Day 78 (Sun., Aug. 15)

Since I was in Houston on Saturday, my editors decided it was a great way to take advantage of the 3.5-hour road trip and gave me an assignment today. I was sent out to the Venezuelan consulate to take photos of all the Venezuelans who showed up in Houston to vote in an special election that would determined if President Hugo Chavez would stay in office. Only eight cities in the U.S. had polling places, where Venezuelans abroad could vote. About 2,000 people showed up and voted here. I spent the whole morning doing that. The above photo is a nice moment, however, I guess it lacks an element that tells you these are people from Venezuela who were in line to vote. The wait to vote was more than three hours for most people while others waited close to five hours. So, these 2,000 voters had to do a lot in order to exercise their civic duties. I hate to be stereotypical gain, but Venezuelan women have the reputation of all being very attractive. I won't disagree after seeing so many attractive women in one place. Thinking about this took me back 11 years when I had a girlfriend for the very first time. Heyla Primera is her name. Her and I were in eight grade at Madison Middle School in North Hollywood, Calif. She was very pretty and nice, and she was also a Venezuelan. Now, I guess that's where I get my bias to say that the women from that country are beautiful. We were just 14 and I thought she was beautiful, we grew up and she became even more attractive. I wonder what happened to her. Last time I saw her was at our high school graduation.

After shooting the assignment I decided to go have lunch and was driving around town with Mira Oberman, she's a Dallas Morning News Metro Edition intern. She was in Houston with Angel Gonzalez, who was writing the voting story. While driving we bumped into what I call the "Disneyland of Drinks": Tapioca Express. This beverage store offers Boba drinks that are a product of Asian countries. I was introduced to Boba back in January by Kendy Arellano. She took me there and I was hooked. Then, I found out there was a Tapioca Express across the street from my university, so it instantly became my home. I was there all the time. Before class, after class, during class (shhhh, don't tell my professors) and, even, on some dates. I just love their drinks. I can't live without them. When I moved to Dallas, I had to give up T.E. The store is a small franchise and there are a limited number of stores in the U.S. There are only two stores in Texas; and both of them are in Houston.

I almost forgot about T.E. being in Houston. I guess the lack of sleep and the long week had caught up to me and my brain was dead (OK, fine... more than usual). However, after lunch we were driving around town trying to do some sight-seeing and I saw T.E. I was jumping off my seat in the car as I made Mira turn the car around. It's funny, Christina "Tina" Pascual (a great friend from back in Cali) was teasing me about not being able to drink a single Boba ball in two months the other day. As I was jumping off my seat as we drove in the parking lot of T.E., Tina called and I thought it was very odd. I guess there was some sort of energy given off by my excitement for Boba that she felt it and thought about calling me. I called that great timing. "Hey what can I do?" Tina said. "I guess I'm psycho, I mean psychic. HA! HA!"

Yesterday-Main-Tomorrow