A big hello to the handful of people who may still stop in on this site.

So… I had a nice happy hour with a couple of former colleagues earlier (but forgot to check in on FB – which is where we people of a certain age tend to record our lives these days – until later).

One was our service’s former product manager, who is a great guy and colleague who moved laterally in the organization (and whom we really miss on our team). The other was my most immediate “former boss,” another gem of a human being and a guy who really set the standard for managing high-performing, responsible professionals in a large organization (he was chased away/left amicably during our post-merger transition last year – still not entirely clear which of the two, but more of the former I think).

While I miss them both in our day-to-day work setting, it’s been kind of interesting to get to know them both a bit better outside of work. Who knew there were so many things to talk about outside of rocks/oil/gas? (that’s a sarcastic joke – of COURSE there are many more things to talk about). 🙂

Anyhoo, the drive across Houston got me thinking about how much I’ve come to value relationships like this. Maybe it’s a “getting old” thing – I certainly valued different things 20 years ago (although my two “former bosses” from that time period are among my most valued friends, interestingly enough). Even 10 years ago, I was probably more keen to fly somewhere on a weekend than to schedule a happy hour with current or former work colleagues (though there was still a fair amount of “social”). Now, I tend to lament how difficult it is to find time to get together with people I’d like to see and whom I feel like I’m neglecting.

Maybe it’s partly a function of age. You hit your 50s (with all that it entails – including, at this point in life, the passing of people you value), and maybe you start to value some things differently. Or, perhaps I should just speak for myself and say that’s DEFINITELY the case with me (instead of “you”).

Someone shared this post earlier in the year – The Tail End – that I’d never seen before (I think it was my friend Holly).

It really put the “time problem” (as I’ve come to think of it) into some perspective for me. What I’ve come to think of as a “Whited trait” is that I’m fairly decent at organizing, which is mostly just a matter of estimating time costs, understanding dependencies and people, and trying to make things efficient (that last is definitely a “Whited trait” – reunions the last few years have taught me that we are optimizers, hilariously so). It’s increasingly kinda crazy (read: maybe not so optimal) to me that so much time (haha!) is spent on work things. (I mean, not totally crazy – it’s good to pay the bills, and working through “work” projects/problems can be satisfying). Or to frame it slightly differently: Unless health technology changes radically, I’m increasingly cognizant that I’m on “the other side” of whatever halfway timeline there may be on this ol’ planet (of course, one generally doesn’t know HOW far on the other side!). 50 is a number, but reasonable enough for dividing line purposes (let’s be optimistic) and one I’m on the other side of.

So it’s probably worth spending a bit of time (haha!) thinking about things/people we value, and how we want to prioritize the stuff that is outside those things that pay our bills. Increasingly, for me, that’s furthering and/or nurturing the many relationships I’ve developed (partly through work, but increasingly family/friends/neighbors/other). At this point in life, it provides sustenance – interestingly enough! And that was the mini-revelation that came to me as I was driving home from the happy hour with former work colleagues. It was actually more than that: A great use (in my mind) of some of those remaining blocks of time.

Your mileage may vary. 🙂

I was reminded at lunch a few days ago that I had not put out the annual blog post that signifies we’re still kicking. Like SO MANY THINGS, the annual blog post has been sitting on a to-do list since just before the end of 2021. I just had other things that kept grabbing the free time. This seems to have become the constant problem of fifty-something life!

***

Unfortunately, the year that was to “end” the pandemic – 2021 –  really didn’t, although for all practical purposes, we began to treat COVID-19 as endemic after the two-dose Moderna vaccine, ditching the masks, resuming full workouts, and getting about the (mostly) free state of Texas to do stuff. We had a great trip to the Gruene area in May 2021 for some music and unwinding in the country, and I recall how refreshing it was that NOBODY WAS WEARING MASKS in Gruene. In Houston at the time, that was the exception, and masks were slow to come off at places like grocery stores.

