No Apollo 13 references, I promise...
...but I will say Ed Harris, not Tom Hanks, made that movie.
Anyway, the drive from Dallas to Houston is pretty boring in general (or so I am told by people who do it regularly), and the day I made the trip, there was this weird weather pattern that started as a cool rain in Dallas and ended up in Houston as kind of a sticky, tepid fog that made it hard to tell whether you were warm or cold. With that on top of my recent illness, I felt sort of drained and in a daze when I got to the Klenkes' house, where I would be staying for the next four nights. Not how you want to feel when you're about to walk into the home of someone you've never met...and did I mention they have six kids. But they were being so gracious to host me, so I sucked it up and went in and met Connie (the mom), then the kids, and the dog, and I sat down and had a drink of water with them while the older kids were doing their homework. And then I sort of quietly crept into my room and started trying to catch up on some work. But I left the door slightly ajar, and after a few minutes I realized I had an audience, of the shy, adorable 5-year-old girl variety.
Ten minutes later, I was assembling my gear to show the four children sitting on my bed what I do. These kids were easy to photograph because they were absolutely adorable, and the "interview" was quite surprising, as 3-year-old Maeve, when asked about her family, immediately announced that Mommy is pregnant again. Kindergartner Bridget and 8-year-old Creigh confirmed. The four girls want a girl, and the two boys want a boy, but they can all agree on one thing: they don't want to share their rooms. Anyway, Connie and Allan are both ND grads (Connie did undergrad there, and they met in the MBA program a few years later), and their entire family was an absolute delight to spend time with. Connie is yet another on-top-of-it mom (I've stayed with a number of those on this trip!), and the kids were so sweet, they brought me pictures they had colored in school.
I could go on about the Klenkes forever, but I will stop now so I can go on for awhile about another awesome family in Houston, my family's dear friends, the Halls. From the time I was about 4 until I turned 13, our family celebrated virtually every major holiday, and pretty much every other day, with the Halls. They had four boys, and when we all got together we were absolute terrors. (Well, we children were. We didn't pay too much attention to the grown-ups!) Then Terry got a job teaching at the University of St. Thomas in Houston (he and Valerie both teach there now), and aside from a quick visit with Zack (the oldest) last fall, I haven't seen them since they moved away. So it was really nice to catch up with Terry and Valerie, and Nick and his wife (!) and two well-behaved (!!) children, and Brendan, who is no longer 5 and no longer blond. It was fun to hear about what they're doing now and reminisce about the weird games we used to invent to occupy ourselves. And of course, our Halloween dominance in the Halls' neighborhood, despite the fact that every year someone wore a motion-limiting costume. It was a really wonderful evening.
I guess I haven't really said much about work here...my interviews in Houston were, for the most part, fantastic. The one that stands out the most looking back is my interview with a guy named Jason Brown, an '02 MBA grad. Jason is a singer/songwriter who got his MBA so he could market his music and start his own record company. He's a really good storyteller, and he had all kinds of stories about getting started with his music, and touring, and all of the sacrifices the music business entailed, but the thing that I remember most clearly from the interview was his story about going to the dining hall with his friends on Sunday morning. They'd trek from Fisher Grad over to South, they'd eat and hang out, and then they'd get up and go home. When I write it, it's totally boring; when he tells it, it's the most compelling story you've ever heard. Sorry, that probably doesn't make for an interesting read, but it will be a great listen if I ever get to the editing phase of this project!
Anyway, the drive from Dallas to Houston is pretty boring in general (or so I am told by people who do it regularly), and the day I made the trip, there was this weird weather pattern that started as a cool rain in Dallas and ended up in Houston as kind of a sticky, tepid fog that made it hard to tell whether you were warm or cold. With that on top of my recent illness, I felt sort of drained and in a daze when I got to the Klenkes' house, where I would be staying for the next four nights. Not how you want to feel when you're about to walk into the home of someone you've never met...and did I mention they have six kids. But they were being so gracious to host me, so I sucked it up and went in and met Connie (the mom), then the kids, and the dog, and I sat down and had a drink of water with them while the older kids were doing their homework. And then I sort of quietly crept into my room and started trying to catch up on some work. But I left the door slightly ajar, and after a few minutes I realized I had an audience, of the shy, adorable 5-year-old girl variety.
Ten minutes later, I was assembling my gear to show the four children sitting on my bed what I do. These kids were easy to photograph because they were absolutely adorable, and the "interview" was quite surprising, as 3-year-old Maeve, when asked about her family, immediately announced that Mommy is pregnant again. Kindergartner Bridget and 8-year-old Creigh confirmed. The four girls want a girl, and the two boys want a boy, but they can all agree on one thing: they don't want to share their rooms. Anyway, Connie and Allan are both ND grads (Connie did undergrad there, and they met in the MBA program a few years later), and their entire family was an absolute delight to spend time with. Connie is yet another on-top-of-it mom (I've stayed with a number of those on this trip!), and the kids were so sweet, they brought me pictures they had colored in school.
I could go on about the Klenkes forever, but I will stop now so I can go on for awhile about another awesome family in Houston, my family's dear friends, the Halls. From the time I was about 4 until I turned 13, our family celebrated virtually every major holiday, and pretty much every other day, with the Halls. They had four boys, and when we all got together we were absolute terrors. (Well, we children were. We didn't pay too much attention to the grown-ups!) Then Terry got a job teaching at the University of St. Thomas in Houston (he and Valerie both teach there now), and aside from a quick visit with Zack (the oldest) last fall, I haven't seen them since they moved away. So it was really nice to catch up with Terry and Valerie, and Nick and his wife (!) and two well-behaved (!!) children, and Brendan, who is no longer 5 and no longer blond. It was fun to hear about what they're doing now and reminisce about the weird games we used to invent to occupy ourselves. And of course, our Halloween dominance in the Halls' neighborhood, despite the fact that every year someone wore a motion-limiting costume. It was a really wonderful evening.
I guess I haven't really said much about work here...my interviews in Houston were, for the most part, fantastic. The one that stands out the most looking back is my interview with a guy named Jason Brown, an '02 MBA grad. Jason is a singer/songwriter who got his MBA so he could market his music and start his own record company. He's a really good storyteller, and he had all kinds of stories about getting started with his music, and touring, and all of the sacrifices the music business entailed, but the thing that I remember most clearly from the interview was his story about going to the dining hall with his friends on Sunday morning. They'd trek from Fisher Grad over to South, they'd eat and hang out, and then they'd get up and go home. When I write it, it's totally boring; when he tells it, it's the most compelling story you've ever heard. Sorry, that probably doesn't make for an interesting read, but it will be a great listen if I ever get to the editing phase of this project!
posted by Katie @ 3:06 PM
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