Houston – Page 15 – The Bald Heretic – Short, bald dude with a goofy beard

Poi Dog Pondering

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I was very happy when I saw that Poi Dog Pondering was playing at The Continental. I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed them…

Frank Orrall

Susan Voelz

Charlette Wortham and Frank Orrall

I had a lot of fun shooting this due to the projections on to the band stage that were part of the show.

Urban Stonehenge

Houston Emerges From The Fog

As I was wrapping up an early morning test of the video conference gear with our team in Bangalore I noticed the downtown Houston skyline emerging from the post dawn mist.

Either image is well worth clicking to see the full size version. Even more worthwhile is this:

Image 1 On Black

Image 2 On Black

Prom Night

The second annual Disco Expressions Prom Night at the Continenal Club was a huge success.

Sam and crew from Wear It Again Sam had setup shop in front of the club so that patrons could purchase vinatage 70’s style clothing since the show was billed as “Prom Attire Required.”

A lot of people showed up in costume and many more availed themselves of the makeshift clothing store out front. Everybody (with the exception of a handful of obnoxious party-goers hogging the front of the stage and being generally unpleasant) seemed to be in the spirit of things and were genuinly friendly and festive and had no problem getting into the spirit of things.

The rest of the photos from the event are here.

KPFT Remembers

[tags]kpft, pacifica[/tags]

The remains of the KPFT transmitter from when we were literally blown off the air on May 12, 1970.

The History

KPFT’s transmitter was dynamited two months after signing on to the airwaves. KPFT was down for three weeks until repairs could be made.

Five months later, on October 6, 1970, while the station was broadcasting Arlo Guthrie’s “Alice’s Restaurant,” the transmitter was bombed yet again and the damage was significantly more extensive. The second bombing took KPFT off the air for three months.

Here is the 10/6/70 press release from KPFT concerning the second bombing attack:

October 6, 1970
2:30 P.M.
PRESS RELEASE

Some time before sunrise this morning someone dynamited the transmitter of KPFT, Pacifica Radio in Houston. This is the second time in less than six months that criminals have tried to silence the station by bombing our transmitter, a transmitter which can be built and operated only with the permission of the Federal Government. The act itself is criminal. It is a modern method of cutting out a man’s tongue.

KPFT is a grass roots enterprise, community supported and paid for by its listeners. It is educational non-commercial and its microphones are open to all points of view.

People in Houston should know of the 20 year history of the Pacifica foundation, whose successful stations in New York, California – and affiliates on college campuses – have won plaudits from professional journalists, its listeners, and such national organizations as the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Pacifica Foundation is a nonprofit corporation chartered in 1946. It is a fully tax-exempt public charity. As a noncommercial broadcaster, it limits its work to the ownership and operation of radio stations and to related projects. Pacifica is non-political and has no social program or goals. It never editorializes about political questions or other matters. The Foundation’s four stations exchange programs, but are independently programmed. Like all stations, they are prohibited from programming anything that could be characterized as obscene, libelous, or seditious.

KPFT will be back on the air broadcasting with your help – broadcasting complete wire copy, broadcasting music and voices which are so hard to hear in Houston. All of us who are working to put the station back on the air – the Advisory Board of Directors, the paid staff and, most of all, the unpaid volunteers, listeners, and supporters of the station – are more determined than ever that Houston have an open microphone. It looks like it needs it.

We feel our loss is Houston’s loss and solicit the aid of all concerned citizens. We will be back on the air, but only with your help. This bombing can be fatal to Pacifica in Houston. We earnestly appeal for your financial contributions.

—-

Also in the picture above is the recently added window pane that features the bullet hole from the recent drive by shooting.

Here’s a rather rare video about the bombing in 1970

I For One Welcome Our New Ant Overlords

With another blistering summer firing up and an in-place population of any number of unpleasant bugs and critters, life in Houston may be getting just a little more unpleasant as we find ourselves being invaded by a species of ant that seems to be impervious to pesticides and has an appetite for electronics.

Exotic Texas Ant, Paratrechina also known as the Crazy Ant or the “Raspberry Ant” (named for Tom Rasberry who discovered them) stands to make his mark our humble little town.

Mentioned at Engaget this horrifying little creature has captured the limelight and is making headlines all over the web.

They have been known to short out many different types of electrical apparatuses. In some cases the ants have caused several thousand dollars in damage and remedial costs. These ants often cause great annoyance to residents and businesses.

For now they seem to be mostly in the South and the East…near the chemical plants oddly enough.

(queue 50’s sci-fi music).

Distribution

I’ve already had one support call where the user jokingly suggested the problem with our Blackberry Enterprise Server might be a result of Crazy Ant infestation…har har…Rasberry, Blackberry, get it? Ugh!

On the plus side, these “Crazy” Ants seem to eat Fire Ants so they could be a boon to our area.

Now playing – Cheepnis by Frank Zappa

Ladies and gentlemen,
The monster,
Which the peasants in this area call FRUNOBULAX
(Apparently a very large poodle dog)
Has just been seen approaching The Power Plant
Bullets can’t stop it
Rockets can’t stop it
We may have to use NUCLEAR FORCE !

2008 Dragon Boat Festival

Despite the rain warnings on the local news stations, Saturday turned out to be a spectacular day for the 8th Annual Dragon Boat Festival hosted by The Texas Dragon Boat Association downtown at Allen’s Landing.

I’d been meaning to get down there one of these years to see the festival and this was the year.

Cynthia and I got there early and it did look like it was going to rain. We headed up to the top of Fanning street bridge to shoot the early races. This afforded us some unique perspectives and great overview of the whole event…

Ultimately, though, it was sitting under the shade trees on the opposite bank of Buffalo Bayou that presented the best viewing option. We camped there for a few hours and watched the races while taking pictures and hanging out with our friends Barrett and Amanda.

Row you maggots!

Ramming Speed!

Pull that thing over and show me your dragon boat license

Stats

Back in September of 2005, about one month into my then new gig blogging for the Houston Chronicle, I published my answer to what I thought was a fairly unique problem with limited relevance to the general computing community.

Someone had contacted me with a problem. It seems that their computer display had turned sideways and wanted to know how to fix it. I figured out the problem and fixed it for them and decided to use it in the Helpline Blog under the title My screen is sideways.

Back in May of 2006 I marvelled at how many comments the post had received from people seeking an answer to the very same problem and thought to myself that 28 was a fairly staggering number.

Over the last few years the comments kept coming in and looking at it now there are 393 thank you comments on that post. 393 people who have managed to shift their display 90 degrees to the vertical, some not knowing how or why it happened while others readily blame the errant child or the curious climbing feline.

This has been the most response I have seen to anything I have blogged, ever. And I would have thought that was that and chalked it up to a happy anomaly or serendipity until I posted an answer to a flash.ocx problem simply called Flash.ocx error in February 2007. In just a little over one year that post has garnered 334 responses, all thank you notes from people who were seeking a solution to the same problem.

That’s 49 shy of my personal record and it won’t be long before Flash.ocx error surpasses My screen is sideways unless there’s a disproportionate shift in the number of babies and cats using keyboards relative the those who like to install second-rate, problematic screen savers.

It’s just mind boggling to think of all those sideways screen using, flash erroring people finding their solution in my tiny little database.

Of course, as Dwight points out, there’s computer support and then there’s this:

Robert Rodriguez

Roberto

Robert Rodriguez playing squeezbox with The Umbrella Man at the Continetnal Club. These guys just get better and better each time I see them play.

More pics in my Flickr gallery here.