Austin

Much like LL Cool J

I’m california bound. The great benefit is that due to my layover here in Austin I get to have a breakfast of Matt’s Famous El Rancho breakfast burritos. My sister’s graduation went really well, it was a short yay ceremony full of pomp and circumstance and followed by a luncheon at Z-Tejas.

Back from Austin

Just wanted to say that I’m back in CA after a few days in Austin visiting family, friends, and eating a lot of good Mexican food.

During my trip to Austin last month....

I bought a pair of Lucchese Classic boots from Cavender’s. I’ve told some

Suck it ESPN - ‘Horns win the Rose Bowl

You couldn’t shut up for weeks and weeks about how USC had it in the bag. Just because the school is in the backyard of your corporate parent’s theme park, that’s no excuse to downplay the blood, sweat, and grit of my alma mater, The University of Texas. I am so proud of those men out there, and I enjoyed paying my Chili’s tab to the USC cheering waiter with my Texas Ex charge card. I looked into that mass of orange bodies, their hands moving to “The Eyes of Texas” in unison and I remembered the sunny days on the bleachers at Memorial Stadium, the windy ass-cold days in late October (usually the Tech game, who knows why), and how that song was the backdrop to a moment where the students and the players and all the spectators knew that somehow an “us” was being created.

Randomly running into Idgy Vaughn

Why I love living in Austin Yesterday, after I got home from yoga, I ran into my girlfriend at my house ( of all places! ) and she remarked that she had been cooped up all day and wanted to get out and do some walking. So, we cooked up some leftovers and then headed into town. The question was: where to go that didn’t involve spending money ( things are a bit constrained post move, movers’ expenses, auto moving expenses, double rent, setting things up, ad nauseum ) and that didn’t involve eating things as we are both trying to shape-up post Bay Area lifestyle (deserts, gelato, pecan pie a la mode, ad nauseum, literally).

(+ (* -1 8) 40) days left in the 40-day yoga challenge

Just letting everyone know that I survived the first week. I’m into the second week. I must say that with the great numbr of classes offered by yogayoga it’s pretty easy to take a class when something comes up. Late meeting? Go to a later class at a different location. Early meeting? Early afternoon class.

Sally Fourth

Hello, thanks for stopping in yet again for the life and times of Steven and his, quite often, wunder-fraulein, Lauren. The Fourth saw me get up early to make 9 o’clock ( - 40 (+11 5)) yoga class. Afterwards I got some Fourth of July gas when it struck me that no fourth of july is a Fourth of July without Bar-B-Q (to say nothing of being components in two Robert Earl Keen songs). I headed home and the lady and I headed over to Rudy’s for some lean brisket on whitebread with gallons of iced tea. Rudy’s is so fine, and I do mean so fine.

Austin: A good town for modern architecture

When we were still living in Mountain View, I would often watch Dwell magazine on TV on the Fine Living channel. I was consistently surprised by how many modern homes were being built in Austin and the surrounding area. It’s funny where modern design pops up, while I wasn’t surprised to hear about the Annie House conversion in South Austin, the other day Lauren and I had a run-in with modern design quite by accident. We had gone to La Feria on South Lamar for dinner and afterwards drove through a neighborhood that I had never visited before. Ok, in truth, I thought that the road would go through and be a shortcut back home, which it was not.

I feel the geometry going wrong in the Childrens’ section...

It would appear that someone at Bookpeople has taken the position that children need more exposure to the Great Old Ones:

Musical Accopmianiment to Austin’s Modern Homes

In a previous post I told about driving through the Barton Hills neighborhood and coming across the beautiful [St. Mark’s Episcopal church]. During this drive there was an excellent song playing on Andy Langer’s “The Next Big Thing” on 101x. The musicians were “Band of Horses” and the song was “Funeral” which you can find here. Band of Horses is on the seminal Sub Pop label. Check it out.

Completed the 40-day Yoga Challenge

Hello Yogi and Yogini and other non-practicing folks. A few weeks ago ( 6, to be precise ) I informed you all about my plan to undertake a 40-day commitment to daily practice of yoga at Austin’s own [YogaYoga][3]. Along the way I updated you with blog posts using the Polish Notation syntax familiar to programmers of LISP. Well, 40 days are up and I am glad to report that I completed this challenge on the 29th of July. Furthermore, I have brought my beautiful girlfriend in on the practice and we are both enjoying the benefits of regular practice. Yoga is good, yoga with a buddy is better, and yoga with your girl is even better.

Summertime with my baby

Today was a lovely Sunday. I woke up and put some laundry in the dryer, and then Lauren and I went to 9am yoga. Afterwards we went to Magnolia café. Here are some pictures: It’s turned overcast and stormy this afternoon, with hot gusts of summer air moving tumultuously about through the atmosphere. It’s scared us into staying inside most of the day, but there haven’t been many drops

Bring me the head of Alfredo Garcia

No, not the movie of the same title. On second thought, bring me his attention this a-ways. I have mailed him from my GMail account, my domain based email account, and now I’m making a banner post at the top of my blog. As I told him in my mail: Alfredo, ’twas last night while i was lounging hollywood style at the hotel san jose that the musicologist delivered serge gainsbourg followed by choice cuts off of T. Rex’s slider, surely you shoulda been there. Give a fellow a mail when you can. Steven I’m suspecting that either there is an overactive spam filter involved

A fun weekend

Yes, folks, I have purchased a Nissan Xterra from the friendly folks at Town North Nissan. It’s an “S” model with 4x4. I’m hoping that we can use it this winter to go snowboarding in Colorado. Now some of you will be noting that it wasn’t all that long ago that I was posting pictures of my recently purchased BMW. You might be thinking that I have a Scrooge McDuck like vault somewhere. No, that’s not the case at all. The bimmer was fun and fine in the Bay. I couldn’t have a house, I didn’t go much of anywhere, I didn’t do much of anything extravagant.

