13 July 2010
Louise Whited (1943-2010)
Louise Whited passed away on Sunday, July 11 2010 at Jane Phillips Medical Center in Bartlesville, Oklahoma.
Louise was born in Pawhuska, Oklahoma on May 28, 1943 to Joe Smith and Mary Katherine “Mitzi” Smith.
As a young woman, Louise enjoyed exploring new places, and spent time working in both Denver and the Grand Canyon areas. She later returned to Pawhuska, where she worked for some years at the Manhattan Cafe and Duncan Hotel restaurant. She married her husband of 42 years, Frank Whited, on March 20, 1968 in Honolulu, Hawaii. After a short time in Orange, Texas, they returned to Pawhuska, where she devoted herself to family. In recent years, she worked as an Avon representative and also was active on the internet.
Louise is survived by her husband Frank, son Kevin and his wife Callie, sister Sabra Trochta, brother Charles R. “Chuck” Smith, and numerous nephews and nieces. She was preceded in passing by sister Sandra Jackson and brother Joe “Brownie” Smith. She was a devoted daughter, wife, mother, sister, aunt, and friend.
Funeral services will be held Thursday, July 15 at 10 AM in the McCartney’s Johnson Funeral Home chapel. Longtime family friend Rev. Lottie Adams Ozbun will officiate. Interment will be in the Pawhuska City Cemetery.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 07/13/10 07:44 | Other | Comments (8)
09 July 2010
Think Ford might like this one back?
Photo of the gas cap from our Ford Fusion rental (a below average compact class car) in Alaska:
I’m thinking Ford might like that one back about now.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 07/09/10 21:48 | Other | Comments (1)
24 June 2010
Linkpost (06/24/2010)
Oh yeah, I have this blog going again…. I better put something up before BigBro yells at me.
- The Dangers and Difficulties of 'Bottom Kill' (Philip Bethge, Spiegel)
- McChrystal Told the Truth (Rowan Scarborough, Human Events)
- Afghan mission impossible (George Will, Boston Herald)
- Obama's Greek tragedy (Victor Davis Hanson, RCP)
- Politico Opens the Kimono. And then Pretends it Never Happened (Jay Rosen, Press Think) Chron.com does that post-publication editing all the time. It’s pathetic. And let’s not EVEN get started on journos who get so close to their sources they forget how to be journos.
- The true story of American soccer (Dave Eggers, Slate)
The beauty of soccer for very young people is that, to create a simulacrum of the game, it requires very little skill. There is no other sport that can bear such incompetence. With soccer, 22 kids can be running around, most of them aimlessly, or picking weeds by the sidelines, or crying for no apparent reason, and yet the game can have the general appearance of an actual soccer match. If there are three or four coordinated kids among the 22 flailing bodies, there will actually be dribbling, a few legal throw-ins, and a couple of times when the ball stretches the back of the net. It will be soccer, more or less.
- Free furnace for man who lost arm in boiler accident (AP) Umm… I guess he won’t get cold while he contemplates his missing arm?
- Nigeria: Attackers Drive Nail Into Politician's Head (AllAfrica.com) Screw term limits. The Nigerians may have a better idea.
- Aegean Airlines Joins Star Alliance June 30th (View from the Wing) Eventually, we’re going to be able to put together a very nice reward ticket all the way through to a Greek island. And Aegean is nice to fly (esp compared to Olympic, although they are in the process of merging).
- Sarah Palin: Libs Hate Her Because She's Beautiful, Not Like That Michelle Obama (Hair Balls) It’s so sad to see a one-time professional journalist reduced to this.
- The downside to unelected officials (Off the Kuff)
I don’t know anything about the particulars of this case, but that’s not important.
If that were important, there would be a severe reduction in the blockquote blogging! LOL - Strange things the dailies say (Perry vs World)
- Kasra feeds the imagination, vividly (Alison Cook, Houston Chronicle) It’s a cool place, and even within walking distance (this would surely shock the Smart Growth Inner Loop Booster types!)
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 06/24/10 20:44 | Other | Comments (0)
20 June 2010
Happy Father’s Day…
... to all you dads out there!
