Rock your world at Dashboard University

Welcome to Dashboard University.

I am a huge fan of the late Zig Ziglar, the world’s foremost authority and speaker on motivation and success. I never got to meet him, but I did meet his son, Tom Ziglar, shortly after Zig’s passing in 2012. Both are amazing men in their own right.

Zig Ziglar, to the best of my knowledge, is the one who came up with the concept of Dashboard University. Essentially it means listening to audiobooks in your car rather than the radio. He referenced a study in which the average commute time was measured and scientists determined that if the occupants of the car listened to books that it would give them the equivalent of a master’s degree in just a few years.

I can tell you right now that no one is going to mistake me for someone of master’s level intelligence, but I did begin listening to audiobooks in 2008 and estimate that I have listened to more than 225 books since then. I still read printed books, but there is no way I could make the time to read 225 books in six years, especially with the commutes that I’ve had.

Most of those years I had a one-hour commute each direction to work. It’s now about a half an hour, which is still a significant chunk of time each week. It’s amazing how much you can “read” and learn in time that is normally wasted. I’ve listened to a lot of books by Zig Ziglar, Dave Ramsey, Stephen Covey, Napoleon Hill, Rick Warren, Nick Vujicic, and a host of others.

The time spent in Dashboard University has also allowed me to “read” the entire Harry Potter series, the Left Behind series, and most of the books by my two favorite authors, Clive Cussler and Brad Meltzer. There has also been a liberal sprinkling of Louis L’Amour westerns and most of the Ender’s Game series by Orson Scott Card.

I like to mix educational and motivational books with a variety of fiction novels. It’s usually the latter that encourages me to slow down, take the long way, or wait a few extra minutes in my car when I reach my destination because the book it too good to “put down.” (I guess you could call them real “wheel-turners.”)

Ziglar is by far my favorite audio author because his books are really just recordings of his motivational presentations. I never grow tired of listening to him. I know most of his stories, jokes and anecdotes by heart. I know for a fact that he has never said the word “denial” without mentioning a river in Egypt!

Presentation is vitally important in a good audiobook. There have been some that I’ve had to quit listening to because, despite my interest in the subject matter, the narrator’s monotone was putting me to sleep. That’s a bad thing when you’re behind the wheel in Dashboard University.

Aside from Ziglar, the best audiobook narrator on the planet is Scott Brick. He is undeniably the best voice actor in the business. He does accents and inflections that make a story come to life. I’ve gotten to know Brick via email and Facebook. I’d be honored to meet him in person some day. The same goes for Meltzer, whom I’ve communicated with via phone, email and Facebook.

Listening to books has been more than entertaining and inspiring, it has roused my curiosity and imagination. They have taken me to places my daily commute never could. It has enriched my life beyond measure.

I realize that most people in Sealy do not have long commutes, but some do. And you would be surprised at how much time you do spend behind the wheel just tooling around town each day. That’s a lot of time to listen and learn.

It’s saddening whenever someone drives by with their rap/hip-hop/whatever music pulsating so loud that it rattles windows and overpowers your personal space. Not only are those people permanently damaging their hearing, but their thinking as well. Garbage in, garbage out. Sure, there are times I like to listen to music and enjoy the radio. Compared to the times spent with a good book, however, those moments are rare and not nearly as fulfilling.

At least with a book you don’t get songs like “Dancing Queen” and “Let It Go” stuck in your head! And this, my friends, ends your lesson for the day from Dashboard University. No go and get those songs out of your head!

Burttschell Ranch a place for second chances

(This is a story from the May 1, 2014, edition of The Sealy News.)
If Burttschell Ranch is about anything it’s rebirth.

