ACL was awesome. I ‘discovered’ some new bands and was thoroughly converted. Ween, Ben Kweller, and Yo La Tengo were all very impressive. Special mention goes to Ween for innovative lyrics, vocals, kick ass drumming, and killer guitar solos. David Garza was a pleasure to watch. Liz Phair, however, was considerably less energetic than I was hoping. Then again, I don't know her music very well.

REM was phenomenal, as always. This was my third REM show and likely my favorite so far. They played songs that were released when I was a toddler as well songs that are so new they have not yet been released. Some gems were Fall On Me, Begin The Begin, Drive, Man On The Moon, Finest Worksong, Don’t Go Back To Rockville, Losing My Religion, and The One I Love. They closed with a charming version of Nightswimming and It’s The End Of The World As We Know It. For a full setlist, go here.

I saw an old friend I hadn't seen in ages and finally met her sister and boyfriend. A bunch of old college buddies were also in attendance, so I spent a lot of time with them (and bummed rides – thanks much). I also ran into a gaggle of random people, including my Management professor from senior year.

Overall, it was a great weekend despite the crummy weather. Oh yeah, and Will Wynn (the mayor of Austin) and senator Lloyd Doggett introduced Lance Armstrong, who introduced REM.

Cool new exploding dog drawing [click above link].

As long as it gets above 40, I'll be going mountain biking with a friend from work today. I'm a little concerned because i don't want to get sick before the trip, but i really want to go ride. I need to get outside. I was cooped up in cubicle land for 50 hours this week and i'm ready to let loose.

addendum: I just found out The Special Goodness [link on right] has signed with Epitaph Records. Congrats guys! From the humble beginnings of recording on Pat's laptop in his garage to a contract with Epitaph...not bad at all.

I borrowed a friend’s copy of The Cognitive Style of Power Point by Edward Tufte many, many months ago (sorry man) and finally read it. Tufte rips apart the PowerPoint presentation from several different angles. His pamphlet-essay is basically a 23-page version of: “Hey folks, PowerPoint sucks because it only gets in the way and no one will understand what you need to tell them.” I think we all know that. I don’t think anyone I work with likes PowerPoint. I don’t think anyone I’ve ever met likes PowerPoint. That said, I guess this essay would be useful for people that do like PowerPoint, but anyone that likes PowerPoint isn’t going to seek out reasons to not like it. Ergo, I don’t know what good this essay could possibly do.

But the cover graphic is really cool.

I also like this picture. Bonus points for finding a Peugeot bike that’s still in use.

and watch his Random Stuff movie. do it now. do not pass GO and do not collect jack shit.

i was going to write a long and drawn-out post about the weekend: about how i went camping at Inks Lake in a far-away place called Burnet, Texas; about how i went mountain biking at the Greenbelt and got my ass kicked by the Hill of Life; about how i got drunk on 4th street on Saturday night and yakked my guts out at the Driskill; and about how i got back to Chris' house and passed out on his driveway.

but instead, i'll just send you to cherz's site.

Maybe it’s just me, but following a night of drinking with a morning of mountain biking seems just plain stupid. So of course I jumped at the chance. I went mountain biking this morning in Austin and paid the price. Is it possible to cough up a lung AND a liver? I think I did. Hikers, joggers, and bikers of the Barton Creek Greenbelt might notice them halfway up the hill at the end of the trail.

Once upon a time, I was in good shape. I don’t really see much of a reason for staying in good shape except for that it tends to keep this awkward, gangly hunk of junk called my body in proper working order. And once upon a time, I consumed beer on an irregular basis in small quantities. The small quantities of beer did nothing to adversely affect my fitness.

However, while climbing up and down the stairs this morning helping my roommate move his couch and other random things out of the apartment, I noticed I was sweating like a mofo and gasping for air. Then it occurred to me that I have been drinking and getting quite smashed every night since last Monday and have all but ceased my regular physical activity. Voluntary unemployment will do that to you. So I’ve decided to take drastic measures.

I’m going dry. No drinking. For two whole nights. And maybe a couple more thereafter. I might also start waking up early to ride my bike before the sun torches everything south of Dallas. With Lance as my inspiration, I hope to complete at least a few pedal rotations before passing out.

all the shit that's important is right here ==>

i now return you to your regularly scheduled whatever.

check out the above link. very cool site; a blog-not-blog with handwritten letters.

more linkness:

1. the real death star. kind of. [via mattsylvania]

2. chapelle is back for two more seasons. you may now rejoice.

3. while i move to houston, others move to better places

4. the latest in barbie technology

5. stepsss

6. bike against bush - a thesis. [via volokh]

also - once again behind the trend, i have finally discovered stereolab. why have i never heard this stuff before? and why don't i speak french? this will have to be remedied.

Jackie Mason, a somewhat famous Jewish comedian focusing, for the most part, on Jewish humor, once made a crack about how all Jewish mothers are known to say the same thing to their children: “eat eat, never stop eating.” It may be the remnants of hard times over in Europe, it may be because we might have to wander the desert for another 40 years, or it may be because they over-cook for every meal and have lots of leftovers that will spoil if not eaten.

At either rate, my mother did [does] the same thing, and now I know why. I’ve lost some weight since law school started. Eating seems to be a secondary priority lately. It’s not good. I’ve held the same weight since I was 19 and remained in decent shape over the years, fluctuating a few pounds here and there. But Sophia dropped in the other night for a visit and told me I looked skinnier. I know I’m just a scrawny white boy, but no one has ever told me I’ve lost weight since they last saw me. And it’s not just that I don’t have the time – I’m not as hungry as I used to be. I can’t eat as much as I used to. I think my lack of physical activity is the main factor, so I’m going to try to tweak my schedule to fit in some work-out time either in the morning or afternoon.

