The JackB

"When you're in jail, a good friend will be trying to bail you out. A best friend will be in the cell next to you saying, 'Damn, that was fun'." Groucho Marx

Jack Steiner

Winter In Texas

by

Been a crazy time in which we got one of those twenty-year storms here in Texas in which the temperature plummeted and the snow fell in large amounts.

It wasn’t the kind of snowfall that would make Northerners notice or most midwesterners cry but only if it fell in their cities.

Because it was bad here…very bad.

The cities aren’t prepared to deal with snow and the bad drivers are made worse in times of ice and slick roads.

We can blame the state government for bad policies and probably put some blame upon city and local authorities too, but the bulk falls with Austin.

Damn near had to go rescue the Shmata Queen and others because of power and or water issues.

It wasn’t just that it was in the teens outside, but that it was exceptionally cold inside homes that had no heat.

Homes that were wrecked or severely damaged by water from broken pipes.

Who knows if it turns into a $500 million or $2 billion in insurance claim nightmare.

It was bad and it didn’t have to be.

Been A While

by

It has been a while since I read this post and others I wrote for The Red Dress Club.

Read this one, this one and this one too.

Didn’t go through them all, though I ought to if for no other reason than to clean up some of the coding issues that add some weird characters here and there.

Many of those posts got a ridiculous number of comments and more than a few questions about whether they were based on reality or spilled out of my head.

I don’t think I ever gave someone a straight answer for no reason other than I didn’t want to or so I seem to remember.

Truth is ten years later I can’t remember who I used to be and I can’t forget either.

There were some pretty good moments there and some very rough ones. If I drop myself into it I can pull it back into focus and I am not sure I need to.

I am sure I will get there at some point, but I don’t have it in me to revisit and relitigate what I can’t change.

And the hard truth is at this moment that is what I’ll want to do. I’ll look back and wonder why I did XYZ and not ZYX and there is no benefit in that.

It is done.

So I’ll check it out when I am not inclined to try to figure out why that younger version of me wasn’t as smart as I am now.

Our Word Is Maecenatism

by

Our word is maecenatism and I am told it means patronage.

Told June a while back that we could talk about patronizing a number of joints together but only when it is safe.

Rumor has it that might happen later this year or perhaps the next. Rumor has it one day we’ll return to living what we call a normal life and we’ll be able to do what we once did without the concerns of the present.

So I told her to hang on and said if she did I could show her a good time out in public in places and spaces we’d enjoy spending time in.

Said sometimes you have to join hands and take a leap of faith because life is short and tomorrow is never guaranteed.

It is a hard truth and sometimes a rough thought to acknowledge. Hard to accept some choices lead to places we didn’t like and hard to shift to see if a different direction might provide something better.

Inertia pushes us to stick with what we know, but sometimes the best thing you can do is jump overboard and start swimming because you can’t know if the ship will survive the coming storm.

So you take a chance and swim for shore because you know you can get that far and if you do there will be other opportunities.

Opportunities you might be disappointed to miss.

So sometimes you listen to the voices you hear in the silence and take comfort in knowing you hear consent within.

Fixing The Broken

by

Thought of this song because I used it while fixing the broken posts of a blog that deserves better than it gets.

Happened to stumble across this post while searching for something else and that lead me to the song and to fixing the mistakes of broken code.

Ten years later and we’re closer together in some ways and further apart in others.

Got some very serious thoughts and ideas about what might come and what might not.

Got ideas about what I ought to do and what I must do bookended by hope, dreams and thoughts of maybe this is it.

Maybe this is the time that leads to next.

Makes me smile, makes me grind my teeth. Makes me hope, makes me despair.

Never know what the tide will bring unless you go to the shore to see it now do you.

Guess I am beach bound.

Your Neighbors Are Bad People

by

It takes five minutes of conversation to hear the tale of the neighbors who say they believe in a popular conspiracy theory about a patriot known by a single letter.

Five minutes to hear they believe satanists have taken over and are eating and or abusing people.

Five minutes to learn they are prepared to use weapons to fight this scourge and to fight for a way of life that never existed outside of books and movies.

“What do you think?”

“Your neighbors are bad people. Your neighbors are no different from Germans or Poles who turned the Jew next door into the Nazis and celebrated by stealing their possessions.”

“That’s an extreme position.”

“Maybe, but so is belief in a conspiracy theory that is so strong you are willing to take up arms. Be careful with the true believers because they’ll kill you first and ask questions later, assuming they ever think to ask.”

A Reasonable Motto

Found the photo above online in a few different places and captured it. Showed it off to SQ and said “it is a reasonable motto” but got no reply.

Shrugged my shoulders and remembered silence is acceptance or so they say, whoever they is or are.

Would rather debate this sort of nonsense than spend chunks of time thinking or wondering about whether the current chaos can be overcome and or managed.

Suppose it’s time for faith and hope and a willingness to buckle in and buckle down because this ride might get rough.

But rough doesn’t mean impossible or suggest it cannot be overcome so here goes nothing or something.

The Broken Blog

by

Don’t quote me but I think this blog has been self hosted for 10 years now or will be in a few months.

But don’t go looking for a big anniversary party because technically the posts here extend back to May 2004 which means it is a high school junior.

Or maybe I ought to say it is similar to a junior in that it doesn’t laugh at the same silly tricks that used to work upon it once a time.

There is more truth in that than I want to admit and plenty in saying there are lots of issues here that make me crazy.

The detritus of multiple themes, broken plugins and decades of blogging has left their mark upon it and now there are strange characters and broken links all over.

In theory there might be a simple fix I can use to correct all of the additional characters and garbage that occupy posts but I don’t know what it is.

Nor have I put much time in trying to figure that out. Instead I show up and try to make adjustments, fixes and changes on the fly.

It is better, but not perfect and so the blog stays somewhat broken.

Drunk, As Drunk Can Be

And so we find ourselves more focused on trying to provide solid content than upon the clothes which the content wears.

Somewhere I can hear the groans and exhortation of an old graphic design teacher to focus on the looks so that the reader will find it easy to focus upon the words.

Not a bad suggestion, but I am short on time and lacking the energy/interest I once had.

Or more accurately, it is hard to maintain multiple blogs so one gets most of the attention and the others get some attention.

It is the sad truth but it doesn’t provide the full story.

It doesn’t mean this place is dead or that I won’t go through spots and moments in which it is my primary focus.

This is a reflection of now and now may not be reflective of tomorrow.

Ask the Shmata Queen, she’ll tell you many things, not the least of which is she is crazy about me and still my number one fan, at least when it comes to writing.

More to come, posts and changes, but not today. Stay tuned and keep close.