Heading into the extra-long Thanksgiving weekend, which will be a family (on the dear wife's side) celebration of my in-laws' 50th wedding anniversary (the actual date was in early October, but gathering the whole clan takes effort).
My folks reached 47 years this summer past, so they've got another three years to the golden. I look forward to it, though at this early date have absolutely no notions or plans whatsoever. I suppose I should start plotting with my sibs sometime early next year....
Anyway... it's a break time! Major League Baseball holds its winter meetings during the second week of December, which is not at all far off, and that starts off with a bang on day one (Monday, Dec. 8) with the announcements of who, if anyone, will be inducted into the Hall Of Fame in 2009, from the Veterans Committee ballots. I've already had my say on these -- there are 20 candidates on two different ten-man ballots, sorted by those who made their major league debut before the 1943 season, or later. Convenient links to my ballot reviews, something basebally to think about while watching football and digesting.
* == candidate I would vote for.
Pre-1943 ballot -- Bill Dahlen, Wes Ferrell, *Joe Gordon, *Sherry Magee, Carl Mays, Allie Reynolds, *Vern Stephens, Mickey Vernon, Bucky Walters, *Deacon White.
Post-1943 ballot -- *Dick Allen, Gil Hodges, Jim Kaat, Tony Oliva, Al Oliver, Vada Pinson, *Ron Santo, Luis Tiant, Joe Torre, Maury Wills.
The Hall's on-line biography profiles (incomplete as of this writing; new ones are posted every day or two; the pre-1943 candidates are available, the post-1943 candidates are still rolling out).
Root for Santo.
Monday, November 24, 2008
Friday, November 21, 2008
The most wonderful time of the year
I'm an XM Radio subscriber. I first signed up with XM a few years ago, 2004 I think it was, for one basic reason -- XM had practically the entire Major League Baseball schedule. I've never been an every-night listener, but I do appreciate listening to the games called by the local broadcasters. Hey, one can never get enough Vin Scully (Dodgers) or Dave Niehaus (Mariners). And there's nothing like hearing the Red Sox called by some flinty New England voice.
XM offers a lot more, and very recently combined operations with (former) rival satellite radio concern Sirius. I find XM well worth the price.
Last year, holiday season 2007, XM had a raft of Christmas-centric programming -- individual channels for Christmas standards ("your mother's Christmas music", I thought of it), full-blown gospel/praise Christmas music, one channel for Christmas comedy music. I think there were one or two others, plus a channel for Chaunukah music during that festival as well. I'm enough of a sucker for childhood nostalgia that I can appreciate Christmas music -- traditions, some of the tracks -- without feeling clammy after a while. Plus the comedy channel was a riot.
Not so this year. XM is carrying one Christmas channel, "Holly", featuring "contemporary holiday hits". Yeah, fine, the traditional tracks are there, but it is a poor substitute for the 2007 bonanza. And Christmas music suffers from one huge flaw -- a lot of it is crap. There's plenty of good stuff, but given the limited window and narrow band of subject material, pretty much anything that relates to Christmas (which is, no secret, the only holiday involved) will get some airtime no matter how good or bad it is. And there is a lot of awful Christmas music -- either genuinely bad songs, or badly-reinterpreted versions of true classics.
I don't know why XM cut back so severely this year. Maybe the 2007 programming was a flop (is XM even subject to ratings? It's a subscription service). Maybe the recent merger with Sirius put everything in turmoil, and this is what little escaped. Maybe the cratered economy forced the move to reduced programming. Maybe the people at XM are just being grinches. They don't respond to emails except with form-letter replies. (While my XM unit typically remembers whichever channel it was last tuned to, it doesn't do this with the Holly channel, always rebooting to the noxious Preview channel, where you can be told that XM and Sirius are now Sirius-XM, it's great, and you can be told this 24/7.)
So I'm listening, but it was better back in the days of 2007.
XM offers a lot more, and very recently combined operations with (former) rival satellite radio concern Sirius. I find XM well worth the price.
Last year, holiday season 2007, XM had a raft of Christmas-centric programming -- individual channels for Christmas standards ("your mother's Christmas music", I thought of it), full-blown gospel/praise Christmas music, one channel for Christmas comedy music. I think there were one or two others, plus a channel for Chaunukah music during that festival as well. I'm enough of a sucker for childhood nostalgia that I can appreciate Christmas music -- traditions, some of the tracks -- without feeling clammy after a while. Plus the comedy channel was a riot.
Not so this year. XM is carrying one Christmas channel, "Holly", featuring "contemporary holiday hits". Yeah, fine, the traditional tracks are there, but it is a poor substitute for the 2007 bonanza. And Christmas music suffers from one huge flaw -- a lot of it is crap. There's plenty of good stuff, but given the limited window and narrow band of subject material, pretty much anything that relates to Christmas (which is, no secret, the only holiday involved) will get some airtime no matter how good or bad it is. And there is a lot of awful Christmas music -- either genuinely bad songs, or badly-reinterpreted versions of true classics.
