by Phil Houseal | May 27, 2020 | All Articles, Philosophy
May 27, 2020–As are many of you, we are using this time to clean house. We call it The Great Purge. So, so much stuff. When we moved to our little property, one of the perks was a 600-square-foot barn. Forget your hot tubs, decks, and “oak-covered views.” This place...
by Phil Houseal | May 20, 2020 | All Articles, History, Philosophy
May 20, 2020–I’ve always held the controversial opinion that no one knows the true extent of our cash economy. All those reports of retail activity, employment, GDP, etc., are based on data of transactions taking place within the official economy. They don’t include...
by Phil Houseal | May 13, 2020 | All Articles, Education, History, Philosophy
May 13, 2020–During my lockdown-compliant travels through my silverfish-invested bookshelves, I came across a timely trilogy from the 1990s–The Tightwad Gazette, Volumes I, II, and III. These 300-page tomes were compilations of a popular newsletter produced by Amy...
by Phil Houseal | May 8, 2020 | All Articles, Education, Events, People of the Hill Country, Philosophy, Venue
May 6, 2020–With a boost from technology, Joan Speer is making sure her high school students stay in a “calculus community.” That’s what the Fredericksburg High School (FHS) math teacher misses most about the current suspension of public schools due to The Virus Which...
by Phil Houseal | Apr 29, 2020 | All Articles, Education, Philosophy
April 29, 2020–In the Time of the Virus, I’ve been going through my bookshelf to find inspiration and ideas. Among the editions not yet donated to the library book sale, I came across an old favorite from 1983–Rules of Thumb, by Tom Parker. He defined a Rule of Thumb...
by Phil Houseal | Apr 22, 2020 | All Articles, Philosophy
April 22, 2020–OK, old timers, help me out here. Have we become intimidated by weather? Having lived everywhere from the hurricane coast to tornado alley to the blizzardy backwoods, I’ve seen (and suffered through) my share of nasty storms. In the middle of one...
by Phil Houseal | Apr 15, 2020 | All Articles, Philosophy
April 15, 2020–If your life were a novel, would you bother to read it? If there were only two chords, we’d still have polka. Folks didn’t used to need a federal mandate not to get within 6 feet of me. In Ernest Tubb’s song “Thanks A Lot,” he rhymes “a lot” with “a...
by Phil Houseal | Apr 8, 2020 | All Articles, Philosophy
April 8, 2020–One of the few times I was the interviewee rather than the interviewer, the person asked me, what is writing? I replied, writing is thinking on paper. Full-time thinker Seth Godin said it better: “Writing is a symptom of thinking.” I like that, though it...
by Phil Houseal | Mar 28, 2020 | All Articles, Philosophy
April 1, 2020–Why do paths get such a bad reputation? In all those cringy memes and inspirational posters you see the tanned and toned traveler choosing to set off on the unbeaten path, blazing a new trail through the Forest of Confusion, across the Sea of Setbacks,...
by Phil Houseal | Mar 25, 2020 | All Articles, Philosophy
Mar 25, 2020–A year ago I wrote a tongue-in-cheek piece about how inefficient it was to transport our bags of bones around the world for meetings, conferences, and vacations. What if, I wondered, we could accomplish those travels virtually, saving the hassles and...
