The intellectual equivalent of a ham sandwich.

Posts tagged ‘Houston’

De Jour of the Week (1/20/10)

1/20/10

There will be more of these … later.

Just so you know, future me (i.e. the person who will find this most interesting and I’m writing this to remember it), I saw a few apartments today in Houston. One of them bordered a wildlife preserve. While taking the tour we went up to the fence – separating the apartments from the preserve – and there was a wild hog hanging out. Why wouldn’t there be?

A bit later my mom and I were driving around and we saw a sign that said, “Don’t Feed the Alligators – $500 fine.”

Oh boy!

If Tones Could Talk – Anger

Oh what have I just said
The room is suddenly ice, I’m dead.

Whatever I said wrong, I was joking
I take it back! I call my right to revoking.

You’ve just said my name, and slowwwwwlyyyyy
And now you’re staring past me/at me/through me.

That tone was all things threatening
My collar I’m loosening
My hands are sweating
My nervous laugh is too nervous to laugh, it’s gone into hiding
My lips I’m biting
My … my … my you’re intimidating.

Maybe you want dinner? Flowers? Candy?
(I’m looking around you to make sure there’s nothing heavy and throwable handy.)

My what a powerful word my name can be
When you say it so delicately/angrily/slowly.

I’m supposed to respond
You’re waiting for me to respond
Ok. Here we go. I’m going to respond.

“Um …”
Well, that was dumb.

Weekly Wacko (15)

Tee-niniest Bit of Fun

Today (1/21/2010), my Mom and I drove around a Houston suburb to look for an apartment. As part of my move, my work paid for a real estate agent of sorts. She does apartments though. This woman, S, also had another agent working with her, K, who was learning the area.

I can’t write well enough to capture their accents, and I can’t remember word-for-word what was said at any one apartment, but here’s a sampling.

The four of us saw four apartments today – who knew that could take so much time. The first two were cheaper apartments, in every sense of the word. Coming from a studio I was fine with a smaller apartment, but it was clear S did not like the cheaper places. My mom was not thrilled with them either.

At the second apartment complex my mom noticed a sign posted outside some of the doors. It was alerting people about an ‘incident’ that had recently occurred where three residents were robbed at gun point.

My mom told me, ‘this place is out.’

(I’m not in California anymore – a news report is on right now about a nut job who went and shot randomly at the state capital. A state Senator wants better security. But, get this, you’re allowed to carry guns there with the right permit. Not California.)

The third complex S was very excited about – it was more expensive and blah blah nicer, fancier. This is the one I ended up picking. The woman who saw us around there was … unique (of the six places total I’ve seen – five of them had females show us around, one was a guy). She was a sweet lady, but a bit chatty for me.

After my mom, S, K and I left, we had this (not exact, but same idea) talk:

S: Oh, gosh, I’d forgotten how she can go on.
K: I know it! That poor thing!
S: You think she has that ADD? Bless her heart. [Note, ADD is not something you catch like ‘that bug.’]
K: You think so? Bless her heart.
S: Maybe. I just wanted her to shut up.

As my mom said (somewhat tongue-in-cheek), bless her heart is a southern get of guilt free card that allows you to say whatever you want, as long as it’s followed by bless his/her heart. I wonder what the equivalent is when you write a blog poking fun at people? Bless everyone’s heart.

(Ok, not in California again – another news report about the KKK trying to RECRUIT, door-to-door, in a town near where I’ll be living. To be fair, when I moved to California one of the first reports I saw was Code Pink (a super liberal group) trying to get a Marine recruiting office kicked out of California. And they of course had ridiculously stupid quotes from them saying the Marines are this, that and the other.)

We ended up spending more time with the chatty woman because we went back for a second look. When she would tell a rather long story, the go-to response from S and K was, “aw, that’s so sweeeet.” Example: a young resident played chess with an older resident when most of the place had been evacuated for Ike. When the apartment held a get together the young resident sought out the old resident to say hello. This story took about 5 minutes though. But you know what, ya’ll, that’s so sweeeeet.

Another funny thing with the chatty woman was a clever move on K’s part. I asked about submitting a maintenance request, and the process for that. The chatty woman said you can come see me. A little bit later the chatty woman came up to me and said that K asked a great question – I can also submit a maintenance request ONLINE (i.e. not in person)! I looked to K and she and I smirked.

And possibly the best story with the chatty woman. Before we began a tour at any apartment we had to give our drivers’ licenses. When the chatty woman gave them back, she looked at each one and declared to the room that she was the oldest one there. And then, a true southerner, she called my mom her first and middle names.