I pushed myself to go for a bike ride this morning before it got too hot and managed to cover 20 miles. I ended up in my old neighborhood. It’s always weird to go back to the place you grew up and see how some things have changed while some have not. The Schwinn shop was right were I left it. So was the Blockbuster. And the liquor store.

Oh yeah, and my tan line is back in full effect. God bless that Texas sun.

I had all kinds of great plans for my winter break. I’d catch up on some reading (see books on right), ride my bikes, hit the gym, go grocery shopping, and start applying for summer jobs. So far, I’ve only done two of those things, and they were half-assed efforts. I’ve only ridden my mountain bike once because it keeps raining and have yet to ride my road bike. I tried going to the gym last week, but ended up straining my neck and am only now starting to work out again. Overall, it’s been a rather lackadaisical winter break (I just really wanted to say lackadaisical).

On the other hand, I’ve really enjoyed hanging out with my sister, brother-in-law, and 18-month-old niece. Sister and her hubby took a two day vacation in Austin, leaving baby Maya with grandpa, grandma, and yours truly. The kid is absolutely terrified of me. I’m apparently a terrifying person. Everyone tells me it’s only because I’m new to her and that I’m taller than anyone else she knows. Thus, when I want to approach her, I must get down on my hands and knees and slowly crawl towards her, but not too close, else she freaks out. The idea is that maybe she’ll get used to me and let me hold her, but as of yet, no dice. She breaks out in a blood-curdling scream strong enough to make anyone feel like the most worthless human being on the face of the planet. Making a baby cry sucks. Making her laugh is the greatest thing in the world.

We almost had a breakthrough yesterday when she gave me one of her stuffed animals to hold. She likes giving people her toys, only to take them back and give them to someone else a second later. It’s an advanced barter system I have yet to decipher. When she gave me the stuffed animal, I looked at it, hugged it, smiled, and gave it back. And she smiled a beautiful smile. I almost melted.

This is just about when you, the reader, let out an exhaustive, “geez, please take me to a another website before I gag myself.”

But since you’ve gotten this far, you might as well keep reading to find out where Maya and I now stand. Whenever I’m around, she looks at me like a science project, like she’s trying to figure me out, like she doesn’t know where to classify me in her various classifications of people (mom, dad, someone I like, someone who looks funny, etc. I’d settle for ‘someone who looks funny’). But at least she doesn’t scream, so I’m happy with that. One day, her parents will tell her, “Maya, that’s your uncle. When you were a baby, you used to scream at him simply for being in the room, but now he’s the guy that’s going to babysit you while daddy and I go out to dinner for the first time in eons.”

I can live with that.

I’ve spent the past four weeks of my winter break compensating for the previous four months’ lack of partying, reading, bike-riding, and binge-eating. It’s been great, and I have seven more days of freedom left to party, read, bike, and eat. School resumes on Tuesday the 18th, and, oddly enough, I’m looking forward to it. As much of a cluster-fuck as the previous semester turned out to be, I’m ready for more. More pressure, more reading, more ridiculous papers. I guess I’m a little masochistic in that sense, but then again, I think all law students are to some degree. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be where we are.

So, tomorrow, I plan to start my readings for next week.

But right now, I’m meeting some classmates for margaritas. C’mon, have some faith in me. If I’m going to start reading ahead for school, I’m going to need a hangover of some sort. I try to keep things as close to real-semester conditions as possible.

You might be wondering what the deal is with all those links at the top of the page, and specifically why there’s one called “bikes” when I never really talk about bikes. Well, it’s there for days like today, days when I actually get off my ass, tear myself away from my books (emphasis on the ‘tear’), and go for a ride. Clicking one of the links up there will sort every post I’ve ever written by that category. Neat, huh? Damn straight. And it wasn’t even my idea.

I woke up today at 9 am. I don’t know why, of course. I have no school, and yet, I’m up at 9. Whatever. I resolved to do something useful with myself that involved being outside. So I went mountain biking at Memorial Park. When I got there, the cop hanging out at the entrance told me I couldn’t park in the park because everything was closed off for an Art Festival. Art Festival? Fuck that, I wanna go mountain biking. I’m finding a way in.

So I park across the street where all the joggers and whatnot park and stealthily rode past the cop. OK, it wasn’t stealthy at all. There were other cyclists riding past too. All he said was that I couldn’t park there, not that I couldn’t ride the bike trails. This park has three or four main bike trails, so I hit my usual warm-up trail for a while and felt good, so I tried to go to the longer, more challenging trail towards the back of the park and encountered an obstacle: the Art Festival, and more cops, and buses, and lots of touristy looking people waiting in line to pay $8. Eight dollars? Fuck that, I’m not paying $8. I head across the street to ride the “secret” trail (it’s unmarked) and got lost in there for a while. After I found my way out (via a detour through the Arboretum), I decided to give the other trail another try. I tried to haggle with the guard and said that I just wanted to ride through and get to the trail in the back. He said no, but mentioned he’d seen other cyclists heading towards an entrance at the back of the park… and that’s when I remembered the entrance in the back of the park that I’ve used a million times. Wow, all that drinking is taking its toll on my number of available brain cells.

I ride the trail and, by the time I was done, had logged about two hours of riding for the day and was spent. I look at my bike and notice it’s slathered in mud. I’m satisfied and leave for home. Unfortunately, the Art Festival resulted in several road closures and detours and I get totally lost. I end up downtown somehow and get back on 288. Weird.

