the tindog coffeehouse

The city of Arlington and Jerry Jones kicked a bunch of people out of their homes to build the $1.15 billion monument to ego known as Cowboys Stadium.  The city (with the approval of voters) also raised the sales tax a half percent to help pay for it.  So you’d think that Arlington high schools (particularly Lamar, whose students were those that lost their homes to Jerryworld) would be the first in line to play their football playoff games there.

Wrong.

At least initially, only bidistrict games between the 5-5A and 6-5A districts will be played there.  That includes schools such as Euless Trinity, Colleyville Heritage, Grapevine, and Southlake Carroll.  District 4-5A, which includes Arlington Lamar, Arlington Bowie, and Arlington High, is out of luck.  At least part of the reason, it seems, is because it’s too expensive.  (Naturally.)

As an alumnus of Lamar, this really ticks me off.  When I was in high school, we went to the playoffs every year, playing ten games at the old Texas Stadium over the course of the three years I was there.  I remember being in the marching band and marching out of the tunnel for the first time into what was the biggest stadium I had ever been in (which of course is nothing compared to the monstrosity that replaced it).  I remember catching a glimpse of Troy Aikman on the sidelines one game and feeling honored to stand where the heroes of my childhood once played and coached:  Roger Staubach, Tony Dorsett, Drew Pearson, and of course Tom Landry.

The current generation of Arlington students should have the opportunity to make the same memories.  Instead, they’ll be on the outside looking in while their wealthier neighbors are given preference.

Honestly, I’ve never had much respect for Jerry Jones, but now I have even less.

Update, 11/10/09:
Well, it looks like I was totally wrong (although in all fairness the Dallas Morning News article was horribly misleading).  Arlington high schools will, in fact, be playing at Cowboys Stadium.  Arlington Martin and Arlington Bowie have games there on Thursday night, and Arlington and Arlington Lamar have games on Friday night.  Full schedule here, and UIL brackets can be downloaded here.

Go, Vikes!

I was working at Microsoft at the time.  Usually I’d listen to the radio on the way to work, but for some reason on the morning of September 11, 2001, I didn’t.

I showed up for work a little before 8:00 AM, and the office was still pretty quiet.  I walked down the row of cubicles to say hi to my friend Larry, and I found him staring at his monitor.  “Did you hear about this?” he asked.  Of course I hadn’t.  “A plane crashed into the World Trade Center.”  Oh my God!  How awful!

I got back to my desk and pulled up any news website I could get, trying to find out what happened.  Normally, there were TVs at the end of the rows permanently tuned to MSNBC, but none of them had been working for a week or so.  And now I couldn’t reach any of the major news sites (msnbc.com, cnn.com, etc.) as they were all flooded with traffic.  I was able to get some information on the Dallas Morning News site, though, and kept reloading it over and over to try and get the latest updates.  This was a terrible accident!

Then came the news that another plane had hit the other tower, and we understood that it was no accident.

Within the hour, a third plane hit the Pentagon, and it was clear we were under attack.  By that time the TVs had been turned back on, and we split our attention between them and any other news we could get online.  Everything seemed to be pretty chaotic.

And then the south tower collapsed.

I couldn’t believe it.  It was all so surreal.  For a few moments I sat there thinking how there would only be a single World Trade Center building now and how strange that would be.  I just couldn’t wrap my mind around it.

Then came reports of a fourth plane down, this time in rural Pennsylvania, possibly the result of a hijacking that had been thwarted.  But when would it end?  How many more planes were still in the air, and what else could happen?  And then shortly after that, the north tower of the World Trade Center gave way.

Throughout the rest of the morning, we could only watch helplessly as we tried to grasp what had occurred in such a short amount of time.  The phones, which were typically pretty busy at that time of the day, were quiet, but there were a few calls coming in here and there.  We handled them the best we could, but our minds were clearly not on our work.  At lunch, everyone gathered in the cafeteria, where the company had agreed to buy everyone’s meal.  Everyone around me was angry and could only talk about getting revenge on the people who had carried out the attacks.  But I was silent, barely able to hold myself together.  After I was done eating, I went to my car and broke down in tears, and then I prayed; it was the only thing I could do.

