Edward Terry

My cousin Lizzy plays golf better than you. I can almost guarantee this. She happened to be in a gold tournament here in Austin and needed a place to crash for a few days while the tournament was going on. She had brought her large blowup mattress complete with its own inflation system with her so the front area of our house became her little area. Sadly she got locked out of the house several times for various reasons but was able to reach me easily to let her in after her rounds were done. I understand she did well and was pleased with a round in which the golf coach for UT was there to see her play so hopefully a scholarship for her is in her future. Her birthday just happened to be that same week and my aunt said she was feeling a bit down being away from home and she had been away at a special golf school in the carolinas for the past year and im sure she wanted to hang out with her friends. We did the best we could by ordering her a special cake from Sweetish Hill Bakery on west 6th and taking her to a birthday dinner at Z Tejas just next door. Heres a shot of her and Phil at dinner:

Interestingly enough a man had a full blown heart attack on the deck outside and we saw Austin’s EMS, fire, and police personnel showed up and took care of it though, I believe the man was ok and was transported out of there.

We sure enjoyed having her stay with us and class up the joint a bit. She can text very fast also, I am bad at it but i think its my cruddy old phone. Hopefully we’ll have more room next time because there just might be another building on our property the next time we see her .

A few weekends ago my buddy Abraham, Linda, and I took a day-long motorcycle trip around the Austin hill country. We started on the north part of Austin and headed west to Marble Falls at about 6:45 a.m. It was nice to be up and riding in the cool air as we made our way along FM 1431 which is a twisty road that follows along the Colorado River. I always like how it gets cool as you dip down into the valleys and then warms up again as you come out. We did encounter a giant swarm of gnats that got into my helmet and down into my ears which almost drove me insane because I couldn’t get them out of there, but I was eventually able too.

We made our way into Marble Falls and headed north on 281 and west to the Longhorn Cavern State Park via Park Road 4,which was also a fun and scenic road to ride along. We then hooked up to 29 near the Buchanan Dam and headed west to LLano. Once in Llano we headed south on 16. Abraham informed us that we could turn off on 965 to Enchanted Rock State Park and continue south from there or keep making our way south. Considering the pace we were going and the need for a cold beverage at that exact moment we elected to skip by Enchanted Rock and decided to make a special trip at a later time just to the park for the day so we did not have to rush our visit.

Continuing down 16 headed toward Fredericksburg we took the “Willow City Loop” which is a stretch of privately owned pavement open to the public for site seeing and as I am told a favorite of motorcyclists due to its scenic views and its slow winding course back to the main road. My buddy says that he did have a snake that was coiled up on the road become startled when he rode up on him, and strike at his foot peg, but he did not do much. At the end (or beginning, depending which way you are going) of the loop was an old general store it seemed. It was closed for the day but apparently it is a very popular place to grab a beverage and hang about before continuing on. Hopefully it will be open next time we pass through.

We continued south into Fredericksburg and pulled into town about mid morning. We parked the bikes along the main street there and looked for a place that was open and would serve us some cold beverages. Luckily we happened a nice restaurant with an outdoor patio, so we sat and relaxed and had a beer at about 10:45 in the morning.

Once we had rested up we jumped back on the bikes and headed east on 290. This brought us to the 1376 turn off and down to a place called Luckenbach, Texas. Luckenbach is a “town” consisting of 3 or 4 houses and a large General Store / Post Office/ Bar. That’s it. We grabbed some lunch from a small trailer that served up sandwiches and other things and hung out under the large oaks and watched folks pitch washers and ride in and out on their own bikes. After a while we were done sweating under the now blazing sun and decided to head back to Austin. Headed back up 1376 to 290 and east again to Austin.

We arrived back in Austin around 3:30 p.m. that day after riding pretty hard for a period of time. I did lose a bolt that held my left turn signal on, a fellow biker on a Kawasaki was kind enough to roar up along side of us and alert us to it before he speed away. I was able to repair it later on that week.

As it turns out, our cool morning in Marble Falls turned out to be the hottest day of the year so far to that day, but we had a blast and I was able to see sights and meet cool folks along the way. This has been my longest bike trip so far at about 255 miles, and I’m looking forward to many more.

You can see the route we took that day by following this link:
http://www.motowhere.com/maps/route/Enchanted-Luckenbach
Edit: This route shows the Enchanted Rock turnoff

Also, here are a few pictures from that day: Enjoy!
http://picasaweb.google.com/spaceghost65/MotorcycleTrip81207

I know this is a little late for a Fourth of July post but I wanted to share with yall. My Stepdad Mike is working in a town called Granbury, TX (Google Map) on a water plant I believe and he is away from the valley for a few months at a time. His office rented him a pretty cool apartment on the lake there so we decided that would be the spot we all meet up for the 4th of July. We did alot of fun things there even if we could not rent a ski boat because of the flooding and debris that was in the water. Linda said we could take the truck, which was good because we had the pop up canopy and some other stuff. It behaved for the most part and we stopped along the way at a few antique stores including one in  Lampasas where we ate lunch on the stage area in front of the old city hall. We got rained on pretty good along the way and we were glad to be there when we made it to Granbury. That night Mike took us to eat at a pretty awesome steakhouse down in the old section of town.

The next day was the Fourth of July and we all went down to the old section of town for the local parade. Phillip met us down there and we were all able to get a seat at this Christian biker BBQ  restaurant. (really!) They were very friendly and served up some awesome brisket on jalapeño bread at about 10 in the morning. The parade was awesome. If you went at that parade you were in it because everyone in the whole town was along the street. It featured every public service vehicle that the city owned, and a stagecoach “hold-up” complete with the “banditos” our biker friends on their motorcycles like robbers of the old west.

After the parade we walked around town square and looked at all the stuff local vendors were selling and went into some more antique shops. We found a place to grab a bite for lunch and sat out on a patio because dogs weren’t allowed inside. We had three with us. Lula, Gracie, and terrible terrible Snarfy.

