A glimpse at the future.

I’m starting work on a project that is going to take the e-world by storm. Though this might be as much as a month out, i’m expecting good things once I lock in and get it completed. Stay tuned for details.

Weekend Recap and introducing the new chef’s kitchen feature

OU recap:

This was my first OU weekend as an alumni, and it didn’t disappoint. This was the first time I visited the legendary “West End” and was actually horribly underwhelmed. Its amazing that a place like the West End is still standing after 100+ (the west end didn’t come around until the 1980’s so that might have something to do with it) years of Red River (shootout) rivalry. Here is how it works, every fraternity guy / sorority girl / + thousands of others come to Dallas on thursday / friday night before the game and go to the west end. Here they get unbelievably drunk, and then yell hateful things at those wearing crimson (or if you’re an OU fan, those wearing burnt orange). So now we have the combination of (this is a stereotype) macho cocky drunk eager to fight frat guys + really crammed + heated rivalry = the perfect storm for something really bad to happen. My first adventure i saw a few scuffles, but no punches thrown (i think that had something to do with last year about 20 guys were facedown with handcuffs as riot police chose the umbrella “arrest everyone remotely near the scene” method deterred anything from really happening. I was actually intimidated by the shear volume of OU fans, they absolutely dwarfed the Texas crowd, i think during the 5 straight years of losing (some of those losses by a tidy 50 points) Texas fans made the decision to pull out of the west end and move it to uptown. I dont blame them, i just wish that was communicated to everyone. 

Then the game happened on saturday, and unless you’ve just awoken from a coma you know that Texas achieved what i believe to be their 2nd greatest win (well this is a tie, our win in 2005 AT ohio state was pretty big as well) since my UT career began in the fall of 2004. I would really like to see the statistics of traffic traveling north / south on I-35 correlated to who won that year. My feeling is, if you lose (especially if you were oh say ranked #1 coming in to the game) that one wouldn’t feel much like going out and facing especially giddy and hostile (which undoubtedly came out in bigger numbers on saturday night) and would go home either saturday night, or early sunday morning. Whereas the winning team would undoubtedly be out until the latest hours of the night and wait until 2pm when they wake up in some random place to begin the process of finding a ride (or their car for that matter) and trudging on home. Of course the more i think about this, these are college kids so i think both winners and losers will fit into the “winning team theory”.

Thoughts:

I have yet to spend a weekend in houston (last weekend hardly counted because i had a lot of wedding duties to attend to) since august. In fact, i think the only weekend i’ve spent in houston was the dave matthews concert, and i wasn’t even living in houston at the time. But that fact will come to a sudden (at least thats the plan so far, if i somehow stumble onto missouri/texas tickets i will be in austin) halt as all of the reasons that have pulled me away (bachelor parties / weddings / football games / etc) have run dry. So as i said my goodbyes, this time felt much different. Not sure if they did to the people i was saying them to because i keep showing up every weekend, but this time felt much more final.

 

From The Chef’s Kitchen:

Last week’s experiment with eating cheaply had some unexpected results: continued hunger. Its one thing to think that you can make it off much fewer calories because you’re not getting much aerobic activity, and its one thing to actually do it. Plus the spaghetti was kind of bland so i really tried to step it up with this week’s menu.

1 Package Penne Pasta: 2.49

1 jar Vodka Pasta Sauce: 2.00

1 Package Frozen Vegetables (Fiesta Mix) 1.89

1 package Chicken / Mango Sausage: 5.50 (you might be thinking to yourself chicken/mango sausage??? What the heck is he thinking?? I too, thought that until i got a sample while at Randalls and was immediately won over. It slams, the mango gives it a sweet taste, and its healthier because its chicken sausage and not pork/beef sausage (though i do love it all). This goes to show, i CAN be won over by samples, and the sample people should never overlook me when assessing the overall buying power of the consumer (i might be giving them too much credit on how discerning they are) in question on wether or not to offer the sample.

Total cost of the ingredients: 11.88

Divide that by 5 (the number of equal portions i created): 2.37 per meal!!