We’re headed back to Houston later today after spending the weekend with my dad (who’s busy cooking us breakfast, ‘cos some dads just don’t take a holiday no matter what the greeting card industry decrees).
Posted by klw2005 @ 06/20/10 07:50 | Other | Comments (2)
19 June 2010
Linkpost (06/19/2010, the “made in Oklahoma” edition)
- Gulf War Three (Mark Steyn, NRO)
Barack Obama was supposed to be the best, the very best, and yet he is always, reliably, consistently mediocre. His speech on oil was no better or worse than his speech on race. Yet the Obammyboppers who once squealed with delight are weary of last year’s boy band. At the end of the big Oval Office address, Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews, and the rest of the MSNBC gang jeered the president. For a bewildered Obama, it must have felt like his Ceausescu balcony moment. Had they caught up with him in the White House parking lot, they’d have put him up against the wall and clubbed him to a pulp with Matthews’s no longer tingling leg.
- He was hired to be Obama, not to lead the country (Brothers Judd)
- Obama's Answer To Spill Comes Up Short (Charles Krauthammer, IBD)
- Stop the Barges! Stop the Barges! Where are the lifevests? (The Fat Guy)
- Internet 'Kill Switch' Would Give President Power To Shut Down Web (Bianca Bosker, HuffPo) For work, I pay attention to countries that may be at risk of coups when state radio/tv go dead or start to play patriotic tunes. I never expected a US Congressman ever seriously to consider giving a US President the power similarly to control an element of state media.
- Your Government At Work (Sallie James, Cato) The folks who want government to run all aspects of the lives of its “subjects” can never really explain how that can work when we have so many examples of government idiocy. Luckily, on the few occasions Americans have given those folks control of all three branches of government, they’ve made such a mess of things that it doesn’t happen again for decades. To that end, see the next two links.
- Dereliction of Duty (Stephen Hayes, Weekly Standard)
- Prepare Yourselves For Speaker Boehner (William Galston, TNR) That’s so alarmist. Don’t we know from LibDem partybloggers that this is all a figment of Rasmussen’s imagination? LOL
- Mitch Daniels, genial Jeremiah (Michael Gerson, RCP)
- TCU's pipeline to Houston leads to first Omaha trip (Sam Khan, Houston Chronicle) Todd Whitting was on Rayner Noble’s staff when UH was among the best, and was not as UH sunk below mediocrity. He should get a call from Mack Rhoades to be the next head coach at UH.
- Katharine Shilcutt Will Be the Next Food Critic at the Houston Press (Eating Our Words) An inspired choice. Very good mesh.
- Cereal killers (Trent Seibert)
- 36 Hours in Bordeaux (Seth Sherwood, NY Times) I should probably stop screwing around on the web as much as I do, and spend that time learning French/Greek (to help with fully enjoying trips).
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 06/19/10 11:53 | Other | Comments (1)
15 June 2010
Linkpost (06/15/2010)
- Solitude and Leadership (William Deresiewicz, The American Scholar)
- Obama is too friendly with tyrants (Saad Eddin Ibrahim)
- How’d we lose Brazil, Turkey and Lebanon? (Richard Grenell, Daily Caller)
- The Gulf Spill, the Financial Crisis and the Failure of Big Government (Gerald O'Driscoll, WSJ)
- Marine Techie: End Gulf Oil Spill With ‘Mother of All Bombs’ (Noah Schachtman, Wired)
- Why nuking the blowout is a very bad idea (Red Ink: Texas)
- Texas Democrats Sue After Green Party Secures Ballot Spot (Miguel Bustillo, WSJ) But isn’t the LibDem meme that the TXGOP wants to restrict the ballot? So hard to keep the narrative straight!
- Robb Walsh Bryan Caswell Bill Floyd = Reef Gone Tex-Mex? (Eating Our Words) Sure to be a new BorgFav!
- Robb Walsh's 100 Favorite Houston Dishes: #25 Special Enchiladas-A-La-Taylor at Spanish Village (Eating Our Words) Callie’s fav at the joint, too.
