Texas Sounds – East Texas’ Most Unique Music Festival
The most unique music festival in East Texas is also East Texas’ most well-kept secret. Not many people that I talk to know about this festival. Perhaps it is because the name of the festival is so long that they go to sleep while reading the name. This is their loss. They are missing a very unique experience.
The Texas Sounds International Country Music Awards have been operating in East Texas since 2012. During those years, Texas Sound has attracted the very best country musicians from 36 nations.
This year’s show features artists from 15 nations. The show offers three nights of music with all-new shows each night. The show opens on October 2nd at Memorial City Hall Performance Center in Marshall, Texas.
Don’t miss this truly unique event. Go to the Texas Sound website to get more information and see videos of this year’s artists..
In 2022 I wrote an article that suggested that the United States of America was on a downward glide path and was destined to become a second tier country like France and the UK. I saw China as the next world’s superpower. I saw this happening in the next 50 to 100 years.
Today I still think the US will become a second tier nation but since Trump 2.0 took the stage, I now believe China will be the next superpower in less than 20 years.
I recently started listening to a new book titled “Breakneck: China’s Quest To Engineer The Future” by Dan Wang. I have only listened to the first two chapters but it provides specifics on why America’s future is not bright. It is not a story about politics. It’s a story about China’s characteristics and the US’s characteristics and why they put China in a stronger position.
I think everyone 25-50 years old should read this book because they will live through the transition. Old people, like me, will also find it interesting.
I am closing by reprinting the first few paragraphs:
Silicon Valley can be an amazingly drab place. The peninsula south of San Francisco has natural beauty with rolling hills and coastal views, but you strain to see them beyond so many corporate parking lots. Mountain View and Menlo Park are bizarrely full of rug shops, so when I walk through the towns that host the headquarters of AI leaders and some of the richest companies in the world, I often find myself wondering, is this the beating heart of our technologically accelerating civilization?
Each time I flew from California to Hong Kong or Shanghai, I felt almost unnerved to encounter functional infrastructure. Going from the airport into a subway, rather than an Uber, is an outstanding way to be welcomed to Asia. I would take a moment to savor a clean station, brightly lit, with trains running every few minutes, which would drop me off at a downtown filled with vibrant commercial areas, another feature that San Francisco lacks.
Life in the Bay Area, an economic dynamo in America’s richest state, can feel awfully dysfunctional. San Francisco has been unable to serve its homeless population, and even many wealthy people have to keep a generator for their extraordinarily expensive houses because the state can’t keep the lights on. The contradiction of the Bay Area, this red-hot center of corporate value creation that is surrounded by dysfunction, fuels the inquiry of this book.
When I departed from Silicon Valley for China in 2017, it felt clear that the United States had lost something special over the past four decades. While China was building the future, America had become physically static, its innovations mostly bound up in the virtual and financial worlds. Looking at these two countries, I came to realize the inadequacy of twentieth-century labels like capitalist, socialist, or, worst of all, neoliberal. They are no longer up to the task of helping us understand the world, if they ever were.
The third annual Boogie Woogie Fest will take place at the Memorial City Hall Performance Center on the square in Marshall, Texas on September 26-27. This year’s two-day event will highlight the story of Hubble Ledbetter, known as “Lead Belly,” and his impact on rock and roll. Be sure not to miss the trip to his gravesite. Below is the complete program for the event. See you at the show!
In 2003, a convoy of hydrogen-fueled vehicles traveled through the Los Angeles area to demonstrate the growth of this next-generation energy technology. The drivers, including hydrogen luminary Alan Lloyd, weren’t sure how it would go. Due to safety concerns about the then-emerging technology, they had to bring along a police escort for the “Rally Thru the Valley.”
Twenty-two years later, another hydrogen fuel cell-powered vehicle caravan took to the road. This time, it happened in Texas, which is emerging as a global hydrogen hub. A group of students and staff from The University of Texas at Austin’s Center for Electromechanics (CEM) drove from Austin to Houston to attend the Hydrogen Technology Expo.
