Cowboy Who?

Throughout the nearly two-week murder trial, prosecutors attempted to pin the murders of Dennis Tuttle and Rhogena Nicholas on Goines, who led a drug raid at the couple's Harding Street home back in 2019.

"Complaints were investigated where towing companies were led to believe by Hergemueller that he runs Liberty County and will send an invoice to them for hazmat services," Bergman said. "These towing companies then felt they had to comply by paying the invoice in order to continue working with Liberty County and in order to protect their livelihood."

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.

I’m off today, so here’s an older post from the archives. This was originally published in 2019.

A reader writes:

I started a new position recently and was promoted quickly to a management position. Great, I have a long supervisory background, looking forward to helping in a wider capacity.

One of my direct reports is a very conscientious and ambitious young man named “Scott” who I have found pleasant to work with.

Last week, during a normal conversation about a project, Scott brought up that he had done a background search on me and then asked me about an arrest on my record — an insurance snafu that led to a driver’s license snafu and when I was pulled over for a normal traffic stop in a rather conservative county, I spent a night in lock-up. Which was both humiliating and illuminating.

This is not immediately googleable. I gave it a try myself after he brought it up, and some of the specificity of the details he used leads me to believe he went to one of the publicly available background report sites and paid the nominal fee to obtain a detailed report.

His question was framed as that he “had been doing some research and wanted to clarify what happened in X state, because it wasn’t clear if it (the arrest) was in X or Y state.” I lived in Y state more recently, but there’s nothing easily found that links the two without paying for it.

In the moment, I answered truthfully that these items were from more than a decade ago and were the result of a particular set of circumstances. I then excused myself from the conversation and returned to my office.

The longer I think about it, the more weirded out I am. Scott would like to advance and I feel like a follow-up conversation is definitely warranted, but I’m struggling with an approach aside from “hey, you super violated a boundary for me and that will go over like a ton of bricks if you do it with future managers.”

To be fair, this is an overtly aggressive office culture and asking to explain your professional background in a fair amount of detail to coworkers/employees is par for the course. But while I understand having a background check run by the company during the hiring process, I’d like to keep my personal background personal.

(And while I’m not wild about discussing this embarrassing incident, my reaction was more of a “how and why did you obtain this information?” than a deep, dark secret that I’m worried might come to light.)

How do I let go of my weirded-out feeling and how do I best address this in a follow-up conversation?

WHAT?

You are being way more chill about this than I would be.

It’s an incredible overstep to run a paid background check on your new manager — but what’s really weird here is that he thought he somehow had standing to (a) make it clear to you that he did this and (b) ask you to clarify what he found.

The way he asked you about this sounds like he genuinely thought it was appropriate. He was “doing some research and wanted to clarify what happened”?? Because he didn’t feel he had sufficient details? About something that’s none of his business whatsoever?

Have you seen anything else weird about his judgment? Because this is such a bizarre thing for him to approach you with that I’ve got to think there’s a bigger issue with him. Maybe it’s just incredible naivete — but regardless of what’s at the root, this is just wildly inappropriate and I suspect it’s part of some broader pattern.

And as you note, it’s not that this is a deep, dark secret. It’s just that it’s personal and spectacularly irrelevant to anything he would ever have cause to “research.”

So I don’t think you need to let go of your weirded-out feeling. Your weirded-out feeling is warranted and appropriate.

I would say this to him: “I was taken aback last week when you asked me about a traffic incident in my background. Frankly, I was too taken aback to address it in the moment, but I’m not clear on why you were undertaking that kind of background search on me in the first place — and especially on why you decided to inquire with me about it.” And then, depending on his answer, you could say, “I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you didn’t realize you violated a work boundary here. But I want to make sure that going forward you know that this was inappropriate, everyone you work with deserves privacy, and this is not something you should do again to anyone here.”

And I’d keep a very close eye on his judgment after this, especially around interpersonal stuff — and be prepared to swiftly shut down anything else inappropriate.

The Food and Drug Administration authorized at-home use of the nasal spray vaccine FluMist, opening the door for needle-shy people to access the potentially life-saving inoculation with a prescription. What do you think?

The post FDA Approves Nasal Flu Vaccine For At-Home Use appeared first on The Onion.

5-Day Uncertainty Track last updated Wed, 25 Sep 2024 21:02:47 GMT


Wind Speed Probabilities last updated Wed, 25 Sep 2024 21:02:47 GMT

After lunching on Whataburgers with Beto O’Rourke, Doug Emhoff criticized GOP voting laws and urged Texans not to “let anyone prevent you from registering and from voting.”

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.

LinkedIn has a new practice of sharing your personal data to train AI — unless you specifically opt out. That includes your profile, your posts, and your videos.

Without announcing it, LinkedIn apparently added a new data privacy setting last week that covers this, and they turned it on for everyone.

If you want to opt out, here’s how:

In your LinkedIn account, open “Settings & Privacy.” Select “Data privacy” and turn off the option under “Data for generative AI improvement.”

Be aware that turning this off will be not retroactive. LinkedIn has already begun training its AI with your content, and there’s no way to undo whatever they’ve already used.

ALEXANDRIA, VA—Delighting in the opportunity to make use of the tool he carried with him everywhere, local father Kevin Ballard reportedly insisted on using his pocketknife Wednesday to open a can of chili. “Hang on, there’s no need to go looking high and low for the can opener—I’ve got this covered right here,” said the marketing manager and father of three, fishing out the small item from his pocket and struggling for several seconds to open the one-inch blade. “Luckily, I never go anywhere without this baby, so I’m totally equipped for a situation like this one. It’s so much better to have a knife with you and not need it than it is to not have a knife and be in one of these tight spots where you do need it. See? All I need to do now is jam the blade into the side here and…no. Well, what if I sort of saw it, like this? Then—aw, shit, that hurts!” At press time, the man’s daughter, Jennifer Ballard, was said to have thrown out the partially opened can of chili after determining it had too much blood on it to be edible.

The post Dad Insists On Using Pocketknife To Open Can Of Chili appeared first on The Onion.

WASHINGTON—After paramedics used a scalpel to open an airway and keep him from asphyxiating en route to the hospital, President Joe Biden was reportedly rushed into surgery at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on Wednesday to remove a sock that had become lodged in his throat after he tried to eat it. “While it’s true President Biden partially ingested a striped dress sock earlier today, I want to assure everyone that this is a routine surgery, and the president is expected to be back home enjoying his favorite treats in just a few hours,” said White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, who confirmed the commander-in-chief had stolen the sock from a partially open drawer in the Executive Residence while Secret Service agents weren’t looking and had gnawed on it in a corner of the room for five minutes, eventually attempting to put the entire thing in his mouth. “There are longstanding protocols against leaving out anything a president could pick up and choke on, so we’ll be investigating the security lapse that allowed a drawer to be open at a height that President Biden could easily reach. But I would like to categorically deny the rumor that a game of tug-of-war between the Secret Service and the president led to this hospitalization.” At press time, Jean-Pierre told reporters the president was out of surgery but warned Americans to stay away from him for a little while as he was still logy from the meds. 