I got home that evening and hugged and kissed my wife.  At that time we usually didn’t eat dinner at the table, but we did that night, turning the TV off in order to have a break from the news for a few minutes.  And I prayed again, for our nation, for the families of the victims, and for my daughter Megan, who was only 5 months old at the time.

It’s been 8 years since the attacks on September 11th, and I can still feel the gut-wrenching fear, confusion, and overwhelming sadness that I experienced on that day.  And that’s a good thing.  We should never forget.

God Bless America.

Over the weekend, I closed my Facebook account.  Technically, it’s “deactivated”, meaning I can log back in and reactivate it later if I choose.  I’m not sure I want to, though.

It wasn’t a rash decision; it was something I had considered numerous times before.  And honestly, even as I clicked the button to deactivate it, I had mixed feelings about doing so.  But I did it anyway.

Why?  I think I finally just ran out of patience with it.  Every single thing I did on the site, whether I changed my profile picture, posted a photo, or updated my status, resulted in some kind of response from someone, and the responses weren’t always welcome.  Just this weekend my “friends” told me I looked like a serial killer, offered me unwanted (and not very accurate) medical advice, and tried to coax me into a political fight.  Between that and the never-ending barrage of Facebook quizzes and other nonsense, I had simply had enough.  (And I’m not the only one.)

I want to like Facebook, I really do.  I believe there’s a lot of value in it as a tool to be able to keep up with friends and family members.  But there has to be a boundary, some kind of line at which sharing becomes over-sharing, some point when it becomes best just to keep your opinions to yourself.  And within the “safe” and “trusted” walls of Facebook, it seems like people don’t care about such boundaries.  You’re their “friend”, aren’t you?  Therefore, they’re free to let you know you remind them of John Wayne Gacy.  Because that’s what friends are for.

I’m not saying, of course, that people shouldn’t speak their mind online; please do, even if I don’t agree with you.  But even online, if you can’t say something nice (or even interesting), it’s often wise to not say anything at all.

I’m sure at some point I’ll probably reactivate my account, but if I do, changes will be made to how I use the site.  But at least for now, silence is golden.

Previously:
Why I joined Facebook and LinkedIn
How to play the game of ‘Blog-Facebook-Twitter’
A little social network housecleaning

This blog post wasn’t supposed to be here.  Instead, it was supposed to be a different post I wrote a couple of days ago.  It was a good one, too, or at least I thought so at the time.  But I didn’t publish it.  After thinking about it overnight, I decided it was best to delete it.  And I’m glad I did.

The topic of the post isn’t important.  It wasn’t anything controversial or anything I haven’t written about before.  But it was the tone of it that bothered me when I reread it later.  It was caustic, mean-spirited, and divisive, and I would’ve regretted publishing it.

Proverbs 5:1-2 (NLT) says:

My son, pay attention to my wisdom;
listen carefully to my wise counsel.
Then you will show discernment,
and your lips will express what you’ve learned.

I’d like to say that I always show discernment in what I say or write, but the truth is, I don’t.  In fact, I’m lousy at it.  I’d like to say that every word I speak or write reflects God’s wisdom and glorifies His Kingdom, but it doesn’t.  In fact, very little of it does.

I think I’ve gotten a little better at choosing my words over the years — only after leaving a trail of destruction in my wake — but I’ve still got a long way to go.  Thankfully, this is one time I chose correctly.

Yesterday I bought a new iPhone, which makes me, well, mainstream. Whatever coolness factor that came with owning a “JesusPhone” wore off at least a year ago, and now it seems likes everyone has one. Except of course for the people who have a BlackBerry, or an Android phone, or a Palm Pre. Or that old lady down the street who’s still rocking her Motorola StarTAC.

So if I didn’t get an iPhone to be cool, then why did I get it?  Well, first because I didn’t want to leave AT&T.  Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t particularly like AT&T.  But my wife is on it, as are most of our friends and family, so it just makes sense.  Plus, the rollover minutes provide an extra margin of error just in case we find someone who’s on a different carrier.

Second, the iPhone just meets my needs better than most other phones out there.  That’s not to say BlackBerrys and the rest are bad, they’re just not what I’m looking for right now.  I have a company-issued BlackBerry for work, and it’s great for email and messaging.  But web-browsing on a BlackBerry isn’t as good, nor are apps for Facebook, Twitter, and the like.  And at the end of the day, that’s what made the difference for me.

