It's a winter wonderland

Or about as close to winter wonderland as you can get here in Texas.

I snapped this shot of my house just a couple minutes ago. Most of the highways here are starting to freeze, and we all know how well iced-over bridges and Texas drivers mix together...which is why I left the office around lunch.

Adam, I know this doesn't compare to Buffalo, so don't laugh too hard :)

Cool sunset

I snapped this shot last night as I was hanging my Christmas lights on the house.

Tomorrow we may have a winter wonderland here.

Time to get the fireplace going!

The lights are on the house!

And just in the nick of time too. A winter storm with freezing rain, sleet, and snow, is on it's way. Supposed to hit here Thursday. I just spoke with my friend Scott who lives in Utah, and he said it's snowing big time there. And that is the stuff that's headed this way.

I put these lights up on my house in about an hour...that's got to be a record somewhere!

My apologies for the blurry photo. I have a new Sony digital camera that I'm still trying to figure out.

BTW, it was 80 degrees here today....supposed to get down to 25 by Thursday....SHEEZ!!!!!

If I was a MLB Hall of Fame voter

Mark McGwire, Tony Gwynn, and Cal Ripken Jr headline the first-time candidates on the 2007 baseball writers Hall of Fame ballot released yesterday.

Jose Canseco is also on the ballot for the first time. Canseco said he used steroids along with McGwire when they were teammates in Oakland. At least Canseco was honest. McGwire denied using illegal performance-enhancing substances, but when he appeared before a congressional committee, he evaded questions. "I'm not here to talk about the past," was his repeated response.

There is a clause on the Hall of Fame ballot indicating that character should be considered, and after his non-performance at the congressional hearings, his character certainly DOES come into play.

If I was a Hall of Fame voter, this would be my stance:
McGwire doesn't want to talk about the past? Then I don't want to consider his past.

My friend Darren caused me to have a different view on it...do you punish the player, or punish the era??

The tree is up

This year I decided to purchase a brand new Christmas tree to go along with the new house. So I made the trek to Gardenridge yesterday with my mom and sister-in-law, and got a super great deal on a 7-foot Sierra pine, pre-lit tree. Apparently someone forgot to tell Gardenridge it was Thanksgiving...but I digress.

Yes, it's artificial (my allergies would hate me). I decided to go with new ornaments as well. I'm part of the angel faction (sorry to the star faction), so I found a new angel for the top of the tree also.

I ended up getting the multi-colored light tree. I've always liked them better than just plain clear lights. Anywhoooo...after 3 hours of decorating it, I think it turned out pretty nice.

What do you think?

The High Stakes World of Competitive Eating

I've been tuning in to competitive eating for the last couple of years when I caught a Nathan's Hot Dog eating contest on ESPN in which Kobayashi cleaned house and ate 59 dogs!

This evening, I turned on ESPN only to find that today was the Krystal hamburger eating contest. This was 60 minutes of great TV! How we haven't thought of filming people while they eat and giving them money and trophies is sheer lunacy! Needless to say, Kobayashi won by eating 97 Krystal hamburgers. Yes, you read that correctly...97 burgers. It was impressive to say the least.

What felt weird was eating a grilled cheese and some sopa de pollo (chicken soup) while watching the competition. The funny part was when my brother said, "I would never let you get into this!" How well he knows me :) I think I could do some damage in a Krispy Kreme donut eating competition. I guess we'll never know...

Pinch me again!! This is off the hook!!

Remember how I was saying earlier this morning how I desperately need to rake/blow all of the leaves from my front yard again?

Well, I was in the shower this morning when I heard what sounded like blowers outside...I thought to myself, it must be the neighbors mowing. I looked out the window, and lawn care folks are in my yard...I thought..."what the...???"

I walked out to the head landscaper and asked him if they were at the correct address.
They said "Yup." I wanted confirmation, so they showed me the paperwork.

Some "anonymous" person sent them out! Can you believe it!!!!

The pic from the entry just before this is the "before" picture, and the pic on this entry is the "after" picture.

Someone must have been reading my blog....that's off the hook!!!!

Whoever you are, my sore arms and I thank you from the bottom of our hearts!!! I greatly appreciate your kind and generous heart...WooHoo!!!

Pinch Me

As I sit and type this from my study here at the house, I'm looking out at my front yard, and the leaves are falling like snow.

