Author Archives: Admin

ten years later

Recently there have been a lot of articles on the upcoming 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.  A devastating weather event that killed over 1800 people, destroyed New Orleans, sent the largest wave of American refugees across the US since the Dustbowl days, and started many people thinking more intently about climate change.

Along with the rest of the nation we watched on television as the true aftermath of the storm unfolded.  Days later we received a large number of evacuees in Houston and many took up temporary residence here as New Orleans was being rebuilt.

Houston of course missed the immediate effects of Katrina but a few weeks later we became worried that Hurricane Rita.  Katrina refugees feared that they would have to weather a second major Hurricane in less than a month.

I remember the build up in tension across the city as we watched Rita come up the Gulf.  The supermarkets, convenience stores, and sporting goods stores were picked clean of food, batteries, and camping supplies.  The weathermen were on practically 24 hours a day.

Three days before the storm a small trickle of cars started coming in from the coast. A day later it was a torrent of cars.  The coastal residents didn’t need to be forced to evacuate.  The lessons of Katrina were too recent and too raw to forget. The highways were clogged with cars and some began running out of gas just sitting in the gridlock for hours.

My boss shut down the office that day and told everyone to come back after the storm.

I was living in Alief, on the southwestern part of Houston, at the time.  I seriously began to ask myself if staying was such a good idea. But then I thought about the clogged roads and concluded that it was probably already too late.  On TV the reports were all about the preparations to receive the storm.  Plywood was in short supply as businesses and homeowners were boarding up windows.

I drove round the city that night and looked at the preparations.  A car dealership had boarded up one window but the window next to that was wide open.  Maybe they had run out of wood or the employees had fled?  The city was a ghost town.  I went to a local bar that I frequented.  A few diehard barflies kept one bartender and a pair of waitresses company.  Everyone was nervous.  A waitress told me that she couldn’t wait for her shift to end.  She had packed up her apartment and was moving to Oklahoma as soon as it was over.

The day before the storm and the city was edgy and tense.  Everything that could be done short of moving the city a couple hundred miles further inland had been done.  The coastal traffic had ebbed.  No one was left in the area between Houston and Galveston.

The first few waves of clouds from the storm arrived around dusk.  The sky was oddly green.  The weathermen predicted landfall sometime during the night.  I don’t know why it is, but Hurricanes prefer to arrive in the early morning.  I put a flashlight next to my bed and went to sleep.

Of course nothing happened.  At the last moment the storm veered towards the north and went into East Texas and western Louisiana.  That part of the state is much less populated and had already evacuated.  The city was spared the brunt of the storm.

We had dodged the bullet this time but would not be spared three years later when Hurricane Ike came to town.  Back in 2005 we got on with cleaning up and integrating the Katrina evacuees into Houston.

I have to admit that Houston has for the most part benefited from Hurricanes.  First was the 1900 hurricane that devastated Galveston and made Houston into the largest city in Texas.  Grim but true.  And now we received a large dose of culture and flavor from the Katrina refugees that decided to stay in Houston and make it their new home. I think that these refugees and their influence have helped make Houston into a more cosmopolitan and livable city and this in turn has helped draw in more immigrants from other parts of the country.

 

 

How to tell if someone likes you

[Author’s note: Admittedly this is somewhat of a juvenile topic but I am at a somewhat low ebb as far as topic ideas go, so this is pretty much filler material.  Hope to come up with some good topics soon.]

So you’ve set your sights on your one true love (for this week), but you don’t know whether that person reciprocates your affections.  You want to know for sure before you commit yourself wholeheartedly into this affair but how to find out discreetly?

Here are some surefire (fairly sure that they might work) methods that will ascertain the truth or at the very least give you excuses to do have some stupid or zany adventures.

1.  touch.  Does she hug you harder or for a longer period of time than you think might be appropriate for a casual acquaintance.  Extra pats on the back.  That may be inconclusive.  Maybe she’s a habitual hugger.  Set up an experiment and send some mutual acquaintances to meet her and stand by with a stopwatch and clipboard.  Get at least 20 people to do this to have a good control group.

2.  humor.  Does she laugh at the most stupid and ridiculous and quite frankly inane jokes that you tell?  Get a joke book of some of the worst jokes you can find, memorize and tell them to her and gauge her reaction.  Knock knock jokes are always a good test.  Anything above a chuckle is a sure tell.