So, there you go.  Another satisfied Apple fanboy-in-training (despite the impending “iPhoneocalypse“).

Previously:
‘How Apple Plays Upon Our Insecurities’
Giving in to Google
My PDA is on life support
My PDA: ‘I’m not dead yet!’

My grandfather, Cleo Richards, was inducted into the United States Army on October 16, 1942, and would become a radio operator in the 96th Signal Corp, part of the 96th Infantry Division.  He was one of over 100,000 U.S. troops to fight in the battle of Leyte Island in the Philippines during World War II, and it was there that he nearly lost his life.

In his memoirs, he wrote:

On October 20, 1944, we invaded Leyte Island, which was part of the Philippine Islands.  The Navy and Air Force bombarded the shore of the island for three days prior to landing.  The purpose was to drive the Japs inland so we could land with a minimum of casualties.  After three days, troops began to land.  Our company was among the first to leave the troop ship and head for land.  … When we reached shore, the front end of the landing boat was loaded, and we were ready to hit the beach.  It was a gruesome sight and a weird feeling.  Dead Japs were scattered around as a result of the shelling of the area prior to our landing.  My job was to go inland 200-300 yards and find a spot that would be adequate to set up our command post.  I was to set up my sending and receiving set and send a message to headquarters, which was still aboard ship, notifying them that we had landed. …

I was on duty all that day, all night and until about noon the next day.  When I was finally relieved, I went to a nearby tree, sat down, leaned against the tree trunk and tried to pull myself together and relax.  That didn’t last long because all of a sudden a very large shell landed right in the middle of our command post.  It was so powerful it blew a hole in the ground large enough to drive a semi-truck in.  The explosion sent chunks of shrapnel every direction.  When I heard the explosion, I immediately headed for a foxhole and dove in head first.  After the situation settled down a bit, I raised my head to look things over and noticed blood on the ground where my head had been lying.  Then I noticed my face was bleeding.  I didn’t realize I had been hit.  I was sent to the first-aid station for treatment, but they were not equipped to remove the object from my face.  It entered my face about two inches below my eye.  All they could do was put a patch on it.  By that time, the whole side of my face was badly swollen, and my eye was almost swollen shut.  Since there was nothing else they could do for me, they put me back aboard ship.

My grandfather was lucky enough to survive his injury, but over 3,500 U.S. troops who fought to recapture Leyte Island were not.

After his injury, my grandfather was sent home to a hospital on the island of Guadalcanal, where he was awarded the Purple Heart.  He was discharged on April 27, 1945.  He would later go to work as an accountant in West Texas and become a father, a grandfather, and a great-grandfather before passing away in 2006 at the age of 89.

Growing up, I knew that my Papa had fought in World War II and had been injured, but like many veterans, he rarely talked about his time in the service.  Instead, what I remember most about him is the love he had for his family and for the Lord.  He is an amazing example of what it means to be a husband, a father, a man, and most importantly, a follower of Jesus Christ.

These are the men and women we remember on Memorial Day, the ones who willingly gave themselves up to defend our freedom.  And I’m forever grateful of the sacrifices they have made.

Below: My grandfather during his time in the service.

Below: In 2004, with my daughter Erin, who was 1 at the time.

Below: A brick commemorating my grandfather’s service at the Veteran’s War Memorial in Lubbock, Texas.

The past few weeks have been pretty stressful for me.  I won’t go into detail, but suffice it to say, I really needed to read this article that I came across in Relevant Magazine last week:

True freedom is being liberated from our misplaced dependencies for life, love, worth, significance, peace and fulfillment. I’ve discovered my most significant needs in life correspond with a deeper need that only God Himself can satisfy. … Most people want to feel their lives matter and set out to make their mark in the world. But if you look to the world to tell you who you are, you’re in for one wild and painful ride. Do well, and you’re a hero; screw up, and you’re a zero.

Paul’s word content seems a little weak, but it actually describes a very powerful freedom. What if we were content (satisfied and fulfilled) with God’s perfect love and were free to give love, rather than constantly maneuvering to get it? Or what if we were content with our identity in God and were free to serve the world, rather than trying to prove we have a right to exist in it. Geez, all this time I’ve been seeking life, love, worth out there somewhere only to find that the source of all of these was inside me all the time through the risen Christ. No person, endeavor, thrill, formula or achievement is capable of delivering what we all crave deep within. There’s always something that could go better, but the peace and joy God provides go with you … even if life throws you overboard. That’s freedom!

