Trip to Houston

I went to Houston for two nights with my dad and my brother two weeks ago, during Spring Break. We left Monday morning, and stopped at a few courthouses along the way. We also stopped at the giant Sam Houston statue in Huntsville. We got to our hotel on the far north side of Houston that afternoon. Our room was quite spacious and it even had a full-size refrigerator and a DVD player. The hotel also offered free dinner (which wasn't nearly as good tasting as would have been food that cost money). That evening we decided to drive to Beaumont, but we didn't realize how far away it was from Houston. We stopped there, walked around a little bit, had dessert there, and then made the lengthy drive back. Tuesday, drove through Rice, and went to Hermann Park. Then, we went to the Houston Nature Center and walked around for a while. For dinner, we returned to the hotel and had some of their TV-dinner-quality food. I don't remember what else we did that evening. On Wednesday it was raining so we drove back and stopped in Waxahachie for lunch.

Overall the trip wasn't too exciting, but it was nice to go somewhere different and to get some more pictures of courthouses. However, I didn't really like Houston that much, and the trip was originally supposed to include more time spent in Beaumont and the Big Thicket area nearby, but it was too far away from our hotel. I also took a few pictures:

click here to see photos

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Navarro County Courthouse

Leon County Courthouse. It's one of the oldest courthouses in Texas, and it's also one of the most dilapidated and unimpressive. Notice the large beam on the wall holding the building up. To the right of the courthouse is the historical society building

Walker County Courthouse in Huntsville

Sam Houston Statue at the side of the freeway in Huntsville

Sunset in Houston, seen on our way to Beaumont

Fire truck at night in Beaumont. I've been wanting to get a picture of an emergency vehicle at night because I think it'd be cool to see all the lights on at once (due to the camera's slow shutter speed at night, it would seem as if all the lights were on at once).

Downtown Houston. No, it's not cloudy, that's just the smog. (Just kidding)

Scene at Japanese garden in Houston.

Swampy area at Houston Nature Center

Wise County Courthouse in Waxahachie

Financial aid for proposed extra semester

Right now I'm looking into adding an extra semester. A while ago, many people gave their opinions on what I should do, and it seems that the main argument against me delaying my graduation is the money: the cost of paying for an extra semester and the money lost by delaying full-time employment. In order to get a better idea of the cost of tuition to help me make the best decision, I needed to figure out if some of my financial aid can be extended to pay for it.

Ater talking to a few people, at first I received the indication that both of my scholarships could be extended. However, after e-mailing the provost, I have learned that my largest scholarship can probably not be extended. So, whereas I would expect to pay about $5,000 for a semester of school if my scholarships were extended, in the current situation, I'd have to pay $10,000 for a semester of school. In addition to that, I'd have to pay for an apartment and for food, but I'd have to pay for that regardless of whether I go to school for another semester.

So, while I'm still exploring the costs and benefits of doing this and I have at least a few months to decide, the high amount of tutition that I'll probably have to pay will be an obstacle if I choose to stay another semester. I might look into some more scholarship options to try to lessen the costs if I choose to stay another semester. Also, right now in order to increase the benefits of staying another semester, I'm looking at different courses I could take, and I intend to share some of those options with you when I form a list of the most appealing ones.

Where's your water for everyone else?

People are making such a big deal about Terri Schiavo being taken off life support. Do these people who are being arrested for trying to deliver water to her hospital room not realize that there are more people than just her being taken off life support? A lot of people are taken off life support and could potentially benefit more from public support, water bottles, and prolonged survival much more than terminally unconscious Terri Schiavo. These people are making much too big of a deal about this one person.

The fact that I'm making a big deal about how everyone else is making a big deal about Terri Schiavo shows how ridiculous this whole ordeal has gotten.

Sign your credit card receipts however you want

I know this is a few years old and has probably been around the internet already, but here's a credit card prank involving a guy who signs his credit card receipts without using his actual signature and he gets away with it. The guy happens to be a big jerk, but he makes a good point, "Credit card signatures are a useless mechanism designed to make you feel safe, like airport security checks." This has serious implications, not only can a thief use your credit card anywhere he wants without fear of being caught for signature forgery, but also people with long last names like myself needn't go through the trouble of penning our full signatures when a simple "X" or few scribbles will do the trick. I say that credit cards should use personal identification numbers like debit cards do, while not a perfect solution, it seems that a PIN number (personal identification number number) would offer greater protection than frivolous signature protection.

Meddling Congress

The Congress has been paying a lot of attention to steroids in professional sports as well as to the case of the brain-damaged lady in Florida.