- Turns out Longhorns have plenty to keep them in the Big 12 (Tom Shatel, Omaha.com)
Did Texas set this up to chase Nebraska away? Quite possibly. If so, who cares? Not Nebraska. The Huskers are big winners here.
The main problem for the Huskers is that they haven’t been “big winners” in a long, long time. They can blame UT all they want, but UT has brought much more glory to the Big 12 in the last decade than Nebraska has.
At least the craziness is over for now, which is good—Kuffner and Burka can stop writing about a topic they know little about and get back to blockquoting and repeating consultant gossip (respectively). Everyone wins! - Retracing Jefferson’s Steps in Burgundy (Ann Mah, NY Times)
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 06/15/10 20:53 | Other | Comments (1)
10 June 2010
Linkpost (06/10/2010)
- The Perry camp’s response (BurkaBlog)
I do think that White just wasn’t very smart about the way he handled his business. When you hold office, especially an executive office in which you have a lot of power, and you have a lot of investments at the same time, there is a simple way to insulate yourself against the kinds of trumped-up charges the Perry campaign made: You create a blind trust. Rick Perry is smart enough to know this. Why wasn’t Bill White?
It’s not a matter of smart. He truly doesn’t see it as an ethical issue, as he made clear today. That’s a real problem. - Gov candidate White: no wrongdoing in investment (Michael Graczyk, AP)
“I liked their business plan,” White said. “I made an investment in the company. I didn’t stop investing because I was mayor.”
That’s a problem. The whole thing just kind of smells like the sometimes fetid Houston Way. - The Alien in the White House (Dorothy Rabinowitz, WSJ)
- Obama Meets Toto (Dan Henninger, WSJ)
- BP Parody on Twitter Posts a Disclaimer (Brian Stelter, NY Times)
- UH unveils plan to build new football stadium (Steve Campbell, Houston Chronicle) Will the timing be good enough to improve their conference?
- Nance, et. al., on realignment and facilities expansion (Steve Campbell, Cougars Blog)
“The last time there was a major re-alignment, unfortunately for political reasons we got left out,” Nantz said. “It should have never happened. It should have never happened. You start comparing markets. Would you rather have Houston, or would you rather have Lubbock? Would you rather have Houston, or would you rather have Waco? Would you rather have Houston, or would you rather have Stillwater. Take all those three schools combined, and let’s brag about the history and heritage of what they have produced. I think combined, it won’t equal what the University of Houston has produced athletically.”
- University of Colorado Joins Pac-10 (Pac-10.org) For better or worse, it’s on. Bye bye, Big 12 (at least historic Big 12). And bye bye Big 12 Wraps (‘cos a 16-team conference is too damn much work).
- Conference realignment roundup: Reports say Nebraska on its way to Big Ten by Friday (Daily Oklahoman)
- Big 12 blew it by eschewing playoff (Dan Wetzel, Yahoo Sports)
- Nebraska's animosity toward Texas opens the floodgates (Kevin Sherrington, DMN) Texas certainly did its part to boost its new conference over the years. Nebraska’s mediocrity over many years, on the other hand, was a big drag. Good riddance.
- The Big Zero (Joe Posnanski, SI.com)
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 06/10/10 21:40 | Other | Comments (0)
09 June 2010
Linkpost (06/09/2010)
- We are inept (David Warren Online)
In a sense, Obama is hoist on his own petard. The man who blames Bush for everything now finds there are some things presidents cannot do. More deeply, the opposition party that persuades the public government can solve all their problems, discovers once in power there are problems their government cannot solve.
Alas, it will take more time than they have to learn the next lesson: that governments which try to solve the insoluble, more or less invariably, make each problem worse. - Ride Along with Mitch (Andrew Ferguson, Weekly Standard) Mitch Daniels is a pol I could actually support, but I fear that he’s not “pretty” enough to win nationally.