The post Biden Rushed Into Surgery After Eating Sock  appeared first on The Onion.

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.

I’m off today. Here are some past letters that I’m making new again, rather than leaving them to wilt in the archives.

1. Giving extra time off to people who get married

My friend got married this weekend, and she mentioned to me that her office gives her an extra week of PTO to use in the year which she got married. (The idea behind it being that she’ll use it on her honeymoon, although I doubt that that’s enforced.)

I was thinking today about the fairness of this policy. I’m not married and have no prospects (lol). If I worked at her office, I would get a week less of PTO — just because I’m single.

Ultimately, this doesn’t affect me because I don’t work at her office, but, what do you think?

Yeah, it’s lovely that they want to support their employees, but a policy of giving people a full extra week of paid vacation upon marriage is destined to cause resentment among people who aren’t married, or who were married before they were hired and would really like an extra week off to spend with their ill parent, or so forth. It’s prioritizing marriage above all other life events in a way that isn’t fair or equitable (although it reflects our culture’s tendency to do the same). I don’t think anyone would begrudge, like, a congratulatory fruit basket, but an extra week of vacation is a huge thing to only be giving to some.

An alternative would be to offer an extra week of PTO for anyone with a major life event, which they could define loosely (and they could cap it at one-time usage, or only every X years, or only after X years of employment) — or even remove the “major event” requirement and just let people have it after three years of employment or so forth.

– 2019

2. Approaching a manager in public for an impromptu chat about a job

Let’s say I visit a cafe close to my office every day at 3 p.m. for a cup of coffee. I also see a manager whose team has an opening, and it just so happens that I possess the qualifications required to join his team.

Are managers in general open to being approached by potential candidates in a public setting such as a cafe, and having a 5-10 minute chat if they genuinely had time to spare? What if the manager works for a company that is different from the candidate’s? Would they still be willing to talk to the candidate for a few minutes? They may stumble upon a very talented individual for their team.

Don’t do it! There are some managers who are always in recruiting mode and are happy to talk to potential candidates any time, anywhere. But there are far more managers who would be annoyed to be interrupted while they’re trying to have a quick coffee (and who may be doing something else they don’t want to stop).

And it’s not like interrupting someone in public is the only way to reach them and you have no other options. If you’re interested in approaching a hiring manager, you can do it over email or LinkedIn, where they can respond when it’s convenient for them and where you can include a copy of your resume, so they can figure out right from the start if it even makes sense to talk. (And if you’re really just interested in applying for a specific job with them, go ahead and apply, following the application instructions, since otherwise you’ll come across as if you’re trying to circumvent their process.)

The one exception to this is if the person works for your company. In that case, it’s reasonable to talk to them informally — but I still wouldn’t do it when they’re trying to relax.

– 2017

3. Interviewer rejected me because I was late for the interview

I had a job interview that got rescheduled because they had a snow day that closed their office. The rescheduled date was last week on Monday. I was really excited for the position and felt it was a great match for my experience and skills, and I had killer reference letters to attest to this.

It was hard to find parking and was still icy and snowy from the week before. After it was clear I wasn’t going to be as timely as I had hoped, I texted the manager I had been communicating with that I was just parking and would be there in a few minutes. (It was 1:07 pm, with our interview scheduled to start at 1:00 pm.)

I arrived about 1:10 and she and two other staff were waiting for me in a room. I apologized briefly (but didn’t want to focus on that) and what I heard in reply was. “Oh, it’s okay.” The interview went well and was well organized, thorough, and professional. I followed up two days later with a thank-you email.

But I heard back that being late had more or less eliminated me and clouded my other great qualities and that timeliness was very important for the position. I’m surprised and thought it was weird they didn’t bring that up in the interview. What do you think?

I don’t think it’s weird that they didn’t bring it up in the interview because it’s not necessarily something that requires discussion (and a lot of people wouldn’t know how to address it on the spot in a way that didn’t feel uncomfortably confrontational). Plus, they might have wanted time to think about it and decide how much it mattered to them first.

I do think penalizing you for being 10 minutes late if it was very icy and snowy was excessive; even when people plan for bad roads, they can’t always predict the weather impact with perfect precision. But I suspect not texting until you were already seven minutes late was the issue (as opposed to pulling over to contact them before the interview was scheduled to start, so they weren’t sitting there waiting and wondering if you were going to show).

– 2019

4. How do I politely end conversations at networking events?

Your recent post about conversation starters at industry events got me thinking: once you’ve got talking to someone at a networking event, and both people have got what they needed out of the conversation, how do you politely move on?

I’m on the board of the association for a charity that pays for me to attend various networking events. I want to get the most out of the event both for myself and my charity, meeting people who may want to collaborate, engaging industry leaders, and chatting to a good cross-section of the community so that they feel heard. But sometimes I get stuck — it’s not that I don’t want to talk to the person, I just need to circulate!

I know a few people who are networking ninjas. They are so good at extracting themselves from conversations without fuss that I don’t even notice them moving around. While I’m happy to say “I must circulate” to people I know well, it seems rude to just cut off the flow of conversation with someone you’ve only just met (especially if this is their rare chance to give input into our charity). In that situation, I usually say something awkward like, “I must pop to the toilet” which … isn’t that elegant…

I don’t want anyone to think I don’t value their conversation. Do you have any scripts I could use to move on without causing offense (or having to use the bathroom as a hideaway)?

“Well, it was great meeting you!” is an easy way to signal the conversation is coming to a close. You can dress it up by adding things like “I’m going to pass on your advice on X to our board,” “I hope we see each other at next month’s event,” and so forth. But the basic idea is to start saying those wrapping-up phrases.

Another way to do it is to offer your card and ask if they have one, and use that as your closing ceremony. Do the card exchange and then go straight to, “Wonderful! Hopefully we’ll stay in touch. It was great meeting you.”

If it still feels too abrupt to leave after those phrases, it’s fine to add, “I’m going to grab a fresh drink” or “I’m going to go check out that buffet!” or any other phrase that politely announces your intentions.

– 2019

(2:25 PM ET Update): The storm surge forecast has been increased to 12 to 18 feet in the Big Bend, now well above the levels set during Idalia last year. This has potential to be the benchmark event for this region historically.

(1:20 ET Update): Hurricane Helene is here, as it has strengthened enough to cross the threshold to hurricane intensity. Winds are 80 mph, and strengthening into a borderline Category 3 or 4 hurricane is expected up to landfall tomorrow night.

