The municipal airport is a small art deco gem, tucked away on the side of the Houston Hobby airport. It was built back in the 1940s and really not used for that long. After an early addition in the tower, the terminal decayed and sat empty for many years. It was slated for destruction for many of those years, but the funds were never available to carry it out. It was actually rehabilitated and refinished in 2008 as an air travel museum. Apparently it does a huge stock in weddings and car photoshoots these days since there is also a small private jet parked out front too.
While I was poking my way though, I noticed that outside the hanger next door, a crew was prepping a helicopter for takeoff. Then, a big Gulfstream G5 jet rolled up as the propellers were spinning up to speed, and I watched a guy walk down the stairs and over to the helicopter. It was waiting for him, and carried him off, past the old terminal and away. The talkative and bored museum volunteer said that it was none other than Tillman Fertitta, the multibillionaire Houston native and owner of the several restaurant chains including Morton's steakhouse, Bubba Gump Shrimp Co., Golden Nugget casino in vegas, etc. Apparently he's got a tower in the Post Oak neighborhood.
Anyway, Tay's flight was delayed and I drove us home in the terrifying Houston traffic. Tay was terrified too, mostly from my blind panic style of driving. He was very helpful in navigating us home after dad's navigation system tried to route us to Louisiana. The car has a heads up display which is really cool except it get's filtered out by my polarized lenses, so I have to turn my head sideways quizzingly in order to see it. The other problem is that it delivers accurate directions but doesn't indicate when to take them.
We went to dinner that night at Uptown Sushi, a very nice Japanese restaurant. We shared incredibly fresh sashimi, all kinds of rolls, a few bottles of sake and some really good appetizers including kobe beef on a sizzling rock. It was my picks since we were celebrating my new job in Germany.
The following day, we went out to Hugo's, Tay's choice, to celebrate his achievements and success in getting the job in Indianapolis. Really really killer high quality Mexican food. Tay and dad got the cabrito roasted goat and I got a special of the night, a slow roasted anchiote pork. Churros, Mexican hot chocolate, and vanilla ice cream for dessert, of course.
Saturday, dad made us his special blueberry pancakes for breakfast and we got a predictably late start to the day. After breakfast we headed out to the shoe hospital to rescue Tay's beloved Carolina Herrera shoes which he was horrified to discover was using the wrong color polish on. It was a minor crisis while there was much hand-wringing as we researched permanency of shoe polish and remedial techniques. We rejected the acetone-dip as extreme.
After we filled out the paperwork and left flowers and cards for Tay's shoes, we went to the movie theaters. I've been trying to see the new Miyazaki film, The Wind Rises, but when I got in line, I was dismayed to realize that it was the dubbed version. All Miyazaki films are released by Disney in the US, and when they dub it, they generally 'Americanize' the dialogue by doubling it and adding in additional exposition. Americans, according to Disney, are simpletons horrified by the sound of silence. I declined to watch it.
We headed downtown to the nice theaters to try to catch The Grand Budapest Hotel. Dad valet parked the car and by the time we got inside, there were only six seats left. It was beginning to rain a bit, so we weighed our options. Tay, ever ready with a list of trendy bars to check out, directed us over to Hearsay Gastro Lounge ("Too Cool to be a Gastro-Pub") which was actually a pretty cool bar. I really liked the design and the drinks were good. Dad used the on-and-off rain to demonstrate an app which predicted when rain would start and stop to the minute based on his location and weather data. It was mostly accurate.
Anyway, back at the movie theater, the Lebanese valets were suffering a minor clusterfuck, entirely overloaded by the cars arriving and leaving. Interestingly, there was a Mr. Universe bodybuilding challenge going on simultaneously, so we kept seeing orange-skinned, ripped from head to toe, neckless bodybuilders everywhere with their flip-flops and heavily augmented girlfriends. It was enough entertainment to just watch them while we waited the half and hour to get the car back.
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