The weather has been fabulous in Houston. Thi sis a particularly good time of year, sunny, warm but not too hot or humid. It lends itself to long walks with the dogs.

As I've mentioned before I live in the picture of suburbia with personality-less cookie cutter houses, winding walking paths and growing oak trees. This is the route through which I walk my dogs. Usually the whole walk I'll have an internal monologue in my head, because its just a good time to think.

So picture me walking along, lost in my own thoughts, and then I notice an unusual looking bird start to cross the street. I get closer.

Oh my. It was a chicken. Crossing the road.

The whole rest the walk, I tried to figure out how an escaped chicken made it to the suburbs and was crossing the road, just like the joke.

I'm starting to sail again tonight in the Wednesday night races, after over a year off. Every other "first race" of the year, we've had a pretty major catastrophe - looking back - we lost the rudder once (losing directional control), the main stay once (resulting in the mast coming tumbling down), and lost a side stay connect point (also resulting in the mast come tumbling down). All three times resulted in me rowing most of the length of Clear Lake while not a single power boat stopped to offer their help (by the end of the race though, the committee boat came by to give us a tow).

I'm keeping my fingers crossed for better luck tonight.