I am not sure. I've had the strangest month of days in recent memory. Between jury duty, this crazy sinus infection, the trip to Houston, and the time change, I'm not entirely sure which way is up. I've found myself asking, "Food? Is it my feeding time?" And that's just weird.

I've been horrible at updating the site over the past couple of weeks, primarily because I haven't had both the time and the inclination. I've also been sitting on an offensively large pile of email since I finished jury duty, and I'm not even sure where to start whittling it down. Hopefully, I'm able to remedy all of that somehow.

Today, though, I wanted to talk about my trip to Texas. I always like getting to go places on work's tab, and this wasn't an exception. If it wasn't for the nose congestion, it might have been a better trip, but it still wasn't too bad.

I have been doing some web work for Greater Houston Pool Management. Way back last year or so, Val and I put together their site design for them, and I have been tweaking their MicroWiki ever since. It's not a big job, but they aren't die-hard web developers, so getting them running with the wiki required some education.

So the trip was designed for me to visit and get the last of their questions ironed out, which I'm pretty sure is all taken care of now. (Incidentally, if you're looking for swim lessons in the Houston area, they've got them.)

My impressions of Houston are sadly the least favorable of any city I have ever visited. Actually, Houston is probably the first city I've ever been to where I'm left with no desire to return. As I was saying to Berta while standing in the airport waiting for my flight home, I couldn't wait to get the heck out of that place.

I'm not sure why that is, even. While I was there, it was very foggy and overcast, making it somewhat humid. That wasn't a big factor, but it didn't help my sinuses feel any better.

I didn't actually see the city, I don't think. I mean, I didn't see a skyline at all. And the only thing I saw that even resembled a city was when I drove to the Galleria Mall to get dinner and have a look around. It was basically a very long road with lots and lots of restaurants, but not much else that looked interesting.

The mall itself was kind of neat. There's an ice skating rink inside. I wasn't inclined to do any skating, though.

Of course, everything in Texas is flat. Maybe that's it. I'm used to seeing the rolling hills of Eastern Pennsylvania, and maybe the flatness of things makes me angry or something. Perhaps it's all just psychological.

On the way back from the Galleria, the navigation system in my rental car sent me onto a "ez-tag only" roadway. Well, I didn't have an ez-tag. I wonder what the fine would be for the $1 toll, if they ever catch up with me through the maze of paperwork that the rental car company pushes around. I totally expected some spikes to blow out my tires as I pulled off the next exit.

I did get some personal things done, which is one thing that makes getting away kind of nice. I watched most of Underworld: Evolution before I fell asleep. You have to understand that in order to catch my flight on Wednesday morning, I had to be up at 3am. The flight departed at 6am. I arrived in Houston at 8am. I worked a full day, then drove to the mall to tour and have dinner, and returned to the hotel to watch most of the movie, but not quite to the end. I guess it wasn't as riveting as they had hoped. This was my third failed attempt to sit for the duration of this film. Oh, well.

In the morning I started another full work day, then took an 8pm flight home, getting me back to Philadelphia around midnight. (Don't forget to account for time zone changes!) I drove myself home from there, and finally saw my own bed around 1am.

Fortunately, I had Friday off, and I slept in a bit, but my internal clock is still all out of whack from the daylight savings change combined with the weird hours and time zone switches. An uneventful weekend might help, but since we're gearing up the house for moving (oh, no- I'll write a whole new post about that) I don't see that happening anytime, well, ever.

It's nice to travel, but I'm glad to be home.

A couple weeks ago I foolishly signed up for a Flickr Pro account. I'm not exactly sure what I was thinking. It doesn't do video and it won't give me a DVD backup of my photos, both of which I can do on my own server.

Anyway, I was wondering if you would like to see the photos I've added so far. They're not well-tagged, and some of them don't make any sense, but I would be interested to hear what you think.

We dragged the beat old couches out of the living room last night in preparation for the delivery today.

We had the old black pleather couches since we were living in the apartment. We brought them with us when we moved into the house, and Berta had since covered them with these canvas couch covers. (They're nicer than they sound.) The tops of the cushions were all torn. I'm talking giant holes. Berta thought it was time to be rid of them.

So they were having this "sale" at Raymour and Flannigan, and we got a new sofa and love seat. I say "sale" because I think that's the most I've ever paid for furniture, ever. Considering we bought the old couches at the old D-Town Farmer's Market, I'm not shocked.

Anyway, they're designed with these slipcovers so that you can have them clened, which will be good with the kids and particularly the cat, who often has hairball issues while he perched on the back of the seat. I'm also told that you can replace the covers with a different style, so it'll be cheaper if we decide to redesign than buying all new furniture or re-upholstering. I'm still curious what the couch looks like with the covers off, though.

We're been waiting for these couches to come in to the store for a while now. A month, maybe? It's funy how they have signs hanging all over their showroom saying, "Free 3-day Delivery!" And then you have to wait a month before they deliver it. As if you'll get you couch super fast, but not really.

So I stopped at home today an took a couple shots of the cleanest you'll probably ever see the livingroom, what with all the toys usually laying around. They don't match the carpet too badly, no? There was some question whether the blue in the couch would go well with the green-tinted carpet, since we didn't really compare the fabric to the carpet at home before we bought the couches. But I think it looks good!

Now all we need is a matching recliner. Mmm. I feel the need to recline.

Ah, it's been too long since I've posted pictures of the kids. Last week on the one day that it wasn't miserably hot and humid, Berta and I took Abby and Riley to the carnival that comes around in the summer.

I wasn't feeling in top shape, so mostly Berta and Abby got on the rides. I think they had a good time, especially on the Tilt-a-Whirl.

There was this one contraption (there are a few photos of it) that Abby climbed through. It had this rop ladder that went to the second floor, and she was doing so well, but then she got scared of the height (I think) and the guy at the attraction had to carry her up to the next floor. Hopefully, she'll grow out of the fear of being five feet off the ground.

I regret that we didn't play any of the carnival games, but at the time, none of them seemed really attractive. They had all the typical rigged games - toss the ball into the barrel, shoot the plastic cups down with a cork gun, throw darts at a wall of balloons, etc. There was this "new" game where you roll balls down a ramp into little slots and try to total up points to win a prize. That looked really rigged. There were also basketball tossing stations - yes, two separate booths - which I always avoid. Why they can't simply drag a Whack-a-Mole game around with them is beyond me. I kill at that game.

Riley rode on the Carousel, and that's about it. He's too small yet to get on anything good. Abby was too short for some of the rides, even. I didn't realize that the carnival had such restrictions on their rides. Probably a good idea, considering that some of the ride operators look (and smell) like they're on crack.

While I'm on the topic, I thought I'd point out something I found humorous: The people at the carnival this year seemed more like carnies than the people running the carnival. I've never seen so many people chain smaoking near their babies in one place. The sum of teeth that these people were missing was quite high. A whole new dialect of English was spoken amongst the crowd.

Makes me long for high-priced themeparks, which tends to weed out the folks who suggest to their children that standing up on the swing mid-ride is a good trick to try. And on one hand, you think it's Darwinian; that these people will death-deny themselves into extinction. But then you notice that they survive their mishaps, and wonder what good your soft skull will do to protect you from a headbutt from that weathered cranium. But I digress.

Enjoy the photos.

I was thinking that it was pretty freakin' hot around here today. I confirmed this fact when I noticed the temperature guage in my car on the way back into work from lunch.

I took this picture after I stopped. Just before I left, it was 107!