A Barren Waste is your Land---Crops They Were Sown to Die

So, I started a myspace page because it was the only way I could track down my cousin.

Suddenly I have old friends popping into life, some I have not spoken with in 15 years.
Very weird. Suddenly people are aware that we have moved out of Buffalo, and live in Texas. I only told a few people I was leaving.

Funny, too, those same people make it seem like we would be hanging around together, now, but for the Texas thing.

We are waiting to hear from the mortgage lender. That is a certain way to make time stand still.

Oh, yeah...it is fucking hot today for the first time this year.
It is 94F now (36 C) and going to go UP to 99F (37. fuckin' 2 cel.)

To quote my wife, it is "poes hot". If you speak Afrikaans, or Dutch, you know what that means, and how it is pronounced.
If you don't, guess.
I am sure you won't be far off.

I have been listening to the new Opeth. It is spiffy.

Talking, Screaming, Protesting--All That Time Spent

OK, so, we got a letter from USCIS telling us to go to San Antonio to take the next step in R.'s
immigration proceedings (she is a conditional permanent resident and we want to have the "conditional" removed) so we take EVERYTHING that has both of our names on it just to be sure...

All they did was take her fingerprints (again!) and MORE photos. And that was it.

We drove all that nutty way, for 10 minutes...all armed, and didn't even get to fight. Didn't even have to raise our voices. It was actually nice.

And tomorrow we are going back to Palacios to look at a few houses, and sit on the beach for a bit.

2 nights ago we had a storm here that had the drainage yard next to us full to the point that water flooded our backyard, and was touching the house.
And, the aquaduct thingy that lets the water into drainage yard from the neighborhood is right next to my driveway, so the WHOLE neighborhood is nice, and clean, except for our house, which has a nice pile of sand and sediment and shit right in front of it. It's like I am building a delta.



We also found out that the dog next door is NOT named Leon, but Kona.
She will always be Leon to me though.

On the Edge of Darkness--You're Trapped--You're Gagged--You're Silent

So, it has been more than a month since I posted anything.

That is so typical of me. When I started this blog, I was all "I'm gonna post every day, at least one dumb thing, I am not going to let it lapse" et c.

And then like 2 months into it, I see something shiny, and lose focus.


So, I was right about the In Flames show. They were the best act at the show (bearing in mind that we did not stay for Megadeth, and I suppose that there is some small, teeny, tiny chance that they put on a better show, but I also would assume that they played a whole lot of "Megadeth", and therefore sucked, IMHO) but Job for a Cowboy was nifty, too, only the vocals were WAY too loud, and were making my one ear (I am pretty much deaf in the other) feel like it had an epiglottis attached to it, all shaky, and loose, like my ear was gargling...probably not good for ears at all.

Here is a fun fact about Houston:

It is a really smelly city.

As soon as we pulled off of I-10, an odor like anything old and swampy made us both wince, and glare at one another, accusingly. Our hotel lobby smelled like the ghost of a million cigars, farts, onions, and mustardy pickles. The elevator was even worse. It smelled like an eggy bird-cage.

And then the venue itself...smelled like a swampy,gassy bog.

We seemed to be the only people there who were aware of it. Nobody else seemed disturbed, or distressed, despite the obvious olfactory biological warfare. I guess it is the oil refineries that make it stink, but it was like going to someone's house, who has a really smelly cat, that they can no longer smell, and after a little while, you can't either. Except I could still smell it. Hell, I could almost taste it.

We took a drive to this little town called Palacios (which is pronounced puh-lashes) that I had found a few houses in, that we wanted to take a look ("Have us a look-see", in local jargon) at and just kind of poke around town, and see if it is some where we might want to live.

It is.


So, unless we win the HGTV dream house sweepstakes, we will be moving to Palacios.

Now, of course, I HAVE already put a lot of my eggs in the "sweepstakes basket"...but I am truly mentally, and emotionally primed to win something. Now would be a perfect time to win, logistics-wise.

It is all a part of my (new) 5 year plan, that is based largely on winning shit.