Great Chinese Food In Dallas

Shoko and I went to a friend of her's (Ellen) and had homemade Chinese food last night. Ellen's mother is visiting from Taiwan and made us a feast of five dishes - all of them spectacular. My stomach is still happy this morning. Shoko asked her for the recipe of one of the dishes we both especially liked - a very spicy noodle and pork dish. Unfortunately, as with all great cooks, she said she never makes it exactly the same but she will write down the basic idea for us.

DFW Off-Road Trail Map

I had this little booklet with about 12 mapped-out off-road bike trails in the DFW area that I bought about 10 years ago. I tried to find an updated one and was told by the bike stores that they don't make this anymore and others have been looking for it. It was really handy and even graded the trails much like a ski map - beginner, intermediate, and advanced.

I thought I had lost it but was elated yesterday when I found it in the most unlikely place. In my bookcase. Huh. A logical place. Who'd of thunk THAT?

It's kind of beaten up, but I'm excited to have it. I'll bet other trail bikers are jealous of my little old beat up trail guide!

This weeks show - likely delayed

Hi Folks,

Usually Jeff and I meet on Sunday to do the show and he started editing on Monday/Tuesday with hopes for a show out on Tuesday/Wednesday. But, we sort of snafued our getting together this Sunday and so we won't be in the studio until TUESDAY.

If you write in, perhaps you can motivate Jeff to work his fingers to the bone on getting the show out for Wednesday. Othewise, it might be later.....I have little influence in this area, so it's got to come from our listeners. Tell Jeff to be a man and get that editing done as fast as he can!

We'll do better at our schedule coordination, though, er-hem, I'm not the one with a new "friend"......if you know what I mean!

Your Advice Requested

The question is: Should we aim for more of a 30 minute show than what we are doing currently (45-55 minutes)?

When we started in February, we had set as a goal - a 30 minute show. 30 seemed like a reasonable number in the sense that it seems in line with the typical commute and maps nicely over a typical run or time at the gym. This would make it easier to listen to the podcast in one 'sitting'. We have not been very diligent about this and now find that the show regularly clocks in at 45 to 55 minutes. I worry about this not only infringing more on your time but also perhaps it 'intimidates' new listeners who may find it easy to sample a shorter show.

So we put it you - our intelligent gracious listeners. Is 30 minutes better for you? Worse for you? Or does it matter much to you either way? Your responses to this post would be most helpful!

Rita / Dallas Update

Well, it looks like Rita has decided to plan to take on some East Texas sites instead of the Dallas area. Of course, with hurricanes everything can change but right now the forecast is much better than it was just a day ago:

In North Texas, Ryan said, rain will average an inch in scattered showers and thunderstorms, meaning some places would get none, while others might get a bit more. "I want to stress," he said, "not everyone is going to get rain out of this." But the outlook was a relief to Dallas-Fort Worth area meteorologists. "We're on the western dry side" of the storm, meaning far less rain, wind and tornado threat, Ryan said. "If this were just another 50 or 100 miles to the west, we would be very concerned." The most significant rainfall will occur east of the eye, where 10 to 15 inches is possible. Far East Texas and western Louisiana will get the brunt, Ryan said. "We're talking serious flooding," he said.

Here Comes Rita

Oh boy. Texas is about to get visited by that famous meter maid, Rita. Sure, she's lovely but she's also mean and mad. Many people don't realize that Houston is the 4th largest metropolitan area in the country. Right now the highways are jammed with people getting out of Houston and going, well, anywhere.

I was getting my car looked at (yes, again - the engine light was on) yesterday and my service manager told me that there were people looking for rental cars but the none available. Also, apparently, hotel's throughout the state of Texas are booked pretty solid as a result of Katrina victim's and evacuee's from Rita.

I haven't seen any real visible effects of what I'm sure is more people in Dallas right now. But we'll see. Rita is supposed to come through here Saturday night/Sunday morning. Here's the current Dallas weather:

Friday Night: A 20 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms after midnight. Mostly cloudy, with a low near 71. Northeast wind between 10 and 15 mph.

Saturday: Showers and thunderstorms likely. Cloudy, with a high near 82. Northeast wind between 10 and 20 mph. Chance of precipitation is 60%.

Saturday Night: Showers and thunderstorms likely, mainly before midnight. Cloudy, with a low around 72. Windy, with a north northeast wind 25 to 30 mph increasing to between 40 and 45 mph. Chance of precipitation is 70%.

Sunday: Showers and thunderstorms likely, mainly before noon. Cloudy, with a high around 83. Windy, with a north northwest wind between 40 and 45 mph. Chance of precipitation is 60%.

Sunday Night: A 50 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Cloudy, with a low around 71. Windy, with a west northwest wind 35 to 40 mph decreasing to between 25 and 30 mph.

Monday: A 40 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Mostly cloudy, with a high around 88. Windy, with a north northwest wind 20 to 25 mph decreasing to between 10 and 15 mph.

Something Smells...

My back patio smells like garbage. Like what you would smell in a back alley after garbage has been sitting around for awhile. Probably what a lot of New Orleans smelled like for awhile (and perhaps still does). What could it be. A visual inspection found no garbage in the area. My thoughts are that there may be a dead critter underneath the patio. I haven't looked there yet as it's not super easy to search down there. I may have to look through the slats. Do dead critters smell like garbage?

