Archive for the 'austin' Category

Sensory deprivation in Austin;going off the grid

Published on October 4, 2008 in austin, infostudies, pain, running and travel. 2 Comments

I”m in the Jet Blue Terminal at JFK this morning, on my way to Austin to take my qualifying exams. I meet with my committee chair Monday morning at 9, get my 4 questions, and begin writing around 50 pages worth of answers by 5pm on Friday. I polled some of my colleagues and have decided on the following as my game plan:

As Joe suggested, I will plan all of my meals in advance. This should be fun and delicious, since I have a super long list of Austin restaurants I miss. Having Kelly and others around to deliver the meals, as Don suggests, is going to be helpful.
Lisa convinced me that I should only spend about 3 hours each day reading and reviewing literature so I can force myself to write for the rest of the day.
I’ve asked Kelly to reset my bloglines password so I can’t procrastinate with my RSS feeds.
Everyone suggested avoiding staying up all night writing and trying to adhere to my regular sleep schedule, until perhaps Thursday.
Save save save save.

I’ve brought with me my APA publications manual and a bunch of pdfs and things I’ve written, but that’s about it. I’m excited and nervous to see the questions I’ll be answering.

Kelly and I are staying in Austin until the 12th, so we’ll have time to relax once it’s all over.

The only real bummer I can foresee is that I’m still in physical therapy for my leg so I can’t run Town Lake at all while I’m there.

Ok, going underground….. now!

Still finishing up my qualifying paper, grounded myself from running until next week (at least)

Published on August 31, 2008 in austin, infostudies, nyc, pain and running. 1 Comment

I made a lot of progress on my paper last weekend, and got some very helpful feedback from my doctoral committee chair on Monday night. Tuesday night, I went for another see-how-it-feels run that ended badly. At the 2-mile point, my knee was barely hanging on, so I walked another two (walking is painless) and headed to an easy yoga class. The good news is, every day since Wednesday, the fatigue has been gone from my legs, and the pain is reducing. I still fully intend to run the marathon (8 weeks away still), but I am not going to push the training at all– definitely not going to try and get back up to the 40/50 miles a week range. I ran the last marathon with only about 25 miles a week, so I’m not worried about finishing. Maybe it won’t be my fastest race ever, but I’m going to do all I can to keep from injuring myself.

Paper-wise, though, I’m at the point where I’m putting the finishing touches on this thing. Nearly two years in the making, it’s the biggest milestone I’ve had since starting graduate school. The next step after it is accepted (might have to do a revision or two) is to fly down to Austin the first week of October and take my qualifying exams. Once that happens, and after some relaxing and celebrating, I’ll begin my dissertation proposal.

Nice weather returns, but for how long?

Published on July 25, 2008 in austin, pain, running and Uncategorized. 0 Comments

Some boring-borderline-incredible thunderstorms and showers interupted my schedule this week, but an early 3 miles this morning in about 70-degree breezy made up for it. Here’s the rundown of this weeks’ runs:

3 miles in Prospect Park
6 miles in Prospect Park
3 miles in Prospect Park

I seem to be getting better at slowing down, and things have felt pretty good. I’ve made it to three yoga classes this week and have done some leg strengthening, and I’m pleased to report that the soreness in my calves seems to be subsiding. I think I need to be warming up a little more before I begin my runs so I don’t have the lower-leg weak feelings when I bust into my run. Spending an hour at yoga this morning before my run got rid of that weird feeling, but it’s not realistic to think that I can do that most days.

Something strange that I did notice: my 2nd mile is always too fast, maybe a reaction to all the traffic and people evasion I traditionally have to do on my first mile. Kelly suggest walking to the park before I start my run, and I think I’ll start doing that.

Implosion memories

Published on February 27, 2007 in austin and brooklyn. 0 Comments

I just found out that downtown Austin’s Intel-building-that-never-was got imploded this week. I wish I could have been there, it was only a few blocks from our house… just across Town Lake.

Watching that video reminded me of the night that Dan, Kelly, and I stayed up all night at Union Pool to watch the Twin Keyspan Gas Tanks fall in Williamsburg in July 2001. I remember being both filled with glee and a little bit terrified. Once the debris cloud started creeping our way, we actually started running. It seemed like a big deal at the time.

I never really thought about it until today, but we spent another notable evening at Union Pool again 3 months later after we’d all fled the towers falling in Manhattan on September 11th. What I remember most of all from that night is that I finally reached my parents by phone at around 11 when we were walking back to the apartment. It was such a confusing night– we were still reeling from the day, having a few beers, and then watching George Bush unwrap his new rhetoric of evil and terror for the first time the on the little TV behind the bar. I have no idea of what I actually said to my folks on the phone, but I’m sure it was odd. Do y’all remember?

