Bending your earwig

I have always wondered why earwigs cause significant infestation problems in northern latitudes, but not here on the upper Texas coast.


There are many species but the ones I've seen around here look like this, with a distinctive forked rear end. 

That photo was taken on my back patio yesterday - these things can be found just about everywhere outdoors, but in 20 years, I've never seen an earwig enter a southern house of mine (knock wood).  And yet when I visit the northeast, I can't go 20 minutes without encountering an identical-looking earwig that has breached the residential perimeter.  They backstroke in toilet bowls.  They love to burrow into freshly-cleaned laundry.  They get into kitchen cupboards and they crawl on you as you are sitting on the couch.  It is not uncommon in some areas of the northeast to see homes completely surrounded by a moat of boric acid powder in feeble attempts to halt the earwig onslaught. 

But I don't hear about this happening in our neck of the woods, and neither have I ever seen a case of it.  I'm eternally grateful for this, but I don't get it.  The best explanation I've found so far is that they don't like dry areas.  Perhaps they have an aversion to central air conditioning, which is absent from many northern abodes. 

I don't know.  It may remain one of life's great and fortuitous mysteries. 

A shocking bit of local history

A chat thread on a Galveston Daily News article has revealed an eye-opening bit of local history.  Amusingly, the piece is titled "You'd be shocked what you can find out about League City" (sic... why do the editors let atrocious grammar slip through to publication?!), but in fact, the shocker was not in the article content - it was in the comments, where one of the readers related participatory memories of this 1992 event: 

Protestors outside the Johnnie Arolfo Civic Center. 

Photo citation:
Kiecke, Albert. [Demonstrators Outside a Republican Rally], Photograph, February 28, 1992; digital images, (http://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth279487/ : accessed August 11, 2013), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, http://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting League City Helen Hall Library, League City, Texas.

League City hosted a support rally for Republican presidential candidate David Duke, the same David Duke who reportedly founded the Louisiana branch of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) and became its Grand Wizard. 

Um... would anyone care to upload a copy of this pic to Facebook and tag these rally participants?  It sure would be fascinating to know who they are, and whether or not any of them have ever served League City in an official capacity. 

Photo citation:
Kiecke, Albert. [Photographer at a Repulican Rally], Photograph, February 28, 1992; digital images, (http://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth279472/: accessed August 11, 2013), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, http://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting League City Helen Hall Library, League City, Texas.

Here's why I find this discovery interesting:  Having only lived in League City for 3.5 years now, when I come across civic bad behaviors such as Constitutional rights violations and right-wing religious extremism and [other issues about which I have thus far declined to blog], it is difficult for me to frame those events in a larger context because I simply haven't lived here long enough to have developed a comprehensive "feel" for the prevailing collective character of this place.  Do this piece of garbage and that piece of garbage represent isolated, unrelated events, or are they reflective of a larger, historically-predicated dark municipal identity? 

I still don't know the answer to that, but this latest revelation adds another piece to that puzzle of comprehension.  Duke's affiliations, platform, and identity were neither concealed nor unknown during his 1992 campaign, and the fact that League City welcomed him with open arms - and as a perceived-legitimate Republican to boot (the mainstream Republican Party reportedly disavowed him) - all this is profoundly disturbing.

I sure wish that someone with solid institutional knowledge could come forward and provide a concise factual account of League City's history - a factual version that isn't politically motivated, white-washed, or spin-doctored.  So far, all we suburban newbies have are these disquieting bits and pieces, and it's very difficult to evaluate what we (as voters) are truly up against here if we don't have access to an accurate historical framework.  Maybe someday we'll see that fuller story emerge (hint, hint... is there anybody out there?!). 

Another one with tag potential.

Photo Citation:
Kiecke, Albert. [Crowd at a Republican Rally], Photograph, February 28, 1992; digital images, (http://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth279469/: accessed August 11, 2013), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, http://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting League City Helen Hall Library, League City, Texas.

How cool we are

A heat intensity forecast map published for yesterday has corroborated what I have long suspected about Centerpointe:  It can be significantly cooler here than in most of greater Houston.  We are actually close enough to Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico that the moderating effect is quite detectable. 

This effect doesn't manifest so much in the non-extreme weather conditions we have most of the year, but at the top of the summer when the upper Texas coast is baking under relentless high pressure, that's when it becomes most apparent.

Here's how I did my rough analysis using the map published yesterday.  This is very simple stuff, but it makes for nice pictures, so here they are. 

