Houston Food Trucks

United We Roll

I tried to leave comments on this post, "Let's keep the regulations on food trucks in the city", yesterday, but I have yet to receive my email confirmation allowing me to leave a comment.

Instead, I'll blog about it :)

In reply to the above post with some information taken from the blog post titled, "Terrorist Attacks, Drugs and Danger: Why City Council Doesn't Want Food Trucks Downtown", and some common sense.

These are the 4, yes only FOUR, things food trucks are asking for:

• Allow food trucks with propane tanks to operate downtown and in the Medical Center, as long as those propane tanks are less than 40 pounds.
• Eliminate the minimum required space between food trucks, allowing them to park closer than 60 feet away from each other (remember how obnoxious it was to have so many food trucks spread out at Haute Wheels?).
• Require that four or more food trucks parked in close proximity to one another have a fire safety officer on hand, for propane safety reasons.
• Allow food trucks to provide three tables and six chairs outside of their units, as long as the seating is removed before the truck leaves.

Everything in quotes below is directly from the article "Let's keep the regulations on food trucks in the city" linked above.

"This code requires that food trucks not park within 60 feet of each other and that a member of the fire department be on site."

Why is this needed?
Supposedly because of the propane tanks. Walk to some of the restaurants with a patio downtown and I guarantee you'll find an outside heater that runs on those very same propane tanks. Usually several on a patio and certainly closer than 60 feet. Ridiculous.

"The city of Houston has two inspectors and one supervisor for these 939 units. Many of these trucks operate around the clock or during off hours, while the inspectors primarily work normal business hours. With only two inspectors, it is not possible for the city to enforce the existing regulations, much less loosened regulations."

How is this different than a regular restaurant again? Ever been to a 24 hour diner?
In addition, there are actually more inspectors per food truck than there are inspectors per restaurant: The ratio is 313 to 1 for food trucks and 413 to 1 for restaurants.

"The existing regulations adequately protect consumers while allowing the trucks to thrive."

Here Coachman pretends to be concerned about the consumer. Coachman, who's Coachman? Oh he's the president of the Greater Houston Restaurant Association. Well no wonder he doesn't want to change the regulations. The food trucks are supposedly direct competition.

The 4 things requested from the Food Trucks all seem reasonable to me. The reasons City Council have rejected them are weak and OBVIOUSLY opinions from their favorite lobbyists.

Please support our Food Trucks and sign this petition. Follow along on twitter -  https://twitter.com/MFUHouston and/or Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/MFUHouston'

Thanks!!!

LinkedIn Today - Jan 26 2012

This is the LinkedIn Today. It is an email I get about once a week that contains trending and helpful articles and topics. Here is my summary and semi-analysis of some of the articles.

If You're An Average Worker, You're Going Straight To The Bottom

Seth Godin talks about the death of the Industrial Age and the average worker. 

I've read two of his books, Tribes and Linchpin. I connected with Linchpin more as it spoke to the individual. It highlighted various linchpins in various industries, how to recognize linchpins, and also suggests ways you can become a linchpin (if you're not already). Both of these books are a good read and both speak on the transition from the Industrial Age to the Technological Age and how it affects both the employee and employer.

Why Your Culture is Way More Important Than Your Strategy

An excellent read on why a culture should be nurtured, it's purpose, and most importantly how to create and maintain a successful culture. 

The culture of your company should be based on the company's mission. Do you know what your company's mission is? What is your company's purpose and value system? 

"Think about the Marines: the few, the proud. They have a connected community that is second to none, and it comes from the early indoctrination of every member of the Corps and the clear communication of their purpose and value system. It is completely clear that they are privileged to be joining an elite community that is committed to improvising, adapting, and overcoming in the face of any adversity." 

Why Being a Nicer Boss is a Smart Business Move 

An article about "Why Appreciation Matters So Much". I think the only thing missing in this article is that it should go both ways, not just supervisor to employee but the other way around too. 

"The single highest driver of engagement, according to a worldwide study conducted by Towers Watson, is whether or not workers feel their managers are genuinely interested in their wellbeing. Less than 40 percent of workers felt so engaged." 

"Feeling genuinely appreciated lifts people up. At the most basic level, it makes us feel safe, which is what frees us to do our best work. It's also energizing. When our value feels at risk, as it so often does, that worry becomes preoccupying, which drains and diverts our energy from creating value."