I don't know why XM cut back so severely this year. Maybe the 2007 programming was a flop (is XM even subject to ratings? It's a subscription service). Maybe the recent merger with Sirius put everything in turmoil, and this is what little escaped. Maybe the cratered economy forced the move to reduced programming. Maybe the people at XM are just being grinches. They don't respond to emails except with form-letter replies. (While my XM unit typically remembers whichever channel it was last tuned to, it doesn't do this with the Holly channel, always rebooting to the noxious Preview channel, where you can be told that XM and Sirius are now Sirius-XM, it's great, and you can be told this 24/7.)
So I'm listening, but it was better back in the days of 2007.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Three , Two, then One...
Remember this summer's fun gas prices? I first paid over $3/gallon back in late February. Austin prices peaked around $3.90 that I can recall, $3.75 for certain. And on the road trip, in remote parts of Utah, we saw prices crest $4.50. Austin was still well above $3 when we got back.
It was sometime in September, around the middle of the month, when I saw the "2" again, paying $2.999/gallon. And prices kept dropping -- $2.82, $2.71, $2.39, $2.12, $2.07. An easy trend to spot, and then -- yes! -- $1.99. The two was gone. I had reason to visit a warehouse store yesterday, not my usual one but one with a filling station, and when I saw the member price -- $1.769/gallon -- I filled up (the car was getting low anyway). Checking later on AustinGasPrices.com, I found that I had happened upon one of the lowest prices in town.
To the pocketbook this is a pleasant thing, sure, but two things keep playing in my mind.
One, even an honest supply/demand curve shouldn't be this volatile, to swing up +100% and then go back down again in just a few months' time. We as a customer base are being played.
Two, it's nice to have the pricing pressure off, but we must not let this distract us as a nation or a world from pursuing alternative energy sources. We need energy, I don't doubt that, but there are other options to explore and develop. And it's better to move forward that direction in the days when the pressure is off than when it will be on again. Lower gas prices give us some breathing space, but this is at best a coffee break, not a sabbatical.
It was sometime in September, around the middle of the month, when I saw the "2" again, paying $2.999/gallon. And prices kept dropping -- $2.82, $2.71, $2.39, $2.12, $2.07. An easy trend to spot, and then -- yes! -- $1.99. The two was gone. I had reason to visit a warehouse store yesterday, not my usual one but one with a filling station, and when I saw the member price -- $1.769/gallon -- I filled up (the car was getting low anyway). Checking later on AustinGasPrices.com, I found that I had happened upon one of the lowest prices in town.
To the pocketbook this is a pleasant thing, sure, but two things keep playing in my mind.
One, even an honest supply/demand curve shouldn't be this volatile, to swing up +100% and then go back down again in just a few months' time. We as a customer base are being played.
Two, it's nice to have the pricing pressure off, but we must not let this distract us as a nation or a world from pursuing alternative energy sources. We need energy, I don't doubt that, but there are other options to explore and develop. And it's better to move forward that direction in the days when the pressure is off than when it will be on again. Lower gas prices give us some breathing space, but this is at best a coffee break, not a sabbatical.
Tuesday, November 04, 2008
Election Day 2008
Travis County holds early voting for the two weeks preceding Election Day. I took advantage of this on October 23, Val last week on the last day. So we didn't have to go to our precinct polling site today.
(Our polling site has moved around a lot since I settled at this home address in late 1993. For a while, it was the building at the local city recreation center. Then it moved to a church, and stayed there a while. Then, thanks to the Delay-driven redistricting of Texas, we wound up as part of Texas Congressional district 21, which is mostly San Antonio, by about 1000 feet -- and that time, our redrawn voting precinct had no public facilities whatsoever, so for two years we voted in the garage of a home down the street. In fairness, it was a very clean garage, easy walking distance, and it was nice of the neighbors to volunteer their space. And then, when that redistricting was thrown out and we got re-re-drawn, our polling site moved to an elementary school. Not the one Amalie attends, as that would make sense, but one about twice as far away -- maybe a mile and a half, it's not a burden, but geez, who plans this stuff?)
Carson felt sick last night and slept late into the morning, but when he awoke he felt better (and has shown no signs of relapse, which is all to the good). We decided to take an afternoon walk coincident with Val picking up Amalie on the extendabike. I thought Carson might get tired on the way home -- we planned to visit the rec center and kick around a soccer ball -- so I took out the wagon. Carson decided this meant he got to ride the whole way. Drat. That wasn't my plan, but off we went.
And then I decided to walk all the way to the school and see how the voting was going. It's a good hike, and even pulling the wagon it didn't tax me. We got there, and as I was parking the wagon in the shade, one of the election marshals (or judges, or proctors -- whatever) -- they were both quite young, early 20s at a guess -- asked if I was there to vote.
