Of Droughts and Trees - Continued

Sunday in Evansville, Indiana, brought with it an otherworldly experience. It was raining when I awoke. It was raining after breakfast. It was raining before and after lunch. It was raining before and after dinner. It was raining when I went to sleep. Steady, continuous, life-giving rain. The locals could not understand why I walked around all day with a smile on my face.

Tuesday, on my drive home, the stretch from Texarkana to Dallas brought a return to Dante's Inferno. The ground was parched. The grass was dry or blackened from fire. The watering holes were shriveled. More trees than I could count were dead or dying, with leaves brown and withered, way too early in the season to be the normal signs of autumn.

Recently, I blogged about the effects of this drought on the trees of Houston, Dallas and Richardson. After the jump, an update.

Erratum: Perry's Debating Skill

By now, it's conventional wisdom that Gov. Rick Perry's debate performances have gone from bad to worse. "Not yet ready for primetime." "A train wreck." "Flubbed" and "stumbled." "Yikes." "Close to a disqualifying two hours." And those were the judgments of conservative pundits.

There were differing explanations for Perry's poor performances, everything from chronic back pain to chronic dimwittedness. My own theory was that Perry was having a difficult time trying to walk back some of his more outrageous statements from the first days of his campaign (e.g., Social Security is a "Ponzi scheme" and a "monstrous lie"). I said he was trying to sound reasonable, which could be a stretch for him.

I don't think my explanation stands up to scrutiny. Perry may have backpedaled from his Social Security comments, but he doubled down on some of his other controversial actions (e.g., HPV vaccinations, Texas DREAM act). He didn't help himself with GOP primary voters either way.

After the jump, my new, new theory for Perry's debate performances.

Grim Reaper a Packers Fan?

Source: PCRM.org.

You decide how well this billboard will go over in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Installation of a censored version is planned near Lambeau Field. (The censored version removes the cheesehead after threat of a trademark infringement lawsuit from the manufacturer of foam cheeseheads).

Remember, this is the state where a popular suggestion for a license plate slogan was "Eat Cheese or Die" (which, sadly, was rejected by the then governor).

Happy 90th Birthday!

From 2011 09 Evansville

To celebrate Walt's 90th birthday, he, Ellen and I drove back to Evansville, Indiana to celebrate the occasion with old friends. On the way, we stopped in Paducah, Kentucky, to pay respects at the Denning family graves. We also visited Ruth's resting place in Evansville. It was a weekend with moments of sad remembrance and moments of joyful celebration. All in all, a trip to treasure.

For all photos, look here.

Richardson Library Shifts Into OverDrive

The Richardson Public Library is one of the gems of the city's services to residents. For about a year now, it's offered eBook lending, but didn't support the Amazon Kindle device. That wasn't the RPL's fault. Amazon has been slow to open the Kindle up for such services. OverDrive, the service the RPL uses to manage eBook downloads, offered support for the Barnes & Noble Nook and the Sony Reader and various cell phones and the Apple iPad and PCs, but the obvious hole in their support was the missing Kindle.

This week, all that changed. OverDrive announced support for the Kindle.

After the jump, what this means for the Richardson Public Library ... and me.