the tindog coffeehouse

I’ve been pretty vocal about my dislike of college football’s BCS nonsense.  And of course, I’m not alone.  There are many, many fans begging and pleading for some kind of playoff system, arguing it’s the only way to truly determine a national champion.

U.S. Representative Joe Barton agrees.  Barton, whose district borders TCU’s hometown of Fort Worth, has even gone so far as to compare the Bowl Championship Series to communism.  And nothing gets a Republican congressman more worked up than the threat of communism.  Hence his anti-BCS bill, which has now passed in a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee.

The bill, sponsored by Rep. Joe Barton, R-Arlington, is not the BCS-destroying solution envisioned by millions of college football fans. But if it were to eventually become law, it would turn up the pressure on the BCS by preventing the group from calling its title game a “national championship game” unless it was the result of a playoff system. …

“What our friends and fans need to know about the Bowl Championship Series is that it is not about choosing the champion or competition on the gridiron,” Barton said. “It is about revenue sharing for the schools that are in the BCS conferences.”

In other words, instead of keeping all that revenue within the BCS conferences, we’re supposed to force them by law to give some of it Robin-Hood-style to the poor non-BCS conferences.  Because that’s the American way, I suppose.

No, regardless of how you feel about the BCS, Barton’s bill is not the answer.  Congress needs to stay out of it.  Whatever changes come about need to happen because of pressure from coaches, universities, and the NCAA.  And of course from the fans, since they are what the corporate sponsors (you know, the companies that provide the millions of dollars in payouts to the schools?) really care about.

Not that I’m expecting anything to change.  But we don’t need Congress screwing it up any more than it already is.

As a sidenote, notice that Nebraska Congressman Lee Terry only supported the bill after the Cornhuskers lost the Big 12 title game against Texas.  So is this about correcting a moral injustice or pouting because your team didn’t win?

Yeah, that’s what I thought.

Previously:
‘Fairness Index’ doesn’t prove the BCS is fair
The BCS: ‘Communistic’ or not?
Yes, the BCS is flawed. What’s your point?

How weird is it that I go to Dallas every day but have seen almost none of it?

Like many residents in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, I live in the suburbs but work in Dallas.  I drive to work five days a week to my office in North Dallas, then drive home when I’m done.  And that’s pretty much the extent of my association with Big D.

I was reminded of just how foreign Dallas is to me when Fort Worth urban blogger Kevin Buchanan took a self-guided tour through the city, comparing Dallas’s urban design to that of Cowtown’s.  (And yes, I know how much he hates that term; wouldn’t want to promote Fort Worth’s agricultural roots too much, would we?)

Anyhow, while I disagree with Buchanan on a lot of things, I agree with him that much of Dallas is designed more for car traffic than foot traffic.  It’s designed to accommodate workers who commute in by car to work, not for residents or visitors to spend leisure time there.  And while there are a handful of attractions to be found, there aren’t many, and those that exist are spread out really far from each other.

As a result, there’s very little incentive to drive way back across town to visit on my time off.  After all, what would I do when I got there?  If you’re going to a Mavericks or Stars game, there’s the American Airlines Center, but the adjoining Victory Park is almost completely vacant.  (What few restaurants and retail stores open there struggle to stay in business.)  You could go to the Dallas World Aquarium, but the nearby West End is also pretty vacant.  There’s the State Fair in the fall, but the fairgrounds are pretty quiet the rest of the year.  Or there’s the Sixth Floor Museum if you still have any interest in the JFK assassination.

But if you just want to stroll around town to eat and shop and listen to live music, you won’t be going Downtown.  Other than the beautiful skyscrapers, there’s not much there.

Contrast that with some other big cities like Chicago.  I’ve visited Chicago a few times on business, and when the weather is nice, it has a lot to offer.  Grant Park and Millenium Park sit between downtown and Lake Michigan, offering plenty of family-friendly space to hang out.  The Navy Pier, Lincoln Park, and the Magnificent Mile also offer plenty of activities, just to name a few.  Downtown is extremely pedestrian-friendly, and the buses and trains allow most workers to take public transportation to work rather than have to navigate the already-insane streets.

Dallas, meanwhile, can’t even figure out how to build a convention center hotel.

Listen, I don’t mean to bash Dallas, I really don’t.  I just don’t have any strong feelings towards it, despite the fact I’ve lived in the Metroplex for over 20 years.  Yeah, I guess I could make more of an effort to get to know the city better.  Who knows, maybe I would learn to appreciate it more.  But for now, other than a biweekly paycheck, there’s not much compelling me to come back.

