Back to Houston

Needing a few days of rest, we invited ourselves down to Houston to visit the wife's brother Tim and and family. They have a beautiful home, aptly appointed for guests and are always gracious hosts. A few days out of the enduring cold of this prairie winter sounded good, so calls were made, passage arranged, clothes purchased and the die was cast.

A week or so ago we shoe-horned ourselves into the smallest commercial jet airplane available with 48 other people and roared off to Texas. This should be a post by itself, but travelling on one of these things is not a pleasant experience. The seat is barely spacious enough. The ceiling is such that one tends to walk hunched in the aisle. Overhead carry-on space is at a premium. To me, it is one step above going there on a horse. Air travel itself is uncomfortable and diminishes the self-esteem, but regional jets take it to a whole new level. Just to stick it to me a bit more--RJ's are built mostly in Brazil. The horse would have been made in the USA, at least.

Fortunately for us we flew Continental Airlines to Houston Intercontinental Airport and it's actually cheaper than Southwest, which flies into Houston Hobby airport. Unfortunately for Tim, Intercontinental is nearly an hour from his house--if the traffic is good, always a very temporary condition in Houston. And, yes, he lives a mere 10 minutes from Hobby, but Southwest stops in Tulsa--a fact unacceptable to his sister who cares little for extra takeoffs and landings while in transit. (Let the record show that I wanted to drive.)

As always they are wonderful hosts. They loaned us their (not so much their as Tim's) 2006 Corvette, just as clean and shiny as the day it rolled of the assembly line. They directed us to Ross Family Stores ("Dress for Less!") across Harris and Brazoria Counties and urged us to visit Galveston. So the wife shopped up to her waist in the Ross stores and various outlet malls, while I sat in the sexy car and listened to Rush and worked crossword puzzles, all the while enjoying the weak February sunshine. We cruised Seawall Road in Galveston, yet another Ross store, and returned home to a fabulous steak dinner. Tim is a terrific cook.

View from Seawall Road

The next day, as Mary Ann shopped in even more Ross stores, Tim rolled me down to Alvin to photograph the Santa Fe depot there. It was recently restored and sits trackside on its original foundation. The brick platform is still in place, its paving stones still bearing the markings of the Coffeyville Vitreous Brick and Tile plant where they were cast a hundred years ago. We all had lunch at a seafood diner which I wanted to bring home with me and dinner at yet another seafood house.

So basically this was a festival of sightseeing, eating and bitching about flying. And then there was the dance club.

Tim and Patty like to frequent a local night club on Saturdays which was as interesting to watch people as the San Francisco airport--and believe me, there is unrivaled entertainment at SFO.

I was left with a few observations on Texas nightlife in 2010:

**The music was so loud as to render any conversation impossible. About half the volume would have been just fine and no one would still have been able to converse. Thirty years of working around gas turbine engines have been hard on the ears, and they continued in the tradition of Pratt and Whitney

**No one danced for much of the first hour we were there, in spite of the incredibly loud pulsating music, except for two girls--with each other.

**The DJ finally broke out the disco and before the fifth note got out, the nerd in the green shirt appeared. Yes, a real nerd in a green polo shirt, thick glasses, jeans and high-top Converse All-Stars. (I can't make this up.) He had unkempt albino hair and a bad complexion but was nimble and his feet barely hit the floor. True to his nerd-ness, he was alone but it didn't slow him down. And he got a few people out to dance.

**This wasn't Studio 54--there weren't many beautiful people. Or even very many regular people. What we had here were a wealth of men in their 60's (or 70's and they were just a young 70?) looking to pick up women, apparently of any age. Lots of pot bellies, bald heads, gray hair--and I think I spotted a Nehru jacket.

**Then we had the obligatory woman pushing 50 with long blond hair, short shorts, knee-high go-go boots and apparently no mirrors at home. I have seen women who at 45 or 50 can pull off that look. She wasn't one of them, but the old guys didn't seem to mind at all. The other women were on the chubby side, and there were copious amounts of Clairol on duty. Patty's son "Tito" and his wife were with us and he mentioned that one of the cougars had pinched his butt. "I wonder what's up with that," he tried to yell over the roar.

"Look around," I told him. ''You're the only game in town.''

**Tim and Patty, pretty much among the younger patrons, were in the club for the first time in a few weeks. They have their favorite table, know all the regulars, and were asking about one fellow who wasn't there. He had suffered a stroke, they were told, pretty much knocking out the dance club. This just wasn't how I remembered night life; we never discussed our friends having strokes.

**One of the two dancing girls decided at one point to be the go-go girl in the cage, and hopped up on one of the shelves wedged into the corners of the dance floor. This was a hefty homely woman, not the stereotyped Paris Hilton in a white miniskirt and white boots. I mention it only because she kicked her shoes off in front of where I was sitting and then there was the whole foot thing going on for a minute. And yeah, I know I'm not one of the beautiful people either, but I keep my shoes on and my pants aren't painted on to my butt.

**And we are still old farts, too, because we left at 10:30. As we were leaving the younger crowd was filtering in and the place was getting really crowded. We headed for the Taco Cabana around the corner for a late dinner. The nerd was still on the floor, dancing furiously by himself, pretty much ignored by the crush of the other people.

**Here we were in Texas and only one old man had a western hat on his head. It never came off. Even thought this wasn't a western themed club, I had expected a few more cowboys. After all, this is Texas.

**Freedom lives on in Webster, Texas! Smoking is permitted in public buildings, so it's up to the owners (what a concept) if they care to make their establishment a smoke free one or not. This club is a smoker's paradise and the two of us hadn't been in one for a long time. We really reeked. I thought we might have to burn our clothes. All that smoke isn't pleasant for a non-smoker (and for some smokers as well) but it was refreshing to see a community left to forge its own destiny, regardless of political correctness. The thing was I really didn't see anyone actually smoking. I still don't know how that happened, but the whole place was fun, funny (except for the guy that had the stroke) and a psychologists' dream.

