ACL Festival For Less Than $10

Yes, you read that right. We went to ACL for under ten bucks. Our super-awesome neighbor happened to have two extra 3 day passes and we happened to want to go. Good shit happens. Unfortunately, I had to work all weekend during the day but we were able to see the headliners at night.

Saturday we got to see parts of Beck's set and parts of the Robert Plant / Allison Krauss set. We also scoped out the entire area (huuuuuuuuuge) and got sausage-on-a-stick from Roy's Hawaiian Fusion restaurant. Not much fusion going on but it was tasty sausage nonetheless.

On Sunday we found a sweet spot and plopped down for the main event. The Foo Fighters were the head-headliner and were closing the entire festival. Although they were supposed to be the only ones playing, one of the smaller bands decided to play 20 minutes over their set time. Once they finally wrapped it up, we could hear Dave belt out his hits. They played for a good hour and a half and we started to leave after the first encore. Luckily, we live close enough to walk so we didn't have to deal with the parking or the line for the busses. We could hear the rest of the encores during the walk home and they finished the song where he sings "The best, the best, the best of you" as we ambled up the final hill to our apartment.

 

Old Pecan Street Festival

The 27th Annual Fall Pecan Street Festival was held this weekend. In the oldern days when Austin was laid out, the north/south streets were named after Texas rivers and the east/west streets were named after Texas trees. See, Austin was eco before it was cool (and annoying). While the north/south streets are still named after the Texas Rivers, the east/west streets got the old numbering system. Pecan Street is now the infamous 6th Street, but twice a year, it reverts back to Pecan Street for the bi-annual festival.

The festival featured free admission (of course!), 250 arts and craft vendors, musical and performing artists, art classes, dance classes, international foods, a carnival, petting zoo, and much more. Tommy Tutone, of 867-5309 fame, headlined on Saturday night and sadly, we missed it. Wonder if they played more than the one song?

Instead of eating festival food, we decided to try a new Vietnamese / Thai place called Mekong River. While we were not impressed by the spring roll, the entrees were pretty decent. Not sure if we will return though, there seem to be other Thai and Vietnamese places that are superior.

 

Kid-A-Pult in front of the Frost Building

(too bad they're strapped in)

 

Tap Dancing thugs

Random Austin Photos

 

Cool rainbow on the hike and bike trail

 

The Capitol Building through a gap

 

The dog park at Auditorium Shores never gets old

 

A cool, old church downtown

Free Museum Day

Today was free museum day in Austin. Thirty-one museums in the Austin area offered free admission plus many off them had bonus activities and exhibits. We decided to go to six of them and we opted to walk so I carefully planned our route and we began the day at the Butridge Gallery at the Dougherty Arts Center. The exhibit featured photos from the Texas Photographic Society and we found some good and some not so good. From there, we walked through Butler Park, over the 1st Street Bridge and on to the Austin Children's Museum. Total mayhem. Couldn't even figure out if it is a cool place because the noisy-kid quotient was at peak levels.

We made our way over to Congress and headed north to the Mexic-Arte Museum at 4th & Congress. They were featuring the Aztec and Maya Revival exhibition and offered hands-on arts activites. Heather created her own piece of Mex-inspired art.

At 7th & Congress we entered the Arthouse At The Jones Center. Their exhibit, entitled Reset/Replay, was a critical exploration of art inspired by video games. While some of the work was odd, a few items were pretty cool, like the 'painting' that was a working Atari 2600. Down the street was the Austin Museum Of Art. We were floored to see big names on display. Works from Picasso, Manet, Gaugin, Van Gogh, Renoir and others were available for our viewing pleasure.

The final museum on our magical mystery tour was the Capitol Visitors Center. Located on lush property next to the Capitol Building, the center was featuring it's new exhibit called 'Land Of My Dreams: Settling The Republic Of Texas.' It featured many artifacts from early Texas and even a piece of the original Capitol Building. The Capitol Visitors Center building is also a piece of Texas history as it was where the original map of Texas was drawn 150 years ago.

