Dallas/Austin

A Disturbing Ad for Coal

Every Town has a Majestic

The Grassy Knoll

Willie's Bio Diesel

What long limbs they have

The Groom's Side

Either Weezer stole theirs or they stole Weezer's

A Still Mullet in a Fast Paced World

Well... I managed to get all the photos loaded up onto flickr... But don't have the energy to write anything about them. I suppose it'll have to wait until tomorrow.
They're there on the right. I will say this: we had a great time. The wedding was a little awkward because the two sides were so different. Austin is a really cool town. We also got to see some good friends from Dallas that we hadn't seen in a long time. Work this morning was not exciting.
The first picture there on the right is of an ad that was in the DC metro on the way to the airport. The text reads: "An abundant American resource, coal provides more than half of America's electricity. It's reliable, affordable, increasingly clean. American energy for today and tomorrow.
American Needs Electricity From Coal" I suppose this message is directed more towards congressmen or policy makers and less towards me. I love how they push the "American" part of the message so much (four times in three sentences, nice!) I also like that coal is apparently "abundant" and for "tomorrow", but there's little mention of strip mining. Are those mountains "for tomorrow"? Is the toxic runoff from those sites "for tomorrow"? (see the article "Death of a Mountain" in Harper's April, 2005 issue for an interesting look at the coal industry).
The next picture down is of a theatre in Dallas. R pointed out that every town has a "Majestic" theatre, but this picture turned out pretty well, so I thought I'd throw it up.
Next up is the one and only Grassy Knoll. The book depository is now a museum and, if one is inclined, he/she can go to the sixth floor and stand exactly where the FBI/CIA/Mafia told Oswald to stand... I kid, I kid. But seriously, that Oliver Stone movie raises some very interesting questions about Joe Pesci's hair and shows off Costner's pre-The Postman acting abilities.
More tomorrow....

