On becoming homeowners

Although it probably won't completely sink in until I write that first mortgage payment, Lori and I are now officially homeowners. We closed on our house, in the same University Oaks neighborhood where I grew up (my parents still live two blocks away), last Wednesday.

Since our lease here in Midtown runs through the end of February, we have a couple of months to do some remodeling before we move in. Which is good, because the heater needs to be replaced, the kitchen (which lacks a dishwasher, a garbage disposal, and a stove that actually works) needs a complete facelift, the yard could use some landscaping, Kirby's room needs to be painted, the leaky sunroom roof needs to be replaced, the downstairs bathroom needs immediate attention, etc. The joys of homeownership!

Lori and I are looking forward to it, however; we're glad to finally have a place we can call our own.

(Retroblogged on August 23, 2015. That old house has become a veritable money pit in the years since, but it became Lori's after the divorce, so it's not my problem anymore!)

White Christmas

That's something I never thought I'd see here in Houston, so I never even bothered to dream about it!

It was very cool; Lori, Kirby and I were eating tapas with my parents at Mi Luna restaurant in Rice Village when the flakes started falling Christmas Eve, and the flurries continued throughout the evening. Here in Midtown, the snow didn't completely melt from lawns, rooftops and parking garages until well into Christmas morning.

It made for a truly memorable holiday; I doubt I'll ever see a Christmas snowfall in Houston again in my lifetime.

(Retroblogged on August 23, 2015. Houston has only seen a couple of snowfalls since, and certainly no more White Christmases.)

Bowl season begins with Mean Green defeat

Bowl season began yesterday evening, with North Texas and Southern Miss squaring off in the Wyndham New Orleans Bowl. Lori and I watched part of the game with other Houston-area UNT alumni at Noche restaurant on Montrose, but the game didn’t turn out to be very watchable. The Golden Eagles dominated the Mean Green 31-10; the score would have looked worse had North Texas not scored a touchdown on the last play of the game. This is UNT’s third loss in four consecutive New Orleans Bowl appearances; Darrell Dickey’s squad continues to be unable to win games out of conference.

To be fair to the Mean Green, they’ve had a rough season. Quarterback Andrew Smith was killed in a car crash shortly before the season started; Chronicle columnist John Lopez wrote a good article about the tragedy and local furniture mogul (and UNT alum) Jim “Mattress Mack” McIngvale’s response to it. The Mean Green then began the season with four straight losses. To their credit, however, they overcame these setbacks to dominate the Sun Belt conference for the fourth year in a row; they haven’t lost a conference game since 2001.

However, the Mean Green must find a way to begin winning out of conference; last night’s performance against a decent but not invincible Southern Miss team was simply unimpressive.

(Retroblogged on August 23, 2015.)