Sometimes I have to sit and pinch myself just to make sure that I actually live in such a nice neighborhood and house. I have definitely been blessed, even though I know I deserve much less.

My yard is full of leaves again. About every 2 or 3 minutes, a gust of wind will come thru and knock a few hundred more to the ground. I took the pic above on Friday, but trust me, there's a million more leaves on the ground this morning.

At least I don't have the snow to deal with like my best friend Adam does. But he lives in Buffalo. Adam, the one bad thing about living here in Dallas, is that your not...

I have a feeling I am going to have 20 inch biceps by the end of the day after my battle with the leaves...

Things I'm not blogging about

OK, sometimes there seems to be an excess of ideas, experiences, and books that I want to blog about … and then there are times when I have a lot of things to write about but I just don’t feel it.

So, this post is about what I’m not blogging about:

• 
  I’m not going to blog about my haphazard stacks of books that sit strategically around the house, waiting for me to walk by and pick one of them up.
• 
  I’m not going to post my Jeff Foxworthy take on, “You know you’re a Dallas Stars fan if…” because, well, after letting it sit in the que for a day it just doesn’t seem as funny. It happens. Many posts don’t make it to the blog for one reason or another.
• 
  I’m not going to blog about how I wore a white button-down shirt with my jeans today, eventhough I never do that, and it kind of felt good. Untucked, of course :)
• 
  I’m not going to blog about my dreams of being a self-supported musician … not right now, at least.
• 
  I’m not going to blog about dealing with difficult people…although, it’s tempting.
• 
  I’m not going to blog about the fact that I watched “Nacho Libre” again today and that I think Luchadores are like Mexican ninjas.
• 
  I’m not going to blog about my fascination with the string theory, because I don’t know anything about it really.
• 
  I’m not going to blog about the fact that, at one time, I applied for an MFA at one of the best schools for creative writing and didn’t get in. It would be a good post, though, trust me.
• 
  I’m not going to blog about my three attempts at writing a novel. They’re all hidden somewhere on my hard drive, along with really bad poetry, though.
• 
  I’m not going to blog about my search to find a cool winter hat today. Although the one with the fur and the ear-flaps was hip in a very I-don’t-want-to-be-hip way.

No, these are all things I’m not going to blog about. At least, not today anyway.

"Neat"

I was on the phone with my brother last night and he replied to something I said with these words: "That's neat."

Now, is it just me or does "neat" seem like the type of response you would give to someone who shows you what they believe to be the COOLEST thing in the world, when in reality it's about as cool as my friend who tried wearing "man" capri-pants a few summers ago?

And think about what the word does to your facial expression. Go ahead - say it. "Neat." Notice how your face contorts like you've just smelled the armpits of a junior high kids after gym class?

Turning over an old leaf

This past Saturday, the battle began in earnest. The battle of course, is not against flesh and blood but rather every decaying leaf descending upon my front yard, now numbering in the gazillions.

I started the day by climbing up on my roof and blowing out the gutters with 280 mph of Black and Decker ramjet air. After climbing down, I blew leaves from the house towards the street. I say 'towards' the street because about halfway to the street I ran out of cord and my 280 mph of Black and Decker ramjet air went silent. I called my brother who was at Walmart - 'bring another cord'.

While waiting, I grabbed a rake and went after it the old fashioned way. By the time my brother got to the house, my two lines of leaves had met in a Great Leaf Convergence in the middle of the yard. They formed a sort of a botanical Maginot Line defending my house from the occassional dog walker or jogger wandering down the street.

Next, I swapped the blower parts out to make it a mulcher and mulch I did. And mulch. And mulch. I condensed 42,000lbs of leaves into 10 biodegradable bags and stacked them at the back alley curb for the city to come pick up on this morning.

During the mulching, I had repeated problems with it jamming...I ended up modifying the intake to allow it to munch mulch at a monsterous rate. It's the American Male Way - we can make anything go faster or work better. Next weekend I think I'll tweak the engine and try and coax it to 300 MPH of ram jet air :)

The repetitive motion of the blower, the mulcher, the rake and the bagging have torn the living snot out of my right arm, which is more accustom to a point-and-click workout than actual labor. Now I'll feel like an injured pitcher, sitting in the dugout while my team plays without me because of rotator cuff problems.

Did I mention the yard is almost full of leaves again this morning?