3.  personal thoughts.  Is she sharing things with you that she normally would not?  Does she know that you will not divulge those secrets to anyone and trusts your judgment?  Give her some fake “personal information” and see if she will reciprocate with some of her own secrets.  Tell her about your crazy Aunt Milly and see if she admits to madness in her family.

4.  Body language.  Does she stand closer to you than normal?  Is her body closed off or open when talking to you?  Step in extra close and see if she backs off or holds her ground.  Back off a bit and see if she closes the gap.  Now step in and step back.  In and back, in and back.  Now you’re dancing.

5. interests.  Does she share interests with you that she probably doesn’t like but likes because you like them?  Find the most boring and tedious part of your interest and see if she likes that too.

So after all that do the signs look good?  Is it time to take the plunge, risk it all, do the leap of faith thing?…..  Plunge right in and take this friendship to the next level…. or totally misinterpret things and ruin your friendship.

Yeah….  Maybe some more observation is called for.

 

[Author’s note 2: Okay, admittedly this was more a humorous post than anything else.  But I think there is a little hint of the male thought process when it comes to trying to determine whether someone is attracted to him.  The most confident of men become stumbling bumbling teenage boys.  Specially if they really like a person.  It’s easy to advise them to “just ask them” but when the stakes are high you really don’t want to screw things up.  Possibly damned if you do, probably damned if you don’t.]

growing pains

A couple of years ago I was in New York.  I had a stereotypical and unfair view of the city as a lawless mess but this was a totally unfounded view.  Instead I found a living breathing city that was dynamic and made room for the inhabitants to live and create and add more unique content to the city. The city is a thriving hotbed of arts, business, entertainment, creativity, and multicultural exchange.

Of course did not happen overnight or easily.  The city has had hundreds of years of slums, corrupt government, crime, and of course some of these problems still persist.

However the city has grown despite these problems and has in fact flourished.  It is in many ways the unofficial capital of the world and does not seem to show any signs of slowing its growth or decaying.

So how did it get this way?  What is the secret to not just growing a city out but to cultivate all those factors that you want to flourish while minimizing all those factors that you don’t want to permeate your city?

Is the answer, well-reasoned and guided growth?  I don’t think so.  Although having sensible city planning is certainly a help, I’ve been in communities and cities that had very close and well-coordinated growth and for the most part they are sterile environments.  These type of communities tackle growth problems by methodically adding to the population base while adding rules and regulations to cover any eventualities that might arise.  This makes for a very clean and safe environment but stifles creativity and self-expression.  The result is a very generic and featureless expanse of buildings.  This in turn can stifle growth.

Is the opposite any better?  Of course not.  Unchecked growth is an invitation to crime, disease, poverty, and chaos.  You just have to look at any of the boom towns of the old west or any part of the world where people suddenly migrate to, trying to find their fortunes.

A good example in Houston are the Montrose district and the Washington Avenue area.  Back in the 70s and 80s, these parts of Houston were full of empty dilapidated buildings, and infested with crime.  They were not places to be after dark.  Some brave souls and some investors however disagreed and put some money, time, and effort into these areas.  Artists came for the cheap property values and persisted in the area.  Over time the city took an interest and opened police substations and little by little these areas have become the crown jewels of Houston.

Now of course some national retailers, chain restaurants, and big box stores have taken an interest and the city is moving to over-regulate and gentrify the area and the balance is turning to over-regulation and over-control which threatens to rob the areas of their diversity and flavor.

The real fact of the matter is that growth is a painful and awkward experience, just as it is for living organisms.  Just as parents give children the chance to expand their world and step in to guide that growth, so should city governments learn to only step in when needed.  Otherwise allow the city to develop its own distinct character.

Allow districts to find what they are good at and embrace it.  Don’t force the city to do something it doesn’t want to do, yet don’t neglect it to the point that it begins to wither under its own inertia.

A light touch will facilitate the rise of a great city.  A heavy or an absent hand will stifle or even kill a city.

The friendship net

Being a shy introvert I don’t tend to make friends easily. I tend to run alone in both the literal and figurative sense. Most of the time I will make plans on the fly and not even think about inviting other people to come along.  A bad habit I know. Things can get a little lonely at times.

But at times it does have some advantages.  The other day my social media page suggested I might like to do a yoga event for the Summer solstice at the Rothko Chapel at sunrise.  It was too late to organize anything (late Saturday night) so I just hopped in the car the next morning, parked the car in the neighborhood, took a quick 5 mile jog, and got back with a couple of minutes to spare just before sunrise.

