Category Archives: Texana

Scott Chaffin, R.I.P.

Posted on February 7, 2014 | 5 comments

Scott&friends

His cancer-stricken build didn’t fit The Fat Guy image of his longtime blog. As you can see, he wasn’t fat from side to side or front to back.

He’s the third friend I’ve lost to cancer in recent years and another is dying at the moment. Scott was a self-employed wrangler of digital bovines and my good IT guy, who was dubbed an Internet Angel by one of those deceased friends whose blog Scott also kept in good repair.

Not long ago, Scott helped me rescue the Scribbler from Yahoo and move it here to WordPress. I’ll miss him.

He was an inveterate Texas Rangers fan, even when they didn’t deserve it. So I hope he’s settling in to a box seat behind home plate at the baseball diamond in the sky where it’s always spring and the first pitch of a new season is in the windup and about to be thrown.

UPDATE:  Another memorial, with a pix from SC’s happier times. And one more, a fine one with some appropriate bluegrass, from Andy at MyOldRV.

MORE:  Andy’s bluegrass fits him, but it was high-energy blues that suited him, here.

5 Comments

Posted in Blogosphere, Science/Engineering, Texana

Tagged ,

Prayers requested

Posted on February 7, 2014 | 1 comment

Scott Chaffin, my incomparable IT guy who has sheparded me through many a software update with a minimum of irritation at my ignorance, has been struggling with late stage lung cancer for more than two years.

His last post on his The Fat Guy blog early Wednesday was part of his commitment to keep a public diary of the effort. It came shortly after another series of radiation treatments at M.D. Anderson in Houston:

“Beaten, damn near broken. They assure me that it will get better. Don’t expect much out of me for a few days, though.”

Scott seems to be hospitalized near family in Northeast Texas, according to Tom Galli, a lung cancer survivor who’s been advising him on treatments for a while now. Tom says in a comment on Scott’s blog that he is in ICU on a ventilator after a failed operation to remove an obstruction on his esophagus.

Prayers for Scott’s recovery would be good. Or at least an easy passage onward.

UPDATE:  “Scott passed at midnight. He was sleeping comfortably and with his family,” according to blog friend Otis. A memorial service is planned for Sunday, the 16th.

The Texas Rangers have lost their most loyal fan. And we have lost a friend.

1 Comment

Posted in Blogosphere, Science/Engineering, Texana

Tagged , , ,

Battleship Texas Centennial

Posted on February 6, 2014 | 2 comments

On March 12, the Battleship Texas will be a hundred years from her commissioning date in 1914. The state parks department is planning a musical tribute to her three days later from noon to 10 p.m. at her mooring off the Houston Ship Channel near the San Jacinto Battleground.

One month later, the Texas will begin at least $17.5 million in repairs, mainly to her corroded hull, which has sprung so many leaks that the last of the old Dreadnoughts can’t be moved to dry dock as she was back in 1988, the last time extensive hull repairs were made.

That was the last time I ventured through her cramped corridors, onto her bridge and down ladders to her old radar room amidships, the whole smelling of age and the brackish water that surrounds her. The foundation that runs the ancient weapon as a tourist attraction hopes to raise a lot more money for more extensive repairs, but the awful Democrat economy isn’t the best time for it.

2 Comments

Posted in Blogosphere, Guns, Science/Engineering, Texana, The Economy

Tagged ,

NJ Gov. Christie: End the Drug War

Posted on January 31, 2014 | Comments Off on NJ Gov. Christie: End the Drug War

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie says he wants to end the war on drugs, while other GOP presidential hopefuls Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Texas Gov. Rick Perry want to stop federal enforcement of marijuana laws and let the states decide what to do about it.

Just reducing the penalties for possession in Texas would be a good start and Perry seems to favor that. Politicians know vote getters when they see them, so that’s a hopeful sign. The drug war, after all, is largely a war on marijuana and most of the people busted, jailed, convicted and imprisoned got there for marijuana use.

I doubt we’d ever see marijuana legalized for adult use in Texas, as it has been in Washington and Colorado, but then I didn’t expect it to happen there. Or anywhere, really.

Would Christie really end the failed drug war, which mainly hits minorities and the poor (and is increasing militarization of the police) if he was elected president? Hard to say. Pols lie so often. But just saying he wants to do it is a big deal. He obviously sees it as a viable issue, or he wouldn’t stick his neck out. The times they do seem to be changing.

UPDATE:  Of course it doesn’t help that Holder’s “justice” department is investigating Christie’s administration. Probably has more to do with CC’s presidential possibilities versus the Democrats than his opposition to the drug war. But, with Wormtongue, it’s smart to be paranoid.

MORE:  The former leader of the Choom Gang, meanwhile, indicates his “justice” department will continue to go easy on marijuana use in Washington and Colorado because “we don’t have . . . the resources to police whether somebody is smoking a joint on a corner.” Curious remark, actually. They sure do have the resources (i.e. local law enforcement) in states where it remains illegal, as they have proved many times.

Comments Off on NJ Gov. Christie: End the Drug War

Posted in Obsessions, Texana, The Culture, The Drug War

Tagged , , ,

Ham Jam House Concert

Posted on January 29, 2014 | Comments Off on Ham Jam House Concert

APQHouseConcert14

APQ Tango’s first set in Daren Appelt’s living room in northwest Austin. House concerts are popular across the country. Daren’s, just around the corner from the rancho, have become an Austin institution in just four years.

Comments Off on Ham Jam House Concert

Posted in Music, Rancho Roly Poly, Texana

Tagged ,

Austin Piazzolla Quintet

Posted on January 26, 2014 | 2 comments

Enjoyed two forty-five minute sets of our favorite tango/jazz band, APQ Tango, the other night at a Ham Jam House Concert which was just around the corner from the rancho.

These concerts have been an Austin institution since 2010, featuring acoustic acts across the musical spectrum. The audience is limited to about fifty people, asked for a donation of about $10 each and bring their own food and drink.

The intimate atmosphere in Daren Appelt’s beautiful hilltop home—with views from the second-floor balcony of downtown’s faraway lights—adds a lot to the appeal, and the acts are top-notch. My fine violin teacher James Anderson brings the fiddle fireworks to APQ.

2 Comments

Posted in Fiddle Stuff, Music, Rancho Roly Poly, Texana

Tagged , ,

Go get ’em, Ted

Posted on January 24, 2014 | 1 comment

Our own Sen. Cruz calls on Attorney General Holder to appoint a special prosecutor to probe the IRS scandal, since neither Holder’s office nor the FBI has bothered to interview any of the victims. Forty-one of them.

Although Holder has no problem going after conservatives D’Souza and McDonnell.

Ted, who wants to abolish the IRS altogether and make paying taxes as easy as filling in a postcard and mailing it in with a check, has had more than enough of the “justice” department’s stonewalling of Congress.

1 Comment

Posted in Obamalot, Texana

Tagged ,