Here are some of my favorite photos from it.  I loved all the imported european ceilings.

Neptune Pool

Guest Bedroom

Another Guest Bedroom

Gregorian Chants for Lampshades

Home Office

Tennis Courts on Top of Indoor Pool

Indoor Pool

————————————————————————————-

We also had the greatest tour guide EVER who sounded like she should have been a cast member on Reading Rainbow.  She added a lot of interesting tidbits and was patient with these kids in our tour group that kept “forgetting” to keep their camera flash off.  The speed in which the girl navigated her camera menu to turn off the flash when she was scolded or when I gave her a dirty look indicated that she was purposely turning on her flash.  Pet peeve of mine.  One of my favorite tidbits that she shared was about Marion Davies, the actress that William Hearst had a long relationship with.  When Mr. Hearst died, he left a huge portion of the publishing empire to Marion but she sold it back to his family for ONE DOLLAR stating that she didn’t want to be remembered for being with him for his money and that she really did love him.

Also, if you’re wondering, as I did, whether this is the same Hearst as in Patty Hearst… it is.  What a fascinating family.

Click here to view full set of photos.

We always talked about doing different things to it but then we realized we were never out back there and next thing you know 3 years have gone by and we’re selling the house.  I think it looks terrible like this.  As if the house were still under construction.  So I convinced the husband to redo it so that our house would sell better.  I had no idea what I was getting us into.  Neither of us have any gardening or landscaping experience (unless it’s genetic in which case my mom has a monster garden that she feeds table scraps to as if it were a pet — I’m not even joking).  What I did have on my side is plenty of DWELL magazines and design blogs.  I’ve seen so many people’s yards that I immediately knew what I wanted.

The first step was to pull all the weeds in the yard, plant a row of green plants, and level and slant the yard so that rainfall would move away from the house.  The original plan was to get Horsetail Reed which is that super straight green reed that people use a lot in modern landscaping.  I scratched that idea when I read about how out of control Horsetail Reed can get and when I saw them in person in different nurseries around Houston, they looked dry and not very vibrant in color.  It was also pretty pricey at $10 a bucket and the bucket was pretty sparse.  I was stumped.

Then we drove by Houston Garden Center and noticed that they were having a 1/2 off sale all of their plants.  We wandered around (and were soaked by their huge sprinklers) and we saw African Irises which are used in our landscaping at the front of our house.  I liked the idea of continuity between the front of the house and the back.   Other bonuses were that it’s a plant that thrives in our harsh climate, and it’s a full, lush plant that would add a lot of color.  They were originally 19.99 a bucket and we got six of them for 50% off!

The next part was the hardest.  The husband had to dig out holes deep enough to plant the irises.  Sounds easy enough but since it’s the middle of summer, the Texan heat bakes the clay that’s a few inches deep in our ground so that it’s hard as a rock and ridiculous to break apart.  I was pretty useless at this point because I could stand with both feet on the shovel and it would not sink down at all.  Kudos to the husband here, it was really excruciating slow work for three whole nights.

Here they are after they were first planted!  We called them (actually we still do) “our plant babies”.

I was really paranoid about them dying (the husband had nightmares about them shrinking) and we watered them twice a day.  And it was really pathetic because we don’t even own a gardening hose so I was watering them with a tupperware individually.  We eventually borrowed a hose from our neighbor (thanks Hai!).  We really didn’t need to be so paranoid though because over 4th of July we were out of town for 4 days and they went without water and didn’t die.

Then the next step was putting down landscaping weed blocker fabric and then putting down the stones.  The stones were hard to find.  We went to Home Depot, Lowes, Houston Garden Center, Buchanan’s Native Plants, and Teas Nursery and couldn’t find the stones we wanted.  They had white marble, river stones, and even red lava stones!  So strange.  We finally stumbled across this little place called San Jacinto Stone and we found the stones/gravel that we wanted: Black Star Gravel (we didn’t know it had such a cool name).

Here we are getting the stones:

We actually had to go back three times to get more gravel because we didn’t want to overbuy (all sales final).  I highly recommend San Jacinto Stone — super friendly and fast service.  I’m really happy we found the right gravel; I think it really completes the yard.

Here’s what it looks like from the inside of our first floor room:

We finally finished laying down and smoothing out all of the gravel tonight.

Well, I think it looks pretty good.  Oh, the white stepping stones are from Lowes and the white border for the plant bed is from Home Depot (where the cashier lady asked if the husband got his Diesel Tshirt from Hot Topic — haha).  I think one of the best things about modern design (both interior and exterior) is that less is more.  I think this would have been a lot harder and more expensive if we were trying to go for a more traditional look.