Born out of the loss of a husband and father, the ranch is a place where old dogs and horses find new purpose after their former owners have put them out to pasture.
“The thing about a dog or a horse is that they give you the same thing every time,” said Chad Hugo, husband of Burttschell Ranch founder Judi Burttschell.
Burttschell Ranch is a 15-acre oasis on Hillboldt Road northwest of Sealy. It’s home to 17 horses and a dozen or so dogs, all rescued animals. Burttschell operates it as a rescue for horses and dogs, but it is much more than that. She uses the horses to teach children – many of them underprivileged – how to ride.
“These old rodeo horses are great to teach 6- and 7-year-olds how to ride rodeo,” she said.
She said horses saved her and her daughter, Boo Burttschell, when her husband Michael died suddenly in 2003 at the age of 47. She now calls on his memory to save old horses.
“Without horses, I don’t know if we would have made it,” she said.
She said Boo really struggled with her father’s passing.

Judi Burttschell works with one of the rescue horses.

 
“Horses and dogs, without them I don’t think my daughter would have survived that,” she said.
Boo Burtschell, 20, grew up on horseback, riding in rodeos every chance she got.
“I sure … didn’t have the best horses, but we made do with what we had,” she said.
Today she helps her mother and stepfather around the ranch and works for cutting horse trainer John Kirby in Brenham.
When Burttschell married Hugo she chose to keep her late husband’s name as hers and named the ranch after him when she bought it.
“The whole place is peaceful and provides so much joy in life for so many kids that I’m convinced he’s still here,” she said.
The loss of Michael was difficult, but the ranch gave purpose and hope.
“It was a way to not grieve quite so much,” she said.
Burttschell said the ranch serves to give purpose to the old and inspiration to the new. The horses come and go. Most are retired rodeo horses and others are abandoned or surrendered by owners who can no longer keep them. The dogs, mostly retrievers and similar breeds, come from all over to either live their remaining years on the ranch or to be cleaned up and given to a new home.
“I rehab everything we get,” Burttschell said.
Nearly two dozen people – mostly children – come to the ranch for riding lessons. Rather than charge a fee, Burttschell barters with them for feed. A lesson is $25 or two bags of horse feed or dog food, which cost about the same.
“If they can’t afford it they can shovel stalls; they work for it,” she said.
The children come from across the region, including places like Katy, Bay City and Bellville.
“I’m the one that’s blessed. I get to share in raising these kids,” she said.
She said the old rodeo horses are well trained and know the routines and are perfect for teaching youngsters how to ride or even compete in rodeos.
“We’re not going to win NFR (National Finals Rodeo) but we’re going to have fun,” she said.
Burttschell said she runs the ranch for the joy it brings, not for profit.
“I don’t do it for money. I have a job. This is my passion,” she said.
When horses are sold, the price is low and essentially covers the cost of caring for the animal so she can afford to buy more hay and feed. She also boards horses to help supplement the income.
“I’m not a 501c3 (nonprofit organization) but I am a 4-H Club,” she said.
She said she is passionate about helping children discover there is more to life than school and video games.
“I worry about kids not having a direction in life,” she said.
The dogs are another story. She estimates the average age of her pack to be more than 10 years.
“I don’t like to do puppies. I feel like everybody wants a puppy and nobody wants an older dog,” she said.
Whenever a stray comes in it is cleaned up, spayed or neutered, given its shots, but mostly made to feel loved and wanted. Every living thing on Burttschell Ranch is loved and wanted.
“When we get older … people don’t need to pack ’em away, we have a lot to offer,” Hugo said.
The family has learned that when they breathe new life into an older animal or invest time in a young child that the rewards are beyond measure.
“When you help other people it comes back to you twofold,” he said.
Hugo said it’s the simple things in life that make such a big difference in the life of the rescued animals and the people the animals help rescue.
“We’re not an adoption agency or a rescue. What we are is an opportunity for a person who’s in a bad situation,” he said.
He said as long as they enjoy the affection of an old dog or horse and the smile and confidence of a child that they will keep doing what they do.
“You can always give somebody your attention and it doesn’t cost you a thing,” he said.

Don’t talk trash, do something about it

Don’t mess with Texas.

It’s supposed to be an anti-littering campaign slogan. It’s won many advertising awards and national acclaim.

