The irregular and disjointed rantings and ramblings of a lifelong inside-the-loop Houstonian, dedicated urbanist, enthusiastic traveler and loyal University of Houston Cougar fan, who also roots for the University of North Texas Mean Green.
The weather was wonderful, our morning tailgate was successful, the Cougars managed a thrilling 50-43 victory over Southern Miss, we had a good neighborhood Halloween Party and Kirby did pretty well with his trick-or-treating candy haul. All in all, a pretty good Halloween. Here are some pictures.
Kirby the Dinosaur bears his teeth and tries to look scary: The neighborhood Halloween party featured an inflatable moonwalk for the kids to jump around in. The festivities were briefly marred, however, when a mischevious Kirby ran back behind the castle and unplugged its air blower, causing it to deflate. Fortunately, nobody was hurt and the moonwalk was quickly reinflated. Lori the Witch was on hand to keep Kirby from disrupting the party any further:
My costume was that of a happy, if not sunburnt, University of Houston fan. The noon start time was good in that it meant that the game did not conflict with trick-or-treating activities, but Houstonians simply aren't used to games so early and attendance suffered as a result:
I probably need to watch Kirby a little more closely when he's pouring bubble bath soap into my parents' bathtub. I think he used a bit too much the other evening: Oh, well. At least he had a good time and was completely clean by the time he got out.
Papilio cresphontesis larger and has a somewhat different yellow-and-black pattern than its cousin Papilio polyxenes. It is, in fact, the largest butterfly native to the United States. I caught this guy hanging out on my neighbor's lantana. He (or she) was cooperative enough to let me get this photograph.
As beautiful as these insects are, they are sometimes considered pests to the citrus industry because citrus trees are a host plant for giant swallowtail caterpillars. I, on the other hand, might plant a lemon tree just to attract more of these guys.
In addition to GeoTrax, I have also been putting together a considerable Rokenbok collection. I consider Rokenbok to be perhaps the greatest toy so far invented by humankind: it's a construction toy, a remote-control toy, a model train and an action toy all rolled up in to one. I started collecting Rokenbok before Kirby was even born, but due to his age didn't really start playing with it and him until earlier this year.
Over the summer, the Rokenbok company issued a "monorail building challenge:" build and create a video of an original and unique Rokenbok monorail system, and have a chance to win a $100 Rokenbok gift certificate. I decided to enter the challenge to have fun building and playing with Kirby (and to get some free monorail components in the process), so I cleared the living room floor at my parents' house (they were out of town for most of the summer), and set to work. Here's Kirby playing with what I came up with:
The layout featured two separate monorail trains which interacted with various action modules. Other action features included a remote-control crane and several remote-control trucks. Even though Rokenbok is recommended for children ages six and older, Kirby has already mastered the remote control aspect of the toy: Needless to say, Kirby and I were very sad when the time came to dismantle the layout and return mom and dad's living room to its original state: Here is the video I created, edited and submitted in time for the early September deadline:
I didn't think I had the technical expertise, the materials or (especially) the time to create a layout worthy of winning. I also wasn't satisfied with the quality of the video I submitted. Like I said, I didn't expect to win anything and, indeed, I did not come close to winning the popular vote held on the Rokenbok forums.
So imagine how surprised I was when I was informed that I had received the "Judge's Award," bestowed upon my design by a panel of Rokenbok employees who decided that my layout best demonstrated "all of the capabilities of the Rokenbok Monorail System and how it interacts with the rest of the Rokenbok world." Needless to say, I was pretty pleased. Not only did it mean a $100 Rokenbok gift certificate - more stuff for me and Kirby - but I have now been officially declared a "King of the Rok" by Rokenbok creator Paul Eichen himself!
That being said, I'm not merely being humble when I say my design was honestly not the most complicated or inventive. Take a moment to view some of the other entries in the contest. Some of the designs that were submitted are nothing short of amazing.
I realize it's been exactly one month since I last updated this blog. As I mentioned a couple of months ago, things are happening in both my personal as well as my professional life right now such that blogging is going to be light for awhile.
I'm still here, however, and I'm still following the University of Houston Cougars as they make their way through what so far has been an extremely exciting season.