Below are my rear brakes.

Buried beneath all that crud is a set of these:

ah, to be a kid again.

i wrote two pages of my paper yesterday. i think i deserve a bike ride. the 76% humidity isn't too nice, though.

there's a new sheriff in particlemantown.

goes by the name of skorloff. i'll be posting here until p-man gets over the kissing disease, or until he just feels like taking his blog back.

except for using curse words, i’ve been given no guidelines for posting. i probably wasn’t going to cuss anyway, but now i'm extra tempted.

• law? nope.
• bikes? nope.
• stuff? what does that even mean?
• music? sure, but not what p-man usually posts about, then again, maybe a little.
• books? prolly, although i don’t read a lot of inscrutable freshman lit-type stuff. in most cases, i'll likely substitute movies for books.
• beer? almost certainly, but i may use that category to discuss other alcohol-based vices.

so there you have it, alcohol, movies, music and whatever "stuff" means.

p.s. i think it would be wise and diplomatic of me to apologize, in advance, to p-man’s immediate family, ancestors and future kin. i’m incorrigible and p-man should have known better.

-s

Just kidding. You’ll only get mono if you click the back button.

I’ve spent the past three weeks not doing a whole lot. I have been going to work, but I’m only logging five hours per day and I take naps when I get home. I’ve been drinking plenty of water and getting plenty of rest. In short, despite your wishes, you terrible person you, I have been taking care of myself.

Which brings us to now. Skorloff, for whom we are all very thankful for enlightening us with that mumbo-jumbo about wine and movies and bathrooms, mentioned that I’d be regaling you with stories of my “past present and future,” all without the commas. He’s right. I’ve been working on some stories about my past, cloaked in mystery as it is, but for right now, I’m here to tell you about my future (the present is oh so boring).

1. My last day at the firm was yesterday. I’ll be starting a clerkship with a judge that will last six weeks. The plan is that I’m to return to the firm after the clerkship, i.e., when school starts. Let’s hope everything pans out.

2. My roommate and I were hanging out at a bike shop for no reason whatsoever the other day and saw one of these:

It’s the Schwinn Sting-Ray. I decided I had to have it, but it wasn’t for sale. So, both of us resolved that we each have to buy one because they’re so freaking cool. I mean, look at that thing, it screams cool. And since I need as much help as I can get, I’m down with it. We’re scowering ebay for vintage (old) models from the late 60’s to late 70’s that are either in near-perfect shape or restorable shape. The tentative plan is to buy Sting-Rays for cheap, restore them as best we can with what limited skill we have, and sell them off. Failing that, we’ll just buy one for ourselves. If you know anyone looking to sell an old Sting-Ray (not a Sting-Ray Junior) drop me a line.

With that, I leave you to enjoy your July 4th weekend. Eat, drink, get sun, drink more, and don’t drive.

In a bid to get some exercise today, I rode my bike to the Rice University Library, which, according to Google Maps, is 1.7 miles from where I live, and that’s going the long way around the campus to the official “front.” When it’s 134 degrees outside with 99.999% humidity, and soccer moms in Ford Explosions are crowding you to the very edge of the street, that 1.something miles can get pretty long. Not that I’m complaining. It was my idea to ride the bike.

As I pull up to the library, I glance down at my rear tire and notice I’m riding on the rim. The tire is flat. That means I had to walk back home sans bike and eventually go back with a pump and pump up the tire or take a spare tube and change it there.

So basically, I rode my bike to the library, got a flat tire, and had to walk home. My life is boring and this blog is not interesting. Except maybe for the lady upstairs who scored the other night, that was funny.

Whatever parts of the hurricane we were to see have moved on. The storm we saw was no stronger than a serious summer thunderstorm. Winds topped out at 50 mph and there was no flooding. Lots of people lost power, but we got lucky. My parents’ house a few miles away did lose power. I rode my bike around the neighborhood and the extent of the damage is limited to tree limbs lying in the street. Not too bad.

This flashlight my dad Frankensteined together was thankfully not needed. He rewired a desk lamp of some sort to a UPS battery, which is usually used a backup power source for computers. It’s nice having an electrical engineer for a dad.

We also didn’t need this trashcan full of tap water, which took a long time to fill even by the bucketful.

Eastern Texas and western Louisiana got hit pretty hard though. My thoughts go out to those who got the brunt of the storm. Even at category three, it was nasty enough to tear buildings and homes apart and blow out windows. And this is certainly the last thing the people of Louisiana needed. Flooding will soon be an issue off of the Trinity River as one of the dams is under threat.

On the bright side, I discovered that there are some really cool and dependable people on my street. They introduced me to a local pub hidden away from the crowds of Rice Village. The husband has a library so extensive it’s doing damage to the foundation. Several thousand pounds of books can be problematic for a home built in the late 1930’s. I’m sure I’ll be browsing his bookshelves quite a bit in the future. School starts Wednesday, so I’ve got a couple days to get back into the swing of things. Until then, the name of the game is cleaning up around the house and drinking beer.

I’m skipping class Friday to fly to Little Rock. The bris is at 10:30 and I land at 9:12, so I’ll get there just in the nick of time (no pun intended). I’d go Thursday, but I invited a judge to come speak at my school Thursday afternoon, and I don’t want to put myself at risk of either having to leave my own function early or miss a flight. If you’re in my class and you’re reading this, please take good notes, I might be asking you for a copy (ahem, Sam).