Helene will rapidly intensify into a major hurricane tonight or tomorrow. SHIPS model guidance shows a 10 times greater than normal chance of Helene adding 50 mph to its intensity over the next 36 hours, which would place the storm on the cusp of category 4 intensity.

Whatever it becomes at this point may matter little, as the impacts now seem set: Catastrophic storm surge, worse than Idalia for the Big Bend and Nature Coast, severe storm surge in Tampa Bay, significant wind damage from the Big Bend and Panhandle deep into Georgia, and potentially catastrophic flooding in North Georgia and the Carolinas. Among other impacts. For the U.S., Helene appears to be the most significant threat of the 2024 hurricane season.

The surge forecast has changed little from this morning, though the 10 to 15 foot values were nudged a bit west to Carrabelle, FL. Again, this is likely to be much worse than Idalia and over a larger area.

The landfall forecast continues to hold steady. Expected landfall is in or very near Apalachee Bay.

Inland tropical storm watches and warnings have been expanded today and now cover parts of Alabama, all of Georgia, much of South Carolina, and western North Carolina.

We continue to watch the rainfall outlook very closely. Unfortunately, many areas will be drenched today by a predecessor rain event (PRE) that will exacerbate flooding as Helene itself comes inland tomorrow night. As much as 2 to 5 inches of rain are expected today and tonight across Georgia and into North Carolina.

With more rain tomorrow and the storm itself not arriving until tomorrow night and Friday, conditions will steadily deteriorate into Friday in those areas, and the severity of flash flooding will worsen. This will be a prolonged, extremely serious flooding event for North Georgia, Upstate South Carolina, and western North Carolina. Landslides, at least moderate river flooding, and possibly major river flooding is a safe bet in those areas. Current forecasts indicate perhaps as much as 20 inches of rain in some southeast facing mountains in western North Carolina.

We will update again later today.

What’s changed since yesterday

• Helene’s forecast intensity as it approaches Florida has been increased a bit, with risk for further increase in the intensity forecast today. Folks between Port St. Joe and Cedar Key should be preparing for major hurricane impacts.
• Hurricane Warnings extend into Georgia, a good bit beyond Valdosta. Tropical Storm Warnings now cover virtually the entire Florida Peninsula. Tropical Storm Watches extend into central Georgia and much of southeastern South Carolina.
• Helene’s track and surge forecast is relatively unchanged.
• The interior rainfall forecast has escalated, and there is growing risk of a potentially damaging, catastrophic flash flooding event from northeast Georgia into western North Carolina, including Asheville.

Not a whole lot has changed since yesterday. It’s nice to have a consistent forecast, but this is certainly turning into quite a serious situation for the eastern Florida Panhandle and Big Bend. Again, the minimum you should expect right now is an Idalia-type impact. For many, if not most places between Apalachee Bay and Tampa, this will probably be a worse impact than Idalia. Current surge forecasts continue to suggest impacts at or above Idalia. This surge forecast is virtually unchanged from 12 hours ago.

There’s honestly not a whole lot that needs to be said here with respect to the Florida coast between Cedar Key and Apalachee Bay: This has a decent chance to be worse than Idalia was and you should be closely following the advice of local officials.

The track forecast isn’t entirely locked down, but it’s close to it right now. There are still a handful of model data points suggesting a track slightly farther east than currently shown by the majority of tropical models and the official NHC forecast. This won’t hit Tampa directly, but a track closer to Cedar Key or Steinhatchee is possible, a Nature Coast/Big Bend hit more than an Apalachee Bay hit. This is why we encourage everyone from Port St. Joe to Homosassa or Clearwater to prepare for a significant hurricane hit, be it via surge, wind, or both.

It’s also important to note how deep into Georgia hurricane-force winds are expected to go. That takes them close to Albany, GA and about halfway to Macon. Tropical storm force winds are expected to extend north of Macon to metro Atlanta and into South Carolina. This will almost certainly cause widespread power outages, and folks should be prepared to be without power for at least a few days.

Here is a list of major cities and their maximum wind gust forecasts from the NWS Point and Click forecasts as of Wednesday morning. These are likely to change:

(Editor’s Note: We will update these later today with slightly better data than point & click forecasts)

Florida
Tallahassee: 63 mph
Cedar Key: 80 mph
Apalachicola: 77 mph
Panama City: 54 mph
Clearwater: 60 mph
Tampa: 59 mph
Sarasota: 72 mph
Fort Myers: 57 mph
Naples: 56 mph
Orlando: 49 mph
Jacksonville: 63 mph
Gainesville: 56 mph
Key West: 44 mph

Elsewhere
Valdosta: 57 mph
Albany, GA: 68 mph
Macon: 92 mph
Atlanta: 56 mph
Savannah: 39 mph
Athens: 75 mph
Augusta: 46 mph
Charleston: 37 mph
Columbia: 41 mph
Greenville: 48 mph
Spartanburg: 43 mph
Charlotte: 41 mph
Asheville: 51 mph

A major, potentially catastrophic flooding event possible in the Appalachians

I want to focus on one element of this storm that is now coming into focus and becoming very serious: The risk of significant, possibly catastrophic flash flooding in the Appalachians from north Georgia into North Carolina.

A high risk of flooding has been issued for some of those areas by the Weather Prediction Center, which historically has correlated to extensive, significant damage.

This is a historically favorable setup for major rainfall in this region, and there’s no reason to believe this forecast is incorrect. So for anyone in those affected areas and even in the red moderate risk areas surrounding the high risk, it is important to be prepared to take immediate action in the case of flooding or landslides. Please heed the advice of local officials. It is possible that the damage and problems from the inland flooding will be equally as bad as the surge issues at the coast.

Helene is going to be a complex, very difficult storm with multiple different concerns along the way. We’ll keep you posted as best we can through the event, but please also stick with trusted local sources for the latest and most relevant information for your neighborhood. We’ll update this post through the day.

In brief: Houston will see another warm and humid day, but there will be a twist this afternoon as a broken line of showers and thunderstorms pushes through the area from northwest to southeast. Drier air will follow overnight, leading to sunny days with lower humidity. It’s a weak front, but in September, who’s complaining?

Wednesday

Most of the area will be warm and humid again today, with high temperatures in the low-90s. Skies will be mostly sunny this morning, but then we should see some clouds building up this afternoon with increasing levels of moisture in the atmosphere. By later this afternoon we should see a broken line of showers, perhaps with a few embedded thunderstorms, moving from northwest to southeast across the area. This line should reach from Sugar Land to downtown Houston to Kingwood by around 4 to 6 pm, and push down to the coast by around 7 to 9 pm.

