Pour us a road, we’ll both drink and drive

Sometimes, we’re so counterproductive in our society, it’s a wonder we get anything accomplished. Hell, look at government as a good example! Seriously though, if we used just a slice of common sense, we might actually get to the other side of the road and go, “Huh, if I had known it was that easy, I would’ve done that a long time ago!”

The reason I’m mentioning this is that last night, I took a friends brother who is in town for the week to my favorite hockey bar to watch Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Finals while my friend was busy with a previous commitment. After I arrived home from work, changed and was heading out the door, my brother walked in and asked where I was headed, so I mentioned it to him and asked if he wanted to join us. Now I know my brother is only 19 years old, but he has been in this bar before, not with me, but with some other people that know the owners, so I figured we’d be ok.

We get to the bar, find some seats and get ready to sit down, but the bartender spotted us as we were walking in and asked to see everyone’s ID. First off, um, hello? I have a beard and some grayish hair; I think I can pass for 21! Second, I mentioned that my brother wasn’t 21, but we brought him so he could be our designated driver, which I thought would be a logical excuse. It wasn’t likely that he’d be drinking; however, the law in Texas says that he can’t be in there, but then, it also says this:

In Houston, Texas, beer many not be purchased after midnight on Sunday, but can be purchased anytime on Monday...which happens to begin right after midnight on Sunday! So it's illegal to buy it when it’s legal to buy it?

I digress.

This left us with two options, pick up some beer, go back to the house and watch the game, or I drive my brother home and come back. He said it was ok if I took him home and I mentioned option 1, but he said he was cool with going home, so I drove him back there and headed back to the bar to hang out with my friends’ brother.

This brings about non-logical point number two: I know have to waste gas to drive my brother home. This is really not the time to be wasting energy resources! If we let him stay at the bar, I can drink a little more and have a safe, reliable driver waiting to take me home AND only use one trip’s worth of gas. This is opposed to the two trip’s worth of gas I had to use to take him home and then try not to drink too much so I could be a responsible driver for myself. Does that make sense to anyone? Sober driver and less gas used, or slightly intoxicated driver and more gas used, which sounds better?

On a side note, my brother is not a big hockey fan because he grew up in the south, whereas I grew up in the north. He has watched a number of games at home with me during the playoffs, but he’s just not a big fan in general. My friends’ brother on the other hand…anyway.

Needless to say, tomorrow night, we’re staying in to watch the game.

All in all, we're just bricks in the wall

Updated 5/29: On Sunday 5/27, Alexandria from Houstonist gave me some props in her "local blog roundup" post. Thanks! Also, in the comments section, I completed a thought that wasn't explained very well in the original post, so I suggest reading there as well.

Maybe it's because I'm not originally from Texas and I've never heard of closing underperforming schools before, but how does that help?

It sounds to me, that moving students to other schools would only shuffle underperforming students to schools that are currently performing at an acceptable rate, thus dragging down those schools scores.

Here's an idea, let's try reorganizing the staff. Move some (certainly not all) of the teachers that are able to excel in these tough situations out of the acceptable schools and into these schools. Let's hire more staff. Oh wait, that's right, our schools are cash-strapped because of extraneous, ridiculous overspending in other areas.

I never understood how or why education funding declines or remains stagnant. Seriously, the people in our schools will be taking care of you and I in 30-40 years; don't we want them to be the best possible people they can be? If we need to raise taxes for better education funding, then so be it, it's in everyone's interest. Generating more income would provide more staff, or at the very least, possibly a more qualified staff like they have at those fancy schmancy private schools.

Education is one of those things on which we should not be skimping. We’re already lagging in compared to other countries when it comes to how many engineers or scientists we’re churning out of our colleges.

In our society of billionaires, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Paul Allen, Michael Dell, and more familiarly Donald Trump, Oprah Winfrey, Steve Forbes & the Walton Family of Wal-Mart fame, why not throw a couple BILLION (each) at our education system. Meanwhile, here in Houston, Ken Lay’s widow is worried about unfreezing her dead husbands’ assets. Do you think if she does receive any of that money she will throw it back into these schools? I think not.

I don’t want to go completely off topic, but many of the people who are in these struggling schools may ultimately wind up fighting and dying in a war that throwing money towards doesn’t seem to be as big a conundrum for the government.