I still think quality masks had some efficacy (particularly pre-vax), but increasingly it just became a form of theater, one that some people seem to want to practice forever.

Vaccines have a great deal more efficacy, although one will probably never convince some people of this. I have run across some people who insist that the graphene in the vax will reassemble in bodies as nanotechnology that can be controlled by 5G towers. *shrug* It’s probably not worth arguing about with some folks.

***

Despite optimism in last year’s annual post that travel would resume – and maybe even a trip to Greece, which I had booked for May at one point – we logged zero flight miles for the year. United wound up cancelling the rewards flights I had booked, and given the uncertainty over the virus, I just never got around to booking any others. At the end of January, my United elite status will expire (which is kind of liberating – no crazy mile runs planned on any alliances at the moment, but a decent chunk of miles/points that could be cashed in for nicer flights).

Several roadtrips were kind of fun as a replacement, although I expect we may log a few flights this year.

***

The City of Houston continues to get more expensive even as the quality of life declines. We finally did manage to get an illegal after-hours club shut down* after a murder took place just outside in September 2021. That was one of three such club-involved murders within about a mile radius of our neighborhood over the course of a few weeks.

Houston has become an increasingly lawless place, which may drive a move to the exurbs or further at some point. Maybe sooner than later.

* At least the location in our neighborhood shut down. Their second location continues to go strong, brazenly advertising their illegal activities on facebook. Have I mentioned that Houston is an increasingly lawless place?

***

Oh, we also had the Great Freeze in Texas in February.

That caught a lot of people unaware, and we were a little less prepared than I would have liked (as I’d put off having an electrician finish my transfer switch to hook the generator into the house, among other things on a “to do” list).

The freeze took out electricity for most and, eventually, water (because the City of Houston’s backup systems did not work properly, something that still has not been explained). Our pipes did not freeze and burst, thankfully, but it did get a bit chilly in the house on the second day.

I had thought as the storm was approaching to make a huge pot of chili and to smoke a pork butt, so we ate well the whole time. Plus, the fact it was a cold event meant food could be sat outside by folks who didn’t have generators to avoid spoilage (though some people didn’t think of this). I had stored water in containers purchased for hurricane prep, so that came in handy, as did the propane camp stove that we use for a lot of outdoor cooking (we have an electric, not a gas, stove in our kitchen, unfortunately).

We’re now a little more resilient than we were before, adding:

• The aforementioned transfer switch at the electric box and a patch cable for the generator (acquired new some years back at a huge discount from an auto parts store clearing ’em after Hurricane Harvey)
• More of these containers
• One of these guys and some camping propane bottles (I wouldn’t recommend running this much in the house, but a little at a time would seem to be safe)
• A couple of these guys (still need to acquire some folding solar panels), so that the generator doesn’t have to run constantly (wait for a sale – list price is too high). Lots of companies make these types of battery backups, but this particular brand has highly accelerated recharging.
• Some programmable radios (mobile phone service dies within about 3-4 hours in our neighborhood when the power goes out, which is not ideal – I have yet to play around with them much. On a list, of course!)

If we learned anything last February, it’s that government is not 100% reliable at providing basic services. We are far from “preppers” but I think we’re equipped to handle a longer period of basic service failure than many in the city now (by necessity).

***

Maybe more cabin or trailer camping should be in the cards going forward, hrm? 🙂

***

We managed to help organize the neighborhood July 4 parade and a National Night Out celebration with no hitches, so that was positive.

***

The Coogs’ Final Four run was fun, even though we chose not to see games in person (the season was mostly pre-vax).

***

That’s going to wrap it up for now. If you’re actually reading this, we should probably schedule beers one of these days!

If you’re still hanging in there and reading these annual updates, thanks! I’m really glad we’re all still here.