I also went to a wedding this past weekend in the Texas Hill Country - in a small town called Concan, to be exact. It was a beautiful outdoor wedding on the river. One of my best buds from college was the groom. We used to go mountain biking a lot and took a road trip to Arizona to meet up with other mountain bikers and check out the trails there. So it was really cool to see a guy I’ve known for seven years - partied with, drank with, been to shows with, and generally been stupid with - tie the knot. They grow up so fast! Congrats bud.

Thankfully the kissing disease didn’t get me this time. Neither did any other ailment. Instead, I had five law school finals to contend with, and Skorloff was brave (and kind) enough to take on the blogging responsibilities of this here vessel. For that I am very thankful. We all learned a lot from Skoroloff. For instance, I didn’t know that “no self-respecting list of post-modern soundtracks would be complete without a quentin tarantino movie.” I also didn’t know that “we feed them every day which keeps them from starving and has cut down on the number of dead bird parts we find in the yard.” Neither did I know that “then i got old.” I’ll be damned.

What I do know is that I’m getting the hell out of dodge. My dad and I plan to take a road trip of sorts this weekend to somewhere in central Texas. Probably a state park. Someplace where we can canoe, hike, smell clean air, look at stars, and otherwise act like the rugged guys we really aren’t. Then E comes back on Tuesday and the wait will be over.

But before that, I’ve got a list of things to do:

I was good last semester. On my two off-days (Tuesday and Thursday) I read and did all my homework. Sure, there were breaks, but the work got done. This semester seems to be different. I didn’t have class today. I went to a coffee shop for three hours and read for maybe two of those hours. That is all the work I have done today.

The rest of the time has been spent by:
1. riding The G Ride around the neighborhood
2. channel-flipping
3. coming up with a tracklisting for heatherfeather’s and erik’s mix cds
4. waiting for Lost to come on
5. looking for jobs
6. see #1
7. reading Jane Eyre

You see, one of my teachers goes too slowly, so I’m already where I need to be for tomorrow’s class. Another teacher assigns cases for each student, and my case isn’t for another couple weeks. Another teacher asked us to read the “introductory” chapter, and after about ten (of 25) pages of that junk, I had had enough. So I occupy myself with the above seven activities.

Oh yeah, I also did a load of laundry. And charged my cell phone.

First was San Diego. Now it’s Austin. The girl and I showed up at her sister’s place in south Austin on Thursday afternoon and plan to stay till Friday. We already went to Amy’s Ice Cream, Whole Foods, Malaga, Thai Passion, and Sullivan’s. Please note that each of these sites involves food. Food is really all we care about. We also went to Esther’s Follies and watched what is perhaps the most democratic comedy routine I’ve ever seen (well, we are in Austin).

I also had to introduce the girl to my old mountain biking stomping grounds – the Barton Creek Greenbelt. We hiked for about two hours. There was just enough water in the creek to skip rocks. Girl also happened to get dehydrated because I didn’t bring enough water, and the water in the creek was not suitable for drinking, aka, nonpotable (whatever that means). Girl and her sister are into scrapbooking, so while they do that on Monday, I’ll go for a ride at the Greenbelt.

We’re having a BBQ this evening. What else is there to do on a Sunday evening in January when it’s 75 outside?

idea graciously lifted from nerdygirl and hereby imposed upon heather, who must impose it upon someone else, ad infinitum.

I figure you may be wondering about the wave of bike posts the past few weeks. During my first year of law school, I maybe rode my bike a grand total of two times. Things got a little better the following summer. Things returned to their status quo of non-riding in my third semester. So what’s the deal with this semester? Well, first of all, I’m taking two less hours than I usually do and the classes aren’t quite as intensive. Call it a much needed “break” from law school, though I’m somehow still in school…

There is another reason, though. I was going to wait till the very last minute to spill the beans, but what the hell, I have zero willpower.

I’m going to visit my friend (posts here as ‘carrico’) and his wife in Denver in two weeks. I’ve known this joker known as Carrico since I was a college freshman. He rides mountain bikes and all sorts of other wheeled things – and he is much better at it than I am. He taught me a thing or two about how to not crash and burn on mountain bike trails.

Denver is basically located in the stratosphere compared to Houston, so there will be less air for me to breathe, and since I’ve been a slacker for almost two years, I need to get my ass into shape. Thus, the recent spate of mountain bike rides and cycling-related posts.

I’m flying up on a Friday and coming back on Tuesday. While I’m there, I’ll stop by and harass Heatherfeather. How could I come to Denver and not raise hell with Heather? Carrico, Mrs. Carrico, Heatherfeather, and the rest of Denver are totally unprepared for what is about to hit them in two weeks. The last time I visited a blogger I had never met in person it resulted in copious beer-consumption, wild music fests, late nights in strange places, barefoot kickball with punk-rock people with various piercings and colorful tattoos, sushi happy hours complete with funny hats, and an orange mustang convertible, among other things.

i'm moving to Dallas for the summer. june 5 - august 4, to be exact. i got a summer gig at a law firm that i didn't think existed in texas, but thankfully does exist and is doing just fine. they do software copyright and licensing defense work. translation: if you work for a business accused of exceeding its license quota on software installations, or of installing pirated software, or of selling software that infringes another software mfr's copyright, this law firm would defend your business against such lawsuits.

the way i see it, it's the equivalent of defending the little guy against the software industry's version of the RIAA, even if the "little guy" is a fortune 100 company.

also cool is the fact that i'll have access to a slew of new mountain bike trails.

the last time i was this excited for a job was when i was a DJ at UT. i can't wait to get done with finals and head up to Dallas. it's making it really, really hard to study... as if it weren't already hard enough.

i'm having a hard time studying this semester. motivation levels are at an all-time low. i don't think they can get any lower, but third-year students tell me, "if you think you're jaded now, you aint seen nothing yet."

case in point - i've spent more time researching 29" mountain bikes than i have researching my class notes. but only because i'm studying for professional responsibility, which isn't really a class. when i start studying for payment systems, that will be real, actual studying. and only because i'm terrified of that final.

