2008 – The Year That Barack-ed!

Yes, it is several weeks late.  And yes, I did not post my annual letter to Santa.  But just stow any negative thoughts and revel in the 2008 recap…  or just sit there dreamily thinking about the Jonas Brothers.

Moments to remember: Getting my current job in May, Fredericksburg with the wife and boy on July 4th, the final move to the kick-ass house, getting Bodie (the best dog EVER) from the shelter, hanging out with JP (especially backstage at the Bodeans show at SXSW), the most unbelievable scallops ever at McCormick and Schmick’s (not to mention the crab tater tots!), buying “Champ” (our Jeep), garage sale Saturday mornings with the wife, seeing the bats at sunset for the first time, the “man room” in the garage that is like the Phonebooth II, a weekend here in Round Rock with cousin Hollie, some dude named Obama, and getting back in the habit of reading about 3-4 books a week.  Visits from old friends Ray and Mark around the holidays, though sadly not at the same time.

Moments to forget: The binge.  The slow, painful death of my laptop and all of its music, just waiting to be salvaged.  Hurricane Ike and the craziness at work that ensued.  Rats – giant maneating effers – at the previous address.  The brush with circus clowns that Coleton and I had in Wimberley onJuly 4.  (I’m surprised we made it out alive and unscarred.)  Palin-mania.  Ugh.

Music and sporting events: Our first Round Rock Express game, as Tommy Hunter put on a show.  The aforementioned BoDeans concert at SXSW.  Getting into the Airborne Toxic Event.

Things to look forward to in ‘09: Lots more music, like the Morrissey show I mention in the last entry and another show I will mention in the next.  Kayaking again, and maybe even buying our own canoe.  Hiking at Inks Lake.  A real vacation for a change.  Continued opportunities at work.  The Boy’s sister (The Girl?) moving here after graduation.  More visits from friends.  Finally finishing the front room so we can entertain at home.  A road trip to Houston to see the opening of Land of the Lost with family.

One word to sum up ‘08? Rationality.  (Ok, I used the dictionary game to choose a word because “Austintatious” seemed kind of cheesy.)

Fancy another?

Low Polo Blow

I am not threatened by homosexuals.

There.  I’ve said it.

I also do not overtly seek out the gays and befriend them, but there are times in my life that make such occasions hard to avoid, especially since I am married to a woman who finds “them” particularly entertaining.  This past week presented a prime example.

As we were speaking with her new “BFF” KC (she later accidentally referred to him as her “BFFF” which garnered a very tasteless butt fuck joke from me), he was regaling us with stories of the places he had worked in the past.  A large portion of this job history focused on his time at the Ralph Lauren store in the Domain in Austin.

He said that he spent $800 on clothes for this job because employees were encouraged (i.e. required) to wear the Ralph Lauren brand while at work.  However, he also said that he could never really pull of the look.  “It isn’t made for people like me,” he said.  “I got fired because they said I wasn’t Ralph Lauren material.”

I could bite my tongue no longer…  I had to jump in before the joke suffered a painful, left-in-the-throat demise.

“So you were a little too Lauren, not enough Ralph?”

(Insert rim shot here.)

For the record, KC’s boyfriend laughed his ass off at my joke.

Then KC picked it up and fucked it.

Cheesy? Yup. Creepy? A Little. Home? Of course.

The thing they leave out is that the ice cream truck in our neighborhood plays King Missile’s “The Boy Who Ate Lasagna and Could Jump Over a Church”. But they also scoop out Haagan Dazs, so it kind of evens out.

A Day Late, A JPEG Short

Screw it.

I was going to have pictures on here to complete my Snakes On A Passport story, but I am so out of practice on this whole “blogging with images” thing… So I guess you are just going to have to follow some embedded links.

This is a link to a picture of a venomous diamondback rattlesnake.

And this is a link to a picture of a non-venomous diamond backed water snake.

I am guessing that I ran over the latter of the two, but try telling that to the kid next door as he loses a limb.

It ain’t easy.

And, yes, I am back to blogging again. Welcome to the Man Room (AKA the garage).

Snakes On A Passport

(Yes, I must give credit to Dawn for the title.  Read on.)

It had been a long day.  The requisite hours at work and multiple errands, followed by a leisurely drive through our neighborhood right at dusk.

At the end of our street, we saw moms walking with their kids and people walking their dogs.  Normalcy.  And that is why I questioned what it was I saw in the road – or thought I saw in the road.