The folks in my immediate circle have (thus far) been spared the worst of the pandemic – so far, our health is good and we’ve managed to avoid the virus. However, like many, we do know folks who have lost family members to the scourge. Here’s hoping much better things are ahead in 2021, as vaccinations take hold and COVID-19 is beaten down.

***

Our travel hobby was suspended (obviously) in 2020, with one flight (to the Kansas City area) to show for the year. And that was… okay. We did manage a few roadtrips where we were able to see friends/family and distance outdoors, and even spent some time at the second-best icehouse in Texas (in San Antonio, a city we hadn’t visited in YEARS and kind of like after getting reacquainted, especially Southtown). I hope we’ll make it to a few international destinations in 2021 (at least Greece!), but more domestic roadtrips and cabin (or maybe trailer) camping are on the agenda as well.

***

With so many social options unavailable thanks to the pandemic, the social front yard became a real thing in our neighborhood. We already had a pretty great group of neighbors on the street, but when there aren’t many places to go and there’s only so much to stream (with March Madness and many sports shut down or delayed), you find entertainment around you. We now have quite a few homes on the street with inviting front yards that feature decorative lighting of some sort. We approve.

***

All that extra time at home translated into a banner year in the backyard raised-bed tomato patch. Such a good year, in fact, that I think it’s finally time to write that post on growing tomatoes in Houston. Because of our short season (thanks to the heat), it’s never easy to raise tomatoes in Houston, and our climate and season limit the sorts of varieties that will produce a lot of tomatoes (so you have to balance quality and quantity). After a solid ten years of experimenting with raised beds, timing, varieties, soil mixes, and such, I finally have some thoughts on how to go about raising tomatoes in Houston that I intend finally to commit to a post at some point. There really aren’t that many good resources on the topic out there!

***

In between raising tomatoes, socializing on the front yard, and firing things on the grill and smoker, the brother-in-law led a massive reno of our house in which walls and headers and old paneling and failing duct work and all sorts of things came down, and a nicely reopened, refashioned living space emerged. I got to help a bunch and may have even learned a little. The transformation was pretty incredible, and we love it (and there is the satisfaction that we helped make it). Lemonade from lemons or some such – take that stupid pandemic! (this would not have been possible if the West Alabama Icehouse hadn’t been forced shut for so long by the state, because it was a BIG, complicated project that we really didn’t trust with anyone but the BIL and ourselves)

***

I hit the big 50 last year (what?!). I envisioned spending the big event on a Greek island. Instead, it was pretty low key. In any event, I got to make larger 401k contributions. So there’s that!

***

These nitwits seemed to enjoy us being home a lot more.

***

Happy 2021 y’all!

I still keep thinking I’ll use this space from time to time to share thoughts on various life items — good products I’ve run across, funny stories, travel hacks and stories, neighborhood nonsense, and social/political stuff — but those intentions tend to keep bumping up against the enemy of time. Life is busy. Other things tend to get priority. So we’ll see.

We visited three new places last year (Maui, Cape Town/South Africa, and Sydney/New South Wales/Australia) and those fairly long trips chewed up a lot of vacation time and let us grab cheap Gold premier status on United.

One last time, anyway. It’s been a good run on the Continental, then United, loyalty program — we’ve seen a lot of places, gotten outsized value (until recent years anyway) on mileage redemptions, and managed to achieve Star Alliance Gold status (which improves the travel experience) on the cheap . However, United decided for 2020 that it doesn’t value cheap elites like us (we piled up lots of miles to places that were on sale while using a credit card waiver to make elite status possible without crazy spending). Instead, they have redesigned their loyalty program to reward high spenders and not actual mileage traveled, effectively firing us. Ah well!

