Scrabble

This past weekend, Jill and I played a little game of Scrabble.

Jill has a very serious game face (she does not like to lose):


Unfortunately, the tiles did not go her way:


Our resulting board:

Jill found the experience taxing:

I, being the engineer, had to tally up our score with a calculator:

And yes, I won (258 versus 208).

Garden state

Got to Town Lake a little late this morning. It was pretty hot, so I only did the 5 mile loop.

Afterward, I finished planting the garden bed in back (adding pumpkin, gurken, sweet basil, and Thai basil). The purple hull beans are doing well. I'm trying to go from tallest plants at the fence to the shortest the furthest away from the fence:


And started planting the bed in the side yard (adding snap bean, cucumber Mexican sour gherkin, and sunflower). I'll probably add some more herbs to the near corner:


Also finished reading this book:


And started reading this one:


Two trashy novels separated by 125 years. Good to know some things don't change.

Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah

John invited me to go zip-lining with him and a few of his rowing buddies Saturday (I was a last minute substitution). It was my first time, but I'd definitely do it again. We went to a place out in Wimberley that had 8 lines total, varying in length from 500 to 900 feet. The top speed was around 35mph. Pretty fun. And they do a night version also where they ring the landing pads with glow sticks and serve adult beverages. May have to check that out.




Afterward, we went to Ino'z Brew & Chew for lunch. The food was pretty mediocre, but it was nice being outside by the river.

Oh, and I lost another 5 lbs recently. I'm down to 170 - which is starting to be a problem, because my underwear and pants keep falling down. I can put a belt on my pants, but not so much on my boxers.

Up a creek

Went for a quick 2.5 mile hike around Turkey Creek this morning. It's been a couple of years, but I remember the cool, clear water the last time I was there. What a difference a couple of years makes. Turkey Creek is a real misnomer right now, considering there is no water in it. It's just a barren trail. Very sad to see:


Got the seeds planted in the back yard this afternoon. Should have fresh vegetables any month now.

Cha-cha-changes, pt 2

Got my new driver's license in the mail today (new one is on top). I didn't realize the design had changed so much over the years (my design has changed somewhat also):

Cha-cha-changes

I stepped on the scale this morning and noticed I've lost 10 lbs in the past 3 months (I'm down to my preferred weight of 175). I credit most of that to running more and biking some. Thankfully, Betsy likes to be active and outdoors.

I've also been trying to eat better. Recently, that consists of making lots of chicken and cheese sandwiches for dinner (it's quick, easy, and I'm a bit lazy after work). But I ran out of chicken a couple of days ago. So last night I made sauteed spinach and portobello mushrooms to go with my ribeye (the red wine sauce never reduced enough to be considered a sauce - more like a red wine bath):


Yesterday, I also sent off my passport to be renewed. It's been 14 years since my last passport picture. The old picture is from my Houston days when I was a supervisor for a ginormous (sorry, that should be GINORMOUS) engineering company - hence the shirt and tie and smug expression. Happily, times have changed. And it seems, so has my tan:

Sensation-seeking and 'openness to experience' predict infidelity

I have another bout of insomnia, so I thought I'd share some articles I came across recently while researching data mining. Seems like data mining for dating is big business nowadays.

Online dating is tough. The chief scientist at Match.com quit recently because of overpromising and underdelivering. He admits, " No computer can accurately predict whom you should be with. The function of the math will make vastly more false predictions than accurate ones."

That said, Match.com recently paid $50 million for competing dating site OKCupid.com. True, OKCupid is seen to attract a younger, more tech savvy audience, but most business types believe Match paid all that money for OKC's data - basically, responses to all the questions answered by users and used by OKC to deliver potential matches.

OKC was started by 4 mathematicians from Harvard, and they admit to mining their user's data to provide recommendations for their OKTrends blog (helpful articles to help maximize your dating experience). However, as one independent researcher noted, "These are not necessarily statistically reliable findings." Maybe not, but they are entertaining.

Some gems of advice from OKTrends include:

• Ask about your potential soul-mate's taste in Wes Craven flicks, Albanian backpacking and life on the high seas.
• Subtract 2 inches from whatever height your potential date claims to be. Knock 20% off the reported salary too.
• Women, show off your décolletage, especially if you're not so young. (Just don't expect erudite discourse in return.)

