I’ve been spending my spare time online, looking at real estate in Rockport, TX. Yes, that’d be spare time... that thing you have a lot of when your hormones insist that the two minutes between 12:45 and 12:47 at night are more than adequate for your sleep cycle to do its thing.

Anyway, looking at real estate in Rockport, TX usually points up how much I do not know about this place where I’ve chosen to move. For example, around my neck of the woods, you’d highlight “Thermal Windows!” and “Basement!” There, the ads tout “Hurricane Shutters!” and “HardiePlank!”

HardiePlank? Thank God for Google. By the way, that’s har-d-i-e, not hardi- or hardy- for those of you who actually live in Texas but have advertised it incorrectly because you probably have better things to do at three in the morning than look it up.

If you did, though, you’d discover it’s named HardiePlank because James Hardie invented it. Frankly, I was so fascinated by his great luck in having a name that lent itself so well to the product he created, I almost missed the little fact that people-who-should-know claim this fiber-cement siding offers great protection against termites, rot, and water damage.

But I didn’t miss it. And, of course, that set me to wondering (in Texas, you don’t just wonder, you get set to wonder) how big a problem they have with these things. If I’d thought about it much before, which I hadn’t, I probably could have figured out that in a place where I can landscape my yard with the tropical plants I currently have in pots in my house, moisture might be a problem, and it's likely they grow termites the size of Cadillacs, termites that consider a four-by-four a light snack.

Which then sets me wondering about the size of other bugs indigenous to the region, given that, unlike my Midwestern clime, there’s no freeze snap to kill ‘em dead. (That's right... not just kill ‘em, kill ‘em dead. You're catching on.) Which is pretty much how I prefer my bugs.

Guess that’s something I can Google tonight.