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I'm back online and settling into the new place. Did anyone miss me? I thought not. Anyway, it's been a long couple weeks with no television, no phone, and Internet. Everything is good now, but it looks like I have a lot of reading to do. Plus, I've missed the last three Enterprise episodes. Bummer. On the plus side, I do have some pictures to bore you guys with.
This is supposedly a safe neighborhood, but I can't understand why there are four locks on the front door.
Here is my cat, Yellow. She's still ticked at me for abducting her from home and dragging her down here.
This is the courtyard my unit looks out on to. It's nice to go out there in the evenings right now (for some reason, it's been staying in the 80s the past couple weeks).
I went for a walk earlier this week and snapped some pictures of the area. Here's the outside of my apartment complex. Here's our next-door neighbor, The Council on Alcohol and Drugs. Across the street is Cleveland Park -- one of several parks within walking distance of my apartment. I'm walking across the pedestrian bridge spanning Memorial Drive. Looking the opposite way, you can see Williams Tower (which is one block north of where I work).
Houston has no zoning laws whatsoever, so it's not uncommon to see very tall skyscrapers rising out of the middle of residential neighborhoods. For example, here's the American General Corporation complex. For another example, here's a 33 story condo building underconstruction. They're both just a street over from me on Allen Parkway.
Here's a couple pictures of EleanorTinsley Park. It runs along Buffalo Bayou from the edge of downtown until a little past my apartment. Here's a shot of downtown Houston from the Waugh Street overpass. And here's the Gus Wortham fountain that's at the other end of the overpass.
That concludes this little tour. It's really cool living here. My roommate is great, and the commute to work is a heck of a lot shorter. It's also a nicer drive since I'm cutting through Memorial Park instead of the ghettos. I wish I had done this sooner instead of spending last year in the dorms. The only thing I worry about is the upcoming hurricane season. I have a front-row seat should the bayous flood again.
Registered: Mar 1999
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The locks are there to deter intuders. This way, they can't claim they didn't know they were breaking and entering when you shoot them. I recommend a S&W model 65 revolver, which fires both .38 and .357 rounds.
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Okay, let me add that to the list of things I still need to buy. I need some another pot, a new skillet, some curtains, a kitty-catnip scratching post, and a firearm with ammunition. Gotcha.
Registered: Mar 1999
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I assume that's the reason, but I don't know for certain. The girlfriend of my best friend in high school named her. We found this cat when she was a kitten abandoned at a softball park. We brought her home, but no one in my family bothered to name her.
Three months later, my friend Kyle and his girlfriend Allison come over to the house. She starts asking me about the cat, and I tell her that it doesn't have a name (other than my mother talking about "That damn cat!"). Allison is shocked, so I tell her to pick a name. She chose "Yellow."
Now, Yellow is quite skiddish. She's afraid of any and all changes, and she always runs into hiding when unfamiliar people show up. It takes her a long time to accept new pets and people. Plus, she usually walks around in a manner that suggests she expecting something to attack her. That's one reason. The other possible reason is that yellow was Allison's favorite color.
-------------------- The philosopher's stone. Those who possess it are no longer bound by the laws of equivalent exchange in alchemy. They gain without sacrifice and create without equal exchange. We searched for it, and we found it.
Registered: Mar 1999
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Don't be yellow. Buy a pre-ban clip for a 9mm Glock (depending on the size of your hand, you might want the full size 17 or the compact 19 -- get a "compensated" if the recoil bugs ya'), and stop any intruder with thirty-three (plus one in the chamber) mixed hollow point and wadcutter rounds.
Get a membership at a local range (don't buy your ammo from the range -- it's like buying coke & popcorn at the movie theater) and practice, practice, practice. Make sure you can hit the target ... don't just blaze away, take a shot, recover, fire again, etcetra. Don't be too fooled -- there's no such thing as "stopping power" (one wonders about certain cowboys arming themselves with .45 caliber SigSauers ... ), it's all about where you hit 'em (not with what).
Nice cat. We had major problems with our two while we were away on honeymoon. Last guest from the wedding left the house on the Monday (two and a half weeks ago now), the day our housesitter was due to arrive, and the cats were outside at the time. She got there on Thursday. And maybe went to the house twice after that. Days at a time they were stuck inside or out with little or no food, in a heatwave. Neighbours had to leave bowls of water in our front garden for them, I'm amazed no-one set the RSPCA on us. I knew we shouldn't have trusted that cunt.
Anyway. The Council on Alcohol and Drugs? Boy, I bet the minutes of their meetings ROCK. "Dude, Chairpershon guy, may I shtate for the record that you are like, totally my besht friend, I really love you *hic!* Shay, anyone elshe here got the munchiesh?"
Memorial Drive. Can anyone remember what it's named after? 8)
"It's not Amway, it's American General Corporation. It's a completely different kind of business!"
Nice park. Lots of places to dump interns' bodies. Can you direct me to the Gary Condit Conduit?
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So that's where Joe Montana has been hiding lately...
-------------------- "Lotta people go through life doing things badly. Racing's important to men who do it well. When you're racing, it's life. Anything that happens before or after is just waiting."
-Steve McQueen as Michael Delaney, LeMans
Registered: Mar 1999
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Here's a picture for Daryus. I found a bottle of the stuff in with my roommate's spices while I was cooking this evening. I guess I need to find some recipes for the stuff.
Vogon Poet, I trust your cats are okay? That's great that your neighbors were helping them out like that. Other than the problem with the housesitter, how was the honeymoon?
The aquarium has a couple clown fish and a pleco in it. It's my roommate's aquarium, and he tells me that he's getting some fish soon. He has four more aquariums in his bedroom. I ought to get a picture of that setup (if he'll let me)!
My bedroom is really spartan, I know. I'm shifting things around, and I'm looking to drop by IKEA for some furniture. Unfortunately, my finances are really strained with this apartment. That'll have to wait until my student loan comes in or until I find a second job.
I have no idea what goes on inside The Council on Alcohol and Drugs. Whatever it is, it must be loads of fun. I always see teenagers and young adults on the east side of the building hanging out and smoking.
I've got no idea what Memorial Drive is named after. I'd say it's named for the park, but I don't know what the park is named for. I doubt its a war veterans memorial since there's already one in the northwest part of town. This is one really long road, though. It starts at downtown and runs westward about twenty to thirty miles.
Yeah, there are lots of great places around here to dump bodies. Memorial Park is a little over 1500 acres, and a majority of that is still heavy forest. Eleanor Tinsley Park isn't so good to hide bodies since it's more grassland than forest. There's also a higher chance of getting seen by a jogger or police officer (the police officer's memorial is in this park).
The359, Joe Montana is nothing. There's a cutout of the Seven Dwarves sitting in the hallway looking into my room. That's rather creepy.
Registered: Mar 1999
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Sorry, but the kitty litter box is staying in that corner. And you can put a gun safe in my room when you pry the lease from my cold dead hands.
Registered: Mar 1999
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), it's all about where you hit 'em (not with what). 
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