Spring Has Sprung

I had a great time over spring break and I hope everyone checked the other blog to see what we did and how we did it. I thank all the people that went with me and helped it go off beautifully, you made it very special. This week back has been test-ful and next week proves more of the same, though if Kim and Lisa are there to help me whith art history, that's one less thing I need to worry about. The proffessor gave us the test on Wednesday for Human Sexuality, so that's two tests down. Now all I need worry about is Metabolism and Biochemistry of Microorganisms on thursday. If anyone is interested in hearing a talk about the use of microbes for cleaning up: oil spills, naturally-occuring oil spills, and the upcoming change from oil to ethanol (we'll all be using it soon with a quick trip to the mechanic to change a chip in your car's computer) then come hear my proffessor (Dr. Dennis Schneider - Vice-President of Micro-Bac International)on Wednesday, March 29th at 6 p.m. in PHR 2.108. He's a really funny guy and a great speaker. He knows a lot about this business and really cares about cleaning up mistakes made by a lot of fat-cats.

In other news, I went to Guitar Center to buy a little LED light for my mixer and ran into DJ Michaelangelo (he's the 40 something father of Austin breakbeat and house music back when the shows at SKY downtown were a blast to go to) who was working there as a manager in the DJ section. He told me about an upcoming show that I'd love you all to join me at:


It's only $7 at the door and free if we get there before 9pm. It goes until 3am but I doubt if we'll stay that long. There should be 16 DJs out there, so we will have a good variety of music. One of the groups, Gir and Byrd are the team-up of Rocky Rodd (DJ Gir) and Daniel Byrd, the two that practically invented RocknBass, an offshoot of DrumnBass that has amazing guitar riffs and very beat-heavy rock influences, so I think it's got a little something for everybody.


Spring into action!

Travel Time

I'm in Dallas as I'm typing and the drive was actually really smooth. I made it in really good time, with very little traffic. I'm really stoked about the trip, it seems everything is going to work out really well. I just hope we can pull it all together in the last few days. Matt is down in Houston; Katie's got her mom in town; Kim's busy (she got into gradschool); and Robin, Julie, and I are in different cities. We're going to try to pull it all together (set itinerary, buy food, pack clothes, set directions) on Tuesday. We're going to leave very early on Wed. so as to make good time. Matt is bringing his GPS locator so we should have no problem getting to our destinations. Just in case we do, however, we have a new tool that Kim found!

I'm pretty impressed with Google on this one: Google's Send-To-Phone. You highlight text on any webpage and click the icon on the toolbar. The text will then be placed into a text message(s) that you send to any phone number. The only problem is that you need to know the cellular carrier. But the really nice thing is that we can text directions to everywhere we go and have it on our phones. I need to get ahold of some walkie-talkies so we can communicate between cars when there might not be cell towers out there.

I'm tired and I don't know if anyone's in town, and I don't know if I feel like going out but we shall see. I think I'm going to start homebrewing my own beer when I get back. What do you want to drink - Pale ale? Lambic (fruit) ale? Belgian ale? Scottish ale? Porter? Imperial Rusian Stout? Get back to me and we'll brew and have a party when it's done!


Hit the road, Jack...

Dance Dance Dance

We had a great night last night. Matt, Kim, Katie, Steve, Tiffany and I were supposed to go downtown. Tiffany cancled on us to go to a frat party (more on that later). The rest of us hit Apple Bar at 9pm. Steve, who has been really late as of late, didn't show until 10pm (we were about to ditch him) with two other guys. Steve and his brother showed up. Katie's Steve, our Steve, is a good guy. Other Steve pisses us off. He came out with us about a year ago and nobody had any fun with him because he had a stupid remark for everything. Steve A. has known Other Steve for a long time, and that's fine...just don't bring him again. Other Steve's Brother was actually a really cool guy, knew a lot about beer, pretty smart guy- fun times. Other Steve hasn't changed a bit and Kim and Matt were thinking about ditching/ punching him in the face. I vetoed both motions and we still ended up having a great night.

We shared some apple martinis at Apple Bar and then went down to 4th to see if Saba or 219 West were cool, but it was still too "foody" and not really "bar-y" enough for us. Matt wanted a snakebite (beer and cider), I wanted a black and tan (Guinness and Bass), and Kim wanted more pictures of 6th for her multimedia flash project so we went to B.D. Riley's Pub. After our beers we hiked it over to Brown Bar and Matt, Kim, and Katie all choked down some 4 Horsemen. I got a dirty martini, Matt got a really good Caramel Apple drink, and Kim got a nasty Key Lime Pie drink. The DJ at Brown Bar inspired us to go someplace to dance, so I suggested Red Fez.

