A SUPER FATHER'S DAY

You will travel far, my little Kal-El.

But we will never leave you, even in the face of our deaths. The richness of our lives will be yours. All that I have, all that I have learned, everything I feel, all of this and more I bequeath you, my son. You will carry me inside you all the days of your life. You will make my strength your own, see my life through your eyes, as your life will be seen through mine.
The son becomes the father, the father becomes the son.

This is all that I can send you, Kal-El.

-Jor-El
Superman: The Movie

Happy Father's Day to the Admiral, my very own Jor-El and Jonathan Kent all wrapped up in one. You're a great dad, and a great sport for putting up with my shenanigans all these years. My hat's off to you.

I know raising me wasn't always easy.

Happy Father's Day. We'll chat on the phone, I'm sure.

Pat bought a new camera last week. I was leaving work and found him playing around with his camera and taking a picture or two of my car. Anyway, this is my car in daylight. In the parking lot where the Arby's once proudly stood on Guadalupe, just south of campus.

More Bankston in the News

It's late and I have to go to bed, but it appears that KB continues to be in the news. And so much for Google's easy policy regarding requesting that your image be taken down... they're now collecting driver's license information in order to have your pic removed.

Read here

BTW, this blog is published on a Google product, and if you e-mail me, it'll come to GMail. If they ever decide to merge with Time Warner, we will know the Eye of Sauron is upon us.

Thanks to Amy, Pat and/ or Jeff for the link.

I have a new car

Buenos noches, little Forester. May Howdy Honda's used car department find you a rad new home where you will be loved.

I picked up the Element tonight. It's blue, as I mentioned, but the color is NOT actually described as ATOMIC blue, it is described as Arctic blue or some such... I think that Atomic thing is left over from a different model.

If in Austin and buying a Honda, let me mention that Howdy Honda not only has a great name for a dealership, they had great customer service. When at Howdy, ask for Helen Frink, super car salesperson. We like Helen.

Apparently Howdy Honda was selling a lot of cars today as the financing people were way backed up and it took a while for us to get in the car and get going. Oddly, Jeff and Keora were also there, and I think Keora was picking up a Honda Fit. I do think they were getting the car, because Jeff had that face on he gets when he's about to spend money. I saw this face many times, including when we co-signed a lease in 1996.

Anyhow, the rest of the night was documented pretty well by Jason. Go here.

I was going to call the car "Ted" in honor of slain Superhero, Ted "The Blue Beetle" Kord. But I'm not sure. Is this what Ted would have wanted? And then there's the whole fact that it's not a blue VW... I dunno. The Forester was usually The Krypton Kruiser. I need to find some other alliterative moniker or at least something which speaks about the car.

My first car (a maroon/ red '83 Honda Accord) went by The Badger, as it was dangerous when cornered. My next car, a '92 Eclipse, was called "Hero", for pulling my fat out of the fire and out of reverence for the horse of pulp hero, The Phantom.

So, we'll see. It'll come to me.

Randy's Kid

Randy's kid! Look at her go, Leaguers!



See, Randy, I'm happy to post a pic of your kid. I find it curious you let her drool all over you, but when I asked, you got all upset.

I can't properly type Esme's name as it's a lot of work to add the tilde dealy. But that's her.

For the geeks...

Monty Python + Trek = Awesome

Another pretty good weekend.

Friday night Jamie and I stayed in, are buffalo wings and watched "The Life Aquatic", which I'd never seen. It's definitely a Wes Anderson movie, and its certainly charming, but its a bit of a mess. At some point Anderson is going to need to move beyond the trick of having his characters deliver dialog in a flat and practiced manner, including non-sequiters regarding the unfortunate fate of various pets. What worked very well in his faux-Glass household somehow didn't work quite as well on the high seas.

Also, watched the first half of Superman III, which, if it did not feature Annette O'Toole, would be somewhere near the same level of unwatchability as Superman IV. Director Richard Lester clearly believes Superman can't be taken seriously as even an action film, and so heaps on slapschtick, beginning with the credits. Superman can be fun, but poor Richard Pryor is asked to play to the kiddies instead of his built in audience, and its just a poor, poor decision. You kind of feel bad for the guy.

Saturday we continued with Car Hunt 2007. The whole thing wound up with me picking out a Honda Element and taking on a car payment. Yes, the Honda Element is the boxy SUV/ mini-van. But it matches my needs, it fits my bulky frame, I can get the dogs into it with no problem, and it sort of looks like a Transformer.

Yes, it is blue. I pick it up Tuesday night.

Saturday night we headed to Pat's for his birthday party. Chatted with Amy C. and Billy Jo quite a bit. Billy made a great cake with peanut butter frosting, which sounds gross, but is actually really good. Also met Pat's mysterious brother. Jamie was droopy, so we headed home a bit early. And then i stayed up until 3:00 AM watching the 1994 film "Richie Rich" starring MacCaulay(sp?) Culkin. It wasn't a good movie, and it sadly lacked the robot maid, Irona, from the cartoon, but Butler Cadbury totally hooked up with Gloria's mom. So that was weird.

Sunday we returned to Threadgill's for breakfast and to meet cousin Sue, mom and Uncle Donald. Always good to see Uncle Donald, but I think I committed to visiting the Upper Peninsula of Michigan with him next summer. That's fine. It's been 13 years since I've been up there.

Sunday night we met up with Carla Beth and her husband, David. They moved into a house down near Riverside and Congress, and its one heck of a place. I think if they keep the house as is, David could go totally Miami Vice villain, but he's going to need some Chinese jackets and a lot more swords on the walls. And henchmen.

Carla made some amazingly good pizzas from scratch and we sort of hung out in the kitchen. It's sort of remarkable, because I haven't seen much of Carla after she moved briefly to Kentucky and we relocated to Arizona, but some folks you've known so long you just sort of pick up where you left off.

Anyhow, Xander made no appearance as he'd already been put to bed for the night when we showed up. We'll catch up with that dude later.

A grand weekend, all in all.

Sometimes I reflect upon how much more full our weeks are here than in Arizona and I'm a bit stunned.