Stay in Houston

Stay in Houston

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Here is another picture of Annie with her new computer. She is teaching kindergarten in Houston this year, but feels that she is ready for a change. During the week of the 11th she got a new computer and I helped her set it up. She intends to sell hand crafted jewelry at craft fairs and on the web.
She also got a digital camera and combination color inkjet printer/scanner/copier so that she can take pictures of her work for posting on the web as well as keeping in a notebook for future custom orders. I took a picture of one of her early trials (while setting up her equipment).
On Saturday evening, March 23, 2002, I was able to visit my cousin Cathy. They live in a very nice house (shown here) in a very nice neighborhood of Missouri City.
Here is Cathy with their dog Shasta. Cathy is a Medical Technologist and is currently working at St. Luke's hospital in the medical center which is very close to Rice University (where I often hang out on weekends). She serverd a very nice dinner and we caught up on each other's lives. She is my cousin through Uncle Al (picture with my brother Michael), my father's identical twin. We were both raised in Dallas and so had known each other pretty well as kids.
Here is Cathy's husband, Amin, and their youngest son, Arif. Amin is also a medical technologist. He is still working a Methodist Hospital where he originally met Cathy many years ago (she moved to St. Luke's just recently). He is from Afghanistan. Of course he is not happy with the current state of his country, though he hopes things will improve now as it settles down there.
Arif enjoyed his dinner very much. Here he was putting steak sauce on his beef brisket. Yumm! I also saw Jamal, their middle son, briefly, but he had been working at MacDonald's all day and didn't have dinner with us. Their oldest son, Hameed, is away at Baylor this year.
On Monday, March 25, I went to Labor Ready promptly at 4:30AM and was third in line. It was a good thing too as there were over a dozen people by 5AM and hardly anyone went out. Myself and Jack went out to meet movers from from All-Pro (in Holliwood, FL) who were unloading a shipment from Lowell, MA. Unfortunately the woman whose stuff was being moved had received a low estimate of $1400 and didn't have a money order for $2000 that was needed. They wouldn't unload without cash payment so there were a lot of heated discussions with the police coming out to try to mediate (it was a civil matter and they couldn't do anything really). So after about an hour, we went away with no work, but we were paid for four hours, net less than $20. However, the movers suggested we call them to see if we could unload when they had gotten the money. That evening she had the check and we set up to unload at 9AM. This is their truck.
We unloaded the next day in under five hours and were paid $50 cash which was a good days pay. The other driver, Ron, mostly stayed in the truck as he had hurt his back. They had a pick up in North Houston at a Public Storage but were told they had to be done by 3:30PM, so we couldn't do that on Tuesday. On Wednesday it turned out Jack had gone on another assignment, so I went out and helped Don (shown here on the fancy stairs that come out when the door opens) load it up. It was not a big job as it had been stored by another mover and was in a wood box, about 5 foot by ten foot (and seven feet high). They brought the box out to the truck and we wrapped the stuff up for shipment. It only took about three hours (including the drive), but they were generous and paid me another $50 cash. Of course I am keeping records of all my cash receipts so that I can fill out by self employeed business tax forms next year. Considering all the fine things done by our government, I am happy to pay my share of the obligation. Of course I pretend that all the wasteful and counter productive things done by our government are paid for by the people who resent paying their taxes.
On Thursday I went to recently completed strip mall where Hardcastle Construction was doing the interior for a new Marshal's. I swept and picked up trash as well as restacking many lighting fixtures so that they could use scaffolds to set up the hung ceiling (the dry wall was almost all done). The line across the picture is a support cable for a parking lot lightling pole. I didn't notice it at the time and would have used a different angle if I had noticed. What to do?
As I was getting to my last days in Houston, I got bold enough to ask if it would be OK to pictures of the people there. Here is J.R.; he started at this office of Labor Ready a couple of days after I arrived in Houston. He was very nice and always treated everyone well. Angie, who had been the office manager when I arrived was moved to another office so I never got picture of her. I heard that at times she had an attitude, but I myself never noticed it. She just seemed very open to me which means she sometimes was not in the best of humor and expressed it which may be what they meant.
Here is John, the new office manager at the Pasadena Lobor Ready. He took over after Angie left. You can also see the length of the divider between the people in the office and the day laborers. This was the first day laborer office that I have worked at where they didn't have a plexi-glass window as well. This was the nicest day laborer place I have seen so far.... In the afternoons, Gracie normally was working to take my time slip and give me my check, but I missed her the last few days and never got her picture. She is a single mom with many nice kids (who she would sometimes bring in to work with her if she had to work weekends and such).