Some B/W Photos I Took in NZ

I came across a few black and white photos I took in NZ while cleaning up my computer's hard drive. They're not very good because I don't really know how to take artsy photos, but I like them anyway. Enjoy...

-mike.

 

 

 

 

Buescher State Park

Two weekends ago, we went to Buescher State Park (about an hour east of Austin) which is part of the Lost Pines Woods. The cool thing about it was that there was hardly anybody out on the 8-mile hike, the weather was great, and there were actual hills involved (which is so rare here in Texas, my legs needed reminding of how to walk on a slope!). Enjoy the photos!


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Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center

Just the pics.

Two weekends ago, we went out to the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center to experience our first Texas spring. The center was a lot smaller than we had expected (and for its size, I'm surprised it was seven bucks), but the gardens were pretty cool, even though most of the field weren't in full bloom. I suppose we should go back again in a two or three more weeks to really see rolling fields of blue bonnets and Indian paintbrushes.

Or we could just roll down the freeway, as we did this weekend, and enjoy the many colorful Texas wildflowers.

I suppose the most important part of the wildflower center trip was that we saw a huge ass rattle snake! No, it wasn't a 2-meter long king cobra, but it was pretty cool. Enjoy the pics and especially the video!

-mike

ps - full disclosure: that photo above was not taken by either of us.

A bit late, but here's my SXSW 2008 Post

Mostly just pictures... enjoy.

A few weeks ago, a huge industry showcase came to town... it was the annual South by Southwest festival. Thousands of bands and tens of thousands of fans & industry folk were in town, clogging up the streets and camping on our lawns for a chance to see REM or Yo La Tengo perform. But the real fun is that everywhere is a free party. Most clubs and stores have good bands and free food/drinks all day and night. Unfortunately, we both work during the day, even though SXSW takes place during spring break.

What we did manage to get to was the Austin Good festival at Hotel San Jose, where we saw Kimya Dawson (from the Moldy Peaches and now famous for doing parts of the Juno soundtrack) and the Noisettes. The Noisettes were an official "SXSW Showcase band." This means that they played a half-dozen shows or so over a 4 day period at the Austin convention center and elsewhere. To get in to those shows, you either need to spring for a $130+ all-access wristband, or get an industry badge. We were lucky that they also played this free show right around the corner from our house, and let me tell you, they were amazing. Completely blew me away and way better than I had anticipated.

The only other show we went to see was the all-day Saturday Mess with Texas party in Waterloo park, which featured a stand-up comedy stage (with the Upright Citizen's Brigade crew, Eugene Mirman, and Tig & Brian Posehn from the Sarah Silverman program), a new-wave/indie rock stage (headlined by the Breeders), and a punk/hard-core stage (with Municipal Waste, F*d-up, Dead to Me, and NOFX). Best of all, they don't care what you bring in to the park, so we were able to bring in our own food, beer (in their requisite koozies), water, and a towel for settin' on! It was awesome.

The most amazing acts were actually on the stand-up stage, where Eugene Mirman was forced to tell Brian Posehn's jokes because Brian had lost his voice doing three gigs the day before. Also, if he's ever in your town, don't miss Reggie Watts, the human beat box.

Barton Creek Greenbelt

A few weeks ago, we went out to the Barton Creek Green Belt (link goes to annotated map) for some light hiking. Enjoy the pics!

As far as a review goes, I'd have to say that I'm pretty pleased with the size and proximity of the green belt (I think seven nearly-uninterrupted miles within minutes of downtown Austin), but disappointed in how filthy the place can be. Citizens leave all kinds of litter everywhere and too many people fail to carry doggy bags (provided by the city at the trail heads, even!) so you have to be careful where you step. Also, mountain bikers blaze down the narrow trail, so keep your eyes & ears peeled. I could see spending a few more days exploring other sections of the trail, but only really because it's so close, not because it provides anything novel or isolating. I give the BCGB a 4 out of 10 on my random scale of park reviews, mostly because it's too crowded. Let me put it bluntly: if my little brother and his wife (both big outdoors/hiking folk) came to visit us, I probably wouldn't take them here. On the plus side, we did get to see a pair of black vultures up close, as they were shoulder-to-shoulder in a tree right beside the trail.

