Records

I enjoyed the lunch meeting with the Lewisville Area Republican Club at Abuelo's yesterday. Met Denton county commissioner Bobbie J. Mitchell and also learned all about the court system in Denton county with District Attorney Bruce Isaacks. His wife Vicki Issaacks is judge of the 393rd District Court so they arranged for him not to try any criminal case in her court but rather in the five other criminal courts in the county and she taking on the load of most the family cases.

Brought my Tacoma in to the dealer for them to take care of the SSC 50J Front Suspension Lower Ball Joint Safety Recall. It took the dealer 3 hours to get it done. Even though I don't have to pay anything, I saw that they are billing Toyota around $400.

Collin County District Attorney John R. Roach, running for the 296th District Court, had his reception last night at the Bavarian Grill in Plano. It was a great idea because of all the available parking. I was only able to stopped in for a few minutes and then run for the Dallas County Young Republican board meeting conference call before heading over to Paul & Sharon's house for our weekly small group get together.

Jim Parks, executive director of the North Texas Municipal Water District addressed the Dallas County North Republican Club tonight regarding long term planning for our water needs. According to Jim, we need more representation both on the House Natural Resources Committee and the Senate Natural Resources Committee. Currently, the north Texas region has over 5 millions people, roughly 25% of the 21 millions Texas population, but we have only 1 in 11 state senators on the Senate side, senator Craig Estes, and 1 in 9 state representatives on the House side, state representative Charlie Geren. The opportunity is there, at least on the Senate side since senator Todd Staples is running for the Agriculture Commissioner seat and senator Gonzales Barrientos is not running for re-election.

Got a ride to the Frontiers of Flight Museum with Randy and Karen today for the Heritage Alliance fundraising luncheon.

Got some good BBQ at the reception for constable Mike Gothard at the Atrium in the Garland Granville Arts Center before heading to the Carrollton Citizen Police Academy tonight.

I flew into sunny 65°F Burbank Bob Hope Airport (BUR) late Friday for a meeting over the weekend. The weather remained beatiful throughout the weekend except for a barely noticeable sprinkling early on Sunday morning so everyone was like "What?" when the pilot announced shortly after we took off from John Wayne Airport (SNA) yesterday that it was 48°F in Dallas, consider it was 77°F when I left on Friday.

It was a great reception Dallas County Court at Law No. 4 judge Bruce Woody and his wife had yesterday at the home of Bill and Minnie Caruth. The house is beautiful, sitting on a sprawling piece of real estate right smack in the middle of University Park. Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson was one of the speakers. He's a Marine who volunteered for service in Vietnam. He himself is the fourth generation in his family who has served in the major conflicts this country has seen, all of them oversea with the exception of the war between the states. His son Travis, who is a Marine Lieutenant currently serving in Iraq, make it the fifth generation of his family. Retired Air Force Colonel Ken Cordier, who was shot down in Vietnam, was another speaker. Bruce himself was B-52D pilot serving in Southeast Asia from 1971 to 1976.

Today, we are going to Chettinaad Palace for lunch today to celebrate Randy birthday.

I like the movie Born Yesterday, especially blondie Judy Holiday. I just love these old movies, not much violence, foul language or explicit sexual acts.

Bentley Nettles is the third Republican candidate who is also seeking the Republican nomination in the 17th congressional district race.

We learned a lot about and also saw demonstration of the Carrollton K-9 unit. Both of the dogs are Belgium Malinois and were imported from Europe. Dog breeding is a science over there. The two officers handling them using commands in German. I also learned that Bloodhounds are the best tracking dogs.

The Virginia Governor race between Republican Jerry Kilgore and Democrat Tim Kaine is an absolute deadheat.

I watched the restored movie Vertigo last night. It's the kind of movie that is without violence and profane language, great cast, especially blondie Kim Novak, and fairly good story.

My company today announced that Mike Zafirovski, 51, will succeed Bill Owens, 65, as president and CEO on November 15th.

Tucker Anderson and Van Taylor will seek the Republican nomination to oust Democrat Chet Edwards for the Texas 17th Congressional District House seat. This time, hopefully we have the lessons learned from 2004 when then Texas House Representative Arlene Wohlgemuth challenged but lost to Edwards because of the massive amount of money poured in at the last minutes by the DNC.

I distributed all of the yard signs for the marriage amendment I picked up yesterday from Dallas County GOP headquarters as well as passing out the voter guides from the Free Market Foundation for the upcoming November 8th election with a total of nine proposed amendments to the Texas Constitution.

We had a grassroot training at the Dallas GOP headquarters from 9:00 to 12:00. We heard from Denise McNamara, Bobby Eberle, Gina Parker, pastor Mark Gonzales, and SREC 16 committeewoman Chris Davis. I got yard signs for the upcoming proposed constitutional amendment.

When that's done, I headed over to the Garland Asian American Festival, continue to collect signatures for a few friends to get their names on the ballot.

I am looking forward to the Plano Republican Women dinner tonight, where Peter Roussel will be our keynote speaker. Peter Roussel served two rounds in the White House, first as Staff Assistant to President Ford (1974-1976) and then as a Special Assistant and Deputy Press Secretary to President Reagan (1981-1987).