Seen at SXSW

Published on March 22, 2006 in austin and music. 0 Comments

Bands seen at SXSW, chronologically. * indicate how much I loved them. ^ indicates I saw them intentionally.

Rachel Goldstar**
Belong ***^
Frog Eyes *****^
Brothers and Sisters *
The Harrisons
Jim Noir **
Art Brut *^
Blackalicious*^
Spoon**^
Echo & the Bunnymen ^*
Jenny Owen Youngs*
Kevin Devine^***
Charlotte Martin
Indian Jewelry***
Skeletons & Girl Faced Boys****^
Princess Superstar****^
Ariel Pink**^
Headlights*
Tralala
Ted Leo/Pharmacists**^
Skeletons & Girl Faced Boys (Again!)****^
Band of Horses**^
Morningwood***^
The Winnerys*
The Jessica Fletchers***^
Nine Black Alps
Charlatans**^

I think that’s it. I feel like I got my money’s worth, and probably would have done better if not for my new found interest in NCAA hoops.

Even better as leftovers

Published on January 10, 2006 in austin. 2 Comments

Gettin’ Groovy on the Whiteboard
Originally uploaded by activitystory.

Trei and I were only gone on our mancation for a couple of days, but I felt like I missed a lot in Austin while we were gone. Friday night, J played a show at Ego’s, the bar that’s attached to our apartment complex (and the crew came over for fun and games in between sets), and on Saturday Kelly made a big lasagna for herself, Aedan and Danielle. Luckily, she saved me leftovers for both.

When I came home from the airport, I saw that Friday night had been the kind of night where someone felt the need to write "Do it Roger, Do it!" (in reference to Roger Troutman) on the whiteboard and immediately felt the pang of a good time had without me. Later in the evening, after ruminating on what it all must have been like, I told Kelly I wished she’d left out all the records that got played rather than cleaning up for my return. Clearly she knows me too well; she had left the stack intact, realizing that to me, looking through them was basically as good as being there in the first place.

Then, for dinner I got a double helping of lasagna, which only gets better with age. Big up to Kelly for making me feel like I didn’t miss a thing.

Rose Bowl aftermath

Published on January 5, 2006 in austin. 3 Comments

VY lives the dream
Originally uploaded by activitystory.

You should have seen how stressed out Kelly was during the game. It was like the Bills were in the superbowl again or something. Except that they won. She kept repeating "I can’t believe my team finally won! I can’t believe my team finally won!"

So, naturally, we had to walk over to 6th street to live the dream with our fellow longhorn fans. A few photos.

Now I can relax for a couple of days before the Panthers play the Giants, which I’ll unfortunately have to watch surrounded by Giants fans in NYC.

Broadcast it out so everyone can feel it*

Published on November 16, 2005 in austin and music. 0 Comments

J plays Margaret’s bday/fundraiser
Originally uploaded by activitystory.

Activitypal and troubador J played a live set on John Aielli’s Eklektikos show on KUT today, and it was great. Karla, Alex, and Steve joined him on about 8 songs including ActivityStory faves "Sunday Morn," "Room 304," and "Sleep".

The performance is semi-faithfully represented in mp3 form here (recorded it from the radio like I was in 6th grade again):

> J Molin "jumpin’ through the Speakerboxx"
(when he said that, J.A., responded., in deadpan, "That’s great.")

I’ve heard all of these songs many times, both live and on record, and with many different arrangements, and love them all. They sounded a little different today, fresh and heavy and bright. I tried to think what it would sound like if I didn’t know J, or wasn’t picturing him in the studio. It’s strange, the radio. And magic.

* from J’s "Jesus rode a bike"

Do yourself a favor…

Published on June 13, 2005 in austin and music. 2 Comments

& spend at least some of today listening to Green Milk From The Planet Orange‘s mp3 excerpts of their super-long songs as loud as possible. We saw them at 710 last night and they were great.

There was a lot of standing on chairs, laying down on stage, and whistle-blowing, screaming, and playing solos in the crowd. My favorite part was when Dead K, the guitar player, recreated the one-sided, apparently hilarious japanese phone call from "A Day in the Planet Orange," complete with sampled phone ringing. Then he pulled out a bull horn and ran out into the crowd again to scream some more. I imagine that snail will probably be the only one to bother to check out the songs, which is probably ok, because he is also most likely to enjoy it.

