Commuting Sentence

I drive 16 miles to and from work, and while the majority of the trip is on the MoPac Expressway, it often takes me almost 45 minutes to get to work and 45 minutes to an hour and 15 minutes to get home. Some folks in Austin have taken to referring to MoPac as MoPark. Clever.

MoPac, on a Sunday morning, I imagine.

I'd use the bus if I didn't have to transfer twice and have it take an hour and 40 minutes. A MetroRail project is underway. I'd use that too, but it won't expand to our neighborhood anytime soon.

So for now, unless we move to another part of town or I change jobs (which may well happen if the wrong person reads my last post), I'm stuck on MoPark.

On the bright side, there's one good thing about being stuck in traffic: You're not alone.

Ramblings from the last day of November

So I work in a 7-story building with about 500 other people. Most of us are in cubes. The people in the cubes want a cube with a window. The people in the cubes with a window want an office. The people in the offices want a bigger office. The people in the bigger offices want a corner office. The people in the corner offices want to retire.

I wear a badge which I sometimes leave at home. When I do that, I have to sign in at the front desk, because somebody needs a record of the people who forget their badges. There's been an armed security guard in the lobby the last two days because someone in the building had been threatened by somebody outside the building... somebody without a badge. Today, I left my badge in yesterday's pants.

My cube is full of tabloid-sized printouts of pages from the Student and Teacher's editions of my company's Elements of Literature textbook program. They call these printouts digitals because printouts doesn't sound jargon-y enough. In fact, my spell check doesn't even recognize digitals as a word.

I use a Dell at work. It's great for spreadsheets, word documents and email. I get a lot of emails. People like to send emails. Emails cover your @$$. If you want that corner office, you have to cover your @$$. My spell check recognizes @$$ as a word.

I don't use my home computer much lately other than to pay bills and check more emails. Tonight I'm finally using it to blog. So there.

The Fans' responses have been overwhelming! Your calls have been heard! And we shall post again!

HERS: Is October almost over, ALREADY?? What the?!?

Our New Autumn's Resolution is to try to post at least once a week.
Just one lousy post--how hard could that be, right??
Today's Fall-ish weather (it's about effing time, Texas) has re-invigorated me.

In the news, the DiSabantonio's have greeted a new baby girl named Anna Isabella--pictures, hopefully, forthcoming.
And now that we have officially vacationed just about all we can this year, the Holidays fast approach.
(Really? Seriously??)
The above pic is from the Furlong Family Vacation in Indian Shores, Florida--halfway between Clearwater, to the North, and St. Pete, to the South, on the Western Florida coast.
Check out that gorgeous sunset!

The Quest for Fire-y Chiles

Chuy's Hatch Green Chile Festival is almost here...
...complete with a Primitive Man advertising campaign.

The Bat at the Grove

So the little Honda from East Tennessee has a new nickname:
The Black Bat.
Fitting for a little black car that now resides near the home of the world's largest urban bat colony, no?
Here she is just hanging out at Shady Grove.
I had a Hippie Sandwich and a cup of Airstream Chili.
Jamye had a Turkey Sandwich and a cup of Green Chile Chicken Soup.
I assume that the Bat had a few bugs.

Nuts

So laden with pecans is our little tree next to the driveway that not one but two branches took a tumble last week.
These are exciting times here in Austin.

Adios, Red Ryder

October 26, 2002 – July 20, 2007
38,430 miles – 115,319 miles
Nashville, Tennessee – Austin, Texas

She was a good car. We'll miss her.

Did we mention...

that our friends, Chelle and Christian, were in town from California for a long weekend in June.

We ate, drank and were merry. Here are C&C making merry with us at the Hula Hut on Lake Austin.

For those of you who may not be aware of some of the current hair stylings for telecommunication experts who occasionally moonlight as drummers in Los Angeles, Christian is sporting a what is commonly referred to as a fauxhawk. The fauxhawk, while generally rare in Texas and Tennessee, can be spotted from time to time in Austin.

Old Crow Medicine Shows

For the second time this year, Jamye and I got to see Old Crow Medicine Show in concert. Ironically enough, we never caught these boys from Nashville before we moved to Austin.

This time they're in town to play a couple of warm up shows at The Parish on 6th Street before they tape an episode of Austin City Limits tomorrow night. The picture above was taken by yours truly at last night's performance. Click on the photo for a special video of David Rawlings and Gillian Welch and OCMS performing a classic rock hit from 1968.

And keep your eyes peeled for OCMS on ACL. Time and date TBD. 'K?

Is anyone else watching Battlestar Galactica???

Frakkin' A!
This is the best show on television!

Oscar Update, 8:43pm

Ok, I've already dozed off twice.
Even though I really, really enjoyed Will Ferrell, Jack Black, and John C. Reilly...and that dance troupe is pretty cool, I do believe that this is the most boring. Oscars. EVER.

