“When I stroke the beard thusly, do I not appear more intellectual?” ~Data from Star Trek Next Generation I’ve been clean shaven pretty much forever. Dear Old Dad had a muschtache and looked a good deal like Juan Valdez from the coffee comericals. One of my older brothers has a goatee that he has had forever. My boss has one of those neat and trim little goatees that he keeps at a constant quarter of inch length. Whenever I have tried to grow a beard or a goatee or anything, I have been unhappy with how it has looked. That…
Category: random thoughts
James Coney Island
I like hotdog places. They all have that kind of carnival feel to them. Bright colors and outgoing people working beind the counter. And then they sell hotdogs, so what’s not to like? The James Coney Island is a Houston hotdog place that started doing business 1923. For some reason a couple of Greeks opened a New York style hotdog joint in Texas and I’m glad that they did. I had a couple of Sonora Dogs and those were pretty sweet. This is a hot dog that is pretty popular in Mexico, hence the whole Sonora thing. It’s a hotdog…
Trying to Get In Shape
I used to be an avid cyclist. I would ride a couple of hundred miles a week. I read a lot of magazine. Kept up with the Tours in Europe. Watched the Cyclists in The Olympics riding their $40,000 dollar bicycles. I was a sucker for all the gimmicky wheels, cogs, gear shifters, tires, water bottles, and clothes that were featured in ads and hanging on the walls of my local bike shop. But then I had to earn a living, and being Lance Armstrong was not going to be the way to do it. I also had a brief…
NASA-Not What It Used To Be
When I was a kid being an Astronaut was a big deal. Rocket launches were a big deal. It was easy to believe that all those Science Fiction stories about living on the moon and exploring the universe were going to become reality. And not in some distant future, in the here and now. NASA in the here and how is kind of a joke. I love Space Center Houston, but at the same time, I hate that they rent themselves out for Corporate Events and Birthday Parties like they are a branch of Disney. I know that Space Center…
The Galveston Dolphin Tour
For me there are some things that just never get old. Taking a boat to look for dolphins is one of those things. And dolphins there were. We found a whole pod of them following a shrimping boat around stealing fish from the nets. The Shrimpers don’t like this, just as they don’t like pelicans eating the scraps at the dock. But a shrimp boat tosses out a lot of stuff that isn’t shrimp, and there is always a cloud of birds around the back end of a shrimp boat. Like everyone else, I was a bit worried that BP…
Blue Bell Creameries in Brenham, Texas
An hour or so West of Houston is the small town of Brenham. It is well known throughout Texas as the home of Blue Bell Ice Cream, where the cows are reported to believe that Brenham is Heaven. The commercials are filled with images of good-looking models and good looking cows. The company tagline is:We eat what we can, and we sell the rest. Like all factory tours, the Blue Bell Ice Cream Tour takes a bit of the romance out of the ice cream dreams inspired by the commercials. It is a manufacturing plant filled with shiny steel tubes,…
OKC Memorial
On April 19th, 1995 a bit over 15 years ago, a Yellow Ryder Truck filled with an Improvised Explosive Device blew up in front of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. At first it was assumed that this was the work of some Al Qaeda type Islāmic organization, but it turned out to be a couple of good old fashioned American rednecks. Home Grown Terrorists, what a concept. The Oklahoma City Memorial is a very interesting place. An emotional experience as you move in and around the various bits of broken cars and buildings and lives. The last time…
Pops in Arcadia, Oklahoma
Pops reminds me of the gas station from the first Toy Story. A kind of futurist place with tall white gas pumps and a very high slanted roof. Of course, the most distinctive feature of Pops is the giant Coke bottle sculpture out front, which is lite with bright colors at night. Pops is on Route 66 just a few miles north of Oklahoma City. It’s easy to look out at the tiny road out front and image that going one way you would end up in Chicago and going the other was you’d end up in Los Angeles. Of…
Adwords, Amazon Associates, and Affiliate Marketing
One of the good old fashioned ways to make money online is to sell other people’s stuff and be paid a small commission for each sale. This is called Affiliate Marketing and it seems that just about everyone with an online presence has some kind affiliate program in place. Over the years I have made a bit of pocket change being an affiliate for Amazon.com, The London Pass, and one or two other odds and ends here and there. I have read a few ebooks, watched a few videos, and had a bit of fun trying to make some money.…
Hurricane Katrina-The Best Thing That Ever Happened To New Orleans
What if you lived in a city filled with crime, corruption, and crushing poverty? What if you had a magic wand that would not only remove the crime and poverty from your city, but leave the city in such a condition that the undesirable elements of your population could never return? Would you wave that wand? What if the magic wand also made the rest of the world feel sorry for you and send you millions of dollars in donations-and millions more in supplies and free labor? What if you were one of those poor people who got to live in…