The Pact

Last night, Rx and I made a pact... NO MORE TEX MEX!!!

Armadillo!!!

Lou and I went for a walk after midnight.. At first we saw only the usual Austin Fauna (deer, cockroaches, deer, skunk, deer, cat). Then right by our apartment, I saw something digging in a hedgerow. Louie and I investigated closer and it was an Armadillo! I have seen lots of armadillos in Texas, Oklahoma, and even southern Missouri, but this one was different, it was NOT road kill.... an actual live armadillo!! I didnt think they existed alive.

I ran back in for the camera... I didnt get a pic of the armadillo, but I got a nice video of Louie investigating it... If you know Lou, you know he is a wus, but he is no sissy! He went right after that armadillo (with only minor trepidation).

Puzzled...

Checkout these articles...

"White house puzzled by ex-spokesman Scott McClellen's book bashing Bush"

"Former press secretary's book bashes Bush"

I am also puzzled; I thought he was simply a neocon peon towing the party line. Apparently he has a conscience (a little too late I might add).

The current press secretary doesn't have to worry about that however... here's what she said...

"For those of us who fully supported him, before, during and after he was press secretary, we are puzzled. It is sad. This is not the Scott we knew"

Let me translate this for you. "We used to think that Scott was a member of our club (our elite club where we push forward our agenda and not the American people's agenda, grub for power and wealth, and lie, spin, lie when the feeble press ask about it). He has developed a conscience since he left and now that he is a citizen cannot stomach the blatant crap he fed us for years; he chose to write about it rather than be set for life in a cushy job we could easily set him up with. This behavior outrages us! You cant leave our club!!! We will say bad things about you and discredit you (even though 1 day before this book came out we would have given him a damn medal if he asked for it). Quick... sick Karl Rove on him on over at FOX news!! That'll teach him!!!"

Shiner trip

A while ago we took a little trip to the Shiner brewery in Shiner Tx. I just got around to blogging about it. It was a great trip. Lots of fun!

Shiner is about a 1.5 hour drive southeast (towards Houston). We seldom go in that direction. We usually head west to the hill country. 1 hour east of Austin is starkly different than 1 hour west of Austin. Here we saw lush green flat farmland (not that different from Wisconsin or MO). To the west, the desert/hill country begins. It is hilly, brown and desolate. We saw some real live Texas longhorns on the drive in. The beef sighting made us hungry so we decided to stop in Lockhart Tx (the capitol of Texas BBQ) for lunch. In Lockhart there are 4 world famous BBQ joints to chose from. Smitty's, Chisholm Trail, Black's (the oldest run family bbq in Tx), and Kreuz Barbeque (since 1900). There is some contention as to which is the best as you might imagine... We didnt know which to go to so we just flipped a coin and landed on Smitty's.

You walk in the backdoor at Smitty's, and it is like an oven. Right next to the ordering line is the wood fire spewing into the hallway. By shoving the wood in or pulling it out they adjust the temperature of the pits. They have one HUGE chopping block where all the meat is cut. The chopping block is basically dripping with meat juice. It is simultaneously mouthwatering and revolting.



We ordered brisket (of course). It is the true measure of how good a bbq place is. On top of that we got some beef ribs and sausage links. The brisket was good..maybe even exceptional, but not Coopers good... Coopers remains unsurpassed.

Here are our friends Mark and Kelly tackling some beef ribs. The Ribs were pretty awesome, probably the best I have had (with the caveat that we don't order them very often when brisket is available)
The sausage was as greasy as it gets... It was like eating Landjäger but only with more fat. For those unfamiliar with landjaeger, we used to see it occasionally in German settled Wisconsin towns; it is like beef jerky dripping with grease. That is the easiest way to describe it.



MMmmmmmm BBQ close up....

After that we took off to Shiner to visit the brewery (actually we had to stop at Walgreen's for some dental floss first).
Shiner is a very small town, the brewery basically runs the town, it is the biggest employer etc.

Here we are hanging out outside the gift shop waiting for the tour to begin. You get about 2 pints of free shiner when you visit. Whoo hoo!!

The gift shop/beer garden was great! We had a lot of fun while waiting. Roxanne was embarrassed as I couldn't keep my hands off this pretty little number...

Here is cowgirl Roxanne getting ready to mosey on over to the brew house for a tour. .......

They don't allow pictures inside the brewery (for some reason we couldn't discern, its not like beer making is an industry secret or anything) The inside was a lot like the Capitol Brewery in Wisconsin they had huge copper kettles where they did all their fermentation. They also had bottling at the facility. We got to see the bottling process. It was neat.

