Around the 'Hood

My neighborhood, called Upper Kirby, just a few miles west of the Museum District, has become a bit of a ghost town as several of the older homes and apartment buildings now stand empty.  But truth is this is one of the fastest growing areas in the city.  Many of the bungalow style homes built in the 60's have been torn down and high rise condo's, retail space, upscale apartment buildings and modern townhomes have replaced them.  My new neighbor is a 5 story office complex.  Big oil is bringing back some of the boom of the 1980's, but this time due to something called fracking, which is a new way to get at the stuff.  This has created a demand for increased living space, particularly "inside the loop".  I tease my neighbors and say we live on Porta Potty Row since there's literally been one somewhere  on our street for 10 years.  A couple of weekends ago some long time neighbors had their final Garage and Moving sales and vacated their soon to be torn down buildings.  The moving vans were competing with the cement mixers and other construction vehicles for the narrow two lanes of our street.  Luckily some of Gem's BFF's (two unrelated Jack Russell's - Daisy & Pinto) are still here.  She has seen both of these pooches almost every day of her life for the past 11 1/2  years yet each time out the door it's the same happy dance. 

Also in the neighborhood is Rice University just 2.7 miles south, which I had the opportunity to tour recently.  It's a gorgeous campus with Byzantine architecture  and many interesting design elements.  One artist, James Turrell created Skyspace a couple of years ago right on the campus.  It's a "twilight epiphany of light" that can be seen dawn and dusk each day. I saw it very early one morning and thought it was great; click here to experience it yourself:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrD5ylEn1wQ

One of Houston's great qualities is their overall dedication to the arts in general and there is much evidence of it.  One organization I like is called InPrint.  It's a group dedicated to inspiring readers & writers, now in their 34th season.  I heard about it several years ago and have wanted to check it out, so this year I bought a ticket to the series opener with David Mitchell.  He's described as "clearly a genius", and has written a number of books and won several awards.  It's nice to hear from this caliber of author in person read their own work which he did from his newest book, The Bone Clocks.  

Most enjoyable event.

And I expect to get to the Museum of Fine Arts soon.  Talk about "in the hood", this place is literally 3 miles door to door.   

Can't wait to get back to Houston to see more of what's right around the corner. 

Indianapolis, IN and Healthy Living

Indianapolis, IN - The Heartland.  Last time I was here was two years ago for Chelsea Israel and Kyle Thompson's wedding in downtown near Fountain Square.  It was a beautiful ceremony and I'm happy these two have just celebrated their 2nd wedding anniversary. 

I've toured some of the covered bridges around Indiana in the past.  Here's one of my favorites from the Greencastle area circa 2005.

This time I'm further north attending a meeting at Crooked Stick Golf Club in Carmel. Click on their website and it will automatically cycle through some of the stunning pictures of their course.  I didn't get to play but it was really beautiful just to see.  http://www.crookedstick.org/. 

I remembered to bring my MP3 player this trip; I've created a "travel playlist" and one of my favorite artists, an Indiana boy, John Mellencamp is on.  Take a watch and listen to "Pink Houses":  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOfkpu6749w.  There's a shot of John playing inside a covered bridge @ the 1:06 minute mark.

And to make this an even more interesting trip it just so happened the Colts played the Eagles at home at Lucas Oil Stadium - their first Monday night game at home in 4 years.  Unfortunately luck was not with the Colts that night but they fought a good fight.

Sometimes good food options can be sparse (although McCalister's Deli right up the road from where I was staying was awesome), but fitness on the road does have its challenges so after having read about fitness bands this past spring I decided to try out the UP24 by Jawbone.  Turns out it's actually been helpful.  It's a bit of an electronic nag so keeps me on track - after much work I've lost @ 5 lbs (big deal for me) since I started using it.

The APP is cool - it integrates several things.  The Blue bar shows total sleep and then sleep patterns, Orange shows number of steps taken, and Green, calories ingested.  You can set your goals for each and then it will measure against them.  So for example I have a goal of 8 hours of sleep each night.  The blue bar shows I hit 51% of that goal or 4 hours and 8 minutes for that particular day.  My steps on the other hand, I'm rockin.  I have a goal of 10,000 a day and I managed over 15,000, and then the green bar I've set a goal of 1,500 calories.  You can scan the barcode on whatever food you eat or pull from local restaurant menus (or you can manually enter) and then it calculates a score.  Maybe a bit geeky but working for me.

