Month: September 2005

In the past few weeks, Allman and I have been talking about publishing responses to our reader’s e-mail and snail-mail. But he beat me to the punch and published his first Reader’s Mail column a few weeks back. Since he had a great response, I decided I would follow suit.
So here is my own take on Reader’s Mail. Feel free to send your own comments and questions to eveningstar@hot.rr.com.
Jonathan, please come visit us in Mesquite. You haven’t been home in a month. We’ll even take you out for dinner if you come. – Mom and Dad

Hmmm. Gas to drive to Mesquite for a free meal, $50. Eating dinner the next night with friends, $15. The look on my parent’s faces when I show up unnanounced, priceless.

Jonathan, on August 2, you published HHHS QB Donny Shorts on the cover of the 2005 Sports Guide. After a loss to Cedar Park do you think you’ve given the team the “Cover Curse?”

Brandon, I don’t believe in silly superstitions like that. I have a feeling Shorts and the rest of the Knights will show us what they are really made of this week against Killeen. Now I’m going to have to ask you to go outside, spin in a circle four times and spit into the wind for suggesting such a silly thing.

Editor, with the rising cost of gasoline, do you think we’ll soon find another alternative to fuel our automobiles? – Billy Trucker

As a matter of fact, our office has been researching a number of fuel alternatives in our vehicles. We haven’t found anything that runs our vehicles quite as well as gasoline, but here are some cost comparisons to what we’ve tried.
1 gal. regular gas – $2.89
1 gal. lowfat milk – $2.60
1 gal. soda (store brand) – $4.73
1 gal. gatorade (pre-mixed) – $7.96
1 gal. water – $.75
1 gal. vodka – $60.52
1 gal. of Red Bull Energy Drink – $31.84
1 gal. of ethenol – $2.05 (but we won’t go into all the costs of actually producing a gallon of ethenol).
So while they may not be as effecient as gasoline, we think some of these other options could be a viable way to save some money on your daily trips. Others — not so much.

Jonathan, since you work in Harker Heights and live in Belton, who will you root for during the big Oct. 28 matchup? – David Tuma

David, I hope my job does not depend on this. But I often like rooting for the underdog, so ‘Big Red Nuf Said.’

Jonathan, we’ll even pay for gas if you’ll just come and visit. – Mom and Dad

Free meal and free gas with my parents, priceless. I think I better go to Dallas — soon.

Well that’s it for this edition of Reader’s Mail. Be sure to send your questions, comments praises and gripes to eveningstar@hot.rr.com.

If you can catch it, watch Point of View on PBS tonight. I think it starts at 10 p.m. in Dallas on KERA (13). It’s on right now in Central Texas.
Here are some summaries and quotes from the web page.

“The Hobart Shakespeareans” discovers how one teacher’s uncommon commitment and resourcefulness have opened up worlds of opportunity for his “disadvantaged” students — and perhaps have demonstrated a way forward for America’s beleaguered public education system.

Summary:

Imagine the sight and sound of American nine- and eleven-year-old children performing Shakespeare’s Hamlet or Henry V — and understanding every word they recite. Imagine them performing well enough to elicit praise from such accomplished Shakespearean actors as Ian McKellen and Michael York, and to be invited to perform with the Royal Shakespeare Company in England. Such a spectacle would be highly impressive in the toniest of America’s private schools. But what if the kids were the children of recent Latino and Asian immigrants attending a large Los Angeles inner-city public school in one of America’s toughest neighborhoods?

Teacher Rafe Esquith shares his assessment of elementary education in the US:

Our schools and, sad to say, some families do a very bad job with children in public places. “Kids just being kids” are often noisy and rude, spoiling a movie or museum for other people. We shouldn’t accept this. We need to teach our children the proper behavior in all kinds of situations. If they’re rude, let’s teach them how to be polite. Just taking the kids on trips isn’t enough. We as parents and teachers must do a better job if we want our children to be better human beings.

I’m sitting in my office (on my day off) waiting for a DVD to burn. I spent roughly five hours putting together a 5 minute highlight video for the CWF. And for some reason its taking another 5 hours to render or something. I just want to go home and show it off, but I don’t think it will finish till next Monday. Geeze.
What gives.
I’ve been catching up on some blogging too while I’m waiting. Can I just say, I really loathe Xanga? I don’t know what it is – but it annoys me. I think part of it is because it lets people ad hyperlinks and other types of web coding, but it doesn’t actually proof the code to make sure it works. So then someone comes up on your page and it freezes your browser half the time. So annoying. Please get rid of all the extras on your blog. If you want to show people a music video of your favorite band, give them a link. Don’t try to force everyone to download it everytime they want to read your website.
Oh and one more gripe. If you have an XML or RSS feed on your site, please don’t post half entries on your RSS feed. There’s almost nothing more annoying than Xanga than using my RSS Reader and having to click open another window to read the rest of your entry.
GEEZE.
Why can’t people just do everything I want them to?!
Ok. Enough of that. No more griping tonight. Just getting it out of my system before I head home (sometime next week if my computer doesn’t speed up).

Google has set up a special section on their map page for people to view satellite imagery of New Orleans before and after Katrina. You can use you mouse to move the images around and click between the satellite images (before) and the Katrina images (after).
Utterly unbelievable.

Rachel Stevens went and donated goods in Austin to Hurricane Katrina Victims. She gives an interresting summary of her experience.

Celeste has been widowed for seven years. She’s lost everything and yet she’s assured in the Lord, although the tears seem to tell differently. Her biggest concern is her mother and daughter, who in the chaos became seperated. My biggest concern is what flavor tortilla to order at Freebirds.

West Fest is going on in Waco today/tonight and maybe tomorrow.
I have a number of friends from Dallas that will perform tonight at 7 I think. And they’ve asked me to come, but I don’t know that I really want to. Is that wrong?
Sure I’d love to see my friends, but it’ll probably cost me $15-$20 in gas to go drive to West (north of Waco) and back, for an hour show.
I don’t have any other plans that are set in stone yet – but my neighbors were talking about a BBQ tonight with their parents, and spending $5 or so on meat sounds more tempting that spending $20 on gas (and still needing to eat).
So for Aaron and anyone who reads my blog and is gonna be in West tonight, hope you understand. You’re all more than welcome to drive down south a little ways and hang here tonight if you’d like.
Oh – and I really need to call my mom. I’ve been meaning to since Thursday but haven’t had more than five minutes to talk. So hopefully I’ll get that taken care of tonight as well.
Well that’s about it from Casa de Blundell Museum. We will have extended hours tomorrow since The Evening Star will be closed down. I hope to enjoy my first holiday off (other than 4th of July, Thanksgiving and Christmas) since I started working for the company.