The Clash is calling

I am sitting right now in a coffee shop, one that I normally don't hang out in. It is near a ritzy resort here in town, and what I have discovered is that they are playing music that seems to cater to the resort folks like Sade singing "Smooth Operator". I found myself being agitated and not being able to concentrate to be writing here. I know music is very subjective, but I am not personally in harmonic resonation with Sade and the other pop "easy listening" type of music coming from the stereo in here.

So, I finally grabbed my Ipod and listened to The Clash - and within merely moments, I breathed easier, my pulse slowed down and began to be able to concentrate again.

As I listened to The Clash with relief, I couldn't help but wonder - has there been any great and truly meaningful and of substance rock or punk bands since them? I think U2, may be one of course (the only one I could think of). But since then, what bands have really been in any comparison to The Clash and all they stood for, what their songs were lyrically, what they created musically, and were just plain one of the coolest bands in music history in my subjective opinion. They had songs with angst, yet hope - were original, yet also blended other genres of music - they were fashionable, yet not fake or silly - they took strong stands on issues, yet didn't mock others or fans for not agreeing with them.

I love The Ramones, but I can honestly admit their musical writing ability is nothing in comparison to The Clash. Social Distortion is a really good band, even a great band - but seems to fall way short of who The Clash were. Green Day and Rancid are sort of third generational expressions of The Clash in many ways so I don't see them in the same category.

Did rock and punk music died with The Clash? I just cannot think of any band who is in that particular league of both influence and what they created musically since them. Maybe the Sade music (and the band The Eagles have also been playing as I typed this) are clouding my objective thinking. But I am not sure I can think of any band to compare The Clash to since they were around.

That is my wondering of a not very important question as I sit here and now I think I hear a Celene Dion beginning to play in the background.

It's Red Again

It's officially begun...

I took these pics at Starbucks about 20 minutes ago...

Adam, you better have snow in Buffalo already...because the Starbucks here in Dallas says it's a winter wonderland now.

itsredagain.com

More Nacho

Last night some friends—you know who you are—gave me a priceless gift.

Yes, it’s a Nacho Libre talking pen. It does seven lines from the movie, count ‘em, seven. My favorite line, which I've been repeating like crazy in the office, made it to the pen, so we were all thrilled. It’s the line:

“Chancho, I need to borrow some suedes.”

Oooops...She did it again...

Another one bites the dust. Can't say I'm surprised about this, but I do find it interesting that a trimmed down Britney made a surprise visit on Letterman this week. My bet is that she's getting ready to tour and didn't want to support the very talented K-Fed any longer...I'm being sarcastic of course.

Potty talk

Two times today I walked into public bathrooms and somebody was sitting in the stall. That is not that unusual. And that is definitely not worth blogging about.

But this was unusual - two times today I walked into public bathrooms and somebody is sitting in the stall and I can hear them talking on their cell phone. This is obviously a sign of something.

A few more house pics

Dining, Fireplace, and Breakfast room/Kitchen

I got my kitchen table and chairs free!

Some house pics

I just realized I never got around to posting any pics after I moved into my new house. So without further procrastination, here they are. Enjoy!

Man in the mirror

Like many of you I heard about the allegations against Ted Haggard yesterday. I usually don't post on these kinds of things, but I have one thought: look in the mirror.

I think there is a tendency to let your mind run wild when you hear something like this. And you know the media is going to have a feeding frenzy. But whether the allegations are true or false, and I sure hope they are false, I honestly think the most biblical response is a little personal reflection and lots of gratitude for the grace of God. But for the grace of God...

One last piece of advice. Instead of talking about it I'd recommend praying about it.

Fun in the neighborhood

I am so going to need a healthy dose of Pepto-Bismol today after the insanity that was Halloween in my neighborhood last night! My neighbors didn't disappoint. People were out in full force and they went all out. Brach's candy was like the creatures that lived in the woods in "The Village". It was "They who's name is never to be mentioned".

The candy dispensing was off the hook! Some people were giving out whole candy bars! Not the mini size, not the bite size... whole candy bars. It was glorious!

I introduced my neighbors son to the joy of mixing Pixie Stix and soda. That's what it's all about. He was so happy as he explained the chemical explosion that his taste buds experienced.

Strangely missing from tonight's festivities: Hershey's Kisses, Bit-O-Honey (The most underrated Candy in America), and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups (I was the only house on the block giving them out - The Hollaway house doesn't disappoint!).