Sleepless in Midland

Bill Clinton eclipsed

It happened here last week.  One night we had a lunar eclipse, and the next day, some 15 or so hours later, former president Bill Clinton was in Odessa campaigning for his wife.

Now you might expect some clever, funny joke comparing Bill Clinton with the lunar eclipse:

"A celestial body once shiny and bright grew dim and lifeless as it drifted into the shadow.  And the night before there was a lunar eclipse."

But no.  Here you get jokes that are unclever and unfunny at the same time.

Making order slip ticker tape

Some day we will be able to stick our memory media into a slot and order photos printed in one hour.  That day is now.

A local grocery store has three machines with which customers can order photo prints from digital media.  So today I used one of them to order some prints.  Once done I waited for a printout for retrieving the pictures.  Nothing happened.

I could see a little sliver of paper sticking out of the slot, but one corner was folded.  So I pulled it out as far as I could and unfolded the corner.   And the paper flowed.  It was reeling and reeling, one after another.  It took several minutes, and nine days worth of "Not A Receipt" order slips lay in a single strip on the floor.  And there was my little order at the very end.

I scooped up the whole pile, and the people using the adjoining machines must have thought, "Now that guy is ordering some prints!"

Precinct 2 constable race

The incumbent Midland County Precinct 2 Constable, Charles "Choc" Harris, is being challenged in the Republican primary this season by Joe Watters.  I don't know much about Mr. Watters, but there's plenty of information out there about Mr. Harris.

The first time I saw Constable Charles "Choc" Harris he was the complainant in the criminal case of State of Texas vs. Theodore L. Jurgensen.  According to testimony at that trial Mr. Harris' dogs were annoying his next door neighbor, Mr. Jurgensen.  So Mr. Jurgensen pepper sprayed them.  Mr. Harris climbed over the fence and grabbed Mr. Jurgensen by the shirt.  Mr. Jurgensen kicked Mr. Harris, drew his gun, and ordered Mr. Harris off his property.  Mr. Harris initiated a felony action against Mr. Jurgensen.  And the next time Mr. Jurgensen went to the store he experienced a Swat team knock down, an arrest, and a felony trial that left many local people scratching their heads.  (See writeup here.)

The next time I saw Mr. Harris was in June of 2006 on the highway North of Midland when a grass fire was raging a few hundred yards away.  DPS officers were slowing the traffic down so that by the time the traffic reached the staging area it was moving at a crawl.   Mr. Harris was standing at the staging area waving the traffic by.

It's not clear how crucial Mr. Harris' function was at that time as the DPS officers appeared to have traffic under control.  I mention this because Midland Reporter Telegram photographer Tim Fischer arrived at the scene.  The fire was over the ridge and not visible from the highway.  So Mr. Harris dropped everything, loaded Mr. Fischer with camera in his big County SUV, and took him on a 20 minute tour of the fire scene.

I was awed.  I don't hang out with elected officials or main stream media figures, so I don't know how common that sort of thing is.  But it was an amazing thing to see.   And I've wondered if there's any payback for that sort of thing.  There probably isn't.

In any event, this next item is surely unrelated to any of that.  The Midland Reporter Telegram pronounced today that Voters should select Harris for constable:

"To be quite truthful, this was a tough decision for us. Both are well qualified and certified to perform the duties of constable. We think both can do an excellent job, and both carry impressive law enforcement credentials.

"In the end, however, we continue to support Choc Harris for constable. While we feel Watters is a fine candidate, we think there is no evident reason to kick Harris out of the job. Harris has served as constable for two full terms after filling an unexpired term through appointment in 1999. That's a long uninterrupted period of service that deserves the vote of the public."

In other words, vote for the incumbent because he is the incumbent.  Great reasoning, y'all.

What exactly do the constables do, anyway?  There's something the local media could tackle.  I don't mean just call a constable and ask, I mean actually find out and report it to us.  Don't say something vague like "serve warrants," tell us exactly what kind of warrants and what serving a warrant entails other than mailing a letter or hand delivering a piece of paper.  Give us the knowledge to decide for ourselves whether the constables are doing something the sheriff's office couldn't do.  But first, pledge that you will no longer accept any special treatment from them.

Updated 3/5/08:  The incumbent Harris won.  See MR-T:  "Incumbent Charles "Choc" Harris beat challenger Joe Watters for the constable race for Precinct 2 with 54.42 percent of the vote."

Firefly, the tv show

There was a quirky futuristic space show called Firefly on Fox a few years ago, but like many good shows, it was canceled too quickly.

Well, Firefly fans are getting another chance.  Scifi channel has scheduled a reshowing of the series on Monday, February 18, 7 am to 6 pm Central.    I've been reluctant to mention it sooner because long range tv schedules are often as reliable as weather forecasts for that same time period.  However, it's just a few days away, and it's still showing up on the schedule, so it might actually happen.

Looking for a few good men in San Francisco

What a place San Francisco must be.  Check out Zombietime who captures what the city is all about.  In the latest entry there's a very telling photo essay of the demonstrations against and for the Marine recruiting station.  Revealing and entertaining at the same time.