It was another cool and free event in this great city. A lot of people don't realize, or don't care to look for themselves, that Austin is more than just a bar and music town. While it's no NYC or Paris, it does have some culture and hopefully this day opened some people's eyes.

That Purple Building On 6th Street

While I usually try to avoid purple buildings based on principle, we were really craving Thai and have read good things about Thai Tara so we covered our eyes and entered the newly painted purple building on 6th Street. After waiting for a table to be bussed for what felt like 10 minutes (probably 5), we were finally sat and ordered our drinks (Coke for me and Thai iced tea for Heather).

Our favorite restaurant in New Jersey was a small restaurant in a little unassuming strip center called Thai Kitchen. We went so often that they knew us by name and always greeted us warmly. On our list of things we miss, this place is in the top five. So, it goes without saying that we have high expectations for Thai food.

Heather ordered the Pad Se-Ew (stir fried flat noodles with eggs and broccoli in brown sauce) with chicken and I had the Lard Na (flat noodles topped with vegetables in an Asian bean gravy) with chicken. I asked for mine spicy and Heather opted for mild. I always order Lard Na in a new Thai place because it's easy to compare as I've had it so many times. While we both agreed that it wasn't quite on par with Thai Kitchen (nothing probably ever will be), we both really enjoyed our dishes very much and felt like we could get used to coming to Thai Tara. Bonus points for free Tom Yum soup!

There Is More To Texas Than BBQ And TexMex

Living close the NYC, we were fortunate to have a wide range of ethnic possibilities when it came to food. We knew that moving to Texas we would definitely have to sacrifice in this regard but, as we did a lot of research in this department, we felt confident that we would be able to at least get by.

So with lower expectations than we had when eating Indian food back in New Jersey, we headed out to Clay Pit. It is located in what I guess you'd call midtown Austin, north of the downtown action but south of the university action. Being Saturday night there was a decent crowd so we waited on the porch. It was a nice, cool evening so it was pleasant and we noticed lots of Indian families coming and going which is a good sign of authenticity.

(another stolen picture from the internet)

After being sat, we were served the traditional pappadam (crispy flatbread) with various chutneys (red, green and brown) and we quickly ordered garlic naan (another flatbread that is more pita-like and cooked in a tandoor - which is the clay pit that the restaurant is named for). The garlic naan was perfection and truly excited us for the main event. Both of us had curries: Heather had the Jeera Saag (pureed spinach cooked with cumin and other spices) with chicken and I had the Mirch Masala (jalapenos, garlic, ginger, mushrooms and onions in a tomato sauce), also with chicken.


Both dishes were as good and as authentic tasting as any that we've had. I ordered mine spicy and was pleased that my forehead beaded up as I ate. The portions were perfect and the side of basmati rice that came with the entrees was sufficient. The couple that came with us were experiencing Indian cuisine for the first time and we found out later that they returned the next day for lunch!


After that fine meal we headed to south Austin to Dominican Joe coffee house which proudly serves fair trade coffee. They buy their beans from Makarios, an Austin-based non-profit organization who works directly with farmers in the Dominican Republic and pays them higher wages. Like most independent (meaning not Starbucks) coffee houses it has a cool, laid-back vibe. It was pretty full of artsy-type people (hipsters) on their artsy-type computers (Macs). Funny how none of them seemed to be actually drinking coffee. The coffee was decent, served in a real mug and, even though it was fair trade, it was still cheaper than Starbucks.

Meet Squizby

We went on our normal walk on the Town Lake Trail, which consists of parking by Butler Park and taking the Pfluger Pedestrian Bridge to the north side, walking east to the Congress Avenue bridge (aka The Ann Richards Bridge), heading south over the bridge, then west to the dog park at Auditorium Shores, watching the dogs until dark and then returning to the car via Butler Park.

Everything was normal until right before we got to the Congress Avenue bridge and we noticed an itty bitty rodenty-looking thing hanging out in the middle of the trail. Upon closer examination we discovered, and quickly named, Squizby. It looked as though he (we are in no way squirrel experts but we decided that Squizby was male) had fallen out of his nest and was very confused.