Doing the trivia thing with the Mayor, Alfredo, and Osakatomebaby-lady

Well, for those of you who have been following my re-association with a friend that was lost to the great post-graduate scattering, you’ll all be releived to know that we did manage to catch up at Mother Egan’s (a place where my Bay area friend Jeff simply must come) bar and pub on 6th street last night. Little did we know it also happened to be trivia night at the establishment. Being that we ( as a table ) are a competitive bunch of polymaths, we were soon embroiled in a heated battle. It was definitely good to see Mr. Al and to meet his lovely fiancee.

Lauren’s first visit to The Alamo Drafthouse

Last night I had the pleasure of taking my girlfriend on her first visit to The Alamo Drafthouse on South Lamar to see Little Miss Sunshine. LMS was a really great dark comedy. Ostensibly it’s the Venn diagram intersection of “people on the edge of a nervous breakdown take a road trip together” and “dysfunctional family pulls together in spite of itself to give the most innocent member a shot at the happiness they all secretly yearn for”. While this would set the movie up to be rather formulaic, the movie is most definitely not so! Instead of formulaic lessons being delivered, at the end of the movie I found myself considering a meditation on how people find different compulsions to which they can devote themselves so that their lives seem livable.

The Previews!

I forgot to write about the great previews I saw before Little Miss Sunshine. On the topic of The WAR Nerd, there’s a new movie about a Scotsman inside the Idi Amin genocide machine called The Last King of Scotland that looks really great. There’s also another dream world / real world / animated / dreamscape movie from Michel Gondry called The Science of Sleep that’s coming which features Mexican actor of great talent Gael Garcia Bernal and favorite yee-yee generation offspring Charlotte Gainsbourg.

Parler francais avec Tex

In my french class I sat next to a young freshman named Shandra who wan very nice. I was a junior at the time and on my way out ( I was taking French for fun ) while she was a freshman (IIRC). We were introduced to a character named Tex: a Franco-American armadillo whose adventures taught us the mysteries of first-year French. The dialog that made Shandra laugh so hard one day in lab was the following. (HeavyTexas Accent ): Edouard, est-ce que tu te rase? { Edouard, do you shave?}

Why my girlfriend totally rules

Contrary to popular belief (held by my sister) I do not live at Costco ( she just seems to always call me when I’m there ). Nevertheless, I do go there a bit from time to time. Invariably we follow the same pattern: enter, look at the pornography for males (Big, shiny, TVs), look at the pornography for females (Big, shiny, jewlery), head for the DVD section, head for the book section, and then get on with what we came to do. For the last several weeks, when my girlfriend has come across the stacked piles of freakish, skinny, freakbat, looney Ann Coulter’s latest book “Godless” she has taken books from the neighboring stack and laid them atop the Coulter book, essentially ensconcing her whacked-out, paranoid-delusional tome under

September

In a rare moment of pure non-work based relaxation I’m updating this blog and am watching the pure genre-trash movie: Reform School Girls featuring Wendy O. Williams. I knew it was going to be pure trash when I saw a shower scene, teased hair, the same typeface used in the Police Academy movies, Wendy O. Williams, 2 scenes of, uh, sapphic voyeurism and a cat fight within the first 15 minutes. September just had me running too hard for too long, weddings, bachelor parties, on-call rotation, system meltdowns. It was just too much. In other news

Ladytron tickets

Oh, schnap, I forgot to mention that I bought tickets for LADYTRON who are playing Stubb’s in October. It’s a bit weird because I never imagined that Ladytron go outside and Stubb’s is an outdoor venue. I guess it’s that whole ‘futuristic jumpsuit’ look that makes me think they must live inside brushed steel structures on Bauhaus furniture phlegmatically drifting like post-industrial shades from powerbooks to synthesizers, to chaise lounges, to a painfully white kitchen where they drink champagne and sushi. This image of Ladytron has changed a bit with their recent market repositioning as possessing a bit of a fashionista mode.

Monday Morning Meeting with Melbotis, The League of

Note: This meeting actually took place on Tuesday, and it wasn’t a meeting, it was brunch at Magnolia Cafe on South Congress, but I’ll be damned if i let the facts get in the way of my alliteration The League of Melbotis and his non-tertiary-personally-named wife have relocated to the capitol city and met up with myself and Lauren. The League has already posted about the meeting, but on the whole it was very enjoyable, except for the scene when a ninja stealthily emerged from the kitchen, seeking to kill the League and use his still-beating heart as an ingredient in his blood-reveng pate.