All in all a good week and enjoyed spending time in the heartbeat of the USA.

Westminster, CO

I arrived Sunday morning and had a relaxing afternoon exploring the property and walking the trails around Westminster which is a northwest suburb of Denver.  There were lots of interesting sites and I even glimpsed The Rockies way back in the distance.  It was wonderful to be in a relatively humidity free climate, mid 70's, large puffy white clouds, a hint of fall in the colors, sunshine and clean smelling air. Can you just barely spot the prairie dog on the upper right in the picture below? Reminded  me of vacation this summer in South Dakota.

We kicked off our meeting that night hosting a tailgate party and working a booth (that's me in the red shirt). 

And my colleague Joe Ross showing you can juggle mini footballs

The next day was meetings and trying to win business and networking and all the stuff we do as part of the job.  I have to say though, I'm truly endeared by the attendees who are hardworking, professional and ethically motivated people in a complicated industry rife with challenges. They are life insurance agents, wholesale brokerage agencies, financial planners, estate planners, CPA's, registered reps, and wealth managers; not a job for the faint of heart or anyone turned off by rejection, constant change, or managing complex businesses and financial transactions.

Our closing speaker was Amanda Gore, an Aussie who is truly funny and inspirational.  Here's her website:  www.amandagore.com if you'd like some ideas on being joyful. 

One of her many funny sayings is to "put your grateful glasses on".  Here's one of the attendees actually doing it.

So on my way home I'm thinking that I'm thankful I'll be upgraded to first class, and thinking about how I'll use the ideas I learned, and how I'll connect with the new relationships I've made.  As we're going through security a wheelchair pushes in front of me and a man who is a Vet from the Afghan war (so we learn) gingerly steps out of the chair clearly in pain so he can walk through the security scanner.  He's talking and chatting and dealing with it all as best he can but I'm thinking, "Really, is this necessary to put this guy through this?"  So that made me want to put my grateful glasses on and I'm hoping he'll have a full recovery AND get an upgrade on his ticket plus some.  

Giving Back

I've seen a bunch of ALS ice bucket challenge videos over the past month and they've been fun to watch and cool (cold) to know that awareness and money are being generated to help combat a horrible disease.  It's amazing how the internet will allow one person's idea to go "viral" and the whole world can join in.  That's a lot of power.  If reminds me that we can be inspiring to each other and do anything we set our minds to which can be both scary and challenging to dream big.

The challenge got me thinking about giving back in general and what I can do.  With a new school season beginning I took the challenge to fill a backpack for a 7 year old boy, Lorenzo.  I took his wishlist with me to Target and carefully picked out every single item on it including the "optionals".  That one small act of kindness was so uplifting and reminded me of a paperweight on my desk. 

Sometimes one thing leads to another . . . I was driving down the street and saw a girl at an intersection holding a sign.  This is not an uncommon sight in Houston but there was something about her, she was young and it was so sunny and hot out and she was crying and embarrassed.  I imaged how easily that could have been me 40 years ago.  I couldn't just keep driving.  I stopped to give her whatever money I had on me, something I normally wouldn't do, but wishing I had more to give.

A business man friend of mine wears a bunch of ragtag bracelets (with his suit) often, as he's a proponent of the Random Acts of Kindness organization.  The sight always makes me smile so whenever I need a lift I log into http://www.randomactsofkindness.org/ for kindness.

I felt truly honored a couple of years ago when the National Association of Life Brokerage Agencies (NAILBA) asked me to join their Charitable Foundation Board.  I've never been a board member of anything so it felt really important, but the point is to manage a budget of donations contributed, and then ensure they are distributed to the nominated charities supported by the members.  I like the process and love to see an entire organization pulling together to make this happen every year.

United Way began their fundraising campaign in Houston this week and I'm hooked on helping.  I've personally toured their facilities and several of the organizations they support and I'm just so proud of what they do and how they do it that I can't help but want to be a part of it.  

And just because one thing leads to another I'm now signed up for the Susan G Kuomen Houston 5k (10/4) and American Heart Walk 5k (11/8).  I'm glad to work for a company that provides a 100% match of contributions (up to $5,000) knowing that leverage can work on the up side too.   And a final thought to the people at Spectrum a Youth and Family Services in Burlington, VT - a truly fine organization that I've been introduced to and so admire the work of their Executive Director.  

There are so many worthwhile ways to help I'm glad I've had the opportunity to Give Back.