That night the folks at Mike’s apartment set up karaoke and a DJ along with some pot luck style 4th of July items so we grabbed a plate and sat out on mikes “lawn” and watched my brother and cousin set up a trout line. My other cousins had gone wake boarding with some dudes they met and one of them ate it and hit her head on the board and split her forehead open pretty good. My aunt is a vet so she took care of it nicely, we all figured the emergency room on Fourth of July would be a circus. We sat out on the complex’s pier and watched fireworks over Lake Granbury. They were quite awesome.

The next day was not quite as awesome. We had gone to a department store to grab extra items I had forgot to pack when the brake pedal went soft in the truck while backing out. Uh-oh. We were able to creep back to the hotel and call Mike who said they were taking my cousins car down to a tire shop for a new tire because they were running on a do-nut all the way from Lubbock. The guys at the tire shop informed me I had blown the seals in the rear axle and brake fluid was all over the inside of the drums and they couldn’t fix that because their mechanic was on vacation. I called around for another shop that took the truck that afternoon and said they would call me tomorrow. That night involved heavy drinking on my part and we all played Apples to Apples which is always a good time. I won

In the morning we all went to breakfast and I gloated some more over my victory. While we were at the breakfast table the shop called me and said that the truck was ready to be picked up. I guess things were looking up! We picked up the truck and made plans for Phillip to follow us back to Austin. We packed up and said our goodbyes and headed back the way Phil had come which was not as good, but I had the two-way radios in the truck so we amused ourselves all the way back. We did see interesting things on the way back like small town Dairy Queens, Masonic lodges, antique stores and a 10 mile detour back to IH-35. Yuckamuck! Oh well we made it back in one piece.

Enjoy some pictures of Fourth of July in Granbury, Tx at:

http://picasaweb.google.com/spaceghost65/July42007GranburyTexas

The Fourth of July is creeping up on us and all I can think about is sweet sweet BBQ so I wanted to do a quick recap of successful grilling done in the past year. Enjoy!

Japanese Style Yakitori Skewers with leeks and Bahamian style rice.

Beef and Chicken Fajitas

Bacon wrapped Ham steaks and asparagus.

Jerk style Short Ribs. The jerk rub and sauce that go with this recipe is made from scratch each time

Bacon Wrapped Pork Tenderloin with apple baste. Ingredients for the rub include dijon mustard, brown sugar and Tennessee whiskey.

Other stuff we have done but I didn’t get shots of were chicken quarters and full racks of beef ribs, sesame seed style shrimp, “Margarita Chicken” with my own marinade concoction that included a few tequila shots, and a host of veggies and fruits. Some things I want to give a go on are a full brisket, rotisserie style fowl, and I need to straighten out my burger pattie mental block.

This is an image of Linda and myself with Exile Chopper founder Russell Mitchell at the Republic of Texas Motorcycle Rally. He is a cool British guy who builds very monolithic looking motorcycles. This was my first time to be at the rally with a bike of my own which was very cool. I had never been in a group of bikes that large before, and even though I didn’t have a huge Harley Davidson, I still felt cool on my “Princess Baby Monster” as its now affectionately known.

A highlight of the event was riding around the expo center, drinking beer in a friend’s “car” which i think was an old cop car he got for $200, with the doors and trunk cut off, and a huge hole cut in the roof with obscenities spray painted on the side. It got a lot of laughs.

Walking through the vendors area a man was selling some sort of cruise control for motorcycles that he claimed could be attached to any motorcycle. heres a snippet:
*me to Abraham* “That won’t work on my throttle set up…”
*seller over hearing* “What kinda bike you got?”
“Ducati Monster M620″
“Is that some sort of dirt bike?”
“Yes, its a dirt bike”

Abraham got a kick out of that one. He wound up already having one of these devices so i didn’t feel bad about being a bit of a jerk.

We also attended the Austin Roadrunners vintage import cycle show , which has become one of my favorites because of its location at Ski Shores on the Lake and the cool people and motorcycles. With so many Harley’s in town a 1970 Royal Enfield tends to stand out to me.

On Friday nights my stepbro Matt announces bull riding at a place called The Cowboy Dance Hall in San Antonio. He did an awesome job and everyone there enjoyed the bull riding. It was kind of cool to have an arena like that with a full club all in one place. I’d like to go there again and spend some time hanging out. Heres a shot of my step dad Mike, Grandma Myers, my stepbro’s wife Nicole and Linda enjoying the action.

There is a video of a full ride over on the video page, listen for Matthew giving the low down over the loud speakers.

We have begun the initial steps to get the garage apartment going. The next meeting I have with the builder will be to set up the construction calendar, so I am looking forward to that, and the ensuing “slab party”. Hopefully we’ll get there before the weather goes cold.

Tuesday night trivia at mother Egan’s has been going well, while we hit the majic number of 50 out of 70 every once in a while, there’s always a fun group out to down some black and tans and eat bad bar food. This weeks theme round is “Nicknames of Texas Cities” so we hope to do well. I got 7 out of 10 single handedly on a straight up Texas Trivia theme round one night, which i intend to announce every Tuesday night until i die.

Check out the videos on the video page and the pics at
http://picasaweb.google.com/spaceghost65/

The next stop on the Tacogasm Tour was a place down on South First street called “Polvos”. Now I had been here once or twice before (or every damn day for a 3 month stint one time) and knew the food here was pretty good. The tacos we were reviewing were the mushroom and jack cheese tacos off the a la carte menu. Well they were exactly that. Sauteed mushrooms and melted jack cheese served up in your choice of corn or flour. I would suggest corn for these tacos. They were good and I would order these again, but I figure it would be kind of hard to mess this up. We met some cool friends of Abraham’s and even my buddy Alex made it out for this one. Check out the full review over on Abraham’s site.

We have been going to the Alamo Drafthouse pretty regularly lately. I don’t know if its just being able to drink and eat dinner while you are there but i don’t know if I can sit in a regular theatre again. Some highlights have been “300″ which had me yelling “This is Sppaaarrttaa!” out of the car window on the way home and a new lack of self-preservation. The 3 hour splatterfest that was the “Grindhouse” was very enjoyable. Some highlights for me was the recognition of Texas BBQ, a Jesse James West Coast Chopper, and of course action packed “zombie” splattering. Even the ladies liked the “girl-power” parts of one of the features, and it was cool to see places around Austin that were familiar to us and seeing the Drafthouse up on the big screen as we were sitting inside the theatre itself. Another movie we saw was “Hot Fuzz” from the guys that made Shaun of the Dead. It was such a good time, I love movies with so many awesome lines that you can just have a good time repeating them over and over. Example:

Nicholas Angel: What’s your name?
Greg Prosser: P.I. Staker.
Nicholas Angel: P.I. Staker? Piss taker, f*** off!