While I was turning the car around, Dawn looked at me with a question mark over her head.

“I think I saw a snake”, I explained.  I did not got into any further detail for fear of looking like an idiot when our headlights illuminated a large twig or a rope.

But, sure as shit, when I pulled over next to the pond 50 yards from our house, there was a snake in the road.  It was not moving, so I assumed it was dead.  But I was also looking at it from about 8 feet away in dusk, so I turned the Passport around again to shine it with the headlights.

And then it started moving.

All five feet of it.

Since our neighborhood has all sorts of end-of-the-day foot traffic from the fitness minded, my first instinct was to run over it.  Then Dawn said, “Run it over!”  So I did.  The tires yelped “ka-thunk”, PETA planned a protest, and backyard ministers winced.  But I was just looking out for the neighbors and their pets, so even my eco-friendly mind was nonplussed.  However, I wanted to make sure the job got done so I quickly turned around…

… and saw nothing.

Not even a hint that the five foot long behemoth had even been there.

And that is when Dawn turned to me and asked – ok, told – me to roll up my window.  Suddenly, life lessons from her childhood were reinforcing themselves into her mind.  Namely, how her dad had always told her to NEVER run over a snake because it will strike the vehicle and latch on for dear life.  It was then that I knew I was driving around a lethal weapon in my undercarriage, and I am not talking about Taco Bell flatulence.

She told me it was some sort of diamondback.  Hell, I saw the skin markings myself, but I also saw no rattle on the end.  So for all I know it could have been Randy Johnson.  Or Doug Davis.  (I was praying for Doug Davis.)

Visions of forked tongues through air conditioning vents and scaly creatures roaming the floor boards filled my head – not mention creeping the shit out of me.  What were we going to do?  We felt trapped in our own Honda, afraid to exit for fear of bites.  Irrational as it may seem now, it was the gospel then.

So I did the only thing that I could think of at the time.  I drove down another street in our neighborhood that two of my co-workers live on.  Why?  I don’t know.  Maybe I thought either of them might see a lifeless body hanging from underneath the car (hissing the words “I know what you did last summer”).  Or perhaps they could run interference for us, amusing the death-grip snake while Dawn and I ran our happy asses home.  “Hey, look, snake!  Free cats!”

But, alas, neither of them were outside so it was time to formulate Plan B.

Plan B turned out to be running our car through the automated carwash (using the cycle with undercarriage wash) and hoping that the snake would either sink its lifeless body into the drainage area (best case scenario) or slink away laughingly due to all the suds and water.

Neither of those happened, but the Passport looks freaking awesome!

It was kind of scary when the car was covered in foam, making a peek through the windows impossible, and the blowers of the wash turned on giving the entire scene a cheap, B-movie horror flick feel, complete with cheesy soundtrack…

By then, I had exhausted all our options.  We had to get home, no question.

After parking in the driveway (there was NO WAY that I was pulling this transporter of death into the garage), I talked Dawn into exiting first.  My thought process was that I could make it to help quicker since I was behind the wheel, while she would have to climb over my poison-stricken body, kicking me to the side while “Every Rose Has Its Thorns” played in her head, should something wicked happen to me.

But once we were safely inside, I returned to the car with a flashlight.  I figured that if anything happened, I could always play cop and ask the snake for its license and insurance.  However, after sweeping the underside of the Passport with the beam, I determined that there was no danger present.  I then told the little kid from next door that he could get out from under the car – and give me back my flashlight.

Look for a follow-up to this entry Thursday night…

In Your Garage

It didn’t take long after we moved into the house to realize that we live in Garage Sale Central. Every weekend we see signs in our neighborhood haphazardly taped onto street signs promoting, well, crap. Or treasures. It depends on how you look at things.

So it has become a ritual of ours to browse on every Saturday morning. After all, there is no shortage of driveways to invade.

In the past few weeks we have garnered the following: an armoire entertainment center ($47), the coolest coffee table EVER ($40), some hardback books (25 cents each), some TV trays (five bucks), and a kick-ass backpack for hiking ($10 – and well worth it). We also got some lawn tools because, as someone once said, you ain’t lived until you’ve bought a hoe ($1).

And every time we are garage hopping, I am reminded of a great bit by stand-up comic Jake Johannsen…

There is always this old woman standing there, with her can of Diet 7-Up equipped with a bendy straw, looking at something marked 25 cents while saying, “I wouldn’t pay more than a dime for that.” To which Jake replies, “Lady – it’s a freaking quarter.”

