Downtown Adventures

I live in the third largest city in the United States, Houston TX. After graduating college in 2007, a mid size engineering company offered me a good job here. As I have family in this city, and at the same company, it was an easy decision to move here. There were offers in the Midwest, New Orleans, and California, but my life is in Houston right now. There are about a dozen of my friends from college that moved out here to work. Every Wednesday night we meet for dinner at different restaurants. Most weeks only 6 to 7 of us are there, but one time all us met and it was great.

We have been here over a year, some of us leaving and some others coming here. One of my college friends is now my roommate, but he'll move out come December to further his career by working overseas. This post is about some of our downtown adventures. There are a handful of us that go out to bars or clubs in downtown Houston. To better understand what I am talking about, I must first say that all my college friends here are at most 24 years old. Being single still I prefer to go out with them in lieu of staying home on the weekend. I do need a break every once in awhile, but more often than not you can find me out with them on the weekends.

There are other thirty-somethings out on the weekends too, so I am not too much out of place. But I am a shy guy by nature. I get along with my friends, but if I do not know you then I have a hard time starting a conversation. So when we go out I can be a fun guy, but I don't hit on women at bars much. That means usually I am the designated driver, but not always. Last night I was the DD. I was at a friends house just hanging out watching the Olympics and Michael Phelps winning his 8th gold medal. Some of the guys were not from Houston and wanted to go out to a downtown club. Since I was the sober guy, and have been out downtown some, I was elected to drive. Surprisingly the trip there was rather short. I am including a picture of one of the Enron buildings downtown to show what the skyscrapers there look like. I am probably moving downtown to a loft next year if I am here in Houston.

We got downtown about 12:45 am and found a place to park not too far from the club. Now parking in Houston, especially downtown, can be hard to find so we were lucky. Another fact of life of Houston is the year round temperature. It is almost always warm here even in December. That makes it a nice place to live if you don't like the cold. When we parked last night near the club we saw 3 homeless people sleeping next to a small building. This is a lengthy topic fit for another post, soon hopefully. We got to the club to hang out, and to be sociable. It was $10 to get in with expensive drinks, but it is the best place in Houston that is open till 5 am. Most bars close at 2 am, so everyone not ready to go home comes to Rich's. The music is modern, but good and loud. Having a few beers does help my social skills some and loosens me up, but as the DD I stayed clear of anything alcoholic. I did mingle around and had a decent time, but let my friends go out on their own looking for women. I met a few over the 4 hours we were there, but not alot. It was interesting to see the different people out at the club, as it pulls in quite a few people from all walks of life.

When we were leaving at about 4 am or so, the drunk guys got a pizza from a guy on the street. It was one of those pizzas the guy probably made at home then brought there tho sell to drunk people who didn't really know what they were eating. In Austin they actually have pizza mobiles that make the pizza on the spot. As we were walking back to my car we start talking to the girls in front of us and on past us walking to the club are two transvestites. I do not know if this is a regulated blog, but I won't go into what that word means. 'Her' name is Sebastian. I remember the first time I went to Rich's. I was there with my roommate and one of my best friends. My roommate, who shall ever remain nameless, was pretty drunk and talking to Sebastian. They traded phone numbers that night.

I drove back to my friends house and was too tired to drive back to my home so I crashed on the sofa after having most of a beer. This morning I woke up watched some more Olympics on tv, went out to lunch with one of my friends from last night, and then took off for the house to chill some before my weekend is over.

Tomorrow is off to work, and maybe another day closer to my dreams being fulfilled. They are dreams of love, adventure, monetary gains, and some peace or clarity in this life.