Happy Halloween

A full shot of my punk witch costume, which made its debut in Austin on Halloween.

The alternative was this aviator get up but when people weren't sure what it was, I decided the witch would be better.

About 10 of us met up at Shady Grove for dinner, then headed to West 6th St for drinks. Michelle and I hammed it up for the camera.

Here's Banana Man Mark with Nun Michelle. She was planning to be a monkey/chimp but changed costumes at the last minute.

Dan came as a Tour de France cyclist which was so appropriate given all his bicycle riding, building, and adventures.

Hamburglar Donny with Pirate Tanesha

I feel bad that I can't remember their names - they were friends of Tanesha's and very nice.

The complete look of an old-fashioned cyclist.

Rob and Donny loved the Oscar the Grouch costume. He didn't seem too grouchy. Tanesha hooked us up with this great hidden Red Room at Union Park. The DJ was slamming and it was a perfect place for dancing.

We walked along the main section of 6th St on the way back to the hotel around 1:30 (had to work at 7:30 the next morning - ouch!). Wow, it was completely packed out, wall to wall people fully costumed. It reminded me of Mardi Gras in New Orleans or New Years in Vegas. It was pretty great to be down there in the midst of the insanity.

People, people everywhere!!

Town Lake

Does Jack look like a happy boy or what?! Our favorite twice to three times daily activity is powering around Town Lake chasing squirrels. There are about 10 miles of various hike and bike trails around the water - all with different surface types (gravel, sand, paved, etc), some through the trees and others along the water's edge.

Jack likes to greet all the other dogs and stop for a drink in the dog park area at Auditorium Shores. There's a good sized off leash area for dogs right in the middle of downtown!

There are 5 bridges along the Town Lake trails - this is the 1st Ave bridge with the dog park ahead on the right.


Jack and I clock between 5-8 miles a day on various routes. I generally have my balance tested and shoulder yanked out of place 5-8 times per walk in Jack's quest for squirrels.

Mex Marts at Trudy's

Here I am with Pam and Meg at Trudy's North Star bringing back the mexican martini tradition! We used to drink these between classes in grad school. How we've matured - now meeting for after work drinks.

Since I moved to Australia, Pam bought a house and traveled to Antarctica via South America, and Meg has a 17 month old son Westin running around the house with she and Rusty. We had plenty to catch up on!

Jack is back!!

Look at the happy boy! How cute is he?! He's been spoiled rotten at my parents' house with three walks a day and filet mignon for dinner. How will I ever keep up?? He is loving our walks around Town Lake and we had a little doggy play date tonight with his old friend Zach.


Here's Jill with Zach and me with Jack. Jill is a very special auntie to Jack and used to take him for walks and to the pool with or without me before she got Zach.


The music was pumping and Jill was showing us how she and Zach dance together . Jack was determined to join in the fun. He's a natural!


Michelle, Jill, and me - it is so great to be back together again - just like old times!


We even built a fire in the fire pit - gotta love those fire logs! We hung out in the backyard for a while by the fire. We meant to make s'mores but Jill filled us up with a beautiful spinach salad and fancy garlic pita bread followed by Michelle's surprise 'Be My Cupcakes', so we'll have to save that for another time. These girls have become so domestic in their homes!!

Burton Ranch

Sarah and Mike are a few years younger than me and already onto their second house! They purchased several acres of land in Georgetown and built a big beautiful house where you can see nothing for miles. They moved into the mansion a few months ago and had a celebratory housewarming BBQ Saturday afternoon. Their winery owner friends (pictured above) do competitive cook-offs in their master BBQ pit. You can see the wood burning furnace in the bottom with two-tier pull out grill racks inside which accommodates up to 200 burgers at once. The bar/counter top behind it even sports a sink with running water sourced from a water storage tank below the grill. They're not messing around with this Texas shaped and sized grill.


Sarah and I on the other side of the Texas Czech named grill. See the longhorns above it. Go UT, the #1 football team at the moment!


A shot of the pull out grill racks and the master chef. Those are monster burgers too!


I got to see a few friends from the office I hadn't seen in a while as well, which was great. Here's Julia with her husband Gabe and son Mateo. He was barely born when I moved to Australia. Now look at him.


Here's Matt with his girlfriend Joy and their daughter Sophie. What a cute family!


A shot of the backyard festively lit up for the occasion.

From here, I headed down to San Antonio for the rest of the weekend, where I enjoyed some time with my parents and sister Katie. And I stole Jack away. Hee hee hee hee hee!!!

I also did my civic duty on Sunday and voted. Everyone VOTE!!