Here’s what i did, first i boiled the pasta (this isn’t single serving, this is one of those boxes that a mom would buy to feed a family of 4) in a big 4 qt pan. While thats boiling away (for about 11 minutes) i used a flat iron pan to cook the frozen veggies (takes about 5-7 minutes) until they are fresh and crisp. I actually timed it right so the pasta finished boiling, and the veggies finished cooking at around the same time. Drain the pasta and then stir in the sauce (since i was mixing other things in, i decided to go light on the sauce, which means 2.37 is actually a high number, because i only used < 1/4 of the jar meaning i have plenty for next week.), make sure its mixed in good then mix in the vegetables, mix and let sit. Next i used the flat iron pan to grill my sausage links, they were pre cooked so really i just used a low-medium heat to heat em up and give em that nice grilled look, then i sliced up the sausage as you would normally slice a sausage. I divided the pasta/vegetable mixture into 5 equal containers, then added the sausage, sealed and BAM. Lunch is ready for the next week. Now i’m not sure how this is going to taste, i liked all the ingredients separately but sometimes two good things don’t necessarily add up to another good thing. The little bits of tasting i was doing tasted great, and even my sister had high praise for what i was concocting. I’ll let you readers (maybe 3???) on how it works for me, i’m hoping the addition of meat and vegetables will pack enough punch to get me through the rest of the workday.

I’m eating for 1.19 a meal.

Something i’ve learned about myself in my few short weeks of financial independence (that in itself is funny because i sure don’t feel independent by any means) is how unbelievable thrifty/cheap I am. This could be due to the fact that I grew up the son of Michael Adams, possibly the cheapest (in most areas, not in the case of discount dvd sales (i dont believe he has ever made a trip to best buy/fry’s without returning with another “classic” aka 3.99 dvd that never quite made it to the big screen),or in the area of seeing friends with something cool i.e. dvd, big tv, lcd, blu-ray, imac, etc) individual I know. He has taught the value of saving money, and always points out friends of his that have absolutely no ability to retire and will be working well into their 90’s. I’m almost convinced he winced when he first learned he was having a daughter because it’s the bride’s duty (more often then not, the bride’s parents) to fund the wedding. So everyone should give him a pat on the back for opening up the wallet (however slightly) for my sisters wedding. But this isn’t about him, this is about me and my lack of ability to spend money.

Example, on sunday night I made a large (like 7 servings large) pot of spaghetti, and then split up evenly into plastic containers and put them in the fridge. Voila, i have lunch (albeit a bit bland as my cooking abilities are still a work in progress) every day this week. The spaghetti along with apple sauce, and MAYBE if i’m feeling a little spendy (spendy isn’t a word but seems to describe the mood perfectly) i’ll throw in some peanut butter crackers. Total cost: about 1.19 a meal (the apple sauce is actually what skewed everything, it was really low before that). Constantly married co-workers (from byu, which explains the “married” part) ask me why i bring me lunch, because once i get married thats all i’m ever going to do (they implied leftovers). They were more or less calling me cheap, but i’m calling myself opportunistic and trying to hide assets before i (this is a BIG assumption on my part) settle down with a wife.

Funny story about hiding assets, so as everyone that reads this (i think there’s 2, but uncomfirmed reports of a 3rd AND 4th reader has me jumping for joy) knows that I live with a married couple. Well that married couple happens to be my sister and her husband (whenever i tell people my living situation, i am always careful to say ‘i live with a married couple’ without initially qualifying it because I like the looks i get from people who think i’m living with a random married couple). Well sometimes me and said married couple, like to go places togethor (primarily out to eat) and during one of our adventures, Jared (the husband) were talking about the ridiculousness of divorce, mainly the fact that women (generally) have economic incentive to get divorced. Lets be honest, all religious beliefs aside, there IS economic incentive to divorce. Even if he doesn’t agree to it, she’s still entitled to half of everything even if she brought no income/assets to the marriage. This goes both ways, stay at home dads have the same incentive, well actually they dont because they’d have to go to work and lose the whole ’stay at home dad’ thing. So somehow we got to the point where Jared gave a great monologue that really caught us both (me and rebekah) off guard:

“Obviously you need a good lawyer, and if you know that a divorce is coming you start hiding assets. First you go and buy a Rhodesian passport because that country doesn’t exist and you can buy those passports as novelty items, and for an extra fee they will set it with your name and picture, or any name of your choosing. Then you go open an off shore bank account, the suisse privacy laws aren’t as strict as they used to be so you’re better off going to the carribean where they are more then happy to help hide your money. You use your new Rhodesian to open the account, because they generally have no idea that Rhodesia is no longer a country. Then when she goes to get half, your half suddenly isn’t that big (that she can find).”