First, I'll talk about the brain-damaged lady, Terri Schiavo. Here's some information about her permanent unconsciousness. She's not conscious and never will be, and some people want to keep her on life support. Personally, I feel that considering her condition and that she said she didn't want to be kept alive in a situation such as this, there doesn't seem to be much justification for keeping her on life support. I'd like to hear what you have to say about it, but I don't really care to hear what Congress has to say about it. There might be some room for debate about whether to keep Terri Schiavo alive, but it's not a debate that Congress needs to be involved in. Some people have likened this situation with the Elián Gonzalez saga, but whereas the government does have a role in enforcing immigration laws, it does not have a role in an individual's status on life support.

About steroids, sure they're bad, but is the use of steroids in professional baseball a pressing enough issue to warrant Congressional hearings? This isn't really an issue that Congress needs to be devoting so much time to. This steroids issue is almost echoing McCarthyism. Or perhaps worse, the drug panic of the mid 1980s. Perhaps Congress should devote some time to addressing a drug problem that is prevalent in the fields and courts of America's sports celebrities as well as in the nation's high schools, but Congressional hearings seem excessive.

Andrew Sullivan blames this Congressional micromanaging on the perversion of conservative ideals:

CONSERVATISM COME UNDONE: So it is now the federal government's role to micro-manage baseball and to prevent a single Florida woman who is trapped in a living hell from dying with dignity. We're getting to the point when conservatism has become a political philosophy that believes that government - at the most distant level - has the right to intervene in almost anything to achieve the right solution. Today's conservatism is becoming yesterday's liberalism.

What do you think? Are these issues being blown out of proportion, or does Congress have a role in dealing with these issues of the day.

Get Smart

When I was in the first grade, I watched Get Smart on Nick at Nite every night. Get Smart is a very funny show from the late 60's about an unastute secret agent named Max Smart (agent 86). The series has not been released on DVD, but I hope that it is sometime because I'd probably buy it. I signed a petition to have it released on DVD.

My CDs of 2004

I got relatively few CDs last year - 17 discs (compared to 35 in 2002 and 31 in 2003). I spent a total of $34 on the 4 discs that I got for myself (the remaining 13 discs were gifts).

Best CDs I got in 2004:

1. Fleetwood Mac - Rumours (from Lesley's parents)
2. Johnny Cash - The Sun Years
3. Smiths, The - The Queen is Dead (from Lesley)
4. Zappa, Frank and the Mothers of Invention - We're Only In It For the Money (from Andy)
5. Beach Boys - Pet Sounds (from Bryan)

Thanks to those of you who got me music last year, and good luck on your gifts making the top 5 next time.

large SUV sales fall

As gas prices continue to rise, sales of large SUVs are falling. So, while nobody likes paying more to get where they need to go, people are now considering fuel economy more when purchasing vehicles and that is good news for the environment. Furthermore, the drop in sales of SUVs is good news for those of us who don't like having to share the road with such large and dangerous vehicles.

Should I register a domain?

I plan to get my own domain someday, but am not in a big rush to do so because I have free hosting from SMU and from Blogger. However, I'm afraid I'll have fewer domain name options if I wait, so I'm entertaining the idea of registering a domain name now (though not necessarily using it).

My domain name must: include my first name, be easy to remember, and be appropriate enough that I could use it in my main e-mail address. So, basically I've been looking at something like troy.com, troyH.com, or something like that. I don't want to use my last name because it's hard to spell. Anyway, it seems to me that all good .com domains are taken. But, I could get a .us name. www.TroyH.us is available, and I think that would be a reasonable domain name.

If I register a domain, I probably won't move my site over there just yet (since hosting costs money in addition to simply registering the domain). Right now if I register my domain with GoDaddy.com, it will cost $6.95 for one year.

What do you think? This might be premature, but when the time comes for me to register a domain, I don't want to be stuck with troy9424102.com

Lockheed HR wastefulness

I wrote a lengthy post about Lockheed's HR bureaucracy and just wanted to share an update. Last week, I received a package from them sent via USPS Priority Mail. This package included a plastic folder identical to the plastic folders that I've received from them before my two other internships there. Lockheed found it necessary to ship another folder to me and to do so via Priority Mail two months before I'll start working there.

100,000 miles

Today my car reached its first 100,000 miles. In celebration, a few days ago I shined the interior and vacummed, washed, and waxed it (with Lesley's help). However, this isn't as significant of a milestone as I'm making it out to be; I've only put about 27,000 of these miles on the car and the odometer was broken for a few hundred miles. 100,000 is a lot of miles, but perhaps my car has another 100,000 to go.

Back from Spring Break

To those of you who didn't know, sorry for not telling you why I mysteriously stopped posting more than a week ago. I'm now back on campus after a nice long Spring Break. I didn't do anything too exciting, I went back home to Fort Worth and I went to Houston for a few days and that was about it. I'll probably share photos from my Houston trip and talk more about it later.