As it nears the coast, this boundary should gradually run into more moisture, and this could help fill in the gaps. There is a slight threat of some briefly damaging winds in any of the stronger thunderstorms that develop. Unfortunately, I don’t think the frontal passage is going to bring widespread, drenching rains, which the area needs after a fairly dry September. Some locations may pick up 0.5 inch of rain, but most of the region, and especially areas inland of Interstate 10, are likely to see little to no rain. Lows tonight will drop to around 70 degrees.

Thursday and Friday

Drier air starts to filter in overnight, and we’ll see a couple of slightly cooler days. High temperatures on Thursday and Friday will reach the upper-80s, with lots of sunshine. Thursday may be a bit gusty in terms of northerly winds, but these will settle down somewhat by Thursday night. Lows, for the most part, will reach the upper 60s in the Houston area and drop down a little further outside of the city and away from the coast. Mornings and evenings will feel lovely.

Saturday and Sunday

Sunny weather continues, with daytime highs in the low 90s and nighttime lows around 70 degrees. The humidity will recover some, but not get back to really sticky dewpoints. So again, mornings and evenings will be fairly pleasant outside.

Next week

Expect more sunshine and highs in the low-90s. There is some support for a front arriving by Thursday or Friday of next week, but it is far from universal in the weather model ensembles. What does seem clear is that, after today, rain chances are very low for awhile for our area. That’s one reason why I’m hoping for today’s showers to overperform expectations.

Tropics

Now entering the Gulf of Mexico, Tropical Storm Helene is approaching hurricane strength with 70-mph sustained winds. It is expected to become a powerful Category 3 hurricane before striking the northwest Florida coast on Thursday evening. This storm will have widespread, myriad effects. We’ll have continuing coverage today on The Eyewall.

An inkjet print of a butterfly rests on a piece of worn concrete the size of one’s palm. Shaped like a miniature concrete divider, or a small ancient granite stele, the piece of concrete is nestled among translucent road safety beads, like a small construction site, or a grave. The butterfly is reminiscent of insects pressed into the grills of cars over long drives, especially with the audio component, which is a slowed-down field recording of highways. Pulled into simultaneously macabre, sparkly, transient, and archeological directions, Adelaide Theriault’s Vicarious Memory (sonic-geo-ecologies of concrete), Sediment and Erosion (1-8 of 8) (2021/2024, 2022) represents the contrasting sentiments, and the sediments, of this exhibition. 

A theme of imagination and play emerges. Hollis Hammonds’ Carbon Collectors (2023) is a mass of semi-transparent drafting films drawn with brown ink, looking like gnarly coffee drips. One can practically smell the musk of decomposing leaves from these mixed media drawings, interwoven with painted branches, and I suddenly recall my own childhood, weaving through sunken piles in the woods. Preston Gaines has created in Rust Garden: A Triad (2023-24) oxidized steel flowers that in their outlines, open up like butterfly wings. His Untitled (2023) takes up a corner space in the gallery, with birchwood that has been malleted to a puzzle-like fit as an architectural partition that reminds me of the playground of my youth. 

Alexis Pye’s Found I and II are a diptych, comprising banners of beautifully textural heavyweight paper washed with gouache, with details filled in through bold applications of oil pastel scribbles. She depicts Black neighborhoods, two women’s gravitational chat along a sidewalk during the daytime, and people standing next to shopping center signage during evening hours, seemingly waiting and wanting, with their West African cloth spiraling into sumptuous contrast against electric billboards. Angela Chen has created an odyssey through a series of quilted inkjet prints on cotton muslin, dyed with acorn ink and showing Houston’s Buffalo Bayou, unfurling as a huge banner in the middle of the installation space. The textile conveys warmth and softness, with delicate and minute wrinkles like veins on skin. The images at the top depict the skyscape and industrial steel and concrete, and move into a middle section weighed down by scrap metal piles at the waterfront. The piece ends by way of pipes, puddles, and moist, green meadows that run down along the floor. My inner child imagines running down, over, and across the barriers and structures toward the greenery. 

Across the gallery is an entrance to Alexandra Robinson’s immersive installation, Mi Tierra (2023-24). The work is a two-channel video projected onto a pile of Texas limestone with a flag of multi-colored quilted strips rising out of the rubble. The two projections cycle through the same videos in different timeframes, sliding past one another with scenes of fields, of dry grass, wildflowers, and green windswept plains. At certain points, the camera moves past these fields in high motion, causing vertigo, and inflicting upon the visitor a sense of displacement and uprootedness. The assembled flag and the strewn limestone speak to a sense of tattered land and identity. 

Back outside, Robinson’s ink and graphite drawings speak to the same themes: “homeland: slumberland,” “motherland: fantasyland,” “badland: no mansland,” and “my land.” For Homeland #2 (Tlaltecuhtli) (2023), amongst blocks of these contrasts and pairs, the Aztec earth goddess opens her mouth, claiming all these forms of her making, abstract or concrete, into her belly. Comparatively, in Homeland #3 (map of 1830 US) (2023), Robinson’s initial graphite sketches of these words were haphazardly erased, the traces of which could be seen more clearly, after they were overwritten with pen and ink. Her homeland is a land encompassing historic Mexico and the US, as a place of her origin combining both regions. Robinson’s uprootedness arises from her identity crisis as Mexican and American. 

Jean Shon’s work is made up of walls of text written over photography, in dual layers. One can see the original photograph’s colors refracted through like magnifying lenses. There are three photographs in the set, showing a building standing and then being torn down. Some legible excerpts state, “Reconstruction-era Black freedmen’s community in Galveston county,” “Greater Bell Zion Missionary Baptist Church, across the street from the auditorium, burned to the ground.” Searching these excerpts, one finds the story of the Historic Lincoln High School auditorium being decommissioned after a fire broke out at the church across the street, which was established by the descendants of the 1867 Settlement Historic District in Galveston County. After the text has been overlaid with the photograph, the image is barely recognizable, representing the dissolution of material history, overtaken by language. 

Finally, at the far end of the gallery, Sindhu Thirumalaisamy’s two-channel video greets visitors, inviting them to let go of geographic attachments. The left side projection displays close-up views of the earth, roaming over shells and sedimentary rocks, and the right side flashes by in highway overpasses, cars, bridges, walkways, and roads. As she enacts a deconstruction of Houston as a physical and conceptual place, the ground beneath suddenly seems complicit in hiding the traces of place. 

Why are there no artists from the Coastal Bend or Rio Grande Valley represented in this year’s biennial? A lingering thought, in an otherwise wondrous exhibition.

 

The Texas Biennial: The Last Sky: Seeding Soil and Mi Tierra will be on view at K Space Contemporary in Corpus Christi through October 4.

The post Texas Biennial: “Seeding Soil” at K Space Contemporary appeared first on Glasstire.