When I do have time to properly plan things out I try to reach out to those that might share an interest in what I plan to do.  I think it’s important to share these things with people and give them the opportunity to enjoy these things as I do.  Of course sometimes that doesn’t pan out.

I used to take it personally when plans wouldn’t work out.  But I soon realized that we all live such busy lives that we can’t be expected to drop everything and change plans.  Still, it is nice when things come together.

I’ve learned to enjoy life for it’s own sake and make the best of what life hands me.  I will continue trying to make room for other people in my life but I will also learn to live life on my own terms.

Turbulence

The weather news reports for Texas have been unabashedly positive these last few months.  The local newspaper report that all our reservoirs, once empty and bleak holes in the ground, have now replenished and we can declare the drought over.

Of course it’s a totally different story out west.  California faces the prospect of another dust bowl summer and perhaps the destruction of tens of thousands of acres of farmland.  The rest of the nation faces higher food prices as a consequence.

Four years ago it was the exact opposite.  A neat little online tool can help you visualize it

http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/MapsAndData/ComparisonSlider.aspx

While I’m glad that our condition has improved, I worry that the overall picture is slowly but surely deteriorating.  California will recover in time.  Of that I’m sure.  But these see-saw changes in the weather are leaving deep scars in nature’s ability to heal itself and to withstand the abuse that we throw at it.

Nature can put up with a lot and given time it can come back stronger than before but with the increased demands that we are putting on the planet I am not sure that the damage in some of the more marginal areas will heal this time.  As these marginal areas fail to heal and become wastelands other areas that were fruitful become marginal and we stress them even more as our material needs increase.

It’s a vicious downward spiral that has the potential of eventually becoming self-sustaining and unstoppable.  It to be arrested or even reversed and given time and conscious effort it can be.  But the time and the ability of our species to affect a positive change is rapidly dwindling.

These harsh flood and drought patterns in our weather cycle are just the beginning of what could be catastrophic times to come.  if we do nothing then this could become our normal way of life.

 

Game review – Civilization II

Once upon a time I had all sorts of time for computer games.  Back in the 1990s I could easily while away a Sunday afternoon on a good video game as easily as others would on a baseball game or reading a good book.

One of my favorites was Civilization II (Civ II).  This turn based strategy game allowed players to build up a civilization from the stone age and take it to the space age.  A single player could be pitted against 7 computer opponents or multiple human players could take turns playing against each other.

The game made use of what was then cutting edge CD multimedia technology and had several videos that played during the course of the game to flesh out the game play.

Leonardo’s workshop.  One of the world wonders that give players a special advantage

A player would start with a small village and as time passed he could learn new technologies, build city improvements, plant farms, harvest resources, make money, equip armies, and conquer new territory.  The end of the game would be set for the year 2000 and the most advanced civilization with the most points would win.

Game scores were kept based on the population size, wealth, size of the area conquered and world wonders that were built.

With variable geography and random events during the game (such as earthquakes or barbarian invasions), the experience was ever-changing and endlessly challenging.  For me the real attraction was to compete against myself and try out new strategies and tactics to try to build up my civilization.

Although newer versions of Civilization have come out in the last 20 years I still think of Civ II as the best in the series.  The added multimedia material added so much to the game play and the computer Artificial Intelligence (AI) was one of the first that was not as predictable as most computer AI’s had been up to that time.

If you like strategic games and want to find a game that will challenge you intellectually I would highly recommend any of the Civilization games.

keep in touch

Business is an ever-changing and an increasingly difficult endeavor.  What were good and preferable business practices 20 years ago either no longer apply or are actually detrimental.  All of us have to keep our eyes open and try to notice the latest trends and keep up with the new opportunities presented by modern technology.

The fundamentals however still apply.  Some business practices will always be there no matter how much the world changes.  One of these practices is maintaining the lines of communications with your client not only open but fresh.

By open I mean that before, during, and after a project your client should be able to get a hold of the sales team, the production team, and the management.

Before the project begins when the sales team is the point of contact the client should feel comfortable to ask all relevant questions and get answers if not instantaneously then extremely quickly.  This is achieved by having a sales staff that is fully conversant with the products and services being offered and if they cannot answer a question then the production team should be available to answer these questions.

During the project the client needs to be able to maintain a constant flow of communication with the production team.  The management staff needs to be in the conversation in case problems arise or if the client wants to alter the parameters of the project.

After the project the sales team resumes communications with the client.  Firstly they need to assess if the client’s experience with the process was satisfactory or whether some aspects need improvement.  Next the sales team needs to begin broaching the subject of future or follow on projects.  This is the best time to do this with a satisfied client.

