Month: November 2012

I’m Not a Formula 1 Fan, but Several of My Friends and I Own It

Posted on by M.K. Waller in Uncategorized

The Formula 1 United States Grand Prix drew fans from all over the world to the grand opening of The Circuit of the Americas near Austin this weekend.

COTA Formula 1 11-16-2012 3-34-56 PM
COTA Formula 1 11-16-2012 3-34-56 PM (Photo credit: Smarter Within)

I myself wasn’t one of the drawn, but after reading and listening to friends and complaining about the Circuit of the Americas for the past couple of years, I’ve gathered enough information to comment in a semi-reliable fashion.

According to its website, CoTA is a “world-class motorsports and entertainment venue,” “designed to be the only purpose-built facility in the U.S. to host the FORMULA 1 UNITED STATES GRAND PRIX™ through 2021 and V8 SUPERCARS from 2013-2018.” It covers 375 acres and lies fifteen miles from downtown Austin.

Politicians have been patting each others’ backs all ’round, just tickled pink–or maybe green–because the track will bring money into the city and the state and will create jobs. Can’t complain about that. Money and jobs are good.

And such a Big Deal, covering months of negotiations and construction, helps drive

  • the water shortage,
  • underfunded schools,
  • rising property taxes,
  • feral hogs, and
  • how much will remain of San Antonio after Texas has seceded from the Union and all those military installations have packed up their guns and airplanes and hit the road for Iowa,

from the headlines to page 3 of the classifieds, right below Doonsbury.

I haven’t shared the politicians’ or anyone else’s enthusiasm. I’ve railed against CoTA ever since it hit the six o’clock news:

  • paving pasture- and farmland,
  • wasting fossil fuel,
  • spending state tax money to fund what should be a private venture,
  • plopping the facility down in an area with inadequate infrastructure and expecting the taxpayers to pay for repair and upkeep,
  • causing land values and property taxes to skyrocket, and
  • other objections too numerous to mention.

However, on Saturday, while the elite, who the night before had drunk gold-infused champagne at Austin’s finest hotels (I didn’t make that up) were descending from helicopters onto a former field near Elroy, our friend Millie shared with the Fifteen Minutes of Fame writing practice group some facts that tempered my pessimism. She said the CoTA will eventually

  • be open 365 days a year,
  • host concerts, charity runs, sports events, and the like,
  • create hundreds of both full-time and part-time jobs,
  • attract a million people a year,
  • pour oodles into the economy, and
  • promote research that will influence medicine, transportation, and other areas we can’t yet predict.

After listening to her reassurances, FMoF members gave Millie a round of applause and left in better spirits.

But even before Millie’s talk, all my objections had become moot. Because on Friday, I had learned that the Teacher Retirement System of Texas has invested $200 million in Formula 1, for “about a 3% stake in the global racing series.”

Circuit of the Americas Chairman Bobby Epstein said, “Now the teachers win when F1 makes money and when new dollars come into our state as a result of the Grand Prix.”

Consequently, I have become Formula 1’s biggest fan. I will say kind words about it, I will look for it in the sports pages, I may even subscribe to Sports Illustrated. Whatever I can do to promote Formula 1 racing, I will do.

I’ve already X-ed out the piece I wrote last week about a dystopian future when we run out of fossil fuel and  CoTA descends to hosting chariot races.

But there’s another however:  TRS stated, “To be clear, F1 is a completely separate company that is unrelated to Circuit of the Americas, which will host an F1 Grand Prix race near Austin in November 2012. None of the Teacher Retirement System of Texas, CVC Capital Partners, or Formula One Group has any ownership interest or business relationship with the Circuit of the Americas.”

So I’ll also continue to wail about the paved-over paradise on which my pocketbook depends.

*****

P. S. One of my objections was that state and city tax money had funded CoTA. The CoTA website carries this note:

“NOTE: To date, State money has not been paid to the developers of Circuit of The Americas and no local community, including the City of Austin, is providing incentive funding to the developers. As is the case with the Super Bowl, NCAA Final Four and other large-scale events in Texas, the Formula 1 event is eligible for expense reimbursements from the state’s Major Events Trust Fund. This reimbursement is performance-based and may be applied for after the first event in November 2012. Any state reimbursement is based on the amount of incremental tax revenue generated by event-related activity that would not have come to Texas if the event were not here.”

So I’m not sure what all the media hoop-la was about. Maybe it concerned lumping CoTA in with the Super Bowl, NCAA Final Four, “and other large-scale events in Texas.” Which, in light of the TRS investment, is from my point of view peachy-keen. Until I read this paragraph, I didn’t know the state reimburses the Superbowl and other such large events. I hope the Texas Library Association Conference gets its share.

Related Articles

Veterans Day 2012: The Waller Boys

Posted on by M.K. Waller in Uncategorized
Clockwise from lower left: Donald Waller, Maurice Waller, Joe Waller, Bill Waller, Graham Waller.

Five Sons of Mr. and Mrs. Frank Waller Are Servicemen

The Record is glad to present in its Service Men’s Corner this week another group of five fine young men, all brothers, now in the service of their country.

These are sons of Mr. and Mrs. Frank Waller of Fentress. An interesting and significant feature of this story is that the young men pictured here are first cousins of the five Graham brothers that were featured in a recent issue of the Record, all being in the service. Their mothers, Vida Waller and Bruce Graham, are sisters and their fathers, Ed. Graham and Frank Waller, are cousins.

The Waller brothers pictured above are as follows: Joe Waller, U. S. Navy; Pfc. Maurice Waller, overseas; Pfc. Bill Waller, Hd. Co. 32 A. B., Indiantown Gap, Pennsylvania; Cpl. Donald Waller, Base Weather Station, Luke Field, Phoenix, Ariz.; Pfc. Graham Waller, Co. B. 155 Inf., Camp Shelby, Miss.