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.

I’m off today, so here’s an older post from the archives. This was originally published in 2017.

A reader writes:

I started working at my job eight months ago, not long after I completed college (thanks in part to your write-ups about cover letters, resumes, interview questions and job searching). A few months ago in the elevator, my manager’s manager and someone from upper management in another department were talking about an upcoming conference. The idea of the conference sounded interesting and at our next departmental meeting I asked my manager’s manager about being able to attend the conference. She said the company couldn’t send me to this conference.

I really wanted to go. This was for several reasons: (1) what I heard about the conference in the elevator sounded interesting, (2) I was trying to show initiative, and (3) It would be good for my career to attend something like that. I was bummed out about the company not being able to send me.

But a week later I was asked to assist someone from a different department. He had a broken foot and needed help carrying paperwork and laptops up to one of the meeting rooms on another floor. He told me he was swamped with trying to get everything ready for the meeting on top of signing up people for the conference and making all the arrangements. I offered to do all the conference so he could get the meeting set up.

I signed myself up for the conference along with everyone else. But I only signed up as an attendee from my company. I paid for the conference fee, the airline tickets, and the hotel room out of my own pocket. I didn’t charge anything to the company for myself, even though all of the other attendees had everything paid for using a company credit card. I also booked vacation time so I could go.

I was excited to go to the conference. But when my manager’s manager saw me there the first day, she was upset at seeing me there, even after I explained I had paid the sign-up fee and everything else out of my own pocket and had used my own vacation time. I admit now that I made a mistake because I didn’t know the conference was for directors and executive management in my industry, not for entry-level people with less than a year like me. My manager’s manager had to get special permission from the company to go because she isn’t a director yet but is next in line for a promotion when someone retires. After the conference organizers found out from my company that I am not in upper management, they asked me to leave and said my fee would be refunded.

I already paid for the hotel room and return flight, so I ended up staying there even though I couldn’t go to the conference. My first day back at work was my last one ever because I got fired. My manager’s manager was furious and so were her bosses. I know I messed up, but when I asked about going to the conference she didn’t say I couldn’t go; she only said the company couldn’t send me. I also had no idea it was a conference for upper management only. If I had known, I obviously would not have signed up, but she didn’t tell me and it wasn’t clear at registration.

I know I made a mistake and it was a huge embarrassment for the company when word of what I did got around the conference, but I never had any write-ups or trouble and I was a model employee. I don’t think it was a fireable offense and I was shocked they fired me. Did I mess up that badly or were they wrong? I want to know if there is anything I can do to fix this.

Well, you definitely overstepped. I can understand your logic in thinking that if you paid for yourself and made all your own arrangements, it would be fine for you to attend … but this was a business event that your company only invited select people to. It’s sort of like if your company was sending all the senior directors to Vegas for a retreat, and you booked your way out there and showed up too and figured it was okay because you paid your own expenses.

That said, you’re new to the work world and clearly didn’t understand how this worked, and firing you over it is a pretty extreme reaction.

That makes me wonder if anything else had happened previously to make them worry about your judgment. If this was one in a string of concerns, then their decision would be more understandable. Complicating matters, you wouldn’t necessarily know if that were the case; sometimes managers notice iffy things about someone’s judgment but decide that it doesn’t quite rise to the level of needing to address it, especially if the person is entry-level. So it’s possible that something like that was at play here.

I don’t think there’s anything you can do to fix this situation now, unfortunately. But there might be things you can learn from it. If you had pretty good rapport with your manager, one option would be to reach out to her now and say something like this: “I want to apologize again for my error in judgment in attending the conference without anyone’s okay. I genuinely didn’t understand that it would be a problem, but I do realize now that I erred. The experience has made me wonder if my judgment may have been off in other areas too since this was my first post-college job, and if so, I’d be so grateful for any feedback you can give me. I’m at the start of my career and I want to make sure that I learn from this, so if you noticed any other areas for improvement while I was working for you, I’d love your feedback.” That might not produce anything useful — but it also might, and it’s definitely worth a shot.

The post Woman Reaches Arm Deep Into Purse Like Farmer Artificially Inseminating Cow appeared first on The Onion.

Changes since this morning

• PTC 9 became Tropical Storm Helene and its satellite presentation has improved markedly since earlier today.
• Hurricane Warnings have been issued between Anclote River just north of Clearwater and Mexico Beach in Florida.
• Storm Surge Warnings have been issued from Flamingo to Indian Pass in Florida, including Tampa Bay and Charlotte Harbor.
• Tropical Storm Warnings have been issued for the Lower & Middle Florida Keys and the west coast of Florida between Flamingo and the Anclote River, which includes Tampa Bay.
• Tropical Storm Watches are now posted on the East Coast of Florida and Georgia between the Palm Beach and Martin County line and Savannah River.

Tropical Storm Helene is slowly getting organized now, as it appears that the wind shear impacting it earlier has leveled off, and it’s feeling the heat of the warm water underneath it. Expect a steady, if not rapid strengthening process to start unfolding soon. SHIPS model guidance indicates rapid intensification risk that is about 8 times climatology over the next 48 hours, not the biggest number we’ve seen in recent years but a very healthy signal that says Helene is going to take off eventually.

Helene’s satellite presentation has improved pretty dramatically today.

It now “looks the part” much more than it did earlier. One thing to note is the size of Helene. This is a pretty sprawling storm already, and as it comes north, it will continue to maintain that size, with tropical storm and hurricane force winds extending out farther than we’ve seen with recent Big Bend storms in Florida. According to the NHC’s latest discussion, this storm will be in the 90th percentile of major hurricane size at this latitude. In other words, it’s big, and the winds from Helene will be felt, especially on the east side far away from the center and outside the cone.

The forecast has changed little since this morning. We still anticipate a major hurricane making landfall in or near the area between the Big Bend and Apalachee Bay in Florida. The size of the storm will complicate the surge potential somewhat on the west coast of Florida, leading to surge values that should be as bad or worse than were experienced in Idalia. We covered that a bit more earlier today.

The intensity forecasts on tropical modeling for Helene have stalled somewhat today, certainly not a bad thing! However, I would be hesitant to read into that too much, as we’ve seen many examples of storms “overachieving” in this part of the Gulf. The biggest question that I have at this point is how close to peak intensity Helene will be when it comes ashore. There is a noteworthy difference between a 115 mph storm making landfall on an upswing versus one that has peaked and is weakening. Idalia was bad enough last year, but it was also past peak and likely less bad than it could have been. Can we pull that off twice? I don’t know, but I know to never trust the Gulf.

More to come tomorrow, and we can hopefully iron out some forecast details farther inland into Georgia and the Carolinas as well.

