December in Austin, Texas

So with a few days of December under my belt in the great state of Texas, I have noticed a few unexpected things that I'm not accustomed to in the last month of the year:
1. I got a sun burn putting up the Christmas lights. I commented to Tiffany that with weather like that, I'd be happy to put up lights every year. I hearkened back to previous years of putting them up in pouring rain, trying not to slip off the ladder.
2. I drove by several yard sales.
3. The leaves are starting to turn and fall off the trees. Actually, quite beautiful.
4. The Charlie Brown Christmas tree (cheapest one on the lot) still cost $85!!! Yikes!
5. "Merry Christmas Ya'all"

NOW THEY START WINNING?!?!?!?

I should have known this would happen when I moved out of Oregon.
If you haven't seen them, check out John Hollinger's rankings based on a long standing computer driven formula.
Also, if you don't believe a computer, take a gander at Mark Stein's manual rankings.

A good write-up here as well.

Go Blazers!!!

10 Random Austin Noticings

1. Austin parking spots are all way too small. It makes no sense because there are ALWAYS plenty of spots open regardless of the capacity level of wherever you are visiting.
2. There are very few "average" cars in Austin (Honda, Toyota, etc.) The vast majority of people in Austin driver either: A. Oversized SUV/Truck or B. Luxury vehicle. Unfortunately, this just aggravates problem #1 above because said drivers abuse parking spots by taking up too much/too many spots.
3. Bugs in Austin are HUGE! I should not be able to see distinct body parts on a spider in the middle of the road as I drive by it in my car.
4. There is no good pizza in Austin. None. Zero. Zilch. With all the startup companies and the entrepreneurial spirit of this city, it's amazing that no one has stepped in to fill this void.
5. In the Pacific Northwest, Starbucks is considered "bad/cheap/cop-out" In Austin, Starbucks is one of the best tasting sources of coffee.
6. BBQ in the Pacific Northwest is called "Grilling" in Austin. PNW natives have NO idea what real BBQ is.
7. People in Austin that complain about bad traffic have NO IDEA what they are talking about and have obviously never been to SF, Seattle, NY, etc. Heck, even Portland has far worse traffic than Austin.
8. While many people might comment on the "hospitality" of Texans, in many of the female gender, the undeniable politeness is tinged with a horrid sense of entitlement.
9. In November, if the weather dips below freezing for a couple of hours in the middle of the night, it will lead off the evening news cast.
10. Despite having three NBA teams, 2 MLB teams and 1 NHL team within 2-3 hours driving distance, the only sport anyone has ever heard of in Austin is UT football.

Holiday Rant

Rant warning. Read no further with sensitive eyes. You have been warned.

So the last two days on my drive to work (only 8 minutes!) I have heard Christmas music on the radio. The first day I was willing to consider it a fluke. The second day, I had no doubt what was going on. What is wrong with this country?!? When I went to Target BEFORE Halloween a few weeks ago, they were putting out Christmas tress, ornaments, etc. When I gave the clerk a hard time about it, she said it's time to start planning for Christmas. WHAT? There are still at least two major holidays between October 18th and December 25th. This angers me on so many levels. At the risk of sounding like a bad Charles Schultz social commentary, I offer the following observation: If we are now at a point where Christmas is not something you celebrate but rather something you begin making preparations for in the middle of October, we have become a flawed society. We are now a people who can take a holiday that should encompass a feeling of connectedness and care and thought about our fellow humankind and turn it into a three month stress-fest. Now I know that there are the obvious observations about consumerism, but for me those aspects pale with the realization that I am now forced to begin freaking out about Christmas before I have even enjoyed eating/stealing my children's Halloween candy spoils after they've gone to bed. Quite frankly, it's enough to make me want to run off into the desert until March. I guess that's not such a great idea either; by the time I got back I would have already missed two months of prime firework buying time before the fourth!

Gasoline Firesale Continues!!!

I witnessed gas today being sold at $1.97/gallon. Crikey!

