This is not a restaurant review

I’ve been in Houston most of my life and without disclosing too much we’ll just say that’s a long time.
This city has grown and changed over the years and looks nothing like it did even a few short years ago.

Houston landmarks are disappearing or changing with greater and greater frequency. The Houston Coliseum where the Beatles played is gone. The Houston Summit where I saw some of the greatest rock concerts of all time slowly changed to become the Compaq Center and is now the home of Lakewood Church. The eighth wonder of the world, The Astrodome, has gone from a magnificent baseball and football stadium to a convienent and expendable evacuation center for those seeking refuge from the devastating effects of hurrican Katrina. KLOL, Houston’s premier rock and roll radio station, is now a Spanish station playing Reggaeton, Spanish hip hop and pop hits (bleh!). Even Astroworld is slated to close it’s doors before the end of this year.

But some things never seem to change, thank goodness.

It’s been a long time since I have eaten at Star Pizza and when I was invited by my colleague Dwight Silverman to meet up for dinner to discuss the future of Technology Bytes with his friend Chris Hearne, the founding publisher of the Houston Press it seemed a most logical choice.

Founded 30 years ago by Hank and Marilyn Zwirek, The original Star Pizza at 2111 Norfolk has provided Houston with it’s most well known outlet for procuring a genuine Chicago style pizza in our fair city. It has also been a place one could go to get a tasty Italian meal and, more importantly, it has been an inner-city gathering place with easy access to the heart of Houston for all these years. It’s super casual with plenty of dining space inside and out. The atmosphere (combined with delicious pizza and adult beverages) is very conducive to a most animated and thoughtful conversation. Just about anyone you talk to knows about Star Pizza.

I don’t know if we accomplished much last night but I am sure glad I went. It’s comforting just knowing that they’re there and you can walk in on a Thursday night and get some good food served by a friendly and attentive staff of pizza proffessionals.

Dooley and the holidays

Dooley has an interesting sense of timing and can associate one event with another, for example:

When we get up and turn on the light in the kitchen he says “good morning”
When I pick up my keys he makes the sound of the house alarm being armed
When I close the microwave door he makes the sound of the timer being set
When I say goodbye on the phone he makes the sound of the teeny, quiet beep of the cordless phone being turned off
When I turn off the light in the TV room he says “good night” and then makes the sound of the house alarm being armed

Well, it’s October and Dooley has started to say “Trick or Treat”…something he’s only heard the last few years on that one special night when the kids come to our door. He hasn’t said it but a few times after Halloween last year and then not at all for the whole year. It’s like he knows it’s October.

This would be more surprising if he didn’t wait till December to sing Jingle Bells.

That bird is smarter than he looks.

Dooley on the yellow sproingy:

Ren Fest

Gadz, I have been involved at this festival for many’s a year (and I spent all me money on whiskey and beer). Mitch and I calculated that the band has been doing it for about 15 years.
I have been involved in some capacity or another since year 5 and this is year 31.

We have successfully made it through 2 weekends of the festival. The first weekend was unbelievably hot and miserable and there was absolutely no “magic” what-so-ever. Bleh!

Last weekend was much better. Cooler with low humidity.

Last Sunday (for a song or two) we were joined on stage by our friends from Queen Anne’s Lace, a lovely all woman acapella group. In this picture you can also see Jim Hancock, The Burley Minstrel who has been joining us in our first set of the day.

With any luck the weather will continue to become more moderate and things will pick up.

A grand experiment in tech radio

Aurora Losada
photo by Dwight Silverman

On the the show last night we took advantage of a special guest to try something new. We were joined in the studio by Aurora Losada, editor of the Chronicle’s Spanish-language publications. Dwight had told me that Aurora was a fan of Technology Bytes and I invited her to be on the program.

Hailing from Spain and fluent in Spanish, Aurora was a perfect candidate for us to try something I had been wanting to do for some time which was to take questions in Spanish, translate them, answer them and then give the answer back to the caller in Spanish. Aurora agreed and our foray into multilingualism took flight.

The very first call was from a listener named Carlos. It worked like a charm. The rest of the evening we had various Spanish speaking callers mixed in with our regular callers. I don’t know if it was technically “good radio” but it was a blast for me and the crew and the callers who spoke Spanish seemed to enjoy it as well.

To the best of my knowledge this is the first time a technology talk show has been broadcast attempting to field calls in both English and Spanish and to my mind, it was a HUGE success.

Thanks to Aurora for being such a good sport. As Dwight mentioned in his blog, when it came to all the good natured kidding around that we like to do, “She gave as good as she got.”

The “Tower of Babel” affect was achieved when Bill called in from Germany via Skype and spoke a bit in German.

All in all, four languages: English, Spanish, German and Geek.

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