Monday Oct 27, 2008
Last night we went to a "meet the farmer" and potluck event at
the community supported agriculture (CSA) farm we joined for the
fall harvest season. The farm is Hands of the Earth, not too
far from the Austin airport. Our boys were impressed by the
planes going by overhead. Having grown up near the
Minneapolis-St. Paul airport, I can tell them it's not always so
much fun.
The farm is pretty small, probably around 10 acres, and I think
they said about 4 were cultivated. We had a tour from a long
time member and after dinner another tour from Marisol, the
farmer. She was obviously really into it, and most excited by
the carrots that were growing in about 5 rows at one end of the
farm. Nice to see the person growing your food getting really
into it.
The potluck was interesting and fun, as they usually are. My
wife Karen brought some chili she made that day using beef from
our grass-fed beef (cattle?) CSA. She got some compliments, and
I agreed, it was quite good. There were lots of other good
dishes, a great blueberry pie, wine, beer, etc.
Karen thought we were a bit out of place with this crowd, which
mostly seemed younger and more urban. Some had kids, but many
couples did not, or didn't bring any kids. But really, the
thing that brought us there was a love of good vegetables,
right?
There were also lots of dogs at this event, and Nick and Sam
loved it! They particularly liked this male gigantic lab
cross. He was the biggest lab I'd ever seen, more the size of a
heavy Great Dane. Funny thing, his mother was also there, and
she was a lab-sized black lab or lab cross. There were lots of
other dogs, and they were all pretty well behaved, which was
nice. There was a little terrier that was zipping around the
fields having a great time!
This is our second time with a CSA. We joined a CSA in the
spring, and while it started out okay, that farm didn't
communicate very well. After the season was over, we signed up
for another half share, and didn't get any of it, despite
repeated attempts at communicating with that farm. We're hoping
this goes better, and I have a pretty good feeling about it
after this potluck.
We start getting our vegetables on Wednesday at the Triangle
farmer's market in Austin. Since Sun is at least part of the
way there, I'll be picking up the veggies. I'm looking forward
to it.
Friday Aug 08, 2008
Last night we hit the brand new Freebirds on Burnet Road that
opened yesterday, then headed down to Zilker Park for the Zilker
Hillside Theater production of Disney's Beauty and the
Beast. After a slow drive into the park, which I think
was caused by the slow process of every car stopping to pay, we
finally parked, grabbed our blankets and cooler, and headed to
the hill in front of the stage. Once we got there, we
discovered that the hill was pretty packed already, but we found
a decent spot near the top of the hill to the right of the stage
and set up.
We had about an hour or so to wait, so the boys ran off to run
up and down the hill, climb a tree, and use the port-a-potties.
Karen and I sat on the blankets and waited for the show to
start. While we waited, things got more and more crowded around
us. Some folks parked in front of us and filled up an air
mattress, which put them a bit higher than us, but Karen and I
could see over them and through the gaps, and the boys could
still see well on the right side.
The people who moved in behind us, on the other hand, were a bit
of a problem, at least at first. They bumped into us, and I
felt very crowded. Eventually they backed off a bit, we moved
forward a bit, and that all worked out.
While we were waiting for the show to start at dusk, I got a
program, and was looking at the actor bios and pictures, and
noticed a familiar name. Our neighbor Ben, the son of Nick's
second grade teacher, was in the show as Chip! We had no idea
Ben was in the show, it was a nice surprise. And he played his
part well.
As for the actual show, it seemed to be pretty well done. The
female lead, Belle, was well cast, and she had an excellent
voice that was easily understandable. I'm sure part of that was
her, and part the songs and lyrics.
My only criticism is that I thought the first half was a bit
long and dragged a bit. The second half was a bit shorter and
faster paced. The only glitch I recall in the show was Gaston's
wireless face microphone broke at one point, so he grabbed a
hand wireless microphone and used that, which I thought was
pretty quick thinking of him or the directors (or both).
After the show, we went down to the stage to say hello to Ben,
then headed back to our car. It took us 10-15 minutes to get
out of the park. I noticed most people were heading west
towards Mopac, so I headed east and hit Barton Springs Road and
then headed west, and that got us to Mopac much more
quickly than if we had stayed on the park road. We got home at
midnight, so it was kind of a late night, but I think we enjoyed
it and thought it was worth it, even if Sam almost fell asleep
on the blanket. :)
Thursday May 08, 2008
May is Bike Month, and here in the Austin area Bike to Work Day
is Friday, May 16. I've only ridden my bike to work once so far
this spring, and intend to ride on May 16, possibly another time
before then too.