Damn British humor.

Linda and I took a trip out to Boerne , TX to visit my Dad and Stepmoms. They are helping me fix up my Airstream travel trailer I inherited from my great Aunt and Uncle. We went out to some antique and fabric stores, and while usually this would be like pulling teeth, the thought of the Airstream all fixed up kept me in high spirits. I understand that its been totally gutted and being redone from the ground up, so to speak with a cherry Pergo floor. I am really excited about it and I will post pictures when I get them. We took a trip to the local Airstream dealer to check out what the brand new ones looked like and were pretty amazed on how nice they were on the inside, complete with mounted flat panel TVs. We also saw a new style of Airstream called “Basecamp” it looked like a horse trailer. It appears you could drive motorcycles up into the trailer while traveling and then roll them out and flip down the beds when camping. Heres a shot of the outside of it.

Visit Airstream’s website for the full effect.

http://www.airstream.com/

While traipsing around the country side west of San Antonio we visited a small Texas winery named Sister Creek Vineyards in Sisterdale, TX. They offered a self guided tour and free samples of the wines the made. While it was definitely “Texas Wine” it wasn’t bad and it was still pretty cool too see the operation and meet the friendly folks that were running it. Take a look at some shots of the winery:

Brewed with an Attitude

Working for a college does have some advantages like having spring break off. My buddy’s Abraham, Mike and myself took some time to go check out the Spoetzl Brewery in Shiner, Texas where they make Shiner Beers. We got there fairly early but allowed folks ahead of us to go on the tour. When our turn was up some folks sneaked into our tour group causing the tour guide to freak out and pass up one area of the tour because our group was too large. We did see the large copper brew kettles and a tech take a temperature reading, learned some history and of course the bottling room. This is where the Laverne and Shirley style conveyer belts moved the bottles and beer along their production track. Later on Abraham and I snuck past the next tour group to check out what we missed, which was a huge room full of pipes which we guessed where the cooling and processing of the suds happened. Here are a few shots from the out side of the brewery.

Huge props go out to Linda who completed her Motorcycle Foundation Class during a “Ladies Only” weekend with the Moto-Fun Motorcycle training group in Pflugerville. She was easily the best rider there, going first on every exercise, and even dominating “The Box” . Even I had trouble with the short braking! Nice job lady!

We did some fun things like seeing The 300 at the Alamo Drafthouse. I had drunk my share of Sunshine Wheat and was yelling “This is Spppaarrttaaaa! out of the car window on the way home. jeez louise….

Abraham invited us to a Harley Davidson rally up in Temple. This was one of the longer trips we had taken on the bike, but it was smooth sailing. Although Baby-Monster was alone in a sea of Hogs, it did get its fair share of looks.
Also this weekend was the annual Lonestar Rod and Custom Roundup here in Austin and we cruised around a few spots checking out all the cool bikes and cars.
While Abraham was dealing with a flat he got on his HD StreetBob on the way there, among other issues, we were able to go down South Congress, Ski Shores Cafe’ and Flyright Choppers Shop for drive-in they had. Check out the albums at my new area at PicasaWeb! http://picasaweb.google.com/spaceghost65

This week Phillip invited me to go play trivia at Mother Eagan’s Irish pub downtown, so I invited some smart folks for next Tuesday. Try and go at least 50/70. Note: Muhammad Ali’s record is 56-5, and a baby eel is called an “angula”.

Congrats to my Step-bro Adam and his wife Krista on their child-birthing, which happened. Condolences to Mike whos Ohio State Buckeyes couldn’t get a three to go if they attached the ball to a rope fed it through the hoop, and pulled it through. They still wouldn’t have gone in there.

Earlier this month I was able to go Boston with Linda for a conference that she was attending. We had been planning it for a little while and we were excited to finally go.

The start of the trip wasn’t too good as I overslept and still in bed when Linda rang my doorbell (repeatedly) to pick me up. Luckily I packed the night before and hurried enough to not set us back to badly. We parked at the same spot we did on our trip to Las Vegas and made it to the airport in time to check in and do the security dance. We had a connection in DFW and then on to Boston from there.

The flight up was nice as we were able to trade seats with a woman so we could sit together. I brought my sweet portable DVD player along with me and we watched The World’s Fastest Indian which is an excellent movie and made the flight time pass by quickly. We landed in Boston to clear weather but cool temperatures, quickly found a cab and made it to the Sheraton Boston.

Upon arriving Linda asked the desk how much an upgrade to the room would be. They stated it was about 60 dollars a night extra which she declined. The guy at the desk said that’s too bad because i just released your room back into the pool and its going to be a while until one comes up! This was not good, Linda got after him and he let her have the upgraded room for the same rate.

The upgraded room required passing your key card into the slot in one of the express elevators, which rose and descended from the upper floors at such a pace that the pressure change was noticeable in your eardrums. The room had its own living room and a gigantic bed. Although i believe we had the handicap accessible room due to the shower configuration everything was very nice. Even the hallway was decorated fancier than the other stories and the upper floors had access to a private lounge and restaurant at the top of the hotel. Our view featured a scenic panorama of the Charles River and a little sliver of green from the outfield wall at the Boston Red Sox’s Fenway Park also known as the “Green Monster“.

Our first afternoon there Linda registered with her conference and then hightailed it out of there. We walked around what was clearly a fancy university area that I later learned was refereed to as “Back Bay”. We walked up and down streets in the cool air, window shopping and checking out the posted menus of Irish pubs, steakhouses and other eateries along the way. Linda has been looking for a small table just like Sarah Jessica Parker’s character “Carrie” has in her apartment on the HBO series Sex and the City. We happened to see one like it in a furniture store but we found out later it was best left residing in its display area at the store , else sacrifices in the form of say, the sale of a vehicle, or the mortgaging of a piece of property may have been in oder to obtain this piece.

