Guardian of the Non Sequitur

I did not check the weather before I left Houston, so now on Tuesday morning I’m tossing my only pair of jeans into the washing machine.

I don’t have a jacket or any rain gear with me either.  It will be a bit nippy tonight, and raining all day.

Yesterday, after I got settled into my cousin’s place, and did some grocery shopping, I headed into town.  I parked across MOPAC from Zilker Park and rode my bicycle into town.  It was a nice day for it, and gave me a chance to get used to some of the routes that might be useful later in the week.

I locked up the bike, almost left my pannier, but thought better of it, and found some lunch.  Darwin’s Pub had a nice Chicken Shawarma, though their beer selection was minimal.  Around 4pm, I headed over to Buffalo Billiards (even thinner, though larger, selection).  There was an informal iPhone Developers Meet-up.  It ended up having about a dozen people, about half had done development work.  So, I spent some time chatting and getting to know some people, mostly from Texas, though the organizer was from the UK.

One who I met was Jacqueline, and happened to attend the same high school as I did.  This happens more often than you might think.

After that I headed to the west side for a Houston organized party (Houstonians got free drink tickets, and a friend bought me another).  I saw quite a few Houston friends.  JR was camped out with a video camera.  (Ex Houston) Mayor Bill White showed up and had a brief chat.  He’s running for Governor.  I wish he was still our mayor, and will definitely vote for him for Governor.

Jacqueline had checked in on another party and then stopped by the Houston one.  We chatted for a while and suggested we try the FourSquare party.

FourSquare, Twitter, Gowalla, and (to a less extent) FaceBook are ALL OVER the SXSWi part of the conference.  So much that there are lots of anti-SXSW whiners on-line and #fakesxsw humor from the non-attendees.

We swang by the FourSquare and it had a line out the front, we tried out the BeerCamp at Emo’s.  Their Beer Pong tournament was over but free beer was still available for the waiting in line.  The rain started, we chatted under a tent with some young strangers (Austinites schooling in Lubbock, off for the spring break).

My iPod had died by this point, and I totally missed hooking up with my good friend Bill C.  I totally should have borrowed a phone and called (sorry Bill!).  Jacqueline suggested we try out Beauty Bar (a new one, I was unfamiliar with) as the rain continued.  I stayed there for a while, but decided I needed to get back to my car and/or bike, so I left her to stay out for the rest of the night (and I think she did).

I started walking to find a cab, to get to my car.  I was planning on abandoning my well locked bike.  But I got all the way to the bike and after consulting with the pedi-cab drivers decided that that I needed to come back and retrieve the bike.  Then I decided that I was already soaking wet and warm from the walk, so decided to ride to the car.  I got home about 12:30, had to strip clean to get dry and warm.

I was of course soaked to the bone and a bit muddy from the ride.  Thus the need to wash and dry my only pair of pants this morning.  Sounds like they’re ready for the dryer.

By the way, this was the first dance at the wedding I was at on New Years Eve. Congratulations, Amy & Jake!

The year’s party has come and gone. It’s been at my house for eight years, and coincides with Lights in the Heights which is put on by the Woodland Heights neighborhood, which is half a block from me.

We had an estimated 400 people at the peak, and perhaps 600 people throughout the night. Bubba Coltrane & the Train Wrecks (Bob, Ed, and Mike) played again, after taking last year off and adding a great new guitarist to the lineup (Kenny). After providing the music last year, DJ Larry returned and filled the spaces before and after the band.

For the third year in a row, no police came to complain. This is attributed to 1) the Lights in the Heights is getting considerably larger. We used to be the only large rowdy party. We still likely go the latest, but we’re not too loud after 1am; 2) most of the neighborhood is currently empty with houses under construction, the other neighbors are used to it (and many are at the party). Also, cooler weather means no one is sleeping with their windows open.

Once again we had some fabulous flaming art cars parked in the front of the house. Also a sizable early contingent of roller derby girls, and some in for the long haul. Quite a few friends made it in from Austin and at least one from Dallas. We had a crew of party supporters buy an extra keg of beer for the party. Props to the NTN Crew!

