Stephen's Den

“Look, it’s Razzoo’s” Stephen exclaimed as we were driving home on the 635 “are you hungry?”

I shrugged my shoulders and grinned. I was a little hungry and he certainly seemed excited about it. “It’s Cajun style food, really good” he enthused. He’s quite proud of his Cajun heritage.

As we neared the colourfully decorated restaurant he quietly warned me “you know I’m ordering fried gator tail, right?” I grimaced.
My only regret was that I didn’t have my camera on me. This shot, to the right, was taken on Stephen’s phone. For those who are curious, it tastes somewhat like chicken, but with the texture of fish. This was just the appetiser, though, we were soon ready for the mains.

If there was one word I could use to describe Cajun food, it would be: flavourful. Every single thing on my plate (with the possibly exception of the purely decorative lettuce leaf) was boldly flavourful in its own right, even the bread. They are not shy about salt and spices.
Most cultures have some aspect to their food that is somewhat bland. Even Indian or Thai curry usually comes with a large helping of bland rice. you can rest your palate on. There was no such culinary respite here. Every mouthful was a powerful taste.

One of our more memorable moments in Vegas was not actually had anywhere near sin city, nor even in the gambling state of Nevada, but rather over a hundred miles east to the Grand Canyon.

In hindsight, I was just a little overenthusiastic with our booking. The day we arrived in Vegas, I booked our tour to the grand canyon for the next day.

We awoke bleary-eyed to the sound of our wake-up call and dragged ourselves through the width of the Luxor over to the furthest entrance to the Excalibur. After waiting for the last remaining passengers to hop on board, we took a quick bus ride to the location of our tour bus. Sarah and I sat at the back of the bus and got comfortable for the approximately 4 hour drive from Vegas to the canyon.

Continue reading Grand Canyon

On Sunday, I went to a place in Texas called “Six Flags”. All-in-all, it’s just one more very expensive amusement park. It was quite a pleasant, humid, Texas afternoon. It was overcast, though, so the sun didn’t interfere too much with our enjoyment. Stephen (not me, the other one), I quickly realised, doesn’t have a high tolerance for roller coasters, so I ended up going on a couple of rides on my own.

Perhaps the most fun ride was the famous “Texas Giant”. When built in 1990, it was the tallest wooden roller coaster in the world (that’s right: wooden roller coaster). I was foolish enough to try catch a video of the experience. Too late, I discovered that a wooden roller coaster makes for one very bumpy ride. Please enjoy the video. If you listen carefully, you may hear the occasional expletive escape my lips.

As the title of this post suggests, last Saturday was Cinco De Mayo (May 5th). In a strange example of borrowed culture, the Americans tend to celebrate this distinctly Mexican holiday, originally intended to celebrate Mexican independence. The way in which I ended up celebrating this day was to go to Mayfest in Fort Worth. I went with Craig, one of my friends from church (no, mom, it’s not like that, seriously).

Craig is one of those people who I would like to be like when I get older. Dispite the fact that he needs to use crutches to get around, he’s kept himself particularly fit and healthy. He lives in a lovely home which is filled with beautiful things and only works when he wants to. Among those beautiful things are the cats, or his children as he calls them: mutant and psycho-kitty.

Continue reading Cinco De Mayo

“Look, here’s bragging rights” Todd poked his nose into my cubicle, his eyes twinkling behind his glasses, just a little more than usual.
“Oh, sounds exciting, show me” I swiveled around and paid him my full attention.
“Look at this, I designed it.” Todd proudly proffered a print-out of a plane.
“See, there” he pointed at a part of the tail “I designed that”. He practically beamed.

Continue reading Respect

Those of you who know me know I love to sing. Lately, most of my singing happens while I am in the car, driving from home to work or work to home. Here’s a selection I recorded.

• We Didn’t Start the Fire
• And so it goes
• Caro Mio Bien
• Danny Boy
• Old Man River

I hope y’all get a kick out of it.

This post describes probably one of the most stressful days of my life. This all happened on Monday, 5th February 2007, I call it black Monday.

Before I launch into it, I want to make it clear that I am fine, mentally, physically and emotionally. I am taking care of myself. I also want to explain that it does seem as though I am making myself out to be a martyr here. Sometimes it feels that way, but really all I am trying to do is to do the “right thing”. Exactly what the “right thing” entails is complex and ever-changing.

Stephen spent the weekend with his parents so that he could spend time with his aunt & uncle who had come down for a visit. I met his relatives too, that’s a story in and of itself. That Monday morning I went to work with a fully charged phone, just in case things went wrong. I sent Stephen an encouraging text message, because I was worried about him, and settled in to work.

Continue reading Through the Looking Glass

I think I may have mentioned that Stephen is a writer. It’s his only passion in life and the only thing he currently seems to have any motivation to do. He recently finished a short story and self-published it online using a service called “Lulu”. It’s a dark story, based on Stephen’s actual life story. If you ever get a chance to read it, the bits that seem so outrageous, so scary that they must be fiction are most likely true, it’s the mundane things that he embellished.

You can get a preview of the first chapter here. If you want a copy and you’re in New Zealand, you don’t need to get a physical copy, you can get a downloaded copy for just a few bucks. It’s not the sort of book I would usually read, it’s too dark for me, it smacks of fight club in that it deals with mental illness, among other things.

It’s both interesting and scary that the perpetrator of the Virginia Tech shootings was an English major and also wrote dark stories. The difference is, Cho Seung-Hui simply wasn’t treated.

Ok, I have a confession to make: I love storms. One of the things I miss the most about South Africa is the extravagant lightning storms we were treated to. The full black clouds hanging ominously overhead, while fork lightning strikes the ground to the dissonant rapport of the thunder. I also love the sound of wind and rain, especially if I am cuddled up warm in bed.

Imagine my delight, then, when Mark from a few doors down ran out of his apartment and yelled at me: tornado warning for here, right now, best get inside!

What was I doing outside in the first place? Well, I was taping blankets and foam onto my beautiful car so as to prevent hail stones from damaging the exterior, of course!

Continue reading Tornado Warning

This post is about South Africa. I tell many stories of the 18 years I lived in South Africa, most of which is true. Possibly one of the most bizarre tales I have to tell is of the South African taxis.

A “Taxi” is not really a taxi in the traditional sense of the word. It’s actually a hi-ace kombi van, designed to seat about 15 people, plus the driver. South African taxi drivers are well renowned for their selective application of the road code and their proclivity for dangerously overloading their taxis. It’s not uncommon to see a broken down beat-up old vehicle with almost no suspension, tailgate scraping on the tarmac and the door opening automatically, not due to any clever electronics, but courtesy of the fact that it is tied on with rope (I have seen this).
The image above is borrowed with permission from Mike Gerhardt (flickr).

Continue reading South Africa Taxi Wars