1. It’s cool when a company like American Express sends you a check to compensate you for the money you gave them to pay a bill, until you realized it had several hundred dollars in fraudulent charges. What’s not cool is signing up for American Express Blue and dealing with the fraudulent charges.

2. I saw the Deathray Davies for the third time last night. And there were only about 50 people in the whole club. I guess that’s what happens when you play a show on the same night as Dinosaur Jr.

3. I really need to study today. A lot.

4. I really need to ride my bike today. More than a lot.

5. There’s a jewtastic happy hour tonight that I’m going to. Yee-ha.

6. There’s a law school prom tonight that I’m not going to, but I’m going to the drunken after-party. Ohhh yeah.

7. I’m volunteering for a benefit run tomorrow and I have to be there at 6:45. Ohhh crap.

8. I need to get new lenses for my glasses because the old ones are so scratched and smudged I can hardly see through them.

9. Remember how I lost my ipod a couple weeks ago? I heard that the 99 Cent Store was celebrating 999 days in Texas on March 31st, and each store would sell nine iPod Nano 2 GBs for 99 cents. They open at 8 am. I vowed to wake up at four am on Friday morning (a day I had to be at work at nine) and see if I could score an iPod. I woke up at four and arrived at the store at 4:15. There were already nine people there, some sleeping on the concrete. I guess they wanted an iPod more than I did.

10. Did anyone see the slashdot page today?

Sixth installment of the “things that happen to you while” series.

Day 1

Your trouble with the law begins before you even get on the plane. The small folding allen wrench you packed into your Camelbak that you packed into your larger bag has piqued the security peoples’ interest. Piquing their interest is not something you want to do. A security person tears apart your bag, fishes out the Camelbak, and runs it through the x-ray machine again. She then pulls out the offending allen wrench and asks the supervisor, “Is this ok?” Yes, my friendly security-obsessed airport employee, it’s a freaking allen wrench. You might want to watch out for the guy with golf clubs, though. Those look painful.

You arrive in sunny Denver and it’s a glorious 50 degrees. You couldn’t be happier. Mr. Carrico (let’s call him C) picks you up and you speed off immediately to what you’re told is an Engineer Party. You see, C is an engineer of sorts – an engineer that designs poo treatment plants. As such, it figures that these people need to party quite a bit to maintain their level of sanity (sounds like lawyers). Hence, the engineer party you’re going to in Golden, about a half-hour drive from Denver, is first on the list of attractions.

The party is held at the house of one of the engineers (let’s call him J). It turns out that no one is home when you and C get to the house. You have beer on the mind and are feeling impatient, so C does the sensible thing and calls J to see how to get into the house. And now your troubles with the law escalate to what we in law school call “breaking and entering” or “trespass.” That is, C reached his arm up through the cat flap in the back door and manages to unlock the deadbolt (he has long arms) thus gaining entry. Mission accomplished. One tort and perhaps one crime are committed on your vacation. And you’ve only been in the state forty-five minutes.

After you help ourselves to some beer (thanks, J) more of the engineer crew and their significant others show up and the party grows to nine strong. You meet Mrs. Carrico (MC) for the second time and hope you might finally get to know her. You only met her at the wedding and didn’t get much of a chance to talk.

Now would be a good time to mention the fireworks display that you’ll later get to see at the Colorado School of Mines. Yes. A bunch of miners are going to blow shit up and it’s going to be awesome.

Before the fireworks, however, there’s something you have to see. You kick off the fireworks party in the college’s ‘lab’ as it were – a place where they store all their mining devices and whatnot. J asks you, “You wanna see a big drill?” Do I? He walks you over to what looks like something out of Star Wars. Or Robocop. Or Wyle E. Cayote’s stash of tools that catch the Roadrunner. This drill is as big as a moving truck. The ‘bit’ is the size of a Honda. You stand under the drill and wonder to yourself that your old jobs playing with computers all day were really pointless.

The fireworks are held in the college’s football field. You and the engineer crew get the best seats – on top of the announcer’s box high above the field. The fireworks are phenomenally loud and close. You can smell the chemicals. The crowd of chants “BLOW THE FUCKER UP… BLOW THE FUCKER UP… BLOW THE FUCKER UP…” Your jaw drops, and you join in. For the grand finale, a man – assumedly crazy – runs out to a string a fireworks mounted across the field and attempts to ignite them by hand. It rained the night before and the fireworks are not lighting in succession as planned. He has no choice but to keep going back to light the fireworks when the fuse runs out. He appears to be wearing protective ear-coverings but you see no other signs of protection. He injures his leg the last time he goes back to light the fireworks – perhaps some shrapnel got him. Firemen and EMS show up.

You’re more than satisfied with the day’s events, but the party hasn’t even started.

The festivities end up back at J’s, the scene of the original crime. J proposes a neat trick to the group. A drunken stupid human trick, if you will. Fold a dollar so that it can stand on the floor by itself. Supporting yourself on only one foot, find a way to pick the dollar up with your mouth. Your hands cannot touch the ground. It quickly became clear that this was a great way to get people to do stupid things for a dollar – or just to do them. To up the ante, someone put a $20 bill on the floor. To up it further, you put your wallet on the floor, which was in fact not an “up the ante” because you’re broke. Though many had gotten close and you managed to fall and hurt your knee in an effort to retrieve the dollar, J was the first and last to successfully perform the trick. Bravo J.

