Checking out the iPhone; Farewell to David; Dallas

7/9

Made my first trip to check out the iPhone at the Apple Store, and it was everything I'd dreamed it would be. What with the California trip having been all but picked up by my funding agency, and the resulting air travel voucher, I was in a pretty good place financially. So I started thinking about the logistics of getting out of my T-mobile contract, selling my Blackberry, and acquiring an iPhone.

After getting back, Cindy & I made our airplane ticket purchases and watched some Sopranos.

7/10

Band practice, followed by picking up some Whataburger on the way home. Yum.

7/11

Sometimes-collaborator, frequent annoyance David from the lab decided to plan his going away party while the boss was out of the country, since he's kind of a dick like that. That had the side effect that, sadly, the event was not on the lab's dime. Anyway, we hit Gingerman after work for some beer, then Nit Noi for some Thai. Somehow, I was the group's expert for Thai food and so did the ordering.

Afterwards, Cindy & I scooped Will up from Baker Street to catch the new Harry Potter, which I recall being nice enough.

7/12

Grocery shopping and then the Sopranos. Super exciting evening.

7/13

I took the day off and headed up to Dallas for my annual visit to see Bryan. I got in, checked out their awesome house in the Lower Greenville neighborhood, played some Wii Tennis, and then Phil met up with us and we walked up to Blue... Mesa? (help me out, Bryan) for Tex-Mex and margs. Then, more walking (I do like being able to walk places—no worries about having to drive home and such) up to the Granada theater to catch a solid set by Centro-Matic. I'm sure we grabbed some more drinks somewhere else afterwards (or maybe not) before we headed back to Bryan's place.

7/14

Bryan and I started the day with some Wii Tennis before grabbing lunch at a Mediterranean place (again, Bryan, remind me). Bryan had wanted to show me Penzey's Spices, which was pretty sweet, and then we headed back to his place.

What came next was a revelation. Bryan had gotten some beers from Thom: the magical lambic variety known as gueuze. I was familiar with the fruit-flavored lambics, but not this wonderfully sour beer. Bryan had four bottles that we worked our way through. The first was Lindemann's Gueuze, which I think is kind of a dumbed down version of the style, with some extra sweetness to cover the sour flavors. Next we tried their Cuvée Rene, which is a pretty faithful representation, and I loved it. In addition to the sourness there was a nice dark roasted nut flavor behind it. There were two more which I found pretty similar to the Cuvée Rene (Bryan, more help...). The Cuvée is the only one (well, and the Gueuze) I can get in Texas, and I've since taken to stocking a few bottles.

In a very lucky coincidence, Nick and Alison happened to be rolling through town that same evening. Nick caught up with us during our beer tasting and joined in... and brandished his new iPhone. I was, of course, jealous. We went out for a great Indian dinner (Bryan...) and Alison very patiently put up with us catching up, before they had to be on their way.

7/15

We grabbed some lunch (the details escape me... Bryan?) before doing some shopping at Good Records and then I headed back to Houston. My notes specify that I went to Buffalo Wild Wings that night... presumably with Cindy.

Tweets for Today

• 13:22 Circumstances last night prevented me from Twittering, so I will attempt to recap now. #
• 13:23 1) Nice dinner with Jeff, Jim, Jerry, and Cindy at Buca di Beppo. Well, nice company. Mediocre dinner. #
• 13:23 2) Drink back at Jeff & Jim's. The man makes an excellent martini. #
• 13:24 3) Leave, discover my car along with several other has been egged. Hastily go after my car door with paper towels. #
• 13:25 4) Aside: who says drugs are bad? If those little shits that did this had been strung out on heroin, they wouldn't have been egging my car. #
• 13:25 5) Manage to find car wash that's open at midnight (59 & Kirby). Feel a little better. #
• 13:26 6) Decide it's too late to catch Trail of Dead at #s. Instead consume pitcher of Lonestar at Late Nite Pie with Char & Alison. #
• 13:26 7) Beer makes me feel better. #
• 13:28 8) Who the *fuck* eggs cars anymore? Couldn't they have just broken in and stolen my iPod? Would have been cheaper. #
• 13:29 Now at the car wash getting some *other* cosmetic issues taken care of. Good thing I didn't get that done yesterday. #
• 13:30 Oh, apparently the little fuckers that did this got caught. There are phone numbers, but no guarantee they're real. Feeling litigious. #
• 14:57 Is money that used to buy CDs paying off credit card debt incurred buying CDs? tinyurl.com/589n8b Probably not the whole story... #
• 15:03 My car has been washed 3 times in 3 days. Strange. #
• 15:37 Hick high school kid: why are you playing crap country on your laptop speakers in the car wash waiting area? Because you are a douchebag? #
• 02:54 Cindy & I split the Dogfish Head Red & White tonight. Not as good as I had hoped. Reminded me of their Jiahu or one of the Chimays. #
• 02:55 Watched Batman: Mask of the Phantasm. The Bruce Timm/Paul Dini DC Cartoons (Batman, Superman, Justice League) are *so* excellent. #