The five kegs of beer ran out about 12:15, there was a small surge about 2pm from some industry folks, at 2pm there were about a dozen people, and somewhere after 4:30 the thing finally wound down. I was up again at 10:30 beginning the cleaning, and spent 5 hours at it. Conn spent about as much, and that got it about 80% cleaned up (but with about twice as much more time that needs to be put in – that last 20% of cleaning is the most laborious.

Only two vomiting incidents (that I had to somehow deal with) and one broken window (very likely accidental from the Star Chair. Three people slept over, two of which called in advance and reserved a spot. The following items remained that didn’t begin here: a cell phone, a plaid woman’s jacket (belonging to “Emily S.”), a small trendy women’s jacket, a suitcase, a back pack (with 2 full beers), an elf hat with ears, a pink pirate hat/beannie, a pink helmet, a wrist guard, a baby bottle containing water, a gray cloth glove.

Personal party gifts from friends: some nice tequila, an insulated longhorn mug, and St. Arnold Devine Reserve #2. Thanks (you know who you are).

We also have a few minutes of walk-through of the party from Rob Zipp:

Between today and the last time I was at the Continental Club, with the El Orbits, and letters and numbers, it’s been a while.

I saw quite a few familiar faces last night, some whose names I know, and some I don’t. Virginia O, Pete G, Allen H, Thomas E, Bob S, Lance, Mark & Catherine, Jennifer N, Christopher, Adrian, Squid.

Nothing used to keep us from the Satellite Lounge and the El Orbits. Do you remember Ally McBeal? We skipped out on that skinny fad. Instead we had a Lonestar and/or a martini with our lounge music and new Houston friends. I met more than one friend that I still have to this day on a Monday night with the El Orbits!

Going out on a weeknight has been a bit unfamiliar of late. It used to be my standard operating procedure. Now, I like my sleep. I have a commute.

Others need to start coming out on Monday night again, enjoying the evening. You can leave by 10:30 or 11:00 and still get plenty of sleep for that tuesday morning meeting.

Thursday night I left work and went straight to the Sharpstown Mall – Houston’s Premier Urban Mall (mostly out of a need to avoid the Galleria – the other mall on the way home from work). I had quite fun with the cultural experience. Did a little shopping, and have been humored by the people who literally think i was in imminent danger by going there.

From there I went straight to Greg’s house for game night, where he Peter and I were the only attendees. (Paul showed up as I was leaving – and I think he and Greg continued gaming).

We played 4 games. Race for the Galaxy (2007) was ranked #31 on BGG! An interesting colonization themed card-based game. It takes most of your first play to get the mechanics down enough to pay attention to any strategy. I wasn’t wowwed, but would certainly play it a few more times to determine if I liked it or not.

If Wishes Were Fishes (2007) GBB Rank 988 – a very light fish market themed game. I liked it more than I thought I would. It would be easy to tech to kids, and has nice fun purple worms as part of the game.

Hansa (2004) BGG Rank 159 – TG recently acquired this at an Internet fire sale, but I hadn’t yet played it. So, Greg taught this one and it is a nice shorter length game but with some interesting mechanics providing for some definite strategies with a variety of levels of antagonism. I have sine played it with two-players (with TG) and with three again. I definitely like it. Minimal, but good.

Aqua Romana (2005) BGG Rank 638 – This was a nice closer to the evening. Not too long, interesting mechanics. Building aqueducts with tiles that are determined by men moving about the field of tiles. Definitely worth a place in the rotation.

I got home around midnight to find my DSL disconnected. The phone repair guy had come to fix the dead phone – which had fixed itself already – but he saw there were “wiring problems” from outside so the disconnected the “upstairs line” so the other phones would work. What he actually did was disconnect the DSL.

Many days talking to many idiots finally payed off and this morning a competent repair man replaced many parts of the 10 year old DSL wiring – and hopefully it will remove the static I’ve had on my phone for over a year.

I also get DHCP directly fed from AT&T/SBC. Apparently no one else in Houston is like that. I was one of the first ADSL customers to get hooked up (working software design out of my house – paid by the company) and they’ve maintained it for those who have stayed. I’m one of the last.

I remember when it used to feed an unlimited number of IP addresses (because they didn’t know what they were doing). That lasted a few years, but they finally figured it out and now will only feed one IP address per DSL connection.

I’m just learning to use iMovie for the first time. Here’s a movie of the party setup. Arrival of the shot block at 2:30 to the official start time of the party at 8pm.