Random Monday Morning Thoughts

• "According to Alfredo Corchado, a reporter at the Dallas Morning News' Mexico bureau, Ethan Couch [the affluenza kid] stayed in his room for much of his time in Puerto Vallarta. On one night when he did go out, he availed himself of a local strip club, before being escorted back to his hotel by a waiter and manager from the club. He didn't have enough cash to pay his bar tab, so [his mother] had to pay it for him."  (Source: Dallas Observer)
• I still can't get over that TCU game.
• Cue the orchestra music. This is what Mrs. LL and I saw last week in a span of 24 hours: The Washington Memorial, The Lincoln Memorial, The Vietnam Memorial, Arlington National Cemetery (which includes the JFK Immortal Eternal Flame and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier), Ford's Theater, the IRS building (Boo!). The Capitol. The Supreme Court. We drove by on a tour bus by the Jefferson Memorial and the WW II Memorial. We were running out of time.
• Mrs. LL and I began a bit of taking silly political pictures. Here is an example. 
• I spent a lot of time in huge crowds over the holidays. That is the same thing as saying I was surrounded by down jackets and yoga pants. 
• The size of the Washington buildings are unbelievable. The Department of Education building would cover all of downtown Decatur -- from the site of the old Wells Fargo location on the west to the post office on the east. And I may be underestimating it. (It is also 6 stories. And the department has a budget of $77.4 billion. And what exactly what do they do at the federal level?)
• And then we moved via Amtrak. That was fun. Look out the window and see the country.
• We stayed with friends in New Jersey and they picked us up in Trenton. "Trenton?" he said to me. "Could you pick a spot more in the hood than this? Are you crazy? I was scared to get out of the car." I had no idea. I told him I had read 1776 and I thought it would be cool.
• From there we moved to Manhattan after two days.
• The 9/11 Memorial, Central Park, The Dakota building where John Lennon was killed and then on to his "Imagine" memorial about a block away. Times Square.
• There is nothing more comical than watching us try to navigate a subway system. We did fine in DC but not so much in NYC.  Apparently there is "local" and "express".  We found that out when Mrs. LL looked up and discovered we had shot by Central Park and were in Harlem.
• You fall asleep on a plane, you're fine. You fall asleep on the subway, you're screwed.
• But subways, once you figure them out, are fantastic. How the "great State of Texas" has not figured that out is beyond unbelievable. 
• Mrs. LL made me feel like an old man when she scolded me with, "You do not walk off by yourself because you'll get lost, and I'll never find you!" She was probably right.
• I'll say it again, Virgin America is fantastic. I watched the TCU game on a screen in front of me for "free". And the fare was cheaper than America or Southwest.
• I've noticed an obvious pattern: If you are traveling southbound on 287 in Wise County with license plates from the South, DPS will stop you. Why? They want to search you to see if you are transporting weed from Colorado.
• ESPN sees a 36% drop in overnights for the College Football Playoff semifinals. That's what happens when for some inexplicable reason you schedule them on New Year's Eve.
• On a more serious note, the 20 year old UNT student shot in the head during a possible road rage incident on New Year's Eve was a horrific story. 
• I've still have to figure out the President's plan on Executive Order on guns, as well as the "armed standoff in Oregon [by] a group of militia members". Oh, and the stock market is down 300 points.