The Duval Car Chase One day I came down the staircase and into my condo s parking garage over at 32nd and Duval just north of UT Austin s campus It was late probably between 2am and 3am I only took a couple of steps into the garage when I noticed two guys near the corner trying to break into one of my neighbors cars I looked in their general direction and one of them made eye contact with me He was like a deer in headlights He signaled to his buddy and they very slowly and casually started walking away from the car they were attempting to rob I started walking faster towards my truck and they did the same towards the exit I finally ran to my truck and they ran out of the parking garage A small white car was waiting for them and they jumped into it I started up my F 150 in record time and hauled out of the garage in pursuit of them Since my car was still equipped with an external sound system I thought it was far time that I use my siren for a good purpose and proceeded to chase them towards campus My lights were flashing and my police siren was at full volume I pursued them south down Duval street all the way to 26th street They ran the light and turned west on 26th I followed We hit upwards of 60mph as we traveled westerly through campus They took a hard right onto Guadalupe and I was still in close pursuit Finally as we neared 29th street they did a 180 through traffic I couldn t safely make the same turn especially in my truck By the time I did turn around probably just a few seconds later they had gotten far enough away from me that I lost them If only cell phones had been available I typed up an indecent report and posted it in the elevator at my condo complex in case anybody had been burglarized Fortunately I was able to run them out before they actually did any damage It sure would have been nice to catch them

The First Zima photo 269663 740 150 right Standard issue Zima photo At the start of the high school football season in 1995 I had the pleasure of being openly intoxicated for the very first time in my life It was also the first time that I d ever tasted a Zima In hindsight I m sure the evening wasn t one of the most graceful of appearances I ve ever made but it was indeed first of many similar ones The first game of this particular year was against Clear Lake a good football program well out of our district In fact Clear Lake was and remains a good hours drive from Katy I had been planning to go to the game with a good friend of mine at the time Johnny Smith A few hours before we were going to leave for the game Johnny got word that someone could make a beer run for us I m not certain who actually picked up the alcohol but I think it may have been another friend of ours named Jason Schrodi possibly with the help of Bert Gentles I do know that Johnny and I went over to Bert s house to pick it up Since I was uncertain of what to get Bert recommended to me that I get a 6 pack of Zima Zima had only been around for a year or two at the time and though it was labeled a ladies drink it was a pretty good introduction to drinking So like any good high school kids we got two cases of beer Miller and Zima got in Johnny s ugly brown Thunderbird and illegally drove to Clear Lake merrily drinking along the way The car ride also taught me just how badly alcohol requires one to pee a legitimate issue when on the highway To the best of my recollection I drank three Zimas before that game one at Johnny s house and two more in the car By the time we got to the game I definitely remember being pretty hammered Other than have a great time in the bleachers there really wasn t anything of great significance that happened I ran into dozens of my friends at the game most of whom were amused and surprised at me being intoxicated Our team wasn t very good and so it s pretty likely that we didn t win but I have a funny feeling that was not of great importance to me I could really only stand the taste of Zima for a few more weeks It was sometime around then that I was introduced to the various flavored malts like MD 20 20 Purple Passion and Boone s Strawberry Wine Those were the days

Continuing North Part 2 Continued heading north along the west coast today departing from Greymouth around noon or so We stopped at the famous strong Pancake Boulders strong just 30 minutes north of Greymouth and later stopped at the strong Buller Gorge strong Both are known as key points of interest in New Zealand and I would say they are pretty interesting The weather at the Pancake Boulders was not terribly good but as we continued north along Highway 6 it gradually cleared up One interesting story was a stop we had just south of Westport on the West Coast We stopped for a brief visit and some pictures to a seal colony On one hand there was a path that wound around the beach and looked to be somewhat of a long journey and on the other hand there was the option of crossing the beach and hiking up the rockside I decided that we would take to the beach and climb the rocks As I led the three of us jumping from rock to rock along the beach I did not notice how well one of the seals had blended into the surroundings Thankfully I lept to the right instead of the left but nonetheless heard a loud roar as I stepped down Not more than two meters to my left was a huge male seal head in the air snarling at me I quickly sprung across a few more rocks and up grassy hill only to find myself in the face of another seal snarling at me I quickly backed off heart pounding and hands bruised from falling on a previous rock and ran away In the end we decided to take the longer path After a nice Indian dinner in Nelson along the North coast we neaded closer to Abel Tasman National Park and have found ourselves a quaint motel on the outskirts Weather cooperating we are planning to do some kyaking somewhere in the park at the Golden Bay

