Demolition Day

(For those of you not on Facebook...)

It's been a while since my last post, but well, nothing really exciting happened until today.

I recently moved into a garage apartment of a new home in a historic district of Houston (called The Houston Heights). It's a lot like Riverside in Wichita, but many of the original homes weren't maintained well over the years, so many are torn down and replaced by giant homes that fill the entire lot. At least they keep a lot of the architectural character, which is good.

Today, the house next door was demolished. It was torn down, foundations and trees uprooted, and then taken to the dump...all in one working day.

Here's the sequence of events, starting at 7:40am:


View from the back, demo is starting from the front.

"coming through!"

Halfway there...

This was only 15 minutes into the process.

Up next...garage. After taking out this corner, all he had to do was push the whole thing over.

Almost became a character in "Stranger Than Fiction"...so close!

Garage and lean-to gone in seconds.

Garage gone, gnome left behind. Let's get him a red hat!

This was the must upsetting part. I was having fun until now. They destroyed the decades-old magnolia tree. Then they took down the shade tree next to the window I was perched at for these pics.

After the tree murdering, I quit taking pics until the end. And here it is, the lot is almost empty, including the foundations. The only thing that slowed the whole process down was waiting for the dump truck to make trips after being loaded. This is just after 4:00pm.

Great place to meet tech peeps

Coffee Groundz is a great supporter of the social media hounds. There's always an event where you can meet new people. Great job, CG!

in reference to: The Coffee Groundz - Houston, TX - Coffee, Tea, Gelato, Spirits, Free WiFi and so much more! (view on Google Sidewiki)

I have an online store!

Even though I stopped taking design clients a while back, I've decided to have fun and post some designs. You can put in your own text and Zazzle will print it and ship it to you! Pretty cool.

If you have any ideas you'd like added to the store, let me know. I'll be continually adding stuff, so keep coming back! I'll have a link at the bottom of my blog page, feel free to forward it to others!

http://www.zazzle.com/kryanoutloud*

Egg-citing

Since I'm 'between jobs' again, I have time to kill and money to save. Found out today how easy making egg noodles is! Failure came with the first attempt, of course, but success came on round 2. All it takes is eggs and flour, and a little time. Cheap, and yummy!

Beer, beer, wonderful beer

I don't know if anyone's noticed yet, but I'm a bit obsessed with food and drink. I know, right?

There's a local brewery (Saint Arnolds) that makes some of the best beer I've ever had, so I attend their events whenever I can. They had a really fun scavenger hunt recently, and Jay and I gleefully took up the challenge. The brewer supplied a video that gave six clues and a close-up of the item we were to get our pictures in front of in each bar. This one was the final clue of the leg, and Jay shot this great pic in front of the found item, an apropos quote:


Jay and I both qualified to attend a special party for winners, where we get the chance to win a kegerator!! If only dreams could come true...

Beef, it's what's for dinner

Last week was a bad one, so I made dinner over the weekend for my new beau Jay. I cooked to impress, with Jay's help on the meat prep (he is a guy after all). It doesn't look like much, but it's actually prosciutto wrapped sirloin bites stuffed with a bit of gorgonzola, topped with a light cream and shallot sauce. Also made homemade mac 'n cheese, because honestly, there just wasn't enough cheese involved in the main dish (HA!). And yes, we had a salad, but we'd already eaten it by the time I pulled out the camera. I promise.

Mmmmm...

Port Aransas

So I've been working working working working...and working some more. All work and no play, well...you know.

After working several weekends, finally got this one off, so I headed to the gulf. Unfortunately Port Aransas is small and hotels were full, so I found one five miles away. Very odd place. I drove up to find separate cottages instead of a hotel, and the one cottage labeled 'office' locked up tight. I called the hotel number, and they instead gave me a lockbox combination to extract the keys to my room. (Okay....). Made it into the room, and it turned out to be more like a small apartment, all tile throughout, and a kitchen larger than mine! Sweet! (sorry, blurry pic)


Sweet until nightfall, when I turned on the lights, and the cockroaches scattered. Gross!

