The Cowtown Chronicles

In case you can’t read it, the side of this panel van says “Zen Taxi.”

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Seriously… You’re a convicted felon, you have a gun (it’s illegal for convicted felons to have guns), and you decide to shoot off a few roundsshoot off a few rounds into the air on New Year’s Eve.

Not only is this stupidly dangerous to other people (but I guess if you’re a criminal you don’t really care about other people), but it’s also something that the police specifically patrol for.

Sometimes I think I could be the most effective and successful criminal ever, only because I wouldn’t be so damn retarded about it.

If it weren’t for Jenna’s family, Christmas wouldn’t be a big deal around our house. As it is, it’s still not a HUGE deal for us or them. I’m sure it would be different if we had kids of our own, but since we don’t, we get to share in the joy of our nieces and nephews (just the nieces this year) and their glee at their bounteous haul.

As you are no doubt aware, I have um… “issues” with our consumption driven economy. It’s hard to find the joy that we’re supposed to have in Christmas when it all seems to be focused around who gave whom what, or whether so-and-so got a larger number of presents than me/her/him. Stories about retailers gouging desperate parents who feel like their children won’t love them if they don’t get the latest toy demonstrate that the Rockwellian Christmases our mothers drove them selves batty trying to create are long gone.

This will likely sound snarky, but I have to say that the worst part of our weekend was Christmas morning. During the hour while presents were being opened, it really felt like the sort of magical family feeling we’d created together over the last couple of days had given over to the crass materialistic orgy that Christmas has become. Please, don’t get me wrong. I love Jenna and her family (more than my own in some cases), but I think we’re doing our (collective) kids a disservice by letting them focus so much on the material aspects of things.

It’s interesting how people say that Christmas is about family, but how many families do you know that wouldn’t feel like they’d had Christmas if the gift getting aspect were taken out?

That was the only sour note the whole weekend, and I’m probably making it sound a lot worse than it was. I had a great time visiting East Texas, and I can’t wait to go again next year! (If I’m still invited.)

But it turns out that my loathing of making left turns is good for the environment AND more efficient.

w00t! Pete turning right FTW!

Over at The House Next Door, they’ve put up a great remembrance of Calvert DeForest, better known as Larry “Bud” Melman. Good bye, “Bud,” thanks for making me laugh so much when I was a kid.

I know Thanksgiving is more than a month away, but I think it’s important for us (and by us I mean most Americans) to be grateful for what we have, even if it’s not much.

I’ve seen the “if Earth were a village of 100 people” thing before, but this presentation makes it more meaningful than a bunch of statistics.

I grateful for what I have, that’s for sure; but I’m more grateful for the opportunity to have it. That’s something that so many people in this world never get.

Technorati Tags: introspection, navel-gazing, thanksgiving

I guess I won’t be getting the call to become the new CCO after all. Good luck to you, Cecilia Jacobs, I suggest studying up on current “gas wells are good for you” spin techniques.

Technorati Tags: fort worth, gas drilling

Four hours of continuing legal education followed by lunch, golf, cocktails, and a raffle. And you can bet that this isn’t going to be one of those “win a free lunch at Hooters” kinds of raffles.