Of course, the independent researchers counter:

• What you're measuring is what psychologists call "openness to experience," or the O Factor, says David McCord, a clinical psychologist and head of the psychology department at Western Carolina University. But here's the rub: If you're "high O" and drawn to similarly wild-and-crazy types but are seeking a successful long-term relationship, you may be asking for trouble. "Sensation-seeking and 'openness to experience' predict infidelity," says David M. Buss, psychology professor at the University of Texas at Austin and author of "The Evolution of Desire: Strategies of Human Mating."
• For men, this makes sense. "Height suggests health, good genes and social dominance," McCord says. Rich is hot too. Notes Buss: "As I've shown in my study of 37 cultures, women universally value men with resources. Men deceive about their status and income in order to make themselves seem more desirable to women."
• But maybe button up if you're looking for something serious: To men, Buss says, revealing too much flesh may be a sign of promiscuity. "Promiscuity is something men don't mind at all in short-term mating but really don't like in long-term mating, for obvious evolutionary reasons."

Hmmm... the above all seems like common sense. Maybe I should get a PhD in psychology.

And finally, if you are out on a date, and you decide to go to the Alamo Drafthouse, be sure not to text during the movie:

Grand Rapids

When I lived and worked in Detroit, I visited Grand Rapids just once. If you picture Michigan as your left hand or mitten (palm down), Grand Rapids is located at the base between your pinkie and fourth finger. It's a nice town. Apparently, it's fallen on harder times since my visit years ago. Newsweek recently rated GR as number 10 of America's top-10 dying cities.

This video has gone viral, but it's so positive and uplifting (and it's good to see a city united) that I wanted to share it also. Besides - I like the song.



Btw, for you car buffs, those are Chrysler 200 convertibles featured around the 5'45" mark.

Carne mechada

"Hammered meat." That's what I feel like right now. I've been coughing non-stop for 48 hours. It's a dry cough that sounds horrible, and each one feels like I'm doing a stomach crunch. I am so sore. If I conservatively count 6 coughs a minute (that's a cough every 10 seconds), in the past 48 hours I've coughed 17,280 times. At this rate, I'm going to have six-pack abs by Sunday.


At least I might be able to get some sleep tonight. I've had this buzzing in the upstairs bedroom wall for months. A pest service came out to poke holes in the wall thinking the culprits might be bees or wasps. They didn't find anything, and I was left with a bunch of holes I still haven't patched. The buzzing is quite annoying - it's random, and not predictable - I liken it to water torture stories I've read about.


My workaround for this situation was to sleep downstairs in my guest bedroom. That worked fine until this week when my brother came to stay with me for a while. So back to the upstairs bedroom I went. I think I got about 3 hours of sleep the first night. The second night I started banging harder on the walls, thinking if there were insects in the walls, they would be annoyed by my pounding. All my pounding did nothing for the buzzing and just made my hand sore. Next, I opened the window to try banging from the outside. While beating on my outside siding, I happened to brush against a telephone line running from the telephone pole in front to an anchor point near where I suspected the buzzing to be.


Turns out the telephone line was vibrating. When I grabbed the line, I dampened the vibrations and the buzzing went away. Let go and the buzzing returned. And the wall anchor made things worse because it turned my wall into an amplifier - like when you were a kid and used 2 cups and string to simulate a telephone. Anyway, I called AT&T and had them remove the old line today. The buzzing is gone. Silence has been restored. And there was much rejoicing.

Seeing red

Judging by the cardinal that visited me recently and the blooms in front of the house - it must be spring.

Happy Earth Day!

Orange who?

Orange you glad I didn't say banana...

Just got back from another 24 hour trip to Houston. Had some business I had to take care of, but I also had time to visit the folks. Their orange tree is fully loaded with fruit right now. Fruiting fruit trees always make me smile.



What also makes me smile is the passage of the 3 feet ordinance by Austin city council earlier today. Pamela LeBlanc of the Statesman has a positive take on the whole thing.

24 hours in Houston

Made a quick trip to Houston with my sister this weekend to celebrate my brother's birthday and Father's Day. Ate at Feng Ling Saturday night and at Arcos for Sunday lunch. If you like dungeness crab, the crab fried rice at Arcos is not to be missed. At $38 a pop, it's probably the most expensive fried rice you'll ever order, but it's very tasty.

Here are some other random sitings from H-town.

Stopped off at a 99cent store on the way into town. Apparently, Mr. Landis' book is not selling well. Team Ouch, indeed:


My back-up plan. It's all about the herb science. And foot massages:


Spent the better part of Sunday trimming a ton of limbs from my brother's oak tree, cutting back his shrubs, and patching a hole in his roof. It was a combined birthday and Father's Day gift:


The drive back to Austin reminded me of the Simpson's intro sequence:

WTF

Amazing the stuff you can find on the interwebs. These are our most recent SEC filings:

Check out page 31 of this one. $400K for a golf membership? Dios Mio!

And page 13 of this one shows that our board has been negotiating the sale of our company for the past 2 years. All the while telling the troops that the company was not for sale. Nice.