A New Bike

I bought a new bike yesterday to replace the one that I had stolen a couple of years ago. I wanted a bike that I could hop on for a quick trip around White Rock Lake with (I live about 2 miles from the lake which has a nice bike path all around it) as well as get on and do some unpaved wooded trails.

The bike is what they call a 'comfort' bike which is basically a hybrid cross between a mountain bike and a road bike. The Giant Sedona LX favors more mountain bike characteristics with wider tires, front shocks and a bit of a larger more rugged frame. Interesting technology (to me) that is new to me on this bike are disk brakes and tires that apparently repair themselves... hmmmm... think I'll still bring my repair kit...

Next up is finding a mountain bike for Shoko and going to hit some trails. Pat may even come!

Here's a pic of the bike but mine is in black.

From The Archives: Pics From New Orleans

I came across this old site with pictures from the 2001 Jazz Festival in New Orleans. Pat and I and a bunch of our friends went. What I can't believe is that 2001 is the last time I was in New Orleans. Crazy. We live so close and I love it so much. The page is one of those free 'geocities' accounts. If it gets too much activity (which doesn't take too much), it shuts down for an hour. So you may have to try again if you get shut out. Sorry.

New Orleans 2001 Jazz Fest w/ Jeff and Pat

Also - I don't know if anyone has noticed, but if you go the Google Maps and look for New Orleans, not only do they give you a map, satellite and hybrid view but they also give you a "Katrina" view. Thus you can toggle before and after all over New Orleans at various zoom levels. Very cool.

Ah Fall!

Nothing says fall has arrived like the beginning of football season. Even though Texas weather is still too hot, football season still conjures up great memories at my alma mater - University of Illinois a few years ago. On game day, we would wake in the morning, sport our bright orange and blue gear, get the kegs fired up, and hang out on the front porch of the frat house for breakfast while the marching band paraded out front on their way to the stadium.

The whole day was dedicated to events surrounding the big game. Youth, unbounded energy, Saturday and no studying for at least the day,... Ah.. My niece just started as a freshman at U of Minnesota - another great Big Ten school. She should have some great Saturdays.

Signs of football are all around. I have passed by two SMU games already (they play about 1 mile away from my house), and the Longhorns and the Cowboys are off to great starts.

Dang - I even have the first leaves in my front yard. Time to gather them into a pile, grab a pigskin and dive into it as if I was diving into the end zone on top of 350-pound linemen to score the winning touchdown....

Oy Vay!

Man, I have troubles! I had a mental list of things I had to do, and none of them were getting done. So, finally, I wrote them down and, imagine that, some are getting done! Yipee.

However, some of them were so horrible to get done. Like the problem with my email.

All of the sudden, about 2 weeks ago, I stopped being able to send email. I knew it would be horrible talking to SBC - to someone in India (no offense, I have many Indian friends, but when you have to spell P-A-T for someone, well, it tries your patience) for at least an hour and half of that time would be rebooting my computer and answering the same question posed 7 different ways.

That's exactly how it played out too. The first call was 45 mintues long and basically they told me that since I have Mozilla and they don't support Mozilla, well, I should call my hardware vendor! Sure, that's it. Wow, how effective would that be?!

Now, Jeff uses Mozilla and also SBC, but he is having no problems. I've not loaded any new software on my computer or updated any virus lately, so what's the deal?!

I spend about 30 minutes looking at a Mozilla forum and some other guy had a problem like mine, but he didn't get it resolved either.

So, I reluctantly go back to Outlook - which I abandoned earlier this year at Jeff's recommendation and since I was getting junk mail out the wazoo. I love Mozilla Thunderbird! I don't want to go back to that piece of crap Outlook.

Of course, it still doesn't work and I spent another hour on the phone with someone from India and it seems to be working now.

I still hate Outlook.

So, if you have sent me email in the past 2 weeks, the reason I've not written back is because I couldn't. I hope to be better now.

My next "to do" is to figure out why after my ipod got filled up, now I have NO songs on it. There are songs in iTunes, but all I can get on the ipod is podcast!

I may buy a gun and shoot myself.

Donate!

Don't forget to help out the victims of Hurricane Katrina by donating to the Red Cross or other distaster aiding charity of your choice. This may very well be the worst domestic crisis that you or I will ever see in our lifetime and you have a choice on how to respond: 1) loot and take advantage of those less fortunate as you, 2) do nothing or 3) help your fellow citizens in their time of need.

I believe that these are the types of events where people really define themselves. Walk proudly and do your part to help in this tragedy. Donate!

The Red Cross is located at http://www.redcross.org/. Be sure to check if your employer matches.

If you are reading this from outside of the United States, we would also appreciate your help but my message is mostly intended for our citizens here.

Our hearts and thoughts go out to those from the NOLA and coastal Mississippi and Alabama areas. I know that we have had quite a few listeners from New Orleans. Please get in touch with us as soon as you can.

The Car Is Back...

...after exactly 7 days. I had them add a repair to the exhaust manifold at the last minute (a $600 repair). I'm glad to have my car back! It's clean, everything works, the A/C is unbelievable and I'm happy. Total bill was $2500 but that's ok. We all know there is a recurring cost for our transportation. The rental car I had was a new Toyota Camry. And it was very nice. But I have to admit, it was sure great to step back into the 9-year old BMW. It just drives nicer. Even after the years!