The Texas Times, Volume 30

As the title notes, this year marks the 30th annual installment of the Texas Times. Crazy. I started putting these things together the year that Reagan was born, which means that he turned 30 this year (see how good I am at math?) ... which of course further means that Paige and I are closing in on 45. Time flies.

Kids

Reagan and Hunter are still doing their bachelor-brothers-sharing-a-house-but-living-totally-separate-lives thing in Austin. Reagan's company has been pounded by higher interest rates and he is looking for new and better software engineering opportunities. Meanwhile, Hunter continues to enjoy his work as a back-end developer at Televet. They hosted the family's Thanksgiving celebration this year, and it was great to be able to hang out with everybody for a few days.

Hadley is still working for Jeff Hamilton - State Farm in College Station and injuring herself in every way imaginable playing rec sports (including dislocating her shoulder while swinging a bat). We helped her move into a new apartment ... on the third floor ... in July ... so that was as much fun as it sounds. Hollis is finishing up his undergrad at A&M a year early and will continue into the final year of the PPA program (Master's degree in Accounting) next fall. No clue what he'll end up doing work-wise but he's hoping it will be something tax / consulting-oriented.

Us

Paige is halfway through her seventh year as Dean at KU. The big news is that she secured a $50 million gift for the Business School this summer - the 10th largest gift to a public School of Business ever. Dang, girl. She continues to refine her skills at administrative Whack-a-Mole and has firmly convinced me that no story involving Higher Ed should ever begin with the phrase, "You're not going to believe this, but ..." As for me, I enjoyed my time with the MAcc and PhD students and made the world a little safer through the magic and mystery of accounting research, and the Senior Editor gig at the Auditing journal hasn't been as bad as I'd feared (knock on wood). I would love it if Paige and I both could change gears entirely, but I'm not sure what that might look like. I've tried to convince her that we should become crofters in the Orkney islands, but she's skeptical about my grasp of sheep husbandry and her ability to find stores that sell 44-ounce beverages. I would quite literally clear out my desk and get on a plane tomorrow, but until I can get more buy-in I guess I'll keep the fire lit in my ivory tower (while hoping, as always, that no one climbs the spiral staircase and demands that I defend my existence).

Travel

I gave a couple of talks in the Netherlands and Greece and was supposed to do the same in Saudi Arabia last week, but that one got canceled as a result of the Palestinian terrorist activity in Gaza. Paige and I made a 10-day vacation out of the Netherlands gig, made countless runs to Texas, did a few quick trips to other places in the States (including seeing Fritz and Fiona), and we're capping off our 34th anniversary celebration with five days in Curacao right after New Year's. Should be a nice break from early winter in the Midwest. I have invitations for Belgium and Sicily for 2024, but my interest in work-related travel has nose-dived (nose-dove??) recently so we'll see how things play out.

Books

As usual, I'll bypass the considerable stack of old stuff I read this year and make my recommendations from more modern titles. My #1 recommendation is A Gentleman in Moscow, by Amor Towles (who wrote Rules of Civility, which I recommended a couple years ago). You should also consider The Shadow of the Wind (Carlos Ruiz Zaffon), Cloud Cuckoo Land (Anthony Doerr, who wrote All the Light We Cannot See), The Secret History (Donna Tartt, who wrote The Goldfinch), We Must Not Think of Ourselves (Lauren Grodstein), The Dean's Watch (Elizabeth Goudge), and On the Marble Cliffs (Ernst Junger). The last two books were published in 1960 and 1939, respectively, but that's recent enough for me to think of them as not being "old." I'll also do you the favor of suggesting that you stay Very Far Away from The Narrow Road Between Desires (Patrick Rothfuss). It took Mr. Rothfuss 10 years to put together the most recent entry in the Kingkiller Chronicles (which is an outstanding series), and his muse appears to have left for greener pastures.