In reality, it’s little more than a kitschy catchphrase. When it comes to litter, Texas is one of the most messed up places I know. I first moved to Texas in November of 2005. I lived in Amarillo for the first three years.

For those who don’t know, it’s very windy in the Texas Panhandle. Litter is everywhere. At first I thought the problem was largely unintentional with the wind blowing it out of trucks and trashcans and what not. The alley behind the house I lived in resembled a pathway carved through a landfill.

Our Boy Scout troop each month picked up trash from around a lake in one of the city parks. It was there that I became convinced that the volume of trash was not accidental. There was a lot of intentional dumping going on. It was the same with casual littering. People just don’t care.

My family moved to Rosenberg in 2008. We live in an older part of town. As far as I know, no one in my family drinks beer, smokes cigars or cigarettes or plays the lottery. Yet, every day my front and side yards are littered with the stuff. That’s in addition to a lot of other debris.

The Cub Scout pack we belonged to sponsored a road and a few times a year we would go out and collect trash. There was always a lot more stuff than we could handle. If an item was too big or dangerous to deal with, we had to leave it. Cigarette butts were too numerous to waste our time on.

When I worked in Waller County, I had an occasion to do more than one story about illegal dumping. There were a handful of properties the county desperately wanted to clean because they were nuisances and health risks, but the property owners resisted.

One of the first stories I did here in Sealy was about illegal dumping going on in a creek in Stephen F. Austin State Park. Every morning when I pull up to the office, I’m confronted with litter than has blown into the fence and field next to our building. It’s disgusting.

Then, last week, Sheila Ellis came into the office to report some illegal dumping going on not far from here on Harrison Road. I checked it out. Mattresses, recliners, boards, roofing materials and more line a portion of the road.

There is hardly a day that goes by where I don’t see some smoker flick a smoldering cigarette butt out the window of their car onto the road. Hey, stupid people: That’s littering! Stop it!

Let’s face it – the Don’t Mess With Texas slogan doesn’t work. Too many people living in Texas seem to feel it’s OK to dump what they want, where they want, whenever they want.  I’ve lived in three other states and have traveled across most of the country. The only place I’ve seen that’s filthier than Texas is the northeast part of the country from Philadelphia (or Filthadelphia) to New York.

I try to do my part to keep Texas clean. Trust me, I pick up and throw away a lot more trash than I produce. I honestly don’t know what it takes to get the message through to some people that they’re only hurting themselves but others and the environment when they feel it’s their right to dispose of their refuse on the roadside.

Maybe part of the answer is to raise fines and to mandate several hours of hard labor cleaning up roadsides and ditches for those convicted of the crime. Imagine if the simple act of tossing a cigarette butt were to result in an automatic $500 fine and 40 hours of trash duty. Then go up from there for bigger offenses. Somehow I think people would think twice before they messed with Texas.

Don’t die with a bucket list

Opportunities are avenues to fulfilling hopes and dreams. We are given opportunities and we make opportunities, but what we do with them is entirely up to each of us.

There are many things in life we all want to do. They are things that give us hope. Failing to take advantage of opportunities leaves our hope as little more than unfulfilled dreams. It should be the other way around. Our dreams foster hope and hope fuels our drive to take advantage of our opportunities.

Many times in my journalism career I have been asked how I got so lucky to get such-and-such assignment or why I did this or that story. The answer has always been the same. I did it because I wanted to and I could. This extends beyond my job and into my family life as well.

When you live on a tight budget, you learn to maximize your opportunities. If you can’t afford to attend a certain event, I find you can often volunteer and often get better access and a much more rewarding experience.

Being a journalist opens many doors for me, but being a volunteer has enriched my life. For example, I couldn’t afford a state park pass, so my son and I joined the volunteer organization at Brazos Bend State Park. Not only do we go to the park all we want for free, but we also received extensive training and made a bunch of new friends. It’s fun to hold the snakes and baby alligators while teaching park visitors about the local wildlife. You don’t get that by just visiting the park.

Additionally, I love attending science fiction/comic book/fantasy conventions. I began as a ticket-buying member of the public, but learned that a press pass gives you access that the general public doesn’t have. You do have to work for it, but there are worse things to do in life.