Previously:
Better than Fair

Yahoo Finance has a list of 15 companies that might go belly-up before year-end.  Some, like Chrysler and Blockbuster, are obvious candidates.  But Six Flags?

Six Flags. (SIX; about 30,000 employees; stock down 84%). This theme-park operator has been losing money for several years, and selling off properties to try to pay down debt and get back into the black. But the ride may end prematurely. Moody’s expects cash flow to be negative in 2009, and if consumers aren’t spending during the peak summer season, that could imperil the company’s ability to pay debts coming due later this year and in 2010.

OK, so the numbers don’t look too good.  But as someone who worked there for three seasons while in high school and whose kids beg almost daily to go back, I’m really hoping they’ll be able to ride out the next couple of years (no pun intended).  Not that anyone expects them to be profitable, but then again, who is these days?  (I mean, other than Exxon.)

Despite the grim forecast, I think Six Flags actually has a lot going for them in a down economy.  After all, if you live reasonably close to a Six Flags park, it’s a lot cheaper for a family to buy season tickets than it is to shell out a ton of money for airline tickets to fly somewhere.  That’s what we did last year, and it worked out great.

And besides, how can you possibly trust a list of soon-to-be-extinct companies from Yahoo when they themselves aren’t on the list?

’Nuff said.

Previously:
What I did on my summer vacation
Better than Fair

We decided to go camping this weekend, a quick family getaway to Lake Whitney.  Well, it sounded good at the time, anyway.

After enduring a traffic jam on I-35 in Fort Worth, we finally made it to the campsite about 11:30 Saturday morning and unpacked and set up the tent.  We took a walk down to the lake and then came back to fix some sandwiches for lunch.  But as we sat down to eat, we were inundated with a swarm of Mexican honey wasps.  When they started to get aggressive, we abandoned our food and scrambled for the car.  The girls made it in safely, but I was stung on the back of the neck.

Unsure of what else to do, we drove back to the front office.  They told us some other campers had also complained about the wasps.  They offered to move us, but we decided to give the original spot another chance since we had already unpacked everything.  By the time we got back, most of the wasps had moved on.  We slathered on the bug spray and settled back in with no other problems.  Then we took another walk and killed some time before dinner.  Finally, everything seemed to be going better.

With the sun going down, we started the fire and cooked up some hot dogs, but it was soon evident we hadn’t bought enough firewood.  We had planned on having a campfire that evening and another in the morning, but that was no longer an option.  We made smores and hot chocolate, then put the girls to bed about 8.  We used up the rest of our firewood, and the fire was out about 9:15, so we decided to go to bed ourselves (instead of standing around in the cold).

I took the cot, and Christy settled in between the girls.  And then we lay there, awake and shivering.  It was cold.  Really cold.  We had a horrible night.  The girls slept OK, but Christy and I froze as the temperatures got down into the upper 30s.  We bundled up as much as we could, but we just weren’t prepared for how cold it was.  (We had also forgotten the girls’ sleeping bags, so they had most of our blankets.)  As we tossed and turned, we were both thinking about how we could tear down everything and get out of there in the middle of the night, but even if we could, the park gate was closed until 8:00 AM.

About 5:30 we couldn’t take it any more.  We all got in the car and started the engine, turning the heat on high.  We drove over to the restrooms so everyone could go to the bathroom, and then we sat there in the parking lot for about 40 minutes just trying to get warm.  Finally we drove back over to the campsite and sat in the car another 15 or 20 minutes until it was somewhat light outside.  I got out and started the coffee, and we gradually started packing up.  We had worked really hard to fit everything in the back of the truck on the way there, but we didn’t have the same patience leaving.  Nevertheless, we somehow got everything packed back up and then left right before 8:00, finding a donut shop in Hillsboro, where we stumbled in and got some breakfast.

It wasn’t all bad though.  The lake itself was really pretty, and we did have some fun Saturday afternoon.  We even saw an armadillo and followed it back to its burrow.  And the girls loved cooking hot dogs over the fire and making smores.

Looking back, it was certainly a memorable adventure and fun in a twisted sort of way.  I just hope we’re more prepared the next time.

It’s Election Day, and I know what you’re thinking: Who are the Dallas Cowboys voting for?

Well, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram asked them, along with some Texas Rangers, Dallas Mavericks, and Dallas Stars players.  Of 67 athletes surveyed, 54 percent are voting for Obama.