Attorney General Ken Paxton had turned to the high court to overturn the ban after other lower courts declined to intercede.

Three Mile Island, the scene of the worst commercial nuclear accident in U.S. history, will reopen to power Microsoft’s data centers, which are responsible for powering the tech giant’s cloud computing and artificial intelligence programs. What do you think?

The post Three Mile Island Nuclear Plant To Reopen To Power Microsoft Data Centers appeared first on The Onion.

TORONTO – Following the Lisa Laflamme “Hair-gate” scandal, CTV News has announced a groundbreaking programming initiative to revamp their flagging national reputation as a leading source of Canadian news. The new 24-nanosecond news cycle, launching this week, will enable Canadians to keep track of evolving news stories with notifications coming in every 24 billionths of […]

The post CTV announces 24 nanosecond news cycle appeared first on The Beaverton.

The US state alleges in a first-of-its-kind lawsuit that the oil giant misled the public on recycling.

NEW YORK CITY – Canadian PM Justin Trudeau appeared on The Late Show yesterday, where he and host Stephen Colbert got to enjoy reminiscing on how cool they were 8-10 years ago. “My next guest was also very popular with young, progressive millennials from the mid 2000s through 2016,” said Colbert, unfortunately not in character […]

The post Trudeau, Colbert bond over shared status of ‘guys who were cool a decade ago’ appeared first on The Beaverton.

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.

A reader writes:

I work at a small public library and I have a coworker who is a very naturally anxious person. He apologizes for every little thing, whether it’s his fault, not his fault, or not something that could possibly be anyone’s fault. I feel like I hear him say “I’m so sorry” with complete sincerity a dozen times a day.

It’s not just a verbal habit, he means it. This is not “I’m sorry you’re not feeling well,” it’s “I’m so sorry that I took a scheduled phone call at the time that I said I would and that meant I wasn’t able to refill the printer paper when it ran out in the middle of your print job, I should have anticipated that and I’m so sorry you had to do it.” Whether he’s apologizing to a patron that there’s a waitlist on the book they want, or to our coworker that she talked to the loud teenagers before he did, or to me when I mention I don’t like the ringtone on the new desk phone, it’s all Red Alert Remorse Top Priority Contrition Protocol.

I don’t care that he didn’t print out more copies of a form that I can also print out! I don’t blame him that the building manager hasn’t fixed the leaky faucet in the staff bathroom! He’s constantly taking on the full responsibility for absolutely everything. It must be exhausting for him, and the rest of us have to reassure him multiple times a day that it’s not necessary.

He also takes responsibility for every possible work task, but is bad at multitasking and prioritizing those as well. This results in more apologies when he wants to organize spare computer parts in the closet but gets distracted partway through and leaves loose keyboards and mice all over the floor, or he does go to get more printer paper but gets distracted refilling a water cooler and then tries to load the paper with wet hands. We are short-staffed, but things are not so hectic that he needs to do absolutely everything, by himself, right now. This frustration I have tried to let go, since it is our manager’s responsibility, not mine.

But it’s hard to bring up real issues and feel like he hears and understands that I’m asking for a change in behavior, not an acknowledgment of guilt. One time it took him 25 minutes to drop off mail in the front office, and I had to page the office to get him back out when the floor got too busy for me to handle on my own. I pointed out as patiently as I could that this happens a lot, asked that he keep track of time, and suggested that the next time the mail came he didn’t need to rush it to the office ASAP — especially since some of it turned out to be for me and he had to bring it back. He spent five minutes apologizing, but he still does something like this at least once a week, months later. I appreciated the apology, but I would have appreciated it more if he tried not to do it again.

This happens even when he identifies the issue himself, for example apologizing for calling me (a woman) and another coworker (nonbinary) “you guys” and basically mansplaining to us why he was wrong to use a gendered term that we might not be comfortable with … but he still defaults to calling every library visitor either “sir” or “miss.”

Because he apologizes so often, but he never follows up the “sorry” with any real change, I don’t actually take any of his apologies that seriously. Even though I know he feels bad, I’m frustrated and unsympathetic because all he does is feel bad.

It’s clear to me that this is internal to him and probably only a long course of dedicated personal work could help him get to the bottom of the guilt he feels over every other person’s minor inconveniences. It would be nice if he could dial it down three or four notches at work, though.

I’m in full BEC territory, not because I dislike him, but because it’s so exhausting. I have limited emotional space for his constant apologies and all the work I wind up doing to either communicate that I’m not upset about the thing he did (or someone else did, or the freaking weather did) or that while I appreciate a since “my bad,” what I really want is for the mistake not to happen again. I like him just fine as a person, but this habit has really worn down the respect and patience I’m able to hold for him as a coworker.

Do you have a kind script that I can use to communicate either or both of these ideas:
1. Don’t apologize for things you have no control over, or
2. If you do have control over the thing, try fixing it.
And if you don’t have a kind script, do you have one that might result in him not apologizing for how much he apologizes?

That sounds utterly exhausting. I’m sure this is coming from a deeply-rooted place on his side, but it’s demanding a lot of emotional labor from you each time: you have to pause the conversation and reassure him that it’s fine. I was worn out just reading about it.

That said, you might not be able to change it. This stuff is deeply-rooted, and sometimes it can become almost like a verbal tic where the other person isn’t even aware of how often they’re doing it.

But you can certainly try!

The next time he apologizes unnecessarily and there aren’t other people around (so you don’t embarrass him by calling him out publicly), you could say: “Can ask you a favor? You apologize to me and other people a lot and it’s unnecessary. It makes me feel like I have to pause the conversation and reassure you that it’s okay. I know it’s probably an ingrained habit, but I’d be grateful if you didn’t apologize to me so frequently.” If you want, you could add, “Or at all, really!”

He will probably apologize in response to this. I don’t think you can prevent that. But you’ll have laid the groundwork so that the next time he starts to apologize, you can cut him off and say, “No apologies” and then keep talking — and that part is key. If you just say “no apologies” and then pause, you’re leaving room for him to apologize for apologizing or otherwise continue in the vein, or to just feel awkward. It’s better if it goes something like this:

Coworker: “I saw you had to help that patron and I’m sorry—“
You: “No apologies needed! She was asking about books on llama grooming and it made me remember that time last year when we found that llama sleeping in the kitchen. Do you remember that?”

or

Coworker: “I saw you had to help that patron and I’m sorry—“
You: “No apologies needed! Hey, have you seen Lucinda? I wanted to ask her about the crocodile presentation she’s doing.”

And so forth.

Sometimes a visual signal like raising your hand in a “stop” motion is useful too, but the most important thing is to just quickly move the conversation to a different track and keep it there.

