Houston is in a sort of stasis, we're all waiting to see where hurricane Rita goes. I was in the city for Allison in 2000, so at least I know how my neighborhood will react. Of course, Rita's an act of nature on an insanely stronger scale.

Still, it's very odd to drive through the familiar parts of town and see everything boarded up, taped down and sometimes even sheet metal shuttered. Nothing is open and very few people are on the local roads. As Charlie says, it really hits home when you realize the 24 hour Taco Bell is closed.

The Godwin house had a quick meeting last night since our house just missed being included into the evacuation areas. Charlie's going to brave the texodus traffic to Arkansas (although some people I know have turned back after 12 hours on the road with the millions of other evacuated people so who knows...there is no gas anywhere...), I'm staying in town with the fam (so is Shawn) and Chris is staying in the house. We all locked down what we needed to and took the important stuff.

So now, we're just waiting. Waiting to see if there is any truth to all the hype, to see how bad it's really going to be, and most of all just waiting to ride it out. Cell phone networks have been really sucky, so if anyone needs to contact me just text me.

Here's to seeing you guys on the dry side :)

I wish I had a close up filter for the Holga and the ability to befriend sun tanning critters :)

There is nothing I wish for more sometimes than a hammock, a cold beer and a good book by the sea.

Now I understand what the hell Vanilla Ice was talking about...

Here's the lomo version taking as we left for Isla.

More Horizon camera lessons: Try to grip it as far from the lens as possible, thus avoiding black blobs like the one on the left which has to be a finger. This is stuff I never think about until I owned a panoramic.

By the way, the stuff on the beach was a wedding set up. Can you imagine getting married right next to the volley ball players and the sunbathers?

The other side of yesterday's picture.

One of the things about the Horizon camera that might be a bad thing for some but interesting to me is the fact that when it's not level, it distorts the picture's horizon into a rounded shape. This is easily solved with a tripod but I kinda like it like this.

One thing I don't like, however, is the fuzziness at the right end. My guess is it's caused by the swing lens snapping at the end of the swing and I've seen it on some other horizon samples on the internet. Haven't figured out how to fix that yet...maybe it's a camera defect.

Two panoramics as one, it really should be viewed from the larger version instead.

Despite the bluriness, I like the atmosphere. These are the bouncy conveyor belt lifts that replace the escalators in the Charles de Gaulle Airport.

Following Frederic's advice (who I had just met at Lush Bar in Paris via the wonderful owner, Jim, maker extraordinaire of excellent white russians and the person who introduced me to my first private lock-in experience) we went looking for Kölsch beer in the shadow of the Köln Cathedral. Kölsch beer turns out to be very light and tasty, in tiny half pint glasses. I wish my pictures of the beer came out better.

Anyway since I'm talking about bars and alcohol in general, if you make your way to Paris and happen to be near Place de Clichy, stop by at Lush and tell the wonderful people there I said hi :)

I love it when I'm in a place that I've never been to before and there's a little soundtrack to accompany my wandering.