Centerpointe spotted in red on a Googlemap.

Temperature prediction map overlain roughly to scale on the Googlemap, because the original prediction map was largely devoid of fine-scale geographic references.

Count the number of temperature contours to Centerpointe (this prediction map is crude on a fine scale, but essentially one contour equals one degree).  Note that the predictions range from 87 degrees in Galveston to 104 degrees around the Southbelt / Pearland area. 

Generally this predicts that, even as far inland as we are, we should remain about five degrees lower than points north and west of us, when conditions are as extreme as they have been this week. 

And every little bit helps.  In the evenings when I'm playing outside with the neighborhood kids or walking our dog, a five degree temperature reduction is a Godsend. 

I first noticed this three years ago after moving to Centerpointe from the far north side of Clear Lake, where I lived for seven years.  I'd routinely step outside and think, "Oh my gosh - it's so much cooler here."  I wondered if it wasn't an artifact of my perception - maybe I am older now with poorer blood circulation and I just think it's cooler.  Or I thought perhaps it was a perceptual artifact of increased air movement because the newer sections of Centerpointe have no mature trees to block the breeze, whereas north Clear Lake is walled off by subdivision trees. 

But no, those maps above suggest that we can sometimes expect an absolute reduction in temperature by virtue of our moderated location (assuming the prediction map is accurate and generally representative of summer high-pressure reality).  We can call that benefit a tiny silver lining on the cloud of our coastal county windstorm insurance rates. 

L I N K P O S T : Back to school in CCISD

Seriously, I don't know how people with multiple children handle the school information management challenges, especially folks with kids in high school.  Yes, Clear Creek Independent School District (CCISD) is a well-rated district - the schools are good quality and the Superintendent is literally second to none.  But it's a massive district with highly complex and diverse operations and the information resources are distributed among so many unrelated e-spaces that sometimes the school officials themselves don't know where to find specific info when you ask for it (been there, done that, as a parent). 

And there has never seemed to be a cohesive "go-to" launch site that pulls all that stuff together in one place.  With this in mind, I decided to create a narrative Linkpost summarizing the highlights of that sourcing. 

The usual disclaimers apply - the information presented below is not warranted to be complete and if you're reading this past August 2013, much of it will probably be out of date.  Contact the ISD directly if you have questions.

(1) Calendars.  Here is a downloadable PDF of the 2013-2014 district calendar that applies to all schools.  And here below is the same calendar converted to JPG: 

Tap the image to expand.  I routinely get "cannot find font" errors with the original PDF and it will sometimes hang Acrobat on one of my machines, so I converted it to JPG. 

This site contains additional, targeted calendars (e.g., athletics).  Both CCISD and its individual campuses also utilize Google+ calendars, but I have never sucked up that stuff into my own calendars because I have found they contain too much that doesn't apply to our family - classic information overload syndrome leading to non-functionality.  Perhaps if you are a Google virtuoso, you could optimize that stuff for your own use.  My method of retaining organizational sanity is to selectively enter only those "mission critical" school dates into my own Outlook calendar and assign them their own color. 

Additionally, many individual Parent-Teacher-Student Associations (PTSAs) also embed a calendar on their website, such as this one for Clear Creek, which is Centerpointe's zoned high school.  More about PTSA in a section further down. 

(2) Logistics.  CCISD has produced this back-to-school portal which will help guide you to logistical information such as attendance maps, bus routes, and individual campus enrollment dates.  In significant measure, I will not repeat all that information, except for caveats which I will include below (subject to future updating). 

Don't be surprised if the bus / school portal does not function.  It was returning "No Busing Information Available" and "No School Information Available" messages for any and all geographic inputs as I was writing this post.  Phone CCISD if you're having a problem for your area. 

(3) Registration.  Registration packets are neither emailed nor snail-mailed.  They must be picked up by families, preferably according to schedules specific to each of CCISD's 43 individual schools (I believe you can wait until the first day of school to receive them, but completing a packet takes a lot of time and it's best done in advance of the flurry of first-week activity).  Start at this page, click your school level (elementary, middle, or high), then click the individual webpage for your school to find out when the pick-up dates are (e.g., here is the link for Clear Creek High). 