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Tweets for Today

• 12:12 Writing a song with Colin Meloy: tinyurl.com/5f9v5v #
• 12:18 If I can't take the new Death Cab album on vacation, I will be very disappointed. Internets, you have 2 weeks to meet my demands. #
• 17:47 I can't go to Central Market without spending $50 on beer. And I don't even buy that much of it! Got some good stuff this time, though. #
• 17:50 Some DFH Aprihop, their Red & White, last six of NB's Springboard, cheap barleywine, IPA, a special edition mix from 2 breweries. Good haul. #

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Tweets for Today

Daily Twitterings:

• 11:35 Vegan cooking is like trying to drive somewhere only making left turns: you can do it, but it's sort of silly. #
• 11:36 I was referred to last night as a beer expert. I'm honored but it's overstating things quite a bit. #
• 12:18 Papa John's thin crust is ~5x better than their regular crust. But regular *does* have garlic butter. #
• 12:37 "Acquired" very nice pilsner glass and wheat beer glass from bar last night. Brought them $300 of business so I don't feel guilty. #
• 15:14 Take that link and rickroll.it ! #
• 15:15 Sadly Nick and I have discovered that fuck.it is registered. #
• 15:44 Ah, crap. Thao & Xiu Xiu are playing tonight at the Orange Show, but I'm already commiteed to hosting a Battlestar Galactica viewing party. #
• 16:14 Thank God for webcasts. Too rainy to walk to Rice today. #
• 16:15 Stupid QuickTime player won't stay maximized on my second monitor. #
• 16:40 OK, too much math in this talk. #
• 17:30 Battlestar Galactica is back tonight! #
• 02:39 Playing around with Pwnage. Nothing exciting so far, except that I've proven to myself that I won't brick my iPhone. Living on the edge! #
• 04:00 iPhone does look awfully sexy displaying terminal text while booting. Wonder if there's a verbose booting option hidden somewhere? #

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W00t!

Helles lager. What will 100 be?

Will's birthday; New toy; Seminars, drinking, cigars; Half Nelson

2/27

So. About six months prior Will's green iPod mini got swiped out of his lab (he thinks by a scruffy looking college student that had a temporary position). I decided that nobody who has lived with an iPod should have to go back to living without one, so for his birthday I endeavored to gather a group of people to buy Will a new iPod.

After some exploratory fundraising, aided by Char, I settled on a 4 GB nano, the same size as his previous iPod, again in green. Which is what I was doing at Best Buy the previous saturday.

So I got everyone that contributed and could join us together at Woodrow's, and somebody made sure to get Will there. While we were waiting we let everybody sign a card.

Leroy had picked up a miniature Spider-Man lunch box which we were going to present to Will as his "present" with the iPod hidden inside.

In the end we managed to genuinely surprise him, and he was appropriately thankful. I was glad to have organized such a fun favor for a friend, and was excited about getting back to giving Will good music.

2/28

Will needed to fill up his iPod, so I hitched a ride with him. We decided to make an evening of it and started by hitting the comic store, then grabbing dinner (the traditional Double Dave's), and then back to my place to get that iPod filled up.

3/1

Somebody had been working on putting together a med center-wide happy hour for the students, but whoever planned them must not have been a grad student, because they didn't realize that to get grad students to come to things, you need cheap drinks and free food. The happy hour was held at the overly fancy Trevisio's on the top floor of a med center building, and featured the usual in lame appetizers (crackers, cheese, fruit tray, vegetable tray), and $4 beers. An assortment of people from the lab went, and I decided to go too, using the opportunity to sneak out of lab early to also catch the early bus home so that I could retrieve my new networked digital music player that had been delivered (see previous post about my bedroom system).

