Tejas Lindo

A December scence from the JBG Ranch.

The Birds

I came across this Hitchcockian scene last night around 11:oo p.m. in the parking lot of the neighborhood grocery store. Thousands of grackles malovently standing around, presumably because their bretheren had already filled the nearby trees. Note the evil eyes.

Unsupervised Redneck in the Big Apple

Took a trip to NYC this week for business. I promptly left my umbrella in a cab. "No big deal," I thought, "but I'd better be more careful." About two hours later, I left my wallet in a cab. Dang! I had to call and cancel all my credit cards and put in a fraud alert with Equifax. Luckily, the folks at LaGuardia weren't too hard on me despite my lack of any identification -- they just designated me a "selectee," which meant I had to be frisked and have my bags searched before I could get on the plane.

Nekkidness

For lunch today, I walked over to a burrito shop in the tunnel beneath an adjacent building. There are a number of stores and shops and a fair amount of foot traffic in this well-lighted, spacious tunnel. Andrew the shoe shine guy occupies a medium-sized retail space formerly used by a barber shop. Andrew is an elderly, hard of hearing, African-American man who is a spiffy dresser. The wall of his shop facing the tunnel is made entirely of glass, and as I walked to the burrito shop, I noticed Andrew snoozing in a chair near this glass wall. On my way back, it was a different story.

As I walked past Andrew's shop, I glanced over to see if he was still snoozing. Nope. He was standing up with his pants and underwear around his ankles and his pecker hanging out big as day. He appeared to be adjusting his shirtails, but I didn't look long enough to see exactly what he was up to. Nobody was around me, but since Andrew didn't seem to be in any hurry to get his pants back up, I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one to have witnessed this nekkidness.

Funny thing is, when I got back to my office I realized we have a section lunch meeting today with food provided by the firm. Maybe there is a god whose goal is to supply me with blog fodder!

Feral Hogs

These critters have recently started calling Central Texas home, and I've seen evidence of their presence on my family's JBG Ranch. This is one that was apparently struck by a car about 10 miles from the ranch. Notice the tusks. I've started carrying a pistol when hiking on the ranch.

Jose Padilla Rant

I was getting pretty annoyed with the reporters on NPR pronouncing Jose Padilla's surname as "Pu-DILL-uh." Ordinarily, "Padilla" is pronounced "Pu-dee-ya," kind of like "tortilla." But according to Slate (http://www.slate.com/id/2130925/) Jose Padilla (aka Abdullah Al Muhajir) and his family prefer the "Pu-DILL-uh" pronunciation. If that's the case, then this idiot deserves to be held indefinitely as an enemy combatant. He sure as hell won't get a fair trial if there are any Hispanic jurors chosen for his case; they'll be far too annoyed at his stupid insistence on mispronouncing his name. And by the way, if he's gonna mispronounce his last name, why not his first name too? It should be "Joe-sss." Hasta la vista, baby.

Mercedes man

This is one of my favorite Mercedes models. Probably a 1972 or '73 model. The owner lives a mile or two from my house and has about three old Mercedes like this one crammed into his small driveway. I'd try to buy one from him if I had a place to keep it.

Muffler Man

This bellicose dude stands guard at a muffler/tire shop I pass every day on the way to work. On his right hip he wears a six shooter and on his left a sword. Not sure what's in his left hand -- a key ring? In his right hand is a spray can emitting paint. The rust on his belly just showed up in the last few weeks. This shop looks like a good place to get a llanta punchada repaired.

Mexican restrooms

Back to the issue of Mexican toilets. Unfortunately, I don't have any photos of my own, but here is a representative photo I found at http://www.tomgoetz.com/honey/honey09.htm The comment accompanying the photo was: "The toilets here were especially disgusting, and like most public toilets in Mexico, there were no toilet seats." The Internet actually contains quite a few references to the lousy bathrooms in Mexico, but I haven't been able to find any interior photos. Next time I'm down there, I'll try to snap a few.

From my mouth to god's ear?

Just down the street from my house is a very large open space/park bordered on one side by a small creek and wooded area where there used to be a railroad track and telephone lines. In the summer, the brush is too dense for exploring, but the last two weekends my kids and I have clambered across the creek and crawled into the underbrush to hunt for "treasures." Yesterday, in addition to about 50 golf balls, we found the items pictured above. A tortoise shell, a hard hat, an old rubber telephone wire insulator, an old Pepsi bottle (probably from the late 1960's), and a model rocket. The model rocket is where it gets a little weird.

My son (21 months old) and I were poking around in the underbrush and hadn't found any treasures other than a few golfballs. I thought for a moment about what we might find and said to my son, "we need to find a model rocket that some kid shot off in the park and lost out here in the brush." Then I thought to myself, "boy, wouldn't it be weird if we actually found one after I said that." Not 30 seconds later, I walked around a tangle of impentrable vines and spied . . . the model rocket shown in the picture above. I'm still not sure what to make of that turn of events.

Scottish pissing wall

My brother and I took a trip to Scotland this summer and were quite intrigued by what we dubbed "the Scottish pissing wall." Many of the public restrooms we visited had this set up, which is basically a wall sheathed in stainless steel and equipped with a water drip system at the top and, of course, a drain at the bottom. A superior and efficient design that requires virtually no aiming skills. Moreover, public restrooms in Scotland are extremely clean and always fully equipped with good toilet paper. The only drawback was that exiting many of the restrooms entailed pulling, as opposed to pushing, open two or even three doors. Ain't no way you're getting out of there without grasping several germ infested door handles, and the one finger method just doesn't work. Still, these bathrooms were far superior to any Mexican bathroom. I won't even try to describe the horrors of a typical public restroom in Mexico. Suffice it to say those folks apparently don't see the need to wipe their arses.