Didn't they used to sprinkle the technical and Shorts, etc. throughout the evening?
I mean, it's a quarter till 9 and we've only seen one major category: Best Supporting Actor. And upset Eddie Murphy, Alan Arkin did.

Oscar Update, 7:23pm

What the??
Granted. For the past 5 years--busy with an actual PARTY--I guess I haven't noticed what a waste of 30 minutes this opening part to the Oscars is.
WHY ON EARTH do they have a huge yellow signature board for nominees?
This isn't a wedding where the guests get to sign the engagement anouncement photo so that the wedding couple can fondly recall who attended.
I mean, WE ALREADY KNOW who's showing up, right??

But, I must say, Cate Blanchett and Helen Mirren actually GLOW.

It's the 79th Annual Academy Awards and [what would be] our 6th Annual Oscar Party!!

And you're invited!
Gonna be there??

Jono's declared an ass-trouncing again this year, as I have only beaten him once--in 2003, our 2nd Annual Oscar Party/Tracy and Jody's wedding shower at the Blue Moon (a moment of silence...). And speaking of Blue Moon; Jono wore his Blue Moon closing-night-tee last night to La Zona Rosa to see Old Crow Medicine Show.
A concert which, indeed, trounced ass.

We'll see you tonight!

When Austin Freezes Over

Austin Can Hold its Water

Note the level of Shoal Creek behind Chelle and Jamye in the picture above. They're standing outside Shoal Creek Saloon, one of our favorite watering holes. The picture below was published in the Sunday morning edition of the Austin American Statesman. That's the Shoal Creek Saloon in the background... and Shoal Creek in the foreground. Yeah, it rained a lot on Saturday.

Introducing Loryn Elise O'Neal

The O'Neal family's latest addition arrived the day after Christmas. That's her big sister, Morgan, above holding her the day she got to come home. Below is big sis bonding with Loryn in the hospital.

I look forward to making a trek to Tennessee to see my newly expanded family soon.

2006 Year End Review--In Brief

Well, just after we left off in mid-September with the ACL Fest (which still rocks, by the way!), my parents made a spontaneous trip to Austin to--yes, ladies and gents--purchase a Corvette.

My parents, who live 40 minutes away from the Corvette Capital of the World, flew 2 hours to Austin, Texas to prove they are the Baby Boomers With Expendable Income of legend. Yes, it took a low-mileage, very reasonably priced, C5 Torch Red with Oak Top and Interior Corvette Convertible to get my parents on a plane and into Texas, but we did it by gawd! And we couldn't have been prouder of them--for hopping the plane, for jumping in with both feet, and for doing something for themselves, finally, after 30 years! Congrats, you deserve it!

Shortly thereafter, Jon Michael came for a visit and he and Jono had a wonderful, football-indulged, catch-up weekend. They even got to go see the Longhorns beat up on Baylor. AND we had the opportunity to see the Old 97's play at Stubb's (which is by far--so far--our favorite music joint in Austin). And let's see, that will make for my 4th time seeing them and the guys, well that's like...5th, 6th? Something like that.


THEN, a couple of weeks later, we trekked back to Stubb's with Tracy and Matt to see Broken Social Scene just before heading to the airport to pick up the Crowe's from beautiful Southern California. When they got here--and after I had picked my jaw up off of the floor at the news that they were expecting--we had a great time hosting them around town, eating well, and drinking near-beer over card games at the dining room table. (Did Jono abscond with those photos?) We love you guys! Congratulations!!!

Then the Holidays came flying at us and shortly after Thanksgiving, Kate and young Jackson Standish came for a weekend visit. Oh, we had fun--not only did we eat well and lounge around, but we got Kate hooked on Battlestar Galactica.
Hoorah!

What a face!

Finally Christmas came, as did a new niece in Memphis (photos forthcoming) and Jono's parents for a little R&R. For Jono's mother's 60th birthday, we celebrated at Fonda San Miguel, and basically ate our way across Austin. Queso shall be near-forbidden in 2007...

And with that, we also resolve to not wait so long to post such fun events!
Thanks to all of our family and friends for making 2006 such a great year--here's to 2007!!

Drats!

Tonight's trip to Amy's Ice Creams – where they have the guess-the-movie-quote and win-a-free-Crush'n-for-your-ice-cream-game – was a bust. (Except for the ice cream, of course. Mmmmmm Mexican Vanilla!) You see, Jono's been a victor in this realm before, and tonight, I felt I had it.

"I've sold my soul to a bunch of Swatchdogs and Diet Coke heads," was the quote.

Heathers? I asked our server.
"Hold on," as she ran back to the back to check with (I assume) a manger.
"Nope, sorry."

DRATS.

Au contraire mon frere:
a) it IS from the movie Heathers. AND:
b) the full quote is actually:
"Betty Finn was a true friend and I sold her out for a bunch of Swatchdogs and Diet Cokeheads." You can check out the script here.

SOMEBODY owes me a free Nutter Butter Crush'n!

(Thank you, Internets!)