One of the activities this year is
Tree to Tree: The Parmer Commutes. This ride starts in
Cedar Park and heads down Parmer Lane and beyond to the
Arboretum area in northwest Austin. It just so happens that I
commute on part of this route, so I intend to join this group at
Lakeline and Parmer at 7:10 and ride down to Music City Cycles
and then beyond to Sun. The ride map shows the group going
along Riata Park Circle, right next to Apple and a short
distance from Sun.
If you live up north in Cedar Park or Round Rock somewhere near
Parmer and work somewhere towards northwest Austin, consider
joining the ride.
Tuesday Jan 22, 2008
My son Sam's Tiger Cub Scout den decided to take advantage of a
deal offered by UT (University of Texas) to get basketball
tickets for $6 per seat for the UT vs. Colorado men's basketball
game on Saturday 2007-01-19. We arrived a little bit late due
to slow restaurant service, and UT was already a ways behind and
it wasn't looking too good. At the half, UT was behind around
ten points, and we weren't too hopeful that they would win.
Coach Barnes must have lit a fire under his players during half
time, as they came out blazing in the second half and fairly
quickly caught up. The Horns were up close to ten points for a
while, but towards the end of the game they started to slip a
bit and Colorado was catching up. The Longhorns hung on to win
by two points. Quite an exciting game, particularly the second
half.
I'd never seen a basketball game in an arena, and I figured we'd
have nosebleed seats and wouldn't be able to see well. But I
realized when we got there that no one really had a bad seat,
and the view was pretty good.
We'll probably go again, particularly if we get a good deal on
tickets like this time. There's another opportunity coming up
for Cub Scouts to see the women's basketball team vs. Texas A
& M for $5 per seat next month.
Monday Jul 02, 2007
I took off from work a couple of hours early on Friday, as I'd
had it for the week. In my wanderings around north Austin, I
came upon Performance Bike and remembered I'd been meaning to
visit, so I stopped in. I looked around the whole store and
then came back to the pedal section.
I've been riding with some pedals I bought for my old mountain
bike years ago, with toe clips. This has been good, but I've
been wanting to try the so-called "clipless" pedals. Really
this means pedals with space for cleats, along with cleats on
your cycling shoes. Problem is, the bike I ride is pretty much
the only bike I ride, both for longer rides for
training and transportation, and for riding to school with my
kids. I really didn't want to add cleated pedals to my bike and
be forced to ride with cycling shoes. I found what I think is a
good solution for me: The Forte
Campus pedal. It has the space for a cleat on one side of
the pedal and nothing on the other side. This allows the best
of both worlds.
To install the pedals I had to go buy a pedal wrench to get the
old pedals off, and some grease for installation, as called for
by the brief manual that came with the pedals. After
installing, I added cleats to my cycling shoes. Then I tried it
out on my block, worked pretty well once I got used to getting
my feet in and out. Sam and I took a short ride in the
neighborhood, and I was feeling pretty comfortable. On Sunday,
I went for my third ACA ride, Pfinally Pflugerville, riding the
24 mile option. The pedals worked great, and seemed to help
with leg fatigue, as I really felt good after riding 24 miles.
So far I'm pleased with my new pedals, and it was nice to find
something really useful on my first stop at a new bike shop.
I'm not so thrilled that Performance Bike is a national chain,
as I'd rather spend my money at local bike shops, so I'm not
sure how often I'll go back there. But so far I'm a satisfied
customer.
Monday Jun 04, 2007
On Sunday I rode my first Austin Cycling
Association group ride, the Cedar Park Fever. The
newsletter said there was a choice of a 15 mile ride, but when I
got there I was told it was only 13. Additionally, I drove the
route on Saturday afternoon, based on a ride map from the ACA
web site, and it certainly felt like less than 15, though I
didn't time it.
Before the ride, the ride leader/organizer talked about all the
places on the routes that might be an issue. The route I was
going to take had a low water crossing with 6 to 8 inches of
water over it, so the folks leading my route decided to skip
that. So I actually cut off and turned about, and it turned out
to be only 12.5 miles. On one of the longer routes, there was
talk about water at about 24 inches over a low water crossing,
so an alternate route was offered.
