Once upon a time, Dr. Richard Patt had a teddy bear in his front yard. It reached 20 feet, give or take, into the sky. His neighbors hated it. But it wasn't enough. The backyard was empty and boring. So he and Joe DiPaulo, the man who designed the park across from St. Joseph Hospital, planned a fantasy theme-park-style spread. Now there's a 40-foot mountain with three straight-from-Maui waterfalls that flood into a pool. Under the mountain is a cave, with a separate spa and another waterfall. Think the grotto at the Playboy Mansion. "It's almost exactly like that," Patt says, "without all the breasts." There's also an open-sesame wall. When he leans against the two-ton stone, the wall swings open to a courtyard and two more rooms. One of those rooms has a murder-mystery bookcase that opens to a spa. There's a waterslide from his upstairs balcony to the pool, an outdoor fireplace and two fire towers that shoot eight-foot flames. He's thinking about opening his yard up for events. We hope he decides to do it.

This Houston assistant city attorney took over direction of the city lobbying team last year and had a promising maiden session. The 42-year-old neophyte impressed capitol veterans with a low-key approach combined with a tenacity that belies her five-foot-one, 110-pound frame. Grace volunteered for the job when her boss, City Attorney Anthony Hall, took over supervision of the lobbying program from the mayor's office in 1999. "They literally threw me to the wolves," chuckles Grace, "and I didn't get eaten. People were surprised." Statistics bear her out. Of 18 bills introduced on behalf of the city, 16 passed. Overall, the lobbying team prevailed on 94 percent of the positions taken for or against legislation. Grace says she quickly learned that many of the actions of legislators had little or nothing to do with the merits of a particular bill. "Their past drives them," she notes, "and that history was the most important thing for me to learn." It's a cram course she'll be continuing when the legislature reconvenes next spring.

When it comes to local news in the Houston market, Channel 11 truly stands alone in terms of quality. That doesn't mean it's great: Local TV news around the country has been in a general decline for some time. KHOU is fighting that decline better than anyone else around here, though. They've got a great investigator in Anna Werner (of Firestone fame), and solid, unflashy, veteran reporters like Doug Miller and Nancy Holland. Throw in hurricane expert Dr. Neil Frank -- or his equally talented colleague, David Paul -- and you've got the best news team in town.

This former KTRH reporter left journalism and signed on to flack for legal giant Vinson & Elkins. He then took a sabbatical to help the Lee Brown mayoral campaign sweat out a narrow victory over Orlando Sanchez. Then he had the good sense to leave V&E just before the heat got turned on over its role in the Enron collapse. Joe is currently working the corn fields of Iowa on behalf of incumbent Democratic governor Tom Vilsack, who faces a tough re-election effort in November.