The Town Lake Hike & Bike Trail is aptly named because people with bikes use it. Some of them go quite fast. We were quite concerned that Squizby would soon become trail-kill so we tried to talk him into returning to the woods along the bank of the river. We hoped that his mother would find him, scold him for talking to strangers and then tuck him safely back into the nest.

He either did not understand human or was stubborn because Squizby did not want to go back into the woods. Heather found some cardboard and picked him up but he slipped and ended up in her lap. He took a liking to her and began gnawing on her shorts. Though she really wanted to take Squizby home and raise it like a son, we agreed that it was best to put him into the woods and hope for the best. Keep your head high Squizby!

Sorry, cell phone pics aren't the clearest

The Nike Human Race

The Nike Human Race is a global 10 kilometer race that was held in 25 global cities. In the United States, there were four cities involved: NYC, Chicago, LA and Austin. In our fair city, we were honored with Lance Armstrong, Matthew McConaughey, Olympic medalist Brendan Hanson and thousands of other red-shirted pavement-pushers.

The winner, Bernard Manirakiza, didn't even touch the ground!

 

Lance, the only fellow in yellow, finished in a very respectable 34'54".

Matthew McConaughey ran it in 43'41".

 

The final stretch

Cool Optical Illusions

Click the link to see some mind-bending stuff.

Be sure to check out part one and part two also.

Click here to see the World's Coolest Optical Illusions

Hot Sauce Fest & Last Symphony On The Green

We went to the 18th Annual Austin Hot Sauce Festival on Sunday. While the weather put up a strong bid to win top prize for overall hottest, there were lots of sauces to choose from. Our favorite entry was from Gourmet Country Farm and was called Koki's Green Garlic Salsa. They hydroponically grow green garlic, which looks more like grass or chives, and they use the bulbs and the greens in the salsa. Very original and very excellent.

In the evening, we went to the last Symphony On The Green performance of the year. We have enjoyed this weekly event since we've been here and will miss it. Hopefully it will return to the lawn next year. It is a great location with both an aweome skyline view and a great sunset view. Oh yeah, and there's really good music by really good musicians also.

Heather sampling a red salsa

Interesting Story About The Underage Chinese Gymnasts

The following is from strydehax.blogspot.com:

There's been some widely publicized controversy regarding the competition age of the Chinese women's gymnastics team recently. I have an Internet connection, that means I should be able to verify the age of the gymnasts in question with primary state-issued documents and find out for myself if someone's cheating, right? Right. Let's go to work.

read more | digg story

They Said "You're Gonna Miss Italian Food In Texas!"

As we were preparing to depart from New Jersey, our world-weary friends (who have all never stepped foot out of the northeast for more than a week) warned us that we would have to learn how to live without all the great amenities that being a suburb of NYC afforded us:

"You better get used to cowboy boots!"

"There's going to be no where to shop but Wal-Mart!"

"You're going to miss Italian food!"

We quickly were able to disprove the first two notions. As much as the travel shows try to make you believe that Austin is as country as Texas (see Samantha Brown and Rachel Ray's shows about Austin), we have yet to see an abundance of cowboy boots and definitely no cowboys. In fact, I think there were more people in NJ wearing western stuff than here. The second notion was even more absurd. There is more shopping within five minutes of us now than there was within 45 minutes of us in NJ. The other day we went to the library, the post office and Target, all within a few minutes of each other. In NJ, it was a 45 minute round trip to the library and even further to Target (which also was in the opposite direction).

I will admit that I was slightly concerned about the last notion. The Italian-American population is strong in NJ and Italian restaurants are the equilavent of Tex-Mex places in Austin. In fact, in Flemington, it is not a stretch to say that 75% of the non-chain restaurants are Italian. We decided to check out Romeo's which is located on the food mecca strip known as Barton Springs. The verdict? Pretty decent standard Italian fare. Heather has a sun-dried tomato fetish and one of their signature dishes looked to be custom tailored to her tastes. I went for the more traditional Chicken Parmesan and while it was not pan-fried and then baked, it was still breaded and had a nice flavor.

Final verdict? Romeo's fits the bill for casual Italian. Next test? Fine dining Italian!

