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Although the tradition of celebrating Halloween was started in Europe by Pagans it has long been a popular annual celebration here in America.
Unlike the UK, in America the vast majority of people take part in the festivities (apparently something like 80% of adults give out candy and 93% of children go out trick-or-treating).
Anyway, here’s the Halloween agenda:
1. Get a Pumpkin:
No problem there. Plenty to choose from at our local grocery store.
2. Decorate the house, and any children you might have:
3. Go out and trick-or-treating and return with your stash:
Now, one treat we weren’t expecting in our trick-or-treat bags was this:
Yes, not satisfied with taking up most of the TV schedule with their adverts slagging each other off they have to get politics into Halloween!
And now you’ve got me started on election-related advertising. As well as the position of Commander-in-Chief there are many other official roles due for re-election on Tuesday, amongst them Harris County Sheriff (Tommy Thomas says Adrian Garcia smoked Marijuana 100 times and Adrian Garcia says Tommy Thomas used taxpayers money to pay for a fence on his $1,000,000 ranch - which one is worse?) , State Senators, US Senators, Supreme Court Judges and even the County Tax Assessor (Paul Bettencourt is the current holder of this position. You write your cheques out to “Paul Bettencourt” when paying for your vehicle license, which sounds a bit suspicious - wouldn’t you expect to pay the “Department of Motor Vehicles” or something similar?). The results for Tuesday’s elections here in Harris County will run to 37 pages!
Anyway, with all this election advertising we don’t know what to buy in the shops now because there are no product adverts!
One welcome Halloween treat today was this:
After missing the chance to try Garrett’s Popcorn in their hometown of Chicago, a 2 gallon (yes, 2 gallon) tub arrived in the post tonight (many thanks to D & K). And yes, it its fantastic...
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Time for another bit of traveling, this time starting in the Windy City.
Chicago is the third largest city in the USA (New York City and Los Angeles are numbers 1 and 2 respectively - Houston is number 4) and is on the shore of Lake Michigan, one of the five North American Great Lakes. As always with America, everything is bigger so this Lake is actually larger than Croatia. You can see the shore here with Navy Pier (which includes a Ferris wheel, theaters, museums, shops and restaurants) to the left:
I can think of at least two bands that came out of Chicago: Styx and Chicago.
Styx were formed in 1961 on the south side of Chicago and are probably best known for their worst song (in the opinion of most fans) called “Babe”, and they did a song called “Back to Chicago” as a tribute to their home town.
Chicago were originally known as the Chicago Transit Authority before they were forced to change their name by the real CTA. Chicago’s tribute to Chicago is called “Take Me Back To Chicago” and it can be found on their album “Chicago XI” (so that should be easy to remember!).
Here are some of the things you must do if in Chicago:
1. Try a Chicago Dog
A Chicago-style hot dog is served in a steamed poppy seed bun and topped with mustard, onion, sweet pickle relish (which is a shade of green not known to the natural world), dill pickle, tomato, peppers, celery salt and (sometimes) cucumber.
Here is a Chicago Dog:
Do not, however, confuse this with a Korean Dog:
It is considered a serious faux-pas (possibly something punishable by prison time, although I didn’t establish this) to put ketchup on a Chicago Dog. Even Dirty Harry follows this rule - in the movie “Sudden Impact” Clint Eastwood says "Nobody - I mean NOBODY puts ketchup on a Hot Dog!". And who would argue with a .44 Magnum pointed at their face?
2. Try Garrett's popcorn
Garretts has been making its famous popcorn in Chicago since 1949 and today its fan base includes Oprah (whose TV show is based there), who includes it on her regular list of favorite things (I think diets must be on there too). Unfortunately due to time (and stomach space) this had to be left off our agenda.
3. Try a traditional Chicago Pizza.
The deep-dish style of pizza was invented in Chicago (some time in the 1940’s - as usual there are many versions of the history) and the idea was to make the traditional thin crust pizza being served in New York into more of a substantial meal. In fact its unlikely that you’d be able to eat this style of pizza in any way other than on a plate with a knife and fork.
A Chicago style pizza has thick layer of dough, covered with cheese then meats vegetables before being finished with a sauce of crushed tomatoes.