Visiting Ginny’s Little Longhorn

Ladies and gentlemen, let us discuss a truth. There are times in life, when a person needs a beer after work. It’s not my usual practice to drink very much. Sure the occasional glass of wine with pasta, or a ‘rita on the rocks with a fine mexican meal, or a Negra modelo with queso, but alcohol, on the whole, doesn’t find a daily involvement in my life. Although, by the previous sentence, if I ate a diet of “fine mexican meals”, pasta, or queso exclusively, it might just, but I digress. With Lauren working until later in the evening, and me having too many hours to kill until she got home, the prospects for the early evening were go home (crickets) and surf websites or write code ( something I’d done enough of yesterday, thankyouverymuch ), watch DVDs, and I’d missed my yoga class.

Ladytron Seen, Melbotis Met

Saturday night Lauren and I went to see the fabulous Ladytron at Stubb’s. It was a really great show, with really great sound work. I’ve posted some pictures on Flickr. We had a really good spot in the 2nd row which afforded me the opportunity to grab some very good pictures of Mira Aroyo. I thought it was pretty funny to think that only in Austin one could see the very ‘antiseptic’ band Ladytron whilst munching on a chopped brisket sandwich ( Stubb’s BBQ is not to be doubted ). Today I went over to The League of Melbotis’ new home where I occasioned to meet Melbotis himself, ate a hamburger, read the League’s copy of 300, and then came home to meet up with my girl.

TV Party at Alamo Drafthouse

We still don’t have cable at the house. Part of me thinks this is a good thing ( I’m not spacing out watching shows after work, I’m doing something like reading A Brief History of The Dead, James Dedman ). Another part of me misses Gilmore Girls and Veronica Mars and … well, if I got going the list could go on and on, and that would certainly get us back to the other hand which says, maybe it’s a good thing that you don’t have cable. Nevertheless, I was a bit curious about the exploits of the Lorelais and noticed that the famous Alamo Draft House hosts a TV party featuring GG and VM on Tuesday nights.

Windy city? Austin, Tejas

Chicago Wind: 5.0 mph / 8 km/h from the NNE Wind Gust: 18.0 mph / 28 km/h Austin Wind: 14 mph / 22 km/h from the NNW Wind Gust: 22 mph / 35 km/h

Halloween on 6th, the masses, the masques, the religiousity.

Yesterday afternoon Lauren came to meet me for lunch and remarked that she wanted to do Halloween “big”. Well the biggest, that I know, is the Halloween parade / mill-about on 6th street, so we launched a bid to make the scene in the early afternoon. We headed to the seasonal Halloween headquarters on South 35 and Stassney ( in the derelict husk of a forgotten Albertson’s ) and looked through the mostly picked-over costumes. Lauren found a very cool pixie outfit with wings and upon seeing a cape and a wand I knew that I would be evil professory Severus Snape from the Harry Potter universe.

Tickets for Regina Spektor on the 10th at Antone’s

We’ll be going…maybe see you there?

Adrienne Shelley and 1997

1997 seems to be haunting me today. It crept up behind me on the Radio, where the 9 at nine was about 1997. It reminded me of The Castilian, my sophomore year, symbolic logic and calculus. I remembered my hallway: the firings, the sexual tension, the beer, the antics, Mandy, Matt, Ryan, Justin, Christine, Renee, Sarah. I remembered Fall in Pease park, cool and dusky and orange sweaters. I remember the night when a neighbor showed me Hal Hartley’s great movie trust. I remember thinking that I had never seen an actress like Adrienne Shelley. The hauntings continued when I found out that Adrienne Shelley had died.

The Fines of Texas are Upon You

Today I had to get a university transcript. You see, friends, yours truly has decided to go back and get some supplemental education at Austin Community College in the matters of Calculus and Computer Science. You may be thinking: “But Steven, you’re a programmer by trade and you passed two classes of business calculus in college, why go back for those?” The answer is simple: I’ve forgotten. I don’t know how many arcs or tangents at 90 degrees. I’ve forgotten what a radian is. Similarly, I’ve forgotten the basic advanced guts of C++, memory management, garbage collection. It’s this forgetfulness which has thwarted my ability to learn some of the higher concepts of computer science.

A Good Austin Citizen: Joining the Public Library

Yesterday, while I had proof of residency and a lot of documentation on me, I headed down to the Austin Public Library and got a library card.

End of the week in SoCo

After having had an extremely busy last few weeks workwise and lifewise I decided that I needed a visit to my chiropractor, Dr. Ron Burnett on 6th street. Finishing up my 5 o’clock appointment, it was clear that the traffic back to my apartment would be more pain than it’s worth so I asked Lauren, who had accompanied me to Dr. Burnett’s Austin Funky re-hab office-in-a-house, if she was up for grabbing a margarita and dinner at Guero’s. She was game. We shared the fajitas for two and then I made an amazing discovery I recommend you try. I ordered coffee and a praline for dessert.

Back from SJ, the Baroque Cycle Finished, and Headed to Houston

I headed back from San Jose yesterday and used the time to finish up Volume 3 of The Baroque Cycle: System of the World. I could do with a little less mass in my bookbag, so I’m glad to be finished with the work. But it was an enjoyable undertaking: ideas, gold, and the tying up of several plot threads that ran for the previous 1700-odd pages. One of my biggest complaints about Stephenson’s work is that he can’t relieve the exciting frission of tension he builds up in the preceding pages. He acquits himself, decently this outing. There are no ridiculous deus ex machina devices ( I’m looking at you Cryptonomicon ), but I can’t say that the climactic resolutions that you feel you’re owed all happen ( some do, some don’t quite, and some flat-out don’t ).