Music Under The Star

 

We went to see Austin Nights Brass at The Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum's Lone Star Plaza tonight. This was the final show of the Music Under The Star series for this year. It's a pretty cool, informal event and people of all ages come out to enjoy the music.

   

Of course, this is yet another free event in this fine city stuffed full of free events. Bonus feature: the museum is also free during the show so you can listen to a little music, then go learn about Texas, then watch some more music. It's really too bad they only do 4 shows a year.

Keep Austin's Animals Weird

People are so worried about keeping Austin weird that I think they are failing to notice how weird the local fauna already is. The photo to your left is not a Photoshop trick, it is truly a dog climbing a tree at Auditorium Shores. Apparantly, this vertically-inclined canine decided that all the leash-free freedom she enjoys is just not enough, she wants the freedom to hang out in trees also. Who am I to crush this four-legged furball's hopes and dreams? I just snapped the shot, gave her some encouragement and moved on.

Now, some would say that one weird thing is just not enough to keep Austin weird. For you naysayers, I offer to you exhibit dos (to your right). This, my friends, is a squirrel who has decided to evict the previous tenant (a coleus) via execution (and digestion) and has moved in and made himself comfortable.



I will be keeping an eye out for more proof but trust me, Austin's animals are weird.

Butler Park After Dark

Just west of the Palmer Events Center (between Riverside Drive and Barton Springs Road) is Butler Park. The park was named in honor of the Butler family that donated the land to the city. It's a great park that offers excellent views of downtown from the observation hill, meandering walkways, a relaxing pond, lots of local vegetation and cool dancing fountains that you can play in (sorry, no dogs).

Once the sun goes down, the dancing fountains are joined by a light show. We're not talking Bellagio here, but it is an entertaining show and whoever set it up did a great job. Another awesome way to be entertained in Austin.

This is waiting for you at the top of the hill

The Long Center at dusk

Vietnamese @ Lulu B's

 

Part of the charm of Austin is the fact that a lot of great restaurants are located in trailers. Flip Happy Crepes, Torchy's Tacos and now Lulu B's are just a few that come to mind. Lulu B's opened in January of this year and has been churning out absurdly fresh and ridiculously good Vietnamese street food ever since.

We had the Pork Sandwich and the BBQ Chicken Vermicelli Bowl and both were out of this world. Both items were full of super fresh veggies, cilantro and spicy, tangy meat. The portions are good and with drinks (glass bottled Coke is always a plus), the bill was $14.

I've heard that the lines can be pretty long during peak eating times. We went at 2pm and though there wasn't a line, there were still a decent amount of people there.

The Texas National Science Center

You like this totally sweet panorama photo I snatched from online? It shows the Hall of Geology and Paleontology at the science center. The Texas Memorial Mueum, otherwise known as the Texas National Science Center, is yet another FREE thing to do in Austin. It's located next to the U.T. Football Stadium (which is tough to miss) and houses many fine exhibits.



The main exhibits are the aforementioned Hall of Geology and Paleontology (dinosaurs, fossils, meteorites), the Great Hall (gems, Pterosaur skeleton), the Hall of Texas Wildlife (local fish, nocturnal animals, dioramas) and the Hall of Biodiversity (evolution, DNA, viruses).



The Texas National Science Center is yet another great place to learn about the history of the state and the admission fee is super sweet.

Town Lake Trail

We decided to check out a different section of the Town Lake Trail. We usually stick to the area between Barton Creek and the Congress Avenue Bridge, but today we started at MoPac and looped around at the Pfluger Pedestrian Bridge. It turned out to be a little over three miles. On the left is a photo from the area underneath the MoPac bridge. It looks like some type of game that marries water polo with kayaks, po-yak? kaya-lo? wat-ka-lo-yaking? Whatever it is, I'm sure this sport has an awesome name. Looks like fun.



On the north side of the lake we walked by the massive Austin High School campus with it's fields upon fields of various sports. While some parts of the trail are wide open and can be quite hot in the midday sun, there were also many parts that were well shaded and surrounded by trees. We eventually came to the pedestrian bridge and followed it around to Zilker Park. The photo on the right is a view from the bridge over Barton Creek. The bridge in the distance is Barton Springs Road.