Here’s an example at Malnati’s (Rudy Malnati is considered by some such as the Chicago Daily News to be the inventor of the Chicago style pizza).
If you think it doesn’t look that big, then go and see if you can eat more than three slices in one sitting.
4. Visit the Howl at the Moon piano bar
There are a lot of dueling piano bars in the US. Originating in Dallas in the ‘80s, these bars contain two grand pianos on which resident pianists play requests from the audience. The Howl at the Moon bar in Chicago is one of a chain in the US and is definitely recommended. A fine rendition of “Don’t Stop Believin’” by Journey rounded off the evening here.
5. Get some hand pulled ale at the Clark Street Ale House
Hand pumps in pubs and bars are few and far between in America. This one behind Mr Boyle’s head is one of the few.
The beer on the pump changes so you may need to go several times during your stay (Three Floyds was on draught the night we went) and you will be able to experience the magic of a flat pint (that has some flavor unlike many American beers) just like in England.
And so from Chicago it was off to Manchester, New Hampshire, via Philadelphia. Philadelphia is famous for several things, among them:
-Its where the Declaration of Independence was signed
-Its where the Liberty Bell was first rung to summon citizens to the reading of the Declaration
Its not where Philadelphia cheese comes from (its actually from New York) but it is actually named after the place (because at the time, in 1880, Philadelphia was considered to be the place for top quality food).
The most interesting fact about Philadelphia is that the people of this historic city voted as their Mayor a man called Michael Nutter.
For once the name Mustard seems quite normal.
Once in Manchester (The setting for episode 1 of season 3 of the West Wing for those of you who watched this show) I was able to see the colors of Fall. Sadly no photograph I could take can show you just how amazing this looked. Here’s the best I could do:
You could be forgiven for thinking you are back in England when driving in the Massachusetts/New Hampshire area. Here are a few of the places I saw signposted on my journey from Boston to Manchester and back:
-Haverhill
-Reading
-Malden
-Cambridge
-Andover
-Tewksbury
-Woburn
The route back to Boston’s Logan airport (and the end of a week of travel) culminated in a drive over Charles river on the Leonard P Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge (try saying that after 10 bottles of Samuel Adams Lager).
Leonard Zakim was a noted civil rights activist in the Boston area. The bridge named after him is the widest cable-stayed bridge in the world and was built as part of the “Big Dig”, the largest highway construction project ever to take place in the USA.
Next week I will be mostly not traveling.
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What could be better for a Friday night than going to a 1920’s era converted warehouse to listen to the masters of progressive death metal, Sweden’s very own Opeth?
Warehouse Live, located in Houston’s Warehouse district (where else?) is just a few blocks from Minute Maid Park, where we saw the Houston Astros beat the Atlanta Braves a few weeks ago. This place is unlikely to win any venue awards (apart from smallest toilets) but it was an ideal location for Stockholm’s finest.
The name Opeth, in case you are wondering, is derived from Opet which means “city of the moon” in the book Sunbird by Wilbur Smith.
A typical Opeth movement (as they call their songs, and their albums are called observations) lasts at least 10 minutes and takes the listener through all kinds of musical styles and tempos. Despite what you might think at first, these guys are very talented musicians.
Opening with “Heir Apparent”, from their new album “Watershed” Mikael Akerfeld and friends treated us to 2 hours of some of their finest music including “Bleak”, “Deliverance” and “Ghosts of Perdition” (sadly they missed out “The Leper Affinity”, a personal favorite). As you can tell by the names, this is not the kind of band who you are going to dance (or sing along, unless you can do the death metal growl without losing your voice) but they did slow down proceedings with “Hope Leaves” from their not-so-aptly titled mellow album “Damnation”.
A fine night was had by all.
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Today is Columbus Day here in the USA, a public holiday to celebrate the arrival of Christopher Columbus in America.
He spotted land (the Bahamas) on 12 October 1492 (actually 21 October in the modern Gregorian calendar). This is celebrated as a Federal holiday on the second Monday in October every year.
Unfortunately for children here in Houston this is just another school day as they have to make up the time missed during Hurricane Ike’s visit here.
