The Texas Times Volume 22

Greetings All,

To kick off this year's festivities, I give you the worst thing on the entire Internet. What I don't know is whether the person who arranged this marvel will be sent straight to Hell or will be given some pre-game time in Heaven so that Handel can give him a proper dressing down. What I do know is that if you have any sense of musical propriety, this will be the worst 3:37 of your entire Season. You're welcome.

And with that, here's the rundown for 2015.

Hollis is in 7th grade and will be 13 in June. Ridiculous, I know. He bailed from the Children's Chorus of San Antonio this year but is more than making up for the time commitment with UIL scholastic type junk. He's also doing percussion in band, which I could pretty much entirely live without. He had expressed some interest in starting Latin (with eight years of Spanish Immersion under his belt, I thought that would be a Very Good Idea) but ultimately sticks and mallets won the day. He seems to be pretty good and isn't too obnoxious with it around the house, but I can only imagine how this is going to be when puberty really kicks in. Health issues are still A-OK and he was baptized a couple weeks ago as well, so those are two major scores in our book.

Hadley is a senior at Alamo Heights High School. All of her college applications are in and Baylor is the early favorite (I suspect it will be April before a final decision is made). This year has been considerably less involved for her than usual, thanks to a two screws / Frankenstein's monster ankle break at the beginning of the summer. The injury nixed her final year of club soccer (which I actually was rather happy about) but the fact that she's still only about 70% has cast more than a bit of a pall on the pending school season ... and nobody is happy about that. On the upside, she has learned a variety of useful grown-up things this year, including the distinction between corn syrup and corn oil. To clarify, only one of those is suitable for dessert recipes.

Hunter has survived three semesters in college, although rumor has it that fall 2015 may leave a few tooth marks. He's still a bit rudderless in terms of potential majors, with the top two contenders currently being Music Composition and I Have No Idea (Trinity's most popular field of study, by far). He doesn't always appreciate my skepticism regarding the general tractability of the former option, as he doesn't share my view that the lack of prior training in music theory or instrumentation is likely to be a considerable obstacle to succeeding as a composer. Although he claims that I am "crushing his dreams," I maintain that gerund choice is critical and that I am merely vetting them. But we'll see how it all plays out. He is having a good time at Trinity, learning to handle his business, and developing strong ideas about things he is NOT interested in, and obviously that is an important part of the process. I am also pleased to report that his wizardry skills are progressing quite nicely, as evidenced by a recent performance atop central New Mexico's Lookout Mountain (elevation 11,580).

Reagan graduated from Trinity in May with degrees in Religion and Creative Writing. Despite the runaway freight train demand for graduates in these areas, Reagan decided to shun the quick path to riches and, instead, enrolled in a coding bootcamp that ostensibly will transform him into an entry-level software engineer. He is doing pretty well and seems to be enjoying the idea of life as a programmer. If I'm remembering correctly, the bootcamp will end at some point in January and hopefully he will be gainfully employed shortly thereafter (note to those of you in the industry: I most assuredly am not too proud to beg). He has handled the transition to semi-adulthood well, with a jolly good attitude and no substantive complaining about having to wake up 5-6 hours earlier than he would prefer. He even has a more-or-less real haircut.

Us - Paige and I spent a week and a half in Prague and Vienna this summer to celebrate our 25th anniversary and her then-new appointment as Dean of the School of Business. For details on our trip, feel free to check out my two summary blog entries from July. You may (or may not) also want to peruse the entries from May and June, as they cover the week I spent in Istanbul. Where work is concerned, we just started our fourth year at Trinity and the university still seems rather hesitant (to put it charitably) about its commitment to Business. About one day out of every three months I can almost begin to force myself to consider thinking about what it would take for me to be willing to ponder the idea of perhaps being cautiously optimistic. The Accounting department is strong and there is ridiculous potential for most of the other areas within the School. We just hope that at some point we are allowed to take the steps that are necessary to begin fulfilling that potential.

Random Stuff

Progress - During 2015, I made significant progress in my push toward crotchety old man-hood (beyond stiff joints and hair loss, which I could do without). At least 80% of my listening hours currently involve '40s Junction (Channel 73 on Sirius XM) or Britain's 1940s Radio Network. The latter is particularly recommended, as it features wartime speeches, RAF and other interviews, and old radio shows, along with consistently outstanding music. I also recently discovered that the New York Times website has an archive section with full scans of old newspapers. I now begin every morning with news from the appropriate day in 1945. You may not believe it, but I have yet to discover a single reference to micro-aggression. Woody Allen's "Midnight In Paris" notwithstanding, if I had a time machine ...

Museums - I had to go to DC and Chicago twice this year. On my second trip to each place, I took a couple of spare afternoon hours and went to museums that I had never visited. The Holocaust Memorial Museum in DC may be the best museum experience I've ever had. Vivid. Powerful. Highly, highly recommended. In Chicago, the Art Institute is absolutely fabulous. It's not overwhelming, as a few of its European counterparts can be, and there is a terrific mix of exhibits. They even have the good judgment to put the contemporary art on the top floor, safely distant from the actual art. I swear if I were a billionaire I would sponsor a cutting edge contemporary exhibit at a major gallery on the condition that it be called "The Emperor's New Clothes."

Readings - I have one major recommendation in terms of "new" reading, and that is the City Journal (most appropriate for those with a conservative bent). In the past year or so, this publication has produced a number of outstanding pieces, three of which involve a letter of advice to the writer's college-aged son, a defense of the Western canon in the face of 21st century academic insanity, and this very balanced piece related to America's political exhaustion. Apart from that, I've spent most of the year rediscovering Milton, Wordsworth, and the Psalms. I've also recently begun working through the writings of Max Weber and Adam Smith along with a terrific new book by Jacob Soll, because I'm developing a new interdisciplinary course for next fall titled "Capitalism, Accounting, and Accountability." It's a lot sexier than it sounds (I know, it would have to be), and my colleagues in the Humanities here are pretty stoked about it. It will require a mind-numbing amount of work, but at least for now I'm looking forward to it.

In closing (and to compensate you for the opening video), I offer the following terrific, six-minute mini-documentary featuring Kate Rusby -- my favorite artist of all time and space -- talking about northern England's folk / Christmas / singing carols in pubs tradition. She even sings a tune at the end. Again, you're welcome.

I will now leave you to your merrymaking.

We wish you a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy New Year, and whatever else you're celebrating as 2015 transitions to 2016. Come see us if you get the chance.

God Bless,
Mike, Paige, and The Gang