.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; }.flickr-yourcomment { }.flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; }.flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }
The beautiful former Alabama Theater (2922 S. Shepherd Drive) now a bookstore close to where I live. An even better balcony view looking over the whole first floor of the store.
.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; }.flickr-yourcomment { }.flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; }.flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }
The first in a multi-part series.
The nice thing about my new neighborhood is walking to the bar, specifically the W. Alabama Icehouse. I’d never been to an outdoors bar, where the dogs roam free, people can bring their kids (now, that’s good parenting) and everyone complains about the Texas heat. I was there with some people until midnight. That’s when they start closing up shop because its surrounded by homes and apartment. As I walked back home on the dark streets, I kept on passing houses with newspapers on the lawns and had to resist the urge to steal them. Beer (all two of them) does lead to criminal tendencies!
There was a need for donuts, so I searched online and found Shipley’s Do-Nuts, “Making Life Delicious in Houston since 1936.” My wife’s craving for sugar donuts were more than met and I had my first kolache. I plan on having many more! Damn tasty and cheap.
After getting our breakfast (at 2:30pm) we went to the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft before the Richard Black: The Art of Cue show ended on Sunday. This was our first visit and I was impressed with exhibition spaces and the curated shows. The pool cues created by Richard Black are such compact and complex creations. And the contemporary basket show was better than its topic would suggest. The great thing about contemporary crafts (as opposed to contemporary fine arts) is that even when a piece isn’t that interesting or compelling, it still can be appreciated for the for the inherent skill that it took to create it. It’s the opposite of the “a kid could do that” reaction that much modern art evokes.
I’m looking forward to more shows there. Plus the nice guy manning the front desk said the MFA might be looking for art installers and I’m itching to start working again.
First, a greeting to those reading…
To Mr. Carter – 20 gallon cowboy hats are a no! But the missus looks cute in her 1.3 liter cowboy hat. And I’m not averse to cowboy boots.
To Mr. Shirley – yes, the Montrose/Upper Kirby was full of washed-out intersections. I wasn’t surprised when a cheap import was stalled out due to the water, but the disabled Volvo and pickup truck made me worry about navigating the city in our car.
My highly attuned “weirdness” radar had been getting all sorts of hits in Houston. From an abandoned mini-golf course near the 610, a metal penthouse with a weather vane atop it to assorted other objects of interest, H-town has a growing collection of places I need to visit, photograph and cross off my list.
Just the few trips running errands have been rewarded with random sightings while en route and the strangeness that this city has is promising.
Even more so than other places, I feel like there will be some reward for being interested in these places. These places have like-minded fans of such things, and that would be something new for me.
Another present from Houston to me will be our first roller derby bout on Sunday. I wonder if it will be bad form to wear my Atlanta derby shirt. Well, ATL will be representing and the local girls will have to win me over. Something tells me they will! Anyone reading is welcome to introduce themselves at the game (or online); my shirt will have the phrase “Dirty South Derby” on the back.
Today Houston was a torrent of rain, with intersection flooded and a fountain of sewage near the Allen parkway.
And now a recap of our trip…
Left Atlanta Saturday night.
Arrived in Houston late Sunday afternoon.
823 miles over 1 short/1 long day.
15 hours of driving (timid driving until my nerves calmed down, meal breaks, Alabama fog and much construction on the I-10 in Texas.)
Back on the day of our arrival we were met with a couple of friend’s friend’s who had volunteered to help unload our fully-laden truck. They couldn’t have been more helpful, powering through all our assorted boxes, furniture and miscellaneous crap. 2 and ½ hours later, we finished up. The beer had been drunk, but there was still our offer of dinner. One mover took us up on it while the other left with a rain check. We ate at the nearby House of Pies, which is a perfect place to go when feeling gross, under-dressed and exhausted. We liked it so much we did breakfast there in the morning.
At the nearby coffee house Café Artiste I was looking out the window at a new Scion XB and thought that the front of the hood hand a perfect place to mount a couple of horns. I’m pretty well settled with the idea of being Texan. Well, at least a Houstonian.
Now we are still settling in to our new apartment where our landlord had supplied us with breakfast fixings and a departing tenant said that our landlord was really nice and we would love it here.
Feeling good so far.
A detailed recap of the trip will be posted at time when I have more rest…
Our vacation is now over. A red-eye flight out of Vegas had us arriving in Atlanta at 8-ish AM. We are now back in an apartment full of boxes, which by weeks end, will be packed up in a truck ready to be driven to Houston.