Hahaha I definitely paraphrased that, but in original context was one of the funniest things I’ve heard, mainly because of the look my sister was giving him the entire time. 

Her only response: “I see you’ve thought about that”.

hahahahahhaa.

Why we should save the banks

I’m still not sure if the government has passed the bail out plan or not. Last i checked (from my wall street journal live feed via google reader (let me go on a rant to say google reader is absolutely terrific. You just plug in your favorite blogs / rss feed websites / etc and then when you login to your google reader page (which is very handily linked at the top of your gmail, so essentially when you check your gmail you are logged in to google reader) the reader actually queries all of these said blogs/rss feeds/ websites for new stories and delivers them to you so you dont have to navigate to all the sites, and then it puts it in a very reader friendly format. (The best part for me is that when i surf the internet at work, if exxonmobil were ever look into my history, they would see a bunch of google ip addresses and not the blogs and stuff i’m actually reading. Did i mention google reader works with espn?)), the senate had just corrected the HOR’s huge oversight and passed the bill.

Now clearly, 700 billion is A LOT of money. I just had it compared to me, if a million is one day, then a billion is like 37 years. Yes i also agree, the entire banking industry created this mess by swindling people into mortgages and signing other pieces of paper that they clearly had no business signing, and that their own greed has completely been exposed from years of record profits and bonus checks. The key thing is, who do we go after?

The reason all of these Banks are going after is due to their lack of liquidity (cash on hand). Obviously these banks carry huge amounts of debt, because thats how businesses work, they use credit for financing and then pay back over time. Its the natural way of things. Unless you’re google (or yes, maybe exxon), most corporations don’t have billions of dollars in cash, they might have it in assets, but those assets must be sold off to make to turn it into cash. So these banks had a lot of these assets (which were in fact mortgages) that completely lost their value, meaning the banks could no longer sell them off to create the cash necessary to pay back their debt. When they took a look at their long term debt versus cash versus the sudden de-evaluation of their assets, they either declared bankruptcy, or (in most every case) found a buyer and sold themselves (i.e. lehman, wamu, wachovia, merrill lynch, etc).

So what the government plan is essentially offering to do, is buy these poison assets from the banks (for the mere tidy some of 700 billion), hold on to them and then re-sell them to whoever. The plan infuses capital into the banking system, and will give the government a major foot in the door to create regulations and institute reform for the US financial system. Clearly, the system is broken and needs reform, and yes i’m pro-capitalistic economy, but if the financial system crumbles then that will effect everybody, as getting a line of credit would become near impossible among other fall outs.

The fear most people have with this bail out plan, is that they think this 700 billion will be paid for the by the US taxpayers (true, but not to the extent that most people are worried about) and that we will pass this debt on to our kids’ kids’ kids. Here’s the thing, these are ASSET backed securities, meaning there is a tangible thing (accounting textbooks would use the term widget, i will use the term “house and land”) that the government is buying. In a worst of all cases scenario, and each house is burned to the ground by some random fire the engulfs the country ( or some careless smoker in houston, which all of this piling of dry brush on the side of the road seems like the biggest fire hazard ever) and all that is left is the land, then still the government has value it can sell. That’s the worst that can happen, in a REALLY bad scenario, that is to say these houses are valued at 1/2 of what we thought they were, the debt is only 350 billion! That’s nothing! But here is the more likely scenario, the government holds on to these things, helps out the banks, slowly but surely over the years the financial stability (and credibility is the new thing that needs to be restored) and these assets actually begin to gain value (remember like all things (including oil), the housing market is in fact cyclical and will go up again) and they sell these things for a trillion dollars! That’d be pretty good profit i’d say.

Maybe my scenario won’t happen, but I still say letting the market run things (aka run the banks into the ground) is the worst thing right now. Actually, a best case scenario is to actually create a new currency. The dollar has lost so much steam, and while i understand the necessity of saving the banks, i am wholly against pumping more money into the economy and making my next trip to europe at a 3 to 1 exchange in the negative.

internet is back!

Its been awhile since my last post, many reasons have contributed to this none more important than comcast’s lack of ability to maintain a strong cable connection at my new houston residence. In my last post [seen directly below], i talked about how this would be “the last time” i wrote “final days” or something of that nature (i’m not actually reading the last post to verify the wording so just work with me here). Naturally, the next day i got an email saying my start date was pushed back yet again, to the following monday on the 22nd. Actually, the email said “we’ll call you 3 days before you need to be in houston”, so i actually got more of “start date pushed back indefinitely” which ended up being the following monday. I guess you could say a one week paid vacation (which didn’t count against my vacation time) is a great way to start off my young career, but for some reason i feel i’ll forever be known and associated with the “start class of Hurricane Ike”. 

