We've Popped across the Pond!

That's right...another international move and the Texpatriates are back! So stay tuned for posts from the London edition. No promises on the frequency of posts, as the newest Texpatriate takes up more than a bit of our free time, but we will be sure to do our best to keep you updated! 

Viva los Mavs!

The Champs

The Happiest Fans in Houston

3 decades down, many more to go...

As promised, I have a few more pictures to share from the wonderful weekend that was my 30th birthday celebration....

With lots of friends and family to help celebrate, we had....

a cake graciously transported to Austin by Carol, commemorating my extreme nerdiness,



a strong, worthy opponent of a pinata...



and a day at the lake with more than a few beers to keep the good times flowing.
(Note the "shotgun" master preparing to blow me out of the water with his skills)

All in all, it was a great weekend that not only left me feeling more than a little bit loved by those around me, but also confident in the good times to come in the next few decades...

30 and still Keeping it Weird

That's right, this past weekend, I reached the big 3-0.  To celebrate, we headed to Austin for some fun in the sun and good times with the fam.  Turns out I am so popular that our usual crash pad (aka Kelly's house) was packed to the brim with out-of-town guests.  No worries on that front, as Jared had booked us a room at one of Austin's quirkiest institutions, the Austin Motel, smack dab in the middle of South Congress:



The infamously-shaped logo

Unusual signage to keep the guests in check

Although some rooms at the hotel allow pets, ours unfortunately did not.  Lucky for Zambezi, there was plenty of dog-action going on at Kelly's house, although I think that he might have been missing the luxuries of our apartment's central air conditioning as this is where he hung out for most of the visit:

Although the weekend was full of surprises and gifts for yours truly (another post to come), not having to do the 6am bathroom run with our little bundle of joy turned out to be one of the best presents of all...

Ocean Lounging

With a long holiday weekend and the summer heat upon us, it was time to pack up the car and head down to the Gulf Coast to introduce our new furry hellraiser to the sand & surf.  Galveston's Stewart Beach, with its sand parking lot, legions of kid-toting families, and dog-friendly ways was the destination of choice.  Despite eating a bunch of sand and getting dirtier than a little boy playing in shitpiles, everybody had a great time.

Crazy Cousin Ted

Everyone's got one (or in my case many): that crazy cousin that rolls in, hypes you up, drags you around, and leaves you exhausted from the non-stop party that was their weekend visit.  In lil Zambezi Ndeble Xhosa Nowitski Dralvin's (who you can just call Zambezi or Lil Beez) case, it is cousin Ted, a six month old, 60 lb black mouth cur looking to assert his dominance.  The video below is a sample of how things went down for 48 hours straight:

Looks exhausting, doesn't it?  Well I can tell you it was.  Between waking up at 6 am, trying to give the neighbors some relief from the high-pitched yipping from Zambezi, cleaning up all the inevitable "accidents"of a tiny bladder, and reassuring Ted that he was not on constant guard duty, Kelly and I were completely exhausted come Sunday morning.  Luckily, so were Zambezi and Ted, who are still sleeping off some of the weekend's excitement.

Faithful Hound

Meet the newest Texpatriate!  Although his name is still in testing phase, he is definitely already a part of the family. A great pyrenees/blue heeler mix with a noted oral fixation and fear of his reflection, this lil guy has already increased our sense of responsibility and "parenting" anxiety by 1000% in just a few days time.

On the his first night, we broke out a wine we had been saving for the occasion, "The Faithful Hound" by South African producer Mulderbosch.   Rated 4 stars by wine guru John Platter, it paired perfectly with our low brow pizza and helped us try to forget the wailing pup back at the apartment suffering from a bit of separation anxiety.

So bienvenidos to our new companero on the journey and feel free to send more good wine our way to help us cope with the joys of training our faithful hound...

Nerd Alert!

Those who know me well are aware that I have some, shall we call them, "less than cool" tendencies, especially when it comes to epic journeys across Middle Earth to defeat the forces of evil. 



Geeking out in full force on the LOTR tour in New Zealand

So needless to say, upon arrival in Houston, we promptly made a pilgrimage to the Hobbit Cafe, a Houston institution since 1972.  Apparently, there are some unenlightened Houstonians who frequent the cafe just for the food, but fellow "Ringers" out there will appreciate the LOTR themed menu (hungry for a Strider sandwich, anyone?) and 60's era paraphernalia lining the walls of the restaurant

So should your quest lead you across the Misty Mountains, through the forests of Isengard and beyond the eerie outskirts of chain restaurant infested greater Houston, plan to meet us at the Shire-on-Richmond and we will celebrate your arrival in proper hobbit fashion!