Of course not everyone thinks it was a good idea that Columbus discovered the Americas on behalf of the Europeans. There’s some folks in Colorado (see www.transformcolumbusday.org) who will be marching today to protest against the celebration because they believe Columbus was responsible for the the theft of land from and the murder of the indigenous population.
Columbus might have found it easier to find America if there’d been the kind of advertising that exists today.
Take for instance Goode’s Armadillo Palace here in Houston. If you want to tell someone how to find it you just have to say “look for the 20ft long armadillo” and chances are they’ll get to the right place.
The most common form of advertising, though, is the “wacky waiving inflatable arm flailing tube man”:
Made famous here:
Who wouldn’t want to stop at a shop who uses one of those?
Now if you have a shop or restaurant but can’t afford a wacky waving inflatable arm flailing tube man you don’t have to worry; you can get a nutty real arm waving mexican with sombrero for much less:
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7 weeks after we last saw it in Epsom our container arrived in Houston.
This container left Felixstowe, UK and sailed to Houston, USA via Bremerhaven, Germany and Charleston, USA as shown here:
The container arrived at the Port of Houston, after navigating up the Houston Ship Canal.
The first steamship travelled up this route in 1837 and Houston unloaded the world’s first container ship, the M/V Ideal X, in 1958.
Today the Port of Houston is the largest port in the USA by foreign tonnage (and second by total tonnage). 7,550 vessels carried more than 200 million tons of cargo through the Port of Houston in 2006.
Fortunately (although we didn’t know it at the time) the ship carrying our container arrived in the Port of Houston before Hurricane Ike hit. If it hadn’t we may still have been without our belongings since the storm wiped out the navigation buoys and damaged some of the docks.
To check that all the boxes arrived a large game of bingo is played. Removal men call out numbers and you have to check them off on a big grid.
But don’t call out “Two Little Ducks” when they shout out 22 as it will only confuse them.
Anyway, we had 357 boxes to count in. Unfortunately regular bingo only goes up to 90 so there isn’t a nickname for 357.
When the new super bingo game is introduced 357 can be either:
-“Cup of tea” and “Heinz varieties” (“3” and “57”)
-“Cup of tea” and “Man alive” and “Lucky for some” (“3”, “5” and “7”)
Or most likely:
“Man Alive” + “Legs” + “Unlucky for some” + “Key of the door” + “Two little ducks” + “Dirty Girtie” + “Droopy drawers” + “The Brighton line” + “Knock on the door” + “Two fat ladies” (“5” + “11” + “13” + “21” + “22” + “30” + “44” + “59” + “64” + “88”)
Although it might slow the game down a bit...
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If ever there was an understatement this must be it.
200,000 miles from Earth an oxygen tank ruptured on board the spacecraft Apollo 13 and damaged the service module resulting in a loss of oxygen and electrical power. Commander James Lovell (played by Tom Hanks in the movie Apollo 13) reported the incident to the Apollo Mission Control Center in Houston using just these words.
The story of the successful return to Earth of the three astronauts (Jack Swigert and Fred Haise were with Lovell) is a credit to the engineering ingenuity of the astronauts and the ground team.
Anyway, its possible to visit the original Apollo Mission Control Center and see an Apollo era spacecraft (see above) if you take a trip the the Houston Space Center, which we did today.
The Space Center is the visitor section of the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, named after the US President from Texas who started the legislation to build the center in 1958 whilst he was still a US Senator (it was named after him in 1973 when he died).
Houston was chosen as the site for the Mission Control Center because of its access to the sea, airports and its weather (allowing all year round working). Site construction started in 1962 and it opened a year later.
Here’s how it looked back in 1970 when Apollo 13 was in trouble:
Its just kept as a museum piece these days and looks just the same (except with fewer people):
In fact there were always two identical rooms and the one that you can see today was the one that was used to control the first manned moon landing (it has been converted into its Apollo-era format for viewing purposes).
The current Mission Control Center which is used to control missions for the International Space Station, the Hubble Telescope and Mars exploration was commissioned in 1998 and substantially remodelled in 2006 is close by but you can only see that from a TV screen in the old room.
All in all, the Houston Space Center is well worth a trip if you want to see were some amazing feats of human achievement were run from.