I'll be there, its only 50 miles from my home to the hotel. I've known Jim Baldauf at ASPO for about 35 years, and he has no problem imposing on his friends for grunt work, so I'm sure I'll be helping.

I'm think its going to be a great conference. Awareness has really grown in the media, and they have some great speakers and workshop leaders lined up. I'd love to see peak oil and energy policy become a campaign issue, and there are going to be some big guns there. The Houston Mayor, Bill White is a former secretary of energy and a top fund raiser for the Democrats and is speaking.

Ok guy's, here's the real scoop. Thelma's Bar Be Que has the most awesome brisket sandwitch in the southern U.S.. Her pork ribs are so succulent and beautiful they belong on the wall of the Contemporary Arts Museum. Its that East Texas black-style oak smoked meat, a great homemade sauce-and cheap. $5 or $6 bucks is guaranteed to raise your cholesterol level about 100 points and leave you grinning a greasy smile, and its only about 10 blocks from the hotel.

I'm one of Texas's great experts in cheap ethnic food. I know it sounds a little immodest, but ask my friends. Houston has at least 6 different ways to purchase goat, my infallible indicator of a town's ethnic food potential. Admittedly Chicago has better pizza, New York is the king of hot pastrami and stuffed cabbage rolls-but Houston has at least two all-you-can-eat Indian food places with great goat cury, numerous Mexican food restaurants selling cabrito(roast goat) and birria (steamed baby goat) tacos, guisado(stew) and burritos, and Vietnamese and Thai coconut milk goat curry.

So diet before you come, I'll be happy to guide anyone. Or, if you'd rather, seafood, boudain, and gumbo, soul food, or just steaks.

Bob Ebersole