On this occasion, the fleet of Toyota Mirai fuel cell vehicles didn’t need a police escort. And the drivers and passengers, which also included Dr. Lloyd in a full-circle moment, weren’t nearly as worried about the 365-mile round trip’s success.
“We drove effortlessly and smoothly along Highway 290,” Lloyd said. “Seeing what we had started 20 years ago in California manifest on Texas roads is satisfying. The drive stirred enthusiasm with the students, staff, and attendees of the expo.”
They even made it back with a quarter tank to spare, averaging the equivalent of 85 miles per gallon.
The trip signifies the steady progress of hydrogen research and marks 20 years of hydrogen innovation at CEM. It shows the tantalizing possibilities of hydrogen vehicles, the efficiency chief among them, and the need to develop infrastructure around them.
“We installed the first permanent hydrogen fueling station in Texas nearly 20 years ago to support R&D at the University,” said Mike Lewis, director of CEM. “Today, we have an upgraded hydrogen R&D facility, known as the Hydrogen ProtoHub, which is providing a proving ground for hydrogen technologies and supporting training and education.”
A First-of-Its-Kind Hydrogen Facility
In April 2024, UT CEM officially opened a first-of-its-kind hydrogen technology facility at the J.J. Pickle Research Campus. The Hydrogen ProtoHub has on-site hydrogen generation, storage, distribution and a vehicle fueling station. A few days prior to opening the facility, three Toyota Mirais arrived, playing an important role in demonstrating hydrogen fueling for mobility.
Qualified UT staff, students, and project partners operate and use the vehicles daily in their research efforts. Since these are zero-emissions vehicles, the team has slightly decreased its carbon footprints. In the last year, the Mirais have driven more than 25,000 on Texas roads, while averaging 76 miles per gallon equivalent overall.
Lloyd, now a research associate at CEM, was instrumental in arranging the use of the vehicles in Texas as part of the team’s research. Lloyd has a hydrogen resume dating back to 1999 when he was chairman of the California Air Resources Board. He worked closely with organizations like California’s Hydrogen Fuel Cell Partnership, of which Toyota was and currently is an industry member.
Like California, Japan was an early adopter of hydrogen integration and is now a global leader in hydrogen technology development. In the early 1990s, Toyota began researching fuel cell electric vehicles, which eventually led to the development of the current-day second-generation Toyota Mirai. The Mirai is an electric vehicle that runs on energy from hydrogen and emits only water vapor, making it a zero-emissions vehicle. “Mirai” means “future” in Japanese.
Road Trip
Since obtaining the vehicles and implementing the fueling dispensers, the CEM hydrogen team has tested the range and fuel economy by traveling to other areas of Texas, including Gonzales, San Antonio, West and Fredericksburg.
The Hydrogen ProtoHub at UT Austin is the only publicly available hydrogen fueling station in Texas. Since Texas does not have a hydrogen fueling station network, the Houston trip carried some risk. Based on the miles per gallon equivalent from the range tests, it’s always been possible to make a roundtrip to Houston or Dallas, but lacking options for refueling along the way still makes for a stressful trip.
“The range anxiety is real, partially caused by the Toyota Mirai displaying a conservative value for miles to empty. However, in our testing and daily operation of the Mirais, we gained confidence in the true range of the vehicles,” said Austin Mabrey, a research engineer at CEM. “We drove conservatively on the way to Houston, consuming less than half a tank of fuel, ensuring plenty of fuel for the return trip to Austin.”
Lewis and Mabrey frequently mulled over the possibility of a road trip to Houston. Their extensive road tests gave them confidence, showing ranges of 400 miles per 5kg of hydrogen were possible. In June, they used the Hydrogen Technology Expo at the NRG Center in Houston as the perfect opportunity to showcase the vehicles and take a field trip with their student interns.