Your hosts’ cat apparently discovered the air mattress, and well, that was that. You and C try to find the holes in the air mattress and find one. C seals it with a bicycle tube patch kit and it works like magic. For several hours. By morning, your back is on the ground and your legs are in the air. You end up on the couch cursing your long legs.

Day 2

You and C start the day at Green Mountain. Your lungs are still stuck at sea level so you have a hard time getting up the mountain, or as natives call them, foothills. Anyone from Houston calls them mountains, though. You have to walk half of the final climb and on the way got passed by a runner going up, who then passed you going down, who then passes you going up again, all before you reach the top. When you do finally reach the top, you see him again, and he turns around again. That’s called meshuggah where you come from. You hit Red Rocks after grabbing some power bars and ride another two or three hours there.

For dinner, you and your generous hosts planned on going out but somehow the party ended up at home. You head to Whole Foods, score some chicken, and start a BBQ. Others show up with more goodies to throw on the grill and Heathfeather and her friend also join the party.

It’s not long before the stupid human trick from last night emerges. Except this time, instead of setting doing the trick on a wood floor in a house, it’s on a brick patio in a back yard. Brick hurts a lot more than wood when succumbing to gravity. Needless to say, you abstain, having sufficiently embarrassed yourself the night before. Other stupid human tricks emerge as well. MC introduces the group to a trick wherein you cross your arms in front of you and twist them around so that you end up with your fingers on your nose. Note that says on your nose, not in, but that might be interesting too.

The last stupid human trick is proposed by J (the stupid human trick expert?). This trick calls for two people. One person stands, legs apart, preferably on a soft substance like grass. Person 2, preferably limber, jumps on Person 1’s back, crawls over their shoulders, down their torso, through their legs, and back up to Person 1’s back. J volunteers to be Person 2. Heatherfeather volunteers to be the standing Person 1, claiming to have served a stint in a circus. Que pasa? Circus? Then she reminds you that she knows how to ride a unicycle, but not a bicycle. Oh, right. Unicycle. You realize your hosts have like six bikes, none of which are unicycles. Too bad. Heatherfeather is unfortunately too short or not strong enough to support J. C, as it turns out, is about 6'4" and strong enough to support the weight of another grown man (man that sounds weird). J hops on C’s back, crawls over his shoulders, down his torso, through his legs, and scrambles up his back. You really had to see it. Oh wait, YOU CAN*.

You round out the night at a bar called The Funky Buddha.

Day 3

Your back is a little sore from the previous night spent on the couch. Thankfully, one of your hosts’ friends who we’ll call G graciously swung by with his full suspension mountain bike for you to borrow, so any back pain should be rendered moot once on the trail. Otherwise, this morning starts out quite the same as the previous, meaning that a bike ride is in order.

You and C hop in the car and drive to Boulder for a ride at Walker Ranch, deep in the foothills just west of the city. The trail is breathtaking and you wonder why people live anywhere else. Things like law school come to mind. Bummer. After the ride you head to a local brewpub, Southern Sun Pub & Brewery, for nourishment of the liquid and solid variety.

You take it easy for dinner and order Thai food. The free movie channel is playing Donnie Brasco and you watch Johnny Depp turn into a Wise Guy.

Before crashing you and C resolve to find the other holes in the air mattress. Or rather, MC issues a directive that it needs to be fixed. You locate two more holes and seal them. It does the trick. You sleep soundly on a bed of air.

Day 4

Your hosts go off to their respective office lives designing poop treatment plants and whatnot. With five final exams rearing their ugly heads in a matter of weeks, you set your sights on the nearest hipster café and ride a ridiculously small BMX bike to Devil’s Food Bakery. It’s closed. In fact, everything is closed. It seems Denver sleeps in on Mondays. You hang your head in shame and head to Starbucks. A city of full of nifty cafes and all you have at your disposal is a national chain... For shame.

Several hours later, Heatherfeather rescues your vacation from becoming a corporate-coffee-shop-law-school-study-fest and takes you to the Crazy Asian Café for lunch. You chat about the UN, Connie Rice, and They Might Be Giants (naturally). Agreeing you should at least make an effort at studying, you head to Stella’s, a café that is actually open. After an hour of conversation interrupted by occasional bouts of studying you face the facts and call off the charade. The Denver Folklore Center down the street sells all kinds of cool instruments and the allure is just too much.

You noodle with guitars, banjos, mandolins, mandolinas, basses, and other stringed devices. Heatherfeather gives you a sample of her sublime voice and guitar skills. You wish you could put a digital soundboard in front of her and record what you’re hearing.

Heatherfeather drops you off at your (er, C’s BMX) bike at Starbucks and you ride home. Your hosts arrive soon after and you head to Sushi Boat with C, MC, and their friend, who we’ll also call G (different than the earlier G). After stuffing your faces full of sushi, seaweed salad, and miso soup, you decide on the perfect follow-up for desert: Bonnie Brae Ice Cream. It hits the spot.

Day 5

Has it really been five days? Feels like two. Your hosts probably think it feels like 10.

Your flight is at noon. But before your hosts can unload you, you get to accompany them to a very special occasion: the inspection of their newly bought home. It was built in 1906 but is somehow in better shape than most newer homes. You follow the inspector around and carefully watch (from a distance) what he does. One day you’ll have to buy a house. Or at least you hope to buy a house, maybe in Denver.

OK I can’t write in passive present tense or whatever it’s called anymore, it kind of hurts my brain. Much, much thanks to Mr. and Mrs. C for having me, to J and G (the first one) for lending me their bikes, to Heatherfeather for wasting her afternoon with me, and to the house cat for not accosting me too much.

