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Samson's Wig

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  1. A hearse for space robots from 1960s television.
  2. Ah, Seagraves. I dated a gal from there for a stretch. She moved to Sundown, and for some reason, that ended things. She probably found a better-looking fella with a nice truck or something. My dad's family moved from the Goldthwaite area to Brownfield when my grandma was pregnant with him, and the poor guy was born in Hobbs, NM, when they went there for a visit for some unknown reason. Mom's side is cotton farmers from the south end of Wolfforth. Both folks went to Tech, and I did as well for undergrad. Still tons of family growing cotton and raising cattle scattered amongst the communities in that triangle of Lubbock, Big Spring, and Midland/Odessa.
  3. You're absolutely right. I'm not sure how pedestrians didn't work their way into my thought process there, especially as I'm one of them on my daily 3-5 miles.
  4. It was indeed Cooper, back when it was a backwater. It's incredible how much has changed. My mom taught at Andrews for a few years, driving down from Lubbock every day. That would have been the early seventies if my memory is sound. She ended up at Lubbock-Cooper, so I did too.
  5. It sucks, and the only way it will change is the same way it changed back in the '90s. SCOTUS will have to force the state's hand. There is a zero percent chance the fundagelical voter base in the suburbs will tolerate their politicians taking a single thing away from them, as they are content letting inner city kids wallow in rat infested schools getting a crappy education as somehow, in their minds, they deserve it. The vast majority have no clue how their happy little suburban districts were built on the backs of Austin taxpayers and at the expense of inner city kids, and will argue over it even when presented with facts. As for the PB and West Texas in general, I went to a very poor rural school (no oil) that was in a district with places like Seminole (the heart of the current measles outbreak). They had their own indoor pool, a golf course, modern beautiful buildings, state of the art theater, etc. All paid for with oil and all in the middle nowhere. Any time we went there for athletic or academic competitions we always felt like the Clampetts visiting Beverly Hills. And it was always a long two hour busride back after getting our butts kicked in whatever competition we were there for. Thanks to recapture, my dinky little school has quadrupled in size and is now drowning in money. As we do with everything in this country, we overcorrected, and it's really difficult to find an equilibrium after that. We're just going to overcorrect again with vouchers, but I have to admit I'm intrigued to watch suburbanites finally wake up to what's going on in public education when their schools start losing tons of kids to all of the pop-up Jesus schools that are about to appear.
  6. True, but they're still handy on a motorcycle. Not for backing up, but for keeping an eye on the asshole in the cage coming up behind you at intersections while staring at their phone. I've managed to dodge an idiot teenager and an idiot soccer mom in a vehicle too big for her husband to handle, thanks to the rear camera I installed. They're also handy for providing evidence that the accident was, indeed, caused by the person on four wheels who wasn't paying attention and not the guy on two wheels who has to pay attention very closely if he doesn't want to die. They also provide blind spot detection, although I don't find that as useful as my neck still works. A few more years on me and that might become a feature I enjoy more. One huge negative of the EV market is how dangerous they are for motorcyclists and bicyclists. They encourage people to not to pay attention when driving (at least the idiots who believe their car is "self driving", which seems to be a ton of them). Clueless drivers is already a major problem thanks to smart phones, but EVs have added to the problem considerably. They weigh a metric shit-ton, so collisions are much worse compared to ICE vehicles of a similar class. The number one brand killer of motorcyclists is, you guessed it, Tesla. I'm not arguing against EVs, but this is a major negative that doesn't get discussed much as most people don't give two shits about motorcyclists (or bicyclists for that matter). I didn't see the weight numbers for the Slate, but for something that looks like a Lego toy it will weigh as much as a full size Chevy Silverado, if not more, but with better acceleration, handling, etc., that lead clueless drivers to drive them recklessly. All you have to do is watch the average Tesla driver try to navigate a moderately windy road (or even a straight one a lot of the time), to know they have very little control over their vehicle.
  7. There aren't many places (any?) in Austin where you can get to the airport in an Uber for ~$25. And that's before a tip. Factor in where people are more likely to live who travel for work, which is most often not anywhere near the airport, and you can easily double that number. For those early morning work flights, we typically use Blacklane or another private car service, as Uber/Lyft are unreliable in the early A.M.
  8. This type of forward thinking you two are bringing to the table is exactly what will never happen in a system controlled by people desperate to just hang onto their overpaid jobs long enough to land the next one. I love the ideas, though.
  9. Just wanted to add that the Mendez B you referenced was achieved after they were taken over by a charter school, the same one that could take over Dobie, Burnet, and Webb and turn them around, but instead AISD is going to force those kids to spend two ours a day on a bus and cram them into A/B schools, thereby bringing down the quality of education at those places. We're not racing to the bottom. We're there already. What we're experiencing now are the final swirls before this district is completely flushed.
  10. Obnviously, he was being facetious, but is that so different from the current setup where more than half of it is used to fund suburban districts' basic needs so they can afford 8M football stadiums, and thereby secure the republican votes in those communities, or even more on point for republican pork projects that have nothing to do with education at all?
  11. No hate coming from me about the vehicle, I think it's a cool idea. I just don't think it's a viable product in this market. I've driven similar vehicles in the past (small trucks), and I'm somewhat familiar with the market for small and midsize trucks, including those of the EV variety, as I currently drive one and pay attention to the market. The positive use case for this type of vehicle serves a very narrow demographic, and that demographic has other factors, such as access to parking and charging, that make it even less plausible for this vehicle to sell well in the United States. Range phobia has held back EV sales in all categories for years, but a basic truck with no paint and no other amenities is going to crack that code? This looks more like a standard-issue private equity bullshit play than a viable product to me.
  12. Like most teenagers, I was indeed a manlet in high school. I also drove a single-cab S10 pickup complete with it's all mighty 2.8 liter and an entire 110 horses under the hood. So to answer your question, BOTH.
  13. A/C off, absolutely no passengers beyond the 150-pound manlet in the driver's seat, and absolutely zero cargo. Electric ranges are inflated by every manufacturer, just like mpg for ICE vehicles. This thing could work well for someone who doesn't venture beyond a ten to fifteen-mile radius of their house, which is a lot of urban dwellers. They still have to park it and charge it though, and that will eliminate a lot of that exact demographic.
  14. I like the concept, but a two-seater makes it extremely flawed and almost impossible to succeed. You're immediately eliminating most buyers. I'm the guy who dreams of ditching his smartphone the second he retires, and I'm not a fan of all the modern tech in most vehicles. I'm still struggling to believe this will sell well enough in the U.S. to make it worth the tax-funded squeeze. Even the old Pups, Luvs, etc., that this will be most similar to for older American consumers, had a radio in them and a paint job. They were also quite sturdy for what they were. This thing looks like it would fall apart if you loaded it up with fertilizer bags, not to mention your range would drop down to about twenty miles.
  15. I'd prefer that it stay a secret, as my kids are on track for McCallum, thank you very much. Although, admittedly, recent events have led to discussing other options, that's for sure. I'm having a tough time seeing any scenario where TEA isn't running AISD within the next 3-4 years, if not sooner.
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