As I previously mentioned, for the first time in nearly three decades I have planted a vegetable garden on a piece of land behind where I hold my day job. Unlike at our house, this garden gets great sunshine, has a water sprinkler easily accessible and was already tilled by another charity next door that has a much larger plot. Its director generously gave me a 12-foot by 12-foot piece.
So on a Sunday afternoon in early April, when it was obvious freezing weather would not return, I headed to the Big Box Store to purchase vegetables. I bought two varieties of tomatoes — Best Boy and cherry...
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I designed and ordered a metal sign this week for Thrive360, the nonprofit at which I spend most days. It is for a building on our campus that will house our after-school program in the fall. Using Adobe InDesign, I created the sign using the same proportions of the sign being replaced. Then I emailed it for a quote and proof to a local sign company. The fellow there will use his computer to create decals to be placed upon a piece of aluminum. Likely, the sign can be completed in an hour or less.
My dad, if he were alive, would be shaking his head. He was a sign painter for 30 years, until...
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Tax Day recently passed. I beat the deadline by a couple weeks. That is because I had money coming back. If I had owed Uncle Sam additional taxes, our return would have gone in on April 18. No sense giving the government part of our hard-earned dough any sooner than necessary. One news story says one-third of taxpayers — 50 million — file on the last day.
Except for a couple of years back in the late 1970s — when I didn’t know better and paid someone to do returns that were laughably simple to fill out — I have always filled out my own returns. Over the years, the tax code has gotten...
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United Airlines has sparked a public relations nightmare with the recent forcible removal of a passenger from a plane in Chicago, a medical doctor who protested being bumped — literally — because he had patients to attend. To make it worse, four passengers lost their seats — three peaceably — to accommodate flying a quartet of United employees who needed to be in Louisville to crew another flight. Surely United could have figured out how to transport its employees without throwing paying customers off the plane.
The passenger ended up being bloodied when two officers dragged him off the plane,...
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Now is the best time to write about my beloved Boston Red Sox. They remain undefeated. Of course, they have only played two games, and today’s game was rained out. So the streak continues. As I do every April, I printed out their schedule and tacked it to the wall in my workspace, so I can keep up. Every morning from now through September, I will go to their website to see how the Sox fared the day before. I am already planning a trip to Houston in mid-June, when they’ll face the Astros. That will also require a stop at City Acre Brewing, owned by my son-in-law and daughter, for a few brews...
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I have been reading “Last Dog on the Hill: The Extraordinary Life of Lou,” by Steve Duno. Lou was a Rottweiler/German Shepherd mix that Duno found as a puppy in the wild in Southern California. A feral litter was roaming the freeway’s hillside as the dad chewed on a deer carcass — likely roadkill. The story is that the feral pack was protecting a marijuana patch. The six-month old puppy, who would become Lou, was the only one in the litter willing to approach Duno and his then-girlfriend. He was covered with fleas and ticks and stunk, of course. They took him to a veterinarian, and then...
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The drone flew about 80 feet above our heads, sounding like a swarm of irritated carpenter bees. My daughter Meredith and I were standing in an empty soccer field on a Saturday afternoon. We craned our necks upward as the drone, measuring about two feet across with the four propellers attached, darted to the right, then to the left, then rotated 180 degrees so its camera was pointed to the complex where I spend my work days.
I was operating the joysticks of the controller, seeing what the drone’s camera saw through the drone app on my brand-new iPhone. The Phantom 3 Standard was a Christmas...
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I am paying on the installment plan for my cremation: $499 down and $50 a month for the next 44 months — interest-free. My Beautiful Mystery Companion is doing the same. We decided to spare our daughters the stress of having to make funeral arrangements. And neither of us has any desire to spend thousands of dollars to be buried in a fancy box.
A nice fellow named Sal came by to make the pitch for his company. Sal looks like a Sal — pompadour combed straight back, a New York accent, nicely dressed in his late 60s but doesn’t look it. He arrived at 10 a.m. I warned him I had to leave at 11:30...
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The Texas Supreme Court met in Longview a few weeks back at LeTourneau University. It was fascinating to hear oral arguments in two civil cases, the nine justices peppering the attorneys with questions on stage in front of about 1,000 people in the Belcher Center.
The justices on the state’s highest civil courts are clearly intelligent and experienced men and women. As a newspaper publisher for more than a quarter-century, I met a number of justices as they campaigned during elections. Even if I didn’t agree with their views, I respected their legal minds. And I still do, though two decisions...
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AUSTIN — I spotted bluebonnets for the first time on March 1. It was along the Lady Bird Lake Trail, walking as a cool northern breeze swept away the mugginess of previous days. That means spring has arrived, no matter what the calendar indicates. It felt so freeing to be outside, after a few days of meetings, that I walked even longer than usual, pounding the crunchy trail for two hours. The bluebonnets were on the side of a hill that separates the trail from Cesar Chavez Street. As every fifth walker or so did, I stopped and took a cell phone photo. I have no idea why, other than to mark the advent...
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