Last weekend we went down to Houston and then Galveston for a mini-vacation. It was a lot of fun, except I had a really bad cold which lasted until yesterday… Galveston was very nice! I always thought that it was just an industral town on the gulf coast, but it is really pretty cool! It definitely feels tropical down there, with palm trees and salt air. We stayed at the Moody Gardens Hotel, which is right next to… Moody Gardens! The hotel was pretty empty which made it odd when we saw a Japanese family vacationing there. In the morning we ate at the hotel restaurant breakfast buffet and there were three other families there, and one of them was Japanese. They were kind of weird, the mother was really mean looking and the father was wearing a Tijuana Mexico t-shirt. Very odd… Anyways, we spent Monday morning at the Rainforest Pyramid which had lots of tropical plants, parrots, butterflies, native fish and birds, etc. That was nice, but it was humid as heck! After that we went to the Aquarium Pyramid. I enjoyed that more because it was air-conditioned and the fish were beautiful. They had a few sharks, penguins, rays, sea lions and of course “Nemo”.

On the way home we stopped by Houston to eat some sushi. We wanted to go to a restaurant that was recommended by a friend, but we forgot the address at home. It was about 2pm when we arrived in Houston, so we were worried about missing lunch and having the place closed. We ended up going to another Japanese restaurant named Sasaki. It closed at 2:30 so we just made it in time. They were really nice! It was a small Japanese-owned place, and they gave us free sushi for Bay, plus a nice shrimp appetizer. We ate lots of sushi, which was yummy. After that we went to Ikea and picked up a few things, then headed back to Austin. I will post some pictures later. We only took a few, but a couple at Galveston turned out really good.

By the way, in Galveston we ate at a restaurant called Willie-G’s which was great! Mariko had a blackened red snapper with crab, and I had some fried shrimp and oysters. Oh, when we were walking on the beach, Bay stepped in some doggie doo-doo and I didn’t know until after I carried him around for a bit. I ended up having it on my shorts… yuck.

Yesterday I was a the car dealership wandering around the lot, and it was cold! It was a rainy day, and windy too. Just a couple days before, it was sunny and around 109°F. Today is also wet and rainy, and the high is only supposed to get up to 88°F. It’s just freaky here. Lightning and thunderstorms. On Monday night the wind peeled up some shingles on my neighbor’s roof. The next day I noticed that a lot of fences were blown over too.

My friend Chris and I went to the Nissan dealership to go pick up Mariko’s car which was getting some work done on it. The work took longer than expected, but that gave us plenty of time to check out the new Nissans. I really wanted to see the new Quest, and they had five or six of them in the lot. One of the salespeople unlocked one so we could check out the interior. Man, was I impressed! It is an awesome car! I have always wanted a minivan, starting from the Toyota van that preceeded the Previa, and this new Quest is the best I have seen. The interior is amazing. The design is totally stylized and clean. It is definitely not like anything else in a car. The center console is super! It will be interesting to see how this advanced design will age, whether it will still be great, or just cheesy. Anyways, the back passenger seats were nice too, with tons of room, a roof-mounted dvd screen and a/c controls. The rear lift-gate was nice too, you just lift the handle, and it pops up, power-assisted. They didn’t have any with the sky-view windows, which I think are a must!

I am writing this entry from Mariko’s laptop. It is very very cool! The network connection is wireless. I am actually in bed and Bay is asleep next to me.

So we ordered a Dell laptop a couple weeks ago to replace Mariko’s aging desktop machine. The Dell factory is probably about a 10-15 minute drive from our house. For some silly reason, the computer has been shipped, but is up in Dallas being sorted, then it will be shipped back down here. Sheesh, I wish I could have driven to the factory and just picked it up…

Anyways, we got a wireless router and card for it, so Mariko should be able to login from anywhere in the house. We can finally get rid of our iMac that is downstairs, along with the super-long network cable that snakes down the stairway. Yay!

Today we went to the Austin Public Library. It was great! I used to work at the library in my hometown, and then at the library at my University, but I haven’t been to one in a long long time. Maybe ten years. I had forgotten how great they are. The Austin Public Library is very nice, the collection is decent size, and they have a nice children’s book section. Unfortunately we could only check out two books yesterday because I got a new library card, but the next time we go back, I am going to get a bunch! Although the main library is downtown on 8th and Guadalupe, we can return books to any branch library. They have an internet login too, so I can reserve books online, and check the status of books and the due date, etc.

For those of you living in Austin and listen to KUT 90.5 you know that Eklektikos is a show on everyday for several hours. The regular host, John Aielli, has been on vacation and Jeff McCord has been sitting in for him. Man, Mr. McCord is soooo much better than Aielli. Usually for me, right after Morning Edition is over, it’s time to put in a CD. But not when Jeff McCord is at the controls. He consistently plays great music, lots of really quality stuff. Most of the songs are by bands I have never heard of, but definitely want to hear more of. When John Aielli is at the helm, it’s really hit or miss. Mostly miss. Please give Jeff McCord more airtime!

Look who else is running for Governor!