Is it smart to relocate to a new city in 5 days after driving 1,700 miles out west, plus a late-night flight back here?…
Well, almost 7 years ago, 10 days after we married, we packed up our New Orleans apartment, moved to Vegas with no job and no place to stay. So, we will be arriving in Houston with more plans in place than that first move.
And we got some help with the unloading the truck once we are there! Behold the power that is friends-who-have-friends-in-Houston, beer and food!
I’m doing with Houston what I did when I first learned about our move to Atlanta. Scoured the web for blogs and websites about the city, put them in to a reader and wait for people to say interesting things about the city they live in.
When I blog it always come back to being local. Eccentric personal pursuits aside, I get real pleasure getting to know a place and like blogging about these discoveries. So, while preparing for our final move, I wait and read, learning about our new home.
And that’s what I’m doing now.
So, I’m checking my web stats and found that some people had looked at my site because of this picture from Bent Fabrication (which I had hot-linked to, bad internet behavior.) I’ve corrected that situation by stealing the picture. So much better! I will be emailing for permission sometime soon.
And where does he live? Houston. I’m going to like this city I think.
More good kids stuff as seen in “Modern Mechanix” – Two-Wheel Stroller.
Or a beautifully unsafe 50’s car seat below (as seen in the Peterson Automobile Museum.) Fortunately, our modern age provides us both with much-improved safety seats and carriages, and the ability to buy all these vintage child-mangling toys of death on eBay.
The flights, delayed.
The trip, a success.
A home, found.
Day 1: In addition to rentals found through the internet, the owner of the B&B (Sara’s Bed and Breakfast) provided us with a couple of printed pages from the Houston Association of Realtor webpage. He had already recommended a great place to eat the night before. Vietnam Restaurant provided much needed health after bad airport food and at $20 for the two of us was easy on the budget. We wouldn’t have found the place with out the guidance and it was just what we needed that night.
Day 2: Much time was spent driving, and very little picture-taking. The city is deserving of more photography. Looking for places, bad time management led to low blood sugar and food issues. Found some good-bad chinese (you know greasy & and tasty plus cheap) which restored much-needed marital happiness. Found a few promising leads and driving all over Houston was good exposure to the city. Blocked roads in the medical district meant traveling 2 blocks in 50 minutes. The cause, nicked gas main by construction guys. Damn them! Dinner = Italian at Spaghetti Western. Went to art opening at Lawndale Art Center.
Day 3: The end of our search was near. Drove around the overcast city, surprising the missus with David Adicke’s studios and giant head repository.
The massive collection of giant presidential head make the warehouse’s storage lot a political Easter Island. But it wasn’t just politicians.
Monstrous Beatles! After that, more apartment searching. By 5pm a place settled upon. Low end of the spending limit may equal new laptop due to savings. iFrugel! Ate France in the morning and Belgium at night at Cafe Montrose. Muscles and fritz (or mussels and frites for those sticklers for accuracy) for the missus. No thank you sez I. The evening… spent with Harry Potter.
Day 4: Play day! Visited the Artcar Museum. Many pictures taken.
Me with a dog on a car. Also grabbed a local arts calender. Before flight, drove around city and made fun of bad mansions. Whole neighborhood full of boring, rich people with no imagination who built dull, large houses. The upside?… no gates to keep the riff raff from viewing the poor taste and making rude comments.
Lastly a postponed flight got use home hours later then expected. Tired but relieved.
Learned that this will be a good city to call home. The people we met were generous with their time and advice. Two of the landlords we didn’t choose may be good sources for job-related info. One offered to help despite being told we choose a different rental than his. The other offered an introduction to a couple of intriguing collectors. More on that once we move to the city. All in all a promising start.
While talking about his band schedule, I met another new guy (to me) who was also in a band. Jason was talking about hitting some cities in Georgia, Tennessee and Alabama. Mo mentioned that his band was flown in a military cargo plane to perform for the soldiers at Guantanmo Bay. His band, Mother’s Finest.
Mo’s got a sweet ride that he built himself. The doors come from VW Beetle, he salvaged wood from a shipping pallet for the roof and steering wheel and the trunk has been cut down to fit his Frankensteinian monster of a hot-rod. If I had only seen it in a picture I wouldn’t have looked twice, but I feel in love with this thing when I saw it. I love the carpeted doors.
Neon Poisoning 