I had just enough time to get it up and running before Cindy and I went to meet Shawn and Sabrina at Spaghetti Western, where I'd been once before with Lauren. Three of us started with a round of margaritas (decent, though I might opt for the additional amaretto floater next time), while Shawn had a beer. We ordered some cheese bread for an appetizer, which is hard to mess up, but that's not to say it wasn't enjoyable. For my entree I selected the tombstone chicken, a grilled chicken breast held vertically by being wedged between two pieces of eggplant parmesan, topped with greens and sauced with marinara and their chipotle alfredo. Clever plating, and tasty. I think I talked Cindy into the Italian enchiladas; always good.

3/2

Drunk early, dinner, cigars
Will and I headed over to Rice for a physics talk. It was some interesting culture shock; everything was, dare I say, much more scientific than the usual biology talk. Of course I couldn't really keep up with the theory, but it was still an educational experience.

Afterwards I went to the usual Friday seminar while Will hung out at Valhalla, and then we started drinking the free after-seminar beer and chatted with Jeff and some professors. Will gave me a ride home, but we stopped off at the village for a beer... which became two... which became a trip across the street to Baker Street for more beer. Will went to retrieve his car from the garage while I walked over to the Briar Shoppe to pick up some cigars.

I got home and started sobering up, Cindy came over with some Chinese takeout, and after dinner we met up with Char and Angela for cigars and beer. It was a nice night, and we sat alone out on the other patio whose existence I was completely unaware of. All very pleasant.

3/3

Cindy and I decided to rent (or maybe borrow) a movie to watch, and ended up with Half Nelson. I guess it was competent enough, but it didn't leave much of an impression.

Politics; Recruiting; Symphony; Museum; Laser Tag

2/19

Another night of Dan spinning at the Proletariat. Greg was there and Cindy and I talked with him about his... interesting political views. Fairly... conspiratorial ones, and very... theoretical. I can see people suggesting that 9/11 was perhaps allowed by our government. Tt being perpetrated by Americans; ideas of concentrations camps being built in America; that it doesn't matter which political party controls the government; a government with biological and nanotechnology years ahead of what academics knows about, it's all just too fantastic. It's hard for me to understand how someone can accept so many improbably things at once.

2/22

I was asked by our current admin Amy to perform a task which I'm always glad to take on, that of buying beer for the recruiting dinner. So I dropped that off at school in the morning, had lunch with our recruits, and had a nice free lunch with the recruits (none of whom really stand out), went about my normal work day, went to the on-site dinner... let's pause here. A lousy catered dinner in a fluorescently-lit classroom is not the way to wow recruits. I realize that it lets more faculty come, because faculty are flaky, but really, who cares? Schedule a mixer or something, and then let us take the recruits out for dinner somewhere nice. Please?

After that, we did get to take them out for drinks. Sensing an opportunity, I chose the Volcano, which, with their specialty drinks and general pricey-ness. It was, as was expected, a nice setting, and the drinks were good. Cindy never quite was persuaded that it was OK to take advantage of my program's budget, but I bought her a couple of drinks.

2/23

Galleria, Pappasito's, School, Home, Symphony, Hans'

The recruits had a free morning, and one of them wanted to go to Tiffany's to buy something for his wife. When it's recruiting time I'm in the business of a) getting free food and booze and b) keeping the recruits happy, so we headed off to the galleria, while I gave a running commentary on the city.

Afterwards we met up at Pappasito's, and, having learned my lesson about ordering pitchers of margaritas and thus not getting the premium ones, I instead made sure to order my own margarita this year. Or maybe two; I forget. I again chose to push for the grilled platter with its abundance of fajitas, sausage, quail, ribs, and shrimp.

And then of course I couldn't quite stay awake through Mike's thesis defense when we got back to BCM.

After that, I skipped seminar to go home and iron for our first date with the Houston Symphony, which was a pleasure (though I may have nodded off a couple of times there, too). Afterwards we met up with Char, Angela, etc. for some bier at Hans'. Sadly, no recruits wanted to go out, so no freebies.

2/24

After running a quick errand at Best Buy for Will (more on that later) on the way home from Susan and Jerry's. Afterward, I placed a quick call to Dan to see if he was going to that night's mixed media night at the MFAH. Dan was previously thought to have a date, and had set up his whole VIP thing, but by the time I called it had fallen through, so I picked him up, went home to change, and then we went to the museum, VIP access and all. As soon as we got there we started in on the free booze. I ran into Cindy's roommate Sarah and her boyfriend and hooked them up with some free drinks, because I could. Cindy herself was at a bachelorette party. Dan and I continued the drinking and socializing.

As the party was wrapping up, Dan asked if I could fit a bicycle in my car. This was a little confusing, as neither of us had come with a bicycle, but I answered the question in the affirmative. Turns out there were a couple of young ladies that wanted a ride to the after party. I had a great time the last time I went to an afterparty with Dan, so I figured, hell, why not?