Only bad thing about the experience was I was the only person
doing the 13 mile ride, so I rode back to the start point
alone. Not a big problem, but not as fun either.
I've been looking at the ACA rides page
for future rides I might like. I think the Tour de Austin on
the 17th looks good (according to the map, it's 21 miles) but
I'm not thrilled by the 1 p.m. start time. There's also the
Inside Austin ride on the 24th at 8 a.m., which looks similar
but has a different starting and ending point. And finally,
Pfinally Pflugerville on July 1.
Thursday May 17, 2007
This is Bike to Work Week and Friday 18 May is Bike to Work Day
here in the Austin area. As an added incentive, there will be
breakfast available for bicycle commuters at various
locations around town from 7 a.m. to 10 a.m. I'm planning
to bike to work on Friday and stop at Buck's Bikes on Jollyville
just north of Oak Knoll.
I hope to continue to bike to work at least once a week for the
next several weeks, but I may have to bag it if the weather is
too hot in the late afternoon when I'd be commuting home. We
typically have temperatures around 95° F. in the afternoon in
Austin in the summer, so that makes the risk of heat stroke a
bit high. In the past when I've ridden home from work on hot
days, I've been okay until about one or two miles from home, at
which point I felt quite ill. So, I've got to watch that. It's
one thing to stay healthy by riding my bike to work, but getting
heat stroke when riding home from work negates the benefits, I
think.
Friday Mar 09, 2007
Sun's Austin campus has a small pond at one end, and it's a nice
break to walk over there and observe the fish, birds and other
wildlife (fellow Sun employee Chris tells me he's seen some
monster frogs there as well). The fish have voracious appetites
and are fun to watch when you throw food into the water.
A few minutes ago I walked over to the pond and back. In
addition to the fish and the usual infestation of grackles that
are common to the Austin area, I heard a bird song familiar to
me but not familiar to the area. It was the song of red winged
blackbirds, which I used to see and hear a lot when I lived in
Minnesota and upstate New York. I'm sure they're unusual here
because we don't have a lot of water features like they do in
Minnesota (the land of 10,000 lakes) and upstate New York. It
sure was nice to hear their songs again.
I wonder if the local mockingbirds, of which we have plenty,
copy the songs of the red winged blackbirds. It wouldn't
surprise me at all.
Thursday Jan 11, 2007
My wife Karen and I had lunch yesterday at Alborz Persian
Cuisine. I've been dining at Alborz for a few years now,
and I really enjoy it. Persian cuisine is interesting, a bit
like Middle Eastern/Mediterranean and a bit like Indian food.
Alborz has a buffet for lunch and the buffet usually has several
types of rice, tabouli, salads, and lots of stew-type dishes.
At any rate, good as usual. There are other interesting
restaurants, food places and an interesting drum shop in the
area:
Monday Jan 08, 2007
Here in the Austin area, in addition to birds
falling out of the sky downtown, we are having the intrigue
of a race of speaker of the Texas House of Representatives. The
current speaker, Republican Tom Craddick, has been speaker for
four years, and many in the opposition, and some in the
majority, do not like his leadership style. A couple of other
Republicans and a Democrat entered the race to unseat him, and
it has now narrowed down to a race of Craddick and Jim Pitts,
with each claiming victory. The legislature opens tomorrow, and
it may be interesting to see what happens in this contest.
There are no rules for electing the speaker, and current debate
in the paper is whether the newly sworn in representatives will
elect to have a secret ballot or an open one. The problem with
an open ballot is retribution if you vote for the loser. The
problem with a secret ballot is that the public doesn't know for
whom their representatives voted.
Wednesday Jan 03, 2007
I haven't blogged about running for a while, maybe because it's
just taken up a routine part of my life, not an all consuming
passion like it is when I'm doing marathon training. I'm just
training for a half marathon this winter, and I have to say I
like running fewer miles and not devoting so much time,
particularly on weekends, to running.
Since I decided not to do a marathon this winter, that knocked
me out of even starting the Austin Distance
Challenge right away. So I've only felt compelled to run
one race, the IBM
Uptown Classic 10K back in early October. I contemplated
others, but due to conflicts or just not being interested, I
haven't done any.
I was originally training for the AT&T Austin
Half Marathon on February 18, 2007, but due to yet another
Cub Scout conflict, I'm going to run the 3M Half Marathon on
January 28. I wanted to run both, but I made a vow not to let
my running get in the way of Cub Scouts or family activities
this winter, and have done well with it.
