Photo: Mayra Beltran, Houston Chronicle

On the last Friday of every month, Houston bicyclists meet at Market Square park to take part in Critical Mass, an informal bike ride that happens among different groups all over the world.

The size of the last ride was the talk of the town on Friday night, good and bad.

Abrahan Garza has been riding with CM since May 2009. He remembers there only being around 300 riders on his first ride. Friday night, he says he was one of nearly 1,500. Some estimated there to be close to 2,000.

Some have begun asking out loud if this means the event is getting too big for its own good.

More at http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Houston-biking-group-eyes-future-amid-growth-4640543.php .

Cross-posted in Bicycling Group.

Photo: Mayra Beltran, Houston Chronicle

On the last Friday of every month, Houston bicyclists meet at Market Square park to take part in Critical Mass, an informal bike ride that happens among different groups all over the world.

The size of the last ride was the talk of the town on Friday night, good and bad.

Abrahan Garza has been riding with CM since May 2009. He remembers there only being around 300 riders on his first ride. Friday night, he says he was one of nearly 1,500. Some estimated there to be close to 2,000.

Some have begun asking out loud if this means the event is getting too big for its own good.

More at http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Houston-biking-group-eyes-future-amid-growth-4640543.php .

Cross-posted in Texas Group.

Austin’s second area code, 737, goes into effect today. The 737 addition has already created a sense of “area code envy.”

Established Austinites will keep their original 512 numbers. Most newcomers will more than likely get a 737 area code. The inventory of 512 phone numbers is set to run out in 2014. The Public Utility Commission says that Austin shouldn’t need another area code until 2047.

512 is now a symbol of where you sit in Central Texas’ social strata. Are you a local or a transplant? The 737 types will be easy to spot.

What longtime Austinite would want a phone number with an area code that reads like the model of a passenger jet anyway?



Source: http://digitaltexan.net/2013/austin-local-news/austin-512-737-area-code/article55160/

[font color=green]Then they say size doesn't matter?[/font]

The chances of a Lamborghini and Ferrari crashing into one another on a random stretch of Fort Worth highway have to be remote. But it appears the accident yesterday, at I-30 and Henderson, suggest it wasn't exactly random. Judging from reports on DFW Scanner, both cars appear to have come from an exotic-sports-car-rental company, DFW Drive Your Dream. Waiting on a call back to confirm, but they certainly have the inventory and, no doubt, astronomical insurance premiums.

Here's a close-up of the damage to the Ferrari:

[div style="width:60%;"]

Source:
http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/2013/07/a_lamborghini_and_ferrari_cras.php

Cross-posted in Texas Group.

The chances of a Lamborghini and Ferrari crashing into one another on a random stretch of Fort Worth highway have to be remote. But it appears the accident yesterday, at I-30 and Henderson, suggest it wasn't exactly random. Judging from reports on DFW Scanner, both cars appear to have come from an exotic-sports-car-rental company, DFW Drive Your Dream. Waiting on a call back to confirm, but they certainly have the inventory and, no doubt, astronomical insurance premiums.

Here's a close-up of the damage to the Ferrari:

[div style="width:60%;"]

Source:
http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/2013/07/a_lamborghini_and_ferrari_cras.php

Cross-posted in Weird News Group.

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The Texas Senate met for less than an hour to start a new 30-day special session to take up contentious abortion restrictions bill and other issues.

Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst gaveled in the chamber shortly after 2 p.m., issuing a warning that anyone making outbursts in the gallery would be removed.

The Senate was the scene of the filibuster and crowd outburst that stopped the abortion restrictions bill last week. Gov. Rick Perry immediately called a new session and pledged the bill will pass this time. The Senate gallery was full but calm Monday.

The House is expected to take up the bill first. The Senate has not yet planned a new hearing on the bill and went in recess until Tuesday July 9.

More at http://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/headlines/20130701-without-a-vote-texas-senate-recesses-until-next-week.ece .

[font color=green]Okay, I was wrong!