At the corner of Zilker Park there is a cool place called Lou Neff Point Gazebo. Sadly, my pal Wikipedia let me down when I looked for info on Mister Neff but the City Of Austin homepage filled the void. According to the site: "Named for Lou Neff, who served alongside Lady Bird Johnson as a member of the Town Lake Beautification Committee, this scenic overlook is one of the most popular and beautiful areas in the city."

 

Snakes 101

When we visited the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center last week I noticed that they have Nature Nights every Thursday in July. This week the subject was snakes, and Heather loves snakes, so off we went. The parking lot was packed so we had to park on the La Crosse cul-de-sac. After a short walk, we arrived at the center and paid our buck.



We caught the 8pm presentation in the auditorium. Snake expert Dr. Travis LaDuc gave a great talk and brought along a few of his scaly friends. Travis is the Assistant Curator of Herpetology at the Texas Natural History Museum at U.T. and his love of snakes was infectious. We are looking forward to visiting the university museum now to see more. Next week, the Nature Nights at the Wildflower Center will have a presentation on birds of prey.

  Red touches black, friend of Jack

Red touches yellow, kill a fellow

Dan touches snake, poop he'll make

Chile On The Patio

Another Austin landmark, another dandy dinner. The Shady Grove is no stranger to hype, in a town full of patio-dining, it is one of the kings (perhaps it is the Wikipedia of patio-dining). Could it possibly live up to all the praise? Are you really that much cooler for dining under that big old tree? Who am I to judge?



One of their signature items are the Green Chili Fries, crispy fries topped with green chili sauce and queso. Yeah, they were a little soggy, but they are truly good. But the food isn't really the point, the reason people come to Shady Grove is for the patio. It's a nice patio, the huge trees offer up some nice shade and the atmosphere is relaxing. Is the food good? No complaints here.

Trifecta Of Goodness

Three huuuuuuuge accomplishments today! (Note: photos "borrowed" from the JNB Diary blog)



First, we picnicked in Zilker Park. We packed up some burgers, corn and fixings and commandeered a table in the shade with access to a grill. The previous tenants had had quite the party. Our intuitive CSI-like skills revealed that it had been an oyster bake with hot sauce, Heinekens and cigarettes. It could have also been that they left all the remnants behind. After the unfortunate task of cleaning up the mess, we had a fine pic-a-nic.

Next, we braved the frigid depths of Barton Springs Pool. At 68 degrees it takes a while to acclimate the more sensitive areas but it's most excellent once your breathing regulates. As a bonus I got to check out the open-air changing slash bath room. Straight out of Roman times minus the vomitorium.



To complete the trifecta, we saved the best for last. After a few times of eating the infamous Salt Lick at the airport, we finally made it to the motherland. Sorry but I cannot put it into words and the photo to your left brings tears to my eyes upon each and every viewing. Go there. Now.

Austin Nature & Science Center

Not more than a mile from our humble abode is the Austin Nature & Science Center. We decided to walk and soon found ourselves staring at a bobcat. Of course the bobcat was in a cage, but cool nonetheless. Also present was a wily coyote, a red-tailed hawk, a pair of frolicking raccoons and a few other assorted local fauna. While small, the center is pretty nice and the pond area, which features the Eco-Detective Trail and the new Dino Pit Exhibit, is a cool reuse of an old gravel pit.

 

Lady Bird Wildflower Center: No Wildflowers But Still Plenty To See

Lady Bird Johnson died on July 11th of 2007 and to honor her memory, the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center offered free admission today. Some Wikipedia wisdom: Lady Bird Johnson and actress Helen Hayes founded the National Wildflower Research Center in 1982 to protect and preserve North America's native plants and natural landscapes. Officially renamed Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in 1998, the mission of the center has been to increase the sustainable use and conservation of native wildflowers, plants and landscapes.



While this is not wildflower season, there was still plenty to see as the center is just beautifully designed and laid out. There's lots of water features, winding paths and the architecture is very nice and natural looking. There was also a nice assortment of reptiles and amphibians which I documented below: