First full month in the books

It's gonna be tough to remember back as far as the last entry. I guess I'll just skip it and move on to Thursday. The new iMac came in the afternoon Thursday. Quite the event that was. Leah was very excited and it is indeed a beautiful machine. The desk that it is set up on needs a bit of work. I have been mulling over different ideas for edging and can't seem to make up my mind. I've narrowed it down to a traditional wooden trim strip and an unconventional piece of fabric with padding under it. The desks sole purpose is to be a computer work station:+fabric. The wooden strip would certainly be easier and probably look better:+wood. Any ideas?

Friday was a long and hot day during which we got new cell phones. I can't imagine a worse way to spend two hours. That must be the business to be in. They've got you right where it counts and they know it. My new "free" phone is definitely not better than my abused two year old "free" phone. Alas, we still have the ability to talk on the phone. Thank goodness... Also, I have a new number: 512-820-5884. The day's good news was that Leah went shopping and found some great new clothes that she is happy with.

On Saturday a friend of mine from MTU who now lives in Houston came over. Leah had to go to work so Will and I went to Barton Springs Pool and then got some dinner at the Green Mesquite BBQ. Very good place to eat and reasonably priced as well.

Sunday we tried to find good old fashioned diner food for breakfast and were disappointed. We went to a place called Kerbey Lane Cafe and it wasn't any good. Leah got pancakes that were straight out of a jiffy box and my biscuits and gravy tasted like peppered sawdust over wet cardboard. Too bad. People here just don't know greasy spoon diner food.

The week passed by without much ado. Leah worked a bunch and I finished up my "practice teaching". One significant improvement was that Leah got the AC fixed in her car. A negative for the week was that I got stung by some kind of Texan super bee while mountain biking. It hurt much worse than any bee sting that I've ever gotten. Then it turned black and blue and itched like crazy for four days.

Marie, Ryan, Leah and I all had Friday the 3rd off so we went on an adventure. We went down to Shiner, TX to go on a tour of the Shiner Brewery. Their beer is good and the tour is free and we all wanted to get out of Austin for a day, so off we went. Unfortunately when we got there, a sign was on the front of the building that said they were closed for the day. Great, two hour drive to the middle of absolutely nowhere, for this! We considered our options and decided that there really was nothing else to do in that town. On the way back we stopped in a town called Luling that is apparently the watermelon capital of somewhere. Their water tower was painted like a watermelon. No picture though. Our dinner plans were for a real Texas barbecue called Kreuz's in Lockhart, TX. It surely was a real TX BBQ. Lot's of big trucks in the lot and big people inside. Once inside you wait in a line to order your meat directly from the pit. There was an approximately ninety year old woman at the cash register working with a butcher that looked like Attila. The menu had about 8 items on it, of which we wanted two. Pork ribs and high fat beef brisket. They were out of pork ribs!! So we sat down with our brisket and a large pork chop. They don't use plates or forks so we ate with our hands off of paper. It was the real deal. They don't even use sauce. Just straight meat. The rest of Friday was spent in a meat 'coma. Leah and I watched a movie called The Constant Gardener that evening. It sounded promising and it wasn't terrible, just depressing and not great. That evening we also climbed a parking garage that is near to our apartment. Marie and I had gone up about a week earlier and enjoyed the views so Leah and I made the same trip.
Saturday I went for the usual road ride and had a great time. I've got a nice loop worked out with some good hills and not too much traffic. That afternoon Leah and I both agreed that we needed to find a place with some "normal" food. Off we went downtown in search of an Irish pub. BD Rileys was where we ended up and it was great. The interior was semi-dark, damp and smelled just right. We got potato skins and fish-n-chips. It was so very good.

Being the 4th of July we had to figure out a way to see some fireworks. There is a big show over Town Lake here. They close down one of the bridges for pedestrian traffic only and play music and everything. However, Marie, Ryan, Leah nor I wanted to go downtown in the late night heat to see the fireworks with 18 million other people. Luckily, the parking garage from which the previous photo of the downtown skyline was taken was open to the public. We climbed up there and were surprised to be joining about 200 other people for a great showing of the fireworks with the skyline as a backdrop. The showing was great. The sound was so faint that it was like we were watching them on TV.


It looks like were at the beginning of another week. This was certainly a different 4th of July weekend for us. We spent a lot of our time inside to stay cool. We're used to Michigan where the days are perfect and the nights are cool. Hopefully you all had a wonderful holiday weekend.

Love Leah and Jay.