It's probably a good thing that I was too busy to write an entry about Houston's soul-crushing 41-58 loss to Texas-El Paso back at the beginning of October. In one game, the team managed to undo everything that they had accomplished by beating Oklahoma State and Texas Tech. The Coogs dropped out of the top 25, their shot as a "BCS Buster" ended, and whatever slim chance quarterback Case Keenum had to win the Heisman Trophy vanished. The Cougars simply weren't mentally prepared for what was clearly a "trap" game, and UTEP, which is otherwise not a very good team, took full advantage of the opportunity. The Houston defense was particularly pathetic, allowing Miner RB Donald Buckram to amass an embarrassing 262 rushing yards and four touchdowns. Not even Case Keenum's 51 pass completions, 536 passing yards and five touchdown passes could make up for the rest of the team's poor performance. In one game, the Cougars went from being a potential top ten team to a team that was now not even in control of its own destiny to win its division.
Going in to a tough out-of-conference showdown against SEC opponent Mississippi State in Starkville, there was plenty of concern as to the effect of such a devastating loss on such a young team. Could they put the loss behind them and refocus? Or would the team take a nosedive? "The Coogs can still have a great season. They can win Conference USA and go to a bowl and be remembered as the team that continued to put UH football back on the national map," wrote Chronicle columnist Richard Justice shortly after the loss. "In the end, they'll be judged more on what they do after UTEP than what they did against UTEP."
If that's the case, then so far the Cougars deserved to be judged well. Since the UTEP debacle, they've rattled off three straight victories: a 31-24 defeat of Mississippi State (putting the Coogs at 4-0 for their nonconference schedule and 3-0 against teams from BCS conferences), a 44-16 beatdown of Tulane in the Superdome (the Cougars only led 9-6 at the half, but scored 20 unanswered points in the third quarter; I made the trip and had a great time at the game, on Bourbon Street and at Mother's), and, last weekend, a 38-15 homecoming victory over Southern Methodist.
Case Keenum did not put up his usual numbers gainst SMU; he "only" completed 25 of 36 passes for 233 yards and one touchdown, but in the end it didn't matter. The Cougar running game racked up 161 yards on the ground, and the defense recovered three SMU turnovers and held the Mustangs to o-for-10 on third-down conversions. SMU didn't even find the endzone until the fourth quarter, when they tried to mount a late rally, but a Charles Sims touchdown run with less than six minutes remaining sealed the win for the Cougars.
So now the Cougars find themselves bowl-eligible at 6-1 and are ranked 17th in the AP poll and 16th in the Coaches poll. There's still a lot of football left to be played, however, starting with a game against the always-tough-to-beat Southern Mississippi Golden Eagles at Robertson Stadium on Halloween. They then have back-to-back road games against the Tulsa Golden Hurricane and the Central Florida Golden Knights (we'll call this portion of the schedule the "Golden Trifecta...") before returning home to play Memphis and Rice to end the season. And the Coogs still need UTEP to lose at least one more game in order to reclaim the driver's seat in Conference USA's western division.
But one thing is for certain: so far, and even in spite of the ignoble loss to UTEP, the Cougars have exceeded everybody's expectations for the 2009 season. Here's to hoping that they can keep it up.
Nobody knows what the future will hold, of course. But years from now, if the Cougars are a member of a BCS conference, are playing in a 40-thousand seat on-campus stadium that they regularly fill, and are enjoying season after season of bowl victories and top 25 rankings, perhaps people will look back to last Saturday's 29-28 victory over Texas Tech as the program's turning point: the day when, after so many years of wandering in the wilderness, it all came together for University of Houston football.
First, there was the pre-game tailgate. Since moving out of the Astrodome over a decade ago, the University of Houston has progressively developed an excellent pregame tailgating culture. Last Saturday, however, it reached a completely new level as people arrived earlier than they ever had before in greater numbers than they ever had before. That incredible atmosphere alone doubtlessly made many first-time visitors to Robertson Stadium UH fans. It certainly impressed the folks from my office that I invited to my group's tailgate, and they plan to come back for more games.
Then there was the crowd: a boisterous, over-capacity gathering of 32,114 - the largest crowd UH has attracted since moving games on campus over a decade ago - was on hand to see the game. While that number might not sound impressive in relation to the crowds that some big-name schools attract, it's a huge step forward for a University of Houston program that has always seemed to struggle with poor attendance. Yes, there were lots of Texas Tech fans there. But the crowd was overwhelmingly comprised of Cougar fans, and they were loud and spirited the entire game. Many of them were there for the first time. And many of them will be coming back. At the very least, the standing-room-only crowd provides a real incentive for the UH administration to push forward with long-discussed plans to refurbish or replace Robertson Stadium.
