Austin, day 2

Sunday was as gorgeous as it gets and several locals reassured me that this is, indeed, the best time of year for weather in Austin. I figured out how to escape the whole crazy freeway system and drove around the University of Texas and then down along Duncan Park on North Lamar Blvd, where I saw lots of people out and about, dogs romping in the creek that ran parallel to me as I neared Town Lake. Dogs offleash enjoying a creek! It's a miracle!

I passed a huge REI and Whole Foods and then crossed a bridge to South Austin, where I had read that the 'weird Austin' lives strong.

There were lots of people out in kayaks and canoes on the lake having what looked like a purely delightful time.

South Austin looked like a lively, colorful mix of Chico (little bungalows) and South of Market (artistan things, funky restaurants) and Todos Santos (the color, the Mexican influence). I visited a strip of funky fabulous stores on South Congress and had a lovely lunch. I was hoping to buy some boots at Allen's, but the prices were serious, so I decided to wait until a later date. But the boots were divine. I think I may have drooled when I saw a tan pair with amazing pink detailing. I just couldn't justify $400 for them, despite their charms.

I think my favorite store was "parts & labour", which stocks things made by local artisans - handbags, melted LP bowls, jewelry. I like supporting that kind of enterprise. I fell in love with and acquired a vinyl messenger-style bag with a funny robot on it, but had to leave behind the purse with an authentic Dodge "Swinger" emblem on it. Sigh. The artisan who made my bag is Milinde Lawless.

Drove back up through downtown and saw what I found out later is the very recently imploded Intel building. (As in, they set off the explosives this morning!)

Got totally frustrated trying to navigate back to my hotel. I think the freeway up in North Austin should get a D minus on usability.

I had my lovely leftover ribs for a dinner with the Oscars, although I had to wait for them to thaw. Somehow my little refrig in the hotel room was jacked up high and froze everything. After waiting an hour or two and eating cold ribs and beans, I then of course discovered that all along there had been a microwave cleverly hidden in the cabinet above the refrigerator. Doh!

dust clouds, blues, freeway madness

Update from this week's trek to check out Austin, Texas (where my new company is headquartered): There was a massive swirl of reddish brown clouds over the Dallas-Fort Worth airport today, where I was supposed to land around 1 pm and then transfer on to Austin. It looked like the sky had spent a summer at Silver Lake and picked up that fine volcanic dust all over. I was reading Kinky Friedman's " The Great Psychedelic Armadillo Picnic: A "Walk" in Austin " which had me chuckling to myself. We circled DFW for about 1/2 hour but then my flight became just one of 400 that were canceled in and out of DFW today and we headed over to land in Houston. It was muggy and hot, but the people were gracious and lovely.
On the advice of the friendly locals, instead of sitting there for 6 hours waiting for a flight to DFW and then another flight to Austin, I grabbed my Hertz rental car at the Houston Airport (instead of Austin) and headed to Austin by car, which folks told me would be about a two and half hour drive. Houston has some seriously funky circle roads but I did find the highway heading west at long last.
The country-side looked a lot like California's central valley, although I saw more guns shops than I see at home and there was no friendly fringe of mountain range anywhere in the distance.
My favorite road sign was just a little green road sign with an arrow and the name of the town, to help one turn right to get to "Dime Box."
As I got closer to Austin, I started getting some stellar radio stations. I loved KUT (University of Texas), which was playing some fantastic old rhythm and blues music. Made me feel like I was in a movie, driving the big open Texas road and having a blue-sy funky day.
Sadly, I then got lost as I got into town and shot right out of Austin southwards toward San Antonio, but not before I got to see the lovely capital dome glowing in the night. They have some very weird freeway methodology around here. You can exit the freeway but you can only then (seemingly) enter a side road going the same way as you were going on that freeway, so if you pass some place you want to visit, god help you. It made me nearly scream. But I am finally here at the elegant La Quinta Mopac North, next to the glamorous IBM Building in the Austin neighborhood that most resembles Silicon Valley. I've ordered some BBQ ribs to be delivered to my room and that should help take the edge off the whole getting lost freak out.
I had this image of Austin being much smaller and never imagined these crazy freeways going every which way. Hopefully I'll find some nice walkable spots tomorrow.

They just delivered my baby back ribs dinner and it's like HALF A PIG! Seriously, no one could eat eighteen ribs for dinner, could they??? Dear Lord, I might be in Tejas.

(20 minutes later)

By the way, I almost ate that whole half a pig. I can now understand how the feeding frenzy based on the massive deliciousness could just take one over.

If only I was here with a buddy, here's where I'd go tomorrow - Stubb's for their "Gospel Brunch!" I've never heard those two words go together but it's bee yoo tiful.