The more complicated piece is when you’re trying to get him to hear that you’re asking for a change in behavior, not an apology. In those cases, try this:

You: “You’ve been entering the oatmeal inventory incorrectly. Can you remember to use the checklist each time so steps aren’t missed?
Coworker: “I’m really sorry, I should have remembered, I am a terrible person—“
You: “No apologies needed. I would prefer if we could talk about how to do this going forward without you apologizing because that takes us off the main point, which is…”

But this can be really, really ingrained, so I’d imagine you’re looking at a lot of repetition of these strategies, unfortunately. If it helps to remember, though, it’s likely a kindness to him, since he probably doesn’t even hear how often he’s doing it.

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.

A reader writes:

I am extremely jealous of my coworker, and I have no idea what to do about it.

My coworker, let’s call her Lacy, and I started in the same entry-level position around the same time (Lacy started a few months before me). We’re similar in age and, while Lacy graduated from a much better university than me, had similar majors.

It was a terrible working environment for a long time due to our toxic manager, and Lacy and I bonded a lot over surviving. Then, about two years ago, there was a total overhaul of our department and our manager was replaced, along with almost all of the team except for the two of us.

Since then, Lacy has been promoted twice and makes almost 50% more than me, and I … am still in the same position. Objectively, I can understand why this happened. Lacy is very skilled and calm under pressure. Meanwhile, I struggle with socializing and really can’t handle pressure. In fact, even after her promotions, Lacy sometimes helps me with the more high-stress parts of my job.

I know all this objectively, but I am so, so jealous of her. When she got her first promotion, I had to leave the building because I was beginning to cry in front of her and our new manager. When her second promotion was announced, I had a panic attack and had to take a sick day. Sometimes, I can’t help but delay tasks that Lacy asks me to do because if she’s so great, surely she can do it herself (I know this isn’t how it works, this is just how I think in the moment). It’s hard for me to say thank you when she helps me out because it just feels like she’s rubbing it in, even though I know she isn’t.

It’s been two years, but I can’t adjust. My manager has talked to me about it several times throughout the years, and no one has mentioned firing or a PIP, but I’m sick of feeling this way. I know that this is on me, but I’m struggling so much. How can I change?

Two things: Change jobs, and therapy.

Change jobs because you’re miserable in this one! You’re comparing yourself to Lacy and having panic attacks over her accomplishments and even doing worse work yourself out of resentment, which risks harming you professionally. It sounds like you’ve been at this job for a number of years — and you’re deeply unhappy. Why not leave? You don’t need to stay and feel tortured.

But it’s essential to also pair that with therapy, because Lacy isn’t going to be the last person you encounter who triggers these feelings. I suppose it’s possible that there’s something specific to Lacy that’s unlikely to come up again — you’re similar ages and backgrounds, you started at the same time, you trauma-bonded together, and so it feels like whatever she achieves that you don’t reflects on you — but your reaction to her success has been intense enough that something is going on internally that’s not about Lacy and that’s likely to pop up in other ways in your life and make you unhappy, even after you’re long gone from this job. That’s therapy stuff.

Meanwhile, though, while you’re working on whatever those issues turn out to be (and it may be a while, because a lot of therapists have waiting lists for new patients right now and because even once you start, progress takes time), you really don’t need to keep trying to power through this.

If it were easy to solve with logic or mental reframing, you would have already done it.

Give yourself the gift of changing jobs. But also give yourself the gift of committing to delve into (with help) what led you here.

Six Texas Arts Organizations Receive Inaugural NEA ArtsHERE Grants

The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) has announced that it is awarding more than $12 million in grants to 112 arts organizations across the U.S. through its ArtsHERE program. Six Texas organizations are among the awardees. 

The pilot program ArtsHERE was announced last fall, the goal of this initiative is to support organizations committed to equity by increasing arts participation for historically underserved groups and communities. The recommended grant recipients are from all 50 states, D.C., Guam, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Grantees will receive $65,000 to $130,000 to support specific projects. 

In a press release, Maria Rosario Jackson, PhD, the Chair of the NEA, remarked, “The NEA is thrilled to provide resources to a group of exceptional organizations through ArtsHERE, a program to help deepen meaningful and lasting arts engagement in underserved communities. Everyone should be able to live an artful life, and ArtsHERE is an important step in ensuring we are strengthening our nation’s arts ecosystem to make this a reality.”

The Texas awardees include Art Spark Texas and Babes Fest, Inc. in Austin, Arts Connect Houston and RSA of Dance & Performing Arts in Houston, Teatro Dallas, and The Welman Project in Fort Worth.

Taylor Willis, Co-Founder and Co-Executive Director of The Welman Project, a creative reuse organization that provides free resources for educators, told Glasstire, “Receiving the ArtsHERE grant is transformative for our community, as it empowers us to build the needed infrastructure for a makerspace and tool library that provides equitable access to creative resources, a first in Fort Worth. This support brings us closer to the vision of the Transform 1012 N Main Street coalition, turning a former KKK building into a vibrant artistic hub where creativity, inclusivity, and community can flourish.”

Learn about each of the proposed projects below, via descriptions provided by NEA.

Art Spark Texas
$105,903

With ArtsHERE funding, Art Spark Texas will conduct participant-informed research on how to re-engage and better serve young adults with disabilities. Through that project, it will build staff expertise, leverage arts through its programs, and increase accessibility and inclusion for individuals with disabilities. Art Spark Texas challenges perceptions of how people contribute by creating arts-inspired, inclusive communities of artists and individuals with and without disabilities.

Arts Connect Houston
$130,000

The ArtsHERE grant will leverage a decade of Arts Connect Houston’s (ACH) data and experience in arts education to develop replicable, community-driven benchmarking tools, focused on providing more students, especially those from underserved communities, with high-quality arts education. ACH unites the Greater Houston community to ensure equitable access to the arts for all students. With 95 arts and culture partners, they provide comprehensive arts education to over 200,000 students annually.

Babes Fest, Inc. (Future Front Texas)
$130,000

The ArtsHERE grant will help Future Front Texas codify its community curator program, to deepen staff capacity and create a public curriculum from community design within the arts and culture sector. This program provides traditionally overlooked creatives, artists, and cultural workers in Texas with the opportunity to explore equity-driven curatorial structures, program design-thinking and community-led creative work. Future Front focuses on supporting women and LGBTQ+ creatives in Texas through programs, workshops, and exhibitions that provide platforms for underrepresented voices in the arts.

RSA of Dance & Performing Arts
$125,000

The ArtsHERE grant will expand RSA’s Arts to Infinity program, an initiative for youth from under-resourced communities that combines dance education, performance opportunities, community development, and holistic wellness programming for families. The mission of RSA of Dance & Performing Arts is to provide quality arts education, mentorship, and experiences to underserved youth, ages three and older. The organization focuses on community development and youth engagement, promoting the arts as a means of personal and social growth.