We found ourselves near the “Old South Church” and along to a fairly happening place called “Globe“. Dinner here was nice and it was good to sit down and have steak and ale after a day of traveling.

The next morning a college buddy of mine, Eddie drove into Boston and picked me up from his home in Mansfield, Massachusetts and we made the trip to Wachusett Mountain ski resort. I had been snowboarding here once before (my very first time) and it was at night and about -30 degrees. This time the weather was about 50 and sunny, the perfect day for boarding down the mountain. Eddie’s friend had come along as well and we had a great day on some favorable snow. The mountain itself does not have a large number of trails but the ones they had open that day were just fine.

After an awesome day of boarding, we headed back to Mansfield to have dinner with Ed’s parents, wife Marissa, and little sister Jackie at a place they like to go to called “The 99″ where everyone in there yelled “Jamesons!” when they walked in. After dinner we went back to their new house and chilled for a bit. It was supposed to snow that night and Ed and his father plow parking lots for businesses in the area in the winter as well as landscaping services in the warmer months. I watched Ed and his Dad load a sand truck full of sand with a front end loader at about 11:00pm with plans to wake up about 3am and begin plowing snow and sanding the lots. It didn’t snow that night but it was fun to get ready for it anyway.

The next morning Marissa went to work and Ed took me to a greasy spoon type diner there in Mansfield before we headed back to Boston. We stopped along the way at the Apple store in a mall near there and they helped him get his new Video iPod going, which he was having trouble getting to charge. He just needed a wall charger it turns out.

Arriving in Boston we drove around downtown for a bit looking for parking and even trying to camouflage ourselves as some type of delivery/service truck because Ed owns a large Ford truck with a police style light bar , but we were escorted out of a service area temporary parking at the convention center by a guy who could be mistaken for Chris Rock. Given his boisterous character and good nature about the situation he pointed us down the street to the Sheraton where we paid an attendant to look after the truck but only for a short time because he was leaving. This made Ed nervous but the attendant said that he would leave the keys at valet desk.

We grabbed Linda form upstairs, went to lunch at an irish pub just down the street. We drank some beers and recapped our skiing adventures and of course reminisced about college times. All of our stories were pretty interesting to Linda to say the least.

We got back to the Sheraton and of course the attendant wasn’t there and hadn’t left the keys at the valet desk. This stuff always happens to Ed poor guy. Luckily the attendant appeared and we got Ed going on to meet some friends of his for a “Guys Weekend” of skiing up in New Hampshire which I learned later had 2 feet of snow and was “epic”. Next year then…

That afternoon Linda and I headed over to the New England Aquarium. I’ve been to larger aquariums but this one had an open air penguin exhibit that you could get a close view of the birds from. The aquarium featured an extensive jellyfish exhibit as well as a towering center aquarium in which fish of all shapes and sizes swam about. My favorites where the large Tarpons and other sport fish that swam at quick pace around and around. Other exhibits included electric eels, a hands-on tide pool, and fish of all kinds in their separate habitat style aquariums.

We were one of the last people to leave the aquarium for the day and took our first ride on the “T” Boston’s subway system. We got pretty good at navigating it and used it instead of taxi cabs for the rest of the trip. We made it back to the Sheraton and phoned the front desk and asked where to get pizza and some beer. We were pointed at a place called the “Pizza Pie-er” down the street form the hotel. We walked our way down there and upon placing an order were asked if we were from the hotel. We responded that yes we were and were from Austin and so forth. The guy said it was unusual for hotel guests to walk down to get their pizza as he often had to deliver it himself. We felt proud we had done so. We walked a bit more and found what Linda called a “pack” store i believe which meant a liquor store, grabbed some brew and headed back to the room for pizza, beers, and a movie just like our own little Alamo Drafthouse on the 28th floor.

The next day was dubbed “Freedom Trail” Day. We rode the “T” downtown and ate lunch at Faneuil Hall Market Place in the heart of Boston’s historical district. We then started our walk along the freedom trail at the visitors center and in front of the old customs house. We were lucky enough to see a reenactment of the Boston Massacre which happened not far form there with the parts of British soldiers and Boston hooligans played by small children. The event was covered in the paper the next day and we felt proud to have been there for it. We opted not to follow along with a tour group and instead relied on our tour books Linda had picked up at Book People before we had made the trip. The Freedom Trail is a 2.5 mile red-brick walking trail that leads you to 16 nationally significant historic sites. We saw awesome things like where Sam Adams and Ben Franklin were buried, monuments to soldiers in the Revolutionary and civil wars, and of course the Old North Church. Robert Newman, the sexton of the Old North Church and Captain John Pulling momentarily held two lanterns in the Old North Church On the night of April 18, 1775 as Revere himself set out on his ride, to indicate that the British soldiers were crossing the Charles River. The Freedom trail was full of historical spots like this with the Old North Church being my favorite. Other spots along the Freedom trail included a walk through the Italian area and marketplace and across the river to the USS Constitution the oldest commissioned ship afloat in the world. We had walked the entire length of the Freedom Trail from start to finish and headed back to the Sheraton to get ready for dinner.

Reservation were made at a place called Anthony’s Pier 4 which was suggested by Eddie’s father. Here we ordered full broiled lobsters and had a good time making a mess of ourselves. It was a good thing we had the lobster bibs on because it is very difficult to stay tidy trying to eat one of these things. It was a nice end to a wonderful day in a city that had been hospitable and fun the whole time we were there.

The next day we said goodbye to the rock-and-roll lifestyle up on the 28th floor and headed back to Austin. My DVD player died halfway through “Cars” but we made it anyway. That night we met Amanda, Linda’s daughter at Chuy’s and gave her a rundown of the things we had seen.

Please check out the images over in the gallery ‘Boston March 2007′ and if you have a question about what something is please shoot me a message. I am currently looking for a new way of displaying photos so I can have descriptions etc.

