Today’s election is no exception. On the ballot today are 11 proposals for ammendments to the Texas state constitution. These are the result of the most recent legislative session down in Austin this past spring. As my final effort to encourage you to go vote today, I will share how I voted this morning, and why I voted that way.

Proposition 1

• The constitutional amendment authorizing the financing … of the acqusition … of buffer area … adjacent to a military installation….
• I voted NO – this could lead to higher taxes and it feels a bit eminent domainy to me.

Proposition 2

• The constitutional amendment authorizing the legislature to provide for the ad valorem taxation of a residence homestead soley on the basis of the property’s value as a residence homestead.
• I voted YES – This should prevent counties from using property tax to persuade someone to sell their home so that a mall (or stadium) can be built on that land.

Propositiom 3

• The constitutional amendment providing for uniform standards and procedures for the appraisal of property for ad valorem tax purposes.
• I voted NO – I don’t like giving up local control.

Proposition 4

• The constitutionl amendment establishing the national research university fund to enable emerging research universities … to achieve national prominence….
• After waivering back and forth, I voted YES – Texas only has two tier 1 schools (UT and A&M), we could use some more.

Proposition 5

• The constitutional amendment authorizing … a single board of equalization for two or more adjoining appraisal entities….
• I voted YES – It sounds like it will help out smaller counties by allowing them to pool their resources.

Proposition 6

• The constitutional amendment authorizing the Veterans Land Board to issue … bonds….
• I voted NO because I’m generally against more debt, and there are no time limits and no oversite on this authority.

Proposition 7

• The constitutional amendment to allow an officer or enlisted member of the Texas State Guard … to hold civil offices.
• I voted YES – state employes can hold office in other military branches, why not state militia?

Proposition 8

• The contstitutional amendment authorizing the state to contribute money, property and other resources for the establishment, maintenance and operation of veterans’ hospitals in this state.
• I voted NO – While I do believe in caring for our veterans, I don’t believe in partnerships with the federal government that can cause us problems down the line.

Proposition 9

• The constitutional amendment to protect the right of the public … to access and use the public beaches bordering the seaward shore of the Gulf of Mexico.
• I voted NO – It sounds nice until you realize that as the shore erodes away due to hurricanes and such, the public beaches start extending into private property which would simply be claimed by the state with no compensation. Worse than eminent domain!

Proposition 10

• The constitutional amendment to provide that elected members of the governing boards of emergency service districts may serve terms not to exceed four years.
• I voted YES – The limit is currently two years. I’d rather these guys be doing their job than campaining for another term.

Proposition 11

• The constitutional amendment to prohibit the taking, damaging, or destroying of private property for public use ….
• I voted YES – This strengthens the ban on taking private property for economic development.

When I went by to pay my respects, I discovered a little treasure: I had a GeoCities page.  I think I set this up when I was in college so I could have a backup of my school website.  Anyway, I grabbed everything I could and put it up at tedchoward.com/geocities just for fun.

A disclaimer: the views and opinions expressed at tedchoward.com/geocities are those of past Ted and are not necessarily representative of current or future Ted.

Megan, on the other hand, grew up with dogs. (That is to say her parents have always had a dog, not that she was raised by dogs). Naturally, once we were married, she wanted us to have a dog. Over time I warmed to the idea. I decided that it might be fun, but I wasn’t going to turn into one of those dog people.

In April, we brought Hank home. He was a 10-week old basset hound. Over the past six months I’ve learned a lot of the ins and outs of being a pet owner. I have adjusted my life to the annoyances of having everything chewed and slobbered. I’ve enjoyed his antics around the house. It’s a lot of fun to watch him play with other dogs. He like everybody and wants everybody to like him. He’s a natural politician.

All that is well and fine, but something else happened that I didn’t expect. To explain, I need to tell a story. When we got Hank, our vet pointed out that he has an overbite, and that we should monitor that because it could cause him problems later. Well, later arrived this month and there was a problem. His lower canine teeth were starting to poke into the roof of his mouth. After consulting with a veterinary dentist (Did you know they had veterinary dentists?!?) we decided to have those teeth pulled.

Yesterday morning I took him to the vet, and then left him there to have the procedure done. As I was leaving, I had a very funny feeling in my stomach. It was a pretty standard dental procedure, but I was feeling very anxious about Hank. I spent the day working at home, and all day I felt weird. I actually missed the little guy. The plan was for me to come get him that evening, but when I called them they told me he would have to stay overnight. That night, I was sad he was gone. I missed him. Even though I should have been happy I had a night without having my shoes chewed, without having plants from the back yard brought into my bedroom, without having gross dog slobber on everything. Last night was a very nice, relaxing evening, and I spent it feeling anxious about a dog!

I got up this morning and went straight to the vets to pick him up. It felt so good to see him, and to bring him home. He’s still got a lot of the anesthesia in him, so he’s been sleeping all day. But I keep going to the bedroom to check on him, and it makes me feel better knowing he’s home and ok.

So, what does this say about me? Have I become a dog person? I don’t know about all this, but I do know that I like the idea of having him around a lot better than not.

A few miles away is another neighborhood, almost as old as this one.  There are a few houses from the same time period here, but most houses are new construction.  The older, smaller homes were torn down for newer, larger ones.  It is a nice neighborhood, but it doesn’t have the same character as my neighborhood.

The difference is that I live in a registered historic area.  Here, the homes cannot be torn down to be replaced by new construction.  All new construction must match the existing style.  In other words, significant effort has been put into preserving this part of our history.

The Web is like the other, non-protected neighborhood.  Many sites were built in the late 90s and early 2000s, but most of them have been torn down in favor of new construction.  In some ways this is a good thing.  Most of those early sites were ugly.  Bright backgrounds, blinking text, Comic-Sans font, and background music.  These are all things I do not miss.  But I fear that the character of the Web has been lost to the mass production of cookie cutter websites.

The sameness in design doesn’t bother me as much as the consolidation of the content.  When was the last time that you actually “surfed” the web?  I used to “sign-on” and then begin a journey of following links deeper and deeper down the rabbit’s hole.  The Web was a place where any crackpot with a computer could and would post their thoughts and ideas.  You could discover a topic and hit every site in that ‘web-ring.’  Today, one Google/Wikipedia search, and I’m done.

Today, we’ve traded out “Under Construction” icons for “Beta” tags.  Our web-rings have been replaced with “social bookmarks”.  Our home pages with guestbooks are now blogs with comments.  And although it may just seem that we’ve just swapped terminology, I think the Web has lost it’s charm and character.

I think we need a historic district for the Web.  A place to encourage new content, but it must match the style of a certain time period.  We should also find the old ‘classic’ web sites and relocate them to this district.  I also think there’s a place that’s perfect for this: GeoCities.  I’ll bet you didn’t know they were still around.  This could breathe new old life right back into the Web.  What do you think?