Houston

Weee!
Originally uploaded by xadrian.

Last weekend we visited my cousin in Houston. The trip was timed with my mom and aunt's visit so we could all spend the weekend. Technically I wanted to leave early Friday but a problem at work kept me there till late which means we got to Houston (or the Cy-Fair area of North West Houston) by 9pm.

Also, it was a short trip because we had originally planned to go to the TXRD championship bout on Saturday night, but we ended up not being able to get tickets in time and the prevalent thinking is that the kids don't do well at bouts so we skipped it. Tiger Lilly came along and got to meet a small fraction of my family.

By the way, Ms. A is officially a Texas Roller Derby skater. Her skate name is Fishnet Stalker. She'd gone through a few names but ended up choosing this one because it more accurately reflected her propensity to stalk people online and off. I warned her people might call her Fishy but she was ok with that.

School is going ok for the kids. They missed a chunk with the flu but LMA's grades are all A's thus far this semester. As far as we've heard, she hasn't beaten anyone down recently. Maybe derby brats is teaching her something or just giving her an outlet. She still a few weeks left of this season and I can perfectly envision her picking it up again. She genuinely seems to enjoy it despite the requirement that you have to practice.

I've been trying to do more drawing and actually do something with all those interlocking piece of plastic hanging around my room, but work has been really busy and lately when I'm home I'm either working more, doing some chores or sleeping. I've got four shows to write for at TVZ and half the time I don't have time to watch them.

I was able to record and watch the the Discovery Channel's "Discovering Ardi" which was terribly exciting. If you don't know anything about evolution or human paleontology, you may at least know about Lucy. Lucy was the, up until about 1992, the oldest known skeleton (or partial skeleton) scientists have discovered. Australopithecus afarensis, a 3.2 million year old species, Lucy was thought to have been somewhat of a missing link back in the 1970's. It was an upright walking ape, but was more human than monkey. Ardi (Ardipithecus ramidus) predates Lucy by more than a million years, to roughly 4.2 million years ago. Ardi was another hominid but with some striking features. Foremost was that of a grasping foot.

Whatever your beliefs are, you have to admit that finding a hominid skeleton that walked upright but had a grasping foot is pretty cool. There's really no comparison in the animal world. The find makes Lucy look positively Cro-Magnon. Scientists were able to determine that not only was A. ramidus bipedal, but also that they were changing in terms of social and sexual traits as well. They were still instinctual, but the instincts were becoming refined.

Anyway, Tiger Lilly and I watched the show on Sunday, absolutely fascinated. We're nerdy like that. Miss LA continues to be sick but was able get someone to fill in for her at work and get some much needed rest. Ms. A is still going to class though she missed a few days when she and the kids were sick. Life still rolls on here.

Carry on.