A pretty laid-back holiday! Most of my family is in California and Devin's is in Iowa; we decided to tour around Galveston, visit the Festival of Lights celebration, and have a group dinner with his co-worker buds.
Some island areas require more work, but most of the big ticket items have re-opened. Two of the three Moody Gardens pyramids escaped Hurricane Ike unscathed, though sadly the Rainforest Pyramid flooded, so that one won't be repaired until mid-2009. Everyone is rushing to ensure that "Spring Break" will be the same wild party it's been in years past.
We went to the Sea Wall, though it was difficult to see into the Gulf of Mexico due to fog. It's gloomy to still see random piles of storm debris, but saddest of all was seeing UTMB deserted. We went to the NASA ward to see anyone who might be working, but everything was dark. Ironically, this was the first year they had originally planned to be operational over the holidays for long-term study subjects.
Hopefully things will jump start in 2009. I came home to find some great news in my inbox, as someone sent me a Houston Press article about Ryan "Shaggy" Hull in the Hair Balls Blog. I'd met him briefly when we visited UTMB in early November, and he'd had an interesting experience with his lunar study... and plans to return for the long-term study later!
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