Valentines Day for the lady and I was very nice. I decided that she would have the best flowers at the office so i went to the flower shop that my sister used to buy flowers for the mansion at to get the ensemble. I went with 2 dozen long stem roses with a dozen lilies in a big vase. i walked those babies into the office and set em up on the cops desk so everyone could see them and who they were for when they came in. One flower arrangement to rule them all. Ill be updating this post with a picture (when i find it) so keep an eye out. We went to dinner at a place called Mirabelle’s in a center up north. The inside was very fancy and the Valentines day menu was awesome. we had shrimp cocktail, quail, beef tenderloin, veal, walnut salad, and creme brulee. Afterwards we caught a showing of “Music and Lyrics” with Drew Barrymore and Hugh Grant. this movie wasn’t too good but it was a very good date/valentines day movie and end to a fine day.

I had been looking forward to seeing a local metal band come back around called “The Sword”. Easily the best metal band in Austin IMO and Linda had said that she wanted to come along as well. I was hesitant because this isn’t exactly John Prine at the Paramount, this is the goddamned Sword at Emo’s. But she was enthusiastic about it. She said that she had checked out their MySpace and heard some tracks. “What did you think?” I asked. “Well…Very bangy” she said. I guess they are kind of “bangy”. The interesting thing about this band is that they have a track on Guitar Hero 2 off of their one and only album, so the kid-with-parent factor at Emos was on par with a Green Day – Vans Warped Tour performance. This included us because Linda’s daughter came along and being a music fan was welcomed to the dark side. The opening bands were The High Cost of Living which had a simply madass drummer, and the Lions of Tsavo, named after the lions that ate 140 people in Africa during construction of a railroad and made famous by the 1996 release “The Ghost and the Darkness”. After being punished by these 2 bands and slightly toasted on 4 XX’s , The Sword let loose to a full outside area at Emo’s. We were up on a riser so we got an awesome view and i rocked out as hard as I could and as hard as i remember for a long time. During the show someone behind us yelled “I paid for those guitar lessons!” we all turned around and a lady in a neat little denim outfit with perfect hair and earrings and makeup was standing behind us. Straight from Roundrock it seemed. Someone asked her what she meant and she explained (over the din of The Sword) that her son was the guitar player. “Nice job!” was the response form the ladies, mine in astonishment was “Mother of The Sword!” to which i continued rocking out. I wound up with a new Sword T-Shirt, a renewed interest in my guitar (to which i’ve already learned a Sword song , hell yeah), and a case of whiplash that night. My friend Bonnie that turned me on to this band said that she was speaking to a friend one night that is in a local hardcore band and she invited him to go along. If i recall correctly he said “no thanks” and that his band practiced in the same studio and that The Sword were a bunch of geeks, way into D&D and all that stuff. Geek/Nerd/Warrior Metal? I’ll jam with a 12 sided die in my pocket! Check out The Sword on Myspace and at swordofdoom.com. and the galleries here at edward.sensite.net for video and images from the show.

I was invited to Ducati Austin’s 1098 unveiling party so we rode the monster downtown Saturday night to see and be seen. The dealerships trendy downtown location and the whole scene itself was pretty upscale or alot of people wearing black leather jackets and nice shoes. The folks at Ducati Austin are always extremely friendly and it was pretty cool of them to invite me. Phillip and his date came along as well.

Afterwards we headed to the Brown Bar on 8th and Colorado for a few drinks including a “Three Legged Monkey” which wound up not agreeing with Linda. We then blasted off to the West Side Magnolia to grab a late night dinner. The ride home was cold, I’m ready for Spring now. Pictures and a video are available at the Gallery and Video Pages.
Sunday stopped off at Whole Foods and got a couple of ribeyes for grilling up at Linda’s house. Being used to my huge gas grill I needed to redeem myself on the Mini-Webber with the charcoal and I’d like to say that I did just that.

First I want to wish my mom a big Happy Birthday (yesterday (1/24), hope she had a great day yesterday. She went to see “Pan’s Labyrinth” which we are going to see to night at the Alamo Drafthouse. She said it was awesome so I am looking forward to it.

On the educational front I was accepted to St. Edward’s University! After a recent rejection by this very large University down the street from me, it took the wind out of my sails, but i am exited about getting started. I want to thank Linda and Casey for writing my letters of recommendation and helping me along the way with their words of encouragement. Thanks goes out to MOM of course for her support. She told me when I finished high school I should have gone here. How do moms always know this stuff?

Other than the ultimate ice storm of 2007 that shut down the whole city, its been pretty smooth sailing. We recently had a water main “break”. Actually the weak patch job that was done to it gave up the ghost so we had to get in there and repair it. It was cold and muddy that night but Phillip and I tackled it. Homeownership is a drag sometimes, but it was satisfying we were able to fix it ourselves. (with only one trip to Home Depot!) Take a look at Lake Livingston (drained) here in our front yard after the repair:

Here is Phillip’s car with evil ice on it:

Our little motorcycle group took a trip out to Burnet, TX to eat some BBQ that had quite a reputation. It was very tender BBQ with the chicken being pretty mind blowing. The ribs I told can be fall-off-the-bone tender. The sides of cole-slaw, potato salad and beans were all very excellent. All of the BBQ had very traditional flavoring, it was straight up Texas BBQ. Luckily we caught them while they were still open so we had the place to ourselves. Heres a shot of our bikes out side the place and one of the inside:

The trip back to Austin was fun, but very cold.

