Awaiting the $$$

Crass as the title of this blog may seem, that is exactly what we are doing right now. We are doing a bit of construction on a temporary kitchen downstairs, but not much. The Leaches gave us an oven range, so now we're in pretty good shape. All the walls downstairs are gone from 4' down, and all of our possesions that were downstairs during Ike are in the garage.

Hoping to hear from Flood insurance soon, so then we can decide what to do next

Tuesday blues

Day after Labor day. Didn't get enough relaxation in this weekend. But still...
I had some fun,
got some chores done,
saw the Dynamo run,
and they won.
New window in the Master Bedroom looking out over the water, also letting in some of that happy sun.

I got the Tuesday morning after Labor Day blues.

Come on, Weekend!

new school year

I just got back from a lunchtime seminar on how to become a Certified Automation Professional (CAP). They served up some nice Bar-B-Q and iced tea and presented to us the reasons why and how we should and could become CAPs. Basically, the idea is to take an exam that, if passed, would be proof to the whole world that your competency in the area of plant automation is such that you should be respected and valued above the run of the mill engineer.

What is so nice about this program is that it is available to non-degreed people who have been working in the automation industry for ten or more years. Up until now, I had no certification or license that identified me as someone who could be counted on to accomplish the tasks associated with the installation of a control system in a plant. My lack of accreditation hasn't necessarily hampered me in my chosen field, but it may have, and I simply may not know it, as decisions about work assignments are usually made by my boss and his ability to sell me to a client.

So, I'm getting ready to start school, again, for the first time in almost 30 years. I guess I'll need to get a new backpack!

New York Style Pizza

Dude! I just ate twice as much pizza as I should have, but I couldn't stop.

Sarah-babe suggested a few weeks ago that there was a new place we should be getting our pizza. I decided that I would satisfy my craving for some Italian sausage and green olive, since every person that I live with was gone for hours, or days, and no one would gag at my selection. There's a new shop just down the road with the unassuming name of Pizza King.

My first question when I walked in the door was "do they have green olives?". You may think that a silly question, but I really think that, if you do, you are taking too much for granted. As I said before, not many people like the green olives on the pizza, so I have found that many pizza shops don't even bother to keep them on hand. Upon getting the answer in the affirmative, I breathed a sigh of relief and proceeded to order my favorite pizza of all time.

It only took them about 15 minutes to make it, and in the meantime I jetted down to the Kroger gas station to fill up my lowered, tinted 98 Maxima with the cold air intake and Sony bluetooth CD/MP3 deck. Listening to The Waiting at what I'm sure all around me thought way too loud a volume, I popped on back up the road to secure my pizza pie.

As I pulled up I realized that I had forgotten to specify thin, thick, stuffed or flambeed crust, so I grabbed the menu I had stolen from the counter (I just picked it up! I don't think they suspected anything!) I found that I had ordered pizza from a man who only makes New York style pizza, whatever that is. Well, what it is is absolutely the best pizza I've had in forever!

Once I got it home to the privacy of my own home with the new windows overlooking the Clear Creek through the woods, I sat down to a bit of Yankees vs. Rangers on the HDTV and took a sip of my Coke Zero. What I found is this...The sauce is delicious, with a strong hint of oregano, and not too sweet. The crust was thin but not too thin. The toppings were generous and it was cut into 8 large slices. My standard way of eating thin crust pizza is to take the slice, fold it in half from point to crust, and eat away! Oh rapture, how wonderful it was!

No hyperbole here. Trust me. This is THE place to get you pizza in the League City area.

Bon appetite!

Edouard, my man!

Small little storm, with potential to do a little damage, but not great. I think I can use it as an excuse not to come to work tomorrow, though. In all fairness, it just wouldn't be safe to drive to work in 70 mph winds, with all of the other crazy Houston drivers, unless, of course, there was no rain and it was always a tailwind.

Sent Mel and Sarah off to Jamaica with DeAnna and Nic on Saturday morning. Actually, I sent them off Friday night, after the Mercy Me concert at Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavillion.

Friday was actually a pretty cool day. Mel and Sarah drove up from Pasadena and I drove over from Jacobs to meet Coop at KSBJ. We went to a goodbye lunch at On the Border in Atascosita (a cool little town I didn't even know existed) for Coop and I got to sit next to Susan O'Donnel, who is hilarious. I also sat next to LaRonda, who is very cool. From there we met up with Nic in Spring, and drove on up to the Woodlands and saw a very bad movie called Mama Mia. I don't recommend this, unless you are with people who like to laugh at stupid movies. Dinner at Cafe Express followed with the 5 of us, and we had many laughs. I think I remember Mel saying that her face hurt.

Well, anyway, Craiger picked up the girls from LaVeau's house (where I left them Friday night) at 4am Saturday morning (I'm glad I was home in bed) and they didn't get to Jamaica unitl late in the afternoon.

Coop moved back home for his final week of summer after getting "fired" (his words) by KSBJ, and I'm pretty sure he intends and doing a bunch of nothing this week.

