desole pour le retard

I have become lazy in the past month doing this thang right here, but I somehow found the motivation to write a little bit this morning to tell, in short, what has been going on (or so I hope so it will be short).

My parents came down for spring break and we had a wonderful time. I didn't know how much I missed my momma, until I saw her. They stayed at Galveston for a couple of days and I took Thursday and Friday off of that week. My dad made an interesting remark that the sea here is looks like it's made of dishwashing soap, as you are able to see mousse and shiny bubbles everywhere along the shore. I guess that's what you get for having ten million chemical plants in one county. Funny thing was that the soap-induced (well I think it's soap anyways) water didn't seem to bother or stop people from fishing on the pier. We went to Austin that weekend and I then found out that minors are allowed to drink if their parents buy them the alcohol...still...it didn't really cross my dad's mind to buy me a beer. We walked along 6th St (street full of nothing but nightclubs and bars) and then looked for Antone's, a jazz/blues club which a friend of mine back home suggested to check out. Unfortunately, they had some punk band on that Friday, and some latino music going on Saturday...we were in the mood for some blues and jazz baby. The woman who owns Antone's was kind enough to direct us to The Elephant Room...a calm and chill jazz/blues bar. They had an extremely great band playing that night, which included of a very talented sax player who would awed us all by playing two saxophones at the same time, and drummer who played and sang at the same time-very impressive. The mood was great, the people were smiling, and I fell in love with jazz again. Then the time came to say good-bye to my parents and feel depressed and lonely all over again.

St. Patrick's day sucked as usual, but for a weird and ironic reason this time. Instead of having to walk through downtown and put up with drunken bastards spewting slurs at the top of their lungs, I spent a quiet evening enjoying my time with my favorite goose from my beloved country. If I had to thank someone for introducing me to a liquor, it would be Boris, for showing me the great taste of true vodka. My roomate decided to cook up some mussels and clams that he brought thawed from Louisiana, but I was already tipsy enough and didn't have a care in the world what I would eat just as long as I would eat something I didn't have to prepare. I slurpped away at the mussles and clams, not thinking of the food poisoning I might get and in the end, I was just fine. I guess the G. Goose neutralized the contamination.

The weekend after, Nam, Chris and I went on a charter boat for fishing. I was pretty excited, since I have only fished in lakes and ponds and I haven't gone fishing since I was in 7th grade. I was pretty glad that we didn't have to use worms and that crab and squid was provided. I always hated putting the worm on the hook as it wrapped its body around my finger. Everyone got a few bites, but Chris was the MVP. He caught 5 little flathead catfish, but had to throw them back him, because of some law about them. Then, he almost got a huge redfish, approx. 25 inches. He came through an hour later catching a 37 in redfish-the biggest fish he's ever caught, and the biggest fish I've seen anyone caught in front of my eyes. The weight and size was just impressive and so were the skills of the fillet master on shore slicing and dicing and cleaning that beast in a matter of minutes.

I went on my first business trip a couple weeks ago to Lufkin, TX. A town filled with piney woods and ...that's about it. Chris and I went there with Karamsinh to go look at a gearbox of ours and witness the main and spare gear to be tested. I have never learned so much about gears and bearings. It was cool to check out how they are made and all, but I don't want to get into that much detail. The first night, we stayed at this shacky motel called Executive Suites..the damn sheets smelled like ciggarettes and nothing else was clean and had ciggarettes holes in the covers. Karamsinh chose the place, because of how the name sounded. He took us to the Hampton Inn and Suites the next day, and although I had to share a room this time with Chris, I was quite releaved to see what "sanitary" really meant in a hotel. As stupid as I was, I didn't think everything would be paid on a business trip. When we went out for dinner the last night, Karamsinh told me that I could have as many beers and drinks as I wanted. Although, this did scream hurray in my brain, I did want to give him a good impression, so I only had a shot cognac and a bottle of Shiner. Oh by the way, Shiner has to be one of the best beers I have ever tasted, it had a soothing peanuty after-taste and I plan to bring back some to State College for all you folks somehow, someway.

pics soon for both this post and the previous one.