News from

 

From overseas:

I found out today that the vice presidential debate (Biden-Palin) is on October 2.  Did you know that?  I didn’t.  I read it just now on Le Monde (the French newspaper).  What’s up with that?   I mean, I read the Washington Post and NY Times on line almost every day, hit BBC News online about every day, and I find out about our vp debate from my ancestor’s country (yeah, I’m just about 100% French ancestry, via souther Louisiana. Deal.)

From down south:

I lived in Houston for 9 years (’72-’81). I still have friends and relatives who live there.  It’s  a very flat town, and when it floods, it floods.  There was a flash flood one summer that popped up out of nowhere – just rain, not even a big storm – flooded major areas of the city, including the downtown hospital center.  In that one afternoon, they estimated 6,000 cars were total losses.  There were a few drownings.  An odd feature of Houston freeways is that the freeway is trundling along, then the freeway will dive down and go under the regular streets.  It’s kinda odd, and I haven’t seen that technique used as much anywhere else.  the problem there is that these big troughs then fill up with water, and folks have been known to drive into them and drown. 

 

Their downtown there is impressive yet fragile.  Back in the late 70’s-80’s, they got into a skyscraper race – who could build the biggest one.  I’m pretty sure at least one building tops 100 floors.  Lots of glass.  Lots of glass next to a little short building.  The little short buildings usually have tar and gravel flat roofs.  The gravel isn’t really all that stuck.  Hurricane force winds turn the little buildings into sawed off shotguns pointed at the big buildings.

 

While we were in college, one of our crowd, his dad was a doctor and they had a beach house down on Galveston beach.  A hurricane came thru back then too – can’t remember the name. His dad sent us down to check on the beach house.  It was one of those beach houses up on stilts – lower level functioned as carport, showers, and stairs up to the upper two floors.  There were a bunch of them all along the beach, a long row of houses.

When we got down there, all we could see were stilts sticking out of the sand. Not a single piece of wood left attached to any stilts.  It was a challenge to try to figure out which set of stilts had belonged to Bill’s house.  If you can zoom in on the one on the right, the white building…

 

 

 

Interesting other news:  the IFGE conference preparations are proceeding, probably good enough…  yeah, could be better.

 

And a good friend just called and basically asked if I wanted to start as a personal chef for her parents, who are aged and not eating well cause they just don’t cook anymore.  wow.  a real cooking job.  busy busy busy!

 

more later, stay well.

Oh, and one more thing:  We’re going to a wedding shower tomorrow.  Two of our friends, both MTF transsexuals, are getting married in a couple of months.  Legally.  In Virginia.  The trick is that one of them is fully transitioned (all the surgeries, drivers license says "F"), and the other one is not quite that far along (looks like a girl, but the drivers license still says M, no surgeries yet).  So, legally, that’s a girl and a guy.  What happens after they’re hitched is not the government’s business…     

 

-Jude