he aims high. i aim low.

thursday evening i watched intermission. it’s a film set in england about a number of different people, and how their choices effect each other through the length of the movie. it was fairly entertaining and interesting, but it must not have left too deep of an impression because i don’t remember it all that well. or maybe i was distracted while watching it.
friday afternoon i left work a bit early to meet up with my friend tim. he’s in the air force and is currently stationed in south korea, but was in Texas for a conference and decided to rent a car and drive to houston for the weekend to hang out.
we met at my house, then headed over to tropioca for the monthly geek gathering. the turnout this month was pretty low (around 10 people or so). the original plan was to head to the poison girl afterward, but the shift in tim’s sleeping cycle was still throwing him so we headed back to the house. where we ended up having theological discussions until 2am or 3am.
saturday we got up around 11am i think, then i spent a few hours playing various alt.country and Texas swing bands for tim. eventually we got pretty hungry, so we headed over to sylvia’s enchilada for a late lunch. on the way back, we stopped at a few stores because tim had a list of things he was supposed to get while in the states to take back with him. it was during one of these store visits that i found an exciting new product i just had to have (more info later). we eventually headed to the house of pies for an evening desert. while there, jay texted me to let me know two tons of steel was playing at the continental club that night. earlier in the day we’d considered driving to swiss alp to see the wild river band play, but our timeline didn’t work out for that — so this seemed like a good substitute. we went over to the continental club and spent the rest of the evening there. two tons put on a good show, and i was able to talk with chris (the drummer) for a fair bit before they went onstage. it’s cool to hear that things seem to be going pretty well for him as far as balancing work, music, and family. around 2am we went back to the house and i went to bed around 3am.
sunday tim had wanted to go to a lutheran church, but the night of carousing put an end to that. we got up around 10:30am or 11:30am and pretty quickly decided to go to goode company bbq. the inside seating was full so we had to sit outside. they had the plastic walls down, but the wind was harsh. we turned on the heater units and that helped, and eventually other people sat outside, but most of them appeared to be chilled by the wind. after that, we continued tim’s search for items not available in south korea. eventually we ended up heading to the fiesta on hillcroft, where i found even more exciting new products i just had to own — i found a number of prayer candles i’d never seen before. the ones i was excited about on saturday, i found more of here. but then i found even more versions i’d never seen before. i bought 3 of the same thing on saturday, and i bought 7 at this fiesta (2 of the same as saturday’s, plus 5 others). we headed back to the house, and i showed him a few episodes of “robot chicken” and we watched pi. i’m not sure he was as enamored with the movie as i am. after that, it was time for him to hit the road back to san antonio.
after he left, i met the potts at houston first baptist (services were already over) and we headed to a wendy’s. dietrich rode with me. when we got in the car, i forgot i’d been listening to the dead kennedys rather loudly. i turned it down and dietrich said “that’s nice music.” i replied that it was the dead kennedys and they’d been around long before he was alive. he then said “i would like to see them sometime.” so i then had to explain they weren’t together anymore. not too long after that the song “nazi punks fsck off” came on and i decided i should turn it down beyond listenable levels. while at wendy’s i was talking about me and my brother for some reason i don’t recall, and dietrich casually dropped in with “brothers from different mothers”. i told him we actually had the same mother, and i wasn’t aware of any brothers i had from different mothers. at which point sue chimed in about jack, and jack turned a sad face to me. so i admitted except maybe jack. that dietrich is quite the character these days.
candle information in another post…