Speaking of BBQ, we whipped up this pork tenderloin recipe out of our BBQ USA book which we got for Christmas (thanks again Amanda). It didn’t require the implementation of the ultimate marinating machine. When i use this secret weapon, I will be sure to post about it. The tenderloin was butter-flied and a Jack Daniels whiskey/brown sugar/pork rub/dijon mustard paste was smeared on the inside. Then it was tied back together with butcher string (thanks again Linda) with thick slices of bacon on the outside. Phillip made a glaze made from similar ingredients and I drizzled that on while the whole thing “baked” on the grill for about an hour and a half. I was told that the finished dish was used to convert two girls who claimed to be vegans into BBQ believers. Who can argue with that? Take a look at the finished product:

Phillip’s company had recently moved to a new location and the old office furniture was up for grabs so we were able to acquire 3 Eurway desks (2 for us, one for a buddy) and a much needed appliance. This prompted some rearranging of my bedroom which led me to purchase one of those TV wall mounting units you see in hospitals and restaurants. Who really has one of these in their home? I mean its kind of weird but it is super functional, gets the TV out of the way and its positioned so i can see while in bed. This had added to my Saturday morning laziness. Imagine waking up and all you need to do is turn on the TV. If you position the remote near your hand before you go to sleep you can limit your waking muscle movements to 1 finger and your eyelids. XBOX serves as DVD player along with its gaming capacities. It took some getting used to, thinking that it would come crashing down , but its pretty solid hanging in a wall stud. Check it out:

New things were also added to Linda’s house. A little paint and these cool shelf hanger things from the Container Store spiced up a small hallway. The flash of the camera makes the paint look brighter than it really is. We are totally addicted to these things because they look so cool and are easy to hang. I now have 3 shelves like this in my room and Linda has one more above her desk.

Also, we took a weekend to make this very cool workbench for her garage. It is very stout and iim glad that it came together so well. We built it on a very cold weekend and the effects of this weather on logical thinking skills became apparent as we had to go inside the house to warm up and come up with a plan for the next part of the construction, and go out in the garage and execute the plan. “Let’s do this” to every suggestion, although positive in nature, can lead to a poorly constructed piece of furniture , or a trip to the emergency room. The power tools had to be put away at that point. I will get a shot of it in it’s entirety , but here is the finished workbench in its current place:

Updates: Some new picture albums from Christmas and New Years have been added to the gallery, so check those out. My cousins dogs are insane. Also I’ll be adding a “Projects” section to the website so you can see how certain things I hit with large hammers turn out. A “Video” section will be added so you can check out YouTube style vids of us getting drunk, eating BBQ, and generally having a good time.

While North Austin ( or South Dallas?) doesn’t instill the same memories of Mexican food as other parts of Austin, I found myself at Tacodeli off Mopac ordering the “Cowboy Taco” as reviewed by Texas Monthly. Personally, I love tacos that have as many ingredients in them as possible in which the flavors all come together in unison to provide a flavor unique to the taco and that is just what happened with this particular taco. Your first bite can confuse you, as you get a little hint of the spice, and being almost gun shy about hot stuff from growing up in the Rio Grande Valley , the thought of “Here comes the pain” would enter my brain and then the onslaught of some crazed cooks’ affection for habañero peppers would lay siege to my poor taste buds. Not so with the Cowboy Taco! A little spice and that’s it, emphasizing the flavoring of all the ingredients which included beef tenderloin, caramelized onions, grilled corn, roasted peppers, guacamole, and queso fresco. The grilled corn was interesting as that’s not a super common taco ingredient but it wasn’t obtrusive. I must say that while the beef was extremely well prepared , I am not a “chunk” guy, which was the way the meat was presented in the taco, opting more for a long cut, preferably the exact length of the tortilla if I’m making them myself.

This was the first time I had been to a Tacodeli and I am proud to say that I will be back again to sample more of their offerings. Don’t let the restaurant’s north location in a strip mall off the highway in fool you into thinking there isn’t good Mexican food to be had here, but order in Spanish if you can…just to keep ‘em honest .

More Tacogasm Tour coverage »

“Of course I do..” – Dr. Emmet Brown , Back to the Future

My brother and I have been trying for a quite a while to get a garage apartment built behind the house and we just completed a major step which was pulling the permit from the city. It was like pulling teeth. The city had enacted the “McMansion” ordinance which is very strict on size limitations within city limits among other things and we were the first applicants to apply for a residential permit under the full ordinance. What’s interesting about the whole permit thing is that its very subjective, its how people FEEL about one thing or another, mixing that with numbers and multiple trips to the permit office makes for an emotional reaction at the whole process itself. Think Jack Nicholson in “The Shining” emotional.

So take a gander at the floorplan.

My brother has been the lead on this project and when someone tells him he can’t do something , well that’s exactly what he does. GG Phil! Beer Pong will be played, hot rod engines will fire up, and good times will be had within this structure soon.

Recently Texas Monthly magazine published an article entitled “The 63 Tacos You Must Eat Before You Die“. Our group of friends decided we would go to each of the places in Austin that were cited in the article and try the tacos that were written up. There were about 8 restaurants in Austin and we started the “Tacogasm Tour 2007″ last night at Matt’s El Rancho (now called “The Famous El Rancho..I guess Matt was ousted).
El Rancho was written up for its Smoked Brisket Tacos. I ordered 2 and Linda ordered the Tacos Al Pastor, which were sautéed pork and pineapple. The basis for our tour was either to agree or disagree with the article and rate the tacos on a 1-10 scale. For the Smoked Brisket Tacos I gave them a 7. The flavor was good with not a whole lot of “smokiness” but meat was a little dry. I know its possible to smoke meat and still have some moisture in it. Interestingly enough the Tacos Al Pastor were very good, better than the tacos in the article.

My buddy also has a post about this. Please leave a comment and let us know where YOUR favorite tacos are, in Austin or not! Stay tuned for more posts from the tour…

Happy New Year Everyone! Christmas time was awesome which I spent down in South Texas at my folks house. We hung out with aunts, uncles, cousins, brother and sister. Along with eating awesome cooking by all members of my family, shot black powder pistols and launched fireworks comparable to light anti-aircraft fire into the Resaca. We went to eat in Mexico and even sat at a favorite beach bar down on South Padre Island. We talked about how the rest of the country was covered in snow (especially Colorado and surrounding areas) and laughed as we sipped margaritas in 80-degree weather.

I received very nice gifts for Christmas from many of my family members including many items from the Want List. One interesting gift came in a box marked “Major Award” with “FRAGILE” (pronounced “FRA-GEE-LEIGH” – Italian) penned across the top. This turned out to be an exact replica of the infamous Leg Lamp from the movie “A Christmas Story”. The lamp now resides in my office window, and when turned on, can be seen for several miles on a clear night.