Getting into Red Fez (I love that there's a line) we went to the back and Katie and Kim got amarretto sours and I downed a gin a tonic. Then we started having fun! DJ Kurv (I've heard him before and he spins pretty good latin-euro house) had a pretty good dance floor going. We joined in for the better part of and hour until our feet were going to fall off. Well done and hats off to Matt for getting his ass on the floor and getting down to the music. Now Matt loves music, but he is first and foremost a punk rocker. Matt has never danced at a club before and for a novice, was certainly showing up a lot of other losers that were just standing around watching their girls dance. Steve A. was doing a good job dancing, but Other Steve (notice I'm using Other to keep myself from putting insulting names on him) and his brother really looked silly and kinda stood around. There's an old DJ saying, "No matter how dumb you look dancing (and everyone kinda does look a bit foolish), you look 10 times as daft by standing around being a passive". We left Red Fez for a cool-down at Gingerman.

Matt was totally bummed out when we left and I had no idea why. He told me that he was dancing and these three girls laughed at him and he'd never been so embarrassed. We all laughed because Steve, Other Steve, and I all got shut down by the same three girls too! These bitchy dykes (they were kissing each other pretty hard on the lips) elbowed Other Steve in the chest (good work there, really), wouldn't let me into the middle of the dance floor, and pushed Steve A nearly off the already too crowded dance floor! Matt didn't feel so bad after that and we finished the night with a few light beers and went home to sleep off the wonderful night.

In other news, our travel blog is up! Visit http://www.westtexastrip.blogspot.com for My, Katie's, Kim's, and Matt's view on everything from planning to inevitable sunburn to the long car trips! I promise a great, funny, informative blog and the team writing will let you really see the difference in writing styles among us. I hope you'll join us on our long, strange trip!


this is the part on Sprokets where we dance!

Diver Down

Back again, I'm feeling pretty much normal. I've been busy with my schoolwork as of late and of the 4 tests, I'm proud to say that I recived 3 A's and 1 B. All over, not too shabby. We finally got together and decided on a trip for spring break (in only a week and a half) this year. We (by we I mean Katie, Matt, Robin, Julie, Kim, Tiffany, and I) decided to head out to west Texas, specifically Balmorhea. There's a pool out in the middle of the desert about 2 acres big and 78 degrees year round. Julie (possibly Tiffany) and I will go SCUBA diving and everyone else will get a chance to swim in the crystal 30 foot deep water. We also plan to ride horses, visit a few wineries (Blue Mountain and St. Genevieve), see the modern art galleries in Marfa, see the Marfa Lights, see the McDonald Observatory (which UT owns) in Ft. Davis, and perhaps go to Big Bend for a while. I can hardly wait and I'm just counting down the days until we leave! We're staying the 15th through the 19th so it should be plenty long to see and do everything. This trip will most likely be team blogged by Kim, Katie, Matt and myself starting soon to be published (at least on the web) by the Austin Traveler Magazine (the publication Kim and Katie work for). We're really geared up for the trip, though getting there will be kinda boring (hopefully music will help) as the drive is 6-8 hrs from Austin.

In other news, I got myself a wonderful deal on some Sennheiser HD280 pro DJ headphones which retail for about 100-200 bucks but I was very very very lucky. I went to my local (there's only one in Austin) Guitar Center and found that lo and behold they had a used pair for $50!! I tested them out on the DJ gear they had in the back and they worked like a dream. So I'm happy about that purchase, but I'm still looking for a cheap SCUBA regulator as I thought I gound one on Craigslist, but alas, it was sold off to someone less deserving, I'm sure. My father and youngest brother are coming down on Friday and I'm really trying to make my place look presentable for their visit. They're not here to see me (when does my family do that?) but rather for Ben to see Explore UT as our open-house of all the cool things that get done here at the University. I really hope he comes to UT as that would be pretty exciting and make a great excuse for me to visit Austin all the damned time! I'll keep this updated more as spring break draws closer and I'll link to the Travel Blog so anyone who wants to can see the progress of our trip!


Holy diver, you been down so long...