Picture originally uploaded at TurkicFest.org

The Turkic Cultures and Children’s Festival 2007 will be taking place on September 8th and 9th at the Hermann Square from 1pm-10pm. Some of the showcases at the festivities will include Ottoman military bands, displays of glazed tiles, Islamic calligraphy, and Turkish folk dances.
Even cooler, there will be a drawing on the second day of the festival for 2 free tickets to visit Turkey!

More info can be found here.

Did anyone catch the full lunar eclipse Monday night? We had a pretty good view here in Houston, despite it being at 4 in the morning.

I will readily admit that I know very little about sports… especially baseball. So it should come as no surprise that I was a little more than clueless when I showed up for the game this afternoon and was handed a small pin announcing Jeff Bagwell’s retirement.

While I know zip about baseball, I can tell when something is up.

I noticed that more people that usual were wearing number five jersey’s and that everything around me (except for the hot dog I ate) had the number five stamped on it somewhere. There was also this photo montage and enormous sign that spelled out (using real baseballs) the number of hits Jeff Bagwell had made during his career.

Jeff’s two daughters threw the first pitch of the game, which was quite touching. I took a couple of extra photos during the game (including my scrumdeliescious hot dog) and posted them to the HouMetBlog Flickr page.

If only it were true.

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!

I was allowing my attention drought disorder to run wild the other day and managed to surf 4325 different websites. Website #4324 was a review of a Web 2.0 social networking site (these sites spring up like roaches, although some don’t have as many diseases (-; ). The new site is Yippykya.com and they propose that you can meet friends, make money, or get discovered. I’m choosing to make friends through other outlets and I have no artistic abilities worth bragging about so naturally all I want to do on this site is make money. I was thoroughly frustrated after creating an account, clicking on the option to make money and then being told to create an account. So, I don’t really have a good review about this site but maybe you do. Oh well. They had a launch party on the June 27th (yeah, sorry for the delay, did anyone else even know about the site?). They are developing the Houston community first and will branch out to other enormous cities at some point in the future. You can read another review (maybe a little more favorable) at Profy.com

GRB Originally uploaded by saroy.

Sarah G. captured this fantastic shot of our convention center, big red pipes and all. I’ve always loved the purely ornamental industrial components of the George R. Brown Convention Center.

Dudes, talk about being late to the party.

I had been to Coco’s once over a year ago when her place was on Richmond. Although I had always wanted to go back, I just never made it out to that side of town very often.

So imagine my surprise when I realized that the Coco’s on Westhiemer (near Montrose) was the same place. Evidently, Coco had to move out of her Richmond location (for whatever reason) and so decided to move closer to Downtown.

You may recognize this location as the old Montrose Diner site… which was the worst fucking diner ever with their horrible service and bland/poorly cooked food.

By sharp contrast, Coco’s is nothing like the Montrose Diner. I ordered a “J” roll as well as several individual pieces of sushi and some hot green tea. My order also came with a small dish of edamame, but I don’t know if that was because I was there during happy hour or that’s the way it is with any order.

The overall experience was dynamite!!! Yummy food and Coco is a trip to chat with. My fear is that the highly supportive clientele from Coco’s old location won’t follow her to the new location. Which means The HouMetblog community needs to get out to Coco’s damn it!

A happy eater is you!