I'm busy cleaning out the new upstairs guest rooom and it's closet in preparation for getting new carpet for the whole upstairs.

Dynamo vs.Pachuca

Mel and I are taking Sarah, Abby, Jon, Juan & Josh to meet Coop at BW2 somewhere in Houston. At least I THINK we are. Plans are still forming. Whatever we do, we're all very excited about tonight's game. The boys have been playing very well of late, so we expect a WIN TONIGHT!!!

We shall proceed from the food to The Rob and gather with 30K of our closests friends. Hopefully there won't be too many blue crosses in the stadium (if you don't know what that means, Google it!) If we're lucky we'll get to see Jaqua play some minutes, and maybe even the new guy, Kamara.

You guys heard of Brad Davis? I LOVE HIM! Not "LOVE" love, but, you know, he's like my favorite player on the Dynamo. His wife told me she loves him too! Well, she didn't tell ME, specifically, but when I up and made a fool of myself by exclaiming the afore-mentioned "I LOVE HIM" phrase, she heaped on the embarrasment by telling Coop, Juan, Mel and I that, you know...She loves him, too! Anyway, GOORANGE! (pn: Goo-Range [courtesy of Chris Rackham])

Back to work, 1 more hour!

two days after

'Tuesday' stands for two days after vacation ended. Or for some, It simply two days after an amazing weekend. Used to be Tuesdays weren't all that special. I still had four more days of school to make it through when I woke up as a kid on Tuesday morning. But now, Tuesday is hump day! Once I'm done with today, it's downhill to the weekend. I just love working 4 tens.

Saw 'The Dark Night' last night. The Joker was awesome. Batman needs to clear his throat, but I understand his dilemma. If he doesn't have the raspy voice thing going, everyone's going to know who he is. I think I'd figure it out from the teeth alone. I liked Mrs. Cruise better as Racheal, and I guess the producers/writers did too, cause they....


spoiler alert...




slay her!

Tivo.com is down this morning, so I'm not able to schedule my Tivo at the house to record the Dynamo v United game tonight. Guess I'll have to do it the old fashioned way...point the remote at the TV and press some buttons while I'm actually in the same room with the TV! How barbaric!

vacation grande

I started vacation yesterday at 4:30 pm. Well not really. I am actually sitting here at home getting ready to start on some work I brought home that I could not finish by the end of the day yesterday. I seem to have quite a bit of work to to.

So here's the pregunta...If I get up in the morning and do a little work before every one else gets up, am I really on vacation? I mean, really?

my first grand niece/phew/child

sitting here at st. john hospital, my niece, Lauren, is at 9cm and 100 pct. effaced and we are all excited. Sarah says she likes reading spanish, which is brought on by all the posters in the hospital that are printed in spanish.

I love babies so much. I like holding them, smelling them, listening to them. I like helping them grow up, and telling them their first joke, and, yes, I WILL be first.

Melissa is coming from work as we speak, Coop is coming as soon as he gets off work, and Sarah is sitting right here with me. we're watching stargate atlantis. We just ate at Fudd's, with Amanda and Cody, and DeAye. the weather is hot and muggy. Lauren's epiderual only completely took on one side, but she's doing much better than before.

future child's name will be Shaggy Cooper White or Alice Lee White.

all for now!!!!

Sharathon on the worldwide KSBJ

This has been a very fun day. I got to work, sat down at my cubicle, pulled up KSBJ on the webcast, a started listening to my favorite radio station as they gave us all the opportunity to be a part of the team. Though the day started out kinda rough for the KSBJ staff, they quickly got the phone glitch worked out and started rolling in the support.

My boy got to work a bit early, and I saw him walk across my computer screen, stop, turn and wave good morning to me (and I'm sure his mom, too) as he was looking up at the camera KSBJ had set up for their webcam. I've spent the next 6 hours watching my screen for him, watching him spin things on his finger, high five a coworker, offer help or conversation to one of the volunteers manning the phones, or just sitting there drumming on his legs to whatever song was playing on the broadcast at the moment. I am so much looking forward to volunteering tomorrow and getting to hang out with him for the day!

I guess I could have gotten a little bit more work done today, but, really...how many times in life does something like this happen? I guess if Coop gets a full time job with KSBJ after he graduates from Baker Univ. in Kansas, this could be a yearly thing, if not a daily thing (if KSBJ gets a full time DJ webcam, hint, hint!). Fun, Fun day.

initial ravings

rave = blog

simple formula. What else might you talk about except that for which you have devoted much attention and probably some sort of excitement. Yeah, yeah, excitement may be strong for some things many of us talk about all day, but what will you take time to login, post, proofread, re-read, logout, re-read again. If you're not excited about it, I usually don't get too interested in it. Here's what I'm excited about...

New windows looking out over Clear Creek from my bedroom...
my new friend Chris LeVeau...
Beach house in Galveston...
my no.1 son interning at KSBJ this summer...

more to come. promise!