Updated 2/17/08: Watch video here.  Via Old Glory Radio.

West Texas Wild Fire - 2/8/08

There was a huge wild fire last Friday that started North of Midland and was blowing this way.  Fire crews and volunteers came from all over to help out.  Once ignited the dry grass goes up in tall flame and is gone in no time.  Add a high wind and the fire races along.   Here's a local newspaper report:  Grass fire burns 9,000 acres

To see the dry grassland during the winter one just can't imagine how much flame and smoke it could produce.

These photos were taken from the road at least a half mile away from the fire.  And there was a new feature to West Texas firefighting which you can see in the last photo:  a water carrying helicopter.  It had a long hose trailing beneath, and it would suck water from somewhere, a stock tank or a swimming pool, perhaps.  Then it would fly to the fire and dump water on it.  The fire was out in no time.

People on the scene said the helicopter was owned by the Texas Forest Service, and I would like to learn more about it.  If anyone reading this can enlighten us then please leave a comment.

Updated 2/16/08:  See some amazing aerial photos of the aftermath at Eric's.

Updated 2/2108 -- City news release:

The City of Midland will honor the over 100 people who responded to the dangerous grass fire on February 8, 2008, in north Midland.

Firefighters, dispatchers, emergency management, police officers, and other city and county officials will be treated to an appreciation lunch on Friday, February 22, 2008, at 11:30 a.m., in the Emergency Operations Center, 601 N. Loraine.

The group of emergency responders worked together quickly to put an end to a potentially dangerous and costly situation.  The fire burned north of Midland and caused the evacuation of nearby neighborhoods and businesses.  Thankfully, no one was injured during the blaze.

Those responding were recognized by Mayor Wes Perry during the February 12 City Council meeting.

YEAH!  Give them the credit they deserve!

Who would wear the pants in a Clinton White House?

Hillary said it:  "There's no doubt who will wear the pants suit in the White House!"  And a cheer of female voices rang out.

She meant that she would wear the pants and not Bill Clinton, but was that good strategy?  It brings to mind an image of Bill Clinton with no pants on.  We learned in the 90's that many people tolerated or even desired a pantless Bill Clinton.  And here she is reminding us of that once again.

But this is one of the reasons why I hope Hillary gets the Democratic nomination.  I don't think she would be good for the country, but it would be a gift for bloggers.  The satire would write itself.

Politics -betting play money on the outcome

Here's a site that looks like fun.  It's Hubdub which lets participants gamble play money on the outcome of current event stories.

All eyes are on the presidential race this Super Tuesday.   Going farther out, this market is predicting the Republican nominee will be McCain by 82% and for the Democratic nominee the betting is Obama 62%, Clinton 38%.

What about the November outcome?  Click to see for yourself, but as of right now it give us these percentages:  McCain - 21%; Clinton - 30%; and Obama - 40%.

Place your bet and take your chance.

Goodbye privacy

I heard someone on tv recently suggest that there's a generation gap in privacy expectations and that young people have a completely different conception of privacy than old people.

Based on what we hear about Myspace and Facebook that certainly must be true.  Just the other day a Wall Street Journal article told us how Facebook network users were getting info on what their "friends" were buying online.  Link (subscription).

In November, users of social-networking site Facebook Inc. started seeing updates on what their friends had bought online. Last month, users of a Google Inc. news service began receiving lists of articles their friends and acquaintances had read online. And earlier this month, Sears Holdings Corp. let people type anyone's name, phone number and address on a Web site to learn about their Sears purchases.

All three examples have one thing in common: The companies allowed Web users to access personal information about other people they know -- sometimes without the knowledge of those people.

To see how it works take a look at An Interactive Tour of Facebook's News Feed.  (This one should be available to non subscribers.)

But at least there's a way to opt out if someone puts the effort into it.

For those who don't mind there's probably a bit of old fashioned narcissism at play.  Youtube lets users share what they watch so that people who think they are trend setters can let others see what they should be watching.  The competition to set that trend must be fierce.  Someone could probably make an interesting study of that.

But that's all voluntary to some extent.  However, government sites put info online that, although it's public information, would have taken much more effort to dig up a few years ago, home ownership and their appraised values, for example.

And here's something that might be very personal to the people involved.  The Seattle Fire Department 911 calls are posted online by the city of Seattle.  Don't know where those addresses are?  No problem, some helpful individual developed Public 911, a program that would read the calls and plot the addresses on Google maps.  (These links are courtesy of Les at West Texas TV.  Thanks Les.)

I suppose that map might be useful to volunteer fire department members who needed a quick display showing where to go.  But the fire department handles emergency medical calls, too.  And isn't a person's medical information supposed to be private?

Of course, to get the name of the homeowner a voyeur would have to make several key strokes to look up the address at the King County search site.  But maybe that's too much trouble for most people.

And perhaps that's what will save us.  The baseline for too-much-trouble has shifted.  Surfing the net has become so easy that maybe too-much-trouble is measured in just a few too many key strokes needed to pull up the information.