I’ve lived in the Houston area of Texas most of my life, and I’ve spent a good amount of that time complaining about that fact. It’s hot, humid, full of fatties, flat and polluted. Suburban sprawl is atrocious, the public transportation is terrible (it is getting better) and the city is so spread out it’s impossible to walk anywhere. In the past year or so, though, my view of my home town has softened significantly. While the aforementioned irritations still get on my nerves, I’ve grown to appreciate the city. Here are some reasons why.

1. The food. Surely a factor in the fatness problem of the area is the high volume of great places to eat. Drive around in the right parts of Houston and you’ll be in constant view of at least a few eateries that are worth your time. Whether you’re into diner food, Asian cuisine, Mexican, Italian, seafood, BBQ, or pizza at two in the morning, you’ve got some serious options. Of course, the farther away from the city you go the more crappy chain restaurants you’ll find, but even the more suburban outlying areas of Houston have their moments.
2. The museums. Houston not only has some nice ones, it has a whole lot of them. The Museum of Fine Arts (MFAH), the Menil, the Contemporary Arts Museum, the Holocaust Museum, the Museum of Natural Science (one of my favorites), and if you’ve got kids to entertain, the Heath Museum and the Children’s Museum. And this is just naming a few. There are loads of obscure/weird museums in the area that are worth looking up.
3. The zoo. It’s no San Diego Zoo (I’ve been so I’m allowed to make the comparison), but we’ve got ourselves a damn nice place to look at animals here in Houston, and they’re constantly adding new exhibits and improving existing ones. It’s especially if you’re into monkeys. There are a lot of monkeys at the Houston Zoo. 
4. The live shows. Due in part to the large size of the city and in part to the relative closeness to Hipster Capital, USA, we get more than our fair share of shows here. I’m primarily talking about music, but there are a ton of comedy clubs here, and Houston is also into live theater in a big way. If you’re into classical music, this is a good place to be, thanks (in part) to interest generated by our fantastic public radio station, KUHF (I like KUHF so much I considered making it point 5 in this list).
5. The surrounding area. If you’re looking for a way to spend a day and don’t mind a little bit of a drive, this is a pretty sweet place to live. The George Observatory is a close and a cool way to spend an evening, and of course NASA is here. If space isn’t your thing head Southeast and check out the Galveston seawall or the Kemah Boardwalk. Moody Gardens deserves an entire day all to itself, and the Lone Star Flight Museum is pretty cool. Now I’m not going to pretend like we have amazing beaches (we don’t), but spending a night at Surfside is awesome. As soon as it gets dark the place is deserted, and the rules there are very relaxed. Start a fire, cook some food, enjoy the breeze, take a late night swim (if you want), gaze a the Gulf of Mexico, or even set up a tent and spend the night. Drive a few hours West and spend the day at Schlitterbahn, which is considered to be the best water park in the country. If your a nerd, head Northwest in the fall and visit the Texas Renfest, which happens to be the biggest renaissance festival in the US. There are plenty more places to check out within a few hours, but if you’re interested in seeing another big city, Dallas, San Antonio and Austin are all a day trip away (although get ready to drive four hours or less each way). Louisiana isn’t too bad of a bad drive, either.

I could keep going, but I think I’ll stop, since this is starting to look like a travel guide or something. My overall point is, though, that Houston is really a pretty cool place to live, despite its shortcomings. I’m not sure if I’ll be living here years down the road, but for now I’m pretty happy where I am. It took years and a lot of exploring, but I’ve finally gotten over my Houston hatred.

We have ourselves a new president. We’ll see how that goes, but he can’t be worse than the last guy. And if nothing else at least the rest of the world doesn’t hate us as much now. 

I watched For All Mankind the other day, which was a fantastic documentary about the first moon mission, complete with a great soundtrack by Brian Eno. I’d never seen the majority of the footage before and I have no idea why, a lot of it was… well, there’s no way to describe it without devolving into terms that are so cliche they borderline on meaningless. Words like “breathtaking” and “awe-inspiring” are the only things I can think to write, but I cringe a little putting it that way. Anyways, with a movie like this having existed since 1989 it’s hard for me to understand why America’s interest in space has seemed to wane so much in recent years. 

Anyways you should see this movie.

Thanks in part to my insomnia and the holiday break I’ve been enjoying, my sleep schedule is all sorts of messed up. This is a big problem, as this week I’ve been back to work and soon I’ll be in classes again. No more staying up until five am and sleeping until noon or later, unfortunately. But how am I going going to get back into something that even kind of resembles a semi-regular sleep pattern? (It’s never completely regular, thanks to the aforementioned insomnia.)

I think I have a solution. Stay up all night tonight and work all day. If I can somehow make it to tomorrow night without falling asleep I should be able to go to bed at a reasonable hour and BAM. Sleep schedule normalized. There are no flaws with this plan. It is perfect. 

Okay so there are plenty of problems with this idea but it’s almost six am already and I’m not in bed so I’m doing it anyways.

UPDATE: It is now 7:14am and I’ve started playing Full Throttle to pass time until I have to go to work. Sweet Jesus this game is incredible. Also I did not remember/did not know that Mark Hammil did voice acting in this game. 

Something very prominent on my page was misspelled. How embarrassing. Also I walked into a plank of wood today and hurt my nose. Let’s just all pretend none of this ever happened and that in fact I am a smooth, handsome man whom the ladies can’t get enough of.

…

my nose hurts. : (

As you already know, that is if you’re read the last few posts, I spent the last few days in  Oklahoma visiting a friend and finally getting a chance to see the Flaming Lips live. As you also probably already know I enjoyed myself. Here are some more details that you also probably don’t care about.

• I ended up driving both ways from the Houston area of Texas to Stillwater, Oklahoma, including a round trip to Oklahoma City from Stillwater. I’m not sure, exactly, why I didn’t have anyone else drive for a while, especially since Steve asked me multiple times throughout the trip if I wanted him to take over. I guess I just wanted to see if I could make it.
• According to my GPS, I drove a total of 1,246.5 miles over 19 hours and 32 minutes of “moving time.” This places my moving average at 63.8 mph.
• I had never heard of the Bruam’s chain of ice cream/fast food places before. Despite my ignorance these things are all over Oklahoma and parts of northern Texas. There seem to be almost as many of those places there as there are Starbucks down here. I would complain about this, but the ice cream was good and also real cheap so hey. Would go again.
• Toby Keith owns a bar and grill in Oklahoma City which goes by the clever name of “Toby Keith’s I Love This Bar & Grill.” We did not eat here. We did, however, park in their lot.
• Based on the one Mexican food place we ate at I have a hard time calling Oklahoma Mexican food “Mexican food.” Maybe some kind of new word can be dreamt up for it, sort of like Tex-Mex but for Oklahoma. Okie-Mex? I dunno. Anyways the main difference between  Okie-Mex and actual Mexican food (or even Tex-Mex) is that in Okie-Mex nothing that is close to being even moderately spicy is allowed near the food. Not even the hot sauce. Also queso is called “cheese sauce,” I guess to keep anyone from getting confused. People from Oklahoma seem to enjoy Okie-Mex. It is a mystery to me. Regardless, eating there was an interesting cultural experience and worth the price of admission.
• Watching a man you don’t know throw alchohol up all over himself (and a little bit on the guy next to him) right in front of you is as amusing as it is disgusting/terrifying. I can’t say I reccomend it but at the same time I don’t regret seeing it. 

Ended up being great. I posted quite a few pictures on my Flickr page, here’s a few good ones. Click to enlarge, of course.