Teatro Dallas
$74,000

The ArtsHERE grant will support strategic planning, board development, innovative marketing strategies, and stakeholder engagement to better reach the shifting demographics and Spanish-speaking communities of North Texas. For over three decades, the organization has addressed systemic barriers within the arts, particularly those affecting low-income, bilingual families and underrepresented artists. Through high-quality theatrical programming, Teatro Dallas employs the power of theater to empower the Latinx community, celebrate diverse traditions, and strengthen the community.

The Welman Project
$74,900

The ArtsHERE grant will support strategic planning and cultural competency training to help The Welman Project open its tool library and makerspace as part of the future Fred Rouse Center for Arts and Community Healing, which was formerly used as a KKK auditorium, in a majority Hispanic community. The Welman Project connects teachers and schools with surplus materials from businesses, promoting creative reuse and sustainability in education. It aims to enrich arts learning experiences while reducing waste and fostering environmental stewardship.

The post Six Texas Arts Organizations Receive Inaugural NEA ArtsHERE Grants appeared first on Glasstire.

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Today's News:

In brief: In today’s post we share our annual message about the Texas hurricane season likely being over for the rest of the year. This means we are fairly confident that a hurricane is not going to strike Texas for the remainder of 2024. Additionally, we look ahead to a short but sweet front that arrives on Wednesday. Dry air? Is such a thing even possible in Houston?

Tropics season is winding down

I’ll let you in on a little secret. Every September, around this time of year, I’ll write a post that essentially says the Texas hurricane season is over. And every time, my wife hates it. Why? Because there’s a non-zero chance that I am wrong and that, despite the odds, a hurricane will actually strike the Texas coast during the remainder of the season. It would be pretty embarrassing.

But I believe in reporting and writing what I honestly think is true. And I’m here to tell you, both Matt and I think the likelihood of a hurricane striking Texas after today this year is pretty darn low. Historically, the odds are about 1-in-50. Looking at the available data for this year, there are a couple of things to consider. Yes, the Gulf of Mexico is historically warm, and such sea surface temperatures tend to support the idea that we could see tropical systems blow up into hurricanes.

However, there are solid reasons to believe that we’re done for this year beyond the historical odds. First of all, after soon-to-form Tropical Storm Helene, the Gulf of Mexico looks fairly quiet over the next week, if not longer. That gets us into October. Then there is the overall pattern change to consider. We’ve already had one cool front earlier this month. Another is on the way Wednesday. Quite possibly, we’ll get a third front some time next week. When you start to see this kind of fall-like pattern of regular fronts, it becomes very difficult for a hurricane to blaze a trail westward across the Gulf of Mexico into Texas. Not impossible, mind you, but very unlikely.

None of this means that we won’t see tropical weather in October, or possibly even November. We could see tropical lows bringing heavy rainfall for many weeks to come. But the odds of another hurricane bearing down on our region are pretty darn low at this point. If you want to breathe a little easier, that’s fine with us.

We’ll continue to monitor the tropics, of course, and if there’s anything threatening we’ll definitely call attention to it. The Atlantic hurricane season is very much not over for the rest of the basin, particularly Florida and the Caribbean Islands. Their season lasts into November.

Tuesday

Monday’s high temperature was 95 degrees at Bush Intercontinental Airport, but I think we’re finally done with the mid-90s. Next week could see a few pretty warm days, but the worst of this late summer fling we’ve been experiencing this month should finally be at an end. Highs today will be closer to 90 degrees as we see more clouds, and some elevated rain chances. Expect to see a couple of impulses moving through the area from northwest to southeast, each bringing some scattered showers. Rain chances will be about 40 percent today, and continuing into tonight. Overnight lows will drop into the mid-70s for most locations.

Wednesday

The front will sag into the Houston area throughout the day on Wednesday, likely not reaching areas south of the city until Wednesday night. Therefore, most of the region is likely to reach about 90 degrees, with a mix of sunshine and clouds. As the front gets closer to the coast it will tap into more moisture, so I expect to see a decent amount of showers south of Interstate 10 on Wednesday evening as the front pushes down to the coast. Lows on Wednesday night will drop to about 70 degrees in Houston, with cooler temperatures in outlying areas.

Thursday and Friday

These will be a pair of warm days, with highs generally in the upper 80s, and sunny skies. With dewpoints in the 50s, the air will feel noticeably drier. Lows on Thursday and Friday nights will drop into the 60s away from the coast. This is a weak front, so its effects will be modest and won’t last all that long—nevertheless mornings and evenings will be pleasant so plan to spend a little time outside enjoying the fleetingly drier air.

Saturday and Sunday

Highs will get back to about 90 degrees on Saturday, and into the lower 90s by Sunday, under mostly sunny skies. Humidity will rebound some, but with dewpoints in the 60s it’s not going to be the full-on humidity that Houston is known for in the summer. Rain chances are near zero.

Next week

We’ll be in the low 90s to start next week with plenty of sunshine. Humidity levels should remain marginally lower than ‘normal’ for summer, so that will be nice, and should allow overnight lows to continue dropping to around 70 degrees. There’s some hint of a cool front in about the Wednesday or Thursday time frame, but it’s no sure thing it pushes all the way down to the coast. We shall see.

Storm Surge Watch/Warning Map last updated Tue, 24 Sep 2024 14:59:54 GMT

There are several common lines of inquiry when someone learns you’re vegan. These scripted responses will spare everyone a tedious conversation and might even make you less annoying at dinner parties (but probably won’t).

Where do you get your protein?

From peanut butter, seitan, and the ten thousand french fries I eat every time I join my non-vegan friends out for dinner.

Would you break your veganism if you were stranded on a desert island and had to choose between eating animals and starving to death?

No, I’d survive on a nutritious diet of moral self-righteousness. Okay, fine, and a single guppy that lived a full happy life and died of natural causes.

How long have you been vegan? It seems like just another food fad.

I’ve been vegan for [X] years, and vegetarian for [Y] years before that. But you’re right; it might still be just a phase, like my curtain bangs.

Don’t you miss cheese, though?

Yes. Next question.

Do you wear leather?

No, but if you meant in that way, I can assure you that pleather tastes pretty close to the real thing.

How do you make sure you’re getting proper nutrition?

I take vitamins, supplements, and antidepressants. That last one’s not a vegan thing, more just a living-in-the-world thing.

Are you opposed to fast food places that serve vegan food alongside meat?

No, because I prefer not to starve to death on road trips.

Is it really accurate to call yourself a vegan since you’ve probably accidentally eaten meat a bunch of times?

I try to avoid accidental acts of carnivorism, but when they happen, I don’t consider myself any less of a vegan—and the eight spiders I swallowed in my sleep last year will back me up.