A year has passed since I wrote my note

Now that my birthday is officially over and I’ve spent the day reflecting, I’m ready to share my year in review, as somber as it may be.

Lows -

Dating: On my birthday last year, the girl I was dating and I broke up. I followed this same girl to Houston just over a year earlier because I was in love with her. She broke it off, but I am the one who was stupid.

A few months and dates later, I started dating someone new and over the course of a few dates, I knew I wanted to spend as much time as I could with this girl. 4 months later, I had to break it off because I didn’t have enough time to spend with her. This was not an easy decision, but I had to be fair to be both of us. The reason I didn’t have enough time was…

School: I was having a very difficult time with the particular class I was taking at the time. I spent an entire weekend sitting in front of the computer doing research. Fortunately, she was working that weekend, however, it made me realize that if she hadn’t, she would’ve wanted time with me and one of two things would’ve happened: 1) I would’ve let my schoolwork suffer; or 2) I wouldn’t see her and the relationship would’ve suffered. I felt it was fair decision for both of us. I couldn’t give her all of myself at the time and she deserved better than that. I knew that my classes were only going to get tougher, so if this was an indication of things to come, I felt that the sooner I broke it off, the less painful it would be for both of, but particularly for her.

Work: It sucked. I didn’t get a raise after my first year and I started looking for new jobs. I actually had a few interviews, a couple of the positions I was very interested in, but was passed up for each of them.

Money: I went into some serious debt this past year and struggled at many times to pay my bills and eat. I’m not sure how I managed to make it without missing payments and killing my credit.

Social life: For months after the first breakup, my social life was non-existent. I would spend almost every weekend inside my apartment, either doing schoolwork or just trying to catch up on, well, everything! It sucked, period. Think about this - it was now summertime and I was inside...all the time.

Pets: My new cat, Cowboy, was a little hellion for about 4 months. I actually almost took him back to the SPCA. He was just too wild and terrorized my older cat, Squeaky.

Highs -

Dating: I dated someone that I really enjoyed spending time with and had a great 4-month ride with her. I wish I didn’t have to end it, but it was the right decision, I’m sure of that.

School: I graduated with my 2-year degree (finally!) in November and I can’t begin to tell you how relieved I was (can you say, “weight off my shoulders?”). Now I’m onto the 4-year degree and it’s kickin’ my ass!

Work: It’s much better now. I have received a significant upgrade in my responsibilities and I understand what my duties entail much more clearly. I am up for another review next month and I swear if I don’t get a raise, I might have to go postal (just kidding, I’m against guns!). A significant raise should be imminent, so I’m not worried.

Money: Somehow, through all of last year’s struggles, I made it and now I am paying off some of the debt I racked up last year. I’m actually paying it off at an alarmingly fast rate. I was able to scrape up enough money to buy myself a little vacation in NYC in November to see my friends and now I’m paying things off so quickly that I have money to do the things that I want to do this year as well – such as go on vacation with my friends in Cape Cod this summer.

Social life: It’s actually not much better, but I’m working on it.

Pets: It killed me to think what would happen to Cowboy if I took him back and someone else didn’t adopt him, so here he is now. He is still a little hellion sometimes, he doesn’t know his name, or the sound associated with his name, he bites, he scratches and he still attacks Squeak, but he is terribly cute and a little lover at night when I go to bed. He likes to snuggle and smush his nose into my chest while he purrs – how could I send that back? Squeak is still my little girl though and she knows it. She runs up into my lap when she is being chased because she knows I’m like home base. Once in a while, there is peace throughout the apartment, but not often.

Through all of the highs and lows of the past year, my emotional state has varied constantly as well. I think of myself as a very emotionally stable person, but this past year as been very trying on me. I won’t even begin to try to recap the whole year; I’ll just let you know where I’m at right now. Tired, frustrated, agitated, sad, lonely and stressed. However, after what I went through the past year, I know that I am on the upswing of these emotions and while I have a long way to go, I don’t feel as lost as I did just a few months ago.

I used to ride my big wheel, and sell lemonade, eat popcorn with grandpa while we watched the parade

I remember when the worst thing I worried about walking home from school was getting hit with a snowball in the back (of the head!).