And then, there was the game.
I've always said that the two best and most exciting UH football games I had ever attended in person were 1990's 36-31 victory over Texas A&M in the Astrodome and the 1996 56-49 victory over Southern Miss at Robertson in 1996. Last Saturday's thriller tops them both.
Make no mistake: the Red Raiders are a very good team. They showed it last Saturday, as they gained 484 yards on offense and limited the prolific Cougar offense to just three touchdowns on defense. Texas Tech led the game 21-13 at halftime and 28-20 late in the third quarter. The Cougars played well, too, amassing 579 offensive yards of their own and limiting the high-flying Red Raider offense to only seven points in the entire second half.
Texas Tech, however, led for most of the game, and had several chances to put the game away. Unfortunately for them, the Cougars would simply not back down. Early in the 4th quarter and up by five points, Texas Tech drove to the UH one yard line and attempted to score a touchdown on fourth-and-goal that surely would have put the game out of reach. The Cougar defense stopped them. On the following drive, Houston drove into Texas Tech territory and looked to take the lead, only to be intercepted. But the Cougar defense once again stood tall, forcing the Red Raiders to punt the ball away.
What happened then, with under six minutes to play and the ball at the UH 5 yard line, was something that will forever live in University of Houston lore: the "Two-Day Drive" (so named because it started before midnight and ended shortly afterward). 16 plays. 95 yards. 4 minutes 58 seconds. Touchdown. If you haven't seen it yet, here's part one, courtesy of ESPN:
And here's part two:
The video does not do justice to the absolute bedlam that engulfed Robertson Stadium when UH quarterback Case Keenum (38 of 58 for 435 yards and one touchdown) scampered into the endzone to score what would prove to be the winning touchdown. With 49 seconds left and only needing a field goal to win, Texas Tech desperately tried to march back down the field. But thanks to the UH defense (as well as the Red Raiders' lack of timeouts), the Cougars held on for the nail-biting 29-28 win.
The win is remarkable considering that Houston did not play their best football of the season. The Cougars were penalized 8 times for 74 yards, including one penalty that negated an interception. The UH defense allowed 163 rushing yards to a team that had managed a total of only 86 rushing yards in their first three games combined. Special teams missed two field goals. Keenum's 65.5 percent pass completion rate, while decent, was lower than usual. He also was sacked twice and intercepted once. The Coogs also got some help from Texas Tech mistakes: aside from the Red Raiders' two turnovers and 8 penalties, there was also head coach Mike Leach's decision to go for it on 4th-and-1 when a field goal probably would have put the game out of reach, as well as Tech's decision to use their three time outs early in the second half.
Still, a win is a win and their second-consecutive victory over a Big XII opponent was a huge one for the Cougars, one that proved that the stunning upset at Oklahoma State two weeks ago was no fluke and that the Cougars are indeed a team to be respected. The nation has noticed. The Cougars are now ranked #12 in the AP poll and are being mentioned as possible "BCS Busters" by national media outlets such as The Washington Post and The New York Times. Case Keenum is also getting some serious attention as a Heisman candidate.
In my opinion, it's too early to think of the Cougars as a "BCS Buster." They'd have to go undefeated in order to do so and that's still a tall order. The team now needs to go on a grueling three-game road trip; Saturday's game against Texas El-Paso has "letdown" and "trap" written all over it and the showdown against SEC team Mississippi State two weeks from now looms large. Nevertheless, if you had told me before the season started that the Cougars would be 3-0 and ranked right outside the top ten right now, I wouldn't have believed you. This has been an incredible start to the 2009 football season and I am thoroughly enjoying it.
It will be months, if not years, before the true significance of last Saturday's game and its Two-Day Drive will be known. But, from where I stood that night at a packed Robertson Stadium, watching the Cougars drive 95 yards in five minutes to win a game over a Big XII opponent, you'd have a hard time convincing me that University of Houston had not finally reached its turning point. After suffering for so long through so many seasons of mediocrity and apathy, this is a much-needed and well-deserved time for the University of Houston, its athletes, its coaches, its students and its alumni. May it only continue.
