Thursday, January 7, 2016

Even More About Enrollment Growth

I had three takeaways from the Richardson ISD's 2016 Bond "listening tour."
  • Those multipurpose facilities (MPFs) seemed expensive. Comparisons with similar facilities in other school districts were lacking.
  • There wasn't enough in the bond to address anticipated enrollment growth over the next five years.
  • There appeared to be no way to avoid a tax rate increase, even if only maintenance and construction for enrollment growth were addressed.
The RISD school board addressed the first two of my takeaways at their December 7th meeting. What I said then:
It's too bad that the scheduled enrollment growth study couldn't have been accelerated so its results could have been presented to the public on this "listening tour." It's too bad that a placeholder for additional expansion wasn't included in the 2016 bond proposal so the public would know that the school board is aware of the need. But that's water under the bridge. I'm confident that by the time the school board signs off on any bond package that projected enrollment growth will be comprehended in it.
Source: The Wheel.
Now at their January 5th meeting, the school board took further steps to address my second takeaway, and in the process, my first takeaway as well. I consider those steps to be steps back in the right direction.

Wednesday, January 6, 2016

OTBR: Trail of the Tough in Estonia

Latitude: N 58° 28.584
Longitude: E 022° 12.060

A child on a road trip with his family asks, "Where are we?" and the father answers, "Let's check the map. We're off the blue roads [the Interstate Highways marked in blue on the road atlas]. We're off the red roads [the US and state highways]. We're off the black roads [the county highways]. I think we're off the map altogether." It was always my dream to be off the map altogether.

After the jump, a few of the random places (and I mean random literally) that I visited vicariously last month that are "off the blue roads".

Tuesday, January 5, 2016

Repeat Tweets: #txhshoops is baaack!

Repeat tweets from December, 2015:

  • 1 Dec 2015: Final: Naaman Forest 64, Berkner 52. #txhshoops is baaack!
  • 2 Dec 2015: RT @SenTedCruz: "Scientific conclusions should be based on the evidence & data, not the wishes of liberal global warming alarmists." @SenTedCruz is trolling us.
  • 2 Dec 2015: What's the difference between the KKK and the Irving anti-Islamists? One is a group of racist bigots and the other wears hoods.
  • 3 Dec 2015: MT @cressman: "When you live outside the US you think Americans are nuts regarding guns." Inside the US you *know*.

After the jump, more repeat tweets.

Monday, January 4, 2016

Tree the (rest of the) Town

Remember "Tree the Town"? You know, the program with a goal "to plant 50,000 trees in Richardson during the next 10 years on private and public property." What's up with that?

Friday, January 1, 2016

Dallas Arboretum's 12 Days of Christmas


From 2015 12 30 Dallas Arboretum
The Twelve Days of Christmas, the second most annoying Christmas song ever, celebrates the twelve days between the birth of Christ (Christmas, December 25) and the coming of the Magi (Epiphany, January 6). The Dallas Arboretum celebrates the twelve days of Christmas from November 27 - January 3 (yeah, that's 38 days; I don't think they care). Scattered around the arboretum grounds are twelve Victorian gazebos each filled with animals and characters from the song. The DeGolyer house itself is filled with nativity sets. All in all, the best thing to ever happen to the song.

All photos from our visit to the Dallas Arboretum can be seen in Google Photos.

Thursday, December 31, 2015

POTD: Black-Eyed Susan Photo Bombs the Badlands

From 2015 08 15 South Dakota

Today's photo-of-the-day is from the Badlands National Park in South Dakota. The geology here takes center stage. But when a single black-eyed susan sticks its head up how can a photographer resist letting it upstage the multi-colored layers of rocks in the eroded hillsides?

Wednesday, December 30, 2015

Do I Sound Gay? (2014)

IMDB
Do I Sound Gay? (2014): Is there such a thing? Can it be changed? Does it matter? Surprisingly informative look at a cultural stereotype. B-












Tuesday, December 29, 2015

POTD: Lincoln's Craggy Face

From 2015 08 15 South Dakota

Today's photo-of-the-day is from Mount Rushmore in the Black Hills of South Dakota. It's a close-up of the face of Abraham Lincoln. According to a BBC story ("Abraham Lincoln: The enduring images"), Lincoln was the first president of the photographic era. Lincoln himself credited an iconic Matthew Brady photograph taken in early 1860 with making him president. It shows a clean-shaven, "sober, respectable, powerful intellectual who could become president." Four years later, another photograph tells a different story. "The Civil War was coming to an end and the enormous toll taken by four years of conflict is etched into the lines of Lincoln's craggy face." The granite of Mount Rushmore is the perfect medium to capture that Lincoln.

Monday, December 28, 2015

Yelp Reviews Get a New Useful Feature

You may like a Richardson restaurant for its food, but what do you know about its health inspection rating? Probably nothing. Not because Richardson doesn't conduct health inspections of restaurants, but because the city doesn't do much to make the ratings easily accessible to diners. That may be changing.

It's been a pet peeve of mine for years that Richardson promotes local restaurants with its "Dine Smart Dine Local" program, and Richardson publishes restaurant health inspection scores, but the city made no effort to tie the two together. The Wheel complained about it two years ago, and even pointed to a third party solution that promised to be cheaper and more useful than some in-house development by the city's IT department. That was two years ago. Nothing changed.

Friday, December 25, 2015

POTD: Go Tell It on the Mountain

From 2015 08 13 Mount Evans

Today's photo-of-the-day is from Mt. Evans. At 14,271-feet, it's one of Colorado's 53 "fourteeners." You can drive to the summit on the highest paved road in North America. Well, not actually the summit. To get to the tippy-top, you have to scramble up another boulder field.