previously checked it the Saturday before.) So that’s right around a month to process the renewal. And, except for the actual class, the process was relatively painless. I filled out the renewal completely online, TX DPS sent me a receipt page with a barcode, a list of paperwork I’d need, and a note “Send this in with the paperwork.” That’s all there was to it (except, again, taking the renewal class). Nice job, DPS.
Roadtrip!
May 14th, 2011Yesterday was the 2011 installment of the annual BBQ Road Trip. (Previously.) This year’s edition went out to Texas Pride Barbecue in Adkins, near San Antonio. (Sorry about the auto-play video on that website; I don’t like it any more than you do.) After the jump, photos and commentary.
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How many bags of Tostitos will a million dollars buy?
May 12th, 2011The BCS oversight committee has rendered their decision in the case of the Fiesta Bowl. (See previous blog posts here, here, and here.)
And the decision is…the Fiesta Bowl stays in the BCS, but pays a one million dollar fine.
Also, there’s a bunch of happy horses–t about hiring outside auditors, doing an annual audit, “cut[ing] ties with board members who engaged in inappropriate behavior”. You know, the usual load of crap.
In other news, Captain Renault is shocked, shocked to find out that gambling is going on.
(Hattip: NRO‘s “Right Field” blog.)
Investigative reporting!
May 11th, 2011We were planning to try out Dominick’s Italian Restaurant in Lakeway this weekend. Dominick’s was formerly known as Ciola’s, but last year the Ciola family sold the restaurant. Lawrence was going to call ahead for reservations, but told me this afternoon that he didn’t get any answer when he called the phone seemed to be disconnected.
We had not seen this report from Rob Balon’s web site:
And I was in kind of a foul mood (for reasons unrelated to dining) and figured a drive out to Lakeway and dinner at Pao’s would help. (It didn’t, much.) Since Dominick’s was on the way, I could see for myself what was going on.
What was going on was that there was a lockout notice on the door, dated May 6, 2011, from a lawyer who apparently represents the former owners. It looks like Dominick’s was subleasing the space from the owners of Ciola’s (who, one can assume, are making their own lease payments to the owners of the space), and were locked out because they owed the following:
- $6,015.63 for May 2011 rent.
- $645.82 for April 2011 water bill.
- $2,882.64 as payment on a promissory note for April 2010.
- $6,382.64 as payment on a promissory note for May 2010.
- $278,420.16 as payment on a promissory note for July 2010 (!)
So apparently, Dominick’s has owed over a quarter of a million dollars for close to a year (according to Balon, the sale took place in July of 2010), Ciola’s let the money go this long, and finally moved to shut them down on one of the busiest dining out nights of the week. Interesting.
Also interesting is the amount of money. $275,000+ is a lot of money. As Lawrence put it, “Christ, for a quarter-million you should be able to easily open up your own restaurant just about anyplace but downtown Manhattan…”. I’ll admit to not being an expert on the restaurant business, but certainly $250,000 seems like it should be enough to open a restaurant, especially if you’re using an existing restaurant space (one that doesn’t need to be renovated to be brought up to code). And that’s just the amounts that were not paid; we have no idea how much money changed hands before signatures were affixed to contracts.
I’m not blogging this because I want to poke fun at either the new or old owners; I have some sympathy for both parties. But I think this is blog worthy for the insight it provides into restaurant economics. $6,000 a month for a moderately sized space in Lakeway? $650 a month just for water? How much spaghetti do you have to sell to bring in that kind of money?
(Oh, yeah: the new owners never bothered to change the large sign out in front of the center that said “Ciola’s”, though they did change the name on the awning in front of the building.)
Johnny’s been hurt. He’s been hurt bad.
May 11th, 2011Continuing on with the 70’s crime film theme, a group of us watched The Friends of Eddie Coyle
My own reaction to the movie is somewhat skewed. I’d read the book fairly recently, and thought it was fantastic. William Landay’s writeup for The Rap Sheet does a very good job of explaining everything I love about the book, particularly when he says
(Charlie Stella also has a nice tribute to Higgins at the same site.)
I think that my fondness for the novel colors my view of the movie. Peter Yates made one of the most faithful adaptations of a novel I’ve ever seen: pretty much every scene and every line is straight out of the book. (There are only three significant exceptions I can think of; the scene where Coyle delivers the guns to the trailer is cut short. Cutting that scene short sets up the final scene in the movie, which has a similarly nihilistic, but different, ending. There’s also a scene with Coyle and his wife that I think was inserted to make him somewhat more sympathetic.)
I got the impression that Lawrence and the other viewers were not as impressed, and I can see why. Like Mean Streets, Friends is very much a “slice of life” film. There’s more action in Friends, and I think much more going on in general. But the heart of both the movie and book is the window they give into the life of this small-time hustler, trying to make a living and stay one step ahead of the law but failing at both.
I loved the movie. Your mileage may vary.
Edited to add: Here’s Roger Ebert’s original review of the movie.
Why we should worry about the Chinese.
May 9th, 2011One word: diversification.
More:
Meth, coke, cigarettes, and missile systems? Most crooks specialize in one or two areas, but not Mr. Chen; he apparently wanted to be the Wal-Mart of smugglers. You’ve got to give the guy props for ambition.