What do you guys think?  You’d buy our house, right?  We’re putting it on the market tomorrow — please pray that the sellers come quick and with lots of money!

The amazing part is that she used plastic sandwich baggies to decorate — no professional tools!  (I’m very impressed with the white one with pink spikes that Denver decorated.)  Sandra, maybe you should open a chocolate shop?  Or at least make more desserts so that I can use my macro lens more often!

Sorry AngryBaker, I should have taken some of yours home with me to take photos of.  The red velvet centers would have been really pretty!

We watched a late showing of Coraline this past weekend and while it did not blow me away, I think the visuals were interesting enough to make me like it and feel like it was worth watching 3D in the theater.  I’ll go as far as to say that if you do not watch this movie in 3D, it’s probably not worth your time.  Unlike Bolt, Coraline doesn’t really have a charming little story to draw you in.  On a side note, I think the 3D element has really given animated movies a boost.  I don’t know if it’s just the child in me but the 3D still thrills me, especially as they improve the technology and utilize it more and more in the movies.  I wonder if 3D will soon become commonplace in our living rooms and not just at the theaters.

I’m going to give away some low-level spoilers but it’s not really a plot twisting kind of movie so it’s up to you whether you want to read ahead.

A lot of the people we watched it with didn’t enjoy it.  I agree with most of their complaints.  The pace was way too leisurely.  I told the husband that the movie pace strangely reminded me of the PS Simpsons game where you walk around and solve puzzles and riddles.  The AngryBaker expressed similar sentiments saying, “Oh no, the princess isn’t in that castle!”  The story was pretty shallow, despite efforts to be dark and creepy.  (Great job Teri Hatcher on the vocals!)

What really won me over was just how visually interesting it was.  You could probably put a great soundtrack to the visuals and cut out all the dialogue and I would enjoy the movie just the same.  Maybe more!  I feel like it’s a lot like Fantasia.  Weak storyline, but the visuals make it very worth your while.  I especially liked the opening scenes with the credits when the doll was being unstuffed and then filled with sand.  I also enjoyed it when Coraline and the black cat walked to the “end of the world” and the background slowly became simplified.  Of course I loved the scene in the garden (I knew those live flowers could potentially be dangerous!) and the dancing mice.  I also liked the way everything turned to greyscale whenever Coraline found a pair of eyes.  The overall feel of the movie was pretty unique.  It was like a cross between claymation, plastic, and really rough fabrics.  It fascinated me.

If I could change the story in any way, I would make the parents stay aloof and uninterested even at the end — that way the message is really driven home.  (The message: the unglamorous reality we live in is better than our indulgent fantasies where nothing is sure and safe.)

———————————————————————————————–

One of the movie trailers they showed before Coraline was Tim Burton’s new movie project: 9.

It looks promising as far as character development and plot lines go.  It should be better than Coraline.  I hope it’s not as disappointing as The Corpse Bride.  The characters remind me of LBP’s sackboy and the environment reminds me of Fallout 3 (which the husband started playing recently — it really creeps me out.).

Here’s the trailer:

These magnets are really cool, I need to remember to pick them up after the holidays.

I found them while browsing Core77′s 3rd Annual Gift Guide.

Our next stop was Discovery Green.  It was late at night so we had no problems finding parking.

I’m finally trying to take RAW photos.  I’m not sure I know how to take advantage of having all the sensor data.  I’m still trying to learn the basics of Aperture.  Anyway, you be the judge.

Discovery Green has decorated everything for the holiday season and they had these huge ornaments hanging from the trees.  Here’s their official blurb about it from their website:

“In a joint project with the Buffalo Bayou Art Park, ‘Through the Eyes of a Child’ features glowing holiday ornaments that hang from the live oak trees along the Brown Promenade. The 28, five-foot-diameter globes are internally-lit by energy-efficient fluorescent lights and bring to life color photographs taken by students under the direction of David Graeve.”

Here are some of the photos I took of the ornaments:

Oh, and The Grove looks pretty at night.

————————————————————-

Miss Sixty is having a ridiculous sale.  40%-50% off of practically everything in their store.  Bought a new handbag today.  First handbag purchase in two years.  What do you think of that, GenderAnalyzer?!  Huh?  Makeup, tampons, clothes, mascara, baking, spatula, brioche, cute, shoes, shopping, mall, curling iron!

Take that!

Haha.

It’s really amazing what some artists can do with chalk.  It was also neat to see the diversity of styles as well as the diversity of the artists themselves!

Here are some of my favorite photos from that day:

Being able to edit photos on the MBP (which I have decided to name Doctor Manhattan) make me want to take more photos!  It’s pretty great when one hobby jump-starts another one.

*These photos were post processed using Aperture’s 30-Day Trial.  So far, so good.  Excited to shoot RAW.