- Reporters attend pool party with Joe Biden (Mike Riggs, Daily Caller)
- Bill White and the 3 E's (Musings) I remember how one former-blogger-turned-White-campaign-staffer used to have occasional outbursts/eruptions because he was just certain that all right-leaning bloggers got “talking points” from Republican pols (despite the fact that we’re generally a group that can’t agree on much of anything). That makes it kind of funny to see actual Dem partybloggers lining up to help out with the White talking points.
- On the Media: Las Vegas Review-Journal lawsuits prompt fair use debate (James Rainey, LA Times) Houston’s best blockquoter will be in a lot of trouble if Texas media ever decide the enforce copyright and fair use. As badly as journalism is bleeding, though, I don’t understand why more outlets aren’t trying to protect their content from that sort of almost wholesale reproduction (usually sans any attribution).
- The End of Mileage Running on United (Upgrd) CO/United really want to make it hard for me to make gold again, eh?!
- Why iPhone 4 Will Crush AT&T’s Network (Steve Chaney, Business Insider)
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 06/09/10 21:39 | Links | Comments (0)
08 June 2010
Linkpost (06/08/2010)
- Forget Helen Thomas — where are the watchdog reporters? (J.P. Freire, Washington Examiner)
While most news stories cite Helen Thomas’s “confrontational style” as a thing of “legend,” her record appears to be more about making news than breaking it. That glory takes away from reporting that can have a real impact, which is in steep decline. In fact, most of the Washington reporting staff was laid off while keeping Thomas on and there was no support staff left.
- An End for Helen Thomas and the Helen Thomas Rules (Jeremy Peters, NY Times)
“The rules have been different for Helen for many years, and only for Helen,” said Ari Fleischer, a former press secretary under George W. Bush who had called on Ms. Thomas to step down. “Helen earned that right, and she was treated differently. And I never minded it. I enjoyed my ideological thrust and parry with Helen….
Too often, columnist “Helen” became the story instead of reporting it. The gasbag and her “special rules” needed to go years ago. Good riddance. - Was Hearst Right to Force Helen Thomas to Retire? (Carl Cannon, Politics Daily) Yes. At least the headline gets it right—Thomas didn’t suddenly “retire” but was pushed out.
- Our hard-core, adversarial press corps (Glenn Greenwald, Salon.com)
- Florida vs. Klein (The Antiplanner)
- Spill reveals Obama's lack of executive experience (Byron York, Washington Examiner) Spill, or tenure to date?
- Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader? (Daniel Klein, WSJ)
- Islamist Turkey overreaches (Daniel Pipes, NRO)
- Gubernatorial Candidate White Releases Tax Returns (Jay Root, AP) This was inevitable. Why let the story have legs for so many weeks?
- White campaign says Perry is a part-time governor (Jason Embry, AAS) White, of course, was a part-time mayor for 2009 while he ran all over the state campaigning for his next office.
- Survey finds post-oil spill bounce in support for climate change action (BelieverGuy) Hope springs eternal for the Chron‘s faith-based Gaia Guy.
- Is the iPhone 4 enough to hold Apple’s lead? (Techblog)
[O]nce I saw what was in the iPhone 4, I decided to stick with Apple. And after Monday’s Steve Jobs keynote, I’m sold. I’ll buy one….
Who expected otherwise? LOL - Colorado should tell Texas to shove it (Mark Kiszla, Denver Post) The UT animus is a little overblown, but I like his Mountain West thoughts.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 06/08/10 18:55 | Links | Comments (1)
07 June 2010
Linkpost (06/07/2010)
- Helen Thomas, and the Awkward Transfer From "Straight" Reporting to Opinioneering (Matt Welch, Reason)
- Boston Globe Tailors Print Edition For Three Remaining Subscribers (Onion News Network) Hilarious.
- Tax Hikes and the 2011 Economic Collapse (Art Laffer, WSJ)
- The predictable Euro crisis (Martin Feldstein, Weekly Standard)
- Reagan’s Secure Line (Richard V. Allen, NY Times)
- Why has Israel disarmed itself in the battle for world opinion? (Charles Moor, Telegraph)
- Labor unrest in China reflects changing demographics, more awareness of rights (Keith Richburg, WaPo) Uh oh, there goes the competitive advantage!