After leaving the hotel and being totally clueless about how this area "works," I started following my map to Port Aransas. Turns out the only way there is by ferry, which is paid for by the state, and runs 24/7. You just drive your car onto the boat. I swear, I felt like a five-year-old getting excited over this idea...I think this was my favorite part of the trip. "do it again! do it again!" I did.


I hit the beach early in the morning to beat the crowds. It worked!


That evening, I had a cocktail that had an "island" (aka cherry) in it...cute.


This was actually at the local brewery, I met the brewer and the owner, nice people. And yes, I sampled the beer. Turns out the island is considered Mayberry on the sea. Everyone knows everyone, and all major town decisions are made at the oldest bar...which by the way apparently had been on stilts, floated a bit in a hurricane, and plopped down on another part of the island sans stilts. They decided to just build a foundation under it and keep it there.

Learned much on this trip, like I really like anything with crab or yellowfin tuna in it, as long as it's fresh.

And if you don't rinse off often, you can get a staff infection from the sea water. I didn't get staph, but interesting tidbit for this midwesterner.

Hope everyone had a great Fourth!!

KR

Tourist in my own hometown

I felt like such a tourist. Snapping pics of every little thing. But I'd never been to a Crawfish Fest!

Got a kick out of the menu oddities...alligator, billy goat, rattlesnake. I was told the gator was good, but the vendor wasn't ready for hungry people. Too bad we filled up elsewhere.



Kelsey (a true southerner) went straight for the crawfish.


She cleaned a tail for me in seconds, I actually liked it. She taught me all about how they should be properly cooked in order to be "gewwwwd."


Since I'm not-so-much into seafood (or river food), I opted for something else new I'd never tried: boudain. It's excellent...pork, beef, rice, seasonings, cooked together in a casing like a sausage. Pretty safe, didn't quite have room for the gator bites. Maybe next year.


Caught some great zydeco, too...complete with washboard and accordion.

I'm ready for next year!

It's a Small World, Afteeer Allll

So I was bored waiting for new tires for the car, and went for a walk around the super stores. Came across the Oscar Mayer Weinermobile.


And then I thought, "Hey, Jaime Oppenheimer did a great piece about the folks who travel with that thing, I should go talk to them."

And sure enough, they were the same duo in Wichita a few months back, and remembered Jaime well! They told me to pass on a "Hi, Jaime!"


And now I'm an Oscar Mayer Wiener. No more wishing necessary.

D-o-w-n-t-o-w-n

Went into downtown Houston today, did lots, bear with me. It takes more than 30 minutes in white-knuckle five-lane traffic on a good day, so today felt like a mini-accomplishment. Not my first, but all in all, it was good.

Irony: Wichita Street


Went to the Aquarium. No pictures (p.s. - if you come to Houston, skip the over-priced, sub-world-class aquarium).

Thirty minutes later, I was at the Fine Arts Museum. W-o-o-o-nderful. Had a special exhibit on Afghanistan, including those treasures hidden from the Taliban. And there were some treasures that had been reconstructed, put in full view in a museum, then demolished by the Taliban. And put back together again. I learned much. And I found it ironic that the stupid heart-shape I put so much passion into in my junior high art class, existed centuries ago in the middle-east.

Made my day. :)

I then walked through a sculpture park.


This isn't dead branches, it's all metal. Even the leaf on the ground on the left.

And then I wandered to an area that seemed to be the hotbed of "special moments" as dictated by professional photographers. Noticed a wedding party going to the fountain for pictures.




Noticed within view of the wedding on my side of the street, two different Quinceañeras (I believe)...a Catholic tradition in the Hispanic faith designating fifteenth birthdays. The thing that caught my attention most (besides the dresses), were the fact that both girls had a male entourage. The details I've researched so far mention a male date, but not an entire entourage. One group had the boys in tuxes...



...the other in military attire.


I'm totally curious.