I am totally loving Guitar Hero II

Hey all, after a day of running about and signing a lease for a new apartment and finding out that “Pan’s Labyrinth” was sold out we headed home ( after a quick pop in at Border’s to get the Exam cram guide for the Java Programmer Exam ) and Lauren took another spin at GHII. As a laughing point for those of us familiar with Spinal Tap, they’re one of the “Encore” songs. The round ends, appropriately, with the drummer spontaneously exploding in true Spinal Tap fashion.

New Lease!

Oh, I forgot to mention that Saturday we signed a lease on a very nice 2/2 in North Austin. We’ll be moving up there at the end of February.

Oh hey I forgot to mention, we're doing SXSW this year

Lauren and I got platinum wristbands, so we’ll be down at SXSW in March. If you’re coming to the area for the event let me know!

Visiting the Greenbelt on Sunday

This Sunday Lauren and I headed down to the Greenbelt. Recently we had been making a habit of “doing something active” during the weekend versus just studying and working the day away. After this we went to La Feria on South Lamar and then home. After a shower and cleaning up we headed over to The League’s to visit and catch the puppy bowl.

Reasons you should come to SXSW this year

I’ll be there! Khoi Vinh, a talented typographer, designer, and the man in change of the NYTimes’ digital layout will be holding a masters class about gridded design. Rodrigo y Gabriela will be bringing their Meh-ee-cano Meh-Tal Acoustico magnifico sound. I’ve not had a chance to post properly about the amazing work that RodGab do, but the music is powerful, driving, thrumming, passionate and exiciting: pretty much everything that the current moribund state of heavy metal is not. On the album they do a cover of my and The Social Bobcat’s favorite (once-mighty) Met instrumental “Orion”. Check out this amazing performance on Letterman.

Big Nerd Ranch: RoR Day 5, and back home

Well yesterday was a brief morning session where we covered profiling, how to get help, and took a look at some of the student generated work that had been created during the week. After that we were shuttled back to Atlanta where we all dispersed, catching our flights to the various parts of the map. My plane was delayed by an hour ( mechanical ) so I arrived in houston about 7:30. After getting to the park and ride I proceeded to drive back to Austin, getting home about midnight. While I was flying I had a chance to post a wrap up and advice page which will be next in the posting list.

Working hard to prepare, working hard to recover

As you may have noticed from my posts before I went to the Rails camp, I had to do a lot of work to take my tests early, turn in my school homework early, get caught up at work early, etc. …So that I could vanish for a week…. And now I have to get caught up in advance again because I have to go to SJ this Wednesday. Rest next weekend? Nope. Moving. I’m taking the first three days of the week after that off to unpack and, maybe, just maybe, get a day of rest in there somewhere before my body decides to clue me into its opinion by getting me sick.

Getting harrassed by BCR Credit Collection Agency

Last week I started receiving phone calls from the BCR collection agency. I was in Atlanta with weak reception last week, so I missed the deluge as it began last week, but now that I’m back in Austin I’ve been receiving the messages. They call asking for a girl ( whose name I recognize from the initial weeks when I got this number, about a year ago ). I say she isn’t at this number, she will never be at this number, etc. The next day, I receive an automated call from BCR. The next day, I receive a call from BCR.

The happy couple: The Morales - Garcia wedding, April 21, 2007

Alfredo Garcia and Nicole Garcia née Morales. This weekend Lauren and I attended the wedding of this lovely couple. Alfredo and I had lost contact of one another when I moved to CA, but, upon returning to Austin, he found me via a comment I left at another blog. Through this past 10 months (!?!), we’ve had occasion to see each other with some regularity and were blessed to be invited to this beautiful wedding. The wedding took place at the lovely San Jose Catholic Church hidden in the heart of beautiful South Austin. I had only been to one other Catholic wedding ( being of Anglo - Germanic stock myself ) so the ceremony and ritual was again a bit of a foreign, although beautiful, experience for me.

Kickin’ it with the classmates or The Season of Closing and Overlapping cycles

At Vespaio this weekend one of the other guests had mentioned the mysterious fricative consonant unique to Czech: ř. I had been thinking about this sound and the statement “Language X has difficult sound Y” ( particularly the hard “g” in Dutch ) and how one acquires the ability to reproduce that sound in the intervening days and decided that I would like to hear that sound in person. Fortunately, one of my peers in my C++ class is Czech and I knew I could go to the source. After class I leaned across the table and I asked said lady, “Say, I heard that in Czech you have a consonant that no other.

Rrroon Paul

My blog-friend Daniel has posted numerous times citations, references, quotes, speeches of the representative of the 14th district of The Lone Star State: Ron Paul. Yet I can recall being a freshman with The Social Bobcat during one of Mr. Paul’s re-election cycles. The ad was the typical attack ad; judging by Paul’s attendance record, it didn’t do much to derail his career. In any case the ads were along the lines of “Rrrron Paul, mumbledy mumble badda badda. " or “Who approved mumbledy mumble, blah blah? Rrrron Paul.” There was the implication of a rolling “Rr” and when it was said the picture on the screen would inverse expose ( look like a film negative ) and it became clear that Paul was the negative (ho-ho!