I work with engineers

... and here is proof. Behold what happens to a big bunch of promotional cardboard coasters in their inventive and restless hands:

Also delicious fun on the tech front - the new "security" Mac ad. CANCEL OR ALLOW???

My favorite of all time is the networking one.

anthropology gets sexy

this is inspirational and makes anthropology look all sexy and stuff.

Funny freecycle posting

I just received this from a fellow member of Berkeley Freecycle:

The unopened notepad (70 sheets) is in the shape andlikeness of Hello Kitty’s discontinued friend, Keroppi. The green clipboard is 5” wide and 6” tall.

---jeffrey, near UCB in Berkeley :vJ

So sad to have a discontinued friend!

Double-dog dare ya!

So my sister and I were laughing about this blog challenge to list out a favorite ten things beginning with a given letter of the alphabet. She said something about how mean it would be to tag someone with the letter "Q". To which I said,

"No, Q would be easy and fun. Wait, no. It would be really hard. Don't give me the Q." And then a minute later:

"No, Q would be easy!"

So, sis decided I was simply ASKING for it to be tagged with that Q no matter what I said from there on out. And a double dog dare oftens works on me, I'm afraid to say.







1. Quilts of Gee's Bend
Every time I see these beautiful quilts. I remember one of the quilters saying, "We did the best we could with what God gave us and we enjoyed ourselves."


2. Quiet
Sometimes I think the reason I haven't had children is simply because I absolutely love peace and quiet when I get done with work, for time to regroup, meditate, read, draw.

3. Questions
Where would all the philosophy majors (like me) be without them? I ask you?

4. Queen Elizabeth
God bless her for encouraging theater during Shakespeare's time!



5. Quiche Lorraine

Real men eat it.

6. Quercus lobata - (a.k.a. Valley Oak)

This tree reminds me of many wonderful places in California and some stunning paintings of those enlivening spots.

7. Queue

This word reminds me of Britain and the endearing character of its people. In addition to being articulate and wryly funny no matter if an aristocrat or a lorry driver, they are also deeply civil and know how to queue correctly.





8. Quirky

My favorite type of person. Say, for example, Rene di Rosa.










9. Quail

Also a lovely reminder of childhood in California.




10. Quiver
...in anticipation.

Kick-@(*#& ad - God Bless the Boomers

http://www.doveproage.com/

They played just a teaser as the television ad and pointed viewers to this URL to see the full imagery. And spicy and lovely it was! Love the message that Dove is not "anti-age" but "PRO age!" It's like I've been thinking for a while: the baby boomers are going to make getting old the best thing yet and just in time for me to get there! I can just hear the Sex Pistols rocking out the cafe in the retirement home now. Although I'm sure they will no longer bear a name like 'retirement', which suggests being supine.

But again, I don't even need to worry about that. The best marketing Boomer minds will figure it out before I even get my first AARP magazine!

sadly, a Napa arts initiative a bit too late for me...whinge alert :)

I got this intriguing email from the Arts Council of Napa Valley today including a press release on an initiative to establish a cultural plan for Napa. Here is a key part of it (the emphasis is mine):

"NAPA, California, February 7th, 2007: In the last five years, donors and funders in Napa County have invested close to $150 million dollars in the arts – without an overarching plan. The result?

- World-class venues, but not enough local audience to fill them
- Numerous arts organizations, but a tough financial climate: at least 12 galleries and theater groups have closed since the fall of 2004
- A wealth of individual artists of all disciplines, but few who can make a living in Napa County
- Committed and passionate arts supporters, but significant fatigue and uncertainty within the donor pool
- 4.7 million visitors per year, but most of whom don’t know about all we have to offer in the arts

To address these problems and opportunities, Arts Council Napa Valley, in concert with arts organizations, community members, and civic leaders from across the county, is creating a road map for a healthy and vital arts and culture sector that represents what the community wants to see, hear, and experience through its local arts. This road map is called a cultural plan. Cultural plans, and the cultural planning process, have been successfully used in communities large and small across America to create strong, vibrant, exciting arts sectors. This plan will be by the community, and for the community. To accomplish this, Arts Council needs Napa County residents to get involved and speak out for the arts. "

I responded to Michelle (whose art planning blog is here), who I was fortunate enough to meet a few times in Napa and found to be lovely and bright.

