bshirley

TASP test

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Some people know that I’m applying to HISD‘s ACP program. I haven’t told many people, not wanting to jinx my application, having been unemployed for over two years and applying to many, many, many jobs. Everyone I’ve talked to has said I should get accepted automatically, but you never know.

Two monday’s ago I went in to give them the application, but I had not done my TASP tests (I read that portion of the application procedure and promptly filed it under “forget”), and I had failed to get my transcript from HCC for 3 hours of English I took in 1985. If I had not used it on my University of Texas degree, and thus it was on my UT transcript, they wouldn’t have known about it.

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Take me out to the ballgame

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Astros vs. Rockies

Ok, I can take myself to the ball game. And did yesterday. On my bike. It was a great day and an afternoon game between the Astros and the Rockies with the roof open. My secondary reason for going was it was magnetic schedule day, and I had to have a magnet (or many).
The ride there is a straight shot down Washington (has a passable bike lane) veers onto Preston (only mildly trafficked, easy to manage) downtown. It’s a little longer but smoother to take Heights Blvd to Washington, but I took Sawyer. It goes through an industrial area and is in very had shape. Not very bike friendly, but with fresh legs i don’t mind it. I tied up to a small city bike rack across Texas Ave from the ball park, and bought my ticket to the cheap seats in sec 432. Someone offered me a ticket in the “dugout” seats (1st – 3rd, lower section), but I sit there all the time, and could sneak a seat there if I wanted to. I wanted to sit up high.

ticket $5

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Book Club

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It’s like Fight Club, but we don’t hit each other with our fists… and a few of the participants are pregnant,… and…

For those that don’t know, I’m in a book club. It’s a very interesting and always changing hodge-podge of people, both home grown and imported. I’ve been involved off-and-on for two, three years; I don’t know, I’m not keeping score.

We meet about every 5 weeks. We all propose and then vote on what book will be next. Last month it was The Beak of the Finch by Jonathan Weiner. This coming month we’ve voted on The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell

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REM Song – Bandwagon

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This song was wafting in and out of my head several weeks ago. I really need to dial it up on the CD player and get it out of my system. I think it’s particularly apropos (oh no, did I use a French word? The horror.), but I’ll leave my personal feeling of its interpretation … Read more

Scorecard for the War

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This opinion piece was published in the Houston Chronicle on Wednesday. It is by Thomas L. Friedman, a three-time Pulitzer Prize winner, working for The New York Times. He has been working on a documentary entitled “Searching for the Roots of 9/11” for The New York Times and the Discovery Channel. It will be broadcast April 1 on the Discovery Times Channel at 8, Eastern time.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/26/opinion/26FRIE.html

Scorecard for the War

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

I was in a restaurant at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport on Sunday, and it had an NCAA basketball game playing on the TV at one end of the bar and the Iraq war on the other. Most people were watching the basketball game — probably because it’s so much easier to keep score. How will we know if we are winning in Iraq? Here are six things I am watching for:

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SXSW Thu Night

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SXSW day 2.

4p

We missed a band last night called Dressy Bessy, they seemed good, so we went to check them out at Waterloo Records in-store. It was decent, but something missing. Very cute red-haired chick singer, gigantic guitar player. Perhaps because they didn’t have much room in the record store, but they didn’t seem to have much excitement.

Michelle and I stepped next door for some lunch. I had the chicken fried stake, and I have to say it was the worst chicken friend steak i’ve had in i-can’t-remember-how-long. There’s musicians coming from all over the world to the music store, I sure hope they’re not eating there and judging it.

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