I have been a volunteer for two years at Houston’s Comicpalooza comic convention. I love being able to help people and make them feel special. I also enjoy getting to meet the celebrity guests behind the scenes. Despite their fame and wealth, celebrities are just regular people.

One year in Denver, I was having a green room interview with Anthony Michael Hall while my wife and infant son were waiting in a reception area. Sandy, my wife, was beaming at the attention baby Luke was getting from this kindly old lady. Sandy thought the lady was just a worker helping with the convention. I later informed her that it was Dee Wallace, best known as the mom in “E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial.”

The point I’m making is that no one assigned me to cover the convention. I saw an opportunity, got the OK from my editor, and did it. I believe my employers and the readers of the papers I’ve worked for have benefitted and enjoyed the fruits of my extracurricular labor.

I used to attend a lot of Promise Keepers events. As a reporter, I got to know coach Bill McCartney and met several other big wigs with national and international Christian ministries. As a volunteer, I met a lot of the attendees and really learned how Promise Keepers impacted their lives and saw first hand how God used the event to transform men and their families.

I use these personal examples to show how much more enjoyable my life has become when I went from dreaming and hoping for something to happen to making opportunities and making them happen. Life really is what you make of it.

For all of the things in this life that we have to do, there are plenty of things we get to do. Sometimes you just have to pursue them rather than wait for them to happen. If I waited to be assigned to some of these fun things or waited for a celebrity’s public relations person to contact me, I would still be waiting and wishing and hoping and dreaming and not doing anything.

Don’t die with a bucket list. Empty that sucker! You only get one shot at this life so make the most of it.

The early bird catches the … bird

There is something really cool going on not to far from Sealy, but you have to be an early riser to see it.

I recently had the opportunity to have a private tour of the Attwater Prairie Chicken National Wildlife Refuge courtesy Wildlife Refuge Specialist John Magera. We actually had a late start on the day, leaving headquarters just before 8 a.m. He drove us in his truck out to a lek, which is nothing more than an open area with low vegetation. It’s also known as a booming ground because of the noise made by the birds in their mating ritual.

As we slowly and quietly crept up on the lek, we could see about a half-dozen male Attwater’s prairie-chickens strutting their stuff. It’s important to note that the birds are not chickens at all, but a member of the grouse family. They were once a common game bird, but now fight extinction.

You don’t have to be much of nature lover or bird enthusiasts to know what an amazing sight it is to watch and hear these incredible birds doing their courtship dance. It’s rare to see these birds in the wild, let alone to watch them in this seasonal display of movement and color.

This weekend is a great opportunity to watch this memorable event. The 20^th annual Attwater Prairie Chicken Festival is being held at the reserve. A viewing platform is being set up near the lek we visited. The early birds who arrive at 7 a.m. will have the best opportunity to see the birds in full boom. There is no charge to attend.

Even if you’re not much of a birder or nature lover, it’s a great opportunity to see a rare thing. It’s worth getting up early for, even for no other reason than to be able to say you saw it. Very few people in the world can say that. Just remember to bring binoculars, a camera with a good zoom lens, or some other magnification device, as you will not be too close to them.

By the way, I checked with Magera about the formal name of the birds. They are Attwater’s prairie-chickens, but you can see them at the Attwater Prairie Chicken National Wildlife Refuge.

After viewing the birds, and probably a lot of other wildlife at the refuge, stay for some of the other activities, or beat feet back to Sealy for the Spring Picnic. Another strategy would be to spend Saturday at the Spring Picnic and then go to the refuge on Sunday when there will not be as many people.

If all goes as planned, I hope to be at the refuge Saturday morning and at the picnic the rest of the day. I am a history buff of sorts and enjoy the battle reenactments, old-fashioned games and other historical novelties. I had not heard of Sealy’s Spring Picnic before starting my job here three months ago, but I am really excited about it and have been looking forward to it for weeks.