TAG is for the Mentally Challenged

Tonight I sat through an hour of a parent's information meeting for the TAG (Talented and Gifted) program at Lucy's school. In general, I'm not sure I agree with TAG programs for K-3, but as a concerned parent went anyway to get the facts. I was mostly wondering what the testing was like, how Lucy's school day would change, and generally whether or not it would be worth the time and stress. The other parents that had questions were apparently more worried with:
1. If their fourth grader doesn't get into the program, how will it affect their AP classes in high school?
2. What if their kid get kicked out of the program?
3. If the child doesn't make it through the screening process, how is that fair? Some kids just don't test well!
4. What percentage of kids are in the program?
5. If their first grader doesn't get into the program, how will it affect their AP classes in high school?

I am dead serious that these questions were all asked. In fact, I'm not really doing the meeting justice. These parents were INSANE!
And on a totally unrelated note, the demographics were roughly comprised of:
1. 20% Caucasian (50% male, 50% female)
2. 25% Indian (90% male, 10% female)
3. 50% South Asian (80% female, 20% male)
4. 5% Hispanic (100% male)

What a weird, weird world. I left after an hour. I have no idea they kept going for. Tiffany and I are still not sure if we want to have Lucy test for it. The only thing I know for sure is that a lot of the parents of TAG children are mentally retarded.

Political Commentary From Lucy

Well, I'm sure you know by now that Obama has just won the election for President. However, I am writing to inform all 4 of the people that read my blog that tonight when we told our daughter Lucy, she said "Poor people are going to be so happy!"

Gasoline Firesale in Austin

I just filled my car up with gas. What's so crazy about that? It was only $2.19/gallon!!! I did a little web searching and gas hasn't been that low since late 2003. I called Tiffany and told her to fill her car up, too. Wish I had some big barrels to fill up and set in the garage...

This Is A Great Reason Why Austin is Cool

SXSW (South by Southwest) is a music/film/multimedia festival held every year in Austin. I saw this video on the plane on my way back from Boca Raton recently. Never heard of either of these people, but I like it. SXSW isn't even the "premier" music festival in Austin. (See ACL for those honors.) Anyway, the music in this town is unbelievable. Seriously.

The Worst Political Ad I've Ever Seen: Local Austin Politics

This is airing regularly during prime time here.

We Do Dallas

We spent the day in Dallas the other day. After being told that it would be stereotypical Texas as in Big hats, Big hair and Big belt buckles, I can say that we were pleasantly surprised. In less than 24 hours, we saw(drove by) Temple University, Baylor University, Texas Stadium home of the Dallas Cowboys, the American Airlines Arena (where the Dallas Mavericks play,) the American Girl store (which was far more impressive than you might think!) the Cotton Bowl, the exterior of the King Tut exhibit, DFW International airport and the Dallas Aquarium which is the coolest landlocked aquarium I've ever seen. If you don't believe me about the aquarium, ask Brendan:

Bail Out Home Owners Too

So, with all the bank bailouts going on, and people still having their mortgages foreclosed, the whole issue seems very unfair to average American consumers. It occurred to me that a very easy thing for the fed to implement to give relief on both sides of the issue would be to abolish mortgage insurance immediately. This would be like giving everyone that is upside down on their mortgage an extra $200-300 per month instantly. Just an idea.

Funniest Homeless Signs

They didn't have my favorite which is "Parents killed by ninjas. Need money for Kung-Fu lessons" but these are still pretty funny.

Catfish Parlour

In my continuing vein of writing about local Austin restaurants, let me add to my collection my personal assessment of the "Catfish Parlour." Tonight, on the recommendation of a few websites we stopped for dinner at the aforementioned establishment because of descriptions of its good food, unique vibe and kid friendly atmosphere. I won't burden readers with too heady of a description, however, my firm beliefs in the following were reaffirmed:
1. Restaurants without windows should be avoided.
2. Catfish should never be eaten. Ever. Catfish are bottom feeders and taste like it.
3. Just because your cups have bite marks in them, doesn't make your restaurant "kid friendly."


It's good that we will be in Oregon for 2 weeks in December because I plan on eating nothing but Salmon...

Oh, and if you want to read something funny, check this out.