“We talked about doing such a road trip for over a year, often with hesitancy and doubt, but decided now was the time to prove it could be done, to make it happen,” said Lewis.
Research assistant Grace Childers pulls over for a quick stop at Buc-ee’s during the trip.
CEM Student Research Assistant Grace Childers is a chemical engineering senior who drove one of the cars that day.
For the past several years, Childers has gained hands-on experience at the Hydrogen Protohub with a focus on systems integration with hydrogen production and end-use technologies, including but not limited to hydrogen fueling for fuel cell electric vehicles. Graduating in December, Childers is exploring the possibility of graduate school, while keeping her employment options open.
“The experience was incredible and really ‘drives’ home my experience working alongside UT-CEM and contributing to their hydrogen research,” Childers said.
The Texas Hydrogen Hub
The trip marks the first time a hydrogen fuel cell caravan has traveled Texas roads. Fuel cell vehicles are rare because of a lack of hydrogen fueling infrastructure across the state.
However, the road to hydrogen integration in Texas is gaining some traction. Recently, the North Central Texas Council of Governments received a federal grant to build out a heavy-duty truck fueling station network in Texas. The HyVelocity Hydrogen Hub, a collaborative project across the Texas Gulf Coast with significant involvement from UT, aims to support a hydrogen fueling station network with its hydrogen production and distribution projects.
“With continued government and industry support, the vision for a hydrogen energy economy in Texas can be driven by continued research and practice at UT,” Lewis said. “As leaders of hydrogen energy systems research, UT can be the example of a sustainable future.”
In 2022 I wrote an article that suggested that the United States of America was on a downward glide path and was destined to become a second tier country like France and the UK. I saw China as the next world’s superpower. I saw this happening in the next 50 to 100 years.
Today I still think the US will become a second tier nation but since Trump 2.0 took the stage, I now believe China will be the next superpower in less than 20 years.
Recently I have said that Trump’s “America First” policy should more correctly be called an “America First; America Alone” policy. I say this because Trump 2.0 has effectively worked to turn our long time friends into enemies and make our long time enemies stronger.
In the last two weeks I have seen that this transition is well underway. Last week Canada announced that it had signed long term agreements with the European Union and the UK on trade and defense.
This week China has taken a significant step in becoming the next superpower. It is hosting a summit with Russia, India, and 20 other world leaders. Here is some of the information about the summit that every American should know.
This information from the first article I read. The same information is featured in a dozen other publications. I doubt it made the top 10 on Fox News. The text in italics is from the article.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping made a veiled swipe at the United States on Monday as he criticized “bullying practices” and cast his country as a new leader of world governance, at a time when President Donald Trump’s America First foreign policy is upending the globe.
“The house rules of a few countries should not be imposed on others,” Xi told more than 20 world leaders gathering at a two-day summit orchestrated to play-up China’s global leadership and its close and enduring partnership with Russia, as the two neighbors seek to rebalance global power in their favor at the expense of the US and its allies.
“We should leverage the strength of our mega-sized markets and economic complementarity between member states and improve trade and investment facilitation,” the Chinese leader told his guests during opening remarks.
Without naming the United States directly, Xi vowed to oppose “hegemonism,” “Cold War mentality” and “bullying practices” – phrases often deployed by Beijing to criticize Washington.
As Trump alarms nations with his global trade war, withdrawals from international organizations, slashing of foreign aid and threats on social media, Beijing views the US as undermining the international order it worked to build – and sees an opportunity to ramp its own vision as an alternative.
The new system “would replace the outdated Eurocentric and Euro-Atlantic models, take into account the interests of the broadest possible range of countries, be truly balanced, and would not allow attempts by some states to ensure their security at the expense of others,” Putin said.
Many of my Republican friends often say if we had not won WWII, we would all be speaking German.
If this country continues to implement the Trump 2.0 policies, I would say “If you want your children to get ahead in the future world order, tell them to learn Chinese.
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