Then, of course, my day includes food. I let the waiter talk me into this, I was expecting my usual chile con carne, they just said it was fried pork with some sides. My camera only caught a portion that came to me. The 3-person portion of pork is on the top of that metal heater thing, with some onions and jalapenos, with...get this...dipping butter in the little tin in the back corner. Like pork needs butter. Then there's the verde rice, beans, etc. This was by far the best mexican food I've had yet, and it'll last me all weekend.

PS - did I mention they make this thing called a cannonball: brisket ball-o-meat coated in an entire avocado coated in cheese coated in breadcrumbs and fried. It's bigger than a softball. And cannonlicious.

I Lost My Head

WTF? Someone stole the head off my Metal Mama. For those of you who don't know, my mom makes metal sculptures from found metal objects, aka Metal Mamas. This one was one of the first. I guess "luxury apartment homes" still have their share of shitheads in residence.



Or maybe the lizard did it.

Play Ball!

The team at work decided to hit a ballgame: Astros v Cubs. The best part was we got the tickets from a local brewery that makes some of the best beer. We had our share of beers at the brewery, then were driven to the game, where we had great seats. Can't wait to do that again!

The Best Pie

I love pizza soooo much (which has helped me put on extra pounds!), that I finally decided to try my hand at grilling pizza. And I tell you what, if I had dough available at any time, I'd never call the local pizzeria again! My grill and I produced the best, albeit not very pretty, 5-cheese pizza E-V-E-R! Mmmmm...

Repeat!

I took a similar picture in KC last year. I love farmers' markets. So much great food for a great price (at least in the large metro areas). Bought all this for $12.50. The bell peppers alone would've cost that at the regular grocery store.


Then half that stuff ended up on the grill....mmmmmm.


And in the spirit of spring, I filled a couple of planters, here's the flower-y one:

My little 4x6 apartment patio is starting to feel a little more comfortable.

Happy V-Day

Who still makes Valentines Day cards by hand? My mom...

TW Graffiti

So...I've mentioned that The Woodlands is the ultimate vanilla suburb. I recall days, back in the hood 'o Wichita, overrun with crime, when graffiti actually had territorial meaning, each symbol sending its own special message. On my fence.

I recently noticed a spray-painted symbol showing up on civic items around TW, TX. WHO IS IT??? Me thinks...Martha Stewart. There is a use of a stencil, after all...in cute flower fashion:

Winter...?

Still getting used to Texas. It's early February, the weather's comfortable enough to walk in the evenings with a light jacket, and tonight, this is what I saw:

FLOWERS! I love Texas...

Also, the path I take is the fancy schmancy one down on the waterwalk. At the end of it, a half mile from where I work, they're working to expand it, but it's in the early stages. When I walk 100 yards out, I look one way and see a bridge with fairly regular traffic:

When I look the other way, I see a bank with eight deer, a giant gulf bird (outside this shot), and oh yeah, green grass!


The patches of woods are relatively small, so the fact there are eight deer there and homes just to the left of this shot, then roads a quarter mile down on the right, seems like a high population. As I walked along my side of the "river," I noticed a couple of deer just inside the tree line...their white butts bouncing away from me. I walked around that patch of woods, and there were several business buildings tucked inside, with a major road on the opposite side. Not much land, really. I've never seen so many deer, and right at the edge of civility.

Bowl game, sans Wildcats

KSU has gone to many bowl games, of which I've never attended. Ironically, went to the Cotton Bowl to watch other teams play. I was an honorary Ole Miss Rebel for the day, and we won! Really good game...


PS - they have a really funny fight song:
Hotty Toddy - who the hell are we?
Flim flam bim bam
Ole Miss by damn!

Back in Time

OMG...I truly think this is a mistake looking at the rest of the stations' prices, but I've taken advantage of it TWICE today (drove a lot for the fun of it).

Sorry if I missed ya

Spent a few days in Wichita (sorry if our paths didn't cross), and had some good fun. Met up with Jaime and her beau Carter, as seen below playing gee-tar with his friend Nick. Yes, the photo could be cleaned up, but hey...I'm on vacation.


PS - I have declared that I will not be spending Christmas in Wichita again, not with 18 degree temps and snow. I'll be back in the summer!!