Edited to add: Darn it, I just realized; if he had done something with booze (untaxed maotai?) he could have had the trifecta.
Captain Cranky wakes up and checks the newspaper.
May 9th, 2011On Friday, the Statesman was pushing a Sunday profile of Maurice Pierce.
“Who is Maurice Pierce?” you ask. You may remember him from this blog entry back in December, but if you don’t: Pierce was one of four men charged in the “yogurt shop” murders, had the charges against him dropped, and resurfaced back in December when he cut a cop’s throat and was shot dead.
Oddly enough, the promised profile never showed up either online or in the print editions of Sunday’s paper. I shall be keeping my eyes open; perhaps they decided to push it out a week for some reason.
In the meantime, our local paper brings us the happy news that SB905 passed the Texas Senate by a vote of 25-6. What would SB905 do?
As Lawrence said when I sent him this link, “Some animals are more equal than others.”
(I’m a wee bit skeptical about relying on the Speciman for coverage of this bill, but I can’t find anything on the TSRA web site.)
“The control of nature is won, not given.”
May 9th, 2011I have noted in the past that I don’t like linking to XKCD; if you read this blog, you’re probably reading XKCD as well, so linking to it is like carrying coals to Newcastle or something equally pointless.
I’m breaking with policy because Randall Munroe has two things going today that I really like.
Thing #1: today’s strip. “You become great by wanting to do something, and then doing it so hard that you become great in the process.”
Thing #2: this blog post, which neatly and concisely summarizes what’s happening on the Mississippi River.
(ORCS is the Old River Control Structure, which limits the flow from the Mississippi to the Atchafalaya.)
(Subject line hattip: from the same place that McPhee got his title for The Control of Nature
Academic update: Spring, 2011.
May 8th, 2011For some reason, the university’s Blackboard system has decided I’m not registered for any classes this semester, so I haven’t been able to check the final grades on my last two assignments.
However, overall grades, transcripts, and other administrative trivia are kept on a different system, and my professor has updated that system with the final grade in my “Applications in Business Programming” class (aka “Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Building Stuff in Visual Basic 2010, But Were Afraid to Ask”).
And? Well, we’ve got a theme going, let’s stick with it.
(Once again, from the great “Charlie Sheen Quotes As New Yorker Cartoons” site.)
Yeah. that was an A. 4.0 is still alive, baby.
I’ve had some preliminary conversations with my academic advisor. When the time comes (probably March 2012) assuming that I manage to hold things together this fall, I should be able to roll right into grad school without taking the GRE or GMAT. The university offers a night and weekend grad program that ends up with a Master of Science in Computer Information Systems. All I’ll need to roll straight in is a better than 3.2 GPA, and two references from professors at the University. (I already have two professors who have told me, “Any time you need a letter of reference or recommendation for anything, come see me; I will be more than happy to do that for you.”)
We’re getting down to the wire. (But not “The Wire”. Though Stringer Bell’s “there’s games beyond the f—ing game” may have some relevance here.) Two more semesters, four more classes. Next fall is “20th Century, Triumph and Tragedies”. I need three more credit hours of history, and this class is being taught by the same professor who taught “Modern Revolutions”. (That professor is also one of the two professors I’ve mentioned above.) Also on the schedule, as my “elective” (as in, “I need three credit hours of an elective”) is a course called “Constitutional Criminal Procedure”. Quoting from the catalog:
An examination of the United States Supreme Court’s interpretations of the constitutional requirements relating to probable cause, arrest, search and seizure, stop and frisk, the exclusionary rule, the plain view doctrine, electronic surveillance, post custodial interrogation, and confessions.
That should be fun. (Have I mentioned that I’m flirting with the idea of taking the LSAT? I’m not giving a lot of serious thought to going to law school at the moment, but I’m curious to see how I’d do.)
Jumping Jack Flash…
May 6th, 2011I’m as concerned about high gas prices as the next guy. Here’s an interesting story for you involving Internet sock puppetry by an oil company, plus out-of-control spending on expensive booze.
BP? No, Sinopec, the Chinese oil company.
What is it with people?
May 6th, 2011They always want to focus on the worst-case scenario.
Sure, if you get wolf pups for your kids, there’s a chance that the wolves will eat your children. But that’s the worst case scenario. Anyway, the wolves are unlikely to eat more than one of the kids.
And, hey, what’s the best-case scenario? Your kids will go on to found Rome. Weighted against that possibility, don’t your worries about kids being eaten seem kind of trivial?
We could fly a helicopter, nothing left to talk about.
May 6th, 2011The NYT, the WP, Wired, and Aviation Leak are all over the stealth helicopter beat. (Note: that WP link is a video, and will play a commercial before the video starts.)
I don’t have much to say about this at the moment, but I did think it’d be useful to provide a roundup of the coverage. If anyone has any additional reliable links (not bar speculation from people who claim to be former members of SEAL Team 6) please feel free to drop them in comments.
Edited to add: Here’s something else interesting from the WP: a summary of Spec Ops: Case Studies in Special Operations Warfare: Theory and Practice