Category Archives: Mr. Boy

Jenna Plumley

Posted on March 20, 2010 | Comments Off on Jenna Plumley

I haven’t paid much attention to basketball since high school (back in the Dark Ages of the 1950s) but I’m coming around now that Mr. B. plays it and much better than he played baseball in Little League.

So Ms. Plumley, a 5′ 2″ point guard for Lamar University’s women’s team caught my eye. Mainly for her diminutive size, but also her Southland Conference record for 3-pointers and player of their year.

She’s led her Beaumont school to the NCAA women’s tournament where they play West Virginia right here in Austin Tuesday Sunday night at 8:30 pm. It’ll be on ESPN2. Worth a look, I’m sure, especially for such a pint-sized point guard. I’ll be watching.

UPDATE:  Somehow I misread the schedule. The game was played Sunday night, I missed it, and WVA won. Plumley, despite three treys, had seven turnovers. Ouch.

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Posted in Mr. Boy, Texana

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Do you really need a college degree?

Posted on March 14, 2010 | Comments Off on Do you really need a college degree?

When I was young, the answer was unambiguously yes. And, indeed, in terms of future employment, as recorded here, with one you have been much more likely to be employed and remain so since 1992. Leaving aside how long it took you to recoup the money spent on getting one in the first place.

Now, ideally, education teaches you how to think. But if you haven’t picked that process up in twelve years, you’re not likely to do it in four more. Or five more, as is the average nowadays.

Why shouldn’t we, instead, I said the other day to Mrs. C., encourage Mr. B. to become, say, an electrician. Every time we’ve tried to get an electrician to come fix something, it’s been hard, they’re all so busy. Most people (including me, to a certain extent) are afraid of electricity and so will hire even the relatively simple installation of a ceiling fan, rather than try it themselves. So why not do it Ace’s way:

“…if a kid a started an electrician’s apprentice program at 18, he could get his full Electrician’s license within 5 years. And if his parents had saved even half the money that would have gone for tuition, they would have enough to bankroll the kid setting up his own electrical business. For a lot of kids that’s a much better start to life than getting a bachelors degree in sociology or art history and wondering what now.”

No kidding.

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Posted in Mr. Boy, Mrs. Charm, Rancho Roly Poly, Scribbles

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Ready for Comfort

Posted on March 11, 2010 | Comments Off on Ready for Comfort

Let’s see, I plan to make stuffed salmon tonight for me, Mrs. Charm and her mother, who is descending from Fort Worth this afternoon to stay with Mr. Boy for the weekend. This being Thursday, he gets his favorite macaroni and cheese. For grandma I still have to change the bedsheets and tidy up the guest room. Mrs. C. and I are off tomorrow afternoon to Comfort in the Hills.

I’ve done several Google searches but failed to find the origin of Comfort, Texas’ name. Onetime Angora (goat) Capital of The World? Check. Home of Jimmy Doolittle’s co-pilot in the 1942 Tokyo Raid? Check. Has obligatory Hollywood actor resident? Check. Founded in 1852 as a cooperative by German Freethinkers who opposed formal government and religion? Check, check, check. But only one snide remark that the name must have referred to fancy houses and whiskey. Well, maybe. It was a stage stop.

It looks like the weather will be nice. Highs in the 70s, lows in the 40s.

UPDATE:  Got home late Sunday afternoon. Not even the locals know how Comfort got its name, unless it’s a description of the easy livin’ on the banks of Cypress Creek. The town has grown a lot since we were last there in ’92. But many shops have closed and their buildings are for sale or rent. The economy, I suppose, unless it was too much optimism on the locals’ part. Plenty of B&B’s, though. Ours, the Meyer, was full Friday and Saturday. More later, with a picture or two.

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Posted in Mr. Boy, Mrs. Charm, Rancho Roly Poly, Texana, Weather/Climate

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Poker instead of recess

Posted on March 9, 2010 | Comments Off on Poker instead of recess

Scott will like this one. PC rules the public school day in most ways, except here recently when a rainy morning canceled recess for Mr. B.’s class. Instead, they played games at their tables and one friend taught him and another kid how to play poker.

Texas Holdem, to be exact. He said the teacher thought it was amusing. The three boys used plastic cubes as chips, which they designated as dollars. Mr. B. lost most of his. Said he had only one good hand: an ace-high straight.

Reminds me of an old joke:

“‘Daddy, daddy, why can’t I play outside like other kids?’

‘Shut up and deal.'”

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Posted in Mr. Boy, Scribbles, Texana

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The deadly finger gun

Posted on March 8, 2010 | Comments Off on The deadly finger gun

Now you don’t even need a real gun to get suspended from school. A finger gun is enough. And to think I actually taught Mr. B. how to make one. Sigh.

(Note that out of the more than one hundred comments under the article at the first link, many side with the school’s policy. Sheeple.)

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Posted in Mr. Boy

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A! Elbereth Gilthoniel!

Posted on March 5, 2010 | Comments Off on A! Elbereth Gilthoniel!

So we stood on the quay with Sam and Merry and Pippen and watched Frodo and Bilbo sail away with Gandalf, Elrond and Galadriel, at the end of The Return of the King. For my son’s second time and my thirteenth or fourteenth.

And when I reached the last sentence and the trilogy we’d been using for bedtime stories for most of his seventh year was over, Mr. B. said he wanted to start all over again with The Hobbit. I said I needed a break of a day or two. Much as I love Tolkien’s melodic prose, particularly his descriptions of the landscape in the turn of the seasons, reading him aloud takes some work.

But there’s a definite payoff. I finally got the names down to where I could pronounce them as J. R. R. intended. And it’s undeniable that Mr. B.  got a certain far-away dreamy look listening to these adventures that he didn’t even with Narnia and Treasure Island. Then there is the reward of his admission, a few days ago, that despite enjoying the LoTR movies, which he had watched over and over again, he’d decided that he really preferred the books.

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Posted in Library, Mr. Boy, Rancho Roly Poly, Scribbles

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Hill Country B&Bs

Posted on February 27, 2010 | Comments Off on Hill Country B&Bs

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Of all the B&B’s in the Hill Country, Gasthaus Meyer is the only one I’m aware of that began as a stagecoach stop more than a hundred years ago. Today it’s a collection of buildings, most old, but a few new, backed up to Cypress Creek in the historic little town of Comfort. Mrs. Charm and I will be spending some time there in mid-March, leaving Mr. B. at the rancho with his grandma down from Fort Worth. Something we used to do every spring before he was born. Just in time for the wildflowers, we hope.

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Posted in Mr. Boy, Mrs. Charm, Rancho Roly Poly, Texana

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