Austin, TX

Visiting a place where you used to live makes for an odd trip. You feel at home, and yet it isn't home any more. You have a giant list of things to see and do, which likely isn't possible to do in a short time, and even if it were, it makes for a fairly hectic trip. You have people you want to see but getting to see them all proves difficult. Despite all of that, or maybe because of all of that, Melissa and I had an amazing trip to Austin last weekend. It was the first trip back where we really had no event to attend so it afforded us to the perfect chance to do all the things we wanted to do.

We drove there on Wednesday and the drive was fairly uneventful other than traffic in Houston due to rush hour. We met up with Taylor, Carrie, Jerry, and Dot at Kerbey Lane and enjoyed the good food and good company. After dinner settled in at Jerry's house and Dot must be commended for making the guest area of the house very homey. I'm still amazed there was guest shampoo.

I started off Thursday with lunch at Jason's Deli with Carrie. Just like old times. In the afternoon and sat with my old co-workers at IBM and slipped into my old desk routine, which meant lots of we browsing and coffee with Thanh. After work Jerry and I went to Opal Divine's for some after work beer and conversation. Still odd to think that was the Sea Island Shrimp House building. The gang met up with us there and then we went to Mangia for dinner, the one on Spicewood. We even took the crazy hill down to 360 on the way back to Jerry's. I also believe that night we played some crazy rabbit game on the Wii. The Rock Band like portion of that game was highly amusing.

Friday Melissa dropped me off at IBM and I went to lunch with my old co-workers at Trudy's. The afternoon was filled for me with Warcraft Beta news and conference calls. We met up at the Riche's condo that evening for a nice refreshing dip in the pool and a visit from Sara and the kids. Catherine was amazingly cute and talkative and Elizabeth, well, was just tiny. Surprisingly Melissa was OK around the infant so that's good progress. We went to Trudy's for dinner, which means it was an all Trudy's day for me, and then back to Jerry's.

Saturday we started with a visit to Ikea so that Dot could introduce us to her heritage (she's Swedish). The meatballs were quite tasty and the showroom was pretty cool. I like how they show you what to do with small space. I'm certainly going to keep them in mind when we eventually get a house. We had Rudy's for dinner, followed by beer at the Gingerman, and topped it all off with dessert at Chez Zee. Pretty much a perfect Saturday night in Austin.

Sunday we met up at Alamo Drafthouse to see the Dark Knight. Though we were there 30 minutes before show time, we wound up in the front row. It was nearly as painful as I expected and the movie, just wow, amazing. It's been a while since I thought a blockbuster movie was also a good movie. It should be required viewing for everyone. After the movie, we did a little driving through the hills, then went back to Jerry's for a nap. We went to Shady Grove for dinner, Oasis for drinks at sunset, and Mozart's for coffee on the water.

Monday we drove home. Nothing special.

A big thanks to Jerry and Dot for putting us up and the Riches for hanging out with us as we dragged them across Austin. Austin itself is a great place to visit, but it wouldn't be nearly as fun without y'all.