Writing for Metblogs has the potential to be the most rewarding experience in your entire life. It’ll make you rich, famous, good looking, will help you lose weight, make your clothes fit better, and get you a super good deal on a new car. It will make you the most well known person on the entire planet. Yes, each and every one of you. Really.

OK maybe not. Actually those are all lies, but it’s fun at least. The truth is Metblogs is the largest network of locally focused blogs on the web, covering almost 60 cities around the world and we’re looking to add a few new bloggers/writters/authors to this fine site. If you wanna know more about us check out this wikipedia entry but it’s kinda boring so I won’t waste time repeating it all here again. If you wanna write for us, here’s the scoop:

• All author positions are volunteer. That means you don’t get paid.
• You must live in (or very near) the city you plan to write about.
• Anything you post must relate to the city somehow. That means you shouldn’t post a movie review, but talking about going to see a movie at a local theater is fine.
• There’s no requirement for how much you can or should write, but we ask that if we set you up as an author you make about 3 posts a week.
• You can post about things you love, you can post about things you hate. It’s entirely up to you

Additionally, because of our global network, there’s plenty of options for things you write to be read by people all over the world. Interested? Want more details? Post a comment and we’ll be in touch!

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.

Get your geek on bigger and better than ever. The second BarCamp Houston kicks off Saturday the 25th and it is a veritable who’s who of Houston area technologists. Those of you who joined me at BarCamp Houston last year might be shocked to hear that as of this blog post there are 144 attendees signed up and growing.

For a complete wiki on what a BarCamp is click here

As far as the details of Saturdays event:
Date: August 25, 2007
Time: 9:00 A.M.
Location: Houston Technology Center
Cost: Always free!
Format: Presentations, development projects, and demos
Estimated Attendance: 150

Sign up and if you attend, make sure you pull me aside to say “Howdy!”

I saw an interesting post by fellow Metblogger Julian Chadwick of Portland Metblog. In this post he goes into detail about how he has abandoned the idea of having a car (albeit temporarily) and will be documenting this car-less lifestyle. He makes the point that certain cities are more conducive to getting around by bike or mass transit. I tried thinking if I could get away with something like that and it seems difficult to even think about. Houston is just….so….freaking……HUGE!!!

At the same time, however, there are likely people in this wonderful city that simply don’t own automobiles for whatever reason. Are you one of those people? Are you trying to become one? I’m interested in hearing about whether this could be done here in Houston so feel free to leave your opinions in the comment section.

**Photo courtesy of San Diego Backroads Planet

Since people have been inquiring, I thought I’d take the time and post this little bulleting promoting my artistic endeavors.

For those of you who didn’t already know, I have a personal website that I update from time to time. The address is DerekShumate.com.

Please have a look when you have some free time. I hope you enjoy your stay!

We have a tradition at work of taking the new guy out to eat prior to a proper initiation that includes lining up all available computer mice on their desk, breaking computers so that they can fix them, etc, etc. Typical hazing that all new employees have to go through. But this post is supposed to be a food review so I’ll get to that right now. The other part of the tradition is to take new employees to Phoenicia Deli. I hadn’t ever been there before (they skipped the tradition for me!!) but they now have a loyal customer. The chicken shawarma was delicious and the menu offers enough for the culinary adventurer to be satisfied. There is a good selection of wines as well. The environment is super relaxed and inviting. And in case you want to try your own hand at cooking with international ingredients, Phoenicia Foods is across the street. What are some unique eateries that you enjoy?

I know there’s a lot of artists out there who are not on the Lawndale Art Center’s mailing list so I wanted to post this really great opportunity for you all to check out. I’ll be trying to get in on the goods myself (so step your game up! ;-)

Deadline: July 11, 2007

Lawndale is pleased to announce the second year of the Lawndale Artist Studio Program for Gulf Coast area artists. The program is part of Lawndale’s ongoing commitment to support the creation of contemporary art by regional artists. With an emphasis on emerging practices, the program will provide three artists with non-residential studio space on the third floor of the Lawndale Art Center at 4912 Main Street in the heart of Houston’s Museum District…
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The Art Car Parade was cool this year. As always, the crowd was quite diverse and there was no shortage of shows. For example, I picked up a flyer from a guy advertising a senior citizens food fight - awesome. I’ll do a separate post on that.
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“The Metropolitan Transit Authority board approved a $77.3 million agreement Tuesday with an Idaho-based engineering and construction firm to begin work on the city’s next four rapid transit lines.”

Finally! Screw all you Anti-Metro Rail haters! This is exactly what this city needs! Well, we really need an infrastructure that’s more sophisticated but this is a step in that direction! As large as Houston is it’s down right laughable knowing how horrible our mass transit system currently operates. Not only will this be better for people’s commute but it will also be better for our air quality, our wallets and our communities!
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The Houston Museum of Natural Science is offering you a quarter a pop for live cockroaches you bring in to their new insect exhibit (read their press release here).

You are limited to 1000 roaches, which may not be all that hard to max out as summertime approaches in our sweltering roach friendly city. Now I’m going to stop thinking about this post, as I swear I feel like 200 roaches climbing over my feet. Yech. Photo thanks to JHC via Flickr