Finally, I was happy to see fellow runner and Sun blogger Scott has taken up
running again. Keep it up Scott!
Wednesday Jan 03, 2007
Yesterday evening I had a hill workout in the La Frontera area, so
after that I paid a visit to Wingstop in La Frontera
(okay, I know, after a workout I should eat healthy :)). I
tried 5 atomic hot wings and 5 original hot wings. I started
with one of the atomic wings, and that was certainly a shock!
If I do this again I'll work my way up by starting with an
original hot. Anyway, after a while my senses got used to the
heat and I was able to finish. I also had veggie sticks with
bleu cheese dressing and fries. Wingstop's fries are a bit
unusual, in that they have sugar on them! All in all, pretty
good, once I got beyond the shock of the first atomic wing.
One of these days I'll even remember to order some bourbon baked
beans, which certainly smell good, but I always forget to order
them.
Sunday Dec 24, 2006
On Thursday 21 December 2006 we visited the annual Zilker Trail of
Lights in Austin. We've gone at least 3 years in a row now,
maybe more. This year we brought along Nick's friend Jack.
Jack's sister Caroline broke her leg in a trampoline accident so
it was difficult for Jack's family to attend, so we offered to
take Jack with us. All went well, but adding one boy to our two
boys seemed to increase the volume by 100%! I'm sure you
parents and teachers can understand that!
We got to the trail about 6:10, which was a little worrying
since it wasn't supposed to open until 7. We were able to park
very close to the yule log and tree of lights, which was really
nice. Parking cost $8, but parking at the state parking ramps
near the Capitol and taking the shuttle bus would have cost
$11. We checked out the big yule log near the tree of lights and
then went under the tree of lights and spun around, an Austin
tradition if there ever was one. Karen bought a funnel cake,
and between the five of us it disappeared in about 60 seconds
:). We headed towards the entrance of the trail of lights
across Barton Springs Road, and waited in a long line.
Fortunately, the powers that be opened the trail at 6:30 rather
than 7, but while we were waiting we contemplated why they had
set the start time to 7, and decided it had to do with getting
all the volunteers in place.
We oohed and ahed at the cool light displays. One of the most
impressive to Karen and me was the large live oak tree done up
by RunTex, with lights all the way out the limbs and to the
top. Well done.
We picked up another funnel cake and continued on. At the
entertainment area we checked out another big yule log and
bought tickets to ride the Zilker Zephyr, then waited for the
train. We often ride the train when we visit Zilker Park, but
it usually starts by Barton Springs Pool and goes out to the
turnaround not far from the Mopac bridge. In this case, we were
riding from the turnaround spot back to the pool and back
again. It was nice that we were able to go through the tunnel
near the pool, as it had been closed for repairs for quite some
time. The tunnel was decorated with Christmas lights, and you
could see the murals on the walls of the tunnel quite well.
After the train ride, we continued on through the rest of the
trail and headed back to the car. Getting out of the area was a
bit difficult, and also showed us that it was good to get to the
trail early! Traffic heading south on Mopac and to the 2243
exit was backed up for at least a mile, and traffic headed north
from Barton Skyway was backed up also. We had wanted to go to
EZs on 2243, but discovered it was closed or gone. We had to
head south on Mopac and ended up down on 360 to turn around and
head back north. We did go to EZ's on Lamar across from Central
Market. It was good as usual, but I think the kids were getting
a bit too tired to eat. We headed home, and all the kids slept
in their sleeping bags at home. All in all, an enjoyable
evening.
Thursday Dec 21, 2006
One of the Indian grocery
stores here in Austin opened a restaurant Curry in
Hurry several weeks ago, and I've been going there most
every week since. You get one of the three curries of the day,
dal, bread and rice for $4.99 plus tax. Every is made before
the restaurant opens at 11, so if you really are in a hurry,
it's pretty quick.
Today I arrived around 1 p.m. and there were a couple of guys
ahead of me getting a large order to go, and then a large group
of about 8 guys came in behind me. I thought 1 p.m. would be
quiet, but perhaps it being near the holidays is causing people
to change their schedules, as kids are out of school and that
ripples into the lives of parents.
From today's menu I chose
paneer kadhai, chana dal and roti. Very good, expect the dal
was really quite hot and I burned my tongue.
So if you're somewhere near Parmer and Mopac, in the mood for
curry and in a hurry, check it out.