Two Great Days

This time last year, we were in Southern Laos, spending time in Vientiane and at a somewhat-disappointing eco-lodge / rural village called Ban Pako. Lately, we spend a lot of time wishing we were traveling and re-living those amazing 240 days we spent in Asia, as well as all the fun we had planning and the great effort it took to actually make the trip. Last Friday, I re-read an old post of our friends J&M, who returned from Asia several months before us. The post is called "A Year Ago Today" and Jennifer pines for adventure of traveling, and more so about the hopefulness she experienced in planning the trip. We IM-ed about it a bit, and lamented that while both of us can regularly recall with vivid detail things we'd done one year ago or more, these days in the "real world" go by without fanfare or memorable experiences. The immediate and huge rewards reaped by traveling and living day-to-day from a backpack, on the other hand, are easy to recognize and I think in general, people take unfortunately little time to reflect on the purpose of most days. As Jennifer says,

I know there is more to life. And believe it or not, even though it may sound totally cheesy… we’re always standing on the brink of an adventure of a lifetime. Sometimes it’s just a lot more obvious. But doesn’t the challenge (and a lot of the fun) lie in finding what is not obvious?

I totally agree. And on that note, I'll explain why I've been talking about all this: This weekend, Justine and I had two of the best days we've had since returning to the States. We were productive, impulsive, got to visit some new places, and we were proud of ourselves for what we accomplished in two short days. These are exactly the kinds of feelings we had while traveling, and as a result, I'm happy to bring you a post about two great days we had in America!



On Friday night, we went out to dinner at our favorite Indian restaurant (which I reviewed in a post here) with some friends. Then, early Saturday morning, Justine, Emily and I went to the Center for Environmental Research (an Austin Water facility) at the famous birding location known as Hornsby Bend (at least one famous Hornsby is buried in the family cemetery here). We helped clear brush from a historic farmhouse that the city is trying to rehabilitate, then took a guided walk to the Lower Colorado River. We were lucky enough to see loads of birds, including osprey, American white pelicans, cardinals, crested caracaras, turkey vultures, black vultures, red-tailed hawks, and more. Also, the weather that morning was gorgeous.

After we returned, we were starving, so we headed out to our favorite taco truck around the corner, Torchy's. As soon as we got out the door, our friend Joel walked by on his way to Torchy's, so we ate with him and decided that it was such a nice day, we should have a BBQ at our house that evening. [Just last week, we had picked up a tailgate-sized Weber and were itching to get it fired up!] So a few hours later, Brandon, Joel, Emily & Alaina showed up for veggie skewers of eggplant, mushroom, potato, onion, garlic, and green peppers, coated in Justine's home-made olive oil with freshly-crushed rosemary. MMMMMMM!

So that evening went on pretty late, but we had already made plans to meet up with Alaina for brunch on Sunday morning. So, early the next morning (10 is early when you've been up drinking all night!), Alaina, Joel & Brandon showed up and we headed over to the Woodland on So. Congress for an early brunch (I had already had cereal, fruit, coffee and milk and had been up for nearly 2 hours, but anybody who has lived with me could have probably guessed that!). We had eaten there before with some other friends for dinner once, and they recommended the place as a good breakfast joint. Indeed it was! Eggs Florentine, grits with cheddar cheese, quiche, and a green tea vodka are a nice way to wake up in Texas!