The following day we crawled back inside a Continental RJ and headed home. They were offering us $300 each for our seats and a later flight, so I suppose we should have jumped on it. Why? It was a sultry, humid, rainy 68 degrees in Houston when we left at 11:45. Landing in KC, it was 30 and--as usual this winter--snowing. As we claimed our massive grip It seemed like 10 years had passed since we had driven the Corvette along the beach in the sunshine. And with the snow drifting into my collar as I hoisted our bags into the back of the car, I caught the faintest whiff of smoke from somewhere deep inside. It's good to be home.

Leggo my Ego!

Now comes before the court one John Edwards, of late candidate for President of the United States, Senator from North Carolina, successful trial lawyer, husband, father--and philanderer. It is for this last that it seems he was most proficient and for which he will be most remembered.

The depth of his self-interest is way beyond that of us mortals. You know, just to begin with, you have to have a pretty substantial ego to be a lawyer. To strive, as your life's work, to extract honestly earned money from companies engaged in legal enterprises--yes, tobacco companies are legal, and sell honest products--to compensate people who claim they didn't know smoking was unhealthy is -- well, nuts.

All the arguments of smoking aside, no one made those folks take up smoking or stay with it. People quit with good results all the time. The point of it all is to overcome this much fairness and rational thinking, a trial lawyer has to have a grand vision powered by a massive ego.

You need a little ego as well if you're running for one of your state's two senate seats. To consider yourself worthy of the upper house over all the other accomplished politicos in your state takes a lot of chutzpah indeed.

And then of course as your ego feeds on the glories heaped upon itself the senate gets a little crowded and small. You have get the ego out where the whole nation can nurture it as you announce you're running for President as the champion of the little guy. (All Democratic presidential candidates claim to be for the "little guy," then they get elected and stick it to him.)

By 2008, in the midst of his second campaign, Edwards' ego was large enough to have its own staff. But his wife was dealing with cancer which did not feed his ego and actually interfered with it. In spite of this Edwards faded out of the spot light in deference to his ailing wife. Well, good for him we thought.

We thought.

Actually he was carrying on an affair with one of his campaign staffers who was eventually with child. The ego was alive and well, but this was just too big and too many yahoos knew too much. The Senator arranged for an aide to claim the baby to throw any wolves off the trail. Only an ego the size of Edwards' would have presumed this would work. Media operatives were suspicious and point-blank asked the Senator what he knew, their fires stoked by the story having broken in a check-out line publication. But Edwards' ego permitted him to lie his way out. After all, the country desperately needed his leadership!

The ensuing media storm has been ferocious. Some are furious that the aide, Andrew Young, dared to subsequently expose Edwards' lies. Edwards, after all, was a big-government Democrat; those who throw stones at big-government Democrats must be soundly and immediately discredited and destroyed in current mainstream-media thinking. Others have apologized for Edwards, explaining his behavior away in terms of an aristocratic, demanding wife who is defined by a violent temper. "Why," they say, "wouldn't he be easily attracted to a kinder, more charismatic woman who makes herself available?"

No one seems to hold Edwards himself accountable except for millions of us out herein flyover country.

Young, who has written a book, is not received warmly by the news shows and pundits who couldn't stuff this one under the carpet for their boy. They are sick that Edwards was nailed so effortlessly by -- of all publications -- The National Enquirer and soon thereafter by Andrew Young and his book. Obama may be the star in the movie about Democratic politics in 2008 but Edwards was their Best Supporting Actor; too close to the top (read: Too Big) to fail.

All of these stories have a life cycle, and this one has run through it. With a little media help Edwards will now lay low somewhere in an exclusive apartment and wait for his wife to die. The Enquirer has snuffed out his political career for now. The only thing he has to be thankful for is that he's not a Republican. If he were, that life cycle would run for years.

Home sweet home

It is evermore good to be home. My Las Vegas trip was a disaster for me. I had a combination sinus infection, common cold and bad attitude. Oh, how I didn't want to be there.

I thought at least the dry desert climate would make me feel better but alas it rained off and on and was in the 40's. Cold rain doesn't clear the head. An odd combination of ibuprofen and Day-Quil got me through, along with probably 500 pounds of Kleenex. Nothing much helped the bad attitude except coming home.

Sitting in meetings hour after hour is draining. The lack of activity and the buffet lunches disrupted my feeble attempt to eat well. The worst thing was an incredible lack of coffee.
The hotel didn't see wasting money on in-room coffee makers like most business-oriented hotels offer. Of course this was a resort with a casino, not a Holiday Inn Express. They had a Starbucks counter that opens at six, but I get up at five and like coffee first thing--not an elevator ride and long walk down the hall away. I am still trying to get back to normal.

And of course there is something ironic about listening to a briefing on master labor agreements for employees who haven't had a raise in five years while sitting in a meeting room of a hotel charging a hundred bucks a night to ninety or so people. I know the hundred large this event cost the company wouldn't fund much for hourly wage increases, but they could have bought every single employee a steak dinner or new winter jacket. That would have been money better spent in my humble opinion. Everything else could have been put in a letter.

The whole Vegas thing didn't make sense. They ran the meetings so late that the hotel shuttle over to the strip closed down before anyone could make good use of it and not that many gambled anyway. And for a lot of us, Las Vegas is a two-segment ride on an airplane which burns more time on either end than a meeting held in a hub like Dallas, Atlanta or Denver.

There is a lot I don't understand in life and they're coming out with more all the time so I can't dwell on this very long. But that was four days of my life I won't get back. Maybe that was what caused the bad attitude.