After the tour we stopped at Howard's which is a gas station/convenience store/beer garden in Shiner. They have $1.75 pints and a neat area out back to sit, chat and drink. You have to question the logic of a serving cheap draft beer at a gas station, but this is Texas. Thankfully Kelly served as our DD. On the way home we stopped for a game of pool at a dance/pool hall in Mustang Ridge (Yes that is the actual name of the town). We had to stop as we could tell it was recently a shed/garage that looked something like this. Texas ingenuity had converted it into a pool hall/dance hall . . . .awesome.

Reviews

Its Memorial day and I am at work... Rx is on her 3rd 12 hr shift in as many days, I am basically working because I have nothing better to do... Again, I have a lot of free time to internet around. I found this awesome infomercial review. I have actually seen this infomercial before and thought it quite odd. These guys do a good job of lambasting it.

Speaking of reviews... I wanted to post this review of Swanson's Hungry Man All-Day Breakfast. When I first read it I almost cried laughing... I reread it again today and had the same experience... This is one of the funniest things I have read on the internet period.

Happy Memorial day!

bored

We are both working this weekend (Rx more than me). I am bored at work. I have to sort a billion or so bacteria with a laser, and it takes a long time. I cant really go far from the FACS machine while it is running, so I am entertaining myself via the series of tubes known as the internet. My desk is fortunately adjacent to the FACS machine so I can listen to music and web surf. On the left are 3 Tshirts from this site that I liked.

Last night we got to grill out for the first time in 9 months... We used the apartment complex grill and made veggies, ribeye steaks and pork ribs. We didn't realize how much we missed grilling. If I had a house I think I would grill every night.

Here is a good article I found. Evidently the president has the authority to "send the military into any U.S. neighborhood, capture a citizen and hold him in prison without charge, indefinitely." That seems reasonable.

steaks!

We went out to dinner at a well known Austin steakhouse: Austin Land and Cattle. Thanks to my parents and father-in-law for financially backing this birthday feast. We both had Filet Mignons (they were a little smaller than the steak below) and they were awesome!!
Since we cannot grill on out apartment porch, we haven't had a good steak since Madison. This definitely did the trick! Finally an Austin dining experience worth writing home about!

It finally happened...

The public is finally acknowledging that metros are awesome. I am totally vindicated. I own a 98 metro... The blue book value on it 3 years ago was 600 dollars, this guy just bought his 96 metro for $7300! Whoo! After all those years of ridicule, I am a vindicated!! I may die on the way home during a fender bender with a SUV, but for right now the day is mine!!!

I like this quote from the article: "Gas prices are definitely driving increased popularity in the Metro, which at times wasn't cool"

Thanks Captain Obvious, Gas prices.... really? I thought it was the sleek engineering and beauty of the metro, or maybe the luxurious spaciousness or the 0 to 60 in 25 seconds acceleration.

Billboard

Big brother Dave came into town for my birthday yesterday. We had a lot of fun. After doing our respective 3 hours or so of work on Thursday we came home in the afternoon and bought 2 moderate sized beers and enjoyed them on our porch before Roxanne had to head off to work for the night. We then headed downtown for some BBQ action at the Iron works. I had never been there before, it was no Coopers alas, but it was a pretty respectable birthday bbq meal. After that we headed to 6th street and stopped at a few of my favorite bars before returning home for a night of Flight of the Conchords.
The next day, we headed down to Barton Creek Greenbelt for some hiking and swimming (for Louie).
Dave got to enjoy his favorite leisure activity: Looking at rocks. Here is Roxanne in front of a particularly beautiful tree grove.


Louie enjoyed swimming as you can see from the video, although as usual he swallowed some water, and You can hear him loudly exhaling to try to get rid of it.


After that we dropped Louie off and headed down to the campus area for some food. We went to Trudy's for tex-mex (tex mex is hard to avoid around Austin). I had a brisket Taco, Dave had Talapia Tacos, and Roxanne got a smoked chicken chimmie.

Here is just a candid picture of Roxanne I took while we were eating at Trudy's. Nothing unusual about this picture at all... I just enjoy taking pictures at lunchtime.. what?

No trip to Austin is complete without a trip to the Texas Memorial Museum. We especially enjoyed the gift shop. Dave bought this frog that squirts water. I got some gecko flashlights for my niece and nephew. Lastly, David picked up this awesome poster!!
We had a great time, thanks for coming!!!!!!!

one more pic from the trip

Russ REALLY loves Philly cheese steaks....

A trip to Phila-balti-delphia-more

Almost a month after our much heralded west coast trip, we decided we needed to go visit friends on the east coast as well.