Here is my email back to her:

Hey Michelle,
I checked out your blog (great idea!) and left a comment there. This initiative looks so exciting, but sadly a bit too late for me. I think that one way to better support the arts in Napa would be to encourage industries like software and high tech. Many of us can't support ourselves full-time doing art and are earning livings as programmers, project managers, graphic designers, animators. But those jobs are few and far between in Napa.
I would also say that Napa needs to lean further to the left and positively embrace / celebrate minorities and gay people before the tipping point to 'artist-friendly' county could happen. I am (as you know) fishbelly-white and straight, but really disliked living in a homogenous, conservative, old-boy-network-heavy community. When working as a fundraiser in Napa, any energy I expended that reeked of "new kid in town" was received with either hostility, derision or plain old passive-aggressive attitude of "let's ignore her until she goes away." The folks running government and key organizations need a serious shift of belief - they need to truly feel that new ideas might be a help instead of a threat, that a rising tide will raise all boats.
I gave it a serious try to stay in the county but just couldn't do it for the reasons noted above, among others. I would have LOVED to help out with this kind of effort but feel like Napa wasn't set up for me to make a success of it.
Just another two cents for your group to consider / forward to the powers-that-be.
Thanks and very very best of luck to you all,

hidden city

I'm all moved in to the new casa and loving my very much shorter commute! I will be happier still when I get all these boxes sorted out. I'm finding that there are a lot of things I must've packed out of sheer exhaustion (or I've had a shift in values), because as I open boxes, I think "Ew, I don't even like this thing - straight into the Goodwill pile with you!"

Apparently, my new little town of Point Richmond is also referred to as "the Hidden City" - when Tom and Laura visited me on Sunday, we strolled downtown and had an EXCELLENT meal at the Hidden City Cafe. As it turns out, the Pixar crowd enjoyed the cafe too (back when they were located in P.R.) and they put it into the movie Monsters, Inc., which I have now pushed to the top of my Netflix queue so I can check that out!

I had a Niman Ranch roast beef hash with horseradish sauce and eggs, Laura was able to select a 'vegan special' (which prompted her to tell the waiter that "Kate is allowed to stay here") and Tom had some great-looking eggs and bacon. The OJ was fresh-squeezed, too.

"Is that France or Mexico?" we asked the waiter, pointing to a large flag on the rear wall.

"France," he said, "Well, actually, that's a wall."



_____________________

Today I am grateful that enough crazy drama is settled that I could notice the geese on the bay this morning as I drove to work;
I am grateful for the kind lovely people at my work;
I am grateful that tonight there is a nice little meeting just one block from my new house;
Today I ask God to let me focus on the next right thing.
____________________


Great local raptor photography from Glenn Nevill: http://www.raptor-gallery.com/

____________________

Great foodie-licious blog entry from one of my FAVES, Anthony Bourdain: http://blog.ruhlman.com/2007/02/guest_blogging_.html

rain, fried chicken sandwich, boxes

After much trekking up and down the stairs (5 hours worth), the fabulous Layne and Juan got all my schtuff out of the POD and into my new home in Point Richmond. Toward the end, the skies really opened up and they got soaked. But I tipped well, so hopefully they are happy campers.

I can't believe how many boxes there are. Who bought all this? Why oh why? I think there will be another solid round of tossing stuff. Makes me feel a bit sad and wasteful, but better I send it along to its next owner and feel the pain of my past behavior than store it and be haunted by it hovering over me always.

Anyhow, I unpacked some of the stuff, read a few pages of a Dick Francis mystery and fell sound asleep around 4 pm. Woke up briefly at about 8 pm and enjoyed some breakfast cereal before zonking out shortly thereafter until 7 am this morning. Guess I was a bit wiped. Yeah, just a tiny weeny itsy bitsy bit. I'm sure part of it was the relief of getting the move finally done. It was lovely to discover that my new place warms up nicely with the gas heater and stays that way, thanks to the fab double-paned windows the landlords just put in.

Today, my lovely coworkers included me in on a lunch place secret and now I think I have found my new favorite food. I thought maybe I hadn't heard him correctly when Jim asked if I'd like a "Fried Chicken Sandwich" from Bakesale Betty's. But, lo, it was true. This little bake shop on Telegraph offers a sandwich to die for, stuffed with the aforementioned chicken and also some delicious coleslaw-type stuff. Heaven.

Point Richmond / mental maps and artistic takes on those

Moving on Thursday to Point Richmond, about which I had heard a bit but just got the best vibe about the place when I went in person last week. It feels a bit like a beach town. I guess since there technically is a beach, it is a beach town of sorts. Just one that is sitting on the freeway tucked in behind the oil refineries. But that’s how it’s semi-affordable, I suppose.

This photo is of the two churchs just a block from my new house. The one on the right hosts the Tuesday night meeting and the one on the left hosts the Thursday night meeting. Artists, alcoholics - we're everywhere, like mildew. (As Chester Arnold once said - although he was referring only to artists.)

