I know it has been a while sinnce I posted anything here. I have been in the final stages of building a website and haven’t had time for much else. I am almost finished, and should be handing the website off to the owners within the next couple of weeks. I will return to a more regular posting schedule then.
- Sean
I found this video explaining the federal budget and Obama’s 100 Million budget reduction. I found it very enlightening. It is only a minute thirty and well worth every second if for no other reason than to enlighten us the voting public.
NOTICE: The money to the left of the blue line represents money we HAVE. Everything to the right of the blue line is money we DON’T HAVE! IMHO we need to find a way to reduce spending until we are within the blue line.
- Sean
Yesterday my cubicle neighbor showed me an error message he had on his screen. I can’t tell you exactly what it said for security reasons, but in essence it said, “Error: Dual screens may not be supported in a future version of this program.”
This is the first time traveling error message I have ever seen. Actually, it is worse than that. It is the first time traveling maybe message I have ever seen. Apparently we are even more confused in the future than we are today.
- Sean
As many of you know Jenn and I just came back from Austin TX, and I thought you might like a transplanted mid westerner’s thoughts and impressions of Texas’ capital city.
First…
Our friends were gracious enough to offer their oldest daughters room for our stay. And, over all, we were pleased with the accommodations…with one little exception. It seems their 4 year old daughter has an infatuation with pink, purple, pink, princesses…and…er…more pink. A whole lotta pink. So much so my manliness came into question on more than one occasion. For example, I have never wanted to sleep on Disney Princess sheets in my life, but in Austin I did. I try not to let my nightmares wake Jenn. (just kidding, the nightmares wake Jenn up all the time)
The houses in Austin are something to behold. And no, I am not be sarcastic. They are all relatively new, Austin having boomed in the 90’s and early 2000’s, and almost all of them have limestone facades. The one we stayed in had a most impressive floor plan, which is already influencing the design Jenn and I will likely build once we pay off our current home.
Mombii and I got into a discussion on people’s sizes. Specifically I lamented that nothing in this world is designed for someone my size. Every bed is too short, every shower is aimed at my chest, every chair is to low to the ground, etc. I also stated that I don’t have a throw blanket that is my size. (I like to keep a cool house in the winter, and even this polar bear gets cold sometimes)
Mombii took this to heart, and while I was taking a nap Sunday afternoon, those donuts caught up with me, Mombii decided to take Jenn on a mysterious shopping trip. They returned with a huge bag filled with yarn. The purpose? A Sean sized Dare Debt Free Blanket! Cool! 
No longer will I have to settle for a blanket that covers from my shoulders to my calves. Mombii is making this one over 7 feet long! Hot diggity! I can’t wait!
The drive to Austin takes just under 14 hours. Since we left on Thursday and returned on Monday that means we spent 28 hours in our car. Fortunately we are okay with that. Unfortunately we did run into a couple of snags due to fatigue and poor directions.
On the way to Austin we found out that Dallas doesn’t invest enough in highway signs. The exit sign for I35E, which takes you from Dallas to Austin, is positioned about 200 feet past the beginning of the concrete divider that separates the I35E exit from the other exit, which dumps you out into a charming section of Dallas. Charming that is if you like cars on blocks, liqueur stores, prostitutes and multiple pristine 1960’s Chevrolet’s with air ride suspensions. God was with us though. Two right hand turns and we were back on the highway.
On the way home I was driving using both the car’s cruise control, as well as my mental one, when I decided to turn east on the Muskogee Turn Pike. Unfortunately I was supposed to drive another 30 minutes north and turn on the Will Rogers Turn Pike. Oops.
Now the Will Rogers Turn Pike is a nice modern road with many friendly people to take your toll along the way. They don’t take debit cards, but they will make change for larger denominations. The Muskogee Turn Pike, on the other hand, is designed for those individuals who still travel with exact change. And when I say exact change, I mean exact change. As in coins. The toll was 50 cents to get on, which I paid with our last two quarters, and another 50 cents to get off, for which I didn’t have change. I did have one dollar, five dollar and ten dollar bills, but no change. Double oops!
