Water features

So this is it - on Monday I leave the United States of America for the last time and on Wednesday (thanks to the international date line) we arrive in New Zealand.

After two and a half years, it seems natural that I should have seen two of America's most famous natural attractions, the fact that I did both in the last month is, well, by-the-by.

Canyon Grand:



Falls Niagara:

Higher than highest

Due to a series of events which I may explain in a later post, I found myself staying at a "Ramada Limited" hotel last night. I was amused by the following notice I found posted there:

"Our goal is to exceed your Expectations by providing you with the highest level of service you've come to expect from the Ramada name."

But the highest level of service I've come to expect is exactly what my expectations would be, and would not exceed them in the slightest. Maybe it's the captial letter at the start of "Expectations" which makes the sentence make sense in some subtle way of which I am not aware.

AT&T are retards

When I first moved to Houston, I was quite happy with the service provided by AT&T, for my Internet and TV. Their Uverse service was a bargain at only $60 a month, I thought. All the CSI I could ever want to watch.

However, in attempting to break off from their service, I've found them slightly less than accommodating. I called two weeks ago to set up cancellation of the service, and the first problem was that I couldn't remember the four digit PIN I'd apparently set up when I initiated the service. I claim I never did such a thing, but the woman on the end of the phone wouldn't let me cancel without such a thing. After 15 minutes of haggling, she put me through to a nice gentleman who agreed that this was ridiculous, and put the process of terminating the contact in action. He told me that I would be sent UPS boxes in which I could return the equipment - modem, cable box, remote etc. All was well. Or so I thought.

Two weeks later, and I still hadn't received the boxes, so with only three days to go before my departure, I called AT&T to check the situation. I ended up spending 50 minutes on the phone. First of all, she told me that they didn't normally send out boxes until after the termination date, contrary to what I'd be told. After being put on hold for several minutes I was actually informed that there was a two month backlog on boxes. Two months! They're only boxes - how hard are they to get hold of? Anyway, without a box, I couldn't send back my equipment, and would be charged $300 for not doing so. The conversation went something like this:

- You should take the equipment with you and we'll send the boxes to your new address.
- But I'm leaving the country, and if it's going to take two months to get the boxes somewhere - well I have absolutely no idea where I'll be. Surely there's some other way I can return it? Maybe you can give me the address to which the equipment gets sent - I'll just ship it myself?
- But if you ship it yourself and it gets damaged, you'll have to pay.
- That's ok, I'll take that risk, it's better than paying $300.
- Oh, no, actually we can't give you the address, it's just a warehouse and you won't have the stickers on the box so they won't know who the modem came from.
- But there's a serial number on the modem, that's crazy. Ok then, well maybe there's somewhere I can drop it off, or maybe someone can come and collect it for me?
- No, that's not possible.
- So is there any way I can get the equipment back to you without one of your boxes?
- No.
- This is retarded. What you're saying is that the only possible way to return the equipment is in one your boxes, of which you currently don't have any. But if I don't send it back, I'll be charged $300.
- Yes.

Sadly, the ending of the story isn't as interesting as the middle, so I'll leave it at that, but it's safe to say, I don't intend to have any dealings with AT&T in the future.

Spacecow

It seems odd that I hadn't noticed it before, given the number of times I've flown into Houston, but today I saw it. As you walk down to baggage claim, to welcome you to Houston is a giant statue of a spacesuit. And in the spacesuit, is not, as you might expect, a man, but a cow. All you'd need is the creature sitting ontop of an oil well and you'd have encapsulated the whole of Texas in one moment.

Bacon is a vegetable

This evening I went to a local eatery to sample `Texas Barbeque'. For my choice of dinner plate (beef brisket and pork ribs), the menu allowed a choice of two `vegetables'. One of these choices was Jambalya, which I selected, unsure of exactly what it would be. It turned out to be a mix of rice and bacon. Vegetable indeed.

Art Cars

Last Saturday was the day of Houston's 'Art Car' parade. This is something a lot of people seem to take very seriously. Some people paint their cars, or turn them into mosaics:


or jigsaws:


Some people cover their cars in fruit:


The more daring go even further, and turn their cars into exotic models. There were many animals - fish, dogs, insects etc, boats, telephones, and other creations. My favourites were the shoes:


and this crazy fish thing:

Humidity

Over the last few weeks I've been in a losing battle with my air conditioning. First I tried not to use it at all, now I'm trying my best just to use it just for a few hours in the evening so I can fall asleep without completely overheating. Sadly though, it's not going to be long before the humidity beats me into total submission and my apartment becomes hermetically sealed from the outside.

Last night, the Friday night after-work get-together was in a pub only just over a mile from my house, so I took the unusual (to Houstonians) route of walking there. By the time I arrived I had rivulets of sweat dripping down my back, face and arms. Yuck. I wasn't overdressed, I wasn't hurrying, it's just seems that these are the consequences of moving about outside in this humidity. Yuck.