So here are some garage sale-related quick hits:

• Enough with the computer monitors, already. I swear that every single garage sale has at least one bulky monitor for sale, and most have several. Perhaps it is because we are so close to Dell headquarters…
• Pricing is so subjective. We stopped at one sale because Dawn saw a ceramic pink flamingo – about a foot tall – that she thought would look kitschy in our backyard. The price on it? Twelve-fucking-fifty. So she bought a cast iron kettle for a buck instead. Go figure.
• A lot of people use garage sales to meet people, especially the transplants (like us). Sad. Whatever happened to bars?
• Most of the books at these sales are books that I have already read. John Grisham, “Sex For (Or With) Dummies”, etc.
• One woman was hosting her sale for charity. Now that’s the spirit. (And thanks for inadvertantly making me feel guilty for not buying anything. Bitch.)

And now, if you have an hour to kill, watch this video aptly titled “This’ll Take About An Hour” to see the stand-up brilliance of Jake Johannsen. Ranks right up there with Stephen Wright, Dmitiri Martin, and the late Mitch Hedberg. Indulge me.

An Obligatory Music Entry

I’ve pissed a lot of people off during the last week so now I’ve decided to put some final nails in the proverbial coffin by writing about, of all things, music.

I used to avoid this topic because many readers just don’t give a shit. However, I have now reached a point where I don’t care about the folks that stop by here just to see if I’m in jail yet. (The answer? YES. And the internet connection here is the shiznit.)

I have, at best estimate, three readers who actually care about my music opinions: Devin, Ed, and Cliff. This entry is for you guys because I made two mix CDs titled “Life In Austin”. Thirty-three songs that encapsulate life here in the hill country. Some are songs that I heard for the first time after the move, some are songs that I hear regularily on the greatness that is KGSR. The rest are songs that just remind me of Austin for whatever odd reason.

If you want any of the following songs emailed to you, you know how to reach me.

1. Everyday (The Bodeans)
2. Killing The Blues (Robert Plant and Allison Krauss)
3. Please Read The Letter (Robert Plant and Allison Krauss)
4. Snake Farm (Ray Wylie Hubbard)
5. (Nothing But) Flowers (Talking Heads)
6. Gone Gone Gone (Done moved On) (Robert Plant and Allison Krauss)
7. I’m Losing You (John Lennon on vocals, Cheap Trick rocking the instruments)
8. Read My Mind (The Killers)
9. Across The Universe (Robyn Hitchcock and Grant Lee Phillips covering the Beatles)
10. Chasing Cars (Snow Patrol)
11. Diablo Rojo (Rodrigo y Gabriella)
12. Everybody Knows (Ryan Adams)
13. New Shoes (Paolo Nutini)
14. Hot Blood (Lucinda Williams)
15. In Spite Of Ourselves (John Prine w/ Lucinda Williams)
16. Bedspring Kiss (Jellyfish)
17. The Way I Am (Ingrid Michaelson)
18. Girls In Their Summer Clothes (Bruce Springsteen)
19. I Will Follow You Into The Dark (Deathcab For Cutie)
20. 9 Crimes (Damien Rice)
21. Gotta Serve Somebody (Bob Dylan)
22. Back To Black (Amy Winehouse)
23. It’s Alright (Big Head Todd and the Monsters)
24. Hey There Delilah (Plain White T’s)
25. Don’t You Evah (Spoon)
26. Jenny Don’t Be (Hasty (Paolo Nutini)
27. Shut Your Eyes (Snow Patrol)
28. Big Machine (Velvet Revolver)
29. All These Things That I Have Done (The Killers)
30. Smile Like You Mean It (The Killers)
31. Fadeaway (The BoDeans)
32. Life During Wartime (Talking Heads)
33. Road To Nowhere (Talking Heads)

Top that playlist. I triple dog dare you.

Happy 75th!

It’s a good day… Today is the 75th anniversary of the end of prohibition in these United States of America. Celebrate accordingly.

(Could marijuana be far behind? There is talk of legalizing it in Austin. More reasons for the friends to visit.)

In other news:

• There are eight large trees in the backyard and Dawn and I took full advantage of the mid-80s temperatures and the shade afforded by said trees by grilling out on both days of the weekend. What a life.