So there I am at the booth, which I forgot to mention is unmanned, with no change and a quickly growing number of cars behind me. All of which I am sure have exact change. Jenn says, “What are we going to do?”
We drove through the booth without paying, that’s what we did. If we get a ticket in the mail, which might not happen considering the state of the equipment at the toll booth, I will be sure to amend the amount due to 50 cents plus postage, and, in the accompanying letter, suggest to the State of Oklahoma that they upgrade their toll booths to at least include a dollar bill changer. I mean at least they could upgrade their equipment to compete with a 1980’s arcade. Sheesh!
Let’s jump into the Wayback Machine, thank you Mr. Peabody, to when Jenn and I met while working at GTE as directory assistance operators. One of the cities we provided directory assistance to was Texarkana AR, which is on the boarder with Texarkana TX. You might remember Texarkana TX from the movie Smokey and the Bandit. That is where the Bandit and Snow Man picked up 400 cases of illegal Coors beer for Big Earnie Burdett’s birthday party. But I digress.
In Texarkana, along with many cities throughout the Southwest, you will find a restaurant Jenn and I first heard called Water Burger. When the DA operators, as we were called at GTE, typed in Water Burger the computer would come back with no results. Since the people of Texarkana have, how shall I put it, thick southern accents we often had to ask them to slowly repeat the name of the restaurant in question so we could understand it. The response was often, “I said w-a-t-e-r b-u-r-g-e-r. You know, the one on the corner?” Since Jenn and I were in Saint Louis we didn’t know “the one on the corner”. When we asked them to spell it the answer was invariably, “Hell, I don’t know. It’s just Water Burger.”
Eventually one of the more experienced operators, who had been laughing at this exchange for some time, would illuminate us poor newbies. The restaurant in question was called “What A Burger“.
Fast forward 13 years to our trip to Arizona. We are cruising along on Highway 40 West when what do we see on a road side eatery sign? What A Burger! We had to try it.
I took my first bite of their double with cheese with Pico sauce and ketchup. Holy cow it was like there was a party in my mouth and everyone was invited! Jenn and I loved the place, and we have been addicted ever since.
That was a long story to tell you there are tons of What A Burger’s in Austin. We ate there twice, which was about 6 times too few. 
We also ate at Chuy’s mexican, which was outstanding, and the Alamo Draft house, which was also incredibly good, but I don’t have a mush mouth southern accent story for them.
I mentioned that we went to the Alamo Draft house, which is more of a movie theater than a brewery. They show what is called Master Pancake Theater. Think MST3000 only funny. The four “pancakers” spoofed The Fellowship of the Ring, and they did a pretty good job. I highly recommend attending the Master Pancake Theater, but at times it was a little over the top. You have to be fairly open minded to appreciate their sense of humor.
We also hiked a little bit in and around Austin. During the first such hike, which we took along a river side walking trail downtown, I saw my first glimpses of the city. Austin was not what I expected. But I discuss that in more detail when I talk about…
…but in a good way.
From my Brother and his Wife’s 1000 yard stare of ecstasy while talking about Austin, to Mombii’s insistence it is the greatest place in the world to live, I expected a virtual nirvana with perfect streets, gentrified urban neighborhoods and well designed transit and architecture.
Instead I found a city that wasn’t thought out well at all, and the urban city was somewhat run down and dirty. However, the suburbs were very neat and appealing. I wondered how this could be? I also wondered what it was that made Mombii and my Brother so ga ga over Austin? In short the answer is the people.
Austin was a small city that housed the Texas legislature, and not too much else, until about 20 years ago. Then the tech boom started in earnest, yeah it really has been that long, and Austin became one of the South’s technology Mecca’s, another one being Atlanta…no really!