Turns out the young ladies really were young. Nineteen young. After getting directions to the party from a confused friend of theirs via cell phone who kept wondering exactly who I was ("Dude, I'm the driver!"), we headed over to the warehouse district. Dan got us in free thanks to knowing the door guy, and we got in on the free keg action. Ironically labeled "drank" (probably just vodka and fruit juice) was also being served, for a price.

We all left to hang out with the girls and their friends while they "smoked out" as the kids say, which normally I would have been quite paranoid about being around in public, but I had been plied all evening with free booze, so I was decidedly easy-going.

Anyway, more free drinks, socializing, etc. and then it was time to call it a night.

2/25

I had a solid hangover the next day, so I was a bit late getting to Baker's birthday party out west near Char's place at the go kart track/laser tag arena. I got there in time to watch the guys do a few laps on the track, but there was a game of laser tag which I got in on, and that was pretty nifty.

By the time we got back to Char's for beer and cake, I had moved from a hangover to neck ache, so I went home for a nap. But hey, good times that weekend, so it was all worth it.

Pappadeaux's & the Ginger Man; Practice; Batman Beyond; Khyber & Snakes on a Blog; Minty drinks; Woodrow's; Cooking

8/14

We were interviewing a postdoc candidate in lab, and I was asked to take him to dinner, which seemed like a good idea at the time.

This was right around the time of all the "heightened airport security" bullshit, so after I ran home to get my car and picked up the interviewee, I had to take him to get bubble wrap so he could pack his laptop in his luggage. Then I had to run back up to school to pick up my lab mate that was joining us.

The trouble with dinner was, our interviewee he was (originally) from Algeria, and because of the culture he was raised in, didn't "like to be around drinking". So no beer on the lab budget, tragically. I took him to Pappadeaux's, as he seemed willing to try something new. Lab Mate (who happens to be a little dense) managed to order the cold shrimp and raw oyster plate—without realizing that the oysters were raw. Smooth. Seemed like such a waste. I tried one, but I wouldn't necessarily say that I enjoyed it. Thankfully, I had ordered crab cakes for us as an appetizer, which were good. Our interviewee went with fried crawfish; labmate went with some kind of plank grilled fish, and I tried the blackened catfish (which was actually disappointingly bland). Lab Mate also has an annoying habit of hearing things, misinterpreting them, and spitting out the misinformation at a later point, so I spent a good portion of the evening correcting some of his notions about the US, Texas, Houston, BCM, and the lab for our guest.

I talked them into getting the sweet potato pecan pie for dessert, though, so it wasn't all bad.

Then I had to take interviewee back to the hotel, and then David home, and finally, finally, made it back home to enjoy the rest of my birthday. Cindy came by and picked me up to take me out for beer at the Gingerman.

8/15

Band practice. I continue to suck less. We pick up a few cool covers. Jeff has a nice original called "Satellite" that's a waltz. Rocking occurs.

8/16

At some point I had borrowed a DVD with the first few episodes of the animated Batman Beyond on it. I had not long before that rediscovered my love for the excellent DC Comics animated TV shows (Batman, Superman, Justice League) and so was glad to get to fill in this missing piece.

I think I had previously watched the DVD, but since then I downloaded a bunch of episodes off of BitTorrent and so I spent my evening working my way through them. The show was entertaining, but probably the least so of the four cartoons. It seems to be a bit far from being a masterpiece, but I can't help but wonder if the feature-length movie corrects some of that—particularly, darkening the tone a bit, which is a bit kiddie because of its teenaged protagonist.

8/17

Graham and Angela hadn't made it to my birthday party, and offered to make that up to me by taking Cindy and I out to dinner. We ended up at Indian restaurant Khyber, which was quite tasty.

Afterwards, we had a date with Will to see Snakes On A Plane (seems overly pretentious to capitalize that). The movie delivered what was on the tin, and did so in a completely entertaining manner. So, surprisingly not criticisms from me.

Well, more tits wouldn't have hurt it. I mean, it was just that kind of movie. Oh, and that music video at the end was just awful.

8/18

Despite the best efforts of Kristin to get us up to the Prole, Cindy and I opted for a cheap night in. Cindy brought over some mint leaves and we made mint julips (which were good but would have been better with seltzer instead of plain water) and mojitos. TV was probably watched.

8/19

Matt, who had previously left school, was back in town for the weekend and wanted barbecue. He, Graham, Char, Will and I hit up Goode's for some sauce-drenched goodness before wandering across the street to Goode's Armadillo Palace for a round.