Don't Be Fooled By This Latest Scam!

SUBJECT: REQUEST FOR URGENT BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP

DEAR AMERICAN:

I NEED TO ASK YOU TO SUPPORT AN URGENT SECRET BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP WITH A TRANSFER OF FUNDS OF GREAT MAGNITUDE.
I AM MINISTRY OF THE TREASURY OF THE REPUBLIC OF AMERICA. MY COUNTRY HAS HAD CRISIS THAT HAS CAUSED THE NEED FOR LARGE TRANSFER OF FUNDS OF 800 BILLION DOLLARS US. IF YOU WOULD ASSIST ME IN THIS TRANSFER, IT WOULD BE MOST PROFITABLE TO YOU.
I AM WORKING WITH MR. PHIL GRAM, LOBBYIST FOR UBS, WHO WILL BE MY REPLACEMENT AS MINISTRY OF THE TREASURY IN JANUARY. AS A SENATOR, YOU MAY KNOW HIM AS THE LEADER OF THE AMERICAN BANKING DEREGULATION MOVEMENT IN THE 1990S. THIS TRANSACTIN IS 100% SAFE.
THIS IS A MATTER OF GREAT URGENCY. WE NEED A BLANK CHECK. WE NEED THE FUNDS AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE. WE CANNOT DIRECTLY TRANSFER THESE FUNDS IN THE NAMES OF OUR CLOSE FRIENDS BECAUSE WE ARE CONSTANTLY UNDER SURVEILLANCE. MY FAMILY LAWYER ADVISED ME THAT I SHOULD LOOK FOR A RELIABLE AND TRUSTWORTHY PERSON WHO WILL ACT AS A NEXT OF KIN SO THE FUNDS CAN BE TRANSFERRED.

PLEASE REPLY WITH ALL OF YOUR BANK ACCOUNT, IRA AND COLLEGE FUND ACCOUNT NUMBERS AND THOSE OF YOUR CHILDREN AND GRANDCHILDREN TO WALLSTREETBAILOUT@TREASURY.GOVSO THAT WE MAY TRANSFER YOUR COMMISSION FOR THIS TRANSACTION. AFTER I RECEIVE THAT INFORMATION, I WILL RESPOND WITH DETAILED INFORMATION ABOUT SAFEGUARDS THAT WILL BE USED TO PROTECT THE FUNDS.

YOURS FAITHFULLY
MINISTER OF TREASURY PAULSON

Math in the Real World

Sports in the Pacific Northwest: A Lifetime of Disappointment

(Disclaimer: This post was inspired by OregonRobot's recent ode.)
So, I now live in a place where sports teams experience success. For example, Austin is home to the University of Texas which regularly win championships and bowl games in football, basketball and probably a few more sports that I don't follow. I also live an hour and a half from the multi-champion San Antonio Spurs, and two hours from the Houston Rockets (who managed to finally give Clyde the Glyde the NBA ring he so deserved.) All of this has made me reflect upon the utter failure of sports teams from the Pacific Northwest to capitalize on superstar teams and talent during my formative years, thereby leaving me with a lifetime worth of buildup followed by massive let-down. In case you think I'm exageratting, let me give some examples:

• 1986 - Portland Trailblazers use #2 draft pick to select Sam Bowie, passing over a rookie Michael Jordan
• 1989 - Gary Payton and OSU appear on the cover of Sports Illustrated as the #1 team in the country. They stay in the top 10 all year, but fall to Ball State in the first round of the NCAA tournament. (BALL STATE! I don't even know where Ball State is!!!)
• 1990 - Portland Trailblazers lose to the Detroit Pistons in the NBA championship.
• 1992 - Portland Trailblazers lose to the Chicago Bulls in the championship.
• 1994- Seattle Supersonics hold league best regular seaon record with 63-19, but lose in the first round to the Denver Nuggets
• 1996 - Seattle Supersonics set franchise record with 64 wins and advance to the NBA championship series, only to lose to the Chicago Bulls in six games.
• 2000 - Portland Trailblazers up by 15 in the fourth quarter in game 7 of the Western Conference finals fail to score and give the Los Angeles Lakers the series. The Lakers go on to win the championship in 5 games.
• 2001 - Seattle Mariners set single season win record with 116 wins, yet fall to the New York Yankees in the American League Championship, 4 games to 1.
• 2002-2006 - University of Oregon makes five straight bowl games and loses all of them.
• 2003 - University of Oregon men's basketball team wins the Pac-10 championship and enter the NCAA tournament with a #8 seed, only to lose in the first round to Utah.
• 2005 - Seattle Seahawks go 13-3 in the regular season, and appear in Super Bowl XL as heavy favorites. They go on to lose 21-10 to the #6 seed, wildcard Pittsburgh Steelers.
• 2007 - University of Oregon football team is ranked #2 in the nation, but quarterback Dennis Dixon tears his ACL with only 3 games to go ending hopes of a national championship.

I'm sure there are many more Pacific Northwest fantastic failures. These are just the ones burned in my brain because they occurred during my lifetime, on national television. If you still think I'm making something out of nothing, here's another related list. It's a list of the 10 best athletes to never win a championship in the Pacific Northwest:

1. Clyde Drexler (Won a championship after being traded to the Houston Rockets)
2. Steve Largent (Played 13 seasons for Seahawks, held almost every record a receiver could hold, yet still never won a blasted thing)
3. Randy Johnson - (Never won with the Mariners in 10 seasons, but won with the Arizona Diamondbacks after being traded.)
4. Rasheed Wallace (Won championship in Detroit the year after being traded from Portland)
5. Gary Payton (12 seasons with the Supersonics, won championship after being traded to the Miami Heat)
6. Scottie Pippin (Won six championships in Chicago, none in Portland despite making the NBA finals in 2000)
7. Ray Allen (Five seasons with the Sonics. Won championship with Boston Celtics the following year after being traded.)
8. Ken Griffey Jr.
9. Alex Rodriguez
10. Ichiro Suzuki
Honorable Mention: Cortez Kennedy(Seahawks), Patrick Ewing(Sonics), Shawn Kemp(Sonics), Shaun Alexander(Seahawks)

Salt Lick

In Austin, there are lots of places to get good barbeque. If you ask any of the locals who has the best bbq though, you will almost unanimously hear that Salt Lick reigns supreme. Located about 25 miles outside of Austin in the dry town (read: no alcohol) of Driftwood, Salt Lick is certainly an experience in independant Texas culture. The buildings themselves are rustic and the seating feels somewhat like dining in a logging camp with long wooden tables with moderately matching wooden benches. Food can be ordered either individually or family style. The family style is all you can eat, but be aware that unless you are exceedingly hungry it's probably more food than you can or should eat. The individual plates are very large themselves and will give most normal people trouble trying to clean their plate so save your money as the all-you-can-eat is over twice the price.
Whichever course you choose, you won't be disappointed. The sausages are good, the brisket is great and the ribs are by far the best I have ever eaten. Sauce comes with the meat, but is purely optional, and I found that I actually preferred them without it. The ribs (which are cooked in an open pit that you walk past as you enter) was so tender the meat practically fell off the bone, and I found myself cursing the fact that I had eaten other things during the meal that were now taking up space in my stomach. Rounding out an already full meal are a set of fantastic pies with optional ice cream that you really have to try even if you feel like you can't eat another bite. The peach cobbler was my favorite although others swear by the pecan pie. I seriously doubt there is a wrong choice on the menu.
All in all, if you come to Austin, make sure a trip to Salt Lick is on your agenda. Just make sure you empty your stomach thoroughly before you sit down to eat. You won't be disappointed.

Bizarro Day

Yesterday morning I got up at 6 a.m. and got on an airplane. One hour and fifty minutes later, I arrived in Atlanta, Georgia. I spent the day at a fairly mind-numbing security industry conference, and then at 9:50 p.m. got on a different airplane only to arrive back in Austin at 11:00 p.m.
To think that in this day and age, I can accomplish in only 2 hours what it used to take months to do less than a hundred years ago is just bizarre beyond description. It's even more bizarre when it comes to these same-day trips. I travel a fair bit for work, and these always blow my mind. In a single day, I can travel half-way across the country, do some things, and then return home. How insane is that?
So what would make my day even weirder? How about running into Chris Carter at the conference and Evander Holyfield at the airport. True story. Weird day.