It's been abut a week and a half since the Dubai Metro opened for regular service. During its first week of operation, the new rail system was besieged by curious residents and suffered some technical malfunctions. This is to be expected. However, as the technical glitches are worked out and the novelty fades, the question remains: will people in a city as automobile-dependent as Dubai actually use the system?
Yes, they will. At least some of them. Eventually. Depending on various factors. In this regard, Dubai is no different than any city in the United States.
Obviously, there is a certain segment of the population that will be using the Dubai Metro on a pretty frequent basis, simply because they will have no choice. These are the laborers who do not own automobiles and who currently depend on the RTA's bus network to get around town, and these are the people who are going to be required to ride the Metro for at least part of their journey as the RTA restructures the bus network to feed into the rail lines.
And just as obviously, there is a certain segment of the population that will not use public transportation, even in the form of a sleek, fully-automated train system, under any circumstances.
For everyone else, the answer will depend on how convenient the Dubai Metro is for the trips they need to make. Right now, the system's utility is probably limited to a rather small percentage of Dubai's population of "choice" riders; that is, people who have their own automobiles. The Red Line is the only alignment that is currently in operation, and only 10 of the 29 total planned stations are open. Unless you both live and work near one of these stations, you're probably not going to choose to use the train.
However, once the remaining Red Line stations are opened, and once the Green Line is complete and operational sometime next year, then the system will be more useful to more people simply because its service footprint will be larger. Once again, however, this footprint will be limited to a relatively small area around the stations. "Choice" riders will generally not want to use feeder buses to get to the stations, nor will they want to walk to stations in Dubai's 110-degree summertime heat. The Dubai Metro does feature park and ride facilities that people can drive to, but these are located at the ends of the Emirate. Residents who live towards the center of Dubai are probably not going to drive to one end or the other simply in order to ride the train. Taxi queues will be provided at all Metro stations, however, and that along with Dubai's relatively cheap taxi fares might make that a viable manner of accessing the trains.
One weapon the RTA does have in its arsenal to encourage Metro ridership is the SALIK toll system. The RTA could put more toll checkpoints along major throughfares like Sheikh Zayed Road in order to discourage private automobile use. And, although the severe slump Dubai is experiencing because of the economic crisis has lessened traffic on the roads somewhat, if and when Dubai's economy recovers, the horrendous traffic congestion will inevitably return, thereby creating another natural disencentive to driving.
And finally, don't forget the business travelers and the tourists. Dubai has a lot of them and, for getting around it's either the taxi or the Dubai Metro. Dpending on how close their hotels are to stations and how comfortable they are with rail transit in their native countries, a significant number of them could choose to ride the train, which would generate a real boost to ridership.
The bottom line: it's going to be interesting to see just how well the Dubai Metro actually does. I'm cautiously optimistic.
On a completely personal note, it's great to see a project that I helped design, even if only in a very minor role, come to fruition.
How big was last Saturday's 45-35 upset of 5th-ranked Oklahoma State in Stillwater last Saturday? Consider this:
The last time the Cougars beat a top ten team was November 12, 1988, when they beat #10 Wyoming 34-10 at the Astrodome. I was a sophomore in high school at the time, and I remember watching that game with my family and my friend Gwen.
The last time the Cougars beat a top ten team on the road was November 10, 1984, when the Coogs traveled to Austin and beat #3 Texas, 29-15.
The last time the Cougars beat a top ten team out of conference was Cotton Bowl against Nebraska on January 1, 1980, when they won 17-14. The Cougars ended the season with an 11-1 record and ranked #5.
And the last time the Cougars beat a top ten team, out of conference, on the road, outside of a bowl game: you'd have to go back to September 23, 1967, when the Cougars traveled to East Lansing, Michigan and manhandled the #3-ranked Michigan State Spartans, 37-7.
That is, until last Saturday.
Sure, you can argue that Oklahoma State was overrated at #5, and that might speak to the inanity of ranking teams so early in the season, before they've had a chance to really prove themselves on the field.
And sure, you can say that the Coogs got lucky when Case Keenum's pass into the endzone on fourth-and-goal was tipped by Oklahoma State defender and miraculously fell into the arms of Cougar running back Bryce Beall for a touchodwn. Take that amazing play away and the outcome of the game could have been very different. But hey, that's the way the ball (literally) bounces sometimes.