Having returned to our place by noon, we decided to spend the rest of the day turning an old and unused garden patch in our communal backyard (our duplex and two others share a single large space... we're on the furthest west end and the garden patch is in the middle). This entailed ripping up weeds for several hours, tilling the dirt, composting and mulching, and then planting. But first we needed supplies, so Plant Escape and Home Depot were the next two stops. We got a few different types of tomato, some eggplant plants, and some peppers. The garden had some herbs and veggies that have survived from before (cilantro, parsley, sage, leeks, potatoes, celery, and possibly carrots) and we have some garlic and spinach growing in a planter box on our porch already, so we didn't need too much. The rest of the afternoon, we raked and pulled, pulled and raked, dumped rocks and old dried up tomato plants, moved bricks and garbage out of the plot of land and got very dirty and sweaty. We didn't have time to finish it, plus we don't yet have mulch or enough new dirt/compost, but next weekend we'll finish turning the soil and make a small raised area in the middle of the patch to plant our food. It was very fun.

Then we had another BBQ that night, just the two of us, and had a perfect ending to an amazing, productive weekend. On top of all that, we also managed to clean our place, go grocery shopping, spend some time reading, do the laundry, and all the other stuff we try to get done each weekend. It reminds me just how much you can experience and accomplish in just a few hours, and how by putting a few things together, and being impulsive, you can really get a lot out of an otherwise "normal" day... Thanks for reading!

[Enjoy more pics of the BBQ and gardening here.]

Freeways

The road and freeway system here in Austin is atrocious. I've complained about it in person to some of you, but basically it makes me wish I still had to drive in LA! I know what you're saying... it can't be that bad. True: the traffic here is not as heavy as in Los Angeles, but the layout of the freeways is truly maddening. Three things in particular bother me about driving here and make me yearn for an hour sitting on the 405 at 1am on a Tuesday.

(1) The signage, what little there is of it, is completely cryptic.
(2) All freeways are bounded by a "frontage" road, that goes parallel to the freeway. These, I suppose, are to give access to the businesses and to "aid" entering and exiting the freeways. The result is that you are forced to make multiple U-turns, are punnised by miles of driving if you miss your exit, and getting around the freeways here is even MORE impossible than in California.
(3) All roads seem to have multiple names. And not in the way that's easy to remember, like how in San Jose, Capital Expressway becomes Hillsdale and then becomes Camden... but in the most obnoxious way that Ben White Blvd. is also called the SW Expressway, Highway 71, AND 290.

I mean, I'm not retarded... I can get around in my car alright. But I feel like somehow the oil or car lobbies (or both) conspired to design the dumbest freeways and roads just so we spend as much time as possible in the car. But also, people driving in Texas don't know what they're doing... it's like everybody thinks they're the only vehicle on the road. In CA, people drive badly, but at least they're not surprised when they see another car! I'll never complain about driving in California again....

Madras Pavillion, Austin, TX

My co-worker, who is from Mumbai, India, told me that the best Indian food he's ever had anywhere (that includes his mom's home-cooked meals) was here in Austin, at a place north of the city center called Madras Pavillion. My parents got us a gift certificate to eat there for Christmas, which we used last week. Justine got the south Indian thali (basically a sampler plate of many kinds of curries and soups) and I had the mulligatawny soup and a curry with ocre and green peppers. DELICIOUS! I would have to agree that this is indeed some of the best -- if not the best -- Indian food I've ever had. So if you're ever in Austin, be sure to check out Madras Pavillion! Service is without charm and the decor is lacking a bit (and they chould use with some Indian music playing in the background), but hey, the food comes out quickly, it's hot and best of all, it's super tasty! Also, they give a 5% discount if you use cash (be sure to ask for it!)

Thanks, Mom and Dad!

New Year's Eve in Austin

Here's what we did last year.

Now, here's what we did this year:

We went to the Continental Club's Gallery Room for New Year's Eve, instead of downtown Singapore....



We played Ping Pong while we waited for the band to play, instead of eating Thai food with my sister and waiting for the fireworks to go off on the Singapore waterfront....

The band consisted of Denny Freeman (guitar), Frosty Smith (drums), and Mike Flanigin on an organ. They were good... probably better than last year's fireworks!

I'd still take traveling over hanging out in a local club, but our new year's eve was fun and we met some cool people. Hope you had a good new year, too!

-mike.

Mimes are Boring

From a kid's journal at a Goodwill... priceless. Or maybe I should have said "kids say the darndest things." Either way, these are words to live by. Enjoy!