- Turkey's foreign policy moves raise concern in West and at home (Mary Beth Sheridan, WaPo)
- Black Flight is the New Worry for Detroit (Alex Kellog, WSJ)
- Democrats Skip Town Halls to Avoid Voter Rage (Jeff Zeleny, NY Times) If only the reporter read certain LibDem partyblogs, he would know it’s not really voter rage, but just something manufactured by one pollster. LOL
- The dangers of success (Robert Samuelson, RCP)
- A Houston restaurant original: Kanomwan's beloved "Thai Nazi" dies (Sarah Rufca, CultureMap)
- Rosés, With All Due Respect (Eric Asimov, NY Times) The Margui rose that Asimov lists for $20 is available for a whopping 30% less at French Country Wines here in town, and is far from the best rose that they currently have on offer. Not that most Houston wine drinkers probably know or care. *shrug*
- OK, Coog fans, let's try to make some sense out of the conference realignment chaos (Chron Cougars Blog)
Straight reporters have been taught for six decades to submerge or even smother their political and philosophical views in the workplace. Like all varieties of censorship, this process creates resentment and distortion. Whatever it is that you feel prevented from saying, you will be more likely to scream once given the chance. This is why, for example, some of the most politically opinionated people you’ll ever meet are newspaper reporters a couple drinks in out yakking with their colleagues.
Degrading the quality of that discussion still further is the likelihood that the partisanship-averse journos haven’t bothered to construct their own self-conscious political philosophy, beyond identifying Bad Guys and wanting to Fix Problems. Show me the world’s most intractable problems–the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the inability to produce mass amounts of energy without negatively impacting the environment, the search for a beer that tastes great and is less filling–and I’ll show you reporters in bars having conversations worthy of the Alex Jones show. It’s not that they’re all Helen Thomases–she is truly one of a kind–but that in the absence of subjecting their own beliefs to journalistic rigor, they are more likely than many would expect to quietly nurture beliefs that outsiders would find surprisingly slanted and even extreme.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 06/07/10 21:42 | Links | Comments (0)
06 June 2010
Linkpost (06/06/2010)
- The Boys of Pointe Du Hoc (Ronald Reagan, 06/06/1984) Appropriate link for this day, and not a bad reminder of when the country was led by a serious statesman. UPDATE: The speech in print is one thing, but as a 14-year-old, the televised version of the speech made a permanent imprint. It’s more moving today, I think. Please go watch it.
- A mosque at ground zero? (Jeff Jacoby, Boston Globe)
- Who is Ayn Rand? (Charles Murray, Claremont Review of Books)
That world came together in the chapters of Atlas Shrugged describing Galt’s Gulch, the chapters I most often reread when I go back to the book. The great men and women who have gone on strike are gathered there, sometimes working at their old professions, but more often being grocers and cabbage growers and plumbers, because that’s the niche in which they can make a living. In scene after scene, Rand shows what such a community would be like, and it does not consist of isolated individualists holding one another at arm’s length. Individualists, yes, but ones who have fun in one another’s company, care about one another, and care for one another—not out of obligation, but out of mutual respect and spontaneous affection.
- In 1979, Less Complicated Oil Leak Took 10 Months To Stop (Rachel Slajda, TPMMuckraker)
- Amateur blogosphere, RIP (Chris Bowers, Open Left) Was there ever much of an “amateur” progressive blogosphere? It seems like so many lefty bloggers always marched to the tune of liberalism or to My Party Tis of Thee (to the extent there was divergence). I do enjoy bloggers of various political persuasions who do offer something of an independent voice.
- If air is important, the choice for Texas governor is clear (Mike Norman, FWST)
- Does Straus think Texas should end Medicaid? (Robert Garrett, DMN) Hat tip to Cory Crow, who noticed these two amusing exercises in “objective” Texas journalism. LOL
- The End Of Helen Thomas (This Blog Is Full Of Crap)
- Something new to blame for the housing crisis (Prime Property) The impact of “smart-growth” property restrictions? You’ll never see that from Sarnoff’s colleague on the urban-affairs beat.