People are out of control!

Money, it’s a crime. Share it fairly, but don’t take a slice of my pie.

In this day and age, I have the utmost respect for an athlete who says, “I don’t want to play anywhere else, I only want to be a (whatever team they play for).” Nowadays, it’s not uncommon for superstars to play for multiple teams throughout their careers thanks to free agency and salary caps.

In this case, I admire Jeff Bagwell’s attitude for only wanting to play for the Houston Astros and not wanting to take a trade to the American League so he can be a DH for the remainder of his career. See, Bagwell has been very injured in the last few seasons, missing 115 games last year alone. The Astros contend he can’t play baseball anymore and will be filing an insurance claim on him, by no later the January 31st, to recoup some $15 million of the $17 million owed to him on his contract. He says he can play and plans to report to spring training as scheduled to prove the Astros wrong and earn his spot on the team. As noted in the article, he feels the team is showing him very little respect in exchange for the loyalty he has shown them and doesn’t think their relationship can ever be repaired.

For the most part, I have to agree with him. However, the question remains, can he come to spring training, work out, play and do all the things he used to do and sustain it for the long season of baseball? This is what the Astros are stuck wondering and don’t want to be forced into paying for a broken player when they could’ve saved that money, or spend it on 5 younger guys to groom and develop for the long haul.

I have a solution for both sides:

As I said, I admire Jeff Bagwell for his loyalty and hard work, but at this point in your life, paying you $17 million dollars seems a bit much. The Astros need to get their heads out of their asses and realize Jeff Bagwell has been the cornerstone of this franchise for over a decade now and he deserves a fair shot at playing baseball as much as anyone else.

Jeff Bagwell, humbly and graciously offer to restructure your contract. Yes, the Astros have shown you less respect than you deserve from them, but if you are serious about wanting to stay a Houston Astro and about wanting to play baseball this season, I think this is the only fair way for this to happen is for you to do this. It offers the Astros the out they are looking for if you are injured, but at the same time, you will be paid more than a fair wage for your services. $17 million per year breaks down to roughly $105K per game. Why not say, for every game you start and play a minimum number of innings, you’ll receive $110K. For any game you appear in (pinch-hitter/runner/defensive replacement), you’ll receive $30K or some other number, whatever. This only seems fair to me and as a fan, who is basically one of the many people paying your salary, I think you should do this. It’s important for me to know that when you put on that uniform, you can play to the best of your abilities and that your employer, the Houston Astros know that they are getting their money’s worth from you as well.

Party all the time

Lots o’parties this weekend!

The City of Houston, Metro and the Downtown District wish to thank the community for its support as we celebrate the completion of the Downtown Midtown Transit Streets Project.
Friday, December 9, 2005
11:30 a.m. - 1 p.m.
Main Street Square

Enjoy fun, festivities, live music, a visit from Santa Claus and special surprise guests! Plus, register to win a holiday prize package to be drawn during the Mayor's Holiday Celebration, Saturday, Dec. 10 from 4:30 - 6:30 p.m. at City Hall.

Yea, I think I’ll pass.

Baby, it's cold outside

It's pretty chilly here today, 31 degrees when I left for work, but probably about 20 with the wind chill, so I am wearing a sweater and my winter coat, which of course is made for winters in Buffalo, not necessarily for a few cold days in Houston. Nonetheless, I'm getting shit about it from my coworkers! I told them this is cold, even for people from the North, but they still insist on ragging on me. I don't remember complaining about how ridiculously hot was when it was 110 degrees with the heat index this summer! They need to lay off and stop coming to my office to razz me, it's really childish.

Got a ticket to ride?

Is it me, or is it just backwards to charge $45 for a standing room only ticket? Isn't it painful enough to have to stand for 3 - 3 1/2 hours, pay $7 for a beer that isn't all that cold and $5.50 for a Hot Dog that isn't that hot? Oh wait, this is the World Freakin' Series we're talkin about!!!

Just to hit the ball and touch 'em all - a moment in the sun

Is that Post-Season baseball I smell? I think it is!! Go ‘Stros!!

Don't believe the hype

24 hours later and I am at home, moving around my furniture so it is back in place and writing my blog for the day. Hurricane Rita turned out to be a wimpy storm for our area, although not so much for the east Texas/western Louisiana coast. We had a light drizzle of rain this morning and a nice breeze, but it was hardly a hurricane to us.