Music

There's an album for many different tastes in this year's music list. No R&B, no Taylor Swift (!!!), no whiny boys trying to be the next Bon Iver, and no indie girls sitting cross-legged on their beds playing the ukulele and breathily lamenting their relationship problems ... but if you're looking for high-quality obscurity, you've come to the right place.

• Matteo Mancuso - The Journey ... Mind-bending and genre-defying rock / jazz / fusion guitar (all instrumental), somewhat reminiscent of Eric Johnson but better and plays with bare fingers like a classical guitarist. Here's a representative track.
  
  
• Mighty Poplar - Mighty Poplar ... Americana / Bluegrass goodness featuring at least two of the original players from Punch Brothers plus Andrew Marlin from Watchhouse (formerly Mandolin Orange). Here's a live performance of my favorite track from the album.
  
  
• Colter Wall - Little Songs ... Not quite as good as his previous albums but still good. Try this one.
  
  
• Christopher Tin - The Lost Birds (full set) and To Shiver the Sky (full set) ... Similar to Colter Wall being what Johnny Cash would be like if Johnny Cash were actually talented, Christopher Tin is like Eric Whitacre sans pretense.
  
  
• Dylan Leblanc - Coyote ... Singer-songwriter stuff with frequently moody and well-considered orchestration. Paige heard me listening to him a few nights ago and was like "who is that??" So that's a thumbs-up from The Boss. Try this one.
  
  
• Dirty Honey - Can't Find the Brakes ... Think early Black Crowes, sort of. Best comment is from a friend who simply said "Yeah, that does not sound like it was made in 2023." Correct. Try this one.

Video

All recommendations are from Across the Pond, as is my custom. We tried watching a much heralded U.S. show last week -- A Murder at the End of the World -- and 10 minutes in I'd found it unbearable. Wait, we actually liked Outer Range quite a bit, and that is a U.S. show (Amazon Prime original) from this year. So I stand semi-corrected. Other than that, my top recommendations are Payback; the new season of Dalgliesh; the new season of Shetland (Tosh is doing just fine as temporary DCI, thank you very much); The Thief, His Wife, and the Canoe; Neboa; The Dublin Murders; Holding; Karen Pirie; Spies of Warsaw (made in 2013 but we didn't watch it until this year); and all of the seasons of C.B. Strike. 

Food

After much deliberation, I decided this week that I would share my chili recipe. You can find it here. It has been a work-in-process for many years, but I've stopped fiddling and it's now ready to blow your mind.

Words

I have two entries in the Prohibited Words list this year. The first and most important entry is "perfect." My momentum for banning this word has been building for the last couple of years, but the following actual conversation with Coffee Shop Girl (CSG) in mid-2023 pushed me over the edge:

Me: I'd like a medium Americano, please
CSG: PurrrrFECt! (jumping about 3 whole steps between the Purrrr and the FECt)
CSG: Hot or cold?
Me:  Hot, please (rolls eyes because no man almost 45 years old drinks cold coffee)
CSG: PurrrrrrrrrrFECt! 
CSG: Cream?
Me: Nope
CSG: PurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrFECt!
CSG: That'll be $4.00
Me: [taps card ... hears beep]
CSG: PurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrFECt!

No joke. 

Next, we have "space." Universities love to refer to themselves as "spaces" ... like spaces that allow people to be their "authentic selves" (no, I don't know what that means either) or ensure that people feel like they "belong" or whatever other pandering wordplay seems proper as we continue to encourage fragility and navel-gazing among young people instead of preparing them to be productive, independent adults. Henceforth, my rules say that "space" may only be used when referring to the zone above our planet, the bar at the bottom of your computer keyboard, or politicians (as in a "waste of ...").

On the plus side of the ledger, I saw something today that referred to "phubbing," so of course I had to look that up. The Cambridge Dictionary indicates that phubbing is "the act of ignoring someone you are with and giving attention to your cell phone instead." While I've often stated that if I could eradicate one invention in the History of Mankind it would be the cell phone (shakes fist at cloud), I'll also note that those of you who are phubbing someone as you read my blog are totally good.