- The clothes have no emperor (Brothers Judd)
- The moment of maximum danger for any political party (Brothers Judd)
...comes when they convince themselves that the electorate that has rejected them would be supportive if only the morons could understand what was being done for them. This is the point at which you move beyond bad policy to demonstrating genuine contempt for the voters who disapprove of it.
Or when they convince themselves that if not for a single pollster, Hopium would still be carrying the day! LOL - Is President Obama's Carter moment nearing? (David Broder, WaPo) Broder is never on the vanguard of LibDem thinking, but rather he’s more of an historian of LibDem conventional wisdom. If he’s asking the question, the moment has come.
- Big 12/Pac-10 rumors have legs (Bohl Games) Nah, really? Bohls = Broder?
- Big 12 problems trace to league's roots (Blair Kerkhoff, KC Star)
- Pac-16 is the answer for OU, OSU (Berry Tramel, Daily Oklahoman)
- Rosé Wines for Summer (Jay McInerney, WSJ) We’re blessed in Houston to have French Country Wines, which has brought in so many drinkable rose wines from France this year that it’s hard to leave their store with anything less than a case. All you folks getting garbage (in comparison) from Specs and the like are really missing out.
- The best new restaurants of 2009, revisited (Cook's Tour)
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 06/06/10 11:57 | Links | Comments (1)
03 June 2010
Linkpost (06/03/2010)
Leroy Stick – the man behind @BPGlobalPR (StreetGiant.com)
I don’t want to get on this dude’s bad side!
The danger of a government with unlimited power (George Will, WaPo)
Wilsonian government, meaning (in Wilson’s words) government with "unstinted power," is hostile to Madison’s Constitution, which, Madison said, obliges government "to control itself." Thus our choice is between government restraint rooted in respect for nature, or government free to follow History wherever government says History marches.
I never viewed Will as a Natural Right v. History Straussian (okay, I still don’t), but it’s good to see him taking cues from the Claremonsters on the topic, which they get right most of the time.
Economic growth is key to our national security (Carl Schramm, Robert Litan, and Dane Stangler, RCP)
Agreed. Too bad the Dem leadership is ramming through a redistributionist/regulatory/borrowing agenda instead of a growth agenda, hmm?
History returns to Europe (Victor Davis Hanson, RCP)
‘The Euro Zone Has Failed’ (Vaclav Klaus, WSJ)
Economic growth in Europe has been slowing down since the 1960s, thanks to the increasingly damaging economic and social system which started dominating Europe at that time. The European "soziale Marktwirtschaft" is an unproductive variant of a welfare state, of state paternalism, of "leisure" society, of high taxes and low motivation to work. The existence of the euro has not reversed that trend.
Rotten Food Complicates Chávez’s Reign (Dan Molinski, WSJ)
Venezuelan authorities discovered nearly 1,200 shipping containers full of rotten food at a state-run warehouse and have arrested a former top official in the government’s food distribution network.
The discovery of the 30,000 tons of out-of-date milk, rice and wheat flour at the warehouse in the port city of Puerto Cabello is seen as an embarrassment for President Hugo Chávez, who has been blaming opposition forces and private industry for a recent rise in food shortages.
President Chávez, addressing the issue late Tuesday, said the food was left to go bad due to "mistakes, inefficiency" and "bureaucracy" within the government, but also said corruption was likely involved. He promised his administration would prosecute those responsible.
That sounds a little too close to our own Purveyor of Hope!
Al Jazeera: More powerful than ever (Economist)
James Hansen: 2010 likely the warmest year on record (SciGuy)
I am sure, however, that his data will be roundly questioned and criticized. Of the validity of the criticisms I cannot judge.
Berger can play untrained meteorologist all day long when it comes to witnessing for the Faith of Global Warming, but vows never a critical word/thought because, really, how could he ever know? Wow.
Tom Franklin Cements Ties With Cougars (Hair Balls)
Good news for Cougar fans! TF does a nice job for UH.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 06/03/10 21:26 | Other | Comments (0)
02 June 2010
Linkpost (06/02/2010)
We’ll try a little linkpost for the first time in ages—composed in Windows Live Writer (if everything works correctly, which is doubtful).