I love eating dinner at the table with my kids.  You never know what they’re going to talk about.  Last night while we were eating, Megan said out of the blue, “Don’t you think life is better now?”

I wasn’t quite sure how to respond to that.  Better than when?

“Better than when Grampa was a kid.”

I have no idea what prompted her question, but for an 8-year-old, Megan can be a pretty deep thinker sometimes.  So why is life better now than when Grampa was a kid?

“Because back then, they didn’t have the stuff we do.  Girls had to straighten their hair with an iron.”

Again, I’m not sure why she would be thinking about straightening hair with an iron and then somehow bring her grandfather’s name up, but it was still an interesting observation.  Her point was that the things we have today that make life more convenient make it better.

Is that true?

I told her that in my opinion, people were probably happier back then than they are today.  They didn’t have as much stuff, but life was simpler then and not as hectic.  All the stuff we have now like the Internet and DVRs and cell phones are great, but as a result the world moves so much faster around us, making it harder to keep up.  Plus, people are much more isolated today.  We don’t have as many friends, and we’re not as connected to family as we were back then.

The bottom line is, all this stuff is not what’s important, and while it can make life more convenient, it doesn’t necessarily make it better.

I don’t know if she understood my point, but I’m thankful that she made me stop and think about it.  It’s something I need to remember often.

Previously:
The next nostalgia

There’s a spot on eastbound I-635 in north Dallas where the outer edge of the right-hand lanes dips suddenly, causing the shoulder to be slightly higher.  If you happen to hit the spot with your right front tire, it can easily cause you to lose control of your car, especially if you hit it at 50 or 60 miles an hour.

I’ve made that mistake a few times on my way to work, and even though I’ve never fully lost control, it’s certainly scared the crap out of me.

It’s a dangerous spot, a defect so small and minor that it’s almost completely unnoticeable but significant enough to cause a major wreck for anyone caught by surprise.  But here’s the thing: While it would be so easy to patch it up, road crews chose instead to simply mark it with a warning sign:

UNEVEN LANES

How many times do we do the same thing in our own lives?  We carry around a small but dangerous defect in our ourselves.  Maybe it’s in our choices, maybe our attitude, maybe it’s the words we use.  It’s barely noticeable — if it’s noticeable at all — but it has the capacity to cause significant damage to ourselves and the people around us.  We’ll go so far as to acknowledge the problem, but ultimately we’re unwilling to do what it takes to actually fix it.

The apostle Paul points out in Galatians 2:16 that no one can ever be made right just by trying to do the right things; it’s only by placing our faith in Jesus Christ that all of our holes, dips, and defects can be fully mended.

What areas of my life are in need of repair today?  What needs to be repaired in yours?

It’s weird how social networks like Facebook and Twitter can mess with your mind.  You sign up for a Facebook account because, quite frankly, everyone else is doing it.  Then along comes Twitter because, well, why not.  It’s all innocent fun at first, but at some point it becomes less about the quality of the connections being made through the sites and more about the quantity.  How many Facebook friends do I have?  How many people are following me on Twitter?  How many hits is my blog getting, and how can I generate more comments?

Who cares?

I’m rarely on Facebook anymore.  I thought it was because of all the ridiculous surveys and other nonsense that clutter up the news feed, but I’ve come to realize it’s actually because most of the “noise” is coming from a handful of Facebook friends that I’m really not that interested in.  It’s not that they’re bad people, it’s just that I don’t really interact with them any more, and inevitably these are also the same people that update their Facebook status 20 times a day and feel the need to comment on everything.  So I made a decision yesterday to unfriend several of them.

Ironically, at the same time I was cutting my digital ties on Facebook, I was losing 9 followers on Twitter.  Most of them were people or organizations that I had no association with anyway, but one was a person I communicated with fairly regularly.

Immediately, I began trying to figure out what I had said to drive this person away.  Had I offended them in some way?  What had I done wrong?  The pangs of rejection hit me hard for a few minutes.  And then I realized the irony.

I had just let 8 or 9 people go on one social network as 9 people were letting me go on another.  When I unfriended my Facebook friends, it wasn’t personal at all — none of them had hurt me or offended me in any way.  I just wasn’t finding value in their Facebook updates.  In all likelihood, the people who stopped following me on Twitter felt the same way about my tweets: for whatever reason I wasn’t adding value to their lives.

