Houston: you ARE the problem
(See this blog with photos at www.joeleary.net)
Guess where I am.
I am sitting at a Drury Inn in Houston, Texas. It’s an appropriate name, reminiscent of "Dreary Inn". Although they are doing something about that. The renovation team starts with a "wake up call" jackhammer promptly at 8:01am each morning.
Houston is such a shitty town. I hate it here. This is my second visit. I was here between Thanksgiving and Christmas for 8 days. I actually saw a dead pig on the side of the highway. I was shocked and appalled. But it explained the sign I saw for "hog traps" earlier in the week.
I have to come down here periodically to help the Nielsen office recruit and sign homes. Last visit I was signing a home in a ghetto-ish sort of area. When I was done interviewing the household and saying my good-byes, the Man-of-the-House asked me, in all seriousness: "So…do you carry a gun?"
"Uh. No."
"You don’t carry a gun? Why not?"
"Would you let a gun weilding stranger into your house and let him interview you?"
He had no answer for that. Instead, he paused and asked:
"Do you know where you ARE?"
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No road kill yet on this visit. Although I did have to pull over on Saturday to let the escaped cow run past me on the street. There were 5 Chevy pick up trucks all driving after the poor beast. I just kept going, and strangely forgot the whole incident until just now.
I went to the Alley Theater’s production of "Moon for the Misbegotten." A play I SHOULD have read in college. Instead, I think I skimmed it once for a class discussion. I forget home much I love Eugene O’Neill. As an actor. As an Irishman. As an alcoholic. He really speaks to me on all three levels. And does it with such ease and heartache, beauty and utter filth. What an amazing writer.
On Friday I took a "Level 9" tour of NASA and the Houston Space Center. It was AWESOME. (I went to Space Camp when I was 13. I am a total astronaut wannabe.) The tour was a special clearance VIP thing…we got to go places the general public doesnt get to see:
The 80ft deep "zero buoyancy" pool. 2 astronauts were actually training in the pool while we observed. Mission Specialists Danny Olivas and James Reilly are going up on the next shuttle mission (Atlantis STS-117).
We observed "misison control". They were in simulation mode preparing for the upcoming Atlantis mission in 2 months. We also saw the "old" mission control of Apollo 13 fame. We were told the the entire processing power of the computers for that mission at mission control were 400kbs. That means my cell phone is smarter the the computers at NASA in the 1960’s. Isn’t that crazy? The engineers were simply THAT smart…math and a slide rule got men to the moon.
We observed "space station" mission control, which was active. There are people living in orbit in the space right now. For 6 months at a time.
I was taking the "tour guide" Georgine for granted. And our driver, "Irwin". And then I realized that they weren’t just here for hospitality and tours…they were actualy NASA engineers that also do the Level 9 tours.
These are people who have "Number of US Patents: 5" on their resume.
I was in awe of the brain power amongst us. Until the cell phone on one of the other tour-goers rang and she started blathering extra-loud about changing her state room on the Carnival cruise she was taking that week.
