Is it really necessary?

You know what's beginning to annoy me?

I'll tell you: the ubiquitous jug of hand sanitizer.

I was visiting a church away from home the other Sunday and before communion all of the lay assistants making their way to the altar pumped the big hand sanitizer jug on the back altar and rubbed their hands. I suppose the thinking is that the germs will go from the assistants hands to the communion wafer to the recipient. Okay, fair enough, but do we really need the jug of goop behind the altar? I don't know why this annoys me so much and if I were a more devout person I would be considering the mote in my own eye. But it does.

Maybe it's that we have blue-jean clad lay-assistants in the first place. That's certainly a part of it. But it's also the smugness related to this line-dance at the altar, as in "I'm going to make sure you don't get any of my germs." It's the faux pre-occupation with public safety when in years gone by common sense did just fine. Mind you, I have been known to ask the deli counter worker to take off the stupid rubber gloves while making my sandwich.

What if Michelangelo had included the hand sanitizer jug in his "The Last Supper." Or even worse, our Lord himself before breaking the bread pausing to pump.

I remember doing mission work centuries ago in Mexico and being invited into the very modest adobe home of  a local family for lunch. Grandmother was making fresh tortillas, and as she was standing at the glass-less window looking out and rolling the corn meal she reached over and brushed away some dirt that had gathered on the window sill and then in one motion went back to tortilla making. I smiled and thanked God for a real human being and the dirt.

I do have one question though. What happens to the germs that go from hand to pump before they are sanitized? I assume they rest on the pump nozzle for the next person to get those germs and on and on until the pump nozzle is filled with 10x more germs than when you started. I'm just sayin'  . .  it's weird.

It's the disproportionate concern for trivialities that annoys me most. Rend you hearts not your garments the old prophet said, I agree.

A pretty-smart phone

I bought a smart phone yesterday, or, as I say above, a pretty-smart phone. I would have bought a really-smart phone but I just can not justify spending $100+ per month to make phone calls and send a text message or two every week.

I have been using a normal phone-calls-only phone forever and a couple years ago signed up for the MetroPCS $35 worst-service-in-America deal. MetroPCS is (deservedly) the Rodney Dangerfield of phone companies but what do you want at that price.

But to the smart phone. Saturday night I couldn't find my phone and after searching into the night I gave up looking figuring it was outside in the dark somewhere with a dead battery. Sunday morning, in my car about one mile out of my driveway and at 40 MPH, I heard something roll off the roof and, through the rearview mirror, saw a little black dot hit the pavement and splatter. Phone found. On Monday, I rolled into the local MetroPCS gave the brother handshake and asked to see the advertised $40 a month deal with a $99 smart phone: the Huawei Activa running Google's Gingerbread OS.

Smart phone conclusion: the more made-up words in a title the worse the product. For instance, words like "Activa" and "Gingerbread" actually mean "this is not an iPhone so don't expect too much." "Huawei" is Chinese for "cheap as sh**."

And there you have it. A pretty good, pretty smart phone. Actually, I kind of like it.
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Burrito Jimmy

I know the moniker "Burrito Jimmy" from sports radio station 1310 the Ticket, a radio station I shall add, that gave me  thousands of hours of entertainment as I drove my way around DFW for twenty years. Stand back Burrito is a phrase I will not soon forget.

Come to find out a couple years ago, again from listening to the Ticket, that there is a restaurant chain of the same name, and just a few weeks ago, through a Ticket radio ad, that they were in DFW.

Burrito Jimmy's is like Chipotle or Freebirds. A big tortilla wrapped around your choice of meats and fillings. Nothing new as far as that goes.There is an important difference though, at least for me.

I've had a problem with the big burrito concept from the start and isn't the taste or freshness or price. It's the same problem I had with Boston Chicken (back when it was pretty good and not Boston Market) and it's the same problem I have at restaurants that let your plate sit under the warmer bulbs while the waiter is in the back catching a smoke.

My problem is the dislike of food served lukewarm when it should be hot (or cold). So when the big burrito is prepared with meats kept barely warm by warming bays, and when my big burrito is sitting there waiting for its toppings while Mr. Numnuts in front of me decides whether he wants verde sauce or pico de gallo, the big burrito goes from warm to lukewarm to room temperature by the time I bite into it. So I don't care what quality meats you have or how fresh your tomatoes are if said burrito isn't hot it isn't good. In my humble opinion.

Burrito Jimmy's has a solution. After they prep the hot items they put the whole thing in a steamer and get it good and hot and then after you get your choice of vegetables and sauces they pour hot cheese sauce on it and it is good. Real good. Problem solved.

A big burrito was just under $7, add a drink and the total was under $9, and I was full-full. I liked it, I'll be back. Stand back Burrito.

Suggestion: turn volume down before clicking start arrow.

http://www.burritojimmy.com/locations.php

Fort Worth in Housing Market Top Ten

This article is about one month old but I just saw it. Good for Fort Worth, especially homeowners, and Texas which has 4 of the top 10 (bye-bye California):

Fort Worth is one of four Texas markets that are among the nation's "healthiest" housing markets, according to Jed Kolko, chief economist for real estate information site Trulia. By healthiest, Kolko explains, he doesn't just mean that home prices are rising -- "because many of the markets with the largest price gains in 2012 were rebounding from huge price declines during the bust, but they still have weak fundamentals," he says.

Here are his fundamentals: strong job growth (supporting housing demand); low vacancy rates; and low foreclosure inventory. Those are his markers, and here are his picks: 1. Houston; 2. San Francisco; 3. Bethesda-Rockville-Frederick, Md.; 4. San Antonio; 5. Austin; 6. Seattle; 7. Omaha; 8. Peabody, Mass. (Boston suburban); 9. Fort Worth; 10. Louisville.

Read more here: Tarrant Business

Merry Christmas my old friends . . .

I miss the blog comment give and take and hope to be back soon. Merry Christmas.

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