What cannot be argued or attributed to luck, however, is this: Oklahoma State had no real answer for the Cougar offense, which gained 512 total yards and found the endzone five times. Cougar quarterback Case Keenum was electric, completing 32 of 46 pass attempts for 366 yards and three touchdowns. He also rushed for another touchdown, was only intercepted once and was never sacked. The Cougars were also able to move the ball well on the ground, racking up 146 rushing yards on 36 carries.
Thanks to their explosive offense, the Coogs rushed out to a 24-7 halftime lead. Oklahoma State made a comeback in the 3rd quarter, however. I'll admit that, as a longtime (and, given the last couple of decades or so, fairly jaded) UH fan, I had pretty much given up hope late in the third after Oklahoma State star receiver Dez Bryant ran back a punt return 82 yards for a touchdown, cutting the Cougars' lead to three, and OSU running back Beau Johnson, with the help of some pretty pathetic tackling on the UH defense's part, followed with a score on a 37-yard touchdown run to give the Cowboys the lead. I thought that a repeat of last year's game, wherein the Coogs led at halftime in Stillwater but were manhandled by OSU in the second half and ended up losing 37-56, was in the works.
But the Cougars never accepted such a fate. They maintained their composure and fought back in the fourth, regaining the lead on Beall's 1-yard touchdown run on 4th-and-goal and, after Oklahoma State scored again, answering with Beall's highlight-reel catch of Keenum's tipped pass in the endzone. When UH defender Jamal Robinson tipped a Zac Robinson pass into his own hands and ran it back into the endzone to put the Coogs up by 10 with 3:14 remaining, the Coogs knew that the upset was theirs for the taking. All they had to do was keep OSU from staging a last-minute comeback. They did.
As a fellow Cougar fan wrote on his Facebook page right after the game ended: That. Just. Happened.
For long-time Coog fans such as myself who have suffered through so many years of why-am-I-even-watching-this-crap disappointment, and who have had to watch as the grossly unfair BCS system has continually widened the gap between "have" schools like OSU and "have-not" schools like Houston, Saturday's game was sweet vindication. At long last, the Coogs are back on the national stage, as their #21 ranking in this week's AP poll - their first appearance in the polls since 1991- will attest.
Now it's up to the Cougars to prove that last Saturday's upset wasn't a fluke. They'll get that chance in two weeks, when another Big XII team, Texas Tech, travels to Robertson Stadium for a nationally-televised showdown that will doubtlessly feature a lot of offense. In that regard, it's good that Houston has two weeks to refocus, to heal and to prepare for this crucial game.
As for me, I'll continue to bask in the warm afterglow of the Coogs' biggest win in a quarter-century for a few more days.
According to the scale in the bathroom, I have managed to lose 22 pounds since April.
I'm still not where I want to be in terms of my weight; if I can shed another ten or fifteen pounds between now and the end of the year, then I'll be close to what I think my ideal weight should be. Of course, it's going to be hard to keep the fat off, much less lose even more, as the holidays approach. However, I'm proud of the fact that I've made so much progress over the past few months, and the success I've had certainly provides incentive and motivation for me to continue in my quest to become at least somewhat healthier.
The greatest thing about being a father is that it gives you an excuse to buy all the cool toys that didn't exist when you were a kid.
I first started collecting GeoTrax (sound warning) back in 2005, when Kirby was still an infant. I liked the rugged, versatile, expandable and colorful nature of the toy, and I figured that one day Kirby would enjoy it, too. Four years and some $1,500 (give or take) later, I've amassed quite a collection. This layout current occupies a good 2/3rds of the back patio: At first I felt a bit guilty about my obsessive desire to collect GeoTrax products and build massive layouts with them, but then I discovered an entire website devoted to like-minded individuals and now I don't feel quite as bad.
The neighborhood Halloween party featured an inflatable moonwalk for the kids to jump around in. The festivities were briefly marred, however, when a mischevious Kirby ran back behind the castle and unplugged its air blower, causing it to deflate. Fortunately, nobody was hurt and the moonwalk was quickly reinflated.
Lori the Witch was on hand to keep Kirby from disrupting the party any further:
The layout featured two separate monorail trains which interacted with various action modules. Other action features included a remote-control crane and several remote-control trucks.
Even though Rokenbok is recommended for children ages six and older, Kirby has already mastered the remote control aspect of the toy:
Needless to say, Kirby and I were very sad when the time came to dismantle the layout and return mom and dad's living room to its original state:
Here is the video I created, edited and submitted in time for the early September deadline:
