Refrigerator Magnets.

On the side of my refrigerator are no less than twenty promotional magnets, only one or two of which serves any present purpose. They may have served some purpose in the past, even if a minor one, but no one seems to think that a purposeless refrigerator magnet should be discarded, including me. Actually, I think I'm the one that makes sure they don't get thrown out. Well, at least that's true for six of them, anyway.

They are the six large Texas Rangers baseball-schedule magnets, starting with year 1997, each received on opening day of a baseball season. Those magnets represent about 20 years of going to Rangers games with my wife and children, and as they say, "them were good times."

Also, not to be discarded is a magnet with a family picture of an old and close friend. He's a missionary and it's a way for him to ask for prayer and other support when we can.

But I have magnets for several people no longer in business, an insurance agent and a plumber. I have a magnet for important Verizon telephone numbers. I don't have any Verizon accounts, though.  I have a magnet to remind me to buy my printer toner from a place called Inksell. I don't know if I have ever done it. I have a magnet from the Dallas Morning News, a newspaper to which I no longer subscribe -- as of at least ten years ago. A "Trains Galore" magnet. I have no idea what that is. And one for the Trinity Railway Express. You get the idea.

They're not really hurting anything but I wonder if a stranger walking into the house thinks, "why do they have so many magnets on the side of the refrigerator?"

To which I have no answer. Maybe you do.

Throwing Things Out.

I was looking for a pair of black socks this morning. I found two that seemed to match and noticed one had a hole in the heel. I threw it back into the sock pile and fished out another. Same thing, but the hole was in the ankle area. I threw it back in. I could have tossed them both in the trash but I didn't. You never know when you need an old sock with a hole in it.

I have pens that don't work. I know they don't work and will never work.

Keys? Dozens that have no keyhole that I know of.  I have shirts that I haven't worn in years. I have had shirts in my closet so un-used that a  film of dust gathered on the shoulder.

I know what you're thinking -- that I have a "hoarding" problem. I don't. I watched an episode of one of those hoarder reality shows and they take pack-ratting to a level I can't understand. I have my clean-out binges where I am merciless. Honest. I did watch one show where the lady was keeping empty bottles of shampoo on the ledge of her bathtub. Dozens of plastic bottles -- empty, just sitting there. And then she started crying when the guy told her she had to throw them out. It was all a little too weird for me.

Part of the problem is that the homo sapien is a collector by nature. I'll bet you collect something even if it is in a casual kind of way. Stamps, coins, books, beer bottles, anything with a dolphin on it. Something. You name it in this material world and somebody is collecting it. People just love to collect stuff.

The truth is, I don't mind throwing things out. Except shoes. I hate to throw out old shoes. They're like old friends, you just like them for all kinds of unknown reasons.

Now . . . socks should be another thing. But my throw-backs are still there, and probably will be for a long time.

(comments on anything you keep, but shouldn't, gladly accepted)

I was a Agency Production Manager for 25 years. Here's all I know:

1. There IS a mistake, find it.

2. Organization is not the same as accomplishment.

3. Perseverance is almost everything. Knowing what the hell you’re doing is the other part.

4. All prices are a function of supply and demand. If you want it bad, you're going to get it bad.

 5. Don't let one problem divert your attention from your primary focus.

6. Check a big job at its final point and its middle point -- not just the starting point.

7. Accept responsibility for what you are responsible. Expect others to do the same.

8. To a vendor, I am a paying customer, their deference to me is not because of my good looks or charm.

9. Every plant manager wants a quick “sign-off” on the job. That's not my problem. Sign off when it is right, not before. Period.

10. Resist the “no, it can’t be done” reflex. It usually can be done.

11. Know what level of imperfection the customer can accept because every printing job is imperfect, except the National Geographic, and I'm not producing the National Geographic.

12. Never whine. Girls whine.

13. All problems seem insurmountable at 3 o'clock in the morning. But they aren't.

14. Everyone gets along until there is a problem.

15. My boss or customer is paying me to worry for them.

Why We Hate to Travel

I35 to Austin, 6th St., & Hut's Hamburgers

My son had to drive the to Austin yesterday and asked me if I would like to make the drive with him. Happy to escape the paint-roller-scraper routine of the home remodel, and happy to take any opportunity to spend time with one of my children, I said, yes, absolutely.

The reports I hear from regular Austin I-35 commuters fall somewhere between resignation to hatred. Understandably. There is a steady traffic stream almost any time of day and an abundance of trucks, all of which, to me, is a sign of a good and vibrant economy, but to the normal travel is just a beating. Our traffic and drive was actually pretty light, the weather was perfect, and the morning sausage rolls at the Czech Bakery in West made "all God's chillen happy."

I know it's not financially viable now, but in the future, a high speed rail between the triangled "metropoli" of DFW, SAT, and IAH would be high on my list of public works spending. Imagine riding your bike to our train station, taking a 2 hour ride train to Austin, sight-seeing there a while, and coming back that same day.

On to Austin.

Austin, downtown on 6th Street, has a nice feel to it. It is pedestrian busy, which is nice to see and I like the view of a Capitol dome in any American city. We walked around downtown looking for a good hamburger lunch and finally found Hut's on 6th Street. Hut's has been selling hamburgers in Austin since 1939 and I'm glad they made it to 2010 because that is one good hamburger. My son and I both like the tastefully old lunch place that doesn't have a lot of anything but chairs, tables, customers, and good food. Friendly and attentive waitstaff helps, as does a mounted animal head or two. Hut's has all of that. And good burgers. I don't like a tricked up burger, so I ordered the regular cheeseburger, which in Hut's case is #20. We split an order of onion rings and fries. All very good.

Then there's good traveling music, like this one released in 1969.