On Thursday,we shipped off to Baltimore to visit my old college buddies Josh and Brian

Here is me with Brian (reluctantly wearing the Texas visor I got him), Josh (fully embracing the visor) and Josh's fiancee Tina (supporting visor usage by both of them)Brian and Josh both had an assortment of home brew beers for us to drink. Brian impressively brought a keg of homemade Guinness which tasted unbelievable! Josh also had a good home brew of his own although his bottling methods were a little less orthodox. Here is the nalgene brew and the "prison wine" brew. These were just okay, but the ones that made it into the bottles were great.


After home brews at Josh's apartment, we set out for a Baltimore adventure. At the Lexington Market, Roxanne and I had easily the best oysters we have ever had in our lives! These were utterly unbelievable! Below you can see Roxanne tackling a big one!






Next we walked to Baltimore harbor. On the way there we walked by Camden yard. Below we are standing next to Cal Ripkin Jr.'s gravestone.


Here is Brian and I on the harbor. THe USS constellation is behind us.
Here is a view from the top of Federal Hill overlooking the harbor leading to the Chesapeake... As you can see someone else was also enjoying the view that day. He was evidently so moved he took his shirt off.
We proceeded to a pub on Federal Hill for dinner, I had a Maryland Burger (a regular burger with crab piled high). We then proceeded to a bar downtown and partied it up with the locals. At the bar, Josh warned me about the local beer "Natty Bo", but I had to taste one for myself. I can honestly say it was the worst beer I have ever tasted period, and I am no stranger to bad beer (as you will see later).In the morning I caught josh playing Wii with himself using both controllers for a 2 man tennis game.
After some delightful afternoon sushi featuring more Maryland softshell blue crab, Russ picked Rx and I up and took us to Philly. Here is the skyline coming in to town.
Russ tolerated the visor pretty well, but we already knew from his previous visit to Tx. That he is okay with sporting Texas apparel.
We went to a great Greek restaurant that night and then met up with some of R & R's friends at a trendy Philly bar.

After the night out Russ and Roxanne play some paper rock scissors, It looks like Russ got her this time, I am sure it comes from all the practice.
Rachel (aka Gizmo) looks on at the two amateurs... The next day we went to fulfill a craving that had been gnawing at us both for weeks: Philly Cheese Steaks. We got ours at Geno's probably the most famous cheese steak vendor on the south side. I got a provolone cheese steak. Roxanne got a lot of street credit for ordering hers just like the natives "wit wiz" (translation: with onions, with cheeze whiz). As you can see, there was quite a line. After that we toured the Mutter Museum! An awesome hours of medical oddities, bones, fetuses, and other body parts. They dont allow pictures inside, this link shows some of the stuff inside though.

We then hit some beautiful chocolate delicacies at a local coffee shop
Here is everyone enjoying the Schuykill River view.Later on, Brian and Josh met back up with us in Philly after dropping Tina off at the airport. We all headed down to a Jamacian place for Jerked chicken etc. Brian had the Oxtail stew, it was surprisingly delicious!

After dinner we headed to Bob and Barbara's a well known, quite eclectic Philly bar featuring Jazz flute, and PBR everything... Lets just say this... we drank a lot of PBRs. For some reason, we kept stacking them up higher and higher, it was a lot of fun. I felt like a kid with Lego's (a drunk kid). Gang signs were flying... Fun was had...Russ surprisingly got this to balance for a minute or two...






Check out this pair of Diana Ross impersonators we saw...






After Bob and Barbara's we retired to a Belgian bar and enjoyed some Trappists brews. We saw off our friends Josh and Brian that night as they had to get back to their respective dogs...



On Sunday we did more fun touristy stuff like getting our picture taken at the famous LOVE statue...

At the Art museum, I pulled a Rocky and ran up the stairs in triumph!!




We saw about 10 other people do the same thing in about a 2 minute span of time. I love how the stairs to the art museum is a bigger attraction than the actual art museum. We then headed down to ye ole liberty bell. Rachel pointed out that the brochures are quick to tell you that it is a gap and not a crack in the bell... it started out as a crack though...

Here are the ladies at Independence Hall... This is the bell tower where the liberty bell used to hang. The first continental congress was held in this building, the Declaration of Independence was signed here, the first supreme court, senate, congress, were all here... The constitution was also ratified here!
Below is a copy of the articles of confederation... We didnt get to look and see what is on the back, but I have a hunch, some national treasure lies there...
Here is the room where the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were signed! So much History.. our patriotism was deeply stirred.
We left on Monday morning. We weren't eager to come back. We felt very urban, walking everywhere, and living in the big city for a while...We knew we were in Texas when an 8 foot tall pick up truck zoomed by us.... oh well...

For all the pictures, just click on the link off to the right!