Lion (2016)

IMDB

Lion (2016): Boy in India gets lost, raised in Australia, yearns for home. Boy, man, India, Australia, both families, all real & moving. A+

CAFR: Those Pesky "Deferred Outflows"

For city finance wonks, Christmas comes twice a year: once in August when the city budget is set and again in February when the city financial audit is published. The budget specifies the city's cash flow (its planned revenues and expenses). The financial audit details the city's assets (the value of city property, bank accounts, etc.) and its liabilities (outstanding debt, pension obligations, etc.).

Consider this a layman's adventure into the netherworld of municipal accounting, otherwise known as the CAFR. Fun fact: CAFR happens to be the abbreviation of a Latin phrase that means, "Abandon all hope ye who enter here." (Warning: I have the same lack of training in Latin as in accounting). Open the door and you'll be lured into a spider's web of terms and numbers that will bring you down and overwhelm you and smother you. Last warning: run away!

After the jump, the descent begins into this year's Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) for the City of Richardson.

Review: Welcome to Braggsville

Amazon

From Welcome to Braggsville, by T. Geronimo Johnson:

It's not that the Davenports had never had black people around their house before, or even a Chinese guy once, but never a Malaysian who looked Chinese to some and Indian to others, fancied himself black at times, and wanted to be the next Lenny Bruce Lee; a preppy black football player who sounded like the president and read Plato in Latin; and a white woman who occasionally claimed to be Native American. They were like an overconstructed novel, each representative of some cul-de-sac of idiolect and stereotype, missing only a handicapped person — No! At Berkeley we say handi-capable person — and a Jew and a Hispanic, and an Asian not of the subcontinent, Louis always said."

Those four diverse characters are the self-identified "Four Little Indians." They meet at UC-Berkeley and travel together to rural Georgia on school break. An "incident" there changes all their lives.

After the jump, my review.

Gleason (2016)

IMDB

Gleason (2016): Documentary of former NFL player with ALS. Raw and relentless as real life, clichéd as movie. Needs more of wife's story. C+

Fences (2016)

IMDB

Fences (2016): Denzel Washington in a Willy Loman role, raising questions about what it means to be a husband, father, man. Oscar-worthy. A+

OTBR: South Mountain Creamery

Latitude: N 39° 27.918
Longitude: W 077° 36.498

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".

POTD: This Guy Needs a Beer

Today's photo-of-the-day is was a panorama from the Liberty of the Seas, a cruise ship out of Galveston that cruises the Western Caribbean. (The blog's ability to display the panorama was, sadly, lost during some website update or other.)

POTD: Rue du Petit Champlain

From 2016 09 09 Quebec City

Today's photo-of-the-day is from the Rue du Petit Champlain in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada. A walkable street in a walkable city.

Main Street Mixed-Use

The City of Richardson announced that it had approved a mixed-use development in old downtown Richardson.

A proposed mixed-use development at the northeast corner of Central Expressway and Main Street was approved unanimously by the City Council Monday. The 14.5-acre development will include residential, commercial and restaurant space. It is the first significant private sector development in the downtown area since the adoption of the Main Street/Central Expressway Form Based Code last year...A highlight of the development is the mixed-use portion planned for the corner of Main and Interurban streets. In addition to 15,000 square feet of retail/commercial space, it will have multifamily units located above the retail space, surrounding private courtyards, and a 700-space parking garage, which will be shared with tenants from the Chase Bank building. Immediately to the north of the mixed-use area will be townhomes with private yards and garage parking. The for-lease units will be two or three stories each and average 1,800 square feet per unit.

Source: City of Richardson.

After the jump, why I am cautiously optimistic.

Repeat Tweets: Conspiracy Theorists

Repeat tweets from January, 2017:

• Jan 1 2017: Am I wrong in thinking that conspiracy theorists are the kind of people most likely to not recognize irony or sarcasm?
• Jan 2 2017: More bowl game teams than not have serious off-field reasons for me to want them to lose. Why isn't there a "Good Guys Bowl"?
• Jan 2 2017: Penn State had worst play calling in their last two possessions. Three runs and a punt, then a run and two crazy passes. Deserved to lose.
• Jan 5 2017: Rogue One (2016): A rollicking fun adventure...just like all the others. Fighting an authoritarian regime has new relevance in 2017. Sad! C-

After the jump, more repeat tweets.