I was pretty excited to see the headlining Rubble as well, an Austin band I’d never seen before. They took a long time to set up, hanging a cloth in front of the stage that, before I relized they were going to project stuff on, I thought was the most pretentious thing in the world. Who plays rock and roll with a gauzy lace curtain separating them from the audience? I felt like a total dumbass when the light show started. They finally played at around 1:15 or so, but it was pretty much worth the wait. They play heavier MBV-, Bardo Pond-, or Loop-style stuff, and it’s nice to have something to look at other than a bunch of dudes stomping on effects pedals for that kind of a performance. It was getting late (Kelly had left me behind), and most people were just kinda standing there nodding along to the songs, but the bass player from GMFTPO was really getting down. I have no idea where he got all his energy after their set. I left once they played Grey Baby, which is posted on their site. Another good loud one to start the day with.

Worst of Austin Poll

Published on May 5, 2005 in austin. 8 Comments

Hey everybody,

Our “Worst of Austin” poll has been getting a bit of play, so I thought I’d give y’all a chance to comment on it.

We (me, Greg, Miranda, Megan, and Rob) did this as our final group project for UT’s School of Information Database Management Principles and Applications class. This class was not a web design or usability class. We know there a issues, like voting only once per IP address, and no write ins, etc. Basically we wanted to learn how to use mysql and php together to create a web based application. The poll seemed like a fun idea.

We’ve gotten some interesting feedback so far, and certainly ruffled some feathers with our choice of nominations. Here’s your chance to vent about any categories you hated, or loved, or wish were there. Maybe we’ll try to make a better version in the future.

Folks

Published on April 25, 2005 in austin. 3 Comments

Bob, before the Travoltathon

Bartow, shooting Grand Champeen during covers night at the Parish

Don’t forget to listen to Record Jumble tonight at 10, and to hit up Headhunters for the Karaoke Underground on Tuesday.

SXSW Thursday, in picture form

Published on March 18, 2005 in austin, music and photos. 3 Comments

Kevin Devine, at the Hotel Cafe Showcase:

Ear-plugged Burnses after Kevin’s set:

Gold Chains & Sue Cie @ Beerland (w/ Trei’s camera in the lower left corner)

Sue Cie’s feet

We also caught The Paper Chase and The Skeletons, but they weren’t all that photo-worthy.

SXSW Wednesday, briefly

Published on March 17, 2005 in austin and music. 0 Comments

Originally uploaded by activitystory.

I thought The Octopus Project stole the show last night at the Velvet Spade, partly because of the masks they wore when they came on stage.

I had only seen them once before (opening for Bardo Pond, I think) and liked them, but they blew me away last night. Kelly & I both liked that they didn’t waste our time with vocals, and the theremin playing was on point.

Devin Davis and Aerowave were also great, but I was a little disappointed by Palaxy Tracks.

SXSW is the new Friendster

Published on March 17, 2005 in austin and music. 0 Comments

We got back from Vancouver (pictures and details soon) on Tuesday and got a few hours to rest before Kevin arrived for sxsw. I picked him up at the airport and we headed to Jaime’s for some dinner before. The default salsa there has to be the hottest in Austin, and with all the people milling around downtown, it was busier than I have ever seen it.

We were planning to go to The Velvet Spade (formerly the Caucus Club) to see’s Kevin’s friend’s band Aerowave, and when we got there, I saw my UNCG friend Daniel through the fence, who works for Fanatic, who was putting on the show. Since we didn’t have wristbands or anything, he got them to let us in the back way. It was all very Goodfellas. Anyway, we got in there, and I started catching up with Daniel, who somehow knew Kevin from NYC, and then Greg and his crew of visitors arrived to see their friend Devon Davis, who Daniel manages, play. Greg’s friends also happened to know Daniel’s brother in Chicago, or something. It was a small world afterall.

Today, we’re heading to Kevin’s showcase at 2 @ 7th and Congress, and then eventually to the Skeletons show at Emos (around 5). If any of you are around, give me a call. Hopefully we’ll get into the Merge Showcase tonight and then we can call it quits for the rest of the week.

We are all Quincy Punks

Published on March 8, 2005 in austin, culture, film, music and tv. 3 Comments

So, now that we’ve moved closer to downtown, we end up walking to the Drafthouse almost every week. I apologize for constantly raving about it, but there seems to be no end in sight, especially since they’re opening a new location on Lamar.

Last night we went to Quincy Punk night ($1 Monday!), to see another homemade documentary entitled I was a Teenage Quincy Punk, comprised of the punk rock Quincy episode ("Next Stop, Nowhere") in its entirety, the punk rock episode of "CHiPs" (starring activitystory favorite William Forsythe as Trasher, the lead singer of Pain), a clip from the episode of Square Pegs where DEVO played Muffy’s bat-mitzvah (in which M. Mothersbaugh plays my current obsession, the Suzuki Omnichord), and an episode of some awesome-looking 1978 Don Rickles sitcom called CPO Sharkey co-starring the Dictators.