Jason Mraz

A few months ago, I bought Katie tickets to see her very favorite Jason Mraz in concert at Stubbs. I had no expectation of being able to join her as I was located in Melbourne at the time, but look at how things worked out!! We met at my hotel and walked a few blocks to the concert. Have I mentioned I love where I live?!


Katie's such a poser, getting her groove ready for Mraz. We scarfed down a quick bite to eat before the concert began, and we do NOT recommend Stubb's BBQ. We had some of the worst brisket to date, but fortunately it had absolutely no impact on our enjoyment of the concert.

He rocked it with his band. He was a great live performer, with all the moves! He had us singing, dancing, and catching polaroid pictures of him and everyone else in his band.

We were loving it, especially 'I'm Yours', 'Lucky', and 'Dynamo of Volition'. How lucky am I to have been here for this?? Talk about right place, right time!!

He closed out the show with some of his older tunes...Katie was jonesing to hear 'Remedy' and he whipped it out at the end. Woo hoo!

Despite an early start the next morning, we did not call it a night just yet. We headed over to W 6th St to help my friend Cindy celebrate her birthday. We quickly concluded that W 6th St is THE place to be in Austin - it was HOT HOT HOT. We're headed back next weekend.

Tailgating at UT

After working a full day, I took the guys for some good UT tailgating at 'The Pig', a big old school bus that a URS coworker, Jason, painted and outfitted with Longhorn paraphernalia and a flat screen mounted on the side. He rents out prime real estate for tailgating at every game. With UT ranked as the #1 football team, this weekend's tailgating was massive! Jamie and Rich recounted the tailgating as their favorite experience in their favorite city.

Here's a shot of the flat screen mounted to the side of 'The Pig'. Everywhere we looked there was burnt orange and white!

Here's a shot of the front of 'The Pig' with a shout out to the Longhorns.

Countless UT fans lined the streets, parking lots, and any open space surrounding the stadium for blocks and blocks in every direction. The energy was contagious and exciting.

Jamie and Rich were taken with the cowboy.

Katie and Dawnlyn strike a pose in front of the packed out stadium for the UT Longhorns vs Missouri Tigers game. The official stadium capacity is 94,113 but an attendance record was set at this game with 98,383 fans packing the stands.

The lit up orange UT tower is evidence of UT's win against Missouri.

Katie came up from San Antonio for the evening. She met us at tailgating and then came to Z'Tejas with Dawnlyn, Claire, Carolyn, Michelle, Rob, and me.

My FEMA coherts Dawn and Rob are my regular lunch crew and chatting buddies. They came out for a night on the town.

After dinner we met up again with the Aussie's who continued tailgating through the game. (They tried to get in, but were unsuccessful.) We started off at Jackelope, supposedly Austin's seediest dive bar. Later, Katie and Jamie got down with it at Maggie Mae's.

Sixth Street was happening after the game with lots of fans and randoms at every bar. We ventured to 4th St which I generally prefer, but it was relatively dead compared with the bustling happenings on 6th St.

Aussies in Austin

Jamie and Rich, a couple guys from Melbourne, started in San Francisco and are on their way to New York with seven weeks to drive coast to coast and top to bottom. Three weeks and five national parks into it, they hit Austin. Souvenir guru Rich came up with the brilliant idea to buy guitars in San Fran and get signatures from people they encounter in their journey. Jamie surprised us with a few songs Friday night. He asked what type of music I liked. I said lots of kinds...Ben Harper, Jack Johnson...and he whipped out four Ben Harper songs. Very impressive. After our private show, we went out to see a few other people showcase their musical stylings.


We met Michelle and Mark at Green Mesquite for some Texan BBQ and real bluegrass music - fiddles and banjos galore. Jamie and Rich got right into it and were loving the local sounds, so much so that they returned to the very same spot two nights later.


Rich, Jamie, and me at Green Mesquite. After dinner, we picked up Dan at Continental Club and headed to Broken Spoke for some country two stepping and the Willie Nelson museum. The cover deterred us from staying since we were on a tour of Austin bars. We moved onto Donn's Depot on 5th St, where we got more live music and a really mixed crowd. Michelle and Mark made some moves on the dance floor, and we left there around 12:30am. I had to work the next morning, so I dropped the guys off on Sixth Street and headed home. Good thing I called it a night because the guys kicked on until 6am.

So You Think You Can Dance

Lisa and her friends had tickets to the top ten tour from 'So You Think You Can Dance' at the Frank Erwin Center in Austin on Sunday night. One friend cancelled at the last minute, leaving them with a spare ticket...for moi!


Lisa with her friends - Hailey(?), Ryan, and Ryan


The top ten dancers did several group dances, favorite couples routines, and individual expressions. They were an impressive group.




They literally brought down the 'curtain' at the end of the night. It was so nice to be close enough to fill in for the evening's festivities.