Pearland is the Place to Be.
Today, I drove to the Galleria to buy clothes.
After today, I will no longer have to drive out to Rice Village, Baybrook Mall, First Colony Mall or the Galleria for clothes and fun. They are now in my own backyard.
Welcome, Pearland Town Center! All the girly clothes stores a girl could ask for. Good eats, too. Somewhere to hang out with friends.
We went today for the grand opening and had dinner at BJ’s. (Don’t get the pot roast, but the pizza and sandwiches are good!) You could tell most of the waiters were new and this was their test run. They have today and tomorrow to get it perfect for the weekend crowds.
I moved to Pearland back in 2003 with my parents, and we’ve been waiting for this day. Now all we need is for the roads to be widened! 518, 2234, Cullen, etc. For some reason, no one got the memo that opening a multitude of stores would require roads that can handle the traffic. If someone knows why these roads are only one or two lanes wide, please tell me.
Read the Chron coverage of Pearland Town Center’s first day.
The Chron’s Pearland blog is always full of complaints of longtime residents who miss the quiet, small-town feel and hate the “traffic,” “pollution” and “rudeness” of new Pearland.
Ha. I just read that blog and noticed our intros sound alike.
My friends say the new town center reminds them of Sugar Land’s.
They Got Me.
Today is a glorious day.
The white box. I opened it. The magnificent white vessel, I unearthed.
MacBook = New Best Friend
The PC had been all I’d known since fourth grade, right after I let the typewriter go. Goodbye, PC. Five minutes after the box’s grand opening, my wireless Internet and MacBook were good to go. And here I am now. Talk about user friendly.
The keyboard feels so good against my fingers. Smooth. I don’t have to stare at an hourglass and wait for photos or windows to load whenever I open something up on here. Everything’s instant. This is a whole new world.
Even when I pressed the “on” button, I was treated to a video extravaganza, with wild colors, telling me “welcome” in a plethora of languages. Then I realized they were watching me. I saw a real-time video of myself. The little square at the top of the screen is a camera. It took a screen shot of me as my profile photo.
What’s the opposite of intimidating?
That’s what my new friend here is.
Links Extravaganza 7.23.08 On News & Elevator Pitches
Check me out on the radio! | Interview about The Blood Center’s newest donor center.
Have you noticed your news is getting hyperlocal? | From the Chron’s reader representative.
Who needs excellence in journalism? | Journalism is failing democracy and the poor.
You are your elevator pitch | You’ve got as little as fifteen seconds to make an impression.
The art of pitchcraft | Show some leg right away, they say.
Writing a great elevator speech | BNET’s take from a “chief storyteller.” Watch him jump in a real elevator.
Trip to Brazos Valley
Last Friday, Cortney Martin and I traveled to Brazos Valley again to do some outreach for The Blood Center of Brazos Valley. These small towns had some real character.
Favorite find: Square One Bistro in downtown Bryan.
WordPress has a rule that the only slideshows you can embed are lame ones from slide.com, so please forgive me. If you know of better ways to embed slideshows that WordPress will allow, please do tell.
Scoring With Words
Public speaking.
The two most terrifying words in the English language?
More like exhilarating. For as long as I can remember, public speaking has been my No. 1 passion, somewhere up around there with writing.
This week, I gave my first Toastmasters speech for the Astrodome Area Toastmasters, down the road from The Blood Center. I didn’t have a title, so my evaluator made up a name: “Scoring with Words.” Not sure if that tells too much about the speech, but it’ll work.
So what goes on in a Toastmasters meeting?
You learn to think before you speak, since every um, ah or you know is tracked by the designated Ah Counter/Grammarian.
After the Toastmaster opens the meeting, a speech is given. Then an evaluator stands up and offers constructive criticism. The next section is called Table Topics. You’re given a topic to speak on for two minutes. The time it takes for you to stand up from your chair is the time you have to prepare. Pretty intimidating, but a good challenge. Sometimes you work better under pressure. The group votes on the best table topic speaker. The meeting ends with comments from the general evaluator, who gives her thoughts on the quality of the entire meeting.
How did I do on my speech? High marks for not using notes, not being nervous and using stories to convey who I am. My evaluator suggested I inject more humor and add pauses, since I’m a fast talker.
An Invasion of My Most Personal Space
Has this ever happened to you?
Last night, I was tired and ready to turn in.
As I sat in bed, I noticed an ant crawling up my arm. It bit. Then I looked down. Ants were everywhere. I lifted the pillows. They marched in their giant ant parade across the bed.
Sajan and I had to remove all the sheets, take the mattress and box spring off the bed and vacuum those asinine ants. Some were even hiding in the box spring, crawling through the little holes. Grrr.
These vultures are taking over our house. The bed was the last straw. Revenge must be had.
A Dream Wedding Without the Debt
“The [wedding] industry is kind of designed to confuse you and make you spend more money,” banquet hall operator Brad Schreiber told the Houston Chronicle.
So true!
Will your guests’ experience be enhanced by a $100 centerpiece over a $10 one? Will they notice the fine details? Some will. Others will enjoy themselves to the fullest as long as the food as good.
The advice Sajan and I got during our wedding planning was to negotiate, negotiate, negotiate. Not necessarily to get the cheapest price, but to get the most value out of what you’re paying for. Rather than picking and choosing from packages offered to you, work with your vendor to create a custom package with an adjusted price. Our photos were slightly less expensive because we made the package fit our needs.
One newlywed in the Chron article said, “If you spend less money, it’s less stress. When you’re in the mind-set already and you’re counting gas and everything, you just realize how everything adds up. You kind of realize well, if we don’t have 100 bouquets of flowers it will be fine. It just puts it in perspective.”
The more money left over for the mortgage, the better.
Her Summer Fling with a Farmer
Read this post from Penelope Trunk from beginning to end. The true-life, in-progress tale of a career woman (who commanded $15,000 the other day for giving a speech) and her summer romance with a farmer. The clashing and the merging of their values. He pees outside; she think it’s obscene.
She ponders her work-life balance and her two fears:
I know that people who are workaholics are scared of two things: Not being great at work, and having to face an empty personal life. And I’m worried about both.