According to this online newspaper in Vietnamese, there was an assassination attempt on the life of former prime minister Vo Van Kiet of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV). Apparently it's a power struggle between the hardliners, most of whom are northerners, and the reformers, most of whom are southerners, within the Vietnamese Communist Party. It is reported that the former prime minister is in ICU at a hospital in Saigon and being treated by a French doctor named Jacques Frank for fear of pressure on Vietnamese doctors to finish him up. It also reported that the reformers appears to have an edge at the upcoming national party congress.

It was a great "You Earn What You Learn: Thriving as a Young Professional" lunch and learn session with Mike Cox, Senior Vice President and Chief Economist of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.

Judge Tom Fuller's reception tonight was great. Too bad I couldn't stay long because of the Carrollton Citizen Police Academy, at which we got to dust and lift fingerprints tonight.

Also, I was glad to hear that finally someone steps up to run against Denise Garcia. Toni Sheehan will be running for the 303rd Family District Court.

I enjoyed the Stephen Philbin Awards Luncheon organized by the Media Relation Committee of the Dallas Bar Association today with secretary James A. Baker III as keynote speaker.

State representative Dan Branch was the MC at the reception Kenny had last night at the Melrose. We heard from Senator John Cornyn, who also had his reception there last night, right after Kenny's. We heard also from the senior senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, and attorney generel Greg Abbot. Kenny had to stay late in Washington, D.C. for the vote on H.R. 3893, which finally passed 212-210 in the House close to 3:00 pm.

I spent a few hours today walking in Collin County for county commissioner Jerry Hoagland who is running for re-election and Karl Voisgtberger, who is running for County Chair since Rick Neudorff is running for county judge.

The weather has turned chillier today, 55° instead of the 61° yesterday. Hopefully it will be in the 60s with sunshine and clear blue sky tomorrow for the TX-OU Red River shoot out game at the SBC Cotton Bowl.

There were about 15 people outside Dallas Union Station tonight protesting Karl Rove at the reception the Dallas GOP has in honor of the "architect."

Kenn George was the speaker tonight at our monthly Dallas County Young Republicans club meeting.

In the Carrollton Citizen Police Academy class tonight, we discussed DWI, all the different sobriety tests, and everything related to driving under the influence of alcohol and drugs.

My alarm clock is set to KLIF 570 AM so I was waking up this morning hearing the president nominate Harriet Miers, his choice to replace retiring justice Sandra Day O'Connor on the US Supreme Court. She is 60 so I was a little surprise and in the natural order of things, I don't expect her to outlast John Roberts. Also, it's my gut instincts plus my observations so far, I trust president George W. Bush to do the right thing. In his nominating speech, he said that "Harriet Miers will strictly interpret our Constitution and laws. She will not legislate from the bench." That is exactly what he campaigned on and he has delivered that. Only time will tell whether these nominees, who have the most loyal friend in the president, will in turn be a loyal friend to the president. So far I have seen none of those he trusted has betrayed him, except for a couple of the cabinet secretaries who have said a few things after they left their post with his administration. Afterall, God is sovereign and clean, confirmable and saying all the right things at the right time nominee like John Roberts does not come around that very often. And with the senior senator from Texas, senator Kay Bailey Hutchison already goes to bat for her, I believe this nominee will be confirmed sooner rather than later.

I did not know that State Representative Bill Keffer can sing. Got to hear him sang this afternoon at the 2nd annual rock and roll bash he has at the home of Reena and James Morris, right on the shore of White Rock Lake. Got to chat briefly with state senator Bob Deuell before I had to take off and headed over to Amy's place for our upcoming VPS academic challenge project meeting.

I've had a long and busy but productive Saturday. The Northern Dallas Pachyderm nominating committee met for breakfast and prepare the slate of officers for next year.

Leaving that, I went home and together with my brother ran to Euless to meet up with Larry and the three of us helped brought Steve's fridge to the appliance shop across from Steve's old shop in Keller for repair. Afterward, the three of us then went to Arlington to help Vivian moved. I and my brother then went shopping for a little bit at Costco.

If you ask me, this is also the perfect time to go shopping for summer clothes, just like it's the perfect to go shopping for ski gears at the beginning of summer. I went to Dillard's and got my brother and myself a few good shorts and short sleeve shirts.

I barely had time just to get home, changed and and headed over to the Metrocrest Republican club annual spaghetti hoe down. We heard from State Representative Jim Jackson, and County Commissioner Maurine Dickey as well as all the candidates for the upcoming 2006 primary and general elections. Got to meet judge Livia Liu, who was appointed by the governor to the newly created Criminal District Court No. 7 a little over a week ago; at the same time the governor also appointed judge Danny Clancy to the newly created Criminal District Court No. 6. Before the appointment, judge Danny Clancy was going to run for the 195th Criminal District Court, the seat that is vacating by retiring judge John Nelms. County Criminal Court No. 11 judge Dianne Kathryn Jones since then has announced that she will run for the 195th bench.

I have endorsed Cynthia Figueroa Calhoun for re-election to the Dallas County Clerk office. However, on the Dallas County Constable Precinct 3 race, I, like many others, am still carefully considering all four Republican candidates: Ben Adamcik, Mike Orozco, Vince Zubras, and Ray Skinner.