Friday night – Austin !

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Diane and I spent the day re-aquiniting ourselves with the shiny new Austin we were visiting. We started with a really nice longish run along  both sides of the Colorado river. There are great dirt running trails on both sides.

I came back to see a social media post showing my good friend John S getting his doctorate. It is so good to see him done !

Our main destination this morning was the Museum of the Weird. It’s on Austins party street – 6th street.. I’ve always walked by.. but never walked in. It was in a creepy old building with lots of cool/campy exhibits .. kind of like ripples believe it or not. 

Next stop was out to see our good friends Carl and Brynn. Carl and I worked together closely for many years at IBM. He retired several years ago.. and now spends all of his time pursuing his hobbies and being with his family.. I get the family part, but it looks like I need to develop some hobbies if I’m going to try that

Carls main hobbies are model railroading and restoring old pinball machines. He’s dedicated much of his house to those hobbies.. including fancy 3d printers to build pros for his trains.. and an electronic shop where he builds custom printed circuit boards to control his trains.   In fact it was carls PCB work that inspired me to cook up OnBoard with hack club !.

We had a great time eating lunch (carl picked up Chum’s at our request again .. can’t get enough !) 

It was great catching up with Brynn and Carl.. they’ve been so great spreading samstone around the world when they travel for their cruises

We spent the rest of the afternoon walking around Austin.. and exploring the sights.. as grown up as its gotten.. Austin is still pretty funky !  

We tried to watch the bats come out under the congress street bridge.. but no bats to be seen tonight.. but some great people watching !

Last event for the day was the informal get together before Josh’s wedding. It was a great way to meet up with family and old friends. We got some time to talk to the parents of the groom.. our good friends and cousins Kathy and Mark  , Marks sister Gail and Brother Steve
(Marks grandmother was my great great  aunt Keenie)  (I will get pictures of Steve tomorrow !)  Also saw our friends Tim and Anne from Vermont and my friend Mike Conncannon’s wife ( can’t remember her name !   super nice)  Mike died quite a few years ago.. it was nice to meet his wife

Also met some new cousins..  Jonn and his wife (argh.. name ?) .. who joined us for some late night tacos..

It’s fun being down here !

nite all nite sam 

-me

Thursday night – hello Austin

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This afternoon diane and I got back on a plane and headed to Austin. We’re heading to our cousin Josh’s wedding…
I’ve had at least three phases of visiting Austin:

  1. In the late 70’s I  used to head to Austin to get up to mischief when I was in high school. It was 168 miles from our door to the main drag in Austin.. Many happy memories from listening to music.. and swimming where we shouldn’t.
  2. In the late 90’s I worked on several big chip projects down there.. One year I was in Austin 17 times !  Worked super hard, made some great friends.. and really got in to the Austin music scene
  3. In the lat 2010’s I started going down there for more fun stuff.: I gave a talk at SXSW, one at Sente, a couple of visits to the hill country

In each of those phases I saw how Austin had grown.. and also  seen how it has kept its goofy unique culture.

DIane and I found an airbnb in the south congress section of down town.. The airbnb wasn’t so great.. but the area had been totally transformed. When I used to go to the  continental club on SoCO.. the street was full of interesting second had and junk stores.. now it’s full of high end brand stores and boutique restaurants.. Still fun though

Mission one on our trip was to eat at Chueys.. Love that place !

Its nice to be back in my old home state !

nite all, nite sam

-me