Happy Birthday, Mr. Pres..., err, Walt and Ruth

Appletree Court celebrates Family Night once a month with dinner and live entertainment. September's theme was a '50s Party with hamburgers and Cokes and Marilyn Monroe. Ruth and Walt have birthdays Friday and Sunday, so Marilyn serenaded both with a sultry "Happy Birthday, Mr. President." Judging by that big red smacker on Walt's forehead, I'd say a good time was had by all.

Myers and Briggs Have Been Spying On Me

There's an old joke in which a man is asked if he believes in astrology and he answers, "No way. We Scorpios are very skeptical." Well, I take the same attitude to psychological profiling. Myers-Briggs, for example. Rod Dreher recommended it in The Dallas Morning News. So, naturally, I just had to debunk it.

Fresh Shoots in Telecom Corridor

Ten years ago, Richardson's economy was thriving thanks to a booming tech economy and the concentration of telecom and networking giants in Richardson. With Nortel, Alcatel, MCI, AT&T, Cisco and others having a significant presence in Richardson, the Chamber of Commerce even coined the term Telecom Corridor to promote Richardson. That was then. Then the bubble burst. News out of Richardson for the last decade has been more likely to be announcement of layoffs or bankruptcy than good news. In an effort to diversify, Richardson attracted Countrywide Financial to fill office space in the decimated Telecom Corridor. Yes, Countrywide, the nation's No. 1 mortgage lender came to Richardson just in time for the housing bubble collapse. The city couldn't catch a break.

Still Fighting the Civil War

Somewhere in my formal education I learned, or thought I did, that the question of whether states can secede from the Union had been settled once and for all by the Civil War. Now living in Texas, I realize that many Texans don't think it's as settled a question as I once thought. Even Texas Governor Rick Perry hinted that secession is not out of the question. At an Austin "Tea Party" in April, Perry said:

"When we came in the Union in 1845, one of the issues was that we would be able to leave if we decided to do that. My hope is that America and Washington in particular pays attention. We’ve got a great union. There’s absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, you know, who knows what might come out of that. But Texas is a very unique place, and we’re a pretty independent lot to boot."

A Brainiac Calls Me Goofy

I'll take "Quiz Show Hosts" for $100, please.
A.) This quiz show host said he spent more time
      with Ken Jennings than with his wife.
Q.) Who is Alex Trebek?

You remember Ken Jennings, right? He's the former software engineer whose fifteen minutes of fame stretched to 74 days, the longest winning streak on the long-running television quiz show, Jeopardy!

Jennings wrote about Jeopardy! and trivia buffs in general in a book titled, "Brainiac". I won't say how the lead Brainiac himself has come to call me goofy (if not me, at least my hobbies), because that would require me to go into all sorts of detail defending myself, after which many readers are likely going to nod their heads and say something like, "Yeah, Jennings is right. That's goofy." So my best strategy is to lie low. All I'll say is that it has something to do with a new book Jennings is writing that has a chapter about games using a technology whose acronym is spelled S-P-G backwards. Buy the book. Unless it's goofy. ;-)