More on Point Richmond:

good general everything page: http://www.pointrichmond.com/
visitor review from Daily Planet: http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/article.cfm?archiveDate=05-12-06&storyID=24125
arts guild: http://home.comcast.net/~point_arts_guild/

richmond arts center: http://www.therichmondartcenter.org/
smells great: http://www.gracebaking.com/GRACEBAKING/Default.htm
or sometimes not so great: http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/01/22/18350759.php

and http://www.cccpointrichmond.com/updates.html

Rosie the Riveter memorial: http://www.ci.richmond.ca.us/index.asp?NID\u003d603

local blogger: http://pointofview.bluehighways.com/

East Brother Light Station: http://www.ebls.org

Hiking / walking: http://www.berkeleypaths.org/walkhandouts/walk_Point_Richmond.htm/

Golden State Model Railroad Museum: http://www.gsmrm.org/

______________________________________________

And links about Maps from Memory and Mental Mapping, for some reason quite fascinating to me today:

Maps from memory

London by Ellis Nadler (his blog http://ellisnadler.blogspot.com/)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nad/380055005/

Susan Holderread http://lrs.ed.uiuc.edu/students/holderrd/map_from_memory/intro.html

Interesting student projects from Mount Allison University:
http://www.mta.ca/faculty/socsci/anthro/mental_maps/mental_map_page.html


Memory mapping
http://www.expandedfield.com/memorymapping/index.cfm

Article from V&A about Memory Maps
http://www.vam.ac.uk/activ_events/adult_resources/memory_maps/what/index.html

Memory Maps project by Smithsonian
http://www.localprojects.net/lp/featured5detail.html

Illustration Friday Night http://illustrationfridaynight.blogspot.com/

More wonderful writing from Fredreick Buechner

From my favorite new meditation book (well, new to me anyhow), here is the entry for January 15, which has stuck with me since:

"After Buechner's father's death, the family moved to Bermuda, rather to Grandma Buechner's disapproval:

'You should stay and face reality,' she wrote, and in terms of what was humanly best, this was perhaps the soundest advice she could have given us: that we should stay and, through sheer Scharmann endurance, will, courage, put our lives back together by becoming as strong as she was herself. But when it comes to putting broken lives back together – when it comes, in religious terms, to the saving of souls - the human best tends to be at odds with the holy best. To do for yourself the best that you have it in you to do – to grit your teeth and clench your fists in order to survive the world at its harshest and worst – is, by that very act, to be unable to let something be done for you and in you that is more wonderful still.

The trouble with steeling yourself against the harshness of reality is the same steel that secures your life against being destroyed secures your life also against being opened up and transformed by the holy power that life itself comes from. You can survive on your own. You can grow strong on your own. You can even prevail on your own. But you cannot become human on your own.

Surely that is why, in Jesus’ sad joke, the rich man has as hard a time getting into Paradise as that camel through the needle’s eye because with his credit card in his pocket, the rich man is so effective at getting for himself everything he needs that he does not see that what he needs more than anything else in the world can be had only as a gift. He does not see that the one thing a clenched fist cannot do is accept, even from le bon Dieu himself, a helping hand."

Wonderful local food blogger

Anna from Mill Valley - I stumbled on to her blog since she is also a member of the SF Compact Yahoo Grouo.

Times, they are a-changin'...

I tried to get into Chester Arnold's class, but he was totally over-subscribed (over-booked?) Anyhow, his class was too full. He sent me over to a painting class, but I don't know that I like the teacher and the students were all about 18 years old.

So instead I signed myself up for a Thursday night "Figure Painting" class at California College of Art! yay! Teacher is someone named Sian Oblak . I find her work intriguing.

The teacher from College of Marin last night did show some fun slides before we started in on painting and I jotted down a couple of new names - artists I liked.

David Salle

Raymond Saunders (image in this post)

It looks like I may be able to keep my job in Berkeley, despite a recent acquisition of our company by a competitor. I like the new guys (from our new HQ) and also like their product, so it would be great to stay.

As it turns out also, my art-class friend Carmen just got a job in Kentfield and doesn't want to commute from Napa, so we may find a place down here together, ideally some loft-type space where we could leave our art projects out. Yippee!

Had a great meeting this morning with Molly. She is so perceptive and encouraging. It's a real gift to be a good teacher / coach and I just feel so lucky when I get hooked up with one.

have a heart

"An artist needn’t be a clergyman or a churchwarden, but he certainly must have a warm heart for his fellow men."