Scott Walker: My SXSW 2007 legacy

On March 13th my world became a little bit weirder and a little bit richer as I watched Scott Walker: 30 Century Man. It tells the story of an American boy named Noel BrelEngel, who heads to Los Angeles and joins a trio called The Walker Brothers. The Walkers have minor success in the early Sunset strip scene, but then head to Jolly Old England where their success is of a much larger and much more lucrative variety. There they seem to tap into a post-war ennui psychology that ties the bourgeois-making-tea-staring- out-the-tenement-development that defined Britain. Listening to the music you hear the heavy reverb, the Phil Spector influence overwhelming the headphones.

Rubyists in Texas!

A Ruby conference is coming to Austin: Lone Star Ruby Conf

Bombshell

Last night Lauren and I, sick of being sick and trapped in the house, went out to Austin’s Paramount Theatre and saw the 9 o’clock showing of “Bombshell”. The synopsis runs essentially like this: “Bombshell” film actress Lola Burns, a from the farm in Illinois to Hollywood starlet type who fickly hops from idea to idea: Marrying the tanned European marquis, adopting a baby, changing her Hollywood image. Naturally the studio’s publicity man and the studio head are none-too-keen on their bombshell becoming “a rubber nipple” and are thus dedicated to thwarting her ambitions and making sure she’s back for her make-up call.

Dining out: Aborted

Yesterday Lauren and I were near the Arboretum area having a coffee at the beautiful Segafredo-backed 360 Hills Cafe on Jollyville. As hunger crept up on my lady she admitted to having a bit of a hunger for “Fresh Choice” which is a salad buffet that also sells some overcooked carb-heavy things on the side ( pasta, cardboardy pizza, etc. ). We walked in and checked out the menu options and saw that the limitless buffet was $9 mumbledy mumble. Nine-plus-dollars. 3 gallons of premium? For salad? ( “You don’t put burbon in it or nothin’?” ) I appreciate that the rich eat better than the poor and that establishments like this are the barometer of that ugly truth, but ten dollars for a salad bar is just beyond the pale of good sense.

I feel like there should be a German word for this III

This evening after my classes I was sitting outside of the school at the ‘Dillo stop waiting for the, uh, ‘Dillo to come round. While waiting I was reading a textbook when I felt something alight to my lower calf. I looked down and sow a mosquito. I hate those bastards. And so I thought: “By God, it’s a mosquito mid-suck! If I kill it i will have bug guts and, uh, until-recently my blood on me.” About the same time another more primal message came in “Kill that ugly thing stealing your vital haemocytes.” Before I could be more than just barely conscious of these ideas I smacked the insect into oblivion.

Embarrassment of Animals

I realized I had forgotten a book I needed at work and decided to run to get it. Literally. My work is about a mile away and is accessible, until the office park, by sidewalk, so I thought I’d take a jog in that direction. As I left the facility I was nursing a nasty stitch so I decided to work on memorizing the opening 11 lines of Virgil’s Æneid, it’s an extra credit assignment. As I walked around the road I could feel the warm sun on me, hear the sound of my words: Arma virumque cano, Troiae qui primus ab oris Italiam…

Fall comes

Today was the first day that I was out and about in town since my return from Australia. The weather had a decidedly cool bend to it and the Austin uniform of jeans and a t-shirt required an additional layer for comfort. It was that rare sort of silent and cool fall. I know the same amount of bodies are in the same volume of space, but somehow the exuberant cacophony of voices seems to have vanished. I could hear only a few children at the playground across West Road and the rustle of the leaves in the trees. I stood briefly in a patch of sun and listened for conversation, voices, yells, anything.

Dancin’ and Maskin’

I was looking for things to do in Austin related to Halloween and discovered the excellent site do512.com ( “512” being the Austin area code ). It’s clearly the best “what’s going on in Austin” site that I’ve found to date. Austinist isn’t bad, but it certainly doesn’t have the full breadth that I see at do512. While I find hoary old Citysearch to be a reliable source for a few reviews, the layout and the decidedly Web 1.0 interface make searching and comparing a bit, well, “old-feeling”. So, hooray for Do512. In any case, there we read about some Halloween parties and, by chance, about two-step swing dancing classes held at Austin’s venerable Broken Spoke on South Lamar.

I love the girl groups

The record will show that the defendant has always much been a fan of The Ronettes and similar ( I credit it to my mom playing the Oldies station in my early years ). Well, as ever, what is old is new again and, uh, English, as the Brighton-based 60’s girl group re-hash trio The Pipettes make their way to Austin and perform on the 7th at The Parish Room on 6th street. Note to Mice: Check out the Beyond the Valley of the Dolls footage

Attention my Interfriends: SXSW is coming

SXSW is coming up in March. Now would be the time to book hotels and get a cheaper pass if you’re thinking about it. Austin is very nice in March, breezy and sunny before the summer begins its slow torture of us locals.

Back in ATX, Dei gratia, and New Year's

We returned home from SNA on the evening of the 29th after having spent the morning sleeping in and heading out to Laguna Beach. Laguna is a special place for Lauren and I, it’s the first beach she ever took me to in her home-area and returning to that spot always feels like a ritual: we re-enact our walk, see the same immutable motley of beach-side attractions and linger across the sands with the roar of the Pacific to our right. It was a slightly cloudy day and, thanks to the winds, it stayed a good bit cooler than we would generally like, but a cold day by the beach beats a bad day just about anywhere.