We (my sister and I, yes i live with a married couple, really freaks people out when i tell them) were one of the lucky ones to have power back almost immediately, just no cable or internet. For some reason, everyone else seemed to have cable and internet, just not the 77098 (specifically my street which will remain a mystery to all my readers (i think there are 2, and i dont blame anyone for giving up on me as my post rate fell to abysmally low). You never realize how much you love something, until its not there anymore. Being in a new city with very few contacts (okay i’ll call them friends) is tough enough, having no cable and internet to at least be able to check email / WATCH HEROES (still haven’t caught an episode because we got our cable back last tuesday, only to have it go out again the following monday). But enough about that, there were some positives such as i read my bible more, played guitar more, and have taken my (well my sisters but really should be considered mine because she works late and i’m lola’s primary caretaker for 90% of the day) dog in good long walks exploring the neighbor hood and admittedly taking advantage of Lola’s overall appeal to strangers (we seem to have the “old lady segment” of the population on lock down whenever we pass by, they love to stop and pet her and love on Lola, we’re currently working on the “early 20’s” segment without as much success)

I promise meatier posts coming soon, such as why i feel the US government should in fact pay 700 billion for SECURITY BACKED assets.

Final Days (supposedly i’ve said these words before).

As expected Hurricane Ike got my start date pushed back to wednesday. So instead of anxiously trying to fight off insomnia in Houston, i’m in Austin (decided it would be in my best interest to not drive head first into a hurricane, thus stayed in Austin) blogging to my audience of 2. Maybe 3. The funny thing is, I spent all last week telling my story of my 9 month layover and how monday was the big day, and they laughed at me and told me i’d find a way to get it pushed back. I laughed at them and assured them that Exxon Mobil waits on no man, but alas a random Hurricane came in and pummeled the coast into submission, knocked out power to the United States’ energy capital and caused an estimated 10 billion dollars of damage (insured damage). So as I’ve been running into people I get a lot of “you still haven’t left?!”, quite annoying i must say, and they too will find out when they’re in their last days and people are more less kicking them out the door. I simply tell them that i’m a displaced hurricane refugee and that i didn’t know if my house in houston was under 10 feet of water (there was an actual fear of flooding, seeing as how when it lightly drizzles the driveway turns into a lake). 

All of that aside I am scheduled to head back on Tuesday so I can (finally!) make my triumphant entrance into this “real world” that i’ve been hearing about for 9 months.  What i’m returning too has yet to be seen, so far i know two things: 1) My sister, who in typical head strong republican fashion decided to stay in Houston and battle Ike (the real reason is she didn’t want people looting our house while we were gone, So i really do picture her sitting on the staircase with a loaded shotgun just in case) is alive, so that is good news and 2) that we actually have power at the house, putting us in the extreme minority of houstonions. This is good news because I wasn’t quite sure how I was going to handle starting work and then coming home to a house of no power, so Thats one less thing to worry about. 

For my final (once again any time i’ve used the word final, finally, etc i’ve been proven wrong. Ex: I once said Aug 20th was my last day in Austin, needless to say i’ve was wrong, So i’m using the term final in a very tentative fashion, though i’m confident this time. That last sentence was a run-on.) weekend I tried to not waste away in my room such as would have been the case had i stayed with my parents, so i packed a bag and moved into 39th and Ave C for one more time. This time around featured stadium seating (actually a really nice job complete with cinder block raised couches and awkward viewing angles, but still fun for the entire family) and a goat. Yes i said goat, and no that isn’t a codeword for something other then a living breathing goat (why do i have to say living AND breathing. I would think saying the first would imply the second), named Edwin. Edwin was purchased for 30 dollars, and unlike puppies, or other domestic animals the initial purchase is the only money you have to spend. Sure its probably best to take goats to vets and get them shops, but they eat grass! Thats right, not only do you NOT have to spend money on food, but you get your lawn mowed for free at the same time. I seem to have a growing track record with roommates and live animals, as a few months ago while living at the 14er 3 roosters were purchased and placed in others’ houses as pranks. The prank was, 1) a rooster crows very, very loud in the morning (college students and roosters have differing definitions what “morning” is) and 2) they poop EVERYWHERE (an added unexpected bonus). So we placed these roosters in these houses and just waited to hear back through the grapevine. One of the houses actually chased the rooster with a gun and i’m not sure if they killed it or not (i’m hoping not). The second rooster I never confirmed anything on. But the third (and my personal favorite) rooster was returned to us, which we let free in our back yard. After about 5 minutes of doodling in our back yard the rooster disappeared from our sights, never to be heard from again, or at least not for another 3 weeks. Walking to school from our house we found out that our rooster found a new home at 22nd and Rio Grande, at the law office. The clerks at that office actually referred to bubba (our name for him) as their office pet and fed him every day! 

