The Bawdy Cloister

And the winning city is...

Mrs. T and I have been taking weekend roadtrips to various cities and towns in recent months scouting potential homesteads.  I know, we just moved, but that move was unexpected and it was from one rental to another.  We're talking now of "The Big One," the move that will come complete with a mortgage and, even more, raise me to a whole other social echelon, The Landed Gentry.  That's right, I'll finally be able to vote for real, like the framers of the Constitution intended, as a property owner.

Since my office is in my house we're not bound too close to where we are now.  I did rule out Beijing for obvious reasons.  (I'll be drinking RC and eating at Burger King quite a bit this summer.  For a full list of companies I won't be doing business with check out this page.)  But I digress.  Most of my jobs are in south Texas though, so about a year ago we started researching areas around San Antonio, Austin, Corpus Christi, Houston and all the little towns in between.  As we'd visit places, we'd strike them off our list.  Very few places we visited stayed on our list.  By this morning we only had a handful of places left.  So when we hopped in the car this morning I was bracing for another let down.  But when we arrived at our destination, Mrs. T and I agreed we had found our home.  And the winning city is...

Round Rock, Texas!

Round Rock is a town of about 100,000 people just north of Austin.  It's close enough to Austin that we won't miss special events.  It's got a great school district.  It's got an IKEA.  But most importantly, it's got the grave of a famous train robber that The Acolyte just loves:

Estimated move-in date: December 2009.

Thank God for Camera Phones

I shot this picture in the parking lot of my hotel near McAllen, Texas several weeks ago.  Thought I'd share it.

No longer just Facebook

For those of you who don't have Facebook, you can now play the Traveler IQ challenge without it.  If you beat my score of 152 though I'll be forced to hate you.

The Web's Original Travel Blog.

Rowdy's Week in Review

Extremely eventful week, so here goes:

ITEM!

Wednesday morning Mrs. T and I drove the Acolyte down to Ochopee, Florida for his first airboat ride in the Everglades.  He dug it very much.

After boarding the boat, we floated slowly away from the dock.  The Acolyte was curious and pointed at whatever wildlife he'd see on the bank.  Then the boat took off.  As we got up to speed the kid burst into laughter.  The kid next to us burst into tears.

We used a company called Wooten's.  They've been in business forever and run a great outfit.  In fact, I took Mrs. T down there on her first trip to the States back in '98 when we were just engaged.  In addition to the airboat, they've got a nifty animal sanctuary that the kid just loved:

ITEM!

We were in Florida to visit my paternal grandma.  She had five kids, 12 grandkids and the Acolyte is her 13th great-grandkid.  Seven of the 12 grandkids were in town along with 12 of the 13 great grandkids.  It was chaos.  By chaos I mean a dozen kids piled onto one golf cart driven by an eight-year-old zooming around the house and nearly toppling over into an alligator infested pond.  The Acolyte has a few years yet before he can join such revelry, he stuck to the indoors and played with my Aunt's dog, Jimmy.

ITEM!

For some reason Waffle House isn't big in San Antonio.  That is to say, we don't have any!  The closest one to my house is in Austin.  So while in Florida I took the kid on his first trip to the legendary Greasy Spoon.

Several years ago Florida passed a law that prohibits smoking in restaurants.  Now I quit smoking a while back, so I wasn't upset that I couldn't smoke.  But I have to say there ought to be an exemption for Waffle Houses.  Cigarette smoke is at least a recognizable odor.  And for years it masked copious other odors a Waffle House and its clientele emit.  By the end of breakfast I was praying that someone would blow a big puff from a Marlboro red right in my face.

While I'm on the subject of short order diners, I'd like to plug my all-time favorite-- Huddle House.  They're big in Georgia and other southeastern states.  But they're slowly creeping westward (3 locations in east Texas now!)  Westward Ho Huddle House, Papa's hungry!

ITEM!

The weekend before leaving for Florida I threw a party at my place for a bunch of high school friends I recently reunited with over Facebook.  I'm happy to report that property damage was kept to a minimum.  The only loss was a 10-cent sake cup.  Knowing this crowd I was prepared for much worse.

ITEM!

We got to the airport a bit early for our return home.  Once in the terminal we grabbed dinner at the Jose Cuervo Tequileria.  Our waiter was very bald.  When the Acolyte first saw him his eyes lit up with a smile, he quickly stood up in his chair, pointed at the guy and excitedly shouted, "Anpanman!"

ITEM!

We arrived home late last night.  Now it's time to prepare for the big move in earnest.  The lease to the new place starts January 1 and we have to be cleared out of this place by January 31.  So if I'm a little light in my posts these next few weeks, that's why.

Hope everyone is enjoying their holidays!

Hey a new blog!

Just discovered a blog of an old buddy of mine, promises to be good.  Read it!