Vincent van Gogh

Kristin Chenoweth, friend of adjectives

One of the more fun things about following la Chenoweth is seeing the creative responses writers have to seeing her in performance. Take, for example, Newsday:

Joyful neurosis, with an acute dose of cute

BY JUSTIN DAVIDSONNewsday Staff Writer
January 22, 2007

It's hard work to be adorable, but Kristin Chenoweth's labors of lovability bore fruit at her Metropolitan Opera concert Friday night in what can only be described as a leaping ovation. Her fans came primed, and she did not disappoint them. She sang well, of course, but her gymnastic and pliant voice is actually not her secret.No, that would be the slightly desperate assertiveness of her opening number, "Gorgeous," from her current Bock & Harnick Broadway vehicle, "The Apple Tree," followed by Stephen Schwartz's "Popular." All performers live by the motto "Look at Me," but Chenoweth craves love more obviously than most. To get it she has refined her brand of rodeo cutesiness - by turns raunchy, girly, soulful and angelic - and finished it with a coat of good New York neurosis.

Chenoweth is a tiny Roman candle with a blinding grin, a rubber-ball soprano and a personality big enough to dominate the Met's majestic house. She arrived full of wonder at her own talent, her good fortune and the sheer oh-my-golly-gee-whizness of a girl like her ending up in a place like this. But while she milked the persona of a trailer-park pixie, she strode the stage like the bona fide diva she is, hurling high-voltage top notes that nearly fried the amplification. Ah, the amplification: Chenoweth knows how to romance a microphone, but it's an alien presence at the Met, and it blurred her high-definition patter in "If You Hadn't But You Did" into a rat-tat-tat of phonemes. Maybe now that the company is so attuned to technology and media, it will find a way of making these once-a-year amplified concerts sound good. Chenoweth was at her best in recent music, such as "The Girl in 14G," by Jeanine Tesori, which updates the classic New York vignette: girl off the bus, still smelling of hay, who finds an apartment and seeks salvation in showbiz. In the song, her quiet nest turns out to be sandwiched between the Wagnerian soprano downstairs and the Ella-wannabe upstairs; her only option is to best them both with a bit of Broadway belting. Chenoweth tossed off that assortment of styles like a tennis ball serving machine. At her perkiest, she hopped so enthusiastically that she threatened to do a double Janet Jackson out of her shoulderless gown. But the evening's real thrill was the emotional nakedness she allowed herself for a stretch of the second act. "Love Somebody Now," by her rock-solid music director Andrew Lippa, is a tender anthem of the lonely. "How Can I Lose You?" by Adam Guettel is a deeper, more bitter description of love killed by too much need. Having established her sincerity credentials, Chenoweth then slid down a ravine into a bog of sentimentality, culminating with the Styx song "Show Me the Way," complete with chorus and churchy crescendos. She redeemed herself with encores, starting with Leonard Bernstein's "Glitter and Be Gay," which in her case seemed less like a song title than the first injunction in a 12-step program for stars.

Daily book

I have stumbled on a new daily meditation book that I really love - by Frederick Buechner. Here is something that was in there the other day:

"Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is. In the boredom and pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.”

Fie on Earthlink

Earthlink actually made me swear out loud at my workplace. They were ridiculous; kept me on hold for 30 minutes, during which they repeatedly told me that "your call is important to us" and then encouraging me to hang up and take my complaint to their web site instead.
Finally got a human being on the line and gave him all of the account details, after which he decided I needed to talk to someone more senior. I was transferred. I had to repeat all of the account details. After much explanation of the history of the problem, the call center person told me that I absolutely HAD to be looking at the modem while I was reporting this. So I will try again tonight. Apparently their call center is open 24 hours a day.
After I hung up and said some inappropriate swear words, a colleague popped over to tell me that I should not do business with Earthlink since they are all "crazy Scientologists." See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthlink.

Stephen Huneck

Another dog artist I love. Hey GP, he's from Vermont!

Austin

The company that is acquiring us is based in Austin and I have raised my hand to say, "Yes! I'll go!"

Now, I also find that they have a Shakespeare Studies department at the university there. Man, oh man oh man. How great is that?

I hear nothing but good things about Austin, so my focus is shifting more in the direction of Texas. Who'd a thunk it? Heck, I can ride western and adore Shakespeare and create paintings and listen to the Dixie Chicks with the best of them. Ok, so I might get bucked off if I went up against the best of them western rider types, but still...

I like the "Keep Austin Weird" web site.

I just recalled that back in November, my sister and I both took a "what city are you?" test and my result was Austin! Actually, so was hers. Maybe she should ditch California too. There is only that pesky problem that she's able to practice her profession just in California. Does JetBlue fly to Austin? That would make things much happier.