Hays Field Road Hays Field Road Words by Klaus Wagner Music by Kevin Ludlow A SLIDE RIFF A Whats your name Words can t explain What I see before me Eyes are blue Skin is cream Put me to sleep D Lemme figure this one out in my dreams D A Gonna take a drive tonight Foward Fly I don t wanna see you cry Cause I feel good with you D Gonna take a drive tonight C9 Gonna make sure I figure this one out right C9 Cause I m going down D Hays Field Road Going down C9 G Hays Field Road tonight A Its juts begun The day has got a new sun LYRIC REST But I see you once I need you twice You re gonna stay here tonight D Gonna take a drive C9 To figure this one out D C9 G Gonna take a drive down Hays field Road SLIDE UP A If the clock turns twelve And I m around I know that I will wake up And I will stay To live again Another day C D A And take a drive down hays field road

Dionysium Debate photo 344059 740 0 right Kevin Ludlow presenting his closing arguments at the a href http dionysium com Dionysium Debate a photo credit Jad Davis photo Although not officially part of the campaign the wonderful people at the a href http dionysium com Dionysium a invited me to be one of the debaters for their September show As one who loves formal debate and as one who loves the arts I was thrilled to be a part of the show The September topic was to resolve that political power grows out of the barrel of a gun I had the pleasure of defending the position Pitted against me was Dionysium regular Jonathan Patschke And so for roughly 40 minutes Jonathan and I argued deeply philosophical points back and forth The problem I discovered is that arguing that political power does indeed stem from the barrel of a gun is a wildly unpopular position It is most certainly true but it s not something that people want to hear Be that as it is the basis of my campaign is to show people that we can do better We don t need the force of government dictating our every move I did get to field a question or two from the audience regarding my campaign platform The response received a huge round of applause and once again confirmed my belief that the ideas of personal freedom are very popular in Austin

A Letter to my Republican Friends To my friends who intend to support the Republican party with Romney at the helm I feel bad for you truly I do You have to know by now that if Governor Romney wins the nomination which appears likely President Obama is going to sweep the 2012 election Don t get me wrong I loathe President Obama as much as I loathed President Bush I just wish I could understand why those of you who vote party line are so blind to this reality It s a simple two fold problem Firstly the Republican party obviously has no clear favorite This is probably because the three media favored candidates are hardly distinguishable from the Democrats when it comes to most issues Or on occasion are so openly vile and off topic that even many conservatives are dismissing their rhetoric And secondly the party has to contend with the reality that Ron Paul has an army of well organized supporters The latter of those is what I would like to address There s one thing that you need to know about the current primary process and this is really important the overwhelming majority of those voting for Ron Paul have NO INTEREST in supporting the Republican party outside of his nomination I am certainly included in that subgroup In fact varying statistical analyses put the number around 1 in 4 right now In other words if it s Romney vs Obama in November then about 75 of those votes currently coming from Ron Paul Republicans will result in write ins independent 3rd party votes or abstentions They will NOT go to Romney This is a huge problem for you Not even the media knows quite how to spin it Let s be clear about this Most Ron Paul supporters aren t so stubborn that they would never vote for another candidate Rather they re just not going to vote for a candidate who intends to wander down the same path of destructive policies that we ve seen for almost 15 years Unfortunately most of you seem to be completely ignoring these much needed policy changes Here s three off the top of my head ol li The majority of us couldn t care less about homosexuality and the myriad of subtopics you ve created around it The whole idea of small government is that the government doesn t get to run people s lives We take this credo very seriously whereas you only purport to take it seriously If your personal beliefs encourage you to act in a selfish and bigoted manner that s perfectly acceptable But at least be objective enough to support legislation that embodies the diversity of our country not the homogeneity of your personal faith br br li li None of the other candidates have shown ANY interest whatsoever in addressing the severe financial mess this country is in Occasionally one will offer some insignificant cut to a future budget proposal This is meaningless to our current problems Since some of you evidently don t fully grasp this concept it means that if a department was intending to expand by say 100 billion in 2013 your candidate might be willing to cut that expansion down to 90 billion Of course this completely ignores the fact that many departments need not exist in the first place and merely reducing their expansion does nothing to reverse our current level of debt It s like going shopping because you received a coupon in the mail You re still spending money you didn t need to spend in the first place We re interested in someone who wants to legitimately cut spending who wants to substantially reform the tax system and who doesn t support playing favorites with American corporations And as a parallel to that just because you don t like the Occupy Wall Street people doesn t make them wrong Stop acting like corporate lobbyists and financial bailouts are somehow to your benefit they clearly are not br br li li Stop trying to take over the world It shouldn t be done and more importantly it can t be done Nobody on our side of the table is suggesting war isn t sometimes necessary However the entire Muslim world is NOT your enemy and certainly not our enemy Even if they were there are over 1 5 billion of them The attack on Osama Bin Laden s compound was a small covert and successful mission That single mission was more useful than years of occupation We have ruined literally decades of progress and permanently scarred our nation s reputation all on the quest to protect American corporate interests Ron Paul Republicans will not tolerate much less support a candidate interested in waging these kinds of open militaristic conquests around the world We have a Congress to make declarations of war so that the people can control the war The President of the United States is not a military dictator contrary to what President Bush and President Obama may have led you to believe li ol The recent Romney victory in Washington State pretty much showcased the general mentality of the party Romney was hated by the Washington Caucus in 2008 placing last in almost every county Now four years later he is miraculously the top pick by a substantial margin It s pretty obvious that the majority of you are only interested in voting for the predicted nominee rather than who you believe is a good candidate That s a pretty sad state for a democracy especially considering it s only the primary process So having written all of that and knowing how much I d love to see a change in D C next year I truly wish you d wake up to the reality of this election If you forcibly continue to exclude and ignore these people and ideas you cannot win this election period Every one of the so called swing states is going to be gift wrapped and handed to the Democrats If your only goal this November is to unseat Barack Obama then it would seem that ignoring this population does your cause a grand disservice Please feel free to a href contact email me anytime with your questions on the topic a I d be more than happy to respond In the meantime keep looking for that birth certificate because that s sure to fix our problems