The Company Cares

To set the record straight, Hurricane Ike came nowhere near Austin. We didn't even get a drop of rain. Not one. The only ramifications that we had to deal with were refugees from Houston living in the hotels and schools, and a slight, pleasant wind in the 5-6 MPH range. Apparently, the word didn't get to our corporate headquarters either because when I got to work today, I had an email asking me to do a physical confirmation of all the employees in the Austin office. When I walked around to make sure, everyone laughed at me. I somehow knew they would, but I couldn't tell my disconnected corporate overlords that I had done it if I hadn't, and I also knew that any attempts to explain our lack of Hurricane Ike would fall on deaf ears. In the end, it was easier to just do the pointless task so the checklist could be completed. Sometimes Corporate America drives me crazy.

Blackberry Programming

So now that I'm done with school, I've been dabbling with programming again. My first post-graduate school project was to make a game for my kids on my Blackberry. I've done PalmOS and WindowsMobile programming in the past, but these were all C/C++ based. With my newly discovered free time, I decided that it was time to tackle both Java and RIM devices.
I'm the kind of person that really wants a project when trying to learn new things, so I decided that a simple game of Hangman for my daughter would be a great way to dive in. The biggest obstacle I had were the dev tools. Trying to decide between Netbeans, Eclipse, or the Blackberry JDE is just the first of many decisions along the way. To be honest, I haven't really figured out all the pros/cons between them, and my learning is still in progress. My friend Ryan also helped me out to get a running start and so it only took me a few days before I was able to make my first Hello World application. After that, I quickly discovered some of the positive aspects of Java and J2ME in particular. Using J2ME felt quite a bit like using many of the excellent cross-platform frameworks that I've encountered in the past. In only a few evenings of work I was able to get a fairly decent Hangman implementation up and running to the point that Lucy didn't want to give me my phone back. The unexpected side-effect was that my son had his feelings hurt because I made a game for his big sister and he didn't get one. Fortunately, I had an inspiration to make an Etch-A-Sketch type drawing application for him. This let me explore further depths of J2ME, and in only a couple hours, I had a game for him too. I really look forward to playing more with my Blackberry and J2ME and so far have found it to be a very positive experience.

Rudy's

So being new to Texas, I am discovering that I am new to barbeque. What I previously thought was "bbq" has turned out to be grilling. With that as a backdrop, my first major intersection with Texas style bbq was at a restaurant chain called "Rudy's." In Austin, there are four Rudy's locations and I have now been to 3 of the 4. I can attest that in general, they are all of the same quality; and that quality is mouth wateringly good. You begin your adventure at Rudy's by ordering from the front counter where the feel is more of a butcher shop than a dining establishment, however the smells wafting from behind the counter make your mouth water unlike any butcher shop I've ever been to. It is standard fare to ask if it's your first time at Rudy's, and if you answer in the affirmative, they will all yell something akin to "We got a new one!" You will then be presented with samples of any of the meats or sides that they serve, and I highly recommend that you try them all. My favorite at Rudy's is definitely the moist brisket, but the turkey is also quite excellent. I wouldn't bother with either the sausage or the pork ribs, but the baby back ribs should be tried. The meats are all served on butcher paper and if you are planning to make sandwiches out of it, you will also receive stacks of white bread free of charge. The sides are decent, particularly the coleslaw and creamed corn, but at Rudy's, the meat is the thing and with very affordable prices, you can get more than enough for a family of four for around $20. Because of the price and the easily accessible locations combined with excellent fare, Rudy's has quickly turned into one of my favorite Austin dining establishments. In less than a month, we've already had Rudy's 4 or 5 times despite plenty of other fine restaurants vying for our business. Don't miss Rudy's if you come to Austin.

A New Beginning

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