"No. I voted two weeks ago." I was hardly alone in this distinction; Travis Co. has around 609,000 registered voters, and almost half -- 299,000 or so -- used early voting. Austin is the state capital, and politics of any stripe is like a sport here, but this sort of turnout was unprecedented. The other marshal riffled through the precinct registry for me -- and yep, about half of the names had an "EV" mark next to them. This election really matters to a lot of people.
I told them I just wanted to see how things were going. It was not at all crowded at the moment -- if there was a wait, it was probably no more than a minute, and there was no line outside the door. The marshals said they'd been at the poll since 5:45 am (it was around 3:00 - 3:15 when we stopped by) and, while there had been a line early in the morning, that ended rather quickly and it had been calm and steady since. We agreed that there might be a late crowd but nothing they couldn't handle. I mentioned that I tried to attend the Democratic caucus back in March at the same school, and the line was simply impossible -- I never got in the door, and reportedly the line inside still stretched far down a hallway. Today was a more peaceful sight, and a highly encouraging one.
Carson and I moseyed on. We stopped at the local 7-11 for refreshments (Diet Coke for me, a yogurt smoothie for him), and finally got around to the rec center. Carson romped on the playscape for a bit, played ball with another kid, and finally we went down to the field and kicked around the soccer ball. (He plays on a 3-year-old team in a rec center league on Saturdays, and is quite good at it.) Finally, he was ready to head home, so he saddled up and the team of oxen (me) moved on. Just as we were getting home, Amie and Val rode up on the bike -- Amie loves playing on the school playground after school, and this explained their delay in getting home and our completely coincident timing. My back is a bit stiff from the walk -- the distance didn't trouble me but pulling the wagon (with Carson aboard) for that long did wear me some -- but it'll recover soon.
Big day. Important day. And the real work begins tomorrow.
Vote while you still can.
(Our polling site has moved around a lot since I settled at this home address in late 1993. For a while, it was the building at the local city recreation center. Then it moved to a church, and stayed there a while. Then, thanks to the Delay-driven redistricting of Texas, we wound up as part of Texas Congressional district 21, which is mostly San Antonio, by about 1000 feet -- and that time, our redrawn voting precinct had no public facilities whatsoever, so for two years we voted in the garage of a home down the street. In fairness, it was a very clean garage, easy walking distance, and it was nice of the neighbors to volunteer their space. And then, when that redistricting was thrown out and we got re-re-drawn, our polling site moved to an elementary school. Not the one Amalie attends, as that would make sense, but one about twice as far away -- maybe a mile and a half, it's not a burden, but geez, who plans this stuff?)
Carson felt sick last night and slept late into the morning, but when he awoke he felt better (and has shown no signs of relapse, which is all to the good). We decided to take an afternoon walk coincident with Val picking up Amalie on the extendabike. I thought Carson might get tired on the way home -- we planned to visit the rec center and kick around a soccer ball -- so I took out the wagon. Carson decided this meant he got to ride the whole way. Drat. That wasn't my plan, but off we went.
And then I decided to walk all the way to the school and see how the voting was going. It's a good hike, and even pulling the wagon it didn't tax me. We got there, and as I was parking the wagon in the shade, one of the election marshals (or judges, or proctors -- whatever) -- they were both quite young, early 20s at a guess -- asked if I was there to vote.
"No. I voted two weeks ago." I was hardly alone in this distinction; Travis Co. has around 609,000 registered voters, and almost half -- 299,000 or so -- used early voting. Austin is the state capital, and politics of any stripe is like a sport here, but this sort of turnout was unprecedented. The other marshal riffled through the precinct registry for me -- and yep, about half of the names had an "EV" mark next to them. This election really matters to a lot of people.
I told them I just wanted to see how things were going. It was not at all crowded at the moment -- if there was a wait, it was probably no more than a minute, and there was no line outside the door. The marshals said they'd been at the poll since 5:45 am (it was around 3:00 - 3:15 when we stopped by) and, while there had been a line early in the morning, that ended rather quickly and it had been calm and steady since. We agreed that there might be a late crowd but nothing they couldn't handle. I mentioned that I tried to attend the Democratic caucus back in March at the same school, and the line was simply impossible -- I never got in the door, and reportedly the line inside still stretched far down a hallway. Today was a more peaceful sight, and a highly encouraging one.
Carson and I moseyed on. We stopped at the local 7-11 for refreshments (Diet Coke for me, a yogurt smoothie for him), and finally got around to the rec center. Carson romped on the playscape for a bit, played ball with another kid, and finally we went down to the field and kicked around the soccer ball. (He plays on a 3-year-old team in a rec center league on Saturdays, and is quite good at it.) Finally, he was ready to head home, so he saddled up and the team of oxen (me) moved on. Just as we were getting home, Amie and Val rode up on the bike -- Amie loves playing on the school playground after school, and this explained their delay in getting home and our completely coincident timing. My back is a bit stiff from the walk -- the distance didn't trouble me but pulling the wagon (with Carson aboard) for that long did wear me some -- but it'll recover soon.
Big day. Important day. And the real work begins tomorrow.
Vote while you still can.
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