Dancing

At several times in my life I have undertaken to learn this “dancing” thing with mixed results. Well, here I go, both feet first, jumping without testing the depth of the water. Lauren and I signed up for Four on the Floor, Austin’s Tuesday night classes at The Texas Federation of Women’s clubs in West Campus. Last night we took the basic class (a bit below our familiarity, actually) and then took the intro Lindy Hop class ( Step 1: Basic Charleston ). It’s going pretty well, Laur and I have been a-seen practicing our Charleston kicks on sidewalk, under eaves and even near my workplace.

Trying to come out of hibernation

I’ve not really felt much like writing … mostly because being sick has taken the joy out of it for me. This last week or so has not seen a marked improvement in my condition. Things were getting better after my visit to the Dr. on February 14th, but things stalled out rather around the following Tuesday ( when my steroid shot wore out ). Worried, I chose to book an appointment for this past Thursday figuring that I should see some improvement within a week. Basically the improvement process plateaued. On Thursday morning I received a call and found out that my Dr.

Steven: Agitator for carbohydrates

Posted To austin.food I have eaten at La Madeline all my life as a Texan: brunches and High School senior days at the Madeline on Champion’s Forest Drive in Houston, at the Lamar location during my University days, and now at the Arboretum location after years of missing their food whilst living in California. But yesterday, after seeing the thoroughly forgettable “The Other Boleyn” girl, I thought nothing could lift my spirits like one of their pasta dishes with extra bread slices to sop up their tasty sauces. And there, where the tower of carbohydrates once stood was nothing but empty space and condiment bottles.

Coming to town this week: Nicole Atkins

When I went to see The Pipettes earlier this year, the opening act was the incomprable Nicole Atkins who channels the best of many things I love in singers. Reverb: Why I love Neko Case ( and Brandi Carlile ) as well. Mystery: Why I love Patsy Cline as well. Girl Groups: Why I love Ronnie Spector / The Pipettes And some associated words: Robert Johnson, Mississippi, San Francisco, rainswept streets, Nashville water, postcards, coney island baby, lou reed, cassocks and lace, revolvers, The Bible, motel rooms with suspicious stains, serial killers, crossroads, the lights on line-runner trucks. At the end of it all, allow me to summarize: Nicole Atkins

[SXSW2008]: Day 1, Registration, What Made Milwaukee Famous, running into old faces

Yesterday was a day full of harried activity. Owing to the fact that I wouldn’t be in the office this week, I had a few things to take care at the office before I did le grande log-out before going into SXSW. I couldn’t quite figure out what to d, so my solution was to “sprint”. “Sprinting” is a term that I got from Merlin Mann over at 43Folders as being an incredibly important skill in productivity. The fact is this: some time you have to sit down, strap in, turn the fucking IM off, and work until you’re done.

The M/F/F Room at the Austin Convention Center

The polyamory room at the Austin Convention Center. See, I told you this town keeps it weird. It actually means elevator, apparently. And now, to the Aerosmith.

The SoCo draw and la gasolina

Friday afternoon I made a visit to my alma mater to participate in a symposium in concert with the School of Business on the status of their MIS curriculum. First, let me say that I was very impressed with my graduating program’s status. While most MIS programs in this nation are flat to down, UT’s is sharply up. It’s definitely thanks to some hard work by the faculty and administration there. It’s also an effect of the hard work of research staff who now are gladly working with incoming business school students to establish the passion for seeing IT as a business value proposition, versus a mere cost center.

Latin II: Epic Win

Today I took my Latin II final which represents a substantial weight off of my shoulders. It’s weird not to have the nagging sense that somewhere, somehow, i should really be reciting conjugational or declensional paradigms. My efficient professor offered to grade it there on the spot and I walked out knowing that I got 97 points on it. Not too shabby. That locked me an “A” in the class. I celebrated with a pho meal and trip to Target with my beautiful girlfriend. Brian Blessed, scenery not being chewed Last night instead of cramming, we watched the 1976 mini-series “I, Claudius” – it was at least in the Latin vein.

In my life in the Bay Area i grew to miss...

…the raging post-midnight thunderstorm The rain in the bay is a weak anemic nutritive water that falls from the sky. Give to me Texas’ raging thunderstorm whose lightning lights your bedroom in a flickering flash of white like a stark flashbulb before yielding to the growl of a bear that shakes your windowpanes, roof, and door before leaving you in awe, aurally drowning in the sound of rushing water. Give me double-flash strikes of electrical fury you hear - for a split second

The Spirit of Volunteerism

“een vrijwilliger?” Such were the immortal words of my Dutch teacher when prompting us to hazard, more often than not, a guess at what the answer to some question was. The translation would be “a free-will-er”, or a volunteer. My work recently sent out an email letting us know about a volunteer opportunity that I thought was pretty interesting: Urban Roots, a program of Youth Launch, has a one acre garden in Austin that is worked by 15 middle and high school students in the Austin area. The food that is grown in the garden is donated to five Austin area hunger relief agencies.

Volunteerism cont'd

Lauren and I will be volunteering at Urban Gardens this weekend from 0930 - 1200. If you’re interested in coming along ( plus seeing me in a giant genuine Honduran straw hat ), let me know.