Riding Spicewood Springs in the morning with Pete. If you're here for the ROT rally, please try not to hit me. ROT - the biggest meeting of posers in Austin since SXSW.

PS - I'm not bitter, it's the martinis talking.

PPS - I purchased a Bruce Gordon Rock 'n Road Tour today. I always wanted a full-on touring bike. Bruce was kinda grumpy when we first talked - a result he said from talking to a number of other buyers that wanted to nit-pick and talk him down on price. He got nicer once he realized that I knew what I wanted, and I wasn't out to chiz him on a parts group or wanting some of his custom racks for free. He's rolling back prices to 1988 levels, which was enough for me. I guess everyone is hurting in these economic times. Btw, mine will be in John Deere green, not red. Should take BG a month or so to build it.

And it's only Tuesday...

Feeling dirty, cheap and used.

Another year

5 birthdays in 4 days. Tracy today, Lina and Linda yesterday, Ron the day before, and Joe the day before that. Sheesh! Dinner on me at the Star of India Friday night for any of you all that can make it (so don't say I never gave you anything). Salud!

Reigning cats and dog

Found another nice pic of Badger. He really is a great dog and is still looking for a home, so spread the word if you can.


Speaking of a home, mine will soon foster a couple of felines. June is staging her home for sale and needed someone to take care of her cats until the house sells. Should be an interesting experiment (and indefinitely long, given the current housing market).



They're probably not the manliest pets I could have, especially in comparison to Badger. Unfortunately, my house isn't set up for a large stair-averse dog. That said, I'm actually looking forward to the new roommates. I did, however, promise Pete not to start all my conversations with, "You wouldn't believe what the cats did today..."

Of course, I'm sure the kitties will severely limit my future dating prospects. In fact, here's how I'd imagine a first date postmortem would go (presented in the form of a script - to facilitate the short film when the time arises):

Scene: Breakfast at Bouldin Creek Coffeehouse. Joan and Kris sitting at a side table.

Indescernable dialog.

Fade in...

Joan: So, how was your date last night with that hot Asian-looking guy.

Kris: It went really well. He broke his neck recently, so he's just getting active again. But he's smart, charming, witty...

Joan: Yeah? What's the hesitation?

Kris: Well, he...

Joan: Go on.

Kris: He has cats. CATS!

Joan: Oh, big deal. I know lots of people who like that musical. Well, maybe not LOTS. So he has the soundtrack; big woop.

Kris: (interrupting) No, you don't understand. He has real cats. Live cats.

Joan: Gasp! Did you say cats - as in more than one?

Kris: Two!

Joan: My god, you went out with (dramatic pause) The Cat Guy!

Kris: I know, I know. I showered 3 times when I got home. I still feel dirty.

Joan: ...and used. Just who does he think he is? Did he disclose that beforehand?

Kris: NO! I need a drink...

Joan: You need more than that, Sister. You need a restraining order. Let's get outta here and find you a real man.

Fade out...

Not pretty, is it? But as my Mom likes to say when faced with these difficult situations, "C'est la vie et ensuite vous mourez." Albeit with a Texas accent.

PS - apologies to Jeremy

PPS - ran into Al at the Bob Bollocks recently. He looked to be in good spirits and groomed. Not crazy, unkept or unibomber-like. He confirmed that he sold his house and bought an RV, but that's all I got out of him before I had to go.

Zippers

Getting closer...

Badger

A day of birthday meals. Had an early birthday lunch with Tracy and a late birthday dinner with John and Linda. Tried a new (for me) place for dinner, Thai Cuisine - yes, that's the name - apparently Thai Food was already taken. Anyway, it wasn't very good and the service sucked. Best to stick with Titaya's.

Tracy tells me her friend's Great Dane needs a new home. His owner is getting married and moving to Seattle and can't take Badger with him. I've spent some time with the guy. He's big, but very sweet - the dog, that is. Badger's 10 years old and currently weighs 114, which is light for him. He really needs to be an only dog. So if anyone out there has a loving, dog-free home in need of some canine company, let me know.

¡feliz cumpleaños!

Happy birthday, John. I was going to get you a box of ammo, but there's none to be found in town.

Since you're a Fixx fan, I guess the next best thing would be some grainy concert footage with super-saturated audio. Enjoy!

We'll have to do Indian food whenever you and Linda are free.

Herbie Rides Again

Was at la Madeleine recently with the Cat Lady (from here forward abbreviated as TCCL). Lo and behold, look what was in the parking lot. Yes, the Love Bug.


The Lohan, however, was nowhere to be found.


Those of you with deeper memories were probably looking for The Jones. He also was nowhere to be found.


And speaking of lost, the 45 tollway intersects Highway 71 just past the airport as you head out of town. Just how do you get on 45?