I have been following my Texas State Representative race with some interest as we have Carter Casteel, the incumbent, being challenged in the Republician primary by Nathan Macias. As I watch the race unfold a couple of things are becoming clear.

First, I had never heard of Nathan Macias. That’s not a huge suprise as I’m not big on keeping up with the comings and goings in the local political (or any) arena. A little poking turned up that it’s even less of a suprise: He hasn’t been around here for years. Mr. Macias just moved back to the area in the last 2 years…which I -think- is the minimum amount of time one must be a resident of the district to run for the office. I say -think- because it might only be 6 months, but regardless, that’s not much time to have a feel for our neck of the Hill Country and its very diverse sub-culture.

I’m not sure where he gets his money, but they are pouring it on. I could be completey wrong, but I don’t think that a retired Lt. Col. is typically going to have the cash to run close to a million dollar campaign. Hey, maybe I’m wrong…wouldn’t be the first time, but that’s a ton of Georges to be plopping down within short order of arriving on the scene.

Finally, the most interesting ‘data point’ to me (born in the Hill Country, grew up there, married a woman from there, live there, daughter born there, plan on raising my family there.) is the whole mess about ’someone’ acquiring some of Carter Casteel’s campagin notes. I guess I can almost understand some wide-eyed Carter ‘hater’ or Nathan ‘fan’ thinking they were helping by snatching them for/against their person, but what followed concerns me deeply. From my understanding, the Macias camp took those notes, which were obviously not theirs, and used it as some kind of pre-pre-emptive strike. It seems to me that the honorable thing to do would have been to have called Carter and told her that they someone had sent them something that obviously didn’t belong to them and asked what she would like done with it…kind of like when you find your neighbors cattle in your pasture.

Each of those items alone doesn’t seem like much, but when I put them all together it just makes me wonder if Mr. Macias really “gets” where and how we live. If my mind wasn’t already made up in this race, the actions of Mr. Macias and his crew have clarified it for me. Like Carter or not, at least you always know exactly where you stand and she’ll tell you that anytime you ask…and call you when your cattle get out.

We’re having our 20 Year Reunion of the New Braunfels High School class of 85 this weekend. Melissa and I went last night to the Ice Breaker and had a excellent time. It was wild to see some of the folks I hadn’t seen in 20 years. Others I had seen off and a couple I didn’t even recognize. We passed on the cookout today, but we are going to the social tonight. I also thought about those that weren’t there and those who have passed in the last 20 years.

All in all, what a crazy 20 years it has been.

We had our second float of the year last weekend. I stayed up way to late the night before, but it was fun…as always…I think.

I’ve revived the NBFloat Team website, be sure to visit it often to find out the goings on around NB.

Today we went and played golf with our good friend Charlie Zech for his birthday. It was a wonderful day to begin with, but it got VERY windy as the front blew in. My game continued to suck, but now that I’ve put away my driver and concentrated on hitting my 5 iron straight, it’s getting better. I had at least 6 bogie holes, possibly my best game. We finished with a 4 hole playoff by carts. We lost the first two holes so it looked pretty bleak, but Stoney pulled out 17 and by some act of God I managed to 7 iron to about 4 feet from the hole on 18 for a possible bogie, winning the hole and tieing the playoff. As I was lining up Charile came up and hit my putter during my lineup and the ball dropped straight in for the win/tie. We rolled around on the green for a couple of minutes!

We finally found a guy who actually showed up when he said he would, called when he couldn’t make it and wasn’t flakey with his service! I really didn’t want him to leave when he was done, it was such a breath of fresh air after dealing with a ton of dolts! We now have a re-finished metal roof, with new bolts where needed, rust removed and nice and shiney! We also have two rooms textured and painted and a couple of cracks fixed up. He even called me after he left and let me know that his guys accidentialy picked up some of my tools and will return them when he comes back to touch up a spot. Wow!

We are in the process of selling our house and needed to fix the ceiling in one of the front rooms of our 102 year old house. We asked a friend over and borrowed some gear and started on Saturday tearing out the old 1/4″ drywall. It took us 5 hours to get all the old drywall out and pull the nails, what a pain. We went back in with 1/2″ drywall and finished up most of it by Sunday afternoon. I got to finish the job myself and then tape and float. It turned out looking pretty good, but what a pain! The best part of the whole deal was the dryall lift that we rented, without it we would have had a huge mess. Second best is that I know how to drywall now, interesting stuff that I really never want to do again!