Notice that, when you click to the individual school level, the web page "feel" might look like you're leaving the CCISD system.  Also, be aware that the information on those individual school sites might not be updated in a timely manner and it might not be presented in a way that makes sense to you.  For instance, we know from the PTSA website that yesterday and today are the days for pick-up of the Creek registration packets, but as of 8:50 a.m. yesterday, there was no corresponding announcement on the homepage of the school itself. 

I suggest being very careful and double-checking everything school-related that you research as a parent. 

Screengrabbed from this site.

Here's a concise grab from the Clear Creek High PTSA site. 

CCISD registration packets will vary somewhat from school to school and level to level (elementary, middle and high) but generally they contain the following:

• A pre-printed child-specific information verification form (unless your child is new to the district)
• Medical info sheet
• A back-to-school calendar
• Residency questionnaire
• Handbook / code of conduct receipt acknowledgment
• Educational planning information (partial list of guides here)
• PTSA enrollment form
• Various releases and participation agreements for special programs

My suggestion is as follows:  The forms all have to be filled out by hand and signed with ink, but I make scanned copies of the entire package before my child turns it in.  This way if we later get accused of neglecting to provide some information (been there, done that), I can simply email the corresponding scanned sheet. 

(4)  Individual Enrollment Issues.  Once you get your enrollment package filled out and all attachments included (e.g., immunization records, proof of residency, etc.), your child is ready for the pre-first-day-of-school "camp" during which their completed registration will be accepted and they will be issued textbooks for home use.  Check with your school's website for dates and times. 

(5) Lunches.  CCISD is currently using the third-party provider ParentOnline for internet-based funding of lunch accounts.  If memory serves me, the charges show up on credit cards tagged as "Cybersoft". 

(6)  Individual Class Information Sites.  Many teachers in the higher grades maintain their own websites which are hosted on yet another set of third-party platforms (no cohesion).  Often in order to find out what those are, your child first has to bring home the hard copy information sheet he or she will receive during the first week of classes.  Those sheets should contain the corresponding web page addresses. 

(7)  Textbooks.  Note that for the higher grades, numerous textbooks are moving to a new system of electronic access for the 2013-2014 school year (although I believe that hard copies will still also be issued to students).  This change is not yet associated with the tablet program approved by the voters in the recent bond election - those come in later years.  In the short term, my research revealed that many textbooks previously available on the open internet are now migrating behind a paywall.  Your child will be given a username and password to access content specific to the courses in which they are enrolled.  I previously raised holy hell about this policy change (we, the taxpayers, have already paid for that content, so what is the justification for restricting access??) but we'll just have to see how this new program deploys this fall before we can further evaluate what is transpiring. 

(8) Student Progress Monitoring.  Here's where the info management challenge gets even more dicey because the cohesion is not what it could be.  At present, there are several different logins through which performance information is accessible: 

• The student-access site called E4. 
• The separate adult-access portal which had been called Parent Self Serve (not to be confused with the aforesaid Parent Online) but which is now apparently referred to as TEAMS.   I believe you need to be set up by CCISD itself to access that one (you can't initiate your own username and password).  This site contains the nuts 'n' bolts of grades, attendance, and other statistics. 
• Yet another login site called CCISD4ME.  This contains general information as well as links to both TEAMS and ParentOnline.   
• CCISD also has something called Naviance Family Connection which is a planning resource for high schoolers.  In an announcement contained within the 2013-2014 registration packet, the announcement says "Please contact the counseling office for assistance if you do not know your registration code.  Note that you and your child will each receive different registration codes, and that each code may be used only once."  Fantastic - it sounds like it will be even more difficult than logging into the new restricted-access textbook system.   

Don't ask me why there are so many different unrelated websites and resources that show so little intuitive organization and cohesion.  It's frustrating.  I guess this is just where we are right now in what the Information Age can offer at the level of public schools. 

(9)  PTSA.  Even if you have no urge to volunteer or "get involved", I recommend joining your school's PTSA simply for sanity's sake.  I've never found any of them to be overbearing in the sense of the "PTA from hell" social stereotype, and they do provide useful e-mail blasts which I find save me time and energy that would otherwise be spent hunting and pecking through many different hosted websites for information.  They're worth the entry fee. 

(10) Robo-calls.  I also recommend the robo-dialing automated school reminder messages, especially if your smartphone has visual voice mail capability which will allow you to prioritize those messages during your day.  Yes, as a matter of fact, some of our family days are so complex that I do benefit when the school phones me up with automated reminders.  On some days, I feel like I hear the voice of Scott Bockart (Creek's Principal and the voice behind its friendly robo-calls) more than that of my own husband.  I've been on the robo-system for so long now that I can't remember how I joined.  Contact your individual school for info. 