Blogging... I miss it

I haven't blogged in a LONG time. Not sure why, I guess I felt I was just too busy or didn't have anything to say.

Well now I do. So let's get to it... tomorrow =)

Automatic Snap Grid for Monitors

I was reading a story about the Large Display Paradox on Coding Horror and found out about these cool tools that allow your windows to snap into place. I have two 19" monitors and I'm constantly moving, minimizing, maximizing, and resizing windows.

I decided to go with GridMove. It's free, comes with preset templates and you can make your own templates. Click on the image to see a demonstration.

Improve Your Life

I found this article that lists 10 ways to improve your life. It really will improve your life; through logic, rationality, and compassion. It is written by Adrian Savage the author of "Slow Leadership: Civilizing the Organization".

This list is posted at lifehack.org: improve your life

Eurlist.thesol.com

... let it go ...

Time's 50 Best Web Sites for 2007

I've been perusing this list and I gotta say... it rocks. I found some very very cool sites. Here's the list. Take a look for yourself.

Get out of (break?) your cell phone or wireless carrier contract!

I was reading the 50 Best web sites on Time.com and read about www.cellswapper.com. You can post the cell plan you would like to get rid of and transfer it to someone that does want it i.e. "swap out" your plan. There is a transfer fee ($15-$40) and that varies by carrier, but you won't be paying any early termination fees!

You can also search for a cell plan to "buy" i.e. "swap in" to a new plan. Some of the terms are very short too. I've seen one with only 3 months left. This site is great for all of us that like the latest and greatest phones, but don't want to pay full price for them.

Speaking of new phones and getting a great price, don't forget to check out www.letstalk.com.

-Hank
Eurlist.thesol.com

J.J. Abrams - Cloverfield - Ethan Haas Was Right

OK, J.J. Abrams is the master of intrigue, puzzles and creating hype for his works. Like Lost, "Cloverfield" (codename) comes with web sites that seem to be revealing clues. In true J.J. Abrams style, it does answer some questions, but for each answer two new questions arise. These two web sites have popped up in reference to Cloverfield, Ethan Haas Was Right and Ethan Haas Was Wrong.

The first site takes you to a puzzle. After you figure it out (I won't tell you) you see a video of a man (presumably Ethan Haas all scanlined and fuzzed out) and he says some interesting things, but most importantly, he wants to test you one more time.







Here is the second puzzle. This is as far as I have gotten. I'm guessing the clues to solving this riddle is in the blog.

So I did a search and found at The Braxcave, the solutions to what looks like all of the puzzles. Good for me, now I don't have to try and figure them all out :).

DRM Free music and MP3 music available here...

For all of those fans out there that used www.allofmp3.com, that site is shut down. But never fear, they have reopened another site called www.MP3Sparks.com. I just tried to log into MP3Sparks with my credentials from AllOfMP3 and they are not working... sort of. I had my username/password sent to my email address and that worked fine, but even with the credentials that are stored on their database, I can't log in.

The reason I was trying to login was to find out what type of payment they would accept. So, I created a new account and attempted to add money to my account... alas, it is not possible at this time. I'll keep you all posted on my progress.

Flickrdown - Batch Download Flickr Photos

OK. I got an email from Yahoo today telling me I need to move (actually Yahoo does it for you) my pictures from Yahoo Photo to somewhere else and Flickr of course is an option (and the one I chose).

Well I stopped using both Yahoo Photo and Flickr after I starting using Google's Picasa and the Picasa Web Albums. The point being I wanted to move my photos on Yahoo Photo to Picasa. I needed to download all of my photos, add them to Picasa, and then decide if I wanted to post these to the web album.

I searched both Yahoo Answers and Google for ways to batch download files from either Yahoo Photo or Flickr. I found it! It is called Flickrdown by www.Greggman.com, you can get it here, and it works for Flickr. It is both easy to install and to use. I wonder if can make one for Picasa's Web Album? :)

HTC TouchFlo - iPhone (or iPhoneness) on the HTC Wizard

So the bad ass developers at XDA-Developers are porting the TouchFlo interface to the HTC Wizard a.k.a. the MDA. It is now in Beta 2b and you can read the forum post here and decide if you are brave enough to flash your MDA.