All of you are welcome in Houston any time. Except the cat. Sorry.

* it’s a little dark, so if anyone has video editing software and is willing to help, contact me via the link at the bottom of this page.

i really wanted pictures of the trail itself, but Google Satellite hasn't gotten that good. yet. so this one's a little easier.

they should be at the top of the list, but you mighht have to sift through some others.

I guess I should preface this by saying that I’m writing this on Monday night, the move is not yet complete, and I’m still in Austin, which was not the way things were supposed to happen. More on that later.

Crazy shit that happens to you while helping your sister and her family move from Little Rock to Austin. Let us commence:

The cabbie that takes you from the Little Rock airport to your sister’s house only has one good arm. His cell phone rings. You think, “no way he’s going to reach into his pocket and pull out that phone to answer it, his only good arm is driving the car.” The cabbie proceeds to let go of the wheel – mind you, at highway speed – fish the phone from his pocket, answer it, and hold a conversation with a prospective client. He drives a little with his elbow to humor you, then returns navigation of the cab to pure chance or Acts of God.

You get to your sister’s house which currently does not contain your sister, your niece, or your nephew. They have since left to Dallas to stay with the in-laws before driving down to Austin. That leaves you with the T, your brother in law. That also you leaves you with the moving guys, a ragtag bunch of tattooed toothless dudes. One of them likes talking to your more than moving anything. You find that odd. He later finds a patch of grass to lie on while the other moves continue to move stuff.

One of the moving guys catches wind you’re going to be a lawyer. Towards the end of the evening, he furtively calls you aside while the other guys are busy loading stuff onto the truck, and asks, “Hey man, I heard you a lawyer, I got a question. I got this felony on my record that I can’t get rid of man. How can I get it off?” A flurry of legally proper and appropriate responses come to mind, but all you can think is, “What did you do?” Thankfully, you weasel out of the question but coming up with some mumbo jumbo that you aren’t a criminal attorney. Some awkward silence follows and you say, “Yeah, um, I’m gonna go over here and help load that thing onto the truck.”

The big truck leaves and you and T are left with a smaller van containing the bare essentials. (The big truck is scheduled to arrive Tuesday).

You spend eight hours in the small van with your brother in law talking his head off about anything you can think of to keep him awake. You offer to take the wheel but he kindly refuses. You talk to him about girls, cars, jobs, your parents, your sister, his kids, Dallas (where he’s from) and whatever else comes to mind. Sometime towards the end of the ride he says, “Man, I didn’t know you could talk that much.”

The best part is that his every response to any female-related comment you make is: “You need to date around more.” This coming from a guy that married the first woman he seriously dated.

The next day you take your bike to a local Austin trial that you haven’t ridden in about three years. It’s a difficult trail, but you’ve got your new bike and you think you’ve got the cajones to make it through. After slamming your shin against a log once, crashing into the rocks twice, and getting racked by your bike seat, you slowly pedal out of the trail battered and bleeding. It was a brutal and humbling experience. When you get home, your family points at your shin as if you don’t know it has a bloody welt the size of a quarter.

Later that afternoon you visit your newlywed friends and hope to iron your dress shirt for a wedding you have that evening. You hang out, go to Target, veg out, and leave. Only when you’re five minutes from your sister’s house on the other side of town do you realize that you didn’t iron your shirt and you left it at your friends’ place. You have a wedding in an hour, a suit, and no shirt. And no wedding card. You haul ass to the nearest Target and buy a white dress shirt and an iron. You race home, iron the shirt on the kitchen countertop, change into the suit, and remember you forgot to buy a card. The wedding is now in fifteen minutes, you have a suit and a shirt, but no card and only a vague idea of where the wedding is. You race back to Target (this is now your third time in a Target in three hours), buy a card, and tear off down 620 passing four (4) sheriffs. None of them pull you over. God must have his finger on your car.

You get to the wedding in the nick of time to watch the bride give her vows. The wedding is a good time and you catch up with old friends.

The next morning, you hang out some more with your newlywed friends and then an old college friend, after which you plan to head home to Houston. But on the way back to your sister’s house something fun and exciting happens. The “D4” light on your ’95 Honda starts flashing and the speedometer goes wild. One second you’re going zero, the next you’re going 60, the next 50, and then zero again. No rhyme or reason. A few days earlier, the ABS light came on. Your car is, how shall we say it, fucked.

You get home and show your dad this new fun and exciting development. His solution: get it towed to the nearest Honda shop, wait till tomorrow for the quote, and if it’s more than the value of the car, buy a new one. Dads always have the best solutions. You figure the towing idea is probably a good first step, so you make it happen.

The tow truck shows up and loads your car. Just before he’s about to go, his engine cuts. No explanation. Just stops. He looks at the truck. “That’s not good.” You inquire if maybe he ran out of gas? No, he just filled up.

While you and the tow truck guy wait for his other tow truck buddies to give him a jump, and the irony slowly kills you, you and tow truck guy talk about the various cars that he most often is called to tow Hondas? Not so much. Toyotas? Nope. How about Saabs? Not really. Surely Jaguar. Of course. Mercedes? Not usually. BMW? Mostly the post-2003 models. And what car did your brother-in-law just leave the house to buy? A 2004 BMW 330i. Oy. At least it has a warranty.