So yeah staying down here holing up to battle Ike has been hilarious to say the least. The funny thing about Austin is, we didn’t get a single drop of rain. Actually we were all quite disappointed with the absurd lack of rain.

rambling

I like posts that have no real direction, and if i had actual readers that posted comments every now and then i might do a “comment bag” or something but we’re a long ways off from that one.

-Learned what it meant to drive a German car the other day. For those of you that didn’t know (which i think the two of you that have actually looked at this do in fact know) i decided to buy a new car as the truck was becoming less and less reliable, actually the truck was quite moody and didn’t handle traffic very well. You might ask what “not handling traffic well” means, and i will tell you when rolling along at low rpm’s the truck would get frustrated and stall out. This stalling out would thus force me to turn off and turn on again. Houston as you might have heard, has been known to have some traffic (no. 3 worst in the nation) problems here and there, and by “here and there” i mean at all times no matter what direction you are going. Fact, my friend Tim Traister hit a traffic jam after midnight. Ahhh cannot wait to call the concrete jungle my home. Anyways so I have been saving a while and made a list of cars that i a) wanted and b) could afford. Obviously the first thing i did on this list was eliminate all american made cars, as i am forever biased against american made cars except for american made chevy tahoes. Also i wanted a more conservative car, which is why the Audi A4 was my car of choice. I couldn’t afford a lexus or a G35, and 3-series are flashy and quite honestly, common. Anyways i discovered that total cost of ownership is far different then the purchase price of cars. This is something i would urge everyone who is going to purchase a new car to look at, for one the fuel (premium, but is countered by my exxon discount) and the repairs/servicing. I took it in for the 35k servicing thinking i was still under warranty (warranty was for 50,000) only to find out IT EXPIRED in dec ‘07. I might not be getting a TV for a while.

-Hurricane Ike is currently having a major impact in my life. First thing, whenever ever these hurricanes threaten to wreck shop on the coastal region, the evacuees always seem to pick houston as they’re destination of choice. In fact, there are still many katrina evacuees living in houston today. I have no problem with this, i do have a problem with the news story that was reported on some of the families. Apparently all the families displaced were given a debit card loaded with 2,000 (courtesy of the tax payers like you and soon to be me) for things like clothes for their kids, food, you know things to help one survive a catastrophic events. So what do these mothers go buy? 800 dollars purses and flat screens. Yep sometimes (i’m looking your way extreme liberals) throwing money (at the macro level) at a problem isn’t going to solve it. I also have a problem with Joel Osteen for not opening up his church to house some (could’ve been many) of the evacuees, way to help out the cause Joel.

The next way that Hurricane Ike is impacting my life is my soon to be work. On monday i’m supposed to start at Exxon Mobil (i know finally) and now there’s a hurricane that’s threatening to flood the city. I get emails and phone calls everyday alerting me that their might be an emergency plan and now i might not start on monday? Everyone i’ve talked to this week feel i’m destined to never work as i STILL HAVENT started and yet they are now 3 weeks into the school year and just had the career fair. I find it actually fun trying to help the year below me sort out their lives while mine is still in a perpetual state of rocking chair (i’m moving back and forth but not really getting anywhere). I never did live out my dream (which with a little more warning could have completed today of drafting a fake resume and showing up to the career fair:

me – hands them resume.

them – “you had a 4.0, triple majored and have already interned at 2 investment banks and the boston consulting group?”

me – shrugs.

yeah that would’ve been great and may have been offered some jobs on the spot. Now THAT would’ve been good times. Also, Hurricane Ike has officially flexed his muscle over the NCAA and forced the hand of UT to move the game to another weekend. The funny thing is, the reason they moved it was concern for the amount of people in the city (and the safety of those people), yet the weekend they moved it to was ACL. Oh man talk about a weekend that i will NOT be in Austin. 100,000 people attend ACl, 90,000 attend UT football games (now i know some of those are the same people, but not as many as you would think. I would venture to say no more then 10,000 (and thats a REALLY generous estimate) go to both the football game and ACL), needless to say thats A LOT of people in a not very big area. The thought of how horrible parking/ traffic / general living during that weekend makes me sick.

