A good friend of mine and native Houstonian just finished his remix for the Radiohead contest. Please have a listen if this interests you. Regardless, we would really appreciate you hitting the plus sign to add your vote.

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN AND VOTE

It was a great evening of burning rubber, twisting metal, dollar hotdogs, and dollar beers at Houston Motorsports Park this past Saturday. Those onhand witnessed some excellent racing in a family-friendly environment.

Coming up out at HMS is

March 29th
TRUCKS DRIVE AMERICA “FREE NIGHT”
Free General Admission
ASA Pro Late Models, Pro Modifieds, Pro Stocks,
Allison Legacy Cars, Thunder Roadsters, Legends and Bandoleros

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By Chris Doelle

Katy, Texas - The 2008 Southland Conference Basketball Tournament is in full swing out West at the Merrell Center in Katy, Texas. Whether you’re interested in great women’s basketball or men’s, the tournament which started yesterday for the women and today for the men is sure to please.

The winner of the brackets will get an automatic bid to the upcoming NCAA Tournament featuring the top 64 teams in the nation. As sports values go, the ticket ($10-12) is well worth it for all the great roundball action.

Nick Shaw (#12) and Houstonian (Cy Creek) Matt Kingsley (#44) defend against Houstonian (Cy Falls) Devin Gibson in Stephen F. Austin’s 71-60 victory over UTSA.
Photo - J. Ronald Oswalt. Newstreamz.com

According to This Week in Houston, the California Nurses Association is making a move to unionize the Registered Nurses (R.N.s) at the Cypress Fairbanks Medical Center. Cypress Fairbanks is a 185 bed community hospital in Northwest Houston.

Registered Nurse, Machel Oswalt says, “We were blindsided by this because, unfortunately, the union works by gagging our management staff. This makes our managers unable to discuss anything about the union with us. They are unable to educate us in any way. So, several of us have done our homework and researched for hours to become educated about the union. We have discovered the union is making numerous verbal promises without written guarantees and nurses are falling for this. Many of the things they are promising us, we already have. We have made multiple attempts to meet in our hospital to educate staff about the union. These meetings were educational only, not anti-union. The union blocked these meetings. We feel that denying us the right to meet in our facility to educate staff about the union is a violation of our First Amendment Rights. They are taking away our voice and our freedom of speech.”

Oooh, pretty!

Congratulations to the gang at Metblogs headquarters for successfully making the upgrade to the new look. I can’t even remember how many cities they had to convert over, but it was pulled off without a hitch. What is your impression of the new look?

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For the children, that is! The same people that help keep millions of teeth clean want you to vote for a hospital to receive an additional fun center for ill children. Colgate-Palmolive has already guaranteed one fun center for each hospital participating. Your vote will decide who gets an additional fun center. Right now, Houston is trailing in the no. 2 spot behind Detroit. Come on, peeps, vote for the kids!

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America’s Energy Future Symposium
featuring the top Presidential candidates
hosted by Opportunity Houston
February 28th

713-568-6361 Call in your news!!

WOW. No, not *that* WoW. It’s the White Oak Writer’s club ;-).

So I was browsing through the single comment left on my site (site has existed now for millions of seconds and yet only one comment, hmmm) and this comment was from someone inviting me to join a group of writers out at Cavatore’s. I’m really glad I went. These one’s are really good writers and I have enjoyed the various occasions that we’ve gotten together. They are indeed very impassioned about writing and I am privileged to have been invited. Due to the level of seriousness with which they approach writing, a certain expectation to contribute has been laid upon the flattest part of my head. I don’t know if this group has yet become aware but I don’t have flat parts anywhere on my head and therefor expectations placed on my head often fall fast. However, I have positioned my mind to accept the challenge of writing more and offering my humble efforts to their trained eyes. They are a good group of people and I’m enjoying their writing very much.

With this challenge in mind, what would any self-respecting samurai do? Naturally, I went to the store, bought some beer and put on some mariachi music and started writing. Linda Rondstadt does a really good job of singing mariachi music. I’ve heard mariachi music referred to as the Mexican Blues.

If you are interested in getting together with us, contact me at my website or by email at shawncarey1 @gmail.com.

So…let’s start slingin some ink!

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22nd Annual Texas Home & Garden Show
February 15th through 17th

713-568-6361 Call in your news!!

