Running Short on Cash

The U.S. Government can give $30 billion to the Jewish nation but can't afford medals for the people who have been injured fighting for our country:

We’ve apparently reached a point in which U.S. troops are injured so frequently in Iraq and Afghanistan — the number is now near 30,000 — that the military is running out of Purple Hearts.

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C has a link to the article in the Houston Post...

Profitable Summer

The split from KBR and the move to Dubai seem to be quite fruitful:

Halliburton Co. said Monday second-quarter net income more than doubled to $1.5 billion, lifted largely by a $933 million gain from the separation of its former subsidiary, KBR Inc.

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Via Digg

Rain, rain go away...

Still raining. No golf today.

Who'll Stop the Rain?

It has been raining and is supposed to continue to rain...

Health Care Ranking

Houston is home of the Texas Medical Center, the largest medical center on planet Earth, yet Texas ranks almost last on a list of states' health system performance:

The top five states in order are Hawaii, Iowa, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine. The bottom five states are Nevada, Arkansas, Texas, Mississippi, and Oklahoma.

Link to the entire list.

Via NM

Dragon Boat Festival!!!

We had so much fun! Click on the link below to see all the pics:

Link

Tags: Dragon, boat, festival, houston, cool

Dragon Team T-Shirts

Most teams were sponsored by various schools, or clubs, or major corporations and all of them had very colorful t-shirts. Congratulations to Tindall & Foster for having the coolest design (and thank you for parting with one of your extras!!!).

Click the link below to see the individual pics:

Link

Tags: dragon, boat, festival, houston, cool

Houston Dragon Boat Festival

Okay, so this is nothing compared to Kowloon Harbor in Hong Kong, but the festival was free to all and the weather was beautiful. I was there early and it seemed like everyone was having a great time (thanks Mom for reminding me):

Link

More Strange News

For some reason I feel compelled to post this news item even though it disturbs me. A kid was arrested in Texas for drawing maps of his school. At least this time no charges have been filed (yet):

A Chinese student was removed from Clements High School in Fort Bend, Texas after parents complained he had re-created the school grounds in a game and uploaded the map for his friends to play. The boy was placed in the district’s alternate education school and later arrested, as the police considered him a “terroristic threat”.

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Tags: big, brother, still, watching, cool

The Price of Poultry

This is the current price for a bucket of yardbird in downtown Houston (in case you were wondering).

Cash for Cockroaches

This museum is located right down the street from my house. Maybe I should try to catch some roaches?

Houstonians are invited to contribute their cockroaches at the entrance to the Cockrell Butterfly Center on Tuesdays (May 8th and May 15th) from 4 – 7 p.m. or Saturdays (May 5th, May 12th and May 19th) from 12 – 3 p.m. for $0.25 each. Upon arrival, ask for a Museum entomologist.

Link

Via Boing

America's Architecture

There are several Houston buildings on this (arguable) list of 150 famous architectural structures. Go to the link below and then click "Launch in This Window." Use the green bar at the top of the page to navigate to the right (It may take a few seconds to load but it's well worth it).

Link

Via NM

"Uh, Houston we've had a problem..."

The famous (chillingly calm) words spoken by Flight Commander Jim Lovell thirty-seven years ago today. The recording sounds remarkably clear:

Link

Via NM

The Price of Oil

This is the retail price of processed dinosaur bones in my neighborhood. I wish I wasn't addicted to oil.

This is the price of gas last month (19 days ago).

Pearls Before Breakfast

I feel smarter after having read this interesting (albeit long) Washington Post article about the psychology of classical music and the interaction of people too busy to appreciate it. There are some nifty embedded videos included but they are more about the foot traffic than they are about the music:

No one knew it, but the fiddler standing against a bare wall outside the Metro in an indoor arcade at the top of the escalators was one of the finest classical musicians in the world, playing some of the most elegant music ever written on one of the most valuable violins ever made. In a banal setting at an inconvenient time, would beauty transcend?

The final video at the bottom of the article shows that he does finally draw an audience:

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This is a link to Joshua Bell's website with samples of his music including Schubert's, "Ave Maria." He is coming to the states in May and, of course, will be spending three days in Houston.

Via J

You Know You're From Houston When...

All of these are incredibly funny (and incredibly true), unfortunately you have to have had lived in Houston for over thirty-years in order to laugh:

The "farm-to-market" roads have seven lanes.

If you want to be a snob about your grocery shopping, you can go to a Randall's Flagship, a Kroger Signature, a Rice Epicurean, or soon, an HEB Central Market to buy bread and milk (but you have to dress up!).

You wander into a section of town where you can't read the street signs because they're written in Asian characters instead of English, but you don't care because you can get great prices on fake designer merchandise there.

You go to an art festival on Westheimer and you're almost run down by two cross-dressers on roller blades, holding hands.

You can leave your house, head out of town, and an hour later you still haven't left the city limits. (During rush hour, you haven't left your neighborhood.)

You've never seen I-45 in any condition other than under-construction -- and you've lived here for 20-30 years.

If the humidity is below 90 percent, it's a good hair day.

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You know you're in Texas when...

You know you're in Texas when the local watering-hole is shaped like the Alamo and has a giant, mirror-covered, longhorned, armadillo on the patio. To see a couple more pics from my bike ride the other day click below:

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Abandoned Buildings

My free license to Photoshop expired so these are straight out of my camera. More abandoned buildings in and around downtown Houston by clicking the link below:

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Those Damn Vagrants!

I was going to say something political like, "This is what's wrong with our society," but really I just thought this was a funny sign.

The Price of Oil

This is the current price for a gallon of gas in downtown Houston (in case you were wondering).