Tag: Texas
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Texas Borderlocking
It’s been a long time since I’ve touched upon the borderlocking phenomenon. Many new readers have entered into the Twelve Mile Circle in subsequent months. Of course they have no idea what I’m talking about. Others may have a vague recollection but might need to refresh their memories. Go ahead and open Layers of Borderlocking…
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Welcome to Utopia
I don’t always understand how blog topics develop in my mind. This time curiosity led me to wonder if anyone had ever been bold enough to name a town Utopia. I never guessed someone would publish a book during the same week focusing on the same place, but I’ll get to that later. Life is…
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Border Pirates
I’d always thought of piracy as a 17th Century anachronism. Then things got weird off the coast of Somalia a few years ago. Even so I considered it a distant condition borne of a failed state two oceans away. Recent reports of North American pirates have simply bewildered me. I never imagined it existed outside…
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A Single Point on the Border
I encountered a number of interesting situations as I pulled together my recent series of borderlocking articles. One of those revelations pertained to Jeff Davis County(1) in the State of Texas. Examine its layout closely. Clearly it borders on Mexico. However that happens only at a single point along the Rio Grande River at its…
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Texas: Is Everything Really Bigger?
I’ve been to Texas many times. I have family there, I have business there, and I’ve driven across its width. I don’t underestimate its gargantuan size. There’s a reason why “Everything is Bigger in Texas” has become such an iconic boast that borders on cliché. If Texas were still a country as it was when…
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I Jumped the Border
I crossed the Rio Grande into Mexico, bypassing all official border stations and every immigration or customs officer, and returned the same way. I suppose this was technically illegal although it was allowed with a wink and a nod on both sides of the boundary. After all, the nearest official crossing was more than a…
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Brief Stop in San Antonio
Business brought me to San Antonio, Texas this week. Even so, I still had a few moments to poke around the usual tourist spots. My luggage wanted to visit a little longer so it took a free vacation courtesy of American Airlines. Hopefully we’ll be reunited this weekend. Remember the Alamo I first stopped at…
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Maps on Google Analytics
I enabled Google Analytics recently on my web pages. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this tool, it involves the addition of a few lines of javascript to each page which in turn reports basic information back to the great Google mothership. It allows me to gain a better understanding of web traffic…
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7 Flags Over Texas?
In a recent entry I provided a listing of the six flags that make up the famous “Six Flags Over Texas.” What is less known — and what many Texans along the southeastern border with Mexico believe — is that there were actually SEVEN flags over Texas. Had history gone a little differently another flag…
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6 Flags Over Texas
Conventional wisdom notes that six national flags flew over the State of Texas at one time or another. It’s colloquial to the point of the Six Flags amusement parks taking their name from it. But what are the six flags? Spain France Mexico Republic of Texas Confederate States of America United States of America