The above pictures and script appeared in the San Marcos Record of January 29th and are reproduced here by the permission of that newspaper.

Mr. and Mrs. Waller and their sons are due thanks and admiration of all Americans for the sacrifices they are making for their country.

Source: Lockhart (TX) Post Register, 1943

*****

Joe, Donald, and Graham served in the Pacific. Bill and Maurice served in Northern Europe. All returned. Bill came home deaf from bomb concussion and spent the next twenty years telling curious children that his hearing aid was a telephone. In 1967 and ’68, a new surgery being taught at the VA hospital in Houston restored his conversational hearing.

NaNoWriMo 666

Posted on by M.K. Waller in Uncategorized

Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off—then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. ~ Herman Melville

National Novel Writing Month–NaNoWriMo–started yesterday. Because I can’t  resist challenges, I’d already registered as a participant. All I had to do was begin. Boot up the laptop, write 1667 words every day for a month, and pat myself on the back. And publicize my accomplishment. Publicizing allows other people to pat your back, too.

The number of the beast is 666 by William Blake.
The number of the beast is 666 by William Blake. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Here I must digress. 1667 reminds me of a story:

When my library converted to an automated circulation system, the staff typed, barcoded, laminated, and distributed several zillion library cards. A couple of days later, a freshman girl appeared at the circ desk and told me she wanted a different card.

She pointed to the barcode. “This one is against my religion.”

I examined it for heresy: # 1666.

I was tempted to say–quite reasonably–“No, dear. The number 666 is against your religion. This is 1-666, a different thing entirely. Now run along and have a nice day.”

Instead, I said, “It’ll take about five minutes.”

Some things aren’t worth arguing about.

NaNo isn’t worth arguing about either, and that’s what NaNo makes me do. Argue. With myself.

Every year, I sign up to write 50,000 words in thirty days, and as soon as November 1 arrives, I tie myself in knots.

NaNo is supposed to be fun. It’s supposed to be about freedom. It’s about pouring words onto paper. It’s about turning off the inner critic and going with the flow.

I’ve never been good at fun. And I like to do things right the first time so I don’t have to do them over. These are not the best traits for a NaNo participant. Or for any aspiring writer.

Here’s another story. About ten years ago, I read Tracy Chevalier’s Falling Angels. I’d loved her Girl With a Pearl Earring, but Falling Angels was better. Exquisite.

Later I read an article in which Chevalier told how she’d written the novel. She’d completed the manuscript but felt something about it–she couldn’t say exactly what–was wrong. So she set it aside. Then she read Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible, which is told from multiple points of view, and saw potential. She completely rewrote her manuscript, changing the third-person narrative to multiple first-person points of view.

Chevalier’s description of her “process” impressed me, but for the wrong reason. I should have focused on her dedication, her craftsmanship, her openness, her perseverance in the pursuit of art. Instead–and I’m ashamed to admit this–I put down that article thinking, “How could she bear to write an entire manuscript, draft after draft, hundreds of pages, and then cast it aside and write the whole thing all over again?”

I had hardly enough energy to read about it, much less to contemplate doing it.

Well, there’s my dirty little secret, spilled all over cyberspace.

I’m not lazy. I just have an active imagination. I become exhausted in advance of need.

And the thought of the NaNo variety of freedom leaves me in shackles of my own design.

Gosh, it’s so nice to have a blog. There’s nothing I like better than sharing my neuroses with people I don’t know. And some I do.

On the other hand–looking at the subject from, as it were, a different point of view–it’s possible that my neuroses are responsible for everything I write. For my compulsion to return to the keyboard. For my love-hate relationship with NaNo. For my ability to jabber all over a blog and then have the fantods at the sight of a blank MS Word screen.

I started this post intending to thank my critique partners for encouraging me to dive into NaNoWriMo, letting the devil and my 3400-word deficit take the hindmost. Unfortunately, in the course of self-psychoanalysis, I wandered off topic, and now I can’t think of an appropriate transition.

Nevermind.

This is November. NaNoWriMo. Freedom. Death to transitions! Throw convention to the wind! Write bad drafts! Worse drafts! Quantity, not quality, counts.

So thanks, Austin Mystery Writers, for aiding me in this damp, drizzly November in my soul.

And thanks, dear reader, for enduring another 700+ words of self-indulgent cliched prattle.

Writing about the pain of writing is such sweet sorrow, I could prattle on till it be morrow.

Marshmallow Cats

Posted on by M.K. Waller in Cats, The Animal Fair, Uncategorized

Several readers have commented about Ernest’s eyes in the Halloween post, so I will clarify: their evil glow was merely the reflection of late-night lamplight.

Similar to the eyes of a wild animal caught in the headlights on a dark, deserted highway.

But there’s nothing wild about Ernest. He generally looks like this:

Or this:

That trick of light is the scariest thing about him. He’s three years old, and when he hears a knock on the door, he still runs upstairs and crawls under the bed.

We’re proud of the recent strides he’s made. After hiding from guests for over a year, he’s started prancing downstairs, snuffling shoes, and jumping into the lap of one human per evening. We thought at first he wanted make friends. It finally dawned on us that he always zeroes in on the person sitting in the recliner. That’s my chair. He considers it his chair. I am allowed to sit there, but he wants strangers evicted.

Speaking of scary, the most frightening thing in our house is William in repose. Because this snuggly strawberry blond is a canny creature, sharp and shrewd, possessed of a sly wit and a subtle intellect. William doesn’t sleep. He schemes.