Anyway, this is a scratch-the-surface compilation of some of the more common relevant CCISD links.  There are probably errors and omissions in this post, so be sure to double-check everything I've summarized.  Good luck as we all gear up for the new school year. 

If only it were as easy as readin, writin, and rithmetic.

Microsoft clip art. 

Whole Foods in Clear Lake? FINALLY?!

The rumors have floated around for years, but they seem to be getting stronger these days.  I heard the most definite word on the street about two weeks ago (as definite as any word on the street could be), but thus far there doesn't seem to be any official announcement, and there has been no official press coverage (or even rumors in the press that I can find). 

As of this morning, the Facebook group had 3,521 likes.   Screengrabbed from Facebook. 

I can't reveal my rumor source because it came second-hand through semi-professional channels and also because it might be just a flat-out rumor and it's not proper to associate any given entity with rumors (not to mention it's a potential liability). 

The rumor says the store is going to be located "by Baybrook".  Searching the internet, I did indeed find historical references to a proposed Baybrook area location:

Screengrabbed from a Google search referencing this HAIF thread.  HAIF is often a good source of general community intelligence.  However, that particular thread dates back to 2007 and obviously nothing has happened since then. 

What gives extra credence to this Whole Foods rumor at this time is the undeniable fact that Clear Lake's abysmal grocery store situation is now at a tipping point.  On August 1, The Fresh Market announced a location to be developed in Webster; Houston Chronicle picked up on this press release just yesterday.  Often times what happens is that one gourmet grocer makes its move into a new area, and others begin following like lemmings.  To say the same thing in more technical terms, generally this indicates that the tide has finally turned and market studies are now suggesting that Clear Lake has, indeed, grown to the point where it can profitably support higher-end grocers. 

So fingers crossed, and I will report more news if it becomes available. 

What to do if stranded at Newark Liberty

This is an odd one-off post for a neighborhood blog, but having flown from Houston with a connecting flight through Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR) a dozen times over the past few years, and having not otherwise found what I consider to be valuable logistical coping strategies anywhere else on the internet, I thought I'd weigh in with my opinions on this one.

It's hell to get stuck there, but to make things even more challenging, EWR often elicits an "EWW..." reaction because of its archaic, piecemeal lay-out that looks like something transposed from behind the Iron Curtain. I often wisecrack to my family something along the lines of "Welcome to Estonia; we hope you enjoy your stay" every time we land there. 

Terminal lay-out screengrabbed from this site. 

Estonia:  It's a very difficult airport to navigate.  You go from terminal to terminal by wrestling your carry-on luggage up and down stairwells to the tarmac to catch a bus, walking past commercial jets in the process.  May God help you if you have to cope with a gate change that requires you to shift between terminals or even between spokes of the same terminal. 

Many Houstonians know that Liberty is a major hub for one of America's largest commercial airlines (Bush (IAH) is another hub for that same airline, which is why we know it).  But here's the issue with flying from Bush to Liberty:  It takes at least three hours.  And a lot can change in three hours.  So you might initially depart Bush with your whole itinerary looking peachy-keen, only to arrive at Liberty to face weather or air traffic issues that can scuttle the second leg of your trip (been there, done that). 

And in many circumstances, if your outbound flight gets cancelled, your airline will not pay to accommodate your resulting overnight stay which, due to razor-thin airline reserve capacities, can quickly morph into multiple consecutive overnight stays (been there, done that - my entire family was thusly stranded in Newark for three days on one leg of a trip last year, all of which we had to pay for ourselves, resulting in approximately $700 in unreimbursed costs to us).  If you get lucky, you might be able to make your way through a long, long line to a customer service counter where they'll hand you a partial list of local hotels (been there, done that).  But otherwise, you're totally on your own, so here are some pointers from me. 

(1)  Hotels. We found the airline-issued hotels list to be fairly useless, so what I did following last year's stranding fiasco was to create my own list, which I'm reproducing below as a JPG because Blogger won't host any other form of content.


Tap to expand.  It is important to include the addresses on such a list because, while some do have airport shuttles (ask them when you call), you'll need a taxi to get to many of these, and taxis need to be told precise addresses or they might take you to the wrong hotel. 

And oh, by the way, I eliminated several of the local airport hotels from my list because I found too many user reviews on the internet alleging that they were fraught with bed bugs, prostitution, or drug dealers. 