Keeping these lines of communications open and making sure that the client has the best possible experience possible will go a long way in turning a new client into an old and repeat customer.  This will help expand and solidify your core business base.

Living a life the best way possible

It’s easy to quit and despair.  It’s easy to say “well I gave it my best shot but it didn’t work” and just give up on trying to move ahead.  It’s quite another thing to see a failure or a difficulty and to shift gears out of one venture and go into another.

This last week the world lost Sir Christopher Lee.  While most of the world knew him as a long time actor, very few people knew about his other exploits before becoming an actor or his other ventures and honors that he accumulated over a lifetime.  I could do a list of all of these things but I think there are plenty of websites and articles out there that do a fine job of this.

Looking at his life in a totality however it is worth noting that he never had an easy or obvious path to success.  This was an individual that faced setbacks and failures quite a few times over the course of his life yet he never allowed this to slow him down or stop his progress.

What’s more he was an individual that actively went out seeking new opportunities and interests on his own.  You would think that someone who had difficulties in his life might be content just to “break even” or just be a little better off but in his case he did not wait for these new ventures to present themselves.  He either went looking for these new ventures or he created them himself.

Like I said above, it’s easy to despair. Despair is easy to do.  It’s comfortable, it can be done at a moment’s notice, and requires little to no investment.  Despair can be such a hard temptation to resist sometimes.

But lifting yourself up, having the presence of mind to look around and plot your next move, getting on with your life as it stands after a setback, that’s hard.

I think that’s something that a man like Christopher Lee can teach all of us.

Perspectives

If you open your eyes, and I mean really open your eyes you will find that life can amaze, astound, appall, and leave you speechless on a nearly daily basis.

We have so many things that we fail to appreciate when we look at them that we will never be able to fully consider let alone understand in this life that I can’t even begin to enumerate them.

One thing that I have learned to appreciate however is how a subject can change meanings and become a totally different thing if you let yourself take a slightly altered perspective on the matter.

We can come upon a situation from one viewpoint and direction and if we fail to look at it objectively it can take on particular meaning and it is often difficult to change that perspective unless you alter the way you perceive that subject and then an almost magical thing can occur.

That thing that you were so sure about, that you thought you knew changes almost immediately to something else.

Houston is a great place to find these changes in perspectives.  Because we have no zoning laws the neighborhoods here are a mishmash of urban and suburban and country.  All right next to each other.  Poor neighborhoods alternate with rich.  High rises sit right next to ranch style houses and those next to poor apartment complexes.

It’s something that I see on an almost daily basis and I have to wonder if people living in these neighborhoods ever stop to wonder and think to themselves how their neighbors from different socio-economic backgrounds perceive the world.  Do their viewpoints agree with my own or are they so set into their situation that they can’t step back and see the overall situation from a different perspective?

Foodie city

Reading through the local newspaper and Houston websites I see that I’ve probably picked the worst time to get in shape and lose weight.  I read through websites like the Houston Press or magazines like Houstonia and there are always announcements about new restaurants and how up and coming chefs are migrating here.

Back in my twenties when I was just starting out we did have a bit of a food scene if you knew where to look for it.  Areas like the west side Chinatown offered up a variety of Asian dishes.  The Tex-Mex restaurant has always been a staple of Houston cuisine and we had some of the best.  Of course we also had the traditional steak restaurant.

But back then if you were to name cities to visit to experience haute cuisine or just a wider variety of dishes then Houston never even came up in the conversation.

Something happened back in the late-late nineties or early 00’s.  Here and there a chef would escape the rat races in other food towns and set up little bistros in Houston.  Not in the downtown area but near downtown where the rent was cheaper.  Chefs that might have otherwise left stayed and honed their skills.  Certainly Hurricane Katrina injected a dose of New Orleans talent into the mix.

By trial and error, by enthusiastic practice this city began building a reputation one dish at a time.

So here we are and I see that the wave is beginning to crest.  I have to admit that sometimes the temptation is overwhelming.  Just looking at the variety and quantity of places to explore makes me want to take a week or two off my diet.

Thankfully (I suppose) living out in the suburbs I don’t have ready access to these culinary wonders.  I’m not hours away from any of these places of course (I could in fact reach most of these in twenty minutes) but just far enough to put them in the slightly impractical column.

I console myself with the thought that I am working towards a worthwhile goal and that one day I will treat myself to a mini restaurant vacation.