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TEXAS
There are some very
odd/oddly cool things about rural Texas. Or just Texas in general.
From a visit to Texas
A&M. This wall caught my eye…at first I thought, being on a college campus,
it was hieroglyphics or similar historic markings. It’s actually a wall of all
the cattle brands of Texas. Which is oddly very cool.
From the same
building, the Pork Hall of Honor!!
Sadly, this was a
dead-end road, I think.
At first I thought I
misread the sign, but this is indeed “Sexing Technologies”. Better yet, it is
Sexing Technologies for livestock.
This abandoned
Walmart was the flagship abandoned store in a small town full of abandoned
stores.
Texas Counties have
old school, ornate big limestone county courthouses. Always cool to drive
through the non-metro counties and see the old architecture.
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BABY SHOPPING
We’ve been doing a
lot of baby-shopping recently. Some of it is just…odd.
I think these are
from the “Baby Never Sleeps” line. (Actually they’re from a line designed by
Heidi Klum, whose name and face are prominent on the packaging. I guess she
needs to associate herself with hating children for some reason. Or maybe it’s
just that the world is a scary place, might as well break them in young.) I
guess the monkey isn’t really scary, it’s just odd to have a giant, vaguely sad
monkey head staring at your kid while they sleep.
This has to be the
most pimped out stroller I have ever seen. It’s like if Cadillac made a
stroller. Safety ratings be damned, I want this thing.
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FURNITURE, TECHNICALLY
I posted previously about the bizarre contents of
noveau-riche Houston furniture outlets. What’s most amazing to me are the
prices. They are not, as one would expect, the amount of money that they’re
paying you to haul away these monstrosities. They actually want you to PAY, and
pay dearly, for these things.
There is nothing
Zebra print can’t make fancier. It’s like if New Jersey and Texas had a baby
and it was a chair.
“Who are you???” “I’m
BAT-CHAIR.”
$6000? Hey, this
amount of ugly doesn’t come cheap.
I was trying to
decide between buying a couch or a Sharpei…
Made from the
shiniest cows on earth.
Much like a mullet…business
up front, party in the back.
Decahedron! What does
it do? It costs $200, that’s what it does.
It’s like I’m on
Safari every time I look in the mirror!
Horror Horse sees
what you’re doing and is very disappointed in you.
Like the Native
Americans, there is not part of the steer we do not use. As furniture.
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“SUMMERTIME/AND MY
LIVER’S UNEASY…”[i]
One of the only good things about Texas summer is the
opportunity to go float the Guadalupe River in a tube. When my buddy Scott Smizik came down, we did
just that.
With a separate tube to
carry your cooler of beer. Tragically, we ran out of beer prior to the end of
the float.
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NATURAL BITS
Some natural bits and pieces that didn’t make it into other
posts…
A couple of local
species seen around the area: A Nerodia sp. Water Snake, a Coastal Plains Toad,
and a Ruby-throated Hummingbird that smacked into my work building (one of
many).
Picture from a
beautiful morning on a small local creek.
Weird half-rainbow,
Brazos Bend State Park.
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ENDS
Lastly, the
miscellany of a miscellany post.
This is just a cool
building I pass on the way to a project area[ii].
This pimped out
oldsmobile had a large decal declaring it “Tha Panty Dropper”.
[i]
With apologies to Mr. Gershwin, Porgy, and/or Bess.
[ii]
Most of Houston architecture is a mix of boring faux-tuscan villas and pseudo
modern townhomes, or just old 60’s style ranches, all in bland tones. It’s
great to see color and art now and again. I’m sure it will be demolished soon
to make way for a Trader Joe’s or something.
