Mums

If you don't live in Texas, you don't know Mums. This is another case were everything is bigger in Texas. These are worn for Homecoming by the girls

These will make you the envy of your friends

These things are "built" by Mum experts, it is a cottage industry. Although the details are hidden from dads it is rumored that these masterpieces can set you back in the 3 figures range.

The size and level of detail are how these are measured. Every one is custom and usually has little details that say something about it's wearer. Notice the Bass Katie's bear is playing. That is a genuine Fender Bass once played by Peter Tork of the Monkeys.

Saddled up and ready to go

There are rules on Mums. Sarah is a senor so hers is white, it also must be the biggest. The rest of the school wears the school colors green and gold.

You can't tell from this picture but Sarah's mum actually lights up. Embedded in her artwork are no less than 6 AA batteries.

Special carbon fiber white ropes have been developed to hold the mums up.

These are actual photos

20 YEARS !!!

Today is our anniversary, we have been married for 20 years today. That does not count the 8 years we were together before going to the church

Don Adams

My old friend Maxwell Smart died yesterday, he was 82. I remember watching Get Smart every week when it came out. 99 wasn't bad either. His most famous line . . ." missed it by that much".

He also did the voices of several cartoon characters.

I see him going through all those doors opening just as he gets there (except for the last one), this time he makes it through the last one.

No school

. . . Monday and Tuesday. They are trying to stagger the return off of the people who evacuated and many still don't have power. So the kids are off a total for 4 days for this storm. They are talking about not having to make these days up. We will see. Most stores should be open today although most gas stations are still closed.

Even luckier than we thought

As it turns out, the power loss is much bigger than initially thought. Most of our friends (other than the ones that live in our neighborhood do not have power. In fact at least half of our subdivision does not have power. We really caught a break this time.

Just lots of leaves, pine needles and small branches
thechristys.net

Unscathed

The worst has past. In general Houston got off easy. We have the usual power outages downed trees and broken windows but nothing major. We are officially in the cleanup phase. In a couple of minutes I will post an "after" photo of our house.

12:00 AM and all is well

So far we have only gotten a little rain and some big gusts of wind but nothing serious. As you can see we still have power (and internet)

For those of you not familiar with Houston, this is where we are "hunkerd down"
thechristys.net

Looks like we are going to escape the brunt of the hurricane. We will still get rain and high winds but probably not hurricane winds . . .
thechristys.net

This was taken a few hours ago. It's been kind of a nice day today. We have gone on several walks and ran into many of our neighbors. Our neighborhood is about 35 yrs old so we have some big trees. Most of the time they are a real asset
thechristys.net

Thanks for thinking of us

We have heard from most of our family members living outside of Texas checking to see if we are OK and where we are. The phones have been problamatic because everyone else is checking with their families. Thanks for the concern and the kind thoughts (as well as the offers to invade your space)

Its a big one
thechristys.net

Waiting for Rita

We are at home waiting for Rita to attack. We have taken all the usual precaucions. Since we are about 18 miles NW of downtown houston we were not asked to evacuate and we should be safe from the storm surge and most likely flooding. We are mostly worried about falling trees, flying debre and loss of power. Wish us luck, we will let you know what happens . . .

Something new to try

This is something interesting. It's an application that runs on your desktop. The main attraction is to be able to search all your stuff just like you use goggle to search the web. The results look the same. There is the added benefit of a window that opens kind of like an instant message application (AIM) that offers little windows into photos, news, email and stuff like that. I know, we have all seen them before, and this may not be for you but this one is a little different. The whole is more than the sum of it's parts on this one. It's in beta, still a little buggy but it's really fast at finding stuff in emails and songs in your jumble of MP3s. Just thought you would like to know.

Does this look like fun or what?

This is a site that builds high performance amphibious sports cars this one is only $155K

It happens to the best of us

For some parts of the world winter is about to start

FrankenCOW! cows on parade
thechristys.net

It's really fall now . . .

There are football games (high school, college and pro), homecoming is coming up, I saw some leaves that changed color when I was in Oregon and I saw pumpkins in the grocery store for the first time this past weekend.

This is my favorite time of the year. So much to look forward to. For whatever reason, we get the home improvement bug during the fall. There is no lack of potential projects. We made a minor change in our bathroom that we really like. Quite simple, we replaced out shower curtain rod with a "crescent shaped" rod that looks really nice and gives us extra room in the shower. . . . Its the simple things.

The destruction was amazing even 25 years later you could see how far the blast knocked down huge trees
thechristys.net

It was quite impressive, steam was always coming out of the top forming little clouds
thechristys.net

While driving from Seattle to Portland I stopped to see Mt. St. Helens
thechristys.net

News from the road

I am in Seattle today and the weather is magnificent. Bright and sunny and about 68 degrees. On days like this it's easy to see why this city is often voted one of the best citys to live in. I hope to see an old friend while I am up here on business, and I have to watch the Miami vs Florida State gam. GO MIAMI !

The Smith-Griffths having a little summer fun while over for a visit
thechristys.net

The ceremonial poking of the prom date - April 2005

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Cops looting New Orleans

Sad but true. TVs, beer, computers, DVDs - just the essentials.

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