Hey everyone! Been a while but I’ve been hard at work…
If you’re interested in seeing my latest paintings on wood I have about a dozen pieces showing right now.

Ongoing Exhibit: Feb 4, 2008 through April 26, 2008. There will not be an opening reception for this event, sorry.
Location: PremiumGoods 2416 Times Blvd. Houston, Texas 77005
Featuring: Shizoq, Heidi Valdez, and Derek Shumate

If you’re in the Rice Village area one day please stop by and take a look. These other two artists are really great. Should be cool!

On the heels of my previous post about the wildlife in Houston, I got a head’s up (in the form of a suggestion) about a contest that the TWRC would really, really, double really like to win. From the TWRC:

“The top 4 national organizations which bring in the most individual donations (by donation count not total dollars raised) are awarded $50,000 each for their organization. We have been running in the top 10 nationally (were in 3rd place at one time), and are now in 6th place. This challenge ends January 31. For us to win $50,000 in this event would bring quite a bit of attention to Texas, Houston, and to wildlife rehabilitation. We are in the process of looking to expand our facility so that we can rehab more on site, and enlarge our Baby Bird Program.

They have a donation page on their website where you can also grab the code and put the badge on your own blog.

I saw this video on YouTube and just wanted to share. The actors in this video were not paid. They are in fact lucky to be alive thanks to the efforts of the Texas Wildlife Rehabilitation Coalition.

With Houston being the enormous metropolitan that it is, it’s easy to sometimes get “stuck at Starbuck’s” and forget about the nearby resources we have to enjoy nature, the way nature intended ;-). So, here are some locales where you can go that shouldn’t take more than half a day to get there:

1. Memorial Arboretum
2. Armand Bayou
3. Houston Audubon Society - Bird Sanctuaries

Obviously not an exhaustive list so if there is any other place in or around Houston you can think of, please do a favor and leave it in the comments!

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Next month there will be a gathering of the social media gods of Houston. Peanut Butter Media, PopLabs, and Startup Houston are sponsoring a conference designed to help business owners take advantage of current offerings in social media.

What is social media? Glad you asked!

Social Media is about People - Not Technology.*

Here is a link to their agenda.

* Erica O’Grady - http://gotsocialmedia.com/

Happy Holidays!!

Photo courtesy of Paul McRae

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Football in the Houston area was full of "ups" and "downs" this weekend. The highest "up" had to be the Rosenberg Lamar ConsolidatedMustangs winning the 4A Division I Championship 20-14 over Copperas Cove. Jacquizz Rodgers is the undisputed King of Rosenberg Football as he led the Mustangs to a title by rushing for 240 yrds and scoring all 3 TD’s. In addition Rodgers recorded 6 tackles, caused a fumble, recovered a fumble and blocked a kick. The Mustang defense also played a great game by holding Cove to 289 yards of total offense and stopping Copperas at the 2 yard line as they went for it on 4th and goal.

One of the "lows" came when the Dayton Broncos fell to the Austin Lake Travis Cavaliers 49-13. This looked like a wild one after the 1st quarter with Lake Travis leading 14-13 with over 270 yards of combined offense. The Cavalier defense then played as well as their offense holding Dayton to 68 total yards in the 2nd & 3rd quarters while Junior QB Garrett Gilbert (one of LSG’s top three in the state) passed for amazing numbers. At one point Gilbert had 23 straight completions and finished the night with over 480 passing yards. Click below to hear the show. 

Another "low" for the Houston area came when the Galena Park North Shore Mustangs lost to the Converse Judson Rockets 28-7 at Rice Stadium. Turnovers were the name of the game. The Rockets converted all four Mustang turnovers into touchdowns enroute to the win. Click below to hear the show. 

Another big "up" came when Lone Star Gridiron’s preseason #1 Katy Tigers (LSG was the ONLY one in the state to rank them #1) earned a spot this week to compete for their 5th State Championship due to their 66-21 victory over San Antonio Madison. The game was tied 14-14 midway through the 2nd quarter and then Katy broke it open and scored the games next 52 points. The Katy offense rolled up 477 yards of total offense. Katy will take on a tough Pfugerville Panthers squad in the title game at the Alamodome this weekend.

PLAYOFF TIME IN TEXAS BABY!!!