George Clayton is Running for School Board

George Clayton says he is running for RISD school board. You remember him, right? He's a one-term Republican member of the State Board of Education. He lost his re-election bid in the GOP primary. Then, as a Democrat, he lost his race for Texas State Representative to Linda Koop. Currently, he says he's the co-chair of the Trump for President Campaign for Congressional District 32. And now he says he'll be running for Richardson ISD board of trustees.

POTD: The Badlands are Amazing

From 2015 08 15 South Dakota

Today's photo-of-the-day is from the Badlands National Park in South Dakota. The Great Plains stretch forever, endless grasslands from Canada to Texas and from the Rockies to the Mississippi. South Dakota is in the middle of all that nothingness. You drive for hundreds of miles on I-90 through flat grasslands, then turn off the interstate and within a few short miles you are faced with the scene in this photo. The Badlands are amazing.

Even More About Enrollment Growth

I had three takeaways from the Richardson ISD's 2016 Bond "listening tour."

• Those multipurpose facilities (MPFs) seemed expensive. Comparisons with similar facilities in other school districts were lacking.
• There wasn't enough in the bond to address anticipated enrollment growth over the next five years.
  
• There appeared to be no way to avoid a tax rate increase, even if only maintenance and construction for enrollment growth were addressed.
  

The RISD school board addressed the first two of my takeaways at their December 7th meeting. What I said then:

It's too bad that the scheduled enrollment growth study couldn't have been accelerated so its results could have been presented to the public on this "listening tour." It's too bad that a placeholder for additional expansion wasn't included in the 2016 bond proposal so the public would know that the school board is aware of the need. But that's water under the bridge. I'm confident that by the time the school board signs off on any bond package that projected enrollment growth will be comprehended in it.

Source: The Wheel.

Now at their January 5th meeting, the school board took further steps to address my second takeaway, and in the process, my first takeaway as well. I consider those steps to be steps back in the right direction.

OTBR: Trail of the Tough in Estonia

Latitude: N 58° 28.584
Longitude: E 022° 12.060

A child on a road trip with his family asks, "Where are we?" and the father answers, "Let's check the map. We're off the blue roads [the Interstate Highways marked in blue on the road atlas]. We're off the red roads [the US and state highways]. We're off the black roads [the county highways]. I think we're off the map altogether." It was always my dream to be off the map altogether.

After the jump, a few of the random places (and I mean random literally) that I visited vicariously last month that are "off the blue roads".

Repeat Tweets: #txhshoops is baaack!

Repeat tweets from December, 2015:

• 1 Dec 2015: Final: Naaman Forest 64, Berkner 52. #txhshoops is baaack!
• 2 Dec 2015: RT @SenTedCruz: "Scientific conclusions should be based on the evidence & data, not the wishes of liberal global warming alarmists." @SenTedCruz is trolling us.
• 2 Dec 2015: What's the difference between the KKK and the Irving anti-Islamists? One is a group of racist bigots and the other wears hoods.
• 3 Dec 2015: MT @cressman: "When you live outside the US you think Americans are nuts regarding guns." Inside the US you *know*.

After the jump, more repeat tweets.

Tree the (rest of the) Town

Remember "Tree the Town"? You know, the program with a goal "to plant 50,000 trees in Richardson during the next 10 years on private and public property." What's up with that?

Dallas Arboretum's 12 Days of Christmas

From 2015 12 30 Dallas Arboretum

The Twelve Days of Christmas, the second most annoying Christmas song ever, celebrates the twelve days between the birth of Christ (Christmas, December 25) and the coming of the Magi (Epiphany, January 6). The Dallas Arboretum celebrates the twelve days of Christmas from November 27 - January 3 (yeah, that's 38 days; I don't think they care). Scattered around the arboretum grounds are twelve Victorian gazebos each filled with animals and characters from the song. The DeGolyer house itself is filled with nativity sets. All in all, the best thing to ever happen to the song.

All photos from our visit to the Dallas Arboretum can be seen in Google Photos.