Check out the video to see TouchFlo in action (HTC Touch).

Save on your energy bills!

I just read a cool article on what I would think would be an easy no hassle way to save money on energy bills. I think it is a win-win situation for the consumers and power producers. Basically update the lame electric meter so it can record when energy is being used and the power companies can charge different rates for power at different times of the day (peak and off-peak).

Everyone would have a monetary incentive to use energy at non-peak times. Here is the article. This is technology at its best.

MDA with Windows Mobile 6

Wooohooo my MDA now has Windows Mobile 6 installed!!! Go here to do it yourself (not for the faint of heart). The (for me) best thing about it is power management. My F'n battery would die within 6 hours w/o any real usage and would never sit overnight without completely draining the battery.

Now, it's great. I left my MDA unplugged (with a 100% charge) ALL NIGHT and still had 78% battery power left in the morning. It could never do that before.

After following all of the instructions, in addition to the battery life, you get cool applications like Pocket Screen Capture which I used for the above image.

Under the settings --> system tab, there is an application that is called "X-button" that you can use to actually shut down the apps you are using, by tapping on the "x" button (or tap and hold down, depending on your settins).

Another application I fell in love with is the Audio Manager. It is just a very cool interface for playing your music on you MDA. The interface reminds me of the Zen Vision M player. In addition to letting you find and listen to you music easier and faster, you can hold your stylus down on a song and open the context menu and then choose the song as your ring tone... SWEET!

Anyway, if you are brave enough, follow the instructions METICULOUSLY and you too will be wowed by Windows Mobile 6.

ASP.NET 2.0 ReportViewer :: Continued...

I have one report viewer wired to two different local reports and users can select the report from a dropdownlist. Here's the code to show the correct report:

protected void DropDownList1_SelectedIndexChanged(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
// remove previous report viewer if it exists
if (Panel1.Controls.Count > 0)
{
Panel1.Controls.Clear();
}

// create new instance of reportviewer to get around lame bug
ReportViewer rv = new ReportViewer();
ReportDataSource rds = new ReportDataSource("dsCustodians_Custodian", this.objDSRptCustodians);
rv.LocalReport.DataSources.Add(rds);
rv.Width = new Unit("100%");
rv.Height = new Unit("400px");

// set the reportpath dynamically
if (this.DropDownList1.SelectedValue == "Custodians")
{
rv.LocalReport.ReportPath = Server.MapPath("rpt_GroupedByCustodians.rdlc");
}
else if (this.DropDownList1.SelectedValue == "Departments")
{
rv.LocalReport.ReportPath = Server.MapPath("rpt_GroupedByDepartment.rdlc");
}

// add the dynamically called report to the panel
Panel1.Controls.Add(rv);
}


-Eurlist.thesol.com

ASP.NET 2.0 ReportViewer :: Failed to enable constraints

I'm using the ASP.NET 2.0 ReportViewer in local mode for the first time (and it ROX). Here are two excellent tutorials:

• ASP.NET 2.0 ReportViewer in Local Mode - this one is great for getting setup. You need to run reportviewer.exe file on your web server. You can get the reportviewer.exe here.
• Drill Down Reports with ReportViewer ASP.NET 2.0 - this one is also excellent for demonstrating a 3 level drill down report.

After you get everything set up and are running the tutorials, you may get this error message:

An error has occurred during report processing.
Exception has been thrown by the target of an invocation.
Failed to enable constraints. One or more rows contain values violating non-null, unique, or foreign-key constraints.

You can go here for the solution to this.

One last piece of code that will save you from a migraine :)

this.ReportViewer1.LocalReport.Refresh();

Good Luck!

-Eurlist.thesol.com

Lost Season Finale

Great ending!

Q&A

Is Charlie really dead? Not sure, but likely IMO

Who is in the coffin? My friends and I think it was Ben

What's up with a "flash forward" and was it actually a flash foward?
The Funeral Home where Ben's viewing was, is called Hoffs/Drawlar, which is an anagram for "Flash Forward".

In addition, Jack tried to get a prescription filled by his Dad and the pharmacist was going to call his Dad's office to confirm. Also, when Jack was arguing with the chief of surgery, Jack told the guy to go get his "Dad and see who was more drunk". Isn't Jack's dad dead????