Notes indicate that I went to Woodrow's that evening. No more details available.

8/20

Notes would seem to indicate that I spent the evening cooking. I think (think!) that was probably the evening that I tried a couple of Alton Brown gazpacho recipes. One was sort of a dip that used Bulgar wheat in addition to the traditional tomato and bell pepper flavors. The other was fruit-based, but in the more traditional cold soup form. The tomato-bssed dip one didn't really turn out very well; it just never quite tasted good.

The fruit one, on the other hand, was pretty good. I should have cut the cucumbers, and I was short on walnuts, but the grapes, white grape juice, and apples combined well with everything and it ended up being tasty—especially after I added my own touch, one (carefully) seeded habanero.

The next night I would try an Alton Brown macaroni and cheese recipe, which turned out badly thanks to my managing to fuck up tempering the egg into the sauce. A suggestion for the recipe was to take a bar of the final product, chilled, and batter and fry it, which redeemed it, though I would imagine it would redeem just about anything.

Carpentry; Proletariat; Randa & Sabrina; Practice; Valhalla; Mom & Dad, Cindy's Reunion; Movies and Rudz

7/31

Unhappy with the fact that my keyboard wasn't really beefy enough to straddle my keyboard stand, my thoughts turned to engineering a solution. Luckily, I thought to consult Lab Dan, who himself was an experienced engineer in the Navy ("in the navy").

He had some good ideas, and offered to help me construct something that night, which was good since he actually had a space to work (his garage) and a full complement of tools (including those of the power variety).

We met at the Lowe's near me, and grabbed a pre-cut plank of wood, some rubbery shelf lining, some contact cement, and some spray paint. We headed back to his place and set to work. I glued the shelf lining to the top side of the plank, this would provide a nice non-stick surface to grip my keyboard.

Dan set to work cuting some small pieces of wood; these were then glued to the underside of the plank and provided hold the arms of the keyboard stand in place. Finally, we primed and painted the thing, and left it to dry.

8/1

Um, went to the Proletariat, I guess. Can't remember details.

8/2

Randa was in town, an occasion which called for drinking. She, Sabrina and Shawn picked me up from school, dropped by my apartment, and then we made for the Saucer downtown. It was pint glass night, and by ordering a pint of Sam Adam's seasonal summer beer, I scored myself a free logoed pint glass. Sweetness. We had dinner; I enjoyed their tasty buffalo chicken wrap. And then there was more beer. I finally got around to trying their "chocolate truffle": a pint of Young's Double Chocolate Stout, with a splash of Lindemann's lambic framboise (rasberry). Quite tasty.

We stopped by Woodrow's in the village for a round before calling it a night.

8/4

The annual graduate student council night at Valhalla arrived. Cindy had grudgingly agreed to take off work early and drive me over there, but that afternoon Dan came by and offered me a ride over... on his motorcycle. It seemed to me that this was a way for everyone to win. I got to ride a motorcycle and start drinking early; Cindy got to work later and not have to alter her schedule. Apparently my changing our plans pissed her off, though she later got over it and realized that I was, as usual, right.

Anyway, the motorcycle. Dan's got a Honda VTX 1800, a cruiser-style bike with a 1.8 liter engine. That's bigger than some cars, like Cindy's (1.6, if I recall correctly). It's only slightly smaller than my car's 2.3 liter engine. And this is on a bike that's a fraction of that weight.

Anyway, I'd never ridden on a motorcycle before. Hopping on and riding out of the parking garage, I was scared shitless as I realized that the ground was moving below me, with nothing between me and it but my balance. Moving out onto the open rode, the feeling intensified, but I started to understand how it would be signifcantly less scary with the bike under your control. Dan had, wisely, informed me not to move around, and that you didn't actually have to actively lean into the corners, but that the laws of physics pretty much did that for you. All you had to do was follow what felt natural.

We made it to Rice without dying, and I actually found the experience quite thrilling.

So on to the beer. We had kegs of Shiner and Lonestar available to us. Not only that, but my car was safely back at my apartment, so I was free of responsibilities and proceded to start getting dee-runk. Char had cleverly gotten venders to sponsor the event, so the beer flowed freely. It was a good time.

The kegs began to run out and arrangements were made to move the party on to the Saucer. Cindy showed up to pick me up, and after a brief stopoff at my apartment, we headed to the Saucer. I got involved telling some story (oh, how mom had called me to ask for an explanation about my car being towed and me replying angrily that it was none of her business and that I had been well on my way to forgetting that little slice of injustice) and we missed our exit off of 59, and then our attempt to turn around somehow got me even more bizarrely turned around, which almost never happens.