• The baseball season is only a week old and I feel the writing bug hitting me. It might be time to start a “baseball only” blog since the paying gig is long since gone.
• Has anyone watched “Leave It To Beaver” lately? We like to watch the 4am showing on TVLand. That show’s humor stands the test of time, not to mention giving Dawn and I new catch phrases. (My fave? “Quit giving me the business!”) And I miss the days in which “sock” stood for more than something to cover a foot.
• In regards to the above, it is still funny (although a bit juvenile) to hear a line like “I gave the Beaver a bath last night”.

Enjoy the holiday.

Oh, Yeah – The House

Click the pic below for a whopping 9 pictures of the new abode. Dawn wasn’t real crazy about me taking pics yet, especially because the rooms upstairs still need to be painted, but I have put this off long enough.

New House

Oh, Cutter, Where Art Thou?

We thought of a lot of things before moving to Austin (and now Round Rock). Electric provider, housing market, job market, scenery, “things to do”, and Hippie Hollow. However, it is always the little things – the simple things – that seem to blindside people after a move.

And, no, I am not talking about the fact that Keystone Light is sold by the case here as opposed to the DFW 30 pack.

I’m speaking of a freaking haircut.

We have lived here for five and a half months now and I have only had my hair cut twice. I had no idea that hair cuts would be such an issue here. Then again, I had a great situation with my “stylist” (yes, I call her that) in Burleson. She first cut my hair when I was 19 years old. I am twice that age now. You do whatever is remaining of the math. It shouldn’t be that difficult.

After all, I am nothing if not loyal. If you treat me well and I feel comfortable, then you can count on my business. For an example, Dawn and I have used the same movers in Austin four times: When we first got the apartment, when we needed the kick-ass couch delivered, when we moved to the house in Round Rock, and when we had the washer and dryer delivered. In fact, I have had so much interaction with that guy that we now consider ourselves friends. (He likes to make me the last stop of the day so we can drink a beer together.)

Enough about moving, though. Let’s talk about mop tops.

Dawn and The Boy both got their hair cut by a guy who just happened to be gay and they both swore by him. Now I am not homophobic at all, but I kind of have a thing when it comes to the cut – I am MUCH more comfortable with a female doing the snipping. However, I let Dawn talk me into trying this guy out (not in that way) and she scheduled an appointment for me. I showed up about five minutes early and ended up sitting there for 30 minutes while he kept taking other clients. Enough was enough. As shaggy as I was, I was not that desperate. Taking walk-ins over an appointment? Needless to say, I walked out.

So then I tried a local Sports Clips. Underwhelmed would be a good word for that experience, if that word could be multiplied by 10.

That led to several months of trying to manage a bad haircut. Then, in mid-February, Dawn and I made a trip back to our old stomping grounds. While there, she called my old stylist, begging for her to squeeze me in so I would quit complaining. Although she was booked solid, she promised to call if anyone cancelled.

Alas, no call. It was back to Austin with my shitty look. And, like the title of this entry implies, I felt like I was on a dead-end journey while being tempted by sirens of all sorts in regards to a haircut. What is that music I hear? Plasma TVs showing college basketball games that I could care less about? A disinterested stylist? A dude who disregards scheduled appointments? Oh, so tempting!

But then we moved into our Round Rock house and I noted that a quarter of a mile away was a place called Guy Trendz. They specialize in haircuts for men, so I decided to give them a shot.

Blessed be those that, um, do whatever… because this was the coolest place ever.

The one bad thing is that the cuts take a little longer because the girls are very precise. But that is only bad when you are waiting. When you are actually in the chair it is appreciated. Finally, though I was the only one waiting, I got called.

The woman cutting my hair was very good – thorough and precise, as I mentioned before. But the coolest thing, the thing that sets this place apart from all others, was when the other girl finished with her client and then asked me if I wanted a beer. I thought she was joking.

“Are you serious?”

It turns out that she was. Apparently, they keep a mini keg of Heineken in the back room for the guys that like the lager. The next thing I know, I am being served that German greatness in a plastic cup. They also promised to remember me the next time I am there and will have a drink waiting for me. Suddenly I was contemplating weekly haircuts. After all, Heineken is expensive (and best served luke-warm, to be honest).

Now the free beer was all well and good, but the bottom line is that I was very happy with the cut. I will definitely be back, and not just for the suds. Plus, my new stylist gave me a free bottle of their own brand of shaving cream. Evidently it comes with every “deluxe” cut. I’m not sure how much I will use it because I do have a beard now. (The one on my face, not a chick to make me look non-gay.)

Carry out the plan of the day.