Your parents are kind enough to help you buy a new car if it comes to that. You hope it doesn’t only because they want to get another Accord. Meanwhile, you’re still trying to avoid that “conservative suburban family man” thing because, well, you’re not. You’re young and you’re wild and you’re an animal. At least that’s the vibe you’re going for. The Mazda 3 hatchback is looking pretty sweet and you test drive one and fall in love. It has a peppy engine, sporty looks, and an auto tranny that has a manual option a-la the Porsche Tiptronic. Lots of fun in the twisties, and the car has plenty of space in the back for your music and biking gear. The only other contender is the Subaru WRX, but again, mom and pops are urging for a simple and no-personality Accord. This will only lead to argument.

(I know I know, life sucks so much to have parents want to help you buy a car, but when you’ve been driving an Accord with -40 horsepower and less personality for five years, you kind of want something more exciting to wake up to. Humor me here.)

Tomorrow, the movers show up with an 18-wheeler containing the contents of your sister’s house. You can’t wait to haul beds and dressers up the staircase and build assorted pieces of furniture. That Texas heat will be your nemesis.

Oh yeah, and you’ll be missing a day of work. For shame.

My sister and her fam are moving to Austin this weekend, and no one except for me can actually be at the house tomorrow, so I drive there tonight in time for the gas company to turn on the gas. They’re supposed to show up between 8 am and 5 pm, which probably means 5:30 pm. Someone over 18 needs to be there. That someone is me.

I then fly to Little Rock that night at 7:30 – or earlier if the gas people show up earlier – to help my brother-in-law load the moving van. Then, on Saturday, we make the 10-hour drive to Austin. Meanwhile, my sister and mom will drive down with the kids that morning and arrive before my brother-in-law and I do.

Still with me?

I help unload and unpack until Sunday at 7, when I go to my college band’s drummer’s wedding. I haven’t seen him in about two years so I’m really excited to see him and everyone else.

Then, Monday, if I’m lucky, I hope to ride my bike. I’ll have the new 29er with me and it would be nice to throw it around the Austin trails. I christened it Tuesday at – where else – Memorial Park, the first place I ever went mountain biking (sans the mountain). After a few minor tweaks here and there I think I’ve got everything dialed in just right.

Oh, and before I leave for Austin tonight, I need to drive my mom to their airport so she can get to Little Rock in time to drive down with my sister on Saturday. My ETA for Austin is 9 pm at which point I plan to eat and crash. I wanted to see my friend’s husband’s brother-in-law’s band (huh?), but alas, it will have to be another time.

You are now fully apprised of my life in all of it’s mind-numbing glory and I instruct you to proceed here (SFW). I think I have a new “thing” to say now.

Dallas proper is actually smaller than Houston. I’ve spent one day here and I already feel like I have a solid feel of how to get around. I live down the street from every business establishment I could possibly need. Central Market. Bike shop. Haircut place. CVS. A plethora of restaurants. I could and probably will ride my bike or walk to these places whenever possible. A rail station is also down the street so I can take the train to work and save money on gas.

I met up with some old UT friends that I haven’t seen in ages last night and saw the Al Gore movie. My conclusion is that I would have rather read an academic paper or seen the actual lecture instead of sitting through two hours of what was essentially bits of the Al Gore slideshow interspersed with Al Gore autobiographical background. His message was meaningful and heartfelt though, and backed by solid data, so it gets my overall approval. See it. Be prepared for lots of charts and graphs. Al likes charts and graphs.

Today I also hung out with another UT friend that’s been in Dallas a few years. We’re going to watch the Mavericks game at a pub with some of her friends. I don’t know a damn thing about the Mavs or the basketball season in general, so I’m mainly going to hang out and meet people. And drink lots of beer of course. Tomorrow morning we’re going for a bike ride around White Rock Lake with a couple of her biker friends. Ride time is set at 9 am. Cross your fingers and pray I actually make it.

Oh yeah, and the apartment. I’m subletting from a law student who is spending the summer in DC. She cleaned the place up and left all of her furniture here. It’s a nice place. And did I mention clean? I feel obligated to keep it tidy while she’s gone.

Work starts Monday and I’m psyched. Happy Saturday night!

My friend (let’s call her O) and I skipped the Mavs game and opted for sushi and then beer with the Jew Crew. One of the girls was celebrating her last weekend in Dallas and the result was a Jewtastic party at a local bar. I had my introduction to the Dallas Jew scene, and I must say, there are lots of them and they travel in packs.

The bike ride this morning was awesome. It’s 9-mile loop around a beautiful lake complete with sailboats. It’s pretty flat but sufficiently twisty to keep things interesting. After one lap with O and her friends, I rode one more lap alone when they left to play softball. I then went to Richardson Bike Mart to scope the bikes they carry. I asked if they carry Lemond, and the salesman guy smiled. Apparently, Greg Lemond talked smack about Lance Armstrong using drugs to stay competitive. Since Richardson Bike Mart is where Lance got his start in cycling, Richardson isn’t crazy about selling Lemond bikes anymore. The Richardson owner called Trek (parent company of Lemond) and bitched. Hence, the salesmen said he could probably get me a Lemond, but there sure are lots of other bikes to look at…

Then I spent the whole afternoon catching up on season one of 24 (the tv show).

Sorry if these posts are starting to read like play-by-plays of my life.

Oh yeah, and then I made spaghetti with ground turkey for dinner. Now you have a complete play-by-play of my weekend. Come back tomorrow for details about my first day of work.

the rest of the pics are here.

ps: comments are working again. notice though that you can't preview your comments before you post them. working the bug out took me a while and fixing the preview feature will have to come later. i'm adding comments back to all the posts without them.

driving to weatherford, tx to ride in the peach pedal bike ride. it's about an hour and a half away - thus the extra-early departure time of 5:30 am. i'm going with five friends and wouldn't you know it, we made team shirts with iron-on letters. pictures to come...