So I have to confess I am now the proud owner of a 2006 Ducati Monster 620. I bought this amazing piece of fine Italian machinery just before Thanksgiving and have been enjoying it since. I have a few friends with bikes now and am looking forward to meeting a lot of cool people in my adventures on it. Check out some shots over in the Gallery.

My sister has been living down in the bahamas for about a year now, working for a private fishing club called “Deep Water Cay Club” (pronounced “key”). My family has been planning a trip down there to visit and do some fishing. Our voyage started off with my and my brother leaving Austin on a very windy day and flying to Orlando and then connecting to Ft. Lauderdale. There we met my folks and my grandma and Aunt. We met my sister that night and ate some chinese food. My sister had purchased a very large TV set and needed to transport it back to her home.

The next morning we went down to the port and boarded a Discovery Cruise lines ship for its daily run to Freeport on the Grand Bahama island. We worked with porters, customs agents, and various other people to get the TV on the ship. This was a fun boat ride as the ship had a casino , full buffet, and other fun things to do around on the ship. Everybody won a little money at blackjack and even grandma hit a 100 dollar slot.

When we got to Freeport we passed through customs and a taxi was there to drive us across the island to the “East End”. We wound up putting the TV on the Taxi vans roof and strapping it down. The ride was kind of long as the driver was doing about 40 the whole way (and on the left side English style!). I later learned that the driver had taken an unusual route and my sister was mad at the situation.

When we arrived at the water taxi area we saw a bunch of people standing around a running ambulance. Apparently they had locked the keys in the thing while someone was in there. There was much rejoicing when they finally jimmied the door open.

We loaded all of our luggage (including the TV) onto the water ferry that was to go over the small key, and my sister had arranged for her boyfriend who manages the bait and tackle shop for the club to take me and my brother trolling on the reef. The seas were 6-8 and i got pretty soaked but we pulled in some nice groupers.

When we pulled into the docks i was ready to clean fish but this proved unnecessary as this place takes care of everything for you including any fish that you caught. My sister met us in a golf cart and drove us around the living area of the island and to a beach-house where we would be staying.

That evening we went to lodge which served as the dinning room, bar, rec area, and had a few drinks at the bar and looked at all the fishing pictures. There is a Bahamian beer called “Kalick” which is very good. Deep Water Cay is known for its Bonefish, and pictures of past guests and catches were displayed all around. We were asked to fill out a ticket which asked what kind of sandwiches and snacks we wanted for the next days fishing trip. We had choices of deli meats, cheeses, and others including the “Bonefish Special” which was egg salad and bacon on homemade bread. Also available were chips, candy bars, jugs of tea or lemonade, and of course beers. We ate a fantastic dinner and called it a day.

The next morning we woke up and made our way back to the lodge. There a breakfast buffet had been set out with a nice good morning note. We ate egg sufflet i think and then made our way back down to the docks. There, a cooler with all the items we had selected the night before, was waiting for us.

We met our guide “Wendy” who was this dude with a heavy Bahamian accent and had been guiding for 25+ years and set out on our bonefishing trip. The weather was weird that day due to an approaching front and through no fault of Wendy’s I only caught one bonefish even though we could see plenty of them. Sadly, as my brother tried to take a picture of me with the fish it jumped out of my hands and out of the boat. Ridiculousness. My brother got a few bites but could never hook up except to Lemon shark who was hanging around. Although the weather may have played a part in our fishing , we were provided with spinner reels with only a hook and shrimp on the end. Casting these in high wind proved difficult and this type of fishing may have been beyond my skill level, but i aim to improve and fare better next time.

We met up at the lodge again that night and drank with some new arrivals from Alabama including a regular named “Mac” who was fun to listen tell stories. Appetizers were provided during “cocktail hour” which were so good if you didn’t watch it, you wouldn’t have enough room for dinner. Dinners we ate there included steak and lobster, shrimp and fish kabobs, and other awesome foods. Everything that could be made there was, and anything bought or flown in was the best.

After dinner we made our way back down to the docks and through our lines the crystal clear water lit up by the pier lights. we caught jackfish, perch, and snappers right off the dock which was fun. Headed back to the beachouse and called it a day.

For the next 3 days everyday had this awesome routine. Wake up, eat awesome breakfast, do some type of awesome fishing, including offshore one time in which we reeled in barracuda, grouper, spanish mackerel, and (almost) wahoo, lunch on sandwiches, more fishing, cocktail hour, awesome dinner, play a game called “ring toss” which is just trying to loop a brass ring on a hook on a wall, and then fishing on the pier at night (including fishing for sharks!).

Some highlights include one day my brother and i took out a small kayak into the channel that separated the key form the mainland and reeled a couple of perch. I heard the staff and our family were watching us out there wondering if we would tip it over reeling in fish or not. I saw my stepdad on a beach cruiser bicycle with a beer in his hand just cruising around the island. We relaxed at the clubs “infinity” pool and watched my sister, her boyfriend, and my brother whack golf balls into the bay as an unbelievable sunset happened. We also watched football games on the new TV set at my sisters home including the Ohio State – Michigan game which was cool because my step dad went to OSU and they had their red and grey on for the game.
Some lowlights included my grandma taking a tumble down some rocks and scraping her leg up, but she was alright.

The whole time we were there the staff was courteous and friendly. My sister is a good manager and it was kind of cool to see her do her thing when she wasn’t hanging out with us. We got to pick out fishing shirts and other stuff form the tackle shop and all in all what an awesome place to be. I hadn’t ridden in a car for about a week and hadn’t heard a commercial of any kind in as long.

Our trip back was just a reverse of how we got there except sans large TV set. The taxi stopped off at the Port Lucaya Marina & Marketplace where vendors sold there stuff in an open air market. After buying souvenirs for friends and family we boarded the cruise ship back to Ft. Lauderdale. We didn’t fair so good at the casino this time but had dinner at the buffet and enjoyed a music and comedy routine at the ships lounge. We docked in Ft. Lauderdale and made our way back to the same hotel we had stayed at before.