We have a couple of options going forward. Right now, it’s still fairly easy to achieve Star Alliance gold status on the cheap through several other carriers. Aegean, the Greek carrier, is the one that’s most likely for us, as we try to get to Greece every couple of years and can satisfy the Aegean component of the requirements and use other carriers to pile up the needed mileage. So for now, that’s the tentative plan (albeit with NO travel booked yet for 2020). Given the trend of most loyalty programs to squeeze benefits (and value travelers like us), that may not be an option for a lot longer, in which case Option Two will be to fly as loyalty-free travelers much more often, and just use what tricks/hacks/buyups we can to improve the travel experience.

For either option, it’s really going to be a relief not to have to maintain my old PQM spreadsheet and obsess over whether we’ll have enough butt-in-seat United miles to achieve the status we want by year end. It’s the end of an era that treated us well, but hardly the end of the world!

***

The grilling and barbeque skills continued to develop this year. In addition to my favorite Lodge Sportsman’s grill the old-school Weber kettle was upgraded with these Craycort cast iron grates that I can’t recommend enough. The performance is comparable to the Lodge grill, but you can cook a lot more quantity at once. The Weber Smokey Mountain also remains a great investment a few years in now — I love the brisket, pork butts, and occasional other goodies I smoke in that bad boy. And I’ve developed my own distinct take on Texas BBQ.

***

We organized the annual July 4 parade in our neighborhood last year and it went well enough that the former organizers of the parade (before some people tried to break it) decided we were the new permanent organizers. Challenge accepted! LoL

***

Work life is work life… it pays the bills, and they seem to listen to me a little more these days. I have discovered that these bad boys make life a little better in our semi-open office environment and shop that’s embraced MS Teams and Teams calls. Do they look a little goofy in the office? Yes. Do they drown out noise/distractions and allow for high quality listening? Yes. Thankfully, I am generally only in the office a few days per week and otherwise have the flexibility to work remotely.

***

We did get blogHOUSTON going more regularly in 2019, so do check over there. And also check out the READING links I put in the right sidebar here. I never get around to blogging about most of the links, but I do tend to find them interesting reads for one reason or another.

***

Markets were up nearly 30% last year (and I narrowly beat the market with my investments, so… yay). So much for Orange Man destroying market value. But there’s always 2020, one supposes! And one of the few goods things about the years continuing to pass is that I am eligible for extra (catch-up) 401k contributions next year. Life in the fast lane. LoL

***

So with that excitement, time to wrap this up. Thanks for dropping in. Please keep up with stuff on bH, facebook, and twitter (if you care to).

I fully intended to write more in this space this year, and even broke out a nifty new theme for it.

And life found a way to intrude, again…. Plus I’ve decided to revamp blogHOUSTON and focus on writing there (along with a few like-minded folks, I hope). That redesign is nearly complete (along with some new posts).

Here’s wishing everyone who still checks this little corner of the innerwebs a happy and prosperous 2019!

He was 47.

Trent was a journalist who, despite the ongoing decline and downsizing in the profession, actually managed to make a decent living doing what he loved: Exposing public corruption and bad behavior by the powerful. Our mutual friend Steve Miller has written an absolutely beautiful note about Trent at the Texas Monitor, the investigative journalism site Trent founded. I’ve posted a note for the audience at blogHOUSTON, many of whom knew Trent well.

This is a more personal note.

Trent came to Houston roughly ten years ago. I started getting emails from him in July 2008, because I ran a local blog that was known for rabble-rousing and had some notoriety at the time (journalists and members of city council followed the thing, along with some highly rated talk radio folks). Trent wanted to make contact with anyone and everyone he thought could tell him about his new town and assignment (his new assignment, incidentally, was that he had convinced some folks that they really ought to fund a startup investigative journalism outfit in Texas, and he was the guy to do it. Crazy, right? He made it work. Twice). As I would learn, that was really Trent’s approach to journalism: figure out people who seem to know about what he is investigating, talk to them, and leverage their knowledge and their network of people while pulling them in and giving them a feeling of having a bit of skin in the game. I don’t think that’s taught in J-School — that’s just how Trent learned to DO journalism, from some great editors.

