I have the habit of not changing the station, or the tape, or the CD, or the playlist that I listen to and I end up listening to the same album for months on end. Whether it be auto search, or song skip or whatever, I burn a song in my head until I get sick of it. As of late, I find that if I come across any of these songs, I’ll “feel” the time it was burned in my chemistry. It’s not always good. But it’s always interesting.

1982-83 Tuning the radio away from my parents’ stations

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1984 Summer-school biology, with the Oz 

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1986 Wasting time in high school

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1987 Walking the cold sidewalks to chemistry class

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1988 Driving the old Monarch, the last year it worked

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1992 So, so lost in my first apartment in Lubbock

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1995 In the fishbowl at The Victoria Advocate

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1996 Commuting after midnight at The Fort Worth Star-Telegram

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1997 Saturday mornings in the second-smallest apartment in Arlington

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1999 Between here and Houston, then on the way back

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1999-2000 Working at Donruss

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2003 Riding the TRE, talking to my girlfriend (my wife) on the phone

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2013 At the time I’m writing this post

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By which I mean, the five ways I’m avoiding getting the flu from you:

1. Get a flu shot.
2. Wash your hands.
3. Don’t touch me.
4. Get away from me!
5. Are you sick? Go home.
6. Avoid crowds.
7. I said, don’t touch me!
8. Rinse.
9. Repeat.

Yeah, I know that’s nine, but did you wash your hands?

The good news is that I resolved some time ago to work on two or three things at a time and I find I get more projects completed that way. Not a new idea by any means, but it’s something that’s working well and it’s really opening up some creative channels that were a bit corroded.

So now that the pressure’s off the resolutions, it wouldn’t hurt to jot down some ideas — a cloud of keywords — that will serve as a guide for the following weeks.

The iOS programming class I took in the fall was a fun enterprise and I was fortunate enough to have a solid team of classmates that really dove into our class project. We all learned new things, among them the fact that programming for the iPhone is not a mystery.

Early on in the class I found this inspiring nugget from TED Talks:

UPDATE Another inspiring story, I’m sure there’s more to be found:

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Had not been to the Arlington Texas Land and Cattle in a few months — not since it moved to its new location anyway. No longer will patrons have to fight over limited parking real estate with On the Border customers as the new location has plenty of space for itself and even overflow from neighboring El Fenix.

The restaurant is much bigger on the inside as well. The new building was built from scratch over the remains of either Shady Oaks BBW or Mexican Inn (I forget which) and adjacent to the Rangers’ Ballpark north parking lots.

The menu is still about the same as I remember it, although there were a couple of new items highlighted, one of them being the Maple-Ancho Glazed Pork Chop. I wasn’t sure what to expect about Maple-Glazed anything, unless we’re talking pancakes, and the addition of Ancho peppers to the mix sounded just bizarre enough to venture a try.

I ordered the lunch version of the plate — which is still 10 oz., same as the regular serving size, but a couple of dollars less expensive — along with a sweet potato as a side.

The Maple-Ancho concoction did not disappoint, delivering a sweet flavor along with the smoky tang I’ve come to expect from TL&C. The size of the serving was just about right for lunchtime, although if you’re really hungry you might want to consider getting the dinner serving or adding a salad to your lunch order. The best way to explain it on social media sites would be to say that “the plate tastes just as good as the picture looks.”

The new place is definitely larger, with dozens of HD television sets your eyes can’t escape, although whatever space was added to accommodate bar patrons in the front might have been sacrificed in the dining booths, that seem a bit tighter than their old counterparts.

There were four people in our party and our server handled the load just fine; she was very courteous and high-spirited.

Also posted on Yelp!: bit.ly/10ERA31