T-Mobile Wing - MDA Replacement - Windows Mobile 6

There are reviews and pics all over the web for the T-Mobile Wing, the newer, thinner and sexier MDA.

PC Magazine - Details and a review
Engadget - Details and pics
T-Mobile - Get it here!

Looks sweet, although I've not seen one in person. I like that it is thinner, has Windows Mobile 6, the LED indicators for Caps and Alt, and the 2 megapixel camera. I don't like the same old CPU.

Eurlist

Hi All!

I have created a web site where you can create lists to your heart's content. Why would you want to create a list you ask? Because other people want to read them and you'll become famous!

Create a Life List!

Check out these lists:

• TOP MUSIC ALBUMS (and favorite song)
• Secret Ingredients you will never see on Iron Chef America
• THE WORST MOVIES

History of the World

HISTORY OF THE WORLD:

Humans originally existed as members of small bands of nomadic hunters/gatherers. They lived on deer in the mountains during the summer and would go to the coast and live on fish and lobster in the winter.

The two most important events in all of history were the invention of beer and the invention of the wheel. The wheel was invented to get man to the beer. These were the foundation of modern civilization and together were the catalyst for the splitting of humanity into two distinct subgroups:

1. Liberals
2. Conservatives

Once beer was discovered, it required grain and that was the beginning of agriculture. Neither the glass bottle nor aluminum can were invented yet, so while our early humans were sitting around waiting for them to be invented, they just stayed close to the brewery. That's how villages were formed.

Some men spent their days tracking and killing animals to B-B-Q at night while they were drinking beer. This was the beginning of what is known as the Conservative movement.

Other men who were weaker and less skilled at hunting learned to live off the conservatives by showing up for the nightly B-B-Q's and doing the sewing, fetching, and hair dressing. This was the beginning of the Liberal movement. Some of these liberal men eventually evolved into women. The rest became known as girliemen.

Some noteworthy liberal achievements include the domestication of cats, the invention of group therapy, group hugs, and the concept of Democratic voting to decide how to divide the meat and beer that conservatives provided.

Over the years conservatives came to be symbolized by the largest, most powerful land animal on earth, the elephant. Liberals are symbolized by the jackass.

Modern liberals like imported beer (with lime added), but most prefer white wine or imported bottled water. They eat raw fish but like their beef well done. Sushi, tofu, and French food are standard liberal fare.

Another interesting evolutionary side note: most of their women have higher testosterone levels than their men. Most social workers, personal injury attorneys, journalists, dreamers in Hollywood and group therapists are liberals. Liberals invented the designated hitter rule because it wasn't fair to make the pitcher also bat.

Conservatives drink domestic beer. They eat red meat and still provide for their women. Conservatives are big-game hunters, rodeo cowboys, lumberjacks, construction workers, firemen, medical doctors, police officers, corporate executives, athletes, Marines, and generally anyone who works productively. Conservatives who own companies hire other conservatives who want to work for a living.

Liberals produce little or nothing. They like to govern the producers and decide what to do with the production. Liberals believe Europeans are more enlightened than Americans. That's why most of the liberals remained in Europe when conservatives were coming to America. They crept in after the Wild West was tamed and created a business of trying to get more for nothing.

Here ends today's lesson in world history: It should be noted that a Liberal may have a momentary urge to angrily respond to the above before forwarding it. A Conservative will simply laugh and be so convinced of the absolute truth of this history that it will be forwarded immediately to other true believers and to more liberals just to piss them off.

Pandora.com

Pandora is one of the coolest music listening sites I have ever been to. If you've not heard of it, please go and try it here.

The site allows you to create a "radio station". You choose an artist or song that you like and it will randomly play songs or artists that are similar to the one you chose. A radio station with no commercials and music that you will actually like. What more could you ask for?

Here's an article on Techdirt that shows once again how stupid the music industry is: http://techdirt.com/articles/20070502/200120.shtml

Pandora already pays fees to play the music, in addition, the listeners, if they like an artist, have the option to buy the song or album. But the music industry is trying to limit who is allowed to use Pandora, even though Pandora helps them advertise new music and artists. What idiots!!!