-Going to El arroyo’s happy hour tomorrow. 1$ margaritas and probably live music. This was the highlight of my week last semester (while i was busy being unemployed) and one of the more “austiny” things one can partake in. 

-I really hope google chrome comes out for Mac’s soon, i’ve just stepped into the world of google reader (which i will be using on my blackberry, assuming i get a blackberry)  and it has lowered my productivity level during an already unproductive day.

a wedding of sorts

This past weekend saw the marriage (falling) of the first of my many engaged and nearly engaged former roommates from the magical house of 14 people. There’s a scene in wedding crashers when the fiancee is talking about the joining of two great american families and Owen Wilson says “and then you can challenge the klingons for interstellar domination”. 

That scene is all i could think about with the marriage between two westlake powers, The Smileys and The Coopers. I am certain that one day this family will be doing something ridiculous, wether it be ending world hunger, planting a church in Antarctica, or whatever that i will be able to one day claim (and if i save the program i took home from the wedding prove) that i was played a small role in THE SMILEY wedding. It’ll be my little ice breaker at dinner parties and black tie events that i’m sure to attend because I feel like houston is that kind of city.

This wedding really seemed to hit the mark, and (no offense to the other weddings i’ve attending, including that of my own sister) was the best wedding so far and has really set the bar high for the other roommates / friends. Namely this wedding had a few certain qualities that i hope to see at the rest of the weddings i attend in my career:

-The boys back together. Earlier today I called this category “Brett Wise” because he is quite the integral part to any weekend of fun. While he did bring the energy and fun to the weekend, I would be selling everyone else short for their contributions. John Hipp, Anthony Odem, John Porter, Tyler Richards, Jake Ashbaucher, Steve Cox, Colin Wood… there’s just a certain dynamic that we enjoy when we’re all together which unfortunately those times are few and far between because of the real world creeping into our lives and moving us to different cities. In fact, anything with that group mentioned above is really fun and i really could stop the list with just this item (we both know i won’t do that).

-A weekend of fun: With everyone getting into town by friday, we had 3 days to hang out and enjoy each other. I couldn’t ask for more.

-The band: There are two trains of thought on this one, DJ or band. Both are acceptable and I can understand why one would choose a DJ over a band (usually cost), but a live band can really step up the energy. The band Sauce strutted their stuff at the Smiley wedding and i was literally amazed, they really jammed out and had the entire screaming for one more song as they ended their set. That’s the first wedding i’ve been to where the dance floor was begging for more after 3 hours and not pleading for the bride and groom to make their exit so they could leave.

-Food: This is sort of a personal preference thing, having worked many weddings i’ve never believed its necessary, but a buffet is always an added bonus, just make sure its a good buffet. I would say the best BBQ in Texas would fall under the “good buffet” category.

-Party Bus: This is the first time i’ve ever experienced a chartered bus to take the wedding party from the ceremony to the reception, genius, absolutely genius.

-Location: This is more of a bride thing and less of necessary component to a perfect wedding. My problem with locations, they eat up a lot of money that could be used elsewhere. Like i mentioned in the first point, when all of us are together we’re bound to have a great time even if the wedding is in a worn out warehouse (actually that might be really cool). If there’s plenty of money to go around, then sure go with a sweet location, but if there’s not spend less money on location and spend more on…

-Free Alcohol: The number one most important thing for a great wedding. Nothing livens up a dance floor, keeps the party going, and breaks down the social barriers like an open bar. A beer and Wine bar is perfect (doesn’t require the use of professional bar tenders or a liquor license) . I was actually quite amazed at the maturity displayed by everyone in not getting stupid drunk even with all the free booze.

reunited

I guess the true sign of friendship is being able to grow separate without growing apart. I found this to be true this weekend as we all (minus a very important part wasting away in san fransisco, and by wasting away I mean living the dream) gathered to celebrate the death (i.e. marriage) of one brian smiley. His actual mortality will not cease until next saturday, so as to follow american tradition held a bachelor party. Also following tradition, I will not speak a word (or type a word) of the events that occurred during this sacred bond.