Homeless WiFi The Kony of SXSW photo 255924 740 0 right photo If you re not familiar with a href http homelesshotspots org this project a yet an ad agency called a href http www bartleboglehegarty com global BBH a has equipped 14 homeless people in Austin with 4G data enabled devices They ve asked their participants to roam the South by Southwest festival offering free WiFi to people The stunt has attracted a host of negative publicity People have been suggesting it is unethical immoral and exploitative I even read one article claiming that the agency is essentially commoditizing generally read as enslaving the homeless Unfortunately these claims couldn t be further from the truth In fact the only unethical component of this whole matter is how quick the media has been to present a new bandwagon for the uninformed to jump on A few points to consider Firstly this is not a bad financial deal All of the individuals are being paid a minimum stipend of 50 per day 20 of which is up front If that number seems low keep in mind that they re not exactly doing work rather they re just instructed to go about their day people will find them The company is also suggesting that people provide donations for the service the suggested rate seems to be about 2 00 for 15 minutes of access In addition to their stipend the homeless keep all of the donations that they re given That adds up pretty quickly at a festival like SXSW Secondly they re entrusted and invited to participate in a worldwide event I m not a social worker but I have to assume that when you entrust somebody with an expensive piece of hardware one they could easily run off with provide them with a festival t shirt bearing their name and give them a legitimate reason to interact with the general population this is possibly the greatest offer many have seen in some time It provides a presumably disparaging person with opportunity something we all hope for Thirdly I also have to assume that the fourteen people selected for this project are fairly competent individuals That is to say there is a certain level of communication and responsibility necessary for this project to be successful even if it is minimal It seems that the ad agency would be somewhat selective in their process of choosing who was eligible to participate This would suggest that the participants are of pretty sound mind Which brings me to my only real problem with the outcries Where is the consistency with the argument I see homeless individuals working all sorts of jobs around Austin and I ve never read of people being lambasted for hiring them I ve watched them distribute leaflets hold business signs sell papers work parking lots and on and on So I m curious where the outcries are for homeless people being paid to hold Liquidation Sale signs on street corners Is there some sort of line in the sand that we cross once the job takes on a more technical nature Unfortunately we re seeing these sorts of baseless and even counter productive outcries occur all of the time through the internet In my opinion they re exactly what turn legitimate problems into fashionable blips There are no doubt cases whereby homeless people have been exploited for their services For example about a decade ago Indecline Films started putting out a series called a href http en wikipedia org wiki Bumfights Bumfights a The clear difference is that they sought drunken and probably mentally unstable individuals and paid them to incite violence against one another There is a clear common sense distinction between these types of cases and it s just sad that people are so willing to rally against anything even when there are numerous and obvious benefits If people really wanted to help the homeless they could trivially forgo a href https cart sxsw com products show product_code reg plat spending 1 395 on their SXSW badges a and instead donate that directly to a homeless person or any number of local shelters But of course we all know that s never going to happen My take of these matters is simple If people are unwilling to put real action ahead of empty talk then perhaps they should at very least stop speaking for others Especially when those others are perfectly capable of speaking for themselves