It was all very funny, and the crowd was lively, yelling at the screen and making jokes. Everyone was hysterically astonished by how much the man misunderstood punk rock.

The weird thing was, and this might be blasphemy, but I thought the depictions were pretty accurate. I mean, they were clearly characatures, but no more so than Quincy is a characature of a medical examiner or Ponch a cop. It was more a vibe of, "oh, like a punk would really have their hair that long in the back," or "Look at that ridiculous eye-makeup. A real punk would never have eye-makeup like that." But otherwise: nihilism? check. clothes? check. boredom, absurdism, and vandalism? check check check. The music even sounded pretty accurate and there were suggestions of political activism and veganism which I thought were very generous (of course, I might have just misinterpreted the brief glimpses at diet and squalor we got). On top of that, the fattish bit-part CHiPs cop even offered a thoughtful, fair description of punk culture and demonstrated slam dancing in a positive light.

But, of course, I was a young punk in the late 80s/early 90s and most of my early visual conception of punk came from Valley Girl, Suburbia, Urrgh! A Music War (lots of mixed messages there), the FEAR performance on Saturday Night Live, and (I think) one of the Police Academy movies. Do any of you remember seeing any of that stuff? Did you think that the TV depictions of punk went against what you thought it was all about, or did you just feel like a badass because the vile subculture you chose to identify yourself was being legitimized?

I think it was the latter for me for sure. I wish I could watch a Doogie Howser or a Full House with concurrent punk me thinking I’m shaking up the squares. Even just some plain old footage of me and my friends going to shows at Common Ground and the Easy St Theatre in Dallas. I’d love to put a laugh-track on that.

I think that I’d have the same reaction to that as I did to the Quincy Punk Episode, but who knows. I just wonder if I’m capable of taking myself that seriously anymore (though, posts like this where I ruminate on my identity my be evidence that I am). Sorry.

Common Sense Campaign

Published on March 8, 2005 in austin and politics. 0 Comments

This guy, I saw on News 8 Austin this morning, missed the deadline to be included on the ballot for the soon-to-be-vacant Place 1 on the Austin City Council by one minute. They don’t quote him in the web version of the story (or even mention him, for that matter), but on the TV version, he said something along the lines of: I understand the need for deadlines, but there’s deadlines, and there’s common sense. I’m running a common-sense campaign.

I would think that the first priority of a common-sense campaign would be to actually appear on the ballot, with not coming off like an incompetent whiner on TV being a close second. I hope they post the clip, it got a little ugly.

I guess we’ll have to rely on someone else to protect our property rights.

Goodbye, Show with No Name

Published on March 7, 2005 in austin and tv. 0 Comments

Kelly, Miranda, Kim, and & I went to the live Show with No Name event at the Alamo on Saturday night, and I was sad to hear it was their last show ever. Mostly it was a very satisfying retrospective that included several montages of favorite clips from the show interspersed with the funnier charlie/cinco interchanges and bits. Most notable, however, a 12-yr old came on stage and did a few minutes’ worth of filthy Bill Hicks jokes.

Since the show is no longer being aired, I decided I should track down as many of the boilerplate clips as I could online. Sadly, after more than an hour of searching, I’ve only found a few, and none of them are my favorites. It’s really making me aware of how valuable it was to have Charlie & Cinco on tv every week.

Here’s what I’ve found so far (please point me to any you can find [especially the Corey Feldman lipsync on An Evening at the Improv]). Mostly it’s just the played-out ones:

Just linking to those makes the show seem pretty lame. Hopefully, somone who taped every episode is working on getting all of the clips online for our enjoyment. Mostly I just want to see the local Austin news clips, like the one of the reporter stomping grapes at a winery.

Real World Sighting #2: Dillo Dorado, Guadalupe & 17th

Published on March 2, 2005 in austin, photos and tv. 0 Comments

Real World dude, pair of feet
Originally uploaded by activitystory.

Two Real World Austin castmembers and two camerapeople were taking up most of the back of the Dillo Dorado I took home from school today. I pushed past the sound guy to sit as close as I could without getting in the shot. I captured the Real World Dude, and the feet of his female costar with my phonecam.

Overheard quote: "Did you get paged? Dude, I was gonna be like, I’ve never ever gotten paged." Then the dude put his head in the girls lap.

When they got off the bus I realized that there were like four other Real World crewmembers in our midst. As the pair moved toward the bus door, the covert crew members all shared a creepy, knowing glance and followed them off.