Letterbox: Dear Barbara R., tried to reply to your email here earlier but got a tag error. Who filed for council has been announced, but will post it.

Thanks for sending the list to that point and making it a point to tell me who were the incumbents. It really doesn't matter that much to me who the incumbents are. I will be voting for who I think is the best choice for the city given the presented options. (The support of Chris Gaines and others as candidates received quite the reaction from you and one other.) (Are you the same "Barb" from a year ago?). Here is who filed to run for city council. (There is still time for the rest of my candidates, but they would need to be write in candidates now.)

Place 1, William Gordon and Bob Townsend Place. 2, John DeMattia and Mark Solomon. Place 3, Scott Dunn and Darrell Day (update, Darrell Day decided not to run). Place 4, Laura Maczka and Karl Voigtsberger. Place 5, Dennis Stewart and Kendal Hartley. Place 6, Steve Mitchell and Joe Mounger (Mounger's petition was submitted w/o enough signatures, so he won't appear listed on the ballot and is not running). Place 7, Amir Omar, Diana Clawson, and Alan North.

O.K. Here's my pre, pre endorsements.

For the schools, ABBRC. (anybody but dude r.c.)

For the city, For Place 1, it could be Mitt but it could be someone else, I'll explore the options with you soon on all fingers, not just one. All I know is that I can't vote on one finger. It would mean more embarrassment to the city, especially to have a stacked parks and rec court on the one finger and have one finger count to four.
For Place 2, Choice of being reminded constantly on our dime that someone is selling insurance and was escorted around by Gary, finger and company during the last election or getting someone who knows how to make a delicious pizza exactly as you asked but can think for himself on the issues and tries to do what's right. That's easy. PIZZA!!!
For Place 3, Chris G.!!!!!! I never heard of the other guy until a few months ago, not that it matters.
For Place 4, Billy (at the outside I could go for the other, but she'd have to grow a soul patch, which I see no signs of)
For Place 5, Zoolander (he's the middle ground between the two other opposites running)
For Place 6, Will, because he makes me laugh so hard. It's an empty seat, so it will be an easy win.
For Place 7, I never heard of either them before like two years ago, so I don't have enough information upon which to decide who would be the worst one.

Sorry ladies, no ladies in this group as of pre pre endorsement time. I'm only totally lesb about Chris Gaines! I'm RC ish now too in that regard. LOVE like this makes one fickle. What can I say.

Except. I LOVE YOU, CHRIS GAINES!!

Networked cars, airplane cars, bio runners...

I like checking out concept cars and various modes of transportation whenever they are unveiled.

This one is called EN-V. (By GM- China and SAIC). For city driving. Electric. It is networked. Avoids collisions. Five can park where one car fits now. Reduces congestion, parking spaces. Photo credit: AP

Another one switches from being a plane (hobby license required) to a car in 30 seconds. Can fit in your garage. 115 mph for 450 miles. The 2011 model costs $194,000 (Terrafugia, Inc).

A couple of others I saw have solar and turbine features, and one motorcycle looking one, but that you sit inside, is called Volkswagen Bio Runner (which is not unveiled yet other than in image, definitely concept) has something called synthetic muscle based suspension. These look pretty wild.

Many of them are closer to conventional looking but with many interesting features like sonar, car to car communication, advanced cameras/displays, customizable interfaces...

More technologies are converging and at a quicker clip. And so is design. Have you noticed since about 2005, following the lay people drifting onto the Internet first starting in about 1994, that road and store signs and now especially way finder signs and other human interfaces are looking more "browser page like" or iconish, heading into smart phoneishness.... a car more like a smart phone than a traditional car... people are going to be driving into the shopping parking lot and trying to click on the sign to "get to" a store if they momentarily forget they are outside and not "online, for those who don't already mainly shop online. One of the design adoption challenges I've noticed is that "fonts" are a little too small in scale for the "outdoors" application (like store signs), sometimes difficult to read (no, it's not my eye sight). This is one reason why I had to chuckle when someone accused a candidate of using "big fonts." I say, bring it on. Well, at least in some places. This coupled with an aging population's needs. I also hope that digital signs grow more attractive. They have some great features, but they are very ugly in a lot of cases. Like outside of a couple of community colleges and a couple of mega churches. A few months ago I was traveling and saw one outside of a beautiful neogothic church. It didn't do anything for the setting. Pretty odd, and out glared by the daylight.