Whatever the case, I hope all of you have a wonderful Christmas / New Year / & Etc. Our kids have begun arriving and will be here for varying lengths of time. I am ready to embrace the chaos. 

God Bless,

Mike (& Paige)

Thessaloniki

Last week, I had the pleasure of traveling to Thessaloniki, Greece to present a paper, discuss another one, and help with the PhD Student Consortium at the bi-annual European Audit Research Network conference. I don't usually travel much during fall because that is when I teach, but I've attended this conference before (and had a good time) and I'd never been to Greece ... so ... I handed off my Tuesday PhD seminar to a couple of junior faculty and gave the MAcc students Wednesday off. Paige wasn't able to come along because there is no way she could spare 5-6 days in September, but I managed to have a good time anyway.

Travel through Chicago and Frankfurt was relatively uneventful, and I landed late Tuesday afternoon about 16 hours after leaving KC. Walked around a bit with my friend Anna from Vrije University (Amsterdam) down by the seaside and had dinner at a terrific rooftop restaurant overlooking Aristotelous Square.

On Wednesday, a buddy of Anna's who works at a university in Sweden but is a Thessaloniki native (because that is how Europe works) drove us 2 1/2 hours to Meteora, a collection of Eastern Orthodox monasteries built hundreds of years ago on top of a series of rocky outcroppings up in the mountains. It is an extremely cool place, but the dozens upon dozens of gigantic buses toting tourists around did manage to take the edge off a little bit. I definitely recommend going if you are nearby because it is a one-of-a-kind experience regardless. But if you can manage to hit it during the off-season, that would be even better.

The next morning, I spent a few hours walking a big loop from the hotel (the Mediterranean Palace, highly recommended) around some of the more interesting / historic parts of town. The first half of the loop ran up through the old Ano Poli neighborhoods past several orthodox churches, the 1st century Roman Forum, a monastery, and various sections of late Roman era walls and towers. 

As usual, though, some of the more appealing bits were just random glimpses of life in the area's many labyrinthine streets and alleys. Some of this part of town reminds me of the Albaicin neighborhoods in Granada, although Thessaloniki in general isn't as appealing to me as Granada (which was the high point of our trip to Spain in 2019).

After spending some time poking around in the neighborhoods near the old walls, I meandered back downhill toward the bay and checked out the Rotunda (sort of a poor man's Pantheon), the Arch of Galerius (Caesar), and some of the ruins of his 4th century palace. All of these things are right in the middle of town, and many of the office and apartment buildings that were constructed in the 1950s and 1960s apparently were built on ground that covers similar (perhaps less expansive???) ruins. They've been trying to build a subway system in Thessaloniki since the 1980s, but there are so many Roman era ruins underground that they've encountered almost continual delays. Some of the system is supposed to be finished in 2024 and I guess we'll see how things go from there.

The rest of my time in town was spent doing stuff with the conference, but we had a productive time there, did a lot of useful mixing and mingling, ate really good food (apparently it is impossible NOT to do that in Greece), and even had an interesting folk music and dance exhibition at the conference dinner event Saturday night. As for specific restaurants, the Elektra Palace Hotel is home to the rooftop restaurant (which was excellent), and we also really enjoyed Charoupi (Greek / Cretan fusion stuff) and Rodi Kai Meli (aka Ρόδι & Μέλι,). Our 20-ish waitress at the latter place moved (errrr ... fled) to Greece from Ukraine shortly after the war began and was one of the happiest, most endearing people I've ever met.

Overall, I wouldn't push Thessaloniki as a must-go destination, but it is an interesting city with a vibe that is very different from most of the places I've been ... probably more similar to Istanbul (minus the minarets and calls to prayer) than anywhere else. I'd very much like to go to Athens and some of the islands, and I certainly can see that happening one of these days. But only when I can get The Boss to come along.

