Texsox

Uber happy. I was just speaking with someone at Big Bend National Park, my New Years destination. They are adding a bar to the restaurant and the border crossing to Boquias, Mexico is re-opening I miss being rowed across the Rio Grande and having lunch and shopping for trinkets.

Books, solar charger, long undies in a tall size, trip to Big Bend . . .

I am seeing two varieties. The more expensive and heavy ones have internal batteries that can in turn charge a device. The cheaper ones just trickle charge.

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Dec 4, 2011 -> 12:40 PM) Pittshoganerkoff, you son of a b****! I wanted to have Gus the highest, but I had him at #2. Who was the third person who voted for him, and how high? I think I had him #3, but just to piss you off

There are a lot of creepy s*** on this planet, but I like it better than the other planets.

Anyone using one? I'm thinking it would be nice while camping for my cell and camera.

Oh I am just a humble civil servant, teaching the kids.

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Dec 1, 2011 -> 04:52 PM) Thought nothing of the sort, I know whatever party in power tries to maneuver it to their advantage. I think it is wrong, however it is done. Making districts that contain '70% minorities' or '75% of one party voters to be a safe district' is just wrong if there is no cohesiveness in the district. I think the law just says it has to have x amount of people, not x amount of Republicans, Mexicans or other. Having districts that worm across the state just to make up some desired population density is wrong. Wholly Crap, the right, middle, and now left all agree!

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Dec 1, 2011 -> 07:39 AM) Again, it isn't the laws that need to be scrapped. It is an entire governmental division founded to make companies prove that they aren't breaking the law that needs to be scrapped. Never has anyone said scrap the fraud laws. It would be akin to making you as individual file documentation quarterly that details what you assets are, what they are worth, and then once a year having that documentation say that you are telling the truth, in addition to all of the ways you already pay your taxes, to prove that you are paying your taxes accurately. Sounds like it will put a whole lot of attorneys and accountanting types out of work. I'm in

Awesome

Fantastic month with 7 days off.

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Dec 2, 2011 -> 07:55 AM) Depending on the age of your daughter, that seems kind of odd. She was a high school junior I believe when that came out. She also loves the original Godfather movie.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Dec 2, 2011 -> 09:15 AM) Make sure you teach the boys to not shake hands like a bunch of p*****s. A firm handshake is required if I'm hiring a man. How should women shake?

knight, at some point will you list all those that received one vote?

"There will be Blood" is one of my daughter's favorite films of all time. She must have seen it five or six times in the theater.

By the way, I highly recommend this mail list to the book lovers here. I probably read three or four books a month that I am first introduced to here.

One of the skills I am teaching is interviewing skills. Over the Thanksgiving Holiday I had my students interview a family member about their family history. I believe I actually said wait for grandma to have a couple drinks and then interview her, tipsy grandmas spill the best stories Basically it becomes a collection of immigrant stories from Mexico which are very cool. One that comes to mind was a 1870s era stagecoach ride. What I found wonderful about the story is it survived so many generations. Oral histories are so fragile. But I digress. As I was reading these and offering feedback I noticed a trend, the stories that my Pre-Ap students wrote were filled with rich details. At first I attributed that to those students having larger vocabularies to draw from and taking more time with the assignment. But then I began to contemplate nature versus nurture. Could it be that those students who wrote more elaborate stories were told more elaborate stories? Could it be that environment helped them to become better writers and students. It is also a dose of those parents generally can help their kids with homework more because they themselves understand the material and assignment. Think about how helpful your parents are when you are doing something they did. Now think how helpful they are when they are doing something they have never done before. A kid being the first at something in a family is more special than I ever dreamed. I also have become less sympathetic to these kids' plights. As I read their stories, and some of my students come from absolute poverty, I see ones that are working hard to be educated who are with a parent(s) who is/are trying their best to raise them right, while surrounded by the temptations and dangers that infiltrate poverty areas. I still have my liberal empathy, but I've stopped caring so much about where the kids are coming from and instead focused on where they are going.

December is here!

QUOTE (iamshack @ Dec 1, 2011 -> 10:39 AM) I just don't understand how you can buy that...if you listen to the tape, the ENTIRE conversation carries with it a context of Fine molesting this kid. It's not an issue of them talking about the latest sale at the market, and then all the sudden, his wife blurts out "So, is Bernie still trying to molest you?" The entire tape is centered on Fine's fascination with young boys, this boy in particular, and were there to be editing involved, they'd have had to basically fabricated the entire conversation. I am agreeing that it is more likely the tape is real, but as SS and I have said, editing the tapes is about as easy a thing as there is today. I'm not a fan of accuser supplied evidence in a format that is so easily altered. Not playing devil's advocate or anything like that. Accuser supplied evidence is always suspect. I hope they have some collaboration or it's basically hinges on this guys testimony and a tape he made talking to someone who benefits from the accused being locked up.

Well, the kid who I put in the line up wound up with an ISS, so I dropped him and put the first kid back in. He whined about not starting and I quickly, in Tex-like fashion, set him straight. By the second half he was doing exactly what I needed him to do, and, thank you Shack, he did play some goalie and did pretty good. My regular keeper played a little defense and looked pretty good.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Dec 1, 2011 -> 10:24 AM) Come on, Tex...it's not that easy...the conversation flows perfectly on the tape...this isn't like a bunch of random sentences placed together and recorded. Will you please just go listen to it before you insist on this editing angle? I did listen to it. Will you edit a sound file to see how easy it is to do? It is easier than Photoshop by about 500%. Not even close.

Just download a copy of Audacity, a free program and any sound file. Cut and pasting just like text. Super easy. I was a former golf course janitor and can edit audio files without any problem at all. Anyone who can use a computer can do it. It's even easier than Photoshop. So if a pictuire can be manipulated that easily, imagine what can happen with a sound file. Again, I am more inclined to believe it, but accuser supplied evidence, of a third party conversation, just doesn't impress me. They will need more than that to get a conviction.