You don’t think it’s because a lot of pro athletes are black, is it?  Nah, that couldn’t be it.  Well, except for the fact that 69 percent of surveyed Cowboys players and 100 percent of Mavericks players chose Obama, while only 10 percent of Rangers players did.

But no, I’m sure race didn’t have anything to do with it.

Marlon Byrd, Texas Rangers (Obama): “How can I look at my children, which are mixed, and tell them I didn’t vote for a black president? How can I tell them I had a chance to vote for a black president for the first time ever and I didn’t?

I travel through the infamous Grapevine Funnel every day to and from work, and it’s the main reason I try to come in early and leave early.  Hit the area just a little too late, and your daily commute goes from slow and tedious to simply painful.  Throw in a minor fender-bender, and it’s enough to force you to do a U-turn and spend the rest of the day trembling beneath the sheets.

Aptly named, the Funnel is the area north of DFW Airport where seven different highways converge, a pretty good design if it weren’t for the roughly half million cars that pass through it five days a week.  (Really, it must be more than that.)

There have been plans for years to reconstruct the area with additional lanes (including some toll lanes) and a better design.  We were told it would take years to complete (up to 10 years by some estimates) and that it would get worse before it gets better.

Now it looks like it may just get worse.

Having done nothing so far, now the costs of construction are a reported $1 billion (up from $400 million in 2000), which has some people wondering if the project is too expensive to complete as designed.

Money, however, is not a deciding factor in this case.  The Funnel provides a critical northern link between Tarrant and Dallas counties, and as the population of the Metroplex continues to grow, something must be done to relieve the pressure from all the cars that swarm the highways each morning and evening.  Even if that something runs into the billions.

I’ve always had a strong dislike of toll roads, and this is no exception.  But honestly, there are days I would happily fork over the extra cash just to relieve some of the stress of dealing with an already-long commute.

I’m sure there are many others who feel the same way.

It’s so hot, the themometer is on fire:

(From the Forecastfox add-on for Firefox this morning.)

Like a lot of people, I was both surprised at the sudden closure of Bennigan’s this week and I wasn’t.

We hardly ever ate there except when we had an overwhelming craving for a Monte Cristo, but once you go, you quickly remember why that is.  The service was always fair at best, and the restaurant itself was iffy.

I remember going there on a Friday night for dinner.  We went about 6 o’clock or so, but there were maybe only two or three other customers in the entire place.  We sat down and waited for our waiter.  And waited.  And waited.  After about 15 minutes, we gave up and left, relieved in a way that we had been spared what could’ve been a whole lot worse.

Bennigan’s, though, will always hold a special place in our history.  It was there 15 years ago that Christy first introduced herself to me after a meeting at the Baptist Student Union at Tarrant County Junior College.  (I always joke that she picked me up.)

Coincidentally, this isn’t the first restaurant from our past that has faded into oblivion.  A few years ago, the Harrigan’s restaurant where we had our rehearsal dinner before our wedding burned down.  It’s been sitting vacant ever since, now adorned with graffiti.

Good thing I’m not superstitious!  (But just in case, let’s hope that nothing ever happens to the Mi Hacienda restaurant in Hurst.  That’s where we had our first date.)

This last cold spell started getting me excited about the Fort Worth Stock Show. It’s still early; the stock show isn’t until January.  But it’s one of the few things to really look forward to in late January. (You have to have something to keep you going after the end of college football season.)

On the surface it doesn’t really sound like anything too exciting: looking at a bunch of cattle, sheep, pigs, chickens, horses, and various other livestock. But it actually is a lot of fun. We head out there every year with the kids and then go out for barbeque afterwards. (I still don’t think the girls understand where that yummy brisket comes from.) It’s one of those days you feel like you’re reconnecting with what it means to be a Texan. If you’re from Texas, you understand.

There’s a petting zoo and carnival midway, which we don’t bother with. There’s also the rodeo, which is really great but also a bit expensive. We haven’t taken the girls to the rodeo yet since they haven’t been old enough for us to really justify spending the money. Maybe this year, who knows?

I’m just glad to have the opportunity for the girls to see (and smell) these animals up close to get a real appreciation for the role they play in our lives. Agriculture is still a huge part of our economy and our statewide identity, and it’s easy to lose sight of that living in the suburbs and growing up surrounded by a Wal-Mart, Starbucks, and Home Depot on every corner. After all, what would Cowtown be without the cows?