It's tomorrow, so heregoes

: We spent Thursday night in Dallas and went to Cafe Madrid for dinner and then out to get some ice cream. Cafe Madrid is an excellent tapas place that serves the genuine same stuff that one would get in Spain with the genuine same service that one would get in Spain. It was awesome.
The next day CA went to work and LS, R and I started our drive to Austin after stopping at the Cole Haan where LS works to pick up a belt for your truly, seeing as how I forgot one... Like an idiot.
The next picture down is the truck stop that we went to somewhere near Waco that sold bio diesel. Heck Yeah! I was so excited that someone is actually selling gas that's at least partly made from plants instead of dead dinosaurs. Perhaps this is a good juxtaposition with the coal ad from yesterday? Either way, it was pretty exciting. Granted, I've heard that bio-diesel isn't very cost effective as far as producing it is concerned (i.e. more energy is spent growing it, harvesting it and refining it than one can actually get from it.) I wonder, though, if the people who say this are taking into account that what's being changed into fuel is also being used as food... So the energy isn't all spent on making new energy, right?
Either way, this truck stop was filled the brim with ceiling fans... it was quite noticeable. All the same model of ceiling fan too, so we didn't get the impression that they were trying to sell them. The probability seemed higher that they were just really into ceiling fans... I wish I had a picture of that. R got some beef jerky, which I ate the majority of, and I'm pretty sure LS got some Funyuns, the spelling of which really tears me up inside for some reason.
After we got to Austin, we went to the Bride's house (did I mention this was all for a wedding?), had a some meat from the barbecue and then had LS drive us to our hotel. R had to go to a rehearsal dinner as she was a bridesmaid, so LS and I waited around until 5 and then went to the airport to pick up CA, who got a one way flight from Dallas down after work. His flight was only $39. Those are close to European prices... Uncanny.
The next picture is of the series of murals above the check-in counters at the Austin airport... The people have really long arms that look like they'd be useful for jumprope, bubble blowing and some of the exact same other activities that the characters were engaged in. LS and I got a cup of coffee while waiting for CA and weren't there more than 15 minutes before he showed up, thereby interrupting the awesome episode of Bassmaster challenge that was playing on the TV in cafe. Then the three of us went to their hotel, admired its filth ("Is that blood on the sheets?"), called a cab and went out to dinner to meet LS' cousin and his girlfriend.
We had dinner at a place called Guero's, which used to remind me of the new Beck album (did you know Beck was a member of the church of Scientology?) and now reminds me of a bland corn tortilla. Beef tips are good. Beef tips are less good when surrounded on all sides by a bland corn tortilla... I don't care if it's "hand made right there at the restaurant," it needs salt. I'm glad I went, though. The salsa was good, the beer was good and the atmosphere was good too.
After dinner, we went out to 6th street, which, as previously blogged, is like the Bourbon street of Austin. We met up with R and the rest of the wedding crew at a place called Jackalope and ended up going home around midnight.
The wedding wasn't until 7pm on Saturday, so I had plenty of time to get sunburned. R and I had breakfast with the rest of the Bridal party and then split up. She went off to go shopping at Target and to do hair and makeup. I called up CA and LS and we went out for lunch with LS' friend Misty. After lunch (where I almost ordered a Texas Frito Pie, but then listened to my heart/arteries and said, "No."), we called up LS' cousin and decided that we should all go "toobing". "Toobing" is really just "tubing". "Tubing" is floating down a river in a round rubber tube. It's awesome. You can bring beer. There's nothing like spending the afternoon floating around drinking beer and burning your chest to a crisp. I highly recommend it and wish that we could have done if for longer. LS' cousin, Chad, really seemed to wish that we could have gone on a longer ride (there are some that can last 6 hours), but it was all my fault and we didn't have enough time to do any other river except the local river. This gave me a chance to see a lot of the local color. I still wish we had had more time to float a longer river...
CA and LS drove me back to my hotel in downtown Austin, where I changed into my suit, called one of the other guests that was a semi-acquaintance who wasn't in the bridal party and had her pick me up to drive me to the Four Seasons. We stopped by the bride's room to drop something off (not my department on what it was) and then went to the bar for a quick Gin ant Tonic before the 17 minute ceremony.
The ceremony itself was extremely interesting. The bride's side (which we were on) was mostly tan, well-dressed, Puerto Rican people. The Groom's side was mostly pasty, jeans-clad, Texans. As you can see from the picture with the Groom's dad on the left, there's a guy in jeans in the middle and another fellow wearing a cowboy hat, short-sleeved plaid "dress" shirt and khakis. I'm not big on being a fashion snob and I'm not big on the idea of stuffy formal events such as marriage, funerals, etc., but I wouldn't put up with anyone showing up to my wedding dressed in a cowboy hat and plaid. There was another, much younger guy at the top of the stairs that the bride walked down who was dressed in slacks and a dress shirt, but the dress shirt was only buttoned midway up his chest and he was wearing sunglasses. Again, I'm no snob, but I wouldn't stand for that either. Were I to get married, it would either be a jeans/t-shirt backyard cookout type affair, or an "I'm uncomfortable in this suit, so everyone has to be uncomfortable in a suit" deal. My anger at this lack of dress code piqued when one of the guests at the reception was wearing shorts and sandals. Either way, the culture clash made for an interesting and oddly sad evening at times.
After the reception everyone was invited out to the bar where the bride and groom had met oh so many months ago (eight? six?). R and I only stayed for a beer or so and ended up back at the hotel around 2am.
The next morning, CA and LS picked us up around 10 and the four of us all drove back to Dallas. The last two pictures are pretty easy to sum up. One is taken as we were coming back into Dallas and is a picture of the sign for a WhatABurger fast-food joint. As CA pointed out, their "W" symbol is remarkably similar to the "W" symbol used by the formerly awesome band Weezer (now making songs that have rhymes like 5th grade songs about diarrhea), so I thought I'd take a picture.
The last one is of a poor soul that my camera happened upon in the Dallas airport as we were leaving. He had a very stretched out Led Zeppelin shirt, glasses, a "half mullet" with some hair that curled around his ears and plenty of other ridiculous stuff going for him... So I had to... You know... Get his picture. I thought it turned out well with all the people swirling around him and him just standing there.
It was a great trip. The wedding was a little weird and depressing, but seeing everyone was awesome and it was great to get out west and do a long drive that wasn't from DC to NY.
Alrighty, that's about all I've got. We arrived home to find that the kittens hadn't been as well cared for as we'd hoped (a full litter box and a lot of brown spots). Work on Monday and Tuesday was pure hell... Well, not that bad, we'll see what tomorrow delivers (I'm hoping it's 42 3" D Ring binders and 5 boxes of 3 Hole punched 8 1/2" X 11" paper or I'll never get my task finished on schedule! Hahahaha! Wait that's not funny, that's really lame...)