Author Anne Jackson recently wrote on her blog about following “conversations” on Twitter rather than following people:

Overall, unless you have a real strategy behind Twittering, by following a ton of people, you’re not networking. You’re only following a lot of noise. Sure, you may occasionally find a nugget to chew on, but a lot of other well-deserving Tweets will fall through the cracks and be buried in the chaos of the masses. …

If you truly want Twitter to be an effective social networking tool, strategize *somehow* (it doesn’t have to look like mine) or clean house.  If you want it to be a flood of noise, keep hitting the Follow button and let the Tweets roll on by.

As social media takes on a greater role in our lives, we need to stop thinking in terms of quantity.  Simply having more Twitter followers or blog readers or whatever doesn’t mean you’re a better person.  Your self worth shouldn’t be determined by Google Analytics.  In fact, “more” can be worse because it dilutes the value of the connections you really care about.

I hope that if you’re reading this, you do find some value in it.  I hope that if you follow me on Twitter or if we’re Facebook friends, that I’m not just producing a lot of noise in your life.  But if I am, then by all means let me go.  I won’t take it personally.

Previously:
How to play the game of ‘Blog-Facebook-Twitter’

On Saturday I got my new computer built.  It’s always a little nerve-wracking, hoping that after spending hours getting everything meticulously assembled that it actually works.  There’s nothing like the relief of pressing the power button and hearing the single beep from the BIOS, a signal that, yes, it’s able to boot up.

Below: The cabling isn’t the prettiest, but it looks better in person.  As you can see, I love zip-ties.  They’re better than duct tape.

Below: Now to see if it boots up.  The blue lights from the front fans are a really nice touch.  With the front cover closed, the light is pretty subtle.  I thought about adding another lighted fan in the back, but I think in this case, less is probably more.

Below: The finished product.  I love the case.

Below: Windows Vista installed.  Running the 32-bit version now, but I’ll probably upgrade to 64-bit with Windows 7.

Below: The main limitation to the system currently is the onboard graphics, which are decent but not spectacular.  I opted not to add a separate video card for now to stay (mostly) on budget, but I’ll probably add one later.  For now, the onboard Intel graphics meet my needs.

Previously:
Time for a new computer

Actually the title of this post should be “Way past time for a new computer.”

I’m getting ready to order parts to build a new home computer, and I can’t wait.  My current desktop is a Dell Optiplex GX260 which I got for free two years ago from work.  It was old back then, but after several parts upgrades, I was able to run Windows Vista on it.  But now disk space is running low on the C: drive, and the strain of running Vista on an old Pentium 4 machine is really starting to show.

My wife’s computer, on the other hand, isn’t even faring that well.  She inherited her machine from me about four years ago, a Gateway desktop bought in January 2000.  Yep, that’s over nine years ago, an eternity in computer years.  And now it’s finally pooping out.

So the plan is to build a new machine from scratch for me, then reformat the GX260 for her.  OK, so it’s another hand-me-down, but this hand-me-down is like ten times better than what she has now, and with XP on it instead of Vista, it’ll run great.  Trust me, I’d love to buy her a brand new machine, but we’re on a tight budget here.  (That’s also why I’m building a new machine instead of buying one off the shelf: more bang for the buck.)

Here is a run-down of the components on my shopping list (in case you’re curious):

• Rosewill Conqueror case (pictured right, from Newegg.com)
• Intel Core 2 Quad Q9400 2.66GHz processor
• MSI G41M-FD motherboard with on-board Intel GMA 4500 graphics and gigabit ethernet (Sticking with on-board video for now, although I may add a separate video card later.)
• 4 GB DDR2 RAM (I may upgrade to 8 GB later if I upgrade to 64-bit version of Windows 7.)
• Western Digital Caviar 500 GB SATA hard drive with 32 MB cache (Will probably add a second drive later, but not needed right now.)
• SATA DVD-ROM drive and DVD Lightscribe burner
• 600 Watt power supply
• ASUS V72 CPU fan

I’ll transfer my existing Vista Business and Office 2007 licenses over and will use my existing keyboard, mouse, and monitor.

And of course I’ll update the blog once I get everything in and start assembling it.