Alphabetical Phone Numbers: 223 872245489

What? You don’t know what “223 872245489” means? Guess what, I didn’t know what this meant either: The alphabetical phone number must have been a marvel back in the day when Ma Bell leased you a phone, but in the age of cell phones where price and button real-estate is at a premium, I found myself baffled as to how to call. Why? My phone doesn’t put the alphabet on the buttons; nor does the screen simulation have them. Why would you not make the image hot-clickable to a real number? Or under the FAQ list the phone number as something besides the alphabetical number?

Volunteering at Urban Roots

As mentioned earlier, Lauren and I volunteered at Urban Roots’ acre at the Helping Hands farm in East Austin, right under the take-off path of AUS. We woke up around eight and headed out to East Austin. The acre is on the east side of the highway right near a bit of a heavy interchange, as such we passed it. A few miles later it seemed like we had gone too far, so we doubled back. We found the entry street and missed the second turn (agh); but, at last we found the right path and the acre. We were greeted by some of the energetic youth interns and, after signing in and getting a name sticker, we were guided out to a section of the field headed by our crew boss, Vivian.

4th of July Fun

This 4th of July in our firs real one in Austin. Why? You may ask? Well, it’s because this is the first year that the Austin Symphony played the 4th spectacular along the banks of Lady Bird Lake on the Auditorium Shores. The symphony puts on a “Pops”-based production in a lead-up to The Grand Finale Tchaikovksy’s 1812 Overture played to its dramatic crescendo accompanied by a 45-mm howitzer carted in from nearby Camp Mabry. That’s how we roll in the Lone Star State, yo. Lauren, still suffering from her Canadian cold, was a bit touch-and-go throughout the day, but assented to make the pilgrimage that evening.

Rollerderby Action

It’s summer in Austin and that can mean only one thing. Texas Roller-Girl Action Last night was Bout 5 of the season featuring the Hell Mary’s versus visiting Northwest Arkansas Hellbillies. It was a shellacking, the Mary’s owned them left and right. After that the Honky-Tonk Heartbreakers took on the Hotrod Honeys including my favorite, jammer, “Rice Rocket” who helped make sure her team got a spot in the playoffs bracket. It was a good, physical bout with a lot of speed on both sides’ jammers. Very good match. The Texas girls continued beating the snot out of Arkansas one more time, but by that time we’d seen all the wheels and vengeance we could handle, so we headed home.

Lone Star Ruby Conference

Wow, has Austinite Jim Freeze et. al. really outdone themselves this year. They have organized the second Lone Star Ruby Conference. This year none other than Matsumoto-san, creator of Ruby itself, will be presenting! Talk about a coup! The presentation will even be at the terribly-convenient intersection of Anderson and Burnet but a mere 4 miles from my home. I hope opportunity shall be found to introduce the intrepid father of Ruby for a Hunger Buster at the DQ up the street. This also means that the closest and best bar in the area will be Ginny’s Little Longhorn. I can totally see Dale Watson and Matz rocking a “Heartbreak Hotel” cover.

Dancin’ Machines

Last night we went down to Austin Swing Syndicate’s Thursday night dance at the Fed. At 8:15 we took the introduction to Balboa lesson as given by 4 on the floor directors Matt Jones and Laura Malloy. Laura has a fantastic way of explaining dances physically. She and Matt did a great bit where she said something like: “You all know Charleston ( big exaggerated moves ) well, people liked it. But they made the music faster and more people came so the moves got faster, smaller, and closer ( same moves, but just tighter and faster ) and it got faster, and faster, and ( they start dancing Balboa ).

Austin, rigor mortis

Is it just me or is this town entirely dead after 7pm on Sunday? This is the n_th_ time in recent memory that Lauren and I looked at austinist, do512, and the chronicle for something to do besides sit at home, eat more mexican food, or watch netflix on a Sunday night and have come up empty. Seriously, the only thing that sounds remotely good is Shoegaze night at the hole-in-the-wall. As bad as it may be, rest you assured that it’s better than Sunnyvale, but still…that’s not setting the bar very high.

Sunday-night boredom

You may see my last post in which I ask, how can it be that here in Austin there is nothing to do on Sunday night? Well, Lauren and I took a wild stab at a solution and went to the campus area’s venerable “Hole in the Wall” for “shoegaze” night. I figured it couldn’t be all that bad as I always had a bit of a think for My Bloody Valentine. We headed down and the bar was sparsely populated. Many people were seated out in the hallway alongside and in back of the bar, sitting in the humid night air with sweating bar glasses stacking indefatigably higher.

I missed the early mornings in Austin Coffeeshops

It’s no secret that when I get the sleepy-time bug, it’s sleepy time. Period. It has been ever thus, much to my friends’ consternation, from time to time. In college, that time when you’re supposed to “stay up all night” my version was to go to sleep at 11 and get up at the crack of dawn: 4am, 5am, to study / do homework / etc. In my later years of study, I was blessed to live with my friend Brown and his great dog, Bailey. When I would wake up at such an hour I would sit at my desk, the blankets still warm from my slumber, and work away until a single, solid, bonk of wet nose against my door would let me know that Bailey knew I was awake and was wondering, in that ever-so-polite-yet-insistent canine manner, if I wouldn’t please mind opening the door for him.

Introductory Khmer

I was at Sodade last weekend and proprietress, Kim, popped in as I went to grab my medio litro of Mexican Coke. She was wearing a tank top with a gorgeous script which led me to, recklessly I now recognize, observe: “I really love those characters in Thai script” As she turned I realized that the shirt had the shape of Angkor Wat and realized i had made a bit of a faux pas: Egyptians would get a bit irked if you said the Pyramids were in Saudi; the Hellenes if you thought the Acropolis was in Crete. I hastily apologized realizing I was a Cambodian.

