Saturday night – hometown

We’re making this a very quick round-trip down to Houston… I. I’m feeling a little weird that I don’t have time to see other friends and family…. but t’s really nice to be back in my hometown

DIane and I woke up much earlier than the rest of the family so we went outside to drink our coffee. We saw this guy. I forgot how much these beautiful lizards were part of our life.

Billy actually woke up for a short bit to take Andy out for a quick ride… They are so cute together and Billy’s triumph. Then Billy came back and went back to sleep. has really fun time schedules. People are up really late at night… Sometimes all night and sleep at various time during the day. It’s a very cool other world.

It was plenty hot sown there.. Houston hot.. not what we are used to.. but hanging out in the pool really helped.

We love staying with billy and Shawn.. so much. cool stuff to see and do.. or not do.. which we gladly did by just sitting on the porch

Billy took Andy and me on a ride down tot eh medical center.. I got to see the huge expansion that the Houston medical center is making. it’s already the biggest medical center in the world.. .. One feature I liked was a set of winding sidewalks that make the winding helix of DNA. Supposedly when it’s finished. the helix will eb visible from space !

After some doggy time. Later on in the afternoon, max, diane and I headed to see the house aI grew up in .

First we stopped at St Francis church.. a place I got into all sorts of mischief in.. It’s where I learned to pick locks ! The place is full of old st francis statues.. I used to talk to these guys.. good to see them all doing ok.

Then we crossed piney point to check out shady glen where we all used to live.

Here’s the old house.. I’ve been back many times.. it still brings back a nice feeling of ‘home’ to me.

the place was looking good. ! we met the current owners Leon and Donna and talked to them about the house and the neighborhood. THye were great !

a huge pine tree had just come down in the backk yard during hurricane Beryl.. which hit Houston hard a few weeks back ( then hit us I vermont a few days later !)

our old magnolia “Maggie” was still doing fine.. I gave her a kiss and a samstone for old times sake

From there we drove out I 10 towards Katy to meet Shawn and the kids at a Tech Arts spot called Seismique. Set in a strip mall in a part of Texas that used to be sugarcane or rice… This was so far away from the center of Houston but we were still inside the city limits… This place has gotten so huge in the last 60 years !

Seismique was fun… It felt like a meow wolf wannabe… It had some great interactive art.. there was no unifying theme. I really did like the layout of the place…

I’m a sucker for cool lighting.. and there was plenty here

Lots of projection mapping.. something I want to do more of !

From there, we went all the way crosstown to catch Billy playing with one of his bands… Tonight was a big annual party in the part of Houston called the heights. Used to be a pretty rundown part of town… But now it had all sorts of crazy bars and restaurants… Super gentrified… But really nice. The event was called “white linen “and everyone… I mean everyone was dressed in white. This band is a bunch of friends old numbers and Billy is playing trombone. It was so great to watch… He was great. the whole Evening was great