We left College Station at 10am and took some back roads home, fearing the same traffic jam as when we originally tried to head up there. We moved along quite nicely until some areas that did not have power, therefore having signals which were not operating. This caused intersections to be used as stop signs and instead of a flow of people from each side moving through, 30-40 cars would have to sit and wait their turn, which slowed us all down. Nonetheless, we arrived at the parking garage to pick up the girls' cars and each drove to our respective homes. I had power and water, but no cable. S & A had neither and P had power and cable, but no water. Between our three of homes, we'll survive.

The only damage that I have seen so far is a tree that has fallen into the gate which surrounds my parking lot. The gate is holding the tree from collapsing onto the hoods of two cars, although by the time I took the picture, one of the cars had been moved out of the way Otherwise, there are a lot of small tree branches that can be moved by hand or foot and a lot of leaves lying on the ground. Maybe as we see more pictures, we'll see more damage in and around the Houston area.
That's it for now though!

Damn this traffic jam...It hurts my motor to go so slow...Damn this taffic jam!

My next email, around 9 pm:

Hi everyone,

Well, as some of you noted in your emails to me, you hoped that the traffic was not as bad as seen on TV. Actually, it was worse. We went 2 miles in about 1 hour, then got off the freeway because we needed to use the bathroom, called some people who had been watching traffic on TV and they told us it wasn’t moving faster anytime soon. We then decided at that point to come home and try again later tonight after they figured out how to move a million cars off the freeways.

The secondary problem was that we had used a ¼ tank of gas while sitting in traffic because it was 100 degrees today and we needed to run the A/C. Even in the A/C, the cat was panting and we needed to wrap her in a cold towel to cool her down. There have been many, many people who have run out of gas while sitting on the freeways, which isn’t helping the traffic-jams any and we didn’t want to be four of those people (S, her sister & fiancé and me) and 2 animals ( in two separate cars)! Hence, as I said, we have come home and made a number of alternative plans. The one we are going with as of now is to stay with some friends here in Houston who have an older model, sturdy house that has hurricane shutters on the windows. They also have a generator and lots of food and supplies. We dropped off most of our stuff already and are going to stay at my apartment tonight and head over there in the morning around 8 or 9.

Another alternative is to wait a few more hours to see what happens with the traffic and then try again for College Station. I am not thrilled with either of these options, but at this point, I’d rather not be stuck in a car on the freeway…that was hell on a different scale than that of New Orleans. Of course, I will let everyone know something when we make a decision. In any event, it is still very muggy, about 85 degrees, but the stars and moon are out, the clouds will probably roll in overnight and the winds pick up tomorrow afternoon.

The positive news in all of this, well, for us at least, is that the hurricane is tracking more eastward, which means we will get weaker side of the storm, as of now anyway. Well, that’s the only update I can give for now, but I will try to keep everyone informed as best I can. I will tell you that we are trying to be as safe as possible, but again, it isn’t likely we are moving out of the city.

Put me in coach, I'm ready to play, today. Look at me, I can be, centerfield.

Going to a baseball game is usually a joyful experience for me, especially at this time of the year and the fact that we are currently leading the Wild Card race makes every game exciting: except today. I don’t know what it was about today’s game, but the atmosphere inside the ballpark was very “dead”. I even made this comment to my friend whom I went with and we both said afterwards that it was a boring game, not because we lost, in fact, we won today, but because there was barely, if any, buzz, aside from a handful of moments. The announced attendance was around 35,000, but it definitely seemed as though there were numerous empty seats to contradict that number. The fans only got loud after we scored or if an important pitch needed to be made, which was pretty rare since our pitcher was really shutting the other team down. Otherwise, there was no buzz in the air, which is something I’ve grown accustomed to and I tend to expect when attending any sports event. The other thing that confuses me is that we had a lot of opportunities for atmosphere to emerge and grow. We left 12 men on base and had the bases loaded twice, I think. That usually gets the crowd into the game and it did for those moments, but soon after the end of our mini-rally, the crowd went back to whatever was holding their attention, which certainly wasn’t the baseball game.

