Shaine Mata Blog

I retrieved the recorder today and have uploaded Mr. Peña's interview yesterday on KURV 's Davis Rankin Show. Davis asks Rep. Peña about the possible elimination of the TAKS test in some grades. Later, the interview goes into some of the mechanics of getting a bill passed. You can hear the interview on the player below or download it via the link. Sorry it took so long. MP3 File

Yesterday, I met with the Valley Association for Independent Living. VAIL provides services to people with disabilities in the Rio Grande Valley. Their service area extends beyond the counties along the border; however, the group is able to meet the greatest number of needs at their McAllen office at 3012 McColl. At the meeting were members of VAIL and representatives Carlos Gutierrez, from Senator Hinojosa's office; and Edna Dougherty from Representative Veronica Gonzalez's office. You may be wondering what exactly it is that they do. They do quite a bit given their small size. One of the services they provide, Social Security Work Incentives Planning and Assistance, (WIPA), helps people currently receiving Social Security benefits to understand how they can return to the workforce without losing their benefits. I can see this is a great benefit to people who are on a low, fixed income and want to improve their standard of living a bit. By far, VAIL's biggest contributions...

The longest 15 minutes , originally uploaded by shainelee . Tonight, my wife made pot roast for dinner. It's yummy, but I thought I would stretch out the meal with some steamed rice. We usually eat meals on a bed of rice. I'm regretting it now because I'm really hungry. It takes roughly 15 minutes for the rice cooker to do its job. It must have been an hour already, and the switch hasn't popped... There it goes. See ya!

My hPDA is sitting here waiting for my next entry. The paper clip is big enough that my hipster can stand like its docked on a cradle. This is my first day using it. I'm still adjusting to all the features. I like the always-on function. As in all systems, the initial data entry is a bit time-consuming. Currently, my hPDA has tons of memory available. I don't see the day that I would have to add a new memory card; but we shall have to wait and see. One issue that is the same with my hPDA that I have with regular PDAs is that I keep losing my stylus. I'll keep you posted on my progress.

KURV Radio host Davis Rankin interviews Bill Peacock from the Center for Economic Freedom at the Texas Public Policy Foundation . They discuss closing the loopholes on eminent domain legislation. I had a fresh battery on this interview, so was able to record in its entirety. MP3 File

This morning, KURV Radio's Davis Rankin interviewed the Hidalgo County Republican Party Chairman, Hollis Rutledge regarding his concern over the ES&S voting machine problem during the recent elections. This is of interest to me because Mr. Peña has pre-filed a bill that requires a voter verifiable paper trail on all electronic voting machines in Texas. The interview is not complete because the recorder ran out of battery a bit into the second half of the interview. Here is what I got. MP3 File

After my initial frenzy, we have come up with a temporary solution to the problem of a hijacked blogger site after using the FTP feature on A Capitol Blog. The new address is http://acapitolblog2.blogspot.com . To make it slightly easier, we have pointed both www.capitolblog.org and www.acapitolblog.com to the blogger site. This seemed like the best intermediate solution until Rep. Peña decides to go full force into a hosted site.