I’ll ‘fess up. I ignored the first email from a newly arrived Trent Seibert. Maybe even the second or third. I wasn’t all that interested in talking to some guy who claimed to be a journalist, but was funded by non-journalists, who professed he had moved to Houston to do watchdog journalism. I mean, seriously? That story seemed a bit sketchy.

But he was persistent. At some point, he convinced me (translation: would not stop emailing!) we really should go have a drink and chat at a place of my choosing. And so we went off to the Stag’s Head pub, and we had a few drinks (some sort of beer for me, Vodka Tonics for Trent, always). He won me over to his project, or at least to the notion I should give it a chance. And, of course, the journalism that followed ultimately won me over. This wasn’t an InfoWars or WorldNutDaily type, but a passionate, committed pro who had worked with other real pros over his career and had convinced some of them to follow him to Houston.

Before long, we became fast friends. We were roughly the same age. A little geeky (in a good, bookish sense). I analyzed international politics; Trent had covered some of the world’s trouble spots before moving into more of a watchdog journalism beat. We had similar senses of humor — that is to say, we liked to laugh at people who were overly self-important and at absurdities. We had shared views that watchdog journalism in the Houston area (with rare exceptions *waving at Wayne Dolcefino, the king*) was mostly lacking and that the local alt-press wasn’t very alt (note: now it has generally collapsed in the nation’s fourth largest city). Neither of us was opposed to a drink or two combined with some people-watching. And we had quite a few conversations about Houston’s quirks — me as someone who had been around Houston for a while, Trent as someone who had been around a lot of places and had seen a lot of quirks and seemed really to appreciate Houston’s (and maybe mine).

I searched on his name in my gmail archives today, and it returned some 2,000 emails. We *ahem* emailed a lot about stories he was working on. And stuff I thought he should work on. Books and articles we liked. Stupidity and Nonsense. Dinner and/or drink plans. 2,000+. That’s a lot.

I also searched his name on twitter, and saw all the nice tweets and remembrances. Trent seemed to have the same impact on many others as he had on me, judging from twitter.

I’m thankful for the ten years that I was able to call Trent my friend, but I’m really going to miss the guy.

UPDATE: Information on memorial services can be found here.

Previously, some of those 150 minutes of cardio were consumed by reading on the recumbent bike, but I can’t really read on the elliptical (I envy those who can).

So I’ve begun filling some of that otherwise mindless time with podcasts. Two favorites are Jonah Goldberg’s Remnant and Russ Roberts’s EconTalk podcasts.

Roberts recently had on Bill James of Moneyball fame. It was a fascinating podcast, not so much for the baseball insight but for all the other stuff they talked about. One of those interesting asides involves James opining brilliantly on the difference between science and expertise (at about the 11:30 mark):

I was reminded a few days later of James’s observations when I ran across a tweet-thread on the problems of expertise (the topic here being nutritional “expertise”):

In modern history I don't believe there has been, and hopefully there never will be, a stronger argument against expertise than nutrition. https://t.co/gnsxhx8bJr

— Will Truman (@trumwill) January 27, 2018

More than a few people these days fondly broadcast their belief in “science,” when in many cases they are really making a case for either certain experts or certain expert beliefs that they share (frequently in mind-numbing arguments about politics). Science, however, should not really require belief or faith (philosophy of science grad students might argue this point, but not most normal people); instead, it is based on  falsifiability/replicability. These distinctions are truly simple, but powerful and important to keep in mind — as illustrated by a couple of minutes of audio and roughly 280 characters of text.

And really, that’s the kind of year 2017 turned out to be. Not catastrophic (friends, family, and pets were healthy and happy, for the most part, and we were spared the devastation so many faced and are still facing as a result of Hurricane Harvey flooding), but also not the greatest year on record, and nothing quite on time or completely as expected (like, say, 50 inches of rain over a couple of days — NOT COMPLETELY AS EXPECTED). Mixed bag. That was definitely 2017.