The next day we said goodbye to my grandma and aunt and my stepdad took them to the airport. He retuned with a rental car and we spent the day touring around Ft. Lauderdale’s more exclusive area, ogling the large homes, fancy cars, and ridiculously large boats. We ate lunch on a seaside drive at a nice restaurant and then relied on my brother to take us to the “points of interest” on the rental cars map. (we found a lighthouse and some beach communities but missed “butterfly encounter”). Heading back to the airport we discovered that we had the same flight back to Houston so we got to hang out the the folks a little more.

So we had a blast the whole time we were away including the traveling parts. Deep Water Cay is an awesome place with friendly people and i am looking forward to visiting again. Mabey next time we’ll take a charter flight right form Ft. Lauderdale and land right on the island’s runway celebrity style.

Enjoy the pictures in the gallery, I am waiting on some more that my aunt took that I’ll add in there and Ill keep you guys posted.

I was able to go “An Event Apart” – Austin which was a one day conference for web people dealing with design , CSS, usability and accessibility. It was awesome to hangout with some of the folks who I follow along with closely in my profession.
Speakers included Jeffery Zeldman, Eric Meyer, Molly Holzschlag, and Jason Santamaria. The Event was help at the Alamo Drafthouse downtown so I was drinking beer the whole time speakers were talking. After the conference there was an after party at this new place called “The Belmont” which had a very “Rat Pack” feel to it. It was very nice and was cool to be able to hangout with the speakers and bounce ideas off of them. Be sure to check out Jeffery Zeldman’s Flicker pool for a few shots of the action (and of me ).

Got in the Halloween spirit this year and hit up the Goodwill for my “Evil Nurse with SARS” costume which consisted of used surgical scrubs and various items from the sanitary isle at Walgreens. Linda got ahold of a used brides wedding gown, borrowed all of my cowboy gear and became “Bandito Bride” Phil and his buddies had just about everyone from the Addams family, mabey next year we’ll help them finish off the cast. We hit up Casino El Camino for which was technically just straight Boodle’s in a glass, and then paraded downtown with the other freaks. After a while we jetted and met my brother and his buddies at the Crown and Anchor. We walked down to a place called “Sao Paulo’s” and had a frozen margarita. Hung out for a bit and cruised it out of there. Enjoy the pics in the gallery and a Vid of “Gomez Addams” gettin’ down in the Video section.

I was told i made it on the news that night , if I can find the vid ill let you guys know.

“OU Weekend” turned out great as we decided to throw down with one of the more complicated recipies in out BBQ Bible. These ribs included a pineapple juice-jalenpeno marinade, a rub that had several different spices including brown sugar, honey, thyme, ginger, a little garlic, and other things. A custom BBQ sauce was made by Phillip to go along with them. When i cooked these i decided not to turn them but set them bone-side down and let the meat on top sort of “bake” inside the grill. These things were very good. We will probably do this one again despite the prep-work involved. Pina Coladas, Rum mixers and other fun tropical drinks were served up.

The ensuing party was pretty fun, after the game and the destruction of OU (YouTube link) we headed out and went to a Karaoke bar. I think it was called Little Tokyo Karaoke on North Lamar. It was fun but the people running it tried to shake us down so we haggled with them and vowed not to go back there. We then went to a bar called Barfly’s that is located in the back of a Burger-Tex restaurant in our neighborhood. As seedy as it was I will probably go back there due to location and prices.

Due to the nature of the ribs and drinks that were served, clean up of the house was interesting because everything was sort of stuck together. We found rib bones under the sofa and other strange places. Over all a great weekend and good food.

I’ll get some pics and vids up in the galleries soon. I’ll alert you subscribed people to it.

-Ed

Slept in a little late on checkout day.  Ran downstairs and grabbed coffee. Ran back upstairs and began packing it up. We were able to check out of the hotel but leave our luggage with the bell staff at the front. After signing for it we headed back toward The MGM Grand. There we ate the Rainforest Cafe and watched the fish in their large tanks.  After lunch we headed toward New york, New York.  We spent quite a bit of time playing advanced levels of video poker including one in which you could play five hands at a time and intermix the cards. I played roulette some and came back a few times with a 20 or a 50. These were exchanged into ten dollar bills and fed into the Video Poker machine. After a while i wanted to play a new form of “Video Roulette”. The dealer asked me for my ID and promptly rejected it because it was expired.  We headed over to the security desk and even with multiple forms of ID including a Social Security Card i was rejected and was asked to leave the Casino area. (This is still being lived down by me, thanks) We headed up to ESPN Zone to watch the Astros and the Cardinals in their respective games. We needed the Astros to win and the Cardinals to lose for a shot at the pennant. Upon ordering a Shiner Bock at the bar a guy sitting next to us with his friends was like “Are y’all from Texas!?” We were like “Yeah , Austin.” He was like “We’re all from Dallas! Yee-Haw! Pow Pow!”  (pointing fingers in air like guns ala Yosemite Sam). We hung out with the Dallas crowd and all agreed that they should walk Albert Puljos and that if they did not , he would make them pay…which he did.  The Astros lost and the Cardinals won.

We left ESPN Zone and got some ice cream at a small shop in NY,NY. Then we headed over to the Tropicana where a rare form of Video Poker was discovered. One that had a little high-card mini game that appeared whenever the money count was low. Linda did extremely well at this and won 3 out of the 4 times that I saw it happen.  We left the Tropicana and made our way back to the Bellagio.  We still had a little bit of time before we needed to start thinking about getting to the airport so more video poker was played. We ended the gambling on a winning hand and grabbed our luggage and a cab. The driver took us to the airport (which turned out to be the correct airport even though i had been hearing stories of 2 airports in Las Vegas and was worried we were a the wrong one) and we caught an express flight to Austin.  I actually slept on the flight which i never do and it was nice.

We got back in Austin at about 3:15am , caught a shuttle to the parking area and headed back to town. We went to the Magnolia Cafe and had some late night comfort food. I was sad I wasn’t going to be getting coffee at the Bellagio’s coffee shop in the morning on the way to the pool.  We had been in Las Vegas for so long that we had started referring to our room at the Bellagio as “home”, but I was glad to be back at my real home.

Be sure to check out the pictures and videos from our trip in the Gallery and Video pages