I have only one theory for this rare occasion: Sunday afternoon baseball games are days for families to bring their kids to the ballpark and have a family day. We saw plenty of kids with their parents and many of them were very young, as was the case 2 rows down from us where the one child was around a year to 14 months old and the other child looked less than a month old. Don’tget me wrong, I could care less how people spend their dollars and if they want to bring their kids to the ballpark I think It’s great, but those people aren’t paying attention to the game because their kids are too young to have the attention span to sit for 3 hours and watch a baseball game and the parents, consequently, have to spend the majority of time occupying their kids attention, which then detracts their attention from the game. So, maybe out of the 35K that attended today’s game, let’s say 35% are the parents of or are the kids, which is roughly 12,250 people. Those 12,250 people aren’t taking the necessary interest in the game to help generate excitement and only 22,750 remain to carry the energy. Of those people, I would guess 5-10% will be occupied with watching other people’s kids or making faces at the babies. It has also become apparent to me that when at the ballpark, people cannot stay in their seats for all 9 innings and tend to wander the hallways, whether it be for food, restroom or just to stretch their legs. Let’s assume this is another 2%. Now we are down to a little over 50% of the announced attendance actually in their seats and cheering at the appropriate times.

You’ve probably guessed that I don’t have kids, but I do have a 3 year old nephew and I know his attention span is very short. I spend all of 25 seconds on the phone with him before he gives it back to my sister and says “later!” When I do have kids, I will probably bring them to sporting events while they are still at that uninterested age and all of this will just be me ranting while I’m currently on the other side of the ball. In the meantime, we’re in a playoff race and I’d like to feel like it while I’m enjoying a well-pitched game with my friend. Going to this game was actually a little bit of a downer and we won! I went to a game last month that we lost poorly and there was a lot more excitement than today. It’s just weird, that’s all I’m really saying. I want encourage bringing your kids to the ballpark. In my eyes, any show of support for your local team is a positive and spending time with your family is doubly important and it is really special when you can mix the two together. Just remember to scream a little now and then to let us folks who are paying attention to the game that you’re here and that you’re going to help us scream and shout our team to victory. Go ‘stros!

Who's Gonna Drive You Home, Tonight?

6pm. Rush hour, people are jockeying for position, buses are stopping traffic at corners to pick up and drop off people and cars are jutting in and out of lanes. Does this sound familiar? Well, here is my opinion on rush hour. JUST DRIVE PEOPLE!! We go through these issues five days a week and everyday it’s the same thing.

Why, oh why, don’t you have a routine of getting into the lane where you’ll do the core of your driving and stay there!

I drive the same way home everyday. I exit my parking lot to the right, turning into the middle lane, driving about 2 miles before I reach a large intersection where cars are always turning right and I can move into the right lane because the middle lane turns into a left turn only lane. I know this because I drive this way everyday! I then stay in this lane for four more miles before I have to turn left. You see, it’s pretty easy for me to do this routine on a daily basis.

The problem, however, is when all the other people driving around me fuck this routine up! People are zipping in and out of lanes, figuring out they’re in that left turn only lane when they need to go straight and all of a sudden they try to cut in front of me! Or they cut in front of me at other times. I don’t mean they enter my lane because there is room, I mean they are cutting me off, no signals flash and no wave for not bumping their ass as they slice in between cars.

While I’m speaking of cutting in; just because there is some room between myself and the car in front of me, does not mean that you should make a right on red into that space! Space does not equal time. If there are a few car lengths between 2 cars, it is because tailgating is not a good practice when driving! It doesn’t mean you should attempt to jump out in front of me and slam on the gas. Obviously since you’re picking this space to try to enter traffic, you are not a NASCAR driver! You need to take at least 8 seconds to make a right turn and get up to the speed and flow of traffic as to not disrupt my flow in traffic!

With gas being the price per gallon that it is right now, I don’t want to be in stop and go traffic for 25 minutes on my way home and I’ll bet a lot of other people feel the same way.

Fortunately for other drivers, even though I am quickly losing patience, I know that in less than 30 minutes, I’ll be home and you won’t because you’ll be jutting in and out of lanes instead of driving straight to your destination.

Ok, so here’s the plan: pick a lane, don’t cut me off and don’t jump out in front of me.