That reminds me, I have this video where Lady GaGa's "Pokerface" becomes "Nutra Face" (a supposedly newly invented font that some font designers have struggled and toiled to create).

Back to the cars, we may see more changes in "transportation separation" because tiny human transport and large goods transport (double semi trucks, for example) may struggle to share road space safely, at least initially, more even than the case now. I'm not sure technology can overcome adoption time and size differences as rapidly as some desire at first. I was reminded of this when out on the highway a bumper sticker on a semitruck that I was passing said that if you couldn't see a reflection of your car in the truck's side mirrors that meant that the driver couldn't see your car (you). It would have been a good reminder, however, the only way to have read it was to have been very very close as I was, when I was passing in the other lane right beside the truck. That might have been designed like that, but it would have been even safer to be able to read it while in back, six feet or a little more away, before you become invisible to the driver of a double trailer.

I've always had an invention in my mind that gives a message to the car tailgating in literary terms (not the Bronx cheer). Car-to-car communication could be a problem if it got personal however.

"Did you hear what your car just called my car?"

"Yeah, that's just how he is in the morning. He's not a morning car. He always complains if I take him out too early and the solar road isn't warm yet. He whines that his breakfast energy absorbtion from the solar road is freezing his battery off. And he won't even think about turbining before nine."

Wouldn't it be funny if you dressed you car up to match your outfit or a close approximation. More than we do. Like really did it. Aaleyah's car would wear a burka and Ms. Glenn's car would wear a hat, and wouldn't be her car without some dangly pretty ear rings and a pink and animal print pant suit. Ms. Glenn has a beautiful joyful aura about her. No reason why her car can't as well. Right now my phone is still wearing an Ed Hardy "jacket" that was a gift to me. The next one I'm supposed to put on it is a black and pink Hello Kitty. I'm easily controlled by midgets at times.

I think I got my numbers, places all confused in that last one. It happens when you are in LOVE!!!. I LOVE YOU, CHRIS GAINES!!!!

I'm hoping Chris Gaines will file to run. I think he would file in place three or if there is no one doing anything anymore in six, then six.

Everyone who matters has heard of him.

As in, three thirty in the morning.

Or, six o'clock in the evening. Momma doesn't know she's leaving.

Oh, it'll never happen. Only one normal person has filed to run so far that I know of. Most all the normal people won't run now.


I hope if Chris does run, he's still rocking his soul patch on his chin.

If he doesn't run, Will should run, at least in place six. Or Zoolander should run. As the last resort, maybe Mitt. Maybe (but only if he doesn't try to pretend that his health insurance plan was completely different and only if he goes back to not being a fundamentalist, like he wasn't before). And as the last, last result, Billy can run. But only in place three and only if Chris doesn't run.

I LOVE YOU CHRIS!!!! (I think he smiled at me! Did you see that! >Melt<.... <3)

I HEART YOU CHRIS!!! I DOUBLE FREAKING RAINBOW HEART YOU, CHRIS!!!! AND THAT IS ALL THAT MATTERS!!!!

Irritation irrigation. While boring, GAS leak. (Richardson, TX)

Jupiter Rd. near Belt Line Rd. Traffic backed up, lanes shut down. Detour. A GAS line was cut while digging and boring to install more water irrigation for medians / parkways.

Native drought tolerant plants need establishing but after that they shouldn't have to be watered. Use one of the water trucks at first and then avoid the expense of boring and installing for water irrigation systems and maintenance. There is a lot of costly maintenance and effectiveness issues with existing ones already across the town. If the public plantings can't sustain after the first year, they aren't the right plants and trees in the right place put in at the right time.

Lost And Found Department, Richardson Room, three Mondays ago, one pair of custom gloves, (Richardson, TX)

found by the southwest end of the eastward horseshoe, under the table, on the carpet, on the floor. We believe they belong to someone who sits around there.

Please pick them up at the L&F if they are yours. Items are only held for 30 days or until accepted for donation, before going to auction.

The updated policy is that you must fill out the description affidavit with current date and someone's signature and proof of safe transportation in order to claim an item or items and leave the premises in an orderly manner. We are not responsible for any damage or accidents.