Category Archives: Travel

Trips, cities, airports, and life on the road.

Long Day

Events, Travel

Although I got a bit of a late start, this day has turned into a pretty long one. It started at Josh’s house with Rachel, Rebecca, and Jessica. Though the purpose of the gathering was actually to watch LOTR on DVD, we actually ended up just fooling around for a while before actually getting to the movie. Pillow fights and interesting observations made the movie more fun than I had remembered it, and it didn’t seem so long at all. After a quick trip home to pick up a Winslow ligature for Rene, we all met up at 59 Diner on, well, 59. Rene and I both got huge meals, and thankfully I wasn’t hungry the rest of the night.

After that we broke up and I went with Rene to my new favorite coffee house, Kaveh Kanes, which has free high speed wireless 802.11b internet access, set up by the wireless guru Barrett. Invitations went out online for Rene’s big going away BBQ, and afterwards we just talked for a while. In a while we were joined by Rene’s friend from church Momo, which is a nickname for something, but I don’t recall what. Then Alex and Melissa came by after the drum and bass DJ they were hoping to see decided not to play the club that night. Finally Joe, who I haven’t seen since he went to the Berklee summer camp about six weeks ago, came in and we had almost a full sax section :).

Eventually closing time came for Kaveh Kanes and we decided to head to House of Pies for a late-night snack and more conversation. The chocolate cream pie I had was fantanstic, and it was a ton of fun just hanging out with everyone. It’s been too long since I’ve seen Joe, and Rene is leaving relatively soon so every minute with him is great. Tonight was different from all the others this week because instead of almost everyone getting ready to leave town, it was just one person.

I dropped Rene and Joe off, and from the tone of my mother’s voice decided not to stay with Joe and start a cartoon marathon. Long rides late at night make me really appreciate the stereo in my car. Once home I finished up some database work I’m doing for a local private high school, and sat down to write this entry. Normally these words would have been written by my camera in the colors and motion of the pictures I take constantly. There are currently 1.4 gigabytes of photos online that describe my summer better than any narrative could; now there is a gap, a missing piece. I’m sure many will find this prosaic entry somewhat mundane, but right now it’s my only way of coping. There should be a twelve-step program for picture addicts!

High Definition Politics

Humor, Politics, Travel

Mark Pilgrim has an very interesting list that I think adequetely describes the current state of the entire HDTV fiasco. The people I talked to in DC about this (no names) thought the whole situation was funny, like a catfight, so I think the list is espescially apt in capturing that feel. Will the market actually smooth this all out? Eventually. It always does.

On another TV related note, I watched it for the first time in over 7 months yesterday. At the encouragement of my friend Julie I turned on Seinfeld, then watched Friends, and finally an episode of Everybody Loves Raymond. I’ve decided that I haven’t really been missing much; the same old reruns that were playing before were on tonight. Just a note, some people get confused when I say I “haven’t watched TV,” and look at me strange, so to clarify I haven’t watched any broadcast or cable programming in the past 7 months at home. I’ve watched televisions as a medium for displaying DVDs or videos, and I’m sure at some point I saw broadcast television in a waiting room or some other similar situation, but I’m not counting that.

I Want My MTV

Travel

That’s MattTV. There’s going to be a new weekly TV show about Palms, and I have been chosen as one of the co-hosts. The show will be cable only, and will go out on the three major Houston providers—Time/Warner, Max, and another one I can’t remember. The show will begin airing in September, but the actual production will start relatively soon. I’ll be able to post more details soon. Stay tuned!

Photo Shoot Finished

Gallery, Travel

I just finished pulling an all–nighter so I could be up this morning for some absolutely amazing lighting. The past several weeks I’ve been noticing different areas in and around my neighborhood that are really quite striking in their aesthetic quality. With that the idea for this series of photos was born, to capture the beauty that we pass every day and that exists all around us, even in the urban sprawl of southwest Houston. “Sights Unseen” will go online tonight or tomorrow.

Before the Storm

Travel

Going through some of my stuff from the DC trip and found this, note the date:

I really should write something about that visit. WorldCom was one of the coolest places I’ve ever visited, and the optimism of the employees I talked to was amazing. I distinctly remember one telling me what a good buy WorldCom bonds were at the time.

xml.house.gov

Events, Politics, Travel

Via Zeldman, there seems to be an initiative to eventually stucture legislation in XML. Browsing around, I espescially liked the member list of the 107th Congress; it’s beautiful XML styled through an XSL style sheet, the only major quirk I noticed was that the validation DTD was a local path. While this won’t make the content of the stuff coming out of DC any better, it will certainly make it better structured. I wish I had seen more of this kind of thing on my trip.

Updates

Gallery, Travel

I can’t find time to write everyday, but there is almost always a new day in the photolog. Baltimore was a blast today, and the Orioles/Yankee game was one of the best I’ve ever seen, live or on TV. I hope that the teams in Houston can bring back the magic that they seem to have lost.

airport

Economics, Travel

Today at the airport I was searched. It was not particularly thorough or extensive, they simply scanned by body with a metal detector, made me take off my shoes, and went item by item searched through my bag. The humanity of the security guards made it slightly more bearable — certainly the female one’s fascination with my MD player was nice, but there was still something inherently dehumanizing about the entire experience. Surprisingly though, throughout the entire thing I felt happy and amused: This was the good old U. S. of A. hard at work, protecting the innocent and creating a safer environment for me and my progeny. Perhaps this whole line of thought springs from the new Office of Homeland Security business, which comforts me on one level and deeply scares me on another. Is this a genuine requirement to ensure our safety against a world of terrorists, axis of evil, or is this simply the first step toward an Orwellian state. I do not believe that George Bush is a bad man, but I believe that he might be shortsighted enough to send our country down the wrong path at the wrong time. We’re thirty minutes out from DC, no one may exit their seats or they will turn the plane around.

I think what it really comes down to is the whole security business stinks of bureaucracy. Parking at the airport they required us to open the trunk to our car, but though it was chock full of stuff they didn’t look through it. How many of they caught by checking people shoes? Are the intangible benefits greater than the very tangible inconvenience? The security measures are, as they stand, not draconian by any means, but they do hint at increased censorship, profiling, and a lack of privacy. It’s a thought-crime to say certain words in a plane or in an airport; what is scary is that people accept these “minor” inconveniences as the price one must pay, as a requirement of the government, not a privilege. The road to tyranny begins with a single step, a single loss of freedom.