Some positives:

• As noted, friends, family, and pets were mostly healthy and happy this year. When you hit a certain age, that’s a pretty big win.
• While the travel hacking game doesn’t have quite as many big “wins” as it once did, there are still some fantastic bargains out there to see the world (even if it’s not as easy to do it in style on the cheap as it once was). We had some good trips.
• The Weber Smokey Mountain makes some SERIOUSLY GOOD barbecue (and it’s nice of Russell Roegels of Roegels BBQ, whose brisket and pork belly are my Texas BBQ standards, to offer pointers to us home smokers). How did I manage before acquiring one of these bad boys? Nothing like doing a pulled pork or brisket or prime rib EXACTLY as you like it (low and slow, basic salt and pepper rub, with a bit of pecan or apple or cherry wood to provide just the right smoke profile, depending on the meat). I know the Green Egg has its fans, but being the fan of VALUE that I am, I think the WSM is hard to beat.
• Speaking of value… in 2017, I finally came to see (embraced, really) the wisdom of dividend growth investing. I was never a good stock speculator, and have totally come around to the Buffet/value approach as I get older (or more specifically, the Geraldine Weiss/Kelley Wright approach to blue chip value). In any case, people need to be doing something beyond passbook savings accounts (yikes).
• I managed to get in good gym time, which has become my recurring splurge (the Lifetime Galleria Tennis facility is not cheap, but it’s also not disgusting, and as I get older, I find that I have no interest in going to gyms that attract disreputable people and aren’t maintained/cleaned. Hey, it’s not a “value” membership if I never go because it’s not usable, right?).
• Tomatoes… a banner crop from the raised beds in 2017. No small thing to produce good tomatoes in Houston. 🙂 Thanks to Southwest Fertilizer (excellent Parks Whopper plants) and the University of Florida’s Klee Research Lab (Garden Treasure and their New Hybrid for the win). It’s just about time to get some seeds started for this year’s effort…

Some negatives:

• I always start the year thinking, “I’ll blog more — I have the itch” and that just tends not to happen. I do have a new project on tap that should have gotten off the ground last year, but didn’t. Life intruded. But 2018 for sure! And maybe a few more posts here? (yeah, I know…). In the meantime, I do link/annotate quite a few things here on shaarli, which show up in various sidebars and on facebook.
• Float Trip got cancelled (and not rescheduled) for various reasons. The principal organizers need to settle on getting this going again in 2018. It’s really good to have a regular, annual “thing” that friends and family can look to.
• Quality social time declined in general, year on year. For whatever reason, we just wound up hosting fewer things in 2017 (probably related to the aftermath of the hurricane — even though we weren’t flooded, that experience just weighed on the whole city). Gotta work on that for 2018. Friends and family are important.
• We’re behind on so many home improvement projects… (that’s my way of trying to kick myself into gear on some of them for THIS year).

Happy 2018, everyone. Hope to see ya around.

It really has become the annual placeholder post. 🙂

There’s not much time for old-fashioned blogging these days, but please do catch up with my links in various places (the sidebar here, the sidebar at blogHOUSTON, my facebook links page) or look me up on twitter.

Best wishes to all for a happy and productive 2017!

I guess that’s just more confirmation that (indie) blogging is largely dead.

Real life and work life continue to be busy (and good, for the most part), and blogging just isn’t the creative outlet that it once was for me. I can’t imagine taking the time to “post” several daily news blockquotes accompanied by pithy/inane (take your pick) comment (“I’m not sure what I think yet, stay tuned” and the like), or finding that at all satisfying, but hey, different strokes and all.

Maybe I’ll start posting some of the links/commentary that wind up on pinboard/twitter here occasionally. But if 2015 was any indicator, probably not. 🙂

Anyway, best wishes to anyone who might see this for a happy and fulfilling new year. Maybe I’ll catch you in real life instead of in the blog comments!