Stephen's Den

This story is about a little foolishness I recently indulged in. Now, foolishness is not a particularly unusual story for me. That said, this is a somewhat unusual situation for me to be in. You see, quite recently, I have been wooed by a young suitor. The rational realist in me knows that the relationship will probably never work out. Still, the hopeless romantic in me wants to see what happens anyway and is enjoying every moment.

You see, it’s not every day I get to go on dates. I just hope I don’t end up hurting him, or myself. There will be more stories posted about this topic, but so as not to offend the sensibilities of some people, I am only linking to the story here. You won’t find it in email subscriptions or in RSS feeds, only from this link. If you don’t want to hear about my sordid love life, please, don’t click on this link.

I awoke this morning to the sound of scraping. That’s never a promising sign to the start of the day. I rolled over and groaned, initiating the same old argument I have with myself every morning.

“Time for work, Stephen”
“I don’t wanna”
“I don’t care, get up, it’s time for work”
“5 more minutes”
“… ok, 5 more minutes”

I snoozed for a little, listening to the sound of more scraping and some skidding. Not a good sign either.
Continue reading On thin Ice

Part of the Vegas experience is being constantly accosted by people trying to sell you something. Sometimes it’s a scruffy looking man in jeans and a T-shirt trying to sell you line passes to a club or half price tickets to tonight’s shows. Other times it’s a man dressed primly in a suit and tie, behind a desk at the hotel, inviting you to come over and see his specials in the most foreign of accents.

Sarah and I soon realised that neither Mr. Jeans nor Mr. Suit were really offering us anything we wanted. One afternoon, as we walked into the Venetian (on our way to see two of my favourite shows: Phantom and Blue man Group) we were confronted by a tall man in a suit with a distinctly Scandinavian accent.

Continue reading We Are Family

It was with a little twinge of regret that we left San Antonio and took the short trip up to Austin. On the way we stopped off at one of those American Icons: the International House of Pancakes (IHOP). I had traditional pancakes with bacon and Sarah had the chocolate chip pancakes.

We spent one night in Austin, which was really a bit of a letdown. I guess Austin’s nightlife is more suited to me than it is to Sarah 😉

We did resurrect the trip by having a very nice meal at Saltgrass on the way back up to Dallas. Once again, America’s proclivity for large helpings was painfully apparent (see the ribs pictured on the right).

Continue reading Pancakes, Assassination, Stockyards & Music

We checked out of the hotel and immediately started our journey West to the beautiful city of San Antonio.

We weren’t quite done with Houston yet, we had one more place on our itinerary: the museum of natural science.

One of the most breathtaking aspects to the museum is their enormous collection of precious stones. The gem depicted here on the right is one of the few that I managed to photograph without blurring.

Other parts to the museum included the dinosaur exhibit and some hands-on science exhibits around (what else but) oil mining and production.

Continue reading Houston to San Antonio

As you already know, Sarah came to join me in Texas on Saturday the 9th of December till her departure on the 1st of January. Her arrival was scheduled for 6:25pm that evening, so it was 5pm when I took to the interstate in my little hybrid car, with 2 diet cokes on board. I have made the trip out to the airport a number of times so made the 1 hour journey through Dallas from memory only.

I picked up a visibly bedraggled Sarah at around 6:15 that evening. She was too tired to do anything exciting, so I took her on a tour of that all-American icon: Wal-Mart and we had Mexican food (On the Border Mexican Grill & Cantina). This was Sarah’s first taste of America’s pathologically large portion sizes: predictably, neither of us managed to finish our meals.

Continue reading Dallas to Houston

I went to Bass Pro over thanksgiving weekend. Now, Bass Pro is an enormous (two storey) hunting supply store. The reason I went there is I have a friend with a weakness for army gear (you know who you are).

I wondered if I would get some army gear there, you know: combat boots, camouflage pants, that sort of thing. Turns out they don’t have much in the way of army gear, but they do have a whole lot of everything else.

Continue reading This is a lovely room of death

It snowed yesterday. All week, the weather man had been threatening “ice rain” would hit us Thursday. When I returned to my car after work that night, I was surprised to see my car was covered in a film of ice. I unlocked the door and tried the handle. Locked. Unlocked it again then tried to open it: locked again! So I tried a third tie, this time I pulled harder and the door opened with a crack. The ice was keeping the door closed!

Needless to say, driving home was an experience. It was very difficult to see out of the rear view window at first but this eventually cleared up. At temperatures of -3C any precipitation that fell at that time ended up as snow. When I eventually arrived home I was treated to the sight of snow on my steps.

Now, I quite like snow but have never seen it actually snowing. This was the first time in my life I had ever seen a little precipitation. Granted it wasn’t anything close to a snowstorm, but it was still a wonderful (and cold) experience. It’s hard to believe that not too long ago we were sweltering at 110 F and now I have to leave the heater on all day and night so that the water pipes don’t freeze.

Auckland may be well known for four seasons in one day, but Texas certainly does appear to have very stark seasons. The next morning my neighbour (who borrows my washing machine every now and again) kindly dissolved the ice on my windscreen with isopropyl alchohol.

As they say here in the US: “it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas”.

I woke up a little late this morning, promptly rolled over and went back to sleep. There are few things more decadent than sleeping in on a Thursday morning. The autumn sun was streaming in through my balcony’s glass door when I eventually made my languid way out of bed. One of the nice things about Texas is you really do notice the seasons changing. Summer was very hot, autumn cooled considerably and the changing of the leaves promise an even colder winter to come.

I retired to the lounge, munching on a “South Beach” friendly breakfast bar. There I sat and made a list of things I wanted to get done in the holidays. It’s a long and ambitious list.

One of my goals was to do something nice for Thanksgiving dinner. I decided I would cook it myself since eating out doesn’t quite seem special enough for thanksgiving, nor does warming up some pre-cooked turkey burger sound particularly in the holiday spirit. A few Internet searches later and I had the list of ingredients I needed for a fantastic thanksgiving meal.

Continue reading Celebrating Thanksgiving by Consuming

Today is Thursday the 23rd of November. For most of the world it’s just like any other day, or perhaps it’s celebrated as a harvest festival. For Americans it’s a special holiday: thanksgiving. It’s a time in which the Americans remember their history and the hardships faced by the early settlers (along with some of the less edifying aspects of their history).

One of the most interesting developments of this holiday, however, is it has become a time for reflection and for family. A time to sit back, take stock and appreciate one’s family and friends. The Americans have a saying: “no one should spend thanksgiving alone”.

Well, I was planning on doing a weekend trip to somewhere over thanksgiving but I decided not to, instead I am going to slow down, take a break and take stock of where I am. I have bought some stationary and plan on writing hand-written letters to family, because I know it’s always nice to receive a handwritten letter.

Thinking about family, it’s so easy to get disillusioned: alone in a foreign country, no close friends, no family: not much in the way of a social network to fall back on. Still, even faced with yet another long weekend to spend by myself I have to admit that I have a lot to be thankful for. Career, car, savings, travel, life really hasn’t been much better than this and it’s only looking to improving.

To top it all off, I have discovered a good quality Vodka I can actually drink here. It’s called “Grey Goose” and it’s from France. The quality of the Vodka makes an incredible difference to the drinking experience. I highly recommend spending the extra money and getting something decent.

So for these reasons, my glass is more than a little half full this year. Happy thanksgiving, everyone!