TRAVELING CHEMIST - I work as a chemist who provides technical support to my company's numerous world-wide operations. I've had the opportunity to travel to many interesing places and what you will read here are the accounts of some of the more memorable moments, places, people, and events that I've encountered along the way!
Lovett Hall - one of THE main buildings on the Rice campus. This courtyard is where the annual graduation ceremony is usually held.
Rear view of Lovett Hall.
Close up view of the arches along one of the walkways.
Another impressive-looking building in the central campus ....
A statue of the university founder, William Marsh Rice.
And, lastly, the official university seal!
The Beer Can House is now covered with the shells of empty beer cans and the front porch and fence are adorned with many, many cans and parts of beer cans.
A close-up view of the fence out in front of the Beer Can House.
A close-up view of the siding which completely covers the house (except for the roof). The owner meticulously cut up beer cans, rolled out the beer can body into small strips of aluminum which he then nailed onto the exterior surface of his home.
The former owner - John Milkovisch -and his wife. Sadly, John passed away in 1988 but thanks to "The Orange Show" art organization, the home was purchased and preserved and is now open to the public an Saturdays and Sundays.
A quotation from the former owner and artistic creator of The Beer Can House.
If you have patience, you can zoom in or print out the above and read the complete history of The Beer Can House. FYI: There is NO CHARGE to enter and inspect the inside of this place.
Actually, my first stop for the day was at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft. Currently featured was an exhibit entitled "Hot Glass". On display were some absolutely amazing works of art made entirely out of glass. Sadly, the gallery does not hold the copyrights to the works of art in the gallery and hence I was unable to take any photographs and so I cannot share any images of the artwork on display. Then I went to The Beer Can House (above) where, thankfully, there were no restrictions on taking pictures!!
My favorite house in the Houston metro area ... this home has the most decorations that I've spotted in the past two weeks. Yes, I suppose all these balloons can seem a bit silly, but what the heck - it sure looks different.
Not too bad - a good runner up as home decorations go.
Plain and simple - wooden reindeer. I suspect these decorations are quite old and predate all the balloon-like figures we see nowadays.
The Sugar Land City Hall building all decked out for the Christmas Holiday.
The Santa at the First Colony Mall was prefectly dressed for the part!
The main entrance to the First Colony Mall. It took me only about 20 minutes to drive to the mall from my apartment .... and ten (10) minutes to find a parking space!!! When I left at 12:45 pm, the parking lot was full and more cars were streaming in!
Pay attention to the escalator sign!! Press the handle down!! Releasing the handle LOCKS the cart in place and as the escalator goes UP the cart rolls DOWN .... and can hit the passenger standing behind the cart. I am still nursing the leg wound caused by the cart banging into my shin! Ouch!
CAUTION: Stay away from the Starbucks at Terminal 1, Wing 'B' at Frankfurt Airport ... if you like decaffeinated coffee, you will hate what this place dispenses. The decaf Americano I ordered tasted so weak, it was basically warm, brown-colored water with so very little flavor. Shame on you Starbucks!
Flight 440 departed from Gate 15. What was unique about this gate is that it is connected to its very own Business Class lounge. You board the plane directly from the lounge area! What a concept!
A view from the window near my seat. The 747 has two engines on each side of the aircraft. 
Finally a camel picture!! And may I say it's about time! I managed to go the entire trip this time without a single camel picture to share with yawll (that's Texas-speak for "you all"). Well, on my commute to work for my last day (December 2), I came upon a Kuwaiti-style traffic jam so to speak. Had to wait for this guy to cross the street!!
On my last day in the office in Wafra, our waiter made me a cappuccino. Nice!
"Part 1" of the long journey home - my flight from Kuwait to Frankfurt departed Kuwait at the delightful hour of 1:15 am!! I'll give Lufthansa credit - they left ON TIME!!
Members of the US Air Force stationed in Kuwait playing volleyball.
The water was excellent and the weather perfect!!!
And the high point of the day was turkey dinner with all the fixings!!
A perfect day for someone far away from home.
(My favorite home!! Not a clue as to who lives in this fine place!)
A simple but thoroughly fine home sweet home!
A camel all set for a ride by the tourists at the Movenpick Hotel's beach area.
I had the Friday Buffet meal which includes a chicken schwarma (shown above). Total cost for the buffet meal was 15.4 KD or $57 USD or 45 Euros. As always, I waddled home fully stuffed.
The poolside area at the Movenpick Hotel in Salmiya, Kuwait.
The front view of the Movenpick Hotel entrance and adjoining Chili's restaurant and many other fine eating places. Well worth a weekend visit!
Calligraphy: (a): artistic, stylized, or elegant handwriting or lettering; (b): the art of producing such writing.
Just a short update to advise everyone on the recent closure of the new Starbucks in Al Zour (Kuwait). As you can see from the above photo, a temporary wooden door has been erected over the existing glass door entryway. There are absolutely NO signs anywhere explaining what is going on leaving us to depend upon any hear-say/scuttlebutt that we can run across. A colleague says he actually talked to the Kuwaiti owner of the franchise and this owner alleges the store was closed because some critical paperwork had not been filed and / or that certain "considerations" had not been paid to the appropriate people. My colleague says he hopes to visit the owner during this weekend and maybe obtain more details about the closure. Naturally, all of us expats in the immediate vicinity are hoping this store's closure is temporary. Again, I am sure many folks who read this posting are likely to laugh and say "just get over it". Still, when one is far away from home, one needs as many comforts of home as possible and the loss of any such "comfort" is always upsetting ... and a great incentive for us expats to speculate and come up with all sorts of "explanations" and theories. Stay tuned ....
Having made many postings from Wonderful Wafra, I thought I'd better include a map showing the exact location of where I am working. The red star shown in the above map image indicates that we are in southern Kuwait, a short distance (just a few kilometers) north of the Saudi-Kuwait border. Our oilfield is in what is termed the "Partitioned Neutral Zone". Basically, since Saudi Arabia and Kuwait could not decide exactly where their mutual border was situated, they simply decided to split the oil production 50% / 50% from that area. The US-based company for which I work is the official contractor to the Saudi government and as such we are in charge of producing the Saudi share of the oil from the PNZ.