The five of us were at one large apartment complex, so we of course couldn’t walk. The method of transportation of choice: golf carts. With five people this can be tough. At one location we left K behind, but at this location we decided to all pile in. S told me to take shotgun since I’d need to look around.

S: K, you sit in the back with us in the middle, since you’re the tee-niniest one.

At this location we were shown around by a very nice woman who apparently found out the ‘cool slang’ fifteen years ago and then decided to stick with her guns on those words.

“Ya’ll this faux-pond is the bomb.”

“I saw a possum and it made me all wiggy.”

Overall an amusing but tiring day. My work is 0.8 miles from my home, and not on the first floor (bugs and flooding). And I’m pretty close to where I saw a wild hog yesterday. Sweet! [Update, today 1/26 this bomb-diggity woman called me and had my name all wrong. My first, middle and last names could all be first or last names … she chose to call me my middle name, first name. Interesting.]

My mom told S and K that I might write about them on my blog – if either of you was dedicated/bored enough to check this out, thank you for a fun, amusing and helpful day!

Weekly Wacko (10)

I wrote this maybe 2 weeks ago because I wanted to voice my frustration over unknown work stuff. So this post is more like a diary-entry than my usual thing. Anyhow, it’s a big news thing for me so I wanted it to be able to go back and read it x years from now and be able to say, “ohhh, I remember young Brad, he was dumb, and he smelled funny. I’m glad I’m not him.”

Goodbye Silicon Valley, Hello Houston

At work on December 9 (2009) I got an email from a guy in Houston. I had applied for a job down there a while back.

A little background – the economy has affected my company as it has so many, and the original assignment I’d been doing since being hired was cut. My last day doing that was September 30th. Since then I’ve been bouncing around to short-term assignments and looking for a long-term one. It has been incredibly frustrating because I have not known when/if I’ll be moving, and I figured if I ended up on company overhead for a while then I would be out of a job.

I had received some word from Houston before which led me to believe they were interested in me. And the job description matched pretty well with work I had been doing before so I felt pretty strong about my chances.

On December 9th I talked with my potential future-manager and I asked a few questions about the work. He didn’t know much about what I would be doing exactly (programming stuff). This worried me because how does he know I’m a good fit if he doesn’t know better about what I’ll be doing … But, one bright spot from the conversation was that he said he’d decided to hire me and then realized he’d never once spoken to me. This either means he’s a really bad manager, or my recommendations from the other folks I’ve worked with were good. Actually now I’m worried about that, too.

I’m not sure how evident this is in other things I’ve posted – but for random people reading this I’m a glass half-empty kind of guy.

Anyway. I am still unsure if I’ll get the job – paperwork stuff has to be sorted out. My potential start-date as of right now would be January 11th which doesn’t give me much time left in California.

When I move to Houston I want to move to a place where I’ll have roommates. I really like having my own space and apartment, but I took a long time before I made any friends and I don’t want to repeat that.

I got in bed last night and pictured myself in bed the night before my first day of (potential) work in Houston. That’s a very depressing thought.

New work. New home. Don’t know anybody. Have to prove myself. Not sure if I can do my work well. Won’t know the co-workers quirks or what they’ll be like. An outside of work-project I’ll be doing – it’s part of work but it’s during my free time (read: lots of unpaid overtime). I’m worried about how I’ll perform with that as well. To sum it up: oy.

Also, I’ve liked the Silicon Valley way more than I thought I would. This is the 10th different place I’ve lived and usually I don’t miss or really appreciate a place until I’ve moved. I think being unsure if/when I’ll move for the past three months has had the silver lining of helping me to appreciate California sooner. Also, I figured from the start I wouldn’t be here for too long so I’ve tried to get out and do a fair amount.

Anyway – I’m just venting and expressing my frustrations. If the job works out it will be really nice to know where I’ll be living for at least a year (the assignment length). Also I went to college in Dallas so I could drive up there to visit some friends. And my sister really wants to go to South by Southwest (SxSW) in Austin, so we can meet there for that. AND, Houston’s not too far from New Orleans and I’ve never been there. I call this paragraph: glass half full ish (ish being the radio version of a certain s word).

I’ll say this in person as well – but I want to thank JMinnie and Theresa (who you may have seen write comments on the blog) for putting up with me and helping to make California as fun as it was. And all of the folks I met through them as well.

Enough sissy stuff. I’m going to watch porn and “Die Hard” and play “Grand Theft Auto” right now. All at the same time. And shotgun a beer. Boo yah.

***
This is an update – on Friday December 18th I found out some good news. I am going to start in Houston on January 25th rather than the 11th, and my work is going to pay for some of my relocation costs. Sweet!

Wish me luck random strangers, and people who know me who read this.

Good-bye Silicon Valley, hello Houston!