We eventually made it to the saucer, where Oliver was working on a girl, Wanda was working on a guy, and Cindy and I got to work (more boringly) on an order of cheese fries (which were inferior to the Cricket's variety, though I've always thought that the Saucer was an inferior version of Cricket's, though the Saucer is probably the older of the establishments). Lots of grad schoolers made it out, which was always good to see. It's fun to get everyone in the same place every once in a while.

8/5

Mom and Dad came into town to catch a flight out to New England the next day. As an early birthday dinner we went out to eat at Pei Wei. Mmm... lettuce wraps...

Cindy's high school reunion was at the nearby Sam's Roadhouse, so a quick trip up the road from my aunt and uncle's got me there.

It didn't, however, get me in without having to pay their damned $3 cover. Cindy didn't know about it because she managed the ol' "I'm talking on my cell phone" trick. Regardless, it was idiotic, so they go on my monetary karma list, owing me $3 (along with my apartment complex and the city of Houston).

Despite the crappy venue with its crappy country and annoying suburban clientele, I had a good time with Cindy. It probably would have been a better time if I'd thrown back a few extra beers, but I had to drive us home.

On the way to the bathroom I snagged a bottle of Frank's Red Hot Sauce, nearly full. We'll be generous and put the value of that at $1, bringing Sam's Roadhouse debt to me down to $2.

One word of advice, though. If you have a bottle of hot sauce in your pocket and it leaks a little, and you move it around to keep it from leaking more, and you happen to be a guy using the bathroom at the time, be careful what parts of your anatomy you touch with that hand. Just FYI.

8/6

A nice, leisurely Sunday. I finished up watching the movies that Cindy and I had rented, including the aforementioned Jesus Is Magic. There was also that other movie Cindy and I had rented... maybe something she had seen but I hadn't. For the life of me I can't remember what it is now.

Got a call later in the evening; Dan and Kristin were up at Rudz. I stopped by for a couple of rounds, before taking off and making a Whataburger run. Will was up at Woodrow's, so I dropped by and consumed my food there, along with beer, conversation, and darts.

Dallas; Waco; Car Bullshit

7/14

The drive to Dallas was farily uneventful; some rain, some music, and a stop for caffeine and gas were among the highlights. I rolled into town, checked out Bryan's new place, and soon Phil joined us and we took off for Lower Greenville. Phil suggested Stout (Thanks to Bryan for the assist on the name) where we started the beer drinking and ordered a few appetizers (though they were disturbingly seafood driven).

The hour rolled around for the concert du jour, so we made for Deep Ellum (where I hadn't been since... oh, maybe the Guster show of 2003). We were there to see Camera Obscura do their best Belle & Sebastian impression at the Gypsy Tearoom/Ballroom. Phil and Bryan were confused by the number of people in full punk regalia going into the ballroom, but I figured there was no way a bunch of alternateens were showing up for a twee pop band. Turns out that Rancid (Bryan confirms) were playing in the ballroom (the larger of the two), whereas CO were playing the more intimate tearoom (which I preferred anyway). The two halves of the venue did share a bathroom, though, which made for an interesting juxtaposition of P!O!P! kids and punks.

I opened a tab and got to work. Phil had brought some cigaretes along so I indulged (haveing reached that level of drunkeness). I picked out a new t-shirt. The band was solid live; pretty much reproducing the album. It was enjoyable, but didn't really add anything to the experience.

Phil took us back to Bryan's, and then Bryan, Lisa and I made a TC run.

7/15

Slept nice and late before Bryan and I started the lamb we were going to have for dinner. The next order of business was lunch, so we went once again to Lower Greenville for some good mediterranean at Ali Baba, the highlight of which was the creamy humus and crispy falafel.

Good Records' new digs were nearby, so we went in to check out the space. Space was one thing there was plenty of, particularly around their new stage, which I'm sure makes for great in store performances. As usual, the selection and curation of the stock was top notch, and I was wishing that I had some spare funds to pick up a few things.

Next to the liquor store, where we bought supplies for Mexican Martinis, I picked up a bottle of Lindemann's Framboise for Bryan to try, and I had a random encounter with Tromboner Justin Lewis from high school.

Then the grocery store to get some veggies to go with dinner and a few other items, and then back to Bryan and Lisa's palatial apartment to start the cooking. I did some grilled veggies tossed in olive oil, seasoning, and tequila, and we had a nice dinner.