Here's the thing about Newark New Jersey:  If you are forced to stay at a hotel which is located more than about five miles from the airport, the round-trip taxi fare to get there might cost you almost as much as the hotel room itself (BTW, be sure you negotiate all taxi fares in advance of actually physically getting into the taxi).  For that reason, in a perfect world I'd prefer to prophylactically book a close-in hotel room on the day of my flight, cancelling the room before 6 p.m. if, in fact, my flight connection proves to execute successfully as scheduled.  Sadly for us, local hotels are wise to that ruse, and all reported to me in 2013 that they have a 24-hour cancellation policy rather than the standard "by 6 p.m." or "by 4 p.m." type policies. 

For that reason, the best stranding countermeasure I've been able to devise is to create the above list which I can quickly cycle through with my cell phone at the first sign of trouble.  There are about twenty hotels on that list, and my experience has been that, if there are *any* air traffic issues whatsoever at Liberty, every one of them completely sells out (it's a big airport - if you'd like to know how big and how complex, it's Wiki profile is fascinating).  If you get to the point where you can't get a room using that close-in list, I suggest calling the 800 number of your favorite hotel chain and asking them where is their nearest vacancy to Newark Liberty.  We had to do that last year, and the closest we could stay to the airport was twelve miles (and even those far-away hotels were also 100% booked with stranded air travelers).  It was the definition of SUCK, because every time we'd get an email notification of a new outbound flight booking, we'd take a cab to the airport, only to have a couple of those subsequent re-bookings also cancelled.  And each round-trip taxi trip to EWR resulted in yet another $100 wasted.

Here's a faint glimmer of hope should you be forced to stay in a more distant location such as East Orange.  If you know for sure (e.g., because of airline overbooking) that you'll be in Newark for several days, you can often shift your subsequent hotel stays to a close-in location, because you'll have enough lead time to actually snag a room.  That will save you on cab fares. 

(2)  Meals.  I have never found a decent eatery outside of Liberty, at least not in the immediate area, because it's really an industrial area that surrounds the airport, and there are few if any amenities.  For those nights when we stayed at close-in hotels, we timed ourselves to return to the airport (to the outside-security areas) for our meals. 

If instead you're forced to stay some distance away, you might have better luck with food access.  We spent two nights in an East Orange hotel which was near residential areas, and so we had access to one or two chain restaurants and even a grocery store (good for buying extra socks, underwear, and toothpaste, which we had not included in our carry-on bags - oh, I forgot to mention that, during our 3-day stranding last year, we also had no access to our luggage for two of those days because the airline kept our bags inside the secure area of the airport). 

(3) Entertainment.  None available in the areas surrounding the airport.  If you know you have the time and you can spare the mental and physical energy despite the inevitable exhaustion that comes from an unplanned stranding, there's a convenient train that runs from Liberty to Manhattan.  My husband and daughter did a Big Apple jaunt last year when we were stranded for three days and they enjoyed it, but I wasn't up for it and I just remained in our hotel. 

So good luck and Godspeed should you ever find yourself in this horribly challenging situation of being stranded at Newark Liberty.  I hope the opinions expressed above will help you in some small way. 

Breathe a major, major sigh of relief every time you make that transition safely and successfully. 

GCARC de non-triomphe

Sad news from Galveston County Animal Resource Center (GCARC), which appears to be suffering a leadership crisis of the most profound type.

Back in June of this year, when I passed on the information about the shelter reaching capacity, I could not have imagined the allegations that are now surfacing.  We didn't witness anything remotely like the conditions now being described when we adopted our dog from GCARC.  The staff and volunteers at that time (3 years ago) were wonderful and the animals were well cared for (we went into the kennel areas on two occasions and saw a great deal of the facilities).  And we did our adoption BEFORE the shelter's $5 million physical expansion, back when they had far more modest accomodations. 

But we were also there BEFORE Kim Schoolcraft resigned as its leader amidst an initial wave of controversy.  Could these factors be related?

The shelter has been the subject of at least one expose' presented by KHOU.  Volunteer groups are disgusted with the status quo, and just as an army marches on its stomach, an animal shelter marches on its volunteer base, so losing them is the kiss of death. 

Discussions are underway on how to resolve the problems, possibly via out-sourcing of its management.  Whatever happens, I hope a turnaround can occur quickly, for the sake of all involved.