SXSW

Music was everywhere. Every street corner, club, bar, pub, alley, coffee shop, restaurant, random stage. It was absolutely insane.

I really spent the entire week in a complete live music coma – I’m not ever sure how life went down that week. Basically, I went to work, and then went to listen to music until about 2 each morning. It was beautiful.

Thing I loved about SX…there’s something for everyone. Even if it wasn’t my favorite type of music, from a musicians perspective, it’s way super sweet to see people doing what they love to do – in this case, performing music.

Here’s a bit of what I came across:

Ozomatli at Auditorium Shores:

Day band on Congress:

Day band at a coffee shop on S. 1st:

She + Him at Auditorium Shores:

Random duo on Congress:

Random drummer on 6th:

Band on 6th:

Another band on 6th Street:

And here are some pictures.

Two two words I can think of to best describe this band: raw + janky. Not in a bad way. But everything from their music, style, presentation, equipment, insturments. Just raw + janky.

Oh emo band dudes with crazy I-pretend-I-don’t-care-but-you-can-tell-I-really-did-spend-2-hours-doing-my-crazy-hair.

Yup. Those are all bottles and cans being THROWN IN THE TRASH. Not going to lie, I felt a little sick when I saw this.

Love me some graffiti (;

Where’s Waldo? And by Waldo, I mean the old dude wearing a mini floral flow-y skirt and NOTHING UNDERNEATH. Oh Austin. (=

I found a Mexican / Guatemalan store!!! Felt right back in Queretaro, momentarily!

I saw about 5.2 million skinny jeans, army green, black, flannel, beanie, vans wearing emo “creative” guys during SXSW.

thoughts on the new health care system

I’m not sure any of us can really comment on the bill…I know I can’t.  I’m fairly confident none of us have read it in full…and even if we have, there have been so many amendments, it’s hard to keep up…not to mention what the media tells us is not representative of what goes down. BUT, with that said…my thoughts to the sitch. in general:

I think we forget to think about why the cost of health care is so high in the first place. Perhaps it’s a reaction to our monetary policy … I think it’s pretty clear what happens when we’re in a giant deficit as it is, then we inflate the monetary supply to somehow fund this new coverage? Which I suppose either means borrowing more $ from China or taxing a certain tax bracket. Which leads to a whole other series of problems…if we are taxing the people who make more money…a good portion of these people are business owners. If they have less $, that means less money for employees…or no employment (hmmm correlation to current unemployment situation!?)

Also, basic economic principle: less competition = higher prices. AKA, the more the government has it’s hands on “regulation” health care, the more expensive it will be. So the problem here is that we’re looking for immediate gratification rather than a long-term solution….

AND, “insurance” doesn’t equal entitlement. For example, we have car insurance for the bigger things: accidents, injuries, etc. Car insurance doesn’t pay for basic preventative maintenance such as oil changes, gas or car washes. However, for some reason, we think that we are all entitled to health insurance, don’t plan ahead and save for basic maintenance (of ourselves), and then expect the government to figure it out.

So, with that said, I’ve always said that if you complain about something, you have to offer a solution. So here’s what I think: Whether or not our elected officials believe gov. regulated health care is the best thing or not, many vote based on what they think the people want (as they should); however, we as the constituents need to take some responsibility and actually take time to educate ourselves on the issue and consider what might be the best long-term plan, rather than a short-term “solution”. I’ll be the first to say our current situation is pretty shitty, but I also think it’s up to us to think about how these proposed changes are going to change things on both a micro and macro level, both short and long term.

Ah. Nothing like a good 8 AM tangent. (;

Where’s Kim?

It’s like Where’s Waldo…except for with me. (;

This video was shot during a show with Quiet Company at The Parish this past October.

Here’s the hint. I can be found a handful of times throughout the video, probably for a grand total of 8 seconds…max.

Good luck. And, of course, enjoy (=

GEOCACHING!!!

So, I had some friends from Salem visiting this past week. (p.s. quick tangent…I think it’s funny how depending on where I am geographically, or who I am talking to, I’ll change the location of where I am from or where I know people from. Like…if I was talking to a Texan and just said that, I would have said my friends from Oregon or my friends from Portland. If I was in Salem, I’d say my friends from Sprague. If I was in Eugene, I’d say my friends from high school, if I was in Portland I’d say my friends from Salem…if I was in a different country…well, I’d prob. say my American friends…)

Anyway, back to my original thought…

GEOCACHING!!! Yep, that sure happened this weekend. So I spent the weekend showing Kyle + Kristin the things that make Austin so great. We went down to the trail on Town Lake and headed over toward Barton Springs. Then all of a sudden, we thought: hey, let’s find a geocache! So, I ashamed to say I didn’t go the hardcore route…i.e. I used the geocaching app. on my phone…but that’s ok, it was still a treasure hunt!

So, we ended up near the botanical garden and our clue was that is hidden near the gate.

Beautiful gate, no? So, we’re searching all around the gate for a minute or two and…DUN DUN DUN DUN!!!! I found it!!

The cache was hidden inside the bottom of a rock!

Kristin was pretty stoked:

Here’s the log that was within the cache. Looks like a ton of people have found it prior to us.

And now we are forever a part of this log. Please note the wonderful use of product placement, aka my API pen.

That night, we went to the hey cupcake! trailer. As I was waiting, I looked to see if there were any caches around. Low and behold, there was one .14 miles away! So off Kyle and I went…

Our clue was that it was in a busy location and it was in a 2 lb. peanut butter jar. We walked up and down a 1 block area at least 4 or 5 times…where could it be….where could it be?!

…then, Kyle stuck his hand down this hole (!!!). IT WAS THERE!

This was by far the better cache I think – and thank god KS was there, as there’s no way in hell I would have put my hand in there! (or thought to do so either!)

This cache had a log AND treasures! We each took a treasure and put one in for the next cachers.

Here’s what I took. So freaking awesome. And look at the guy in the middle with the creeper ‘stache.

“JEWbacca”?? excellent. (;