Cheers,

Mike

Netherlands

This year's early summer trip was 10 days in the Netherlands. We had never been there and honestly it had never been super high on my list of potential destinations, but I got asked to present a paper at a university in Rotterdam and spend a day or two talking to their faculty and PhD students, so we decided to make a go of it. Now that we've been, I can definitely say that it's a worthwhile trip. Rather than giving a potentially (likely) tedious rundown of things, though, I've decided to just make a summary judgment and give a few brief recommendations to go along with a decent number of pics. 

Summary Judgment

Rotterdam is fine, Haarlem is great, Delft and Leiden are amazing, and Amsterdam is as though the entire population of Houston has been forced to live in a town the size of Lawrence, Kansas and there is a mandate that at any point in time 90% of people have to be riding bicycles with no regard for what typically would pass for traffic laws while the other 10% are randomly spreading trash on the streets.

Brief Recommendations

Haarlem is like a mini-Amsterdam with a lot more character. If you start your Dutch festivities there (it's maybe 15 miles west of the airport), you'll also have an opportunity to practice not being killed by a cyclist before tackling Amsterdam proper. Haarlem was the home of Corrie Ten Boom of The Hiding Place fame (if you grew up Protestant, you probably know who she is), and the family home is now a museum. Haarlem also has a couple of cool churches and our favorite restaurant from the entire trip -- De Lachende Lavaan, an Indonesian place with a traditional rice table format that was fabulous.

Delft definitely is one of the most charming European towns I've visited. The population supposedly is around 100,000, but it feels a lot smaller. There are at least three cathedrals within probably 1/4 mile of each other, lots of cool small streets and back alleys to go along with the obligatory canals, and the feel is just terrific. My two recommendations for Delft are that you spend as much time as possible just randomly walking around (to be fair, that is always my main recommendation) and that you steadfastly avoid Angkor Restaurant (no matter what the reviews say). Where accommodations are concerned, I don't think you can do better than Leo and Yvonne's place. It's in a perfect location, is roomy, and has a washer and dryer that actually do what they're supposed to do -- a true oddity in Europe.

Leiden is about the same size as Delft and is similarly engaging, but in a totally different way. I mean, yes it has water and lots of labyrinthine streets and alleys, but it also manages to feel very bright and modern. I can't quite put my finger on why, but we really loved it. We had lunch with a friend of mine from a university in Amsterdam who has lived in Leiden for years, and I fully understand why she made that decision. My main recommendation for Leiden is simply that you make time to GO there (about 30 minutes from Amsterdam by train). And while you're there, you definitely should visit the botanical gardens on the campus of Leiden University.

My summary judgment notwithstanding, Amsterdam does have a few redeeming qualities. The Royal Palace was a hit, but it isn't always (or even often) open to visitors. Food can be good, with Maenaam Thai and Baibua Thai knocking it out of the park, and the tiny and bustling Soup en Zo providing a terrific carryout lunch option close to the Rijksmuseum. Shopping close to the Rijksmuseum is also solid, with a number of places with antique jewelry, vintage watches and clocks, and other old stuff. I'll also recommend the Ambassade Hotel for its location, history, service, and the fact that its bar area has 5,000+ first edition books signed by authors who have stayed there. Very cool concept.

So ... overall, I give the Netherlands a solid B+. Where it feels substantially different from most of the rest of western Europe is in the area of interesting / noteworthy history. While I'm sure the Dutch check a lot of boxes in that area, they don't really sell it. That being said, the people are nice, there is some lovely scenery, and it's an easy trip to make from the US. 

As for future travel, we'll go to Texas at least once this summer (feels like we've been about 17 times in the last three months), and I have two domestic work-related trips in August. Plus I'm presenting a paper at a conference in Greece in September and am supposed to give a couple talks at another one in Saudi Arabia in December. Although work trips don't usually afford much time for blogworthy adventures and commentary, we'll see how that goes.

Cheers,

Mike