grew up in a small town / and when the rain would fall down /I'd just stare out my window

From the Chronicle today:
“Can you imagine the folks at Heinz Field in Pittsburgh running out of ketchup? How about all the ATM machines at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, N.C., being out of money? If that sounds impossible, then you weren’t at Reliant Stadium on Sunday when the power went out.”
Good to know that I wasn’t the only one who noted the irony. I went to my first-ever NFL game yesterday (the Texans home opener) with Nacho, Nick, Sarah, and Peter. With about 5 minutes left in the 4th quarter, the scoreboard went out and all the ads blinked off. I actually wouldn’t have noticed the power outage if not for the jumbotron and scoreboard (the roof is sort of translucent and lets a lot of light in), but they stopped the game anyway. After about 10 minutes, the refs announced that they’d decided there was enough light to continue (hello, refs, like, DUH) and the game went on. The Texans, sadly, lost.
I feel like a much more complete sports fan now. I’ve never loved football all that much, but it just seemed wrong that I had never attended a pro football game. We tailgated from about 10:00 till game time and had a great time. It’s really a shame that people don’t tailgate for other sports.
“So, how does one explain a power outage at a stadium bearing the name of the Houston-based energy giant?”
I don’t know, but it was funny.
It was a busy weekend, and suddenly I find myself back at work. Friday night we all got to see Matt and Stephanie’s new house; it’s on stilts, only a few blocks from Galveston Bay, and has a hot tub. We did try out the hot tub, but it was just too warm outside to make it very comfortable. Their house is very cute though. It’s the type of house I’d like…if I were in the state of mind to buy a house. Which I am not.
The soccer season has finally begun, so I had a game on Saturday morning. It was hot outside and I think I almost died from heat stroke. Seriously. It was HOT. Houston sucks. I had a heat-induced headache for the rest of the afternoon until Nacho was kind enough to provide me with some Excedrin before we went for a bike ride. We rode all over the place, 26 miles in all. Crazy. His bike is much nicer and much faster than mine, and he’s also in better biking shape. I felt really bad for slowing him down the whole time. However, I did decide how to spend my Christmas-in-September bonus — new pedals and shoes for my bike! I’ve been thinking about getting them for a while.
Saturday night I hogged all of Nick’s space shuttle legos and put the whole thing together. I don’t think anyone took me seriously when I said that I love Legos, but they probably believe me now. Nick also cooked dinner (gyros, mujudhra, Greek salad, potatoes) and it was delicious.
Yesterday was the football game followed by dinner with Chris, who is leaving for Stanford on Thursday and will be gone for a year. It will be sad that he’s not in Houston, but at least I will still have someone to visit in California. I never did make it there while Jen was on campus (because I’m a big slacker) but hopefully I’ll make it out to see Chris. Sometime after January when my annual leave count has been refreshed!
So that was my busy weekend. And in case anyone has forgotten, it was only a week ago that I was relaxing in Peru and dreading getting on a US-bound airplane. Sigh.