Since my entire weekend is off limits to the blog world, let me tell you about some other fun things. I found this website today http://www.colorwarecp.com , and was very intrigued. They do professional customized paint of a whole line of electronics. The most popular item have been phones and ipods, and the work is absolutely fantastic though a bit pricey. A custom blackberry curve can cost as much as 170 bucks to have colored. I would recommend playing with the website because it offers a lot of fun trying to mix and match colors to create the perfect expression of yourself.

 

A few things I learned about houston today:

- avoid the galleria on labor day and weekends. The amount of people there today was just mind baffling, and most weren’t there shopping but “posting up”. I somehow missed the intersection where the galleria turned into highland mall.

-Raisin Canes closes for labor day. This was actually a kick to the face, a very surprising round house kick to that. For two days me, will todd, and john david barnes (you will for sure be hearing more about this guy during my stay in houston) had this excellent plan of eating canes on the last night before will gives up his soul to merrill lynch. So i drove westwardly (yes i left the protection of the 610 loop (yes i’m still working on my inner loop pretention so forgive me if i’m over the top, i’m still calibrating) ) to meet them at canes only to find it closed. dagger.

-Houston is full of bad drivers. I guess that could be said of any city, or the world for that matter. But I’m writing my congressman asking for mandatory eye/driving tests once you hit 55 so renew your license. Yes, i’m willing to sacrifice my own father’s license in the process, we’ll call it collateral damage.

 

It also hasn’t hit me that i’ve actually moved. I have yet to spend a weekend here, and this upcoming weekend will be spent in austin as well. I’m waiting for that inevitable moment when i finally realize that i’ve moved for good.

back in austin

still have yet to spend an entire week in houston, i’m guessing Exxon will have something to say about that. The drive back to austin is becoming uncomfortably easy for me, literally i’m coasting in right under the 2 hours 30 minute mark (probably because the audi has given me the ability to speed uncontrollably, something white lightning did not afford me).

Quick bullets:

-i’m strongly considering pomdilly.com, what this would contain would be my blog (duh), but also give me an avenue to continue develop my java skills (which were put on hold) and delivering web apps

-I pulled a amateur christian move tonight by not fighting for a good seat during the “blessing” portion of Golley’s going away party. Needless to say i was on my feet the entire time and they are still hurting.

-The XO house is still the haven of great dinners, if i could get them to make me an offer, i would work there full time.

-Just purchased Hillsong’s live double cd set, and its awesome.

-Spike TV has been having a CSI marathon FOR THE LAST 5 DAYS. Now i am a big CSI fan (we’re talking the original, not CSI:Miami and absolutely not CSI:New York), but even i would agree this is very aggressive of Spike to run only CSI for this long. The one thing me and jared could not figure out was why isn’t there a SpikeHD??? Spike’s claim is that its a “mans channel”, but for some reason doesn’t have an HD version? The Flintstones called, they want their broadcasting back.

-My next question about Spike TV’s CSI marathon is, how does this differ from any other day? If they throw in one episode of star trek with an episode later in the night of UFC its pretty much any other night.

-A friend is writing “stuffyoungliferslike.blogspot.com”, which is a complete copy of “stufffchristianslike.blogspot.com”, which itself is a copy of “stuffwhitepeoplelike.blogspot.com”, i feel like it was my manifest destiny to write something making fun of christian quirks, and even considered stuffylerslike but it never happened.

-What has happened to movies lately???

-Death Race – this movie looks absolutely terrible, which is unfortunate because they could have tweaked it, called it “Twisted Metal” and actually based it on the video game. Man That would’ve been sweet. 

-The mummy 3: Everything i hate about movies is present in this one, including Brendan Frazier, one of the more annoying actors i can think of. I can’t imagine what part of the preview made someone think “o wow, i’ll be seeing that one”

-The new season of Heroes looks really, really good. The addition of villians to the mix, sounds like a good way to mix things up.

-The worst injury you can get (besides having genitalia cut off) is a split toe nail. Walking into the house i was bending over to pick something up when our puppy (a 110lb bull mastiff) decided to come give me a nudge which caused me to kick the wooden table, thus causing me to crack my toe nail on my 3rd toe. It hurts to wear shoes, it hurts to wear shoes for a long time while standing (see above for my amateur move i pulled and now you know why it was even worse then previously described).

-Rugs really make a room.