Stormy Eyes After heading back to Austin for my sophomore year in college I put this little album together for Sarah Wagner The original title track on the album had been crafted for her several months earlier Sarah was from Oklahoma The artwork used throughout the album was taken from the storm systems common to the area strong Track Listing strong ul li Away li li a href files music Duval_Street mp3 Duval Street a li li a href files music Small_Lake_of_Wishes mp3 Small Lake of Wishes a li ul photo 270049 270276 0 left The front and the inside of the CD jacket photo photo 270051 270276 0 left The back of the CD jacket photo br style clear both strong Duval Street strong Written and Recorded September 1998 Music by Victor Perez Lyrics by Victor Perez Guitars Kevin Ludlow Vocals Victor Perez strong Small Lake of Wishes strong Written and Recorded June 1998 Music by Kevin Ludlow Guitars Kevin Ludlow Bass Kevin Ludlow Drums Kevin Ludlow strong Duval Street Lyrics strong em Duval Street is where we live Four guys Chuck Vic and Kev Don t forget the one who brought the first girl He s the one he s the only shadow He knows a girl named Christina She s blonde She s a Kappa Delta He sleeps only five feet away from me Living in this place I feel so free We have a back porch where we smoke our cigarettes We sit down on the one dollar chairs and talk about How we did nothing all day Nothing all day It s okay on Duval Street Duval Street Duval Street Take me home Make me cry Kevin knows a girl that goes to Duchense Her name is Sarah she s in the 12th grade She woke me up today and told me happy she was to be on Duval Street She s so sweet she makes him happy Sometimes she sits on my lappy Chuck s in his room taking a nappy Don t forget to give it a tappy tappy Tappy Tappy A tappy tappy Chuck is happy Kevin s happy Ludlow s happy Kevin s happy Mike is happy Shadow s happy Chuckle s happy VP s happy Victor s happy We re all happy Cook me some spaghetti Kevin Duval Street Does this bus go to Duval Street Or 32nd Street that ll be just fine Shhh em

HIS1301 The American Crisis Luther Elmore History 1301 Assignment 2 The American Crisis As I read through the article Paine wrote two hundred and twenty five years ago I found that imagining myself in that time period is impossible When I read the way that Paine described other countries mainly England and the way that he and certainly others felt about groups of people a sense that we have it really easy came over me As Paine gets not halfway into the article he begins describing his feelings towards the Tories with very expressive adjectives The simplest of all these adjectives is that they are cowards plain and simple One might not be overly offended these days when called a coward however I imagine that in 1776 when courage and love were the only two things a man really owned taking one away from him meant a lot Paine goes on to describe Toryism as nothing but servile slavish and interested fear I feel it is safe to say that he was not fond of the Tories As I got more and more into Paine s article I especially enjoyed his style of rhetoric in regards to encouraging the Americans of the time In a nutshell I felt that he wrote a very good English paper as school would have lead me to believe Paine describes advances that the militia has taken and will take upon the land and tells the Americans that losses are possible no doubt about it Upon doing so he also assures them that hope should not be lost with these losses He tells them as the British do one thing and furthermore succeed they have the following options and he then proceeds to list them As an example he describes that Howe may advance to Philadelphia and upon doing so may take it over He tells his readers that if he does not take it over then they have been victorious and he is ruined On the other hand if he is successful the American armies can split into two and join forces making it impossible for them both to be conquered at the same time at least In my mind it is of course understood that his predictions and solutions were completely hypothetical We must remind ourselves however that while they may have been hypothetical they were still predictions and solutions to those predictions and people in general rely on such things to remain happy and hopeful In a completely honest opinion of this text I found it somewhat difficult to read As mentioned above I found impossible or near impossible at least to put myself in the shoes of someone reading this article in December of 1776 Nonetheless I still found the article to be incredibly insightful to the time period and very interesting reading because it has such historical content I found the even more historical value in it through several paragraphs referencing Amboy As it is I spent the first seven years of my life in New Jersey and my father was born and raised in what is today South Amboy thus making me very aware of the described area 200 years progressed of course On a final note I did bookmark the site of philosopher s texts and would like to go back and read over some of Paine s other articles I often find myself scribing small philosophies of my own and am rarely dissatisfied reading the philosophies of others regardless of their opinions

Replacing the Thermostat After finally getting the bus up and running it seems that there is a small problem cooling it down For one thing the radiator fan isn t coming on Because the bus is so old it s difficult to determine if there is just some old oil burning off the engine block or if the engine is overheating slightly A friend of mine suggested that the problem might be as simple as a faulty thermostat It took me a little bit of work and my trusty Haynes manual but I was able to get the coolant manifold opened up clean everything out and replace the thermostat I also went ahead and bought an analog temperature gauge for the radiator so I can see just how hot the coolant is running once it s fired up Once I get that piece in place I ll fire it back up and see if everything starts working normally Otherwise it s back to the proverbial drawing board photo 270542 258221 0 center The open engine block after removing the manifold You can see a little bit of the neon green coolant still sitting atop it photo photo 270539 258221 0 center The old temperature gauge on the left versus the new one on the right photo photo 270540 258221 0 center Installing the new thermostat and a new gasket Installing the gasket was actually one of the tougher parts because I had to carefully clean and dry the block without getting all of the dirt into the open engine block before the thermostat was set into place photo photo 270541 258221 0 center The coolant manifold back in place and tightly locked down over the gasket photo photo 270538 258221 0 center Finally the whole system back in place photo