In the Loop

Test

As a friend of mine said, “25 years from now, the noise of that thing will mean you’re about to die.”

One way to deal with the current spike in gas prices is to curtail consumption. People who have to drive have to drive, and I understand that. We’re not going to conserve our way to stable gasoline prices. We need to drill more domestically, increase our refining capacity, eliminate CAFE standards and streamline the regional requirements for reformulated gasoline blends (RFG) that cause price spikes in various markets across the country.

One simple measure of relief can be put into place in the market immediately without any government involvement. Businesses that have employees who can telecommute should adopt and encourage participation in telecommuting rotations. I have done this in the past on a full-time basis; I’ve also done it while traveling. I telecommute occasionally in my present position, but our practice is ad hoc, rather than company policy. Companies can and should take the initiative to encourage employees to telecommute.

Face time is very important, but many people have supervisors or colleagues who work in different parts of the country. They meet face to face a few times a year and work virtually together the rest of the year. When gas prices spike, companies can’t adjust pay as quickly as they can allow employees to work remotely. It would be interesting to see the creative plans that could be adopted. Would you allow it based on seniority, or on how far the employees lived from the job location? Perhaps it would be based on a number of days out of every week, i.e. work three days in the office and two at home. Let’s see what the market can come up with.

I’m beginning to think Arizona has it right. They don’t play ball with the whole Daylight Savings Time game. In its wisdom, Congress passed an expansion of this whole mess and so we lose an hour this weekend and don’t get it back until 2031, or something. Since it takes me a couple of days to adjust, I’ve set my clocks ahead an hour today rather than tomorrow.

Can life get any better than this? I submit that it cannot.

I haven’t blown away my old gallery page, but I have installed some new software that should help me manage it. I haven’t done updates in awhile because it’s incredibly time-intensive to process a large number of pictures using my hand-rolled code. I think I can use this new software (called “Gallery” conveniently enough) with my existing layout and theme.

I’m also going to be publishing a new front page pretty soon. The pic up there now is almost three years old. I have less hair on top, more gray on the sides, and now I’m sporting a manly beard. Damn, I’m smooth! At any rate, a redesign is in order because I don’t use the marquee scroll at all and it’s a bit squished horizontally on larger screen resolutions.

Brooke usually has boundless energy right up until there’s no gas left in the tank. Most of the time, you have to watch her gait turn into a standardized field sobriety test before you can tell. Saturday night was a different story…

Check out the ghetto ball pool we made for Brooke.

Sam is less than two weeks old and already wants to hold his own bottle.

» read more…

On March 2, 1836 Fifty-nine delegates met at Washington-on-the-Brazos to unanimously declare that Texas is a “free, Sovereign, and independent republic”.

Read more at the Handbook of Texas Online.

Read the text of the Texas Declaration of Independence.