I’ve always been a sucker for a good festival and this one looks like loads of fun. In addition to the early Texas reenactment camps and battles, there will be vintage baseball games, a parade, vendors, food, live music and much more. This is cool, family-friendly stuff that everyone can enjoy.

Clearly, of the multitude of activities going on in the region this weekend, the best options are right here in Austin County (or just across the border in the case of the refuge). It’s a great way to celebrate spring in southeast Texas.

Big Brother is watching: What happens online stays online

If all goes as expected with this column, the National Security Agency will open a file with my name on it. No one outside the NSA may ever know about it, including me, but it will probably be there.

At least that’s what the adventurist, conspiracy theorist side of me fully expects. The reality, however, may not be anywhere near as exciting.

One of the advantages of being in print and online is that the NSA and most any group or agency tasked with trolling the Web for information will have their bots crawling all over my words, looking to see if I pose a threat or am a potential customer for whatever they’re selling.

If I were to write something absurd like “kill President Obama,” “bomb Congress,” or “join Al-Qaeda” you can bet a little red light will go on somewhere and agents both foreign and domestic will start to probe this column and other writings of mine with a higher degree of scrutiny.

The same thing would happen if I said I plan to buy a house and a new car later this year. It may not be true, but I will not be surprised to see spam in my inbox for bank loans, insurance, car offers, and real estate ads. All of this is because some computer algorithm out there detected certain words and caused an alert.

For the record, I have no desire at all to see any harm come to the President or any member of Congress and I am adamantly opposed to Al-Qaeda. I do want to see Obama and many members of Congress removed from office, but that’s another story for another day. It has nothing to do with the point of the column.

The point is that we have no realistic expectation of privacy on the Internet or with any technological gadget of this modern age. It used to be if I went to the record store and bought the most recent album by Journey, the only ones who knew that were me, my friends that I told, and the person at the store who sold me the album.

Today, not only do multiple sources know I bought an album by Journey, they can track what songs I play, when I play them and how many times I play them and the places I play them. I can then expect to get offers to try music similar to Journey or to buy devices different than the one I listened to the music on.

The metadata information from every action I take with my computer and every app I use on my phone is tracked by governments and businesses around the world. It’s not me specifically. Everything that is transmitted electronically by anyone can be captured, tracked, stored, reused, and misused.

While this has been going on much longer than most of us realize, we are now aware of it because of the likes of Edward Snowden and other whistleblowers. While it’s true that the NSA started spying on Americans under President Bush right after 9/11, most of us had no idea the degree to which it was happening. That the power has been expanded under the Obama Administration is outlandish.

I recently watched a pair of TED Talks, one by Snowden and the counter point by Richard Ledgett of the NSA. I would like to believe what Ledgett said about how the agency doesn’t care about the day-to-day humdrum activity of our normal lives. Using a different analogy, he basically said that to catch the sharks you have to troll the same waters as the fish.

Snowden cautioned that this is an unchecked and secret government power with the potential of being used against its citizens at a future time. That really scares me. I’ve read stories that said some law enforcement agencies not only have the power to hack into our computers, but they can also secretly turn on our camcorders and record us without our knowledge.

I don’t know if it’s true or not, but I know the technology is there and that the NSA and other agencies probably have that capability. I’m really not worried about Big
Brother watching me in that way, at least not now. I am bothered, however, that my digital information could someday be misconstrued and used against me.

I find there is no small coincidence that at about the same time Snowden blew the whistle on the NSA’s domestic spying operations that news also broke about the IRS targeting Tea Party activists and members of other conservative groups. I’m convinced the government can, will, and is misusing its spy data against its own people.

That is why I am certain that the NSA will have a file on me after this column is published online. It may come back to haunt me that Big Brother will read the words “kill President Obama,” “bomb Congress,” and “join Al-Qaeda” and see that I am a conservative who wants the President out of office and deem me a threat to national security.

I hope they also see that I am a Christian, Eagle Scout, community volunteer, and a hard working husband and father who loves his country and fellow man. Otherwise this column has been one huge act of futility.