It’s a little less crazy than it sounds.
It doesn’t sound crazy at all.
Genius!
Is there still hope for (American) Syrah? (Eric Asimov, NY Times)
The French do beautiful things with the grape. The American approach rarely suits me.
In a welfare state, how much is ‘enough’? (Jonah Goldberg, NRO)
Obama doesn’t have a clue (Dick Morris, The Hill)
Who would have thought that this president, so anxious to lead us and so focused on his specific agenda and ideas, would turn out not to know what he is doing?
Umm, most anyone who looked at his career and achievements and experience running anything (actually, nothing)? Sadly, we were the cranks while all the smart people were drugged out on Hopium during the last election cycle. *shrug*
UPDATE: Live Writer ditched because it just produces some fugly output. It’s MS, so I shouldn’t be surprised probably.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 06/02/10 21:42 | Other | Comments (3)
31 May 2010
Migrated (mostly)
The blog is now (mostly) migrated over to Expression Engine.
A number of features aren’t working just yet, and I’m sure a bunch of crap is broken, but the big stuff seems mostly okay.
It probably would have been a lot easier just to redo the site than to shoehorn the old Nucleus design into different software, but whatever.
I’ll probably start posting crap again fairly regularly. Otherwise, my virtual big blog brother is probably going to give me grief. *shrug* What can ya do?
PS If you find something that seems badly broken, please leave a comment or shoot me an email (publiustx-at-gmail-dot-com). Thanks!
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 05/31/10 22:16 | Announcements | Comments (7)
27 January 2010
Remodeling Hiatus
No, it’s not another home-improvement post (although I do have plenty of those projects on my to-do list).
Rather, it’s a post about my blog software pretty much being at end of life (even though the development community would say that’s wrong, technically) in terms of being useful to me.
I’m planning on moving this site to Expression Engine in the near future. Then more regular blogging will resume, I think.
So I guess this isn’t a remodeling hiatus so much as a re-plumbing/re-wiring hiatus.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 01/27/10 07:08 | Announcements | Comments (0)
24 December 2009
White Christmas!
We’re in the midst of quite a winter storm at the moment in NE Oklahoma (screenshot courtesy WeatherChannel.com):
There has been a pretty heavy downfall of sleet pellets for the last few hours. Actually, that’s not quite right. The wind is roughly 20-25 mph gusting to 40+ mph, so it’s more of a blast of sleet pellets than a gentle downfall. I had to step outside to bring in presents that stayed in the Rogue overnight due to our late arrival, and let’s just say that was… invigorating.
The Rogue isn’t used to this weather. I think TR is shivering
Brrr. The forecasts suggest this stuff will turn to snow later, so I think a White Christmas is definitely on tap here in NE Oklahoma. Here’s wishing you a great one, whatever the weather!
UPDATE: A few hours later, the sleet pellets are starting to turn to snow:
UPDATE 2: Last photo before sunset.
We’re definitely in for a White Christmas!
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 12/24/09 00:12 | Other | Comments (0)
19 December 2009
How To Care For Your Mid-Century Modern (12-19-2009 edition)
So, at the end of November we bought a cozy mid-century modern home in Tanglewilde, and moved on 4 December (during the snowstorm—HUH!?).
We really like a lot of what the previous owners did with the place, but as with any old house, there’s just lots of stuff that could use a little care. And that’s what is occupying a lot of our time right now, and will be occupying a lot of time in the near future. My to-do list is full of small projects and some bigger projects we’ll probably call in some help for.
One bigger project that’s probably going to require some help is the A/C air return plenum. It’s just a mess, which is probably why the AC guys who put in the fairly new AC and furnace units decided it would be easier just to filter the air at the blower unit and not rebuild the air-supply plenum. That’s fine, except the filter coverage in the unit really isn’t adequate for the size of the home. So the plenum needs a rebuild at some point, which will include a build-out of filtered air-return grilles on two different walls. But for now, the short-term workaround is a filter for inside the furnace that I fabricated earlier that should work a little better than what was in their before. But I really want to rebuild that plenum in the coming weeks. It annoys me that the AC guys who installed the new equipment for the last owners didn’t do it then, when it would have been much easier.
