Nothing like tacos and a 'rita...

...to take the edge off after a tough day of work. Now why did I think about leaving Austin again?

I discovered something today...

...and that something is this: I work best when I'm cranky. Today, I was downright ornery. I have a bad sinus infection, but I had to go to work today to finish up a drawing package with a looming deadline, then I had to go to Boerne to meet with a contractor who couldn't wait till Friday to have me answer some questions for him. I got a lot done today, and I'm guessing it was because I didn't want to be there in the first place...

Some other items from the last few days:

1) I saw Chalk, a small independent film about teachers by Mike Akel and Chris Mass of Hope Chapel that has won numerous awards. I loved it. It was very funny, and treated its subject with honesty and affection. It captures the experience of high school as accurately as Dazed and Confused did, but does so from a teacher's perspective. The movie pulled in over $13,000 last weekend at Alamo Drafthouse, and expands to North Austin, Chicago, and Dallas this week. I recommend it highly, and so does my cousin Jacob (he loved it)...

2) Last Saturday, I killed a little time at Woods Fun Center looking at motorcycles. As far as vices go, motorcycles are not unlike heroin, except that motorcycles are much more addictive and dangerous. I sat on several bikes, and I kept thinking, "I liked my last bike more than this one. I wonder if Nick (the guy I sold it to) would be interested in selling it..."

...And lo and behold, I ran into Nick and his wife Claire at Alamo Drafthouse on my way in to see Chalk the next day. Before I could ask him, he asks me if I'd be interested in buying it back (Uh, yeah...). Apparently, Nick had the leaky forks fixed, and apart from a broken brake lever and a tear in the seat, the bike's in good shape. Here's a picture:


That's all for now...

A BIG Dallas Cowboy/Texas Longhorn Saves the Day

The Link

Milestones

These days, it seems that I am witnessing a constant procession past the big, bold milestone with the number "30" on it (For now, I witness it from afar). The latest is my friend and brother Tommy Pyles.

When I was nine, waiting for soccer practice in the front yard and surrounded by a band of neighborhood kids riding around me with their bikes, Tommy was the one who ran in like an ape[censored] banshee and ran them off. We played basketball in my driveway on Darryl Drive almost every day for most of grade school, and are probably even at about 1000 wins apiece. When I was unjustly suspended for a UIL Tournament by Ms. Lockhart for hiding on the bus, Tommy mouthed off at her until he was suspended too. I won State in Number Sense my Junior Year, which paid for most of my Civil Engineering degree from Texas, but would not have done so if Tommy had not carried me there. As fellow Longhorn fans, we've suffered through the Mackovic years, the Simms-Applewhite saga and the 5 Long Years of Domination by OU, and screamed like mad when Vince made it all worth it in the Rose Bowl. Between us, we've made enough inappropriate comments to make Don Imus look like Paul Harvey, and are annually the toast of whatever section of DKR Texas Memorial Stadium we view football games from (Next year - the return to the Student Section!). I'm proud to call him my friend and brother, even at his advanced age...

Tommy's not the only one with a milestone happening right now. My good friend Jeff Turner is graduating from UT with a Doctoral Degree in Pharmacy, after a mere 12 years of college education. Counting grade school, Jeff is finishing up a quarter century in the American educational system, and after five universities, three degrees and approximately 1 million barbs from his friends, it's high time he entered the working world. If Jeff is as successful a pharmacist as he was a student, I think he'll do fine...



Finally, Jacob Riesser, my cousin from Jersey (left in photo above) is graduating from high school, and for his senior project, he has come to Texas to work alongside me at LCRA for a couple of weeks. He's really bright and a sweet kid, and can't stop talking about how much he loves cars. He loves them so much that this fall he will be attending Kettering University in Flint, Michigan to learn how to design and build them. I hope y'all get a chance to meet him while he's here...

That's all for now...

Evel Knievel

I read this story about Evel Knievel giving his testimony in a church and the overwhelming way that God worked through it, and I knew I had to post it - How often will I find something that so perfectly knits together my love of God and of motorcycles?

If my head weren't screwed on...

...it's highly likely that I would have left it on the bus after during a fourth-grade fieldtrip to the Alamo, left as a relic to be found by the brave soul who dared to venture into the basement...

Consider the following experiences from Monday and Tuesday:

1) I went to a local body shop on Monday to have the roof on my car fixed. My car sustained damage to the roof when I ran into my garage with a mountain bike mounted to my roof rack on St. Patrick's Day (Garage and bike were fine - car was not). The estimate was well above my $1000 deductible, but I initially told the man who estimated the damage that I would just pay out-of-pocket. When I woke up in the morning, I realized this was dumb, and reported the incident to my insurance (why have insurance if you don't take advantage of it?).

2) With my car in the body shop, my dad graciously allowed me to borrow his impecably maintained gold Toyota Tacoma. I drove it to work Tuesday morning, parked, and went in to the office. When I walked back to the parking lot during lunch, the truck was not where I parked it. I looked around, and to my shock (and relief), the truck had rolled safely to the edge of the parking lot, where, except for a bright orange parking notice, it escaped unscathed. Needless to say, I've now remembered how to operate the parking brake on it...

3) Later that afternoon, Tommy called and asked if we were still up for golf after work. I looked outside at a cloudy sky and said, "Sure." We met up at Hancock Golf Course at 5:30, with the sky darkening, but more importantly, no crowd ahead of us. We decided to play on...

...and by the time we were putting on the first hole, the skies opened up and . I told Tommy that it would get better, so we played on. We began to hear thunder by the 2nd fairway, and saw lightning in the distance at the 2nd green. We played on. On the 3rd hole, the rains came down really hard, flooding the course with runoff from the neighborhood. We ducked under a tree for a few minutes, and when the rains stopped, we managed to play 3 more muddy holes before calling it a day. I found out in the morning that the storm we played through produced softball-sized hail at Lake Travis. On a somewhat related note, the topic of our safety meeting this morning was "Lightning Safety"...

I tend to be more absent-minded than most, but every once in awhile, I'll have a week like this one, where I make poor decisions in bunches. As Brennan Manning would put it, "the cheese has fallen off my cracker." I then realize that it takes a lot of patience to deal with me sometimes, and I am grateful for the grace shown to me by my friends and by the Lord. I also see that, in light of my shortcomings, I should show more grace to others in light of their shortcomings.

For now, I think I'll be content with a good night's sleep...