In other news,  just threw an all night party for a bunch of high school friends.  Still recovering.  I'll discuss it more later because now I have to prepare for the family vacation to Florida.  Going to take the Acolyte to see his great-grandma.  Flight leaves at 5:50 AM tomorrow morning though, much to do in the little time I have left.  Hope ya'll have a great holiday! 

Beach Bumming

Took the family down to South Padre Island this weekend for a little fun in the sun...

The Acolyte enjoyed the local restaurants as well...

Travel Map

Just learned you can now finally export your VT travel map.  Here's mine.  I still have a lot to add in my travel pages, especially to Japan and Texas, just need to find the time.  In the meantime I'll continue to read this on my homepage: " Top Member in: 0 locations. "  Bummer.  You'd think I'd at least be a Top Member for someplace like Hunt, TX where I'm one of only two members with a travel page for it.

I have traveled to 114 Cities in 14 Countries
See all my travel pages

Freezer Burn

My work doesn't take me into big cities too often.  But I found myself in downtown Dallas a couple of weeks ago on a business errand.  I cruised the streets in the morning looking for a central parking space.  There weren't any.  So I ended up parking several blocks north of where I needed to be and resigned myself to walking... a lot.  I love large urban centers in the spring.  But wandering about the wind-swept shadows of skyscrapers in mid-winter is no picnic.  Hands shoved deep in my coat pockets, I put some hustle in my stride to get me to where I needed to be.  Fortunately, most of the buildings I needed to visit were located on the same block.  That's most of the buildings.

My luck ran out at the District Clerks office.  They told me they no longer kept certain records I was looking for; but they're kept in a repository at the public library.  "How do I get there?" I asked.  "Head east down Commerce Street until you lose three extremities from frost-bite, then hang a right."

So off I went.  Marching at a steady clip, leaning forward to beat the wind, my breath freezing on my beard.  After several blocks, I saw the flashing lights of a police car ahead.  I kept moving closer and closer, and saw a crowd gathered on the street.  Great, a pedestrian traffic jam.

As I approached, I saw the police car was behind a traffic barrier.  And the side of the car read "Chicago Police Department."  What?  My brain was freezing, but I still had all my digits.  Behind the police car were three stretch limos bearing what looked like the Presidential seal.  And then there were several dozen people waving signs reading, "Vote for Seymour" or something similar.  All of this was going on in front of the Hotel Adolphus.  Only after I started moving through a crowd of onlookers did I notice a camera crew.  I wasn't going crazy after all.

I was in a hurry to get out of the cold, so I didn't think to ask what was being filmed.  I saw a FOX News van out covering the scene and figured I'd be able to look it up on the internet later.  Well, no such luck.  I couldn't find a story on their local news page or any other network's for that matter.

Anyway, the curiosity started to eat at me again this evening, so I did a little online investigating.  Turns out they're filming the Fox TV series Prison Break in the Dallas area this year.  The first season was filmed in Chicago, but they moved production to Dallas for the second season for logistical reasons.  (They could shoot urban and rural scenes more efficiently, without having to drive their crews two and half hours to escape Chicago's suburban sprawl.)

I have to admit, I was a little disappointed to learn all that fuss on the street was just for some TV drama.  I was hoping it was a big film with big names so that when it was released I could boast to my Evil Little Brother that I was there during the filming.  But no.

Instead, I got a call from ELB this weekend telling me he just got Fidget's autograph.

   

Jerk.

Vacation Pictures

Okay... finally found a few minutes to share the rest of my vacation photos:

These are ayu (sweet fish) that Nekio's fiance (now husband) brought over to the house shortly before the wedding.  The hometown is famous for ayu not only for their tastiness, but the ancient method in which they're caught, called ukai.

Me and The Acolyte having lost a battle against jet lag.

Here we are at the neighborhood temple.

Censer at the temple

Rin at the temple

After the visit to the temple, Nekio and I headed to Malera, the LARGEST MALL IN JAPAN.  Here are just a couple of shops that haven't made their way to Texas yet....

Freshness Burger

Beard Papa Sweets

Octopus Ball

I went for the Indian nan and a brew.

Didn't want to spoil my appetite though because Mom had a mess of fried goodies waiting on us back at the ranch.

Down the street from T's parents home was a vending machine with fellow San Antonioan Tommy Lee Jones' mug advertising canned coffee.  Check out one of his TV commercials here.

And lastly,

we made it to Grate-your-own-Wasabi night at a local soba restaurant.

We're Home

We're back in Texas after a quick 10-day family trip to Japan.  The Acolyte didn't fuss much on the plane home which was nice.  Now that we're back we're trying to catch up on work and overcome the jet lag.  Pictures from the trip are developed, but they'll have to wait till later to share.  For the time being, here's a shot of the Acolyte and me sharing some sake...