Today’s other project involved replacing a tired, leaky Delta kitchen faucet with a nice Moen pull-out sprayer model. When we initially bought the house, we thought we’d probably replace the sink and faucet at the same time, but I think this may be the original 50s sink. And it is one hell of a deep, heavy-duty, retro sink. I kind of like that, so we decided it should stay. Of course, nothing in an old place goes according to plan—the water supply fittings under the sink didn’t mate to the new faucet properly, so Callie was dispatched to the neighborhood Ace Hardware, which had the flare fittings we needed. I love that store, and have spent enough time there so far that one manager knows me by name. It’s nice to have a really good hardware store you can walk to. 
Tomorrow’s project involves Ace rekeying some locks for me, but no more tonight. Time to do some more unpacking and decluttering.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 12/19/09 07:22 | Home Improvement | Comments (1)
13 December 2009
Yes, we are still here
Closing the Borders at Westheimer and Gessner (Swamplot, 7 December 2009)
Oh sure. I got to the new neighborhood three days too late to save the bookstore within walking distance.
Blar.
A little over a week after the move, though, we are almost unpacked. Look for new substantive posts from the new homeowner soon…. (and about missing that last 2009 regular season Big 12 Wrap… who cares, ya know? The conference this year overall wasn’t as good as the Mountain West. Good riddance to this mediocre football season—although I’m not sure that next year will be any better since Colorado retained their loser and Kansas chased their winner).
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 12/13/09 06:51 | Other | Comments (1)
22 November 2009
Big 12 Wrap: Week 12
Packing is taking precedence over football watching right now, which may not be a bad thing this season. Here’s this week’s action:
- Texas 51, Kansas 20 The Longhorns are on cruise control to the big BCS game. Too bad the competition in the conference this year probably won’t have them ready for the SEC buzzsaw.
- Oklahoma State 31, Colorado 28 Too bad the second best team in the conference can’t have another crack at Texas in the title game.
- Nebraska 17, Kansas State 3 They don’t resemble Tom Osborne’s better teams, but the Huskers ARE the champs of the North, and their defense may even give the Longhorns trouble (for a while).
- Texas Tech 41, Oklahoma 13 Coach Leach had to enjoy this beatdown. It’s crisis time in Norman (no matter what the media cheerleaders may say), because this team appears to have quit Coach Stoops. With a bedlam matchup against a better team awaiting, the most expensive coaching staff in college football is set to produce the worst season of the Stoops tenure.
- Missouri 34, Iowa State 24 Mizzou breaks their three-game home losing streak. Sorry, that’s all I have.
- Texas A/M 38, Baylor 3 No bowl game for Baylor fan. Maybe next near, Coach Briles!
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 11/22/09 08:21 | Big 12 Football | Comments (0)
15 November 2009
Big 12 Wrap: Week 11
I actually had a few games on in the background this weekend, amidst cleaning and packing and such. I can’t say I found it interesting enough to look up very often, though.
- Texas 47, Baylor 14 Rolling right on to the BCS title game…
- Oklahoma State 24, Texas Tech 17 Not quite the season OSU was hoping for, but they still have a shot at a real nice record.
- Nebraska 31, Kansas 17 Nebraska’s in the driver’s seat in the North… this week anyway. How about that Big 12 record for Kansas? I didn’t see THAT coming.
- Oklahoma 65, Texas A/M 10 This Sooner team is talented enough to beat hell out of below average teams… .and just poorly coached enough on offense and special teams to lose to every above average team they face. A&M still has much work to do.
- Missouri 38, Kansas State 12 Who wants to win the North? Apparently not KSU!
- Iowa State 17, Colorado 10 It’s crazy that both these teams have a better Big 12 record than Kansas, because they are BAD (Iowa State’s bowl eligibility notwithstanding).
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 11/15/09 08:55 | Big 12 Football | Comments (0)