Ghost Face Killer

This past weekend, while celebrating the wedding of Michael "H-bomb" Henderson to Karen Sorenson with our old pals and favorite roomies Conor and Natalie, we encountered a spicy challenge like none the Dos Texpatriates had come across thus far: the Jolokia Ghost pepper. 

Originally found in India, the jolokia (or ghost pepper here in the US), was crowned the hottest chili pepper in the world in 1997 by the Guinness Book of World Records and is 3 times hotter than the spiciest habanero out there.

While contemplating the various menu options at the appetizingly-named Chunky's Burgers, we first noticed their signature menu item, the Four Horseman. This burger, featured on Man v Food, contains habaneros, serranos, jalapenos, and the ghost pepper.  The burger is so spicy, you have to sign a release and be over 18 to participate.  Our helpful waitress advised that pretty much everyone throws up and quite a few have to make a visit to the local ER.  Although we are not ones to back away from a challenge, we had a moment of maturity and remembered the wedding we were scheduled to attend that evening.  Instead, we opted for the Ghost burger, which only had the ghost peppers atop it, and seemed like a more reasonable option.

Jared definitely shouldered most of the challenge, but I was sure to crown my chicken sandwich with a few of the little devils as well.  And, wow!  They aren't joking around with the spiciness claim, although I have to say that the lasting after effects (best analogy: a laser fight in your stomach) were easily worse than the initial spiciness.

This was definitely a case of we Cowboys being seriously outmatched by those Indians.

Closet Case

Behold!  One of the joys of living in Texas: closet space!!

Now before you go thinking that the Texpatriates might need to join Clotheshorse Anonymous, please note that in San Francisco we were dealing with closets about half the size of an an airplane bathroom with the same amount, if not more, clothes inside.  So three cheers to the wide open spaces of Texas and the invention of the walk-in closet. 

Cultural Appropriation

As the Dos Texpatriates continue to zip code hop, we have picked up a few habits that linger along with us.   Here are a few things that haven't quite worn off:

1. Turning the tires toward the curb- despite finding ourselves once again in flat-as-a-board Texas, we still can't resist cranking the wheels inward toward the curb to prevent major catastrophe in the event of the car sliding away downhill.

2. Izzit? I am definitely more guilty of this one than my counterpart, but the South Africanism of replying with "izzit?" in place of "really?" when answering in semi-disbelief, simply hasn't worn off.   Example:

       TEXPATRIATE 1:  "So there is actually a huge South African wine section at the Specs downtown"

       TEXPATRIATE 2: "Izzit? That is exciting."

Note that when replying with "Izzit?" you are allowed to completely disregard normal grammar rules regulating tense and number.  Just give it a try, you will see.... its catchy.

3. Requiring that food be tear-inducing levels of spiciness in order to be considered tasty.  This one certainly hasn't worn off despite our exposure to less-enlightened food cultures.

 4. California Eco-mindedness  This one really came to fruition today as I pretended to take a casual stroll around the neighborhood while actually looking for a good place to bury the week's compost collection.  Aware that should my actions be discovered, it could result in some type of reprimand or citation, I prepared a spiel on the "urban fertilization program" I was spearheading in the neighborhood.  Luckily, I did not have to test the believe-ability of this plan...yet.

As time elapses, I am sure that we will discover additional cultural elements that continue along with us on our journey, but for now, I think this is a hella-good list. (kidding... the sufer-lingo never really took). 

Movin on up, out, and away!

Sorry faithful readers for our looong absence from the Dos Texpatriates blog.  Not only have we been more than a little bit busy with the transfer from SF to Houston, but the Dos Texpatriates have also been separated for the past two and a half weeks (tear).   As Jared blazes new trails in Houston, setting up our new nest with lovely rented furniture and startling Texans with his continued devotion to public transportation, I have been working non-stop to wrap things up on the Californian end.  And by wrap things up, I don't mean pack (which is what I should be doing right now), I mean try to delicately extract myself from the three roles I am filling in for at KBAS.  You can take a wild guess at how that is going....

So until the Dos Texpatriates are reunited, we ask you, faithful readers to hold tight!  As a gesture of apology for this absence, we offer these gems from the 2011 Galvin family calendar:

The first reader to guess the theme from each picture wins free lodging at the Dos Texpatriates newest abode!