Re-building after Hurricane Harvey

Hello fellow progsters, I would like to let everybody know that me and my family are doing okay and my House didn’t get flooded and we’re still going strong. As I was sleeping on my bed, hearing the wind, lights almost flickering from the winds of Hurricane Harvey that landed in the lone star state at August 25, 2017. I almost felt something was about to happen between me and my Dad at the house.

Watching the floods on KHOU Channel 11 and KPRC Channel 2 almost made me too emotional of watching the water flooding the houses, debris on the ground, I just almost want to turn it off. It has been ten days after Harvey made landfall here in Houston. Not only in my hometown state, but in Corpus Christi, Rockport, Port Aransas, and Beaumont to name a few.

Some love Texas, some don’t. For me, I’m born a Houstonian. Always a Houstonian, and will be a Houstonian until the day I die. The road to rebuilding is not going to be easy. It is going to take slow gigantic Baby steps to get everything back on track. When Harvey hit, I didn’t know I was going to continue blogging or not for Music from the Other Side of the Room which launched back nine years ago and next year will be it is 10^th year.

I started this blog site when I was in Houston Community College after I took a course called Commercial Music Forum where I had to write five concert reviews. And the light bulb lit up in my head and I knew right there that was where I wanted to write about music. I’m still going strong with the blogsite. It went through various names including Progressive Rock Reviews and Progressive Rock &Symphonic Metal reviews. But then the name, Music from the Other Side of the Room suddenly hit.

Now I know I’m off-topic,  but where the name actually came from. The name was inspired by two people; Anil Prasad and Sid Smith. Anil has an amazing website entitled Innerviews: Music Without Borders and Sid Smith’s amazing blog site, Postcards from the Yellow Room. And I knew combining the two would be an homage to these two and it was simply named: Music from the Other Side of the Room.

Re-building Houston as I’ve mentioned before, is going to be a slow process. They came together helping out and doing good of getting people out of their houses that have flooded and surviving through those rough times. And big kudos to both J.J. Watt of the Houston Texans now has raised to his recent goal of $20 million dollars of his relief fund in which we (My family and I) donated to and Jim McIngvale (Mattress Mack) of Gallery Furniture opened his doors to his store to the victims from Harvey have stepped up as a shelter. It can be both as a store and a shelter.

I’ve been to conventions here in Houston including Oni-Con, Anime Matsuri, and Comicpalooza about five times now at the George R. Brown Convention Center and next year will be my sixth time. 

I’m a geek and always will be a Texas geek. Not to mention concerts here in Houston also from the Astrodome with Rodeo Houston, NRG Stadium, Jones Hall, Miller Outdoor Theatre, The Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion, Toyota Center, House of Blues, Revention Music Center, and Arena Theater to name a few.

I’ve seen bands and artists including B.B. King, Styx, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Def Leppard, ZZ Top, Buddy Guy, Paul McCartney, The Rolling Stones, Rush, Dream Theater, The Musical Box (PG-era Genesis tribute band), Australian Pink Floyd, Zappa plays Zappa, Ringo Starr and the All Starr Band, Iron Maiden, Radiohead, Roger Waters of Pink Floyd, and the late great David Bowie in which I was in the pit at The Woodlands for his final 2004 tour in which he was promoting his Reality album.

While the hurricane was going on I was playing Steven Wilson’s music which was his fifth album To The Bone and Schooltree’s Heterotopia hoping that the light of hope will happened and it did on late Tuesday afternoon on August 29^th. And I almost broke down knowing we went through a lot from Hurricane Harvey. I will never give up on Houston, Texas. I will stay in my hometown state until the day I die.

And I would like to close out a quote from Steven Wilson’s song Pariah, “So the day will begin again/Take comfort from me/It's up to you now/You're still here/And you'll dig in again/That's comfort to you/It's up to you now/So pariah you'll begin again/Take comfort from me/It will take time.”