C'mon, don't you want to move to Austin??

Hey there. Sorry about the long absence. My old high school friend Andrea came to visit me over the weekend. Fun times were had.

Friday: Her flight from San Jose was supposed to get in at 6pm but ended up being delayed two hours due to bad weather on the east coast playing havoc with the schedule. But, when I picked her up, she was hungry so we went to dinner at Chuy's which was my original plan anyways. We got there around 10pm and still had to wait about 15 minutes. It was yummy, as usual.

Saturday: Got up around 9, ate our leftover Chuy's for breakfast and headed out to the Capitol building. I had never been because I knew Andrea would visit sooner or later and since she's an architect I figured she'd get a kick out of it. We got there around 10 and found awesome street parking right in front. Andrea is my good parking angel. We first went to the visitor center and got some cool free maps of Austin and Texas. Then we went to the Capitol and took the free tour. It's really pretty inside and the TX star is everywhere. I guess we're lucky that a star is easily integrated into decoration. In the House of Reps and the Senate they even had these huge chandeliers that had TEXAS spelled out in lights. Yeah, it was kinda tacky. While we were there a junior high boy's choir group were singing songs under the dome. That was pretty. The acoustics made it really resonate through the building.

Traditional arm-length shot. This came out pretty good. Good angle for the dome.




uh, yeah. Texas pride!


After the Capitol we drove down to Nathan's house. Nathan drove us all (Tony too) to the Salt Lick in Driftwood (one of the must-see barbeque joints). I hadn't been there in a couple years since it's so far from me. But, since Nathan is already so far south, it was only about 20 minutes away. At first they said it was a 45 minute wait, but our beeper went off after 10. woo hoo! The barbeque was better than I remember. The pork ribs were awesome. I think they're known for their turkey. Brisket was ok, but I like Rudy's more. Very good lunch.

After we got our car at Nathan's we drove back to downtown and walked around. Andrea wanted to see the Frost Building and the City Hall which are really cool buildings. We went back to my place to check on movie times cause I wanted to take her to the Alamo. She wanted to see Music and Lyrics By. Unfortunately even though we got there 15 minutes early for the 7pm showing it had sold out. Ghost Rider (my backup) was sold out too. We ended up going to the Regal Gateway which is my favorite regular theater. We were still a bit full from barbeque so we got a large popcorn and shared it. We saw Music and Lyrics By with Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore. Definitely a chick flick. It was cute. and damn...Hugh Grant has been working out! There was a shirtless scene and the man was lookin good!


Austin City Hall. I heard it was designed to be as energy efficient as possible. It was my favorite building before I even knew it was City Hall.



Frost Tower. I think that's the old Driskell Hotel below it.




We went back to my place and fooled around with my music for awhile and then headed to 6th street. We got there around midnight and the place was packed. My usual parking lot at 7th and Trinity was full, so I was all set to wander around downtown looking for an open lot when a car in front of us on the street pulls out! We got free street parking at midnight on a Saturday night! Parking angel strikes again! We walked around 6th street for a bit and even though it was 45 degrees, most of the girls were dressed like hoochies. We weren't really there to 'party' so we dressed for the weather. We ended up at Bourbon Rocks listening to a great cover band (with a female singer) that was playing 90s alternative - Collective Soul, Alanis Morrisette, Foo Fighters, Toadies. They were really good so we stayed for awhile. We left around 1:15 cause I knew it would take awhile to drive back to my house and Matt was picking us up at 1o for shooting (more on that). When I got back to my wonderful street parking...someone had parked in front of me! It wasn't even a spot! I had a meter for my spot damnit! He just parked in front of me. Luckily I had left enough room behind me that my little Corolla could get out. I was so pissed off that some ass just wanted to save $6 in parking. It was a really dusty black SUV, so I wrote FUCKER in the dust on his back windshield. Heh. We got to bed around 2.