Have a great Friday everyone!

P.S. The MacBook Pro is REALLY cold right now.  Kind of like a toilet seat on a cold winter’s morn.

It is becoming harder and harder to avoid writing a political post so I’ll try to get one out soon.  Just to be upfront, I have gripes with both the Democratic and Republican sides.  I have problems with the whole political process.  I might have to add a “Political” post category by the time we get to election day.

The economy is frighteningly unstable.  I think with all the Hurricane Ike news and with a ton of people still without power, people haven’t really taken in the stark realities of this week’s events.  I think it’s interesting to see the heavy handed government interventions in the financial markets this past week from a Republican administration.  This just goes to show that there are no promises after someone gets into office.  There’s really no telling whether McCain will provide little government or whether Obama will provide all the programs he’s been talking about.

———————————————————–

I’m disappointed that Apple issued a recall on their ultracompact USB power adapters for the iPhone.  There’s reportedly only a small percentage of adapters that are faulty but it’s always better to be safe than sorry.  You can either exchange it in store in October or fill out the web-based form now.  Thanks to MacRumors for letting me know about this.

October is also when the MBP is supposed to come out.  I’ve been waiting for this redesign for — is it two years now?  Crazy.  But what’s even crazier is I’m considering not getting one.  Well, I’m really hoping that they make it lighter in this new redesign.  But if they don’t, I might consider getting a Mac Pro or a iMac for my photo processing and a lightweight, compact laptop for travel and mobility.  One or maybe both of those will probably have to be refurbished since my tech budget is pretty limited.  Has anyone ever bought refurbished from Apple?

———————————————————–

My internship this year is at Texas Children’s Hospital in Adolescent Medicine through BCM’s Leadership Education in Adolescent Health Fellowship program.  It’s been an interesting experience so far in that I feel like I’m getting a sneak peak at what medical or nursing school is like.  It’s a really robust environment where you’re surrounded by sharp people and you can learn as much as you possibly want to.  It’s also nice to be able to disassociate hospitals with terrible events.  I’m also helping to facilitate experiential groups at a local high school and will be also be working with Juvenile Justice Alternative Education Program (JJAEP) students both in Houston and in Baytown.

It’s because of these two things and my full load of classes that sockparade might suffer a bit this year.  But I definitely consider it a worthwhile trade-off — hopefully it won’t get too bad.

—————————————————

I never used to like cars.  I mean, I never appreciated their beauty until after I met the husband.  My brother-in-law was over last night and they were talking cars and while I’m still drooling over the Audi A5, the brand new Audi A4 is pretty fantastic too.  The headlight redesign is amazing.

Speaking of cars, I love car commercials that use great songs.  There’s a Saab commercial that has cool female vocals but I don’t know who she is.  Let me know if you’ve got a clue.

———————————————————–

This is the first weekend we’ve had where we have no plans and no place we’ve committed to visiting.  It’s the first real weekend I’ve had in a long time.  I can’t wait!  See you on the other side.

I just ordered another iPhone 3G case.  I debated between several brands and styles and finally settled on the Beyza Apple iPhone 3G SlimLINE – VSL20 Vertical Leather Case Flo Light Blue.  I originally had decided on the Sena Ultra Slim Pouch but the light blue color I wanted was backordered so I went with the Beyza.  I’m actually glad the Sena was backordered so that I would be forced to explore more options.  I think the Beyza might provide a bit more padding and protection without adding too much bulk.

I really wanted the Beyza Roadline case with the strap but it’s a little too pricey for a case.  At least it was too pricey for me.  There are people out there buying custom-made Vaja Leather cases starting at $220 a pop, so the Beyza Roadline is actually still relatively cheap at $49.50.

Just a tip, I didn’t order from the Beyza website.

I ordered from Cases.com (Aluron, Inc.) which got positive web reviews.  I also found a coupon code that took off 15% so the total came out to be $32.05 (includes $4.00 for shipping).  This was better than ordering directly from Beyza which is based in Turkey and charges $13.90 to ship to the USA which would have brought me to a total of $47.40.

So why am I getting a new case?  I like my naked case that I got off of Ebay, I really do.  Touch sensitivity is great and it feels pretty secure but I can’t stand the dust getting into the cutouts for the speaker and underneath the case.  So I’m going to try not putting a permanent case on it and just using the Beyza sleeve.  Here’s to hoping I don’t drop it!

———————————————————-

Speaking of Turkey, here’s the paper I wrote on the Gulen Movement for my summer course.  The writing is pretty weak and I was fighting time to get my ideas down on paper but it’s a start.  The paper will probably a sort of work in progress.  I’d like to revisit it and beef it up with more ideas sometime in the future — maybe around winter break.