efoxley.com | dope

The other day I ran across the news about the psycho in Austin who decided to bring a gun to the UT Campus and start shooting people – only to miss and end up shooting himself in a library. Nice.

But what really bothered me when reading about this in this AP article, was the statement in the 5th paragraph:

The fact that Tooley apparently didn’t have a Facebook account “reflects a certain degree of isolation” that may be a clue to his behavior, he (James Fox, a professor of criminology at Northeastern University) said.

Whoa. Stop There.

I just can’t resist the temptation to use Non Sequitur, but … it’s just too easy! And admit, you fell for it, too.

I oversee twelve stores. Tonight I got a call from one of my managers:

“My store is on fire.”

Didn’t think it would affect me … but hours later, it has.

No one was hurt, but as I sit here and type … the smell on my clothes is really beginning to bother me. I can’t get the taste out of my mouth, either. I walked the store with the fire chief, and I can’t seem to get the images out of my mind.

Buy your Jesus Toaster here.

Did you? I bet not.

Check this out.

Wow.

Just goes to show you the world may not be as twisted as we always believe.

I remember the morning. We all do. It was a very sad day across America.

This is a very raw video … worth a watch.

I read this in the LA Times, and thought: Are you kidding me? Control your country, Man!

Read the last line of the clip, then read the full article here.

“Are you going to post about this?” Tina said tonight, as I ran out to the patio to snap the above pic.

“Yes, Dammit.” I said. “I must warn others.” I continued to eat ice. I was on my 5th or 6th mouth-full.

Earlier, Tina kicked off the harvest season (Labor Day is today … the last day of Summer) by snipping off a few of the orange peppers from our plant. Curiously, I agreed to cut one open and have a taste. I sliced off the stem and simply put the tip of my tongue on the pepper’s flesh.

What started as a slight sting slowly grew into agony.

Habanero chili peppers are rated 100,000–350,000 on the Scoville scale. Conservatively, that’s about 40 times hotter than a Jalapeño. I didn’t know that when I bought a baby plant at a local nursery this past spring.

An hour later … Awesome! It’s really neat to have a plant growing on our patio with such amazing power. I look forward to finding some applications for this powerful pepper …

But, you’ve been warned.

(He’s a guitarist for some old 60’s band.)

A home-built $17,790 computer with an Electrical Bill of $237/month to calculate Pi to Five Trillion digits, and to suffer in the process by his daughter’s tripping of a circuit breaker when she turned a hair dryer on …

Shigeru Kondo … you rock, sir.

Gavin has been in kindergarten for 2 weeks now, and I’ve noticed him spitting – a new habit I’m sure he acquired from some punk at school.

This morning he spat in our foyer.

I grabbed him and put his face in it. Sorry – but kid’s got to learn. As he cried with the evidence dripping down his face, I demanded he clean it up off of the tile.

He won’t be spitting again.

Pretty Genius ad …

Apple TV was re-announced today under the typical Apple Fanfare. But elsewhere, Sony and Amazon are teaming up, and Google will be at the party, too.

Frankly, I don’t care about any of them. I’m already there – not that hard, really. You just need a streaming device and the proper technology.

But it will be fun to watch this …

Sad end to a life of hoarding …

1st post of new dope. Deleted everything over the weekend. More to come shortly.

While on the trip, in some back-mountain restaurant in Bluff Utah we were having dinner with the kids. They were eating what must have been their 10th dish of Chicken Nuggets and French Fries – the kids’ staple when eating out. I took a moment to acknowledge the last dinner on the road for this trip, as well as to point out that today was Mom and Dad’s 18 year anniversary. Eighteen years ago today, we agreed to date. We celebrate this day with more sentiment than our wedding anniversary.

In our eighteen years, we have rarely taken vacations, in the typical sense. When we have taken time off of work, it has always been to see family – either in NM when we lived in the Northwest, or to Houston to see the Foxleys. If I weren’t spending that time traveling to see family, it was a “Staycation”. I can literally count the trips excluding familial visits on two fingers: camping in Durango in 1995 and London in 2000.

So this trip was special for us. It was special not just for our first one in 11 years, but that we had 2 new attendees in Gavin and Elyce. I have been planning this for over 3 years – not that it was elaborate, but simply each of the first two years, I had to cancel at the last minute due to work issues. I HAD TO MAKE THIS HAPPEN this year. It was becoming an integrity thing to me – for the kids. I don’t want to be a dad that the kids can’t trust my commitment. When I say we are going to do something, I want them to believe and trust that it will happen. I guess I’ve grown to appreciate integrity and this was part of that.

So I sit here at the St Louis airport waiting to connect to Nashville for work. I literally unpacked shorts and camera chargers last night – only to turn right around and re-pack a case with suites and computer power-cords for my trip this week (and next). I wouldn’t be surprised if when I unpack tonight that I find some sand or a random souvenir in my case. Hell, maybe I’ll find one of those chicken nuggets.

I think Tina and I agree that we need to reduce the frequency between these vacations – if not for the sake of our sanity, for the kids’ memories. We chatted last night about the most memorable moments in the trip, and we agreed that it was the afternoon we arrived in Santa Monica.

The kids were so elated to see the ocean, jump in the water, search for shells, and simply drink the ocean air. And, oddly, this was the least expensive afternoon of the entire trip. Kids, I’m finding, aren’t impressed by the price tags of experiences. They really just want to have fun. They really just want to be with Mom and Dad. And when I look back at the trips that meant the most to me when I was growing up, the ones I remember the most were the ones and moments with family.

Somehow, I forgot that. I think that’s the most powerful take-away for me … these experiences carry limited cost and are priceless in the end.