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| La Cinq Jour |
I came extremely close to burning my eyebrows off just now, but that is a story of the 5th day, and I still have the 3rd and 4th to polish. I'm only managing about 10-12 hours of sleep a night here, which has me a little bit worried. I've had a few talks with my host, Al, to see if there is anything we can do to make my bed more comfortable or something. An interesting Wednesday night involving Cosmos and interesting "wednesday night clientele". Houston/Texas is actually surprising me in heaps of ways. It's actually extremely gorgeous, (especially the places that I've been touring), there is heaps of history (especially lone stars), a nice array of great restaurants, and alot of talent. There is alot of great shopping, and for anyone who is an apple buff, or wannabe, I visited the Apple store ;) One thing that isn't striking me as a huge surpise, but that has really amazed me since I last saw it in L.A., is the complexity of the freeway interchanges.  Let's be honest, Alberta has some great things happening in the form of Clover Leafs, and that new Anthony Henday interchange is getting interesting on the South side of Edmonton, but; Things start getting really rediculous when you have free ways that are 10 lanes wide, that then has to interchange with 3 other free ways. I've probably taken heaps more video of this than I should have, but for some reason I can't get over the amount of "stuff" that is involved. I know that everything is bigger in texas, but the amount of Concrete and Pillars and that, is just over the top. Then again, a 10 lane wide free way that is being expanded, is a little bit over the top as well. Apparently the one interchange that I actually went through today in Houston, is the busiest in America. One of Al's friends is an engineer and has been employed for the last 5 years on that one interchange alone... Thursday was an extremely interesting day. I went around with Al, to a couple different voice-overs that he had scheduled for the day. To fill you in on that, I'm staying with a media talent, which is not something that I knew prior to my trip. Apparently Al felt like he had to keep his Hollywood identy under wraps. It is my understanding that during law school in California, he also attended a performing arts school. When he graduated, Law kept him too busy to get involved in any main-stream of full time acting, so his professor suggested that he get involved in voice-overs. In case your eyes are rolling, and you have no idea what is going on. A voice over is the "voice" that is implemented into a commercial either radio or television. I'll post a video/audio link up later that will give you a better idea; But if you're from Canada, I'm sure you will know "Christine & Mcgee", the two annoying wankers that do the advertisements for Sleep Country. Funny enough both Christine and Mcgee are in advertisements in Houston for another main matress chain, but thanks to someone that they left the rude skits behind in Canada. That is voice talent though, and voice-overs in a nutshell.  The first voice-over that I sat in on was for an election in Austin, and actually an ad that is running against the opposing party. The second one, was for the The Houston Museum of Natural Science, and for an extremely interesting display: "Gunther von Hagens' BODY WORLDS" - Chances are that you might have heard of it: It's basically real people and I've been told a few times now, a horse as well, that are taken when they die and injected with a solution that allows the body to be preserved, leaving it completely visible. The skin is removed, which leaves an extremely interesting and even controversial look at the human body, along with some parts of human anatomy that you're not even interested in seeing, let alone with the skin removed.... This was an interesting voice-over to sit in on, and an exhibit that I plan on going to see next week. After that Last voice-over we drove to Austin, which is about 160 miles away. Austin is known for both being the state capital, and for the massive University of Texas. With approximately 60 thousand students, it is a major College town, and their is a vibrant nightlife to tag along with it. I would tag 6th Ave Austin, as 17th Ave Calgary times 3 on steroids. I was able to see the Government grounds both during the night and day, each which offer their own excitment; Both extremely pretty though. There was alot of random sights; I won't go into too much detail as I have some video, and legislature buildings aren't extremely new to anyone. After we accomplished Austin, on the 5th day we drove to Fredericksburg. "Fredericksburg is a city of beauty and charm". That sums it up, but to go into more detail; it is well kept showing both Texas history mixed with a major German Influence. A great feed at a German Brewery, and the journey continued to San Antonio.  San Antonio has interested me ever since I saw that film with Billy Bob Thornton, I believe it's called "The Alamo" or something like that. Not a bad movie, but the history interests me more than Davy Crockett, so I was pretty interested to see the actual Alamo. We got into San Antonio early afternoon, and after was a marathon looking for a parking spot, we prevailed, and proceeded the grounds of the Alamo. In the centre of a very well built up/convention city center, the Alamo holds it charm, both with it's grounds and historic buildings. My batteries ran out nearing the end of the shoot, but I still managed to capture the Alamo and most of it's beauty... The drive back to Houston was a little on the slow side, and with the cold front that has been sneaking it's way down from Canada, the weather was in the low 40's, and alot of rain snuck in. Dinner was at a Osaka, a japenese restaurant a few blocks from residence. A very nice Japanese restaurant, but the Madonna that they picked for +loud background music, some how didn't seem fitting with the rest of the atmosphere. I polished a huge amount of raw fish, and almost feel like I've found my appetite. My 'incident' in the summer, quickly turned into an actual 'real' pain, that brought me to an MRI a couple of weeks ago, and now I actually have a real appointment to see surgeon, so things are quickly progressing. Progressive thoughts, more like agressive, are running through my minds, and something will be made of them in 2006. - Ryan |
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