Some Dr. Mario was played (I might have even won a game), and then we did some swimming over at the house of some of Lisa's relatives.

7/16

Slept in, and then Kelly and Phil came by after church and we went for lunch at Old Monk (thanks again, Bryan—do you remember what we drank?), a charming British pub-ish sort of setup. Phil, Bryan and I all ordered some good beer. After looking at the menu, I settled on the burger with my choice of fancy cheese. I couldn't resist trying the Irish whiskey cheddar, which did indeed make for a tasty burger.

After that, it was time to take off, so I got on the rode to Waco.

Along the way, an eighteen-wheeler about three cars ahead of me had a blowout, and the tire was pretty much unavoidable. I didn't think anything of it at the time, but after travelling 35 south to Waco, I made a turn only to hear a scraping sound. I pulled over and noticed that a plastic piece under the car was hanging down so I reached down and put it back into place, but then my eyes caught a rather large dent in my front bumper, and cracked plastic in my grille.

Damned 18 wheelers. Fucking NAFTA. If they're not trying to kill me, they're trying to fucking damage my car.

Anyway, I tried to ignore that for the time being and enjoyed some time with my parents. Once they had decided to call it an evening, I undertook the tedious task of sorting through some of my old comics to find some stuff that I wanted to bring to Houston to reread and to pass along to Will.

7/17

I had not made time for my yearly cardiology appointment in Waco over the Christmas holiday, so I took Monday off to accomplish that. Once I had gotten a clean bill of health and packed up my stuff, I met mom for lunch at Panera before heading back to Houston.

On the way I fired up the bluetooth headset and started making calls about getting my car taken care of. After dropping my luggage off back at the apartment, I went once again to take my car to the body shop. They informed me that they were busy but that they had a sister shop that would work on it, and I could even just leave the car there and that they would take care of everything. It sounded good to me (but too bad it wasn't). I called up Char to come pick me up, figuring that he probably didn't have anything better to do.

In the process I offended Cindy by not having called her first, which I did because I knew she wouldn't be able to get away from school. Of course, I was right, and I think she realized it after she thought through the logic of the situation.

So anyway, the Ward car curse continued to haunt me, and since the accident was classified as a road hazard rather than a real accident, no rental car this time around. On the other hand, the deductible was to only be $50, which was a huge relief. Still, two trips to the body shop within four months was not cool...

Austin: Donkey Show; Art House; Art Palace; Father's Day

6/15

Rebecca had pieces in two separate gallery openings on this particular weekend, so I decided it was a good time to work in a trip to Austin, especially since I had never seen any of her recent (duct tape-based) art in person.

So, not even a month after my last visit, I took Thursday off and traveled I10 and and 71, arriving in Austin around 5:00, just in time to partake of some Texadelphia and change at the gallery, the Donkey Show.

Apparently the thing to do in Austin now is to rent a house, live in one room of it, and dedicate the rest of the rooms to a gallery. This was the first such gallery of the weekend. It was a great house; it seemed a bit of a shame not to actually be able to use the whole thing as living space.

So I got to see Rebecca's piece. It was made entirely of off-white duct tape, run in vertical parallel lines up the wall, along the lines of the ceiling, stopping or continuing based on the intersections of other lines in the architecture. More tape ran diagonally through the air from the ceiling to the wall to form an obtuse triangle, adding some dimensionality. Due to slight variations in light levels, various regions appeared to be made out of slightly varying shades of duct tape, but it was all the same kind. The off-white worked well with the wood floors, white walls, and the superimposed lines made some nifty moiré patterns.




There was another piece on the floor that was mean to be a landscape of wall texture marked with whisps of spray paint, but to me it really wasn't that interesting.

Lots of people showed up for the opening, and we made our way through the available Tecate and wine. People started to leave, too. Some of Becca's art teachers came by, one of whom was young and cute. She had some of her stop motion animation on her iPod video that was pretty nifty (but maybe slightly disturbing). I tried to get her perspective on the place of stop motion animation (and its photorealistic effects) in the face of computer animation, but I think I lost her somewhere along the way.

Once things had cleared out some and night had fallen, we trekked to a nearby gas station to pick up some beer, forties, cigarettes, and so forth. I'll note that I only ever seem to go to gas stations for beer in Austin (or at least with Becca). These elements were communally consumed lying in the grass in front of the house, and has the hours got later and everyvody else left, Rebecca and I were left with her friends Ali and Kaitlin, sitting on the front porch, while I tried to say intelligent things about art to Kaitlin, who is much more educated than me in such matters. I like to think that I didn't make a complete ass of myself.

