Last month I ran into a major problem. The laptop which I bought 6 years ago (even though I did not use it very much during the 3 years in London) finally expired. I was able to bring it back long enough to copy most of the important files to a separate hard drive but soon after it failed again and this time it has proved much more difficult to revive it –even though I have not yet completely given up hope. After a few days it became clear that I will have to buy a new one – luckily the prices for a middle of the line laptop have dropped quite a bit. It was still a lot of hassle, however. Most of it is due to Microsoft who keeps changing programs, making them bigger and focused more on stupid part of the population, without adding any new useful functionality. It is like going from Wall Street Journal to America Today. Lot of color pictures but short on substance. I am still struggling with the new PowerPoint and cursing at every step.

Other than that we undertook several short day trips.
(Click on the picture to see it full size, use a back button to return to this spot.) The first was to the settlement of Praha, about half way between Houston and San Antonio. Settled by Moravian immigrants in the middle of the 19th century it actually grew to a decent size – few hundred people. Eventually, though it lost to a nearby town of Flatonia because the new railway went right through it whereas it passed a mile north of Praha. Praha is today a cluster of a few houses, most of which do not look inhabited year round, a very large catholic church and an even larger cemetery. Every year in August they hold a Czech festival with lot of beer and oompapah music. A typical small Texas town fair – there is not much else to do.

A few weeks later the Houston Geological Society organized an outing to the Damon Mound. This is quite a remarkable site, which is, unfortunately usually not accessible. It lies so the southwest of Houston in an area that is clearly just a dried up sea floor – totally, totally flat. And smack in the middle of this mind numbing flatness is a large hill – about 50 meters, if I remember correctly. What happened here is that a layer of salt, which underlies much of Houston and area to the south, has moved up to the surface, little bit like a salt finger. This is because salt is less dense than the surrounding sediments and tends to rise just like oil will rise above water. This is a fairly common phenomenon called a salt dome and it usually has a topographic expression. In the old days of oil exploration people would look for these highs because they were often associated with oil traps. I have seen a few, but they were all rather subtle features. This one is anything but subtle. In the old days they pumped in hot water to recover the sulphur associated with the salt dome and I assume it is the result of the operation that produced a large lake in the middle of the dome. Quite stunning because it is so completely unexpected.

And finally, it is harvest time at home. One of the three papaya trees which was not killed by the telephone company is bearing abundant papayas. Excellent!