Bayou City Art Festival

The temps have been running about 10 degrees above normal for late March, so I really appreciated the cooling effect of the tree canopy at Memorial Park yesterday. I dropped in on the Bayou City Art Festival for the first time. A lack of gallery space at home or a fat wallet precluded me from bringing anything home (although I did linger at the Misrata watch tent). Overall, it was just like a stroll in a museum, except most of the artists don't care if you take pictures or approach their works with a beer in your hand.

What is the scoop on POOP?

This is the greeting we got when we came downtown to see Blue Man Group last night.

I've located one other blog post that claims this handiwork has been up since Friday night at the intersection of Louisiana and Prairie streets. Otherwise my Google and Bing searches haven't been fruitful.

Is this subversive advertising for a new show in the Theatre District? (Hey, I do see that Urinetown is coming in April.) Or is this a prankster making a commentary about the Birraporetti's that faces this sign across the street?

So, I offer this up to the blog community and ask if any of you know the scoop behind.

Shamrock Shuffle

After using the first half-mile of this morning's Shamrock Shuffle as a warm up walk, I decided to find out if my running legs had made the trip with me. My sister had come out for this event as well, and she turned out to be quite the pacer as I cruised all the way around the Rice University campus and back to Brian O'Neill's without needing another walk break to catch my breath.

Mile 1 -- 14:56
Mile 2 -- 13:16
Mile 3 -- 12:19
Last .16 mile --1:50
5K elapsed time -- 42:21 (per Garmin Forerunner 205, uncertified course)

When we reached the pub, Wendy from Ronald McDonald House Houston greeted me with what looked like a finisher medal. On a second glance, I realized that she was merely disposing of the remaindered kids' awards from last fall's Mogie 1K Walk. It will surely claim a place in my collection cherished equally alongside the Flying Pig and RNR San Antonio medals! At least it will make another cool Christmas tree ornament.

The weather today could only be described as Spring Spectacular, and with the 10 a.m. start, participants would have needed to check their SPF if it wasn't for the abundance of trees on the Rice campus. We did spot at least one Bayou City Classic 10K bib in the crowd, which proved my suspicion that doing both events in the same morning is actually feasible for the truly race-addicted.

And so, nearly five months after Park to Park, I'm simply tickled at the idea of having running events return to my weekends.