6/16

Becca needed to swing by Art House, the gallery where the "New American Talent" exhibit that included her second piece was, to insure that her piece was, in fact, complete. That accomplished, we went to the nearby Athenian Grill for some great cafeteria-style Greek food. I had a nice greek salad with a creamy dressing, a good chicken and rice soup, some rice, and a gyro. It was really good stuff. Different from Niko's, but very good.

Next on the list was some shopping: Rebecca needed a dress and we both needed to get a Father's Day card.

We returned to Becca's for a bit, changed, and headed downtown to hit up a happy hour before the show. We settled on an overly hip bar/latin fusion place, Saba ordered a few appetizers that were... marginal, and a round of mexican martinis that were more martini than mexican. After our quasi-dinner we tabbed out, and discovered that we hadn't been charged for our drinks, which meant that we tipped generously.

Despite her high heels, I managed to talk Rebecca into a brief trek over to the Gingerman to get let her try some Lindeman's, which she liked quite a bit. The bartender bore an amazing resemblance to Nathan from school. I followed that up with a glass of Stone IPA, and the look on Becca's face after she tried it was worth her ensuing ire over not warning her of the bitterness of the beer.

From there we went on to Art House, and I made the rounds and checked out the art. Becca's new piece was quite different from her Donkey Show piece, incorporating much more color, using the large glass window to great effect, incorporating some white tape, and altering the angles of the through-the-air runs of tape.





A lot of the stuff I didn't care for, but there was cool stuff too did. There was one piece that was a chair, with an image of another chair projected onto it, but hard to see due to the negative space in the physical chair. Another piece was a sculpture constructed of broken umbrellas. I also liked the small "room" constructed of steel and pink plexiglass. And the two large looking panes of what appeared to be glass but was actually candy (sugar and water). One piece was made of car batteries suggestively connected to gasoline canisters. One that I didn't like was a small greenhouse of plants on "life support", which was overly dramatic and dominated the room. My favorite was a bush made out of broken umbrellas.




All the while I was sipping on beer, but never enough to really get anywhere. Mom and Dad showed up with flowers (which would become a bit of an albatross later on), and though a bit weirded out by the people and the art seemed to enjoy themselves. I also had some good conversations with people about exactly how awesome Becca's work was

Things wound down and we met up with some of Becca's non-art friends over at the hotel across the street for a couple of rounds before going to an East Austin loft to check out a party. It turned out to be a little lame, so we went across the street to the Peacock to continue the drinking, and I witnessed a very shamless hookup attempt.

We went back to Kaitlin and Ali's to hang out. I talked to Kaitlin a while and then noticed that her answers were getting less and less comprehensible until I realized she was asleep.

6/17

Rebecca and I did lunch at Whole Foods (I enjoyed an excellent barbecue wrap) before heading downtown so that Becca could attend a lecture at Art House. I went to a nearby coffee shop and got cozy with my laptop to do some editing that just had to be done on a paper that the boss still hasn't read. This is what happens when I try to be responsible and productive.

But the coffee house had lonestar tall boys. Fuck coffee. I had me some beer.

Becca and Kaitlin came down after the lecture was over. Becca and I took off for the Donkey Show, where Becca had to meet someone who wanted to see her piece. Again, I worked diligently...

I suppose there was some sort of dinner involved later on, but I'm having trouble remembering exactly what. That taken care of, though, we went to Art Palace (another house/gallery in East Austin) to see the show Ali had curated. There was a keg of beer, but the girls curating that were being both bitchy and stingy, and there was no way I was going to get drunk at that rate. Growing increasingly bored, I eventually talked Becca into walking down the street (again to a convenience store) and grabbed some beer, and things improved from there.

At one point, Becca arm-wrestled all challengers (once again, camera phone plus action shot equals bad idea):


The evening wore on and Arturo shut down Art Palace so we could head north a bit to hit up a pool party. There was swimming, mezcal (which tasted... carcinogenic), cheap beer, and chicken fighting. And then the rain came. Not too long after that we took off, and stopped off at Ali and Kaitlin's, only to hear them yelling at us from the balcony, so we went up and had some more beer with them and... looked at random words in the dictionary. Yep. It got quite late, so I finally talked Becca into leaving.

6/18

Mom & Dad stuck around town long enough to do brunch with us, once again at South Congress Café, which was solid as usual. Not too long after that, I left to make my way back to Houston...