Sunday: Andrea hadn't been shooting in a long time, so I asked Matt if he'd take us out to the range (cause you know my lack of weapons vs Matt's plethora of fun stuff). He said he'd pick us up at 10 and we'd go to a range in Leander I hadn't been to before. Jayne's schedule got moved around so she was in town too. They all met at my house and Matt drove us in his Jeep. We got to the range around 11:30 and stayed for a couple hours. Andrea kicked ass with his .22 and I did a few clips of Matt's 9mm Glock as well as Jayne's Sig. I did a couple clips of the .45 too. Mostly I just reloaded clips for everyone. Matt has this really funky Glock reloader-cheater thing which makes reloading the clips kinda fun. We also shot the 'noisy cricket'....reference from Men in Black. Matt had this teeny tiny gun (called a 380?) and just had one clip of bullets for it. Jayne was excited to try it out...until she tried it out. I couldn't believe it could be that bad...but yeah it was. It's the kind of gun you'd imagine a woman strapping into her garter belt or something. It so oddly shaped, and when you pulled the trigger, you just kept going and going and going till you thought maybe it wasn't going to fire...then blam! Very odd. None of us liked it, but it was fun trying something new.


Andrea kickin ass on the 9mm



Heh. Matt had this huge-ass clip that held 30 bullets at a time. I asked him if it was legal and he just said 'this is texas'. They don't even have to REGISTER their guns here. Coming from CA that just blows my mind. Figuratively. So this is me with his short-grip 9mm and huge frickin clip.


Andrea and I didn't have a set schedule for Sunday so I asked if everyone wanted to go to lunch. On the way out to Leander Jayne had jokingly mentioned Blue Bonnet Cafe in Marble Falls. They're known for their pies. So, I threw that out as a suggestion. Jayne said no, it's too far out....but then we talked for a little bit more, realized none of us had any plans for that day whatsoever...and hey, pie sounded good. We drove about 45 minutes out to Marble Falls only to find out the place is closed on Sunday! Noooooo! We were already so far out, Jayne then suggested Cooper's Barbeque in Llano - about another 30 minutes. It's famous for their big pit o' meat where you point out what you want and the guy cuts it all in front of you. Cool! On the drive over we saw a bunch of cars pulled to the side of the road with people staring into the countryside. There was a tree about 50 yards from the fence with a bald eagle perched on a limb next to its nest and with a baby bald eagle inside. Matt had his binoculars in his gun bag, so we got a terrific closeup view. That was the highlight of the whole day. How often do you see bald eagles in the wild? Very cool. The barbeque was very yummy. The sauce was different from anything I'd had before...more vinegar based. I'll have to get out there again. According to Jayne (who goes there so much the workers knew her) people that live out in Georgetown or up north actually take little planes to Llano just for the barbeque. Yeah, I could see that. While at Coopers we saw a real cowboy! Well, he had on jeans, a cowboy hat, boots, and SPURS! We kept our eyes out for a truck with a gun rack, but no luck. When we left Coopers Matt's Jeep was the only non-truck vehicle in the parking lot. heh. There's LOTS of trucks out here.

Here's the map to give you an idea of my house to the shooting range to Blue Bonnet to Coopers. I'd never driven out in the Hill Country before. it was pretty- lots of cactuses (cacti?) and cool gnarly trees.


After barbeque we decided Andrea needed some gelato from this great place in Round Rock. Unfortunately when we got there it was closed too. We ended up at Amy's which was fine with me since that's a local Austin place too. Then we went to Mike & Annette's to watch Pirates of the Caribbean 2. Only Andrea and Jayne had seen it. Very disappointing. All it does is set up the third movie. It reminded me of the Matrix where the first movie was so awesome and everyone loved it. Then the second one comes out and you feel confused, betrayed, unsure of where the writers are going. But you still have faith because the first one was so good! Then the third movie comes out and you feel like the writers just crapped all over you. I really hope the third Pirates move redeems the franchise. Otherwise, it'll be just like the Matrix trilogy where you just want to forget about two and three (yes Melanie I know you love all of them. You are weird).

We got home around 10:30 but then messed around some more with my music until 2am.

Monday: Andrea's flight wasn't until 4:40pm. We went to Kirby Lane for breakfast...love their pancakes. We then went to Innerspace Caverns in Georgetown. I really love those caves. I went two years ago when Nathan first visited me and really liked them. Andrea got a couple of good pictures and the tour ended with plenty of time for me to drive her to the airport. Her flight ended up getting delayed again due to east coast weather. At least she had some leftover barbeque to tide her over.



Ok, did I forget anything?