Last week, I wrote a couple of comments saying that the special session would open between July 8 and July 10. How could I have made the obvious rookie mistake that our legislators will be collecting per diem for 8 days and probably won't be in the office for at least 4 of those days?

BRYAN, TEXAS

On the second floor of the Neutral Posture factory in Bryan, more than a dozen chairs are scattered across a conference room. Some are basic black office chairs; others have designer colors and high-end leather. Only one, though, is made to stop a bullet.

The Guardian Chair was unveiled a few weeks ago by CEO Rebecca Boenigk at the country's largest office furniture expo in Chicago.

It appears like one of the standard ergonomically designed high-back chairs manufactured by the award winning company. The key difference is what's called a NIJ Level II bullet resistant vest that's draped over the back of the chair. According to guardianchair.com, the vest has the ability to block anything from a normal powered 9 mm handgun up to a .357 Magnum.

-snip-

Two weeks after the chair's unveiling, the company is receiving high-level interest from the federal government, banks around the U.S., casinos in Las Vegas, N.V., and a high-end grocery chain on the upper East Coast, Boenigk said. Fifty demo chairs are ready to go out to clients that would like to test the chair before placing an order.

More at http://www.theeagle.com/news/local/article_2ebc3a17-8d2c-5678-a4b0-ec9604283da2.html .

Williamson County sheriff’s office spokesman Lt. John Foster was arrested Saturday night on a charge of driving while intoxicated.

Foster, 45, was stopped on Interstate 35 on Saturday and charged with a misdemeanor DWI. He was released from jail Sunday.

Authorities received a call regarding a “reckless driver” in the Cedar Park area who was running red lights, swerving into oncoming traffic and driving at excessive speeds, according to an arrest warrant.

A Department of Public Safety trooper stopped Foster at 11:30 p.m. on I-35, north of Exit 269, according to the arrest warrant.

More at http://www.statesman.com/news/news/breaking-news/williamson-county-sheriffs-official-arrested-for-d/nYZ55/ .

[font color=green]Foster has 16 years of experience with the department serving as a patrol officer and currently holds the position of public information officer.

I hope that he received the same courtesy from the Williamson County DPS as they give to everyone else pulled over for similar charges.

In January, three months before the members of West’s volunteer fire department would face the biggest conflagration they had ever seen, their town’s last working water well conked out.

So when the local fertilizer plant caught fire April 17, West had only half its normal supply of water, every drop piped from Lake Waco 15 miles away.

Even so, that fire — which caused tons of ammonium nitrate to detonate — apparently spread too fast to put West’s crippled water system to the test. Equipped with a single tanker truck that would have taken only minutes to drain, firefighters were still trying to hook up to the nearest water hydrant three blocks away when the plant blew up, said Mayor Tommy Muska.

But Muska believes sufficient water could have made a difference in what happened next, when flames thrown by the blast eventually destroyed a school and several houses.

More at http://www.statesman.com/news/news/west-expected-to-get-state-aid-to-rebuild-ailing-i/nYZk2/ .

The North Texas Tea Party has been making some interesting commentary about the thousands of Texans who came out in opposition to Senate Bill 5 last week as a way to rally their base in the next round of the War on Women at our capitol. This group, following in the footsteps of Perry and Dewhurst, are going to great lengths to delegitimize the diverse coalitions of pro-choice Texans with a few key messages they are repeating in press releases, social media, and talk radio.

They want to deny the existence of pro-choice Texans and dehumanize the group as a mob, all while employing their usual misrepresentation of history and the legacies of revolutionaries who have come before.

The North Texas Tea Party is working to convince their base that the opponents of anti-women legislation couldn't possibly live within the same borders as they do. They are now claiming that our supporters are being bussed in from out of state.

From their Facebook:


It's one thing to disagree, but another to be in complete denial. The far-right is so afraid of their inevitable demise that they believe the best way to challenge this is to deny that pro-choice Texans even exist.

More at http://www.burntorangereport.com/diary/13727/tea-partiers-cant-comprehend-prochoice-texans-gandhi-among-other-things .