Smart Meters for keeping track of electricity usage aren’t so smart after all. In one area of Dallas, a resident’s electric bill jumped from around $85 a month for a small apartment to $670. It took two months and numerous inspections by the electric company to finally discover that a heat strip was malfunctioning, and […]
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While I’m over at The Blood Red Pencil blog today having some fun with writing tips from the comics, my friend Slim Randles stopped by to share the latest from the gang down at the Mule Barn’s philosophy counter. We knew. We looked at Dewey and we knew tragedy had struck. Naturally we assumed his
The opening weekend of “Arsenic and Old Lace” ended yesterday with a matinee, and it might have been the best performance of the four. At least it was for me in many ways. I really felt connected to the other characters and “in” each scene. Performing in a play is so much more than just
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I’m over at Lelia Taylor’s blog Buried Under Books, where we are talking about cats and crooks and mystery writers and mystery bookstore owners. Stop by if you get a chance and share your experience with cats. And thanks again to Carl Brookins for providing another book review.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Rock Holeby Reavis Z. WorthamISBN: 978-1-59058-884-02011
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Eugene Robinson was courageous in speaking out against the death penalty for Lawrence Russell Brewer, who, along with two other men, committed a heinous hate crime in Jasper Texas some years ago. The three white supremacists murdered James Byrd Jr. after offering him a ride. They killed him by dragging him behind their pickup truck.
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It was quite a privilege to be given the Trails Country Treasure Award last Sunday, and a friend and fellow-journalist, Joe Dan Boyd, was kind enough to write up this little story for local newspapers and his own blog Tinney Chapel Today I am pictured here with Joe Dan as he presented the award. Maryann
This has really been a tough summer here on “Grandma’s Ranch.” The drought in Texas has wiped out my garden, most of my roses and azaleas, as well as my pasture and many of my other flowers. Then a couple of weeks ago, one of our goats got bitten by a snake and we lost
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I never thought I would find myself defending Rick Perry, but I have to agree with a recent column by Steve Chapman who said Perry’s mandate that all teen girls in Texas get the HPV vaccine was the right call. Michelle Bachmann, and others, have taken Perry to task saying that making the vaccine mandatory
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I’ve posted about this issue before, and I only raise it again because apparently government approval of the XL Pipeline that will bring tarsands oil from Canada to refineries in Houston is close. Robert Bryce, in a recent column said that President Obama will probably give that approval because not doing so will hurt his
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At a writer’s workshop a long time ago, an editor of True Confessions Magazine suggested that if we were interested in writing for them or one of the other similar publications, we should read the advice columns in the newspapers for story ideas. Writing for those magazines was a good source of income for a
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