Young, enterprising technology professionals flocked to Austin during the 1990’s and early 2000’s. So much so that the city planners couldn’t, and in some cases wouldn’t, keep up with the growth of the city. In turn traffic control and highway routing was not addressed until after the population boom was well under way. This accounts for the “run down” appearance of the urban landscape, as well as the somewhat unconventional traffic routing designs implemented by the city planners.
This population explosion was unique in that almost all the transplanted families were young. Very few of the transplants were 40+, and most were under the age of 30. With this many transplanted people, from all over the globe mind you, and all of them starting families and growing roots, you have a very special community.
In Austin the word “diversity” isn’t something people strive to achieve. Austin is diverse because it is, not because it wants to be. There is no thought to the diversity in Austin. For example, on Sunday morning Jenn and I went to a Mexican burrito/french croissant/donut shop that was run by two oriental women. While we were there I saw Blacks, Hispanics, Caucasians, Nordic, Italian, Oriental and American Indians in line waiting for food. Austin doesn’t say they are diverse because they don’t have to make that claim. They are just diverse, and don’t see anything weird about it.
Diversity is great, and so is weirdness, but such unconventional living can be a bit unnerving. Another example, on our Friday walk by the river downtown we saw a 70 year old man riding a bicycle. No big deal you say? How about the fact that he was only wearing a thong speedo and tennis shoes?! Now that’s weird!
Austin is bordering on high desert, which means they are somewhat arid and dry most of the year. In other words you won’t have a lush green lawn without an in ground irrigation system (think $$$), not that you need a lush green lawn, many people have rocks and sand in their “yard” which, when designed properly, looks quite appealing.
It hardly ever gets below freezing in the winter and the sun shines with an incredible potency during the Summer. The nights are typically cool with relatively few bugs, compared to Missouri.
To the west of Austin there is beautiful hill country with some spectacular lakes. Not to mention the innumerable hiking/mountain biking trails, if you are into that sort of thing.
I can see why everyone who has lived in Austin likes living there. Even though the community they created is temporary, the youth of today become the elderly of tomorrow, it is an amazing place to live right now. I am not sure it is a place for Sean though. The weather gets a bit warm for my tastes, I do still like winter, and the culture has a few too many liberal tendencies.
But they do have What A Burgers…hmmmm…that does make one think.
- Sean
We tried, and we tried, but alas it was not to be.
It turns out that when you call Dave Ramsey’s show you don’t go into a queue to be answered by the producer, as one might expect, but instead you get routed to a voicemail system where you leave a breif synopsis of your story. If the producers feel your story is good enough for the air then you get a call back. We left our story in a message, and followed it up with an email. No call. No email.
Dave might still read our email on the air, but unless you listed to all three hours of his program everyday you might miss it.
It is a little dissapointing. We were excited to help Dave spread the message through his show. Of course that isn’t stopping us. I had a conversation with a guy at work on Friday about living debt free. He asked me how that is possible. I said, “have you ever heard of Dave Ramsey?”
In short, we are now living like no one else, so we can live like no one else (thank you God), and spreading the word one person at a time.
- Sean
I got a meeting invite today. An FTE is holding a five person meeting in his cubicle.
A meeting…
…in his cubicle…
…five people.
In my cubicle I just found enough room for Jenn’s picture!
- Sean
Jenn is sitting at the computer. I am leaning over her shoulder. We both have our right hands on the mouse, with my hand covering hers. My index finger on top of hers.
“Ready…Set…Click!”
And with no more ceremony than the internet banking community can provide Jenn and I paid our last credit card payment…ever.
Let there be dancing in the streets…or singing…or both! Maybe a polka?
BTW, our friends plan to call Dave with us on Friday.
- Sean
* With the exception of our house (sigh), however that is soon to follow!
I don’t like posting two video’s back to back. It goes against my sense of style. But this video is too cool to wait.
- Sean
P.S. No, it isn’t what you think. Get your mind out of the gutter! It’s about extreme shepherding, and it is quite funny!
P.P.S. Yeah, there really is such a thing as extreme shepherding. Who knew?
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