Tulane is playing Rice in basketball. The Rice mascot says something, and actually gets ejected from the arena.

Yesterday was my wife’s birthday (her first since we got married), so I wanted to take her somewhere both special and different for dinner. I googled for [romantic restaurants austin] and found a number of sites listing what they thought were the most romantic restaurants in town. More than one of these sites listed The Emerald Restaurant.

Wait a minute, I thought. Isn’t that the Irish restaurant on 71 just west of 620? We pass that place whenever we drive to my sister-in-laws house and always wondered what it was like.

It turns out that it’s a rather high end restaurant. I placed a reservation for last night, and let it be a surprise for Shea.

We drove up at our reservation time. The Emerald Restaurant is a replica thatched cottage that really sets an old world atmosphere. It’s quaint, but nice.

After our visit to Half Moon Bay, Shea and I headed up the peninsula to San Francisco. We stopped at the mouth of the San Francisco Bay for some more pictures before heading into the City.

A few years back, my uncle (who live in San Carlos, California) introduced me to this little stretch of beach on PCH just south of Half Moon Bay (which is between San Francisco and Santa Cruz). The first time Shea and I went to the Bay Area, we paid that spot a visit and left with these pictures.

The sky was a bit boring that day, but the view is such that I still came away with nice, but…

The financial success and relentless expansion of StarBucks is clear evidence that most people don’t really know what good coffee tastes like. StarBucks has to offer so many flavored, sugary drinks because the coffee beans are over-roasted and taste like burned particle board.

There are alternatives. Most cities have quality local coffee shops where one can get fantastic coffee, often at half the price of StarBucks. But what if you want great coffee at home (or the office)?

Last March, I spent several days in Santa Clara, California for SMX West. My then fiance (now wife) joined me and we drove up the peninsula to spend the weekend in San Francisco.

We burned some Hilton Honors points and stayed at the Hilton Financial District. Our room had a huge picture window with a fantastic view of Coit Tower on Telegraph Hill. I was a bit burned out from the three day show, so we spent a couple of hour relaxing in the room as the sun went down, watching the light change on Coit Tower.

Obama campaigned on entitlement reform, and he continued to talk about it between the election and the inauguration. The first thing he is likely to “take on” is America’s favorite ponzi scheme, Social Security.

If nothing is done, outflows will surpass inflows in 2017. By 2041, the Social Security Trust Fund will have run out entirely, and Social Security will be completely dead.

The situation in Dallas is beginning to make sense.

It was announced this week that Michael Irvin is going to host a reality television show involving the Dallas Cowboys. Twelve wannabe football players will compete for a spot on the Dallas Cowboys’ opening eighty person training camp roster.

There truly are some odd similarities between “Forrest Gump” and “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”.

Great wisdom about the off season from Trey McLean’s “From the Stands” column.