On Ruebens

I'm in the wilds of Northern Virginia office parks for work this week.
I now know the answer to the question "how does a $11 rueben taste?"
Answer: "Like you'd expect. Not as good as a $6 rueben."

AT


Went over the mountains to Charlotte this weekend. The drive there was nice. Unfortunately, once we got there I came down with a nasty fever. Above, Bethany tries out the Appalachian Trail. Accompanying my wife is her friend with which she thru-hiked the AT.

State of the Office


The home office/batcave, as of earlier this week. It's not appreciably more organized today than it was then. Unpacking is a task not to be undertaken all at once...


There's a Georgia flag, too, of course.

"Yardwork"


Taken last month in a small park near Atlanta. She's already volunteering her services to clean up parks. Perhaps head of a parks department one day?

Comics Confessions

I read "Overboard." Every day. I lost track of it in college, but now I read it again. Even though it is a totally different strip than it once was.
I unpacked the box with all my comic books, comics books, etc. earlier this week. Among the books: the first two "Overboard" collection books.

I'm telling you, the first year or two of strips was great. What happened during the years I lost track? Where did half the characters go? (Boof, Seahawk, Crow's Nest guys) Sadly, on this Wikipedia is silent...

Confessions


Can I confess something:
I know, as someone who lived in Austin a long time, I'm supposed to hate Houston, or at least sneer at it. But I must admit, I actually like a lot of things about Houston. The skyline is amazing (above is just the galleria skyline, not downtown), the restaurants and museums are great. So are many of the parks and leafy neighborhoods. I won't list Houston's many faults here, as everyone knows them already.

I also like Galveston, too.

It's also a little ironic: when Austin campaigned for light rail mass transit, some pro-rail signs said "Austin or Houston, You Decide?" Well, who has the popular and expanding light rail network now?...

House and Flag


In honor of the defenders of the Alamo, I am flying our Texas flag today.
I also flew it Friday for Texas Independence Day. Other days thus far, I've stuck to the U.S. flag, although I figure I should get to fly the Georgia flag on my birthday. I hope that no one will think I'm trying to annex the neighborhood to Georgia; we're about a mile and a half from the border.

Below, the view from the street. There wasn't enough wind to get the flag really going. Although as I type this I can see the wind's picked up as the flag across the street is flying well.

Return of the Photos


Finally I've got my card reader unpacked. I've got a backlog of photos to post. I'll intersperce them with March photos along the way.

This photo taken February 21st. Quite an impressive view from the hotel room we had. 7th or 8th floor looking west towards the Galleria skyline and the stream of traffic on US 59. Our cats won't see a sunset like that again any time soon.

Moment of Triumph

As some of my readers already know, I am somewhat of a pack rat. My wife is always trying to get me to throw stuff out. A few years ago our garage door opener died (for the second time since we'd been at that house). We replaced it with a newer/better opener. I saved all the old remotes, even though they were not compatible with the new opener. Well, our Chattahouse has the exact same opener that we used to have in Austin. Today I opened the box that had our old opener's remotes in it. I updated the code switches on the remotes and they worked. Score one for packrats!...

...ok, I also saved the electric motor from the old opener, too. You just wait, one day I'll suddenly be in need of a 1/2 horsepower AC motor!

An aside: when will I start posting photos again? Hopefully by Monday, but depends when I get to the box with the card reader in it.

Roosters and Utilities

When I was a kid, I used to love the sound of roosters crowing from through the woods on the other side of a creek. You won't hear any roosters in my old neighborhood today. But no matter, I've heard roosters each of the last two days when at our new house. Hooray!

The movers came today. I was glad to see that our Norfolk Island Pine made it. We still have to drag some things (and the cats) from Atlanta to Chattanooga tomorrow. We're still not sleeping there yet. We wouldn't be able to sleep there tonight even if we had lugged the cats up today, because I messed up and the water got turned off today (to be turned back on tomorrow):

It took me several tries earlier this month to find the people who provide water to my street. Wasn't the county itself, wasn't Tenn. American Water. finally figured out that it's the Eastside Utility District. When I called them up they told me that before they could finalize setting up our account, I had to go in person to their office to sign a form or two. Well, in all the moving stuff, I forgot to do that. My first clue that I forgot: them turning the water off. Doh! I'll add that it was sort of impressive that they actually had the ability (rule-wise) and knowledge (logistics-wise) to turn off the water line on the final day of the previous owner's occupancy/billing. I imagine in Austin, if I wanted to be a devious water moocher, I could probably manage to do it for months before they did anything.

Updates from Georgia

It was so tempting to just end this blog with the big final TEXAS, purely for dramatic reasons. But the show must go on.

We sold our house Wednesday. I wrote up a document about various things around the house and yard (I sure wish someone had done that for me). I spent four pages on plants/bushes/trees in the yard and what they needed. Just keeping Austin weird.

On the way out we stopped at our Bastrop land and let the cats run around a little. I'll be seeing that land much less frequently now.

We arrived in Atlanta today after a multi-day trip with wife, daughter, and cats. I'll have a photo or two to post, but only after we move in to Chattanooga next week - I packed my card reader...