A Happening

It’s 10:04 as I write this, and I normally wouldn’t say such a thing as this for fear of a jinxing, but for my later-rising friends I feel I should recount that: …on the way out the door I felt a breeze that was distinctly not reminiscent of Thermopylae …I smelled the smell of fresh cut grass …my mind briefly flashed to the Texas v. Tech football game ( traditionally in late October ) I could be wrong, but I believe that I felt the faintest, slimmest, most gossamer hint of the suggestion of the remembrance of the season known as fall.

Mobile Upload: That says broken spoke, in neon.

That says broken spoke, in neon.

Mobile Upload: A scare-hobo?

A scare-hobo?

Letter to the APD

Dear APD, Weekdays it is common from APD units to do radar checks on SB 183 access road between Oak Knoll and Duval. The officers tend to sit in the median at Pavillion, or before or after the Catfish parlor. I appreciate the desire to keep speeds on the access road under control, but this their presence in these particular spots induces more danger and erratic driving. The problem is that people are coming off of 183, while others are entering 183, while others are trying to cut quickly into the Academy driveway. This is normally a pretty dicey move, but then you have people noticing the radar gun officer and the reactions vary.

A "Mad Men" Halloween

Lauren and I portray “Don” and “Joan” from the brilliant series. Sources Homage by Lauren and I

Happy Birthday to Ryan

(I wrote this yesterday but neglected to post for lack of internet access, now it is a belated wish) I should like to take this occasion to wish a happy birthday to my friend Ryan. In this age where Facebook birthday wishes are, albeit pleasantly, the norm, I wanted to take some more time to celebrate Ryan sans Zuckerberg. Having been in Austin but a few short months before he and his better half joined us in the River City, it was great to make his acquaintance at the Magnolia Café on SoCo one fine brunch. Thanks to his swift purchase of a home, it was more often than not that we were chez lui than chez nous (and the time he did come over he helped us move heavy stuff).

Austin Changing in my Absence

I was like “hey this town looks like Austin, but there’s a bunch of stuff I don’t recognize.” It was Austin. It’s also Chrissie Hynde, so that’s epic.

Guy Clark & Emmylou Harris

In my memories, all the best songs happened at night in Austin. I swear it was a wintery night and I was running up I-35 from around Oltorf and I heard that simple guitar by another one of the Townes van Zandt / Doug Sahm / Gram Parsons coterie on KGSR. I was struck by how perfectly constructed the song was (Steve Earle, I now recognize being a master of the form) and how the angel’s voice (Emmylou Harris, of course) rode like a feather atop the remembering man’s voice: a voice that sounded like the lands West of Abilene wrapped in the that warm tenderness of Fort Worth uncles and that sadness of survivors at southern Baptist funerals.

Austin's Hut's Hamburger's Closes

Lauren and I loved to eat here. Mr. Bleu, I shall miss you. http://austin.culturemap.com/news/restaurants-bars/06-10-19-huts-hamburgers-closing-after-80-years/

John Prine Dies of Coronavirus

Prine’s and Iris DeMent’s “In Spite of Ourselves” was in heavy rotation at KGSR when I moved to Austin the first time. A bramblier, scrub-brush and Lone Star-ier version of Austin vanishes with him.

Shady Grove on Barton Spring to Close

https://atxne.ws/35PCZr7 First Magnolia Café on Lake Austin and now this. One of the best micheladas in the world.

Mother's Closes in Austin

https://www.austin360.com/entertainment/20201015/iconic-vegetarian-restaurant-motherrsquos-cafe-closing-after-40-years It was the place that opened my eyes to vegetarian cooking being rich, sumptuous and exciting. Might as well move to Poughkeepsie.

SF's Coca-Cola Sign Goes Away

https://www.sfgate.com/sfhistory/article/Say-goodbye-to-San-Francisco-s-iconic-Coca-Cola-15675800.php No Magnolia or Mother’s in Austin; no Coke sign to view from Potrero hill…waiting for them to pull Manhattan out of New York. I remember my realtor in SF saying that she always “knew she was back home from a road trip” when she saw that sign.

The KNACK Sticker

In packing up for a move, you often find little trinkets that bring a smile to your face. Since roughly 1996, I’ve been hiding, forgetting, and re-finding this sticker from the KNACK radio station in Nacogdoches, Texas. It has hidden between pages of books, in drawers, and under shirts from Austin to storage, to California, back to Texas, back to California, and on the long haul from California to New York City.

Constitutional Carry Morning and Carnage Afternoon

As a person who lost a friend to gun violence and domestic abuse, I’ll always be uneasy with the ease with which access to firearms is given. After the recent actions in Atlanta and my former town of Austin, I couldn’t believe that the reasonable (if not slightly light, in my opinion) strictures were up for additional loosening;

But a few hours later…

The Time I Got Roofied and Why I am Pro-Choice

On the New Year’s eve of 1998-1999, I went out with my friends to the West end of 4^th street. My friend, Rebecca, went to pick up a platter of drinks. After I drank one of those drinks, I don’t remember anything. At all. Until the next day at noon. Only years later did I put it all together.