Welsh boy who hopped across the pond to blend the best of British with the great city of Austin, Texas.
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Woke up this morning to find a film crew outside the house. Apparently they're shooting a commercial for Wal Mart outside the house across the street. There were trailers and sound vans and monitors and all sorts of stuff - all very exciting.
We took John and Sue to the lake this morning. It was a beautiful day, and we spent a few hours swimming at Windy Point before going to the Oasis for lunch. The Oasis is the restaurant with the multi-level decks overlooking the lake. It got struck by lightning last summer and partially burned down. They've done a whole bunch of work on it since, and it's getting back to what it once was. As we were walking in we noticed another film crew there. One of the local TV stations was recording a piece on the progress of the rebuilding. There's nothing quite like being filmed while you eat to put you on edge.
We left the restaurant and stopped off at Mansfield Dam park - another of our favourite swimming holes - only to find that the water level was way down. We've had an extremely dry winter and the water was at least 50 feet below where it was last year. As we were walking back to the car, we noticed yet another film crew from another local tv station pulling up. Well, I don't know what they were doing, but it felt like we were being hounded by the media. Maybe I'm famous and don't know it.
Anyway, we got back to our house and those cheeky buggers had set up shop in our driveway and front yard. Not only that, but they'd plugged their equipment into our outside electricity points. Needless to say, I wasn't too happy so I pulled my car into the driveway and asked them what they thought they were doing and who gave them permission to use my property and electricity. Quite honestly, I didn't really mind (especially as the outside points aren't working at the moment anyway), but it was the principal of the thing. Anyway, the location manager comes running across, apologizes and offers me $50 for the inconvenience. I told him that was fine and we got chatting about this and that. Turns out he's working for the BBC next week doing an episode of Blue Peter in Houston. Now, Blue Peter is a children's tv show from back home that's been going for years - I remember watching it when I was a kid. The film crew are still outside (who knew it took so long to film a commercial) but they're not really bothering us. Apparently our air conditioner is going to be in shot for part of the commercial, so it gets to be famous instead of me.
To be honest, that's the easiest $50 I've earned since I took part in a music focus group for a local radio station. Watching them out of the window is kinda fun - at the moment there's a snooty-looking blonde lady pruning herself in the windows of our Ford Explorer. Wish I'd washed it now.
I went for a 28 mile bike ride this morning. Met up with some of the ACA guys at an elementary school just off of Shoal Creek in North Austin, and we went through Downtown and way down South. It was a lot of fun, but I made the mistake of doing an extra bit with some of the more insane members which including a lot of hills that were straight up. I should have known better - they were all shiny, fit-looking people with well-muscled legs (which, despite all my running, could never be said of me). I struggled to keep up after those hills, but I hung in there and made it, maybe 20 to 30 seconds behind the shinies.
Got talking to three girls early in the ride who were doing Iron Chicks (which my wife is also doing). They had also run the same marathon as me (Freescale) back in February, so we had a good time chatting away and joking about this and that. Then got to talking to another guy who had lived in England in the early 80s. He said he'd first moved to Austin and started cycling in 1972. I felt obliged to inform him that that was the year before I was born. 
We went past the UT football stadium, past the History of Texas museum, through the State capitol grounds, down Congress Avenue and over the bridge, which is a really nice ride. The bridge crosses Town Lake, which is generally regarded as the point where North Austin becomes South Austin. We went as far South as Ben White before turning and going back up Bluebonnet to Town Lake, where we crossed the river at the Hike and Bike trail on Mopac Bridge. We then turned up Lake Austin Blvd, where my three friends dropped off and I decided to carry on with the crazies. We turned onto Scenic Blvd which lives up to its name as it winds around the lake. I ran this route as part of a 12 miler last year, and remember the insane hills. Discovered today that they're not much better on the bike. I was very glad to get to Hancock, knowing that it wasn't far until I could take another left turn onto Shoal Creek. From there it was only a few miles back to the school and my extra water bottles.
So, my longest bike ride to date. It was fun. My legs cramped a little at the end, but I felt pretty good. I averaged just under 13mph, which wasn't bad considering we were cycling through an urban area with lots of traffic lights, stop signs and traffic. We were going to go back to Shoal Creek for Nancy to do a bike ride/run combination when I got home, but she was asleep on the sofa with Gavin. That's why I'm sitting here in front of the computer, writing this and listening to the cricket commentary from the England v Sri Lanka Test Match at Edgbaston.
Pretty happy bunny today - my brother and his fiancee arrive tomorrow evening from the UK for a 2 week stay. I haven't seen him in nearly 2 years, so I'm looking forward to showing them around. More on this tomorrow.
What a great night of television. No, I don't mean the finale of the the seemingly never-ending American Idol - I'm talking about the start of the Opilio crab season on Deadliest catch. I'm sorry, but there's no contest really - how could El Diablo (aka the tourettes-inspired Taylor Hicks) and Chunky Yuk Yuk (Catherine whatsherface - you know, the other one) possibly compete with Captain Sig Hansen and the rest of those salty old sea dogs? For me, the American Idol show is just about as false, scripted and contrived as you can get. This season even the judges seem bored, though for the amount of money they're paid they could at least pretend. I used to switch over for the last five minutes so see who'd been booted off, but I gave that up when the bald guy got his marching orders several weeks ago. I don't even know how the hell I managed to last that long. You just have to wonder where all the mega viewing figures come from? Are there that many stupid people out there?
I feel like shit today. Woke up with a sore throat, and if I'd been a bit better about keeping to my running of late I'd have blown off this morning's run. I managed 2.5 miles, but a stray dog provided ample excuse to cut the run short and head off home. It was extremely sticky and humid too which didn't help. Not feeling much better now - thank you Mr headache.
And I don't really have much else to say. Think I'm in for an early night tonight.
Went for my bike ride with the Austin Cycling Association this morning. Had a great time and the people were very friendly. Did a nice easy 12 miles (recognized large parts of it from my 21 mile run back in January - much easier on a bike), and am looking forward to going back next weekend. There are a lot of choices for weekend rides so I can do either a City ride or a Country one. Think I may do a country one - like the idea of flying around Country lanes without a stop sign every few hundred yards.
We popped into Runtex this afternoon to get a few things. Threadgills (a pub across the street) had a live band playing, and when we got Gavin out of the car he kept pointing across the road in the direction of the band. Then he started dancing. He was jiving up and down to the music as Nancy and I tried to keep from laughing. We pretty much had to drag him away.
Finally we stopped into a party our friend Anne was throwing at her house this evening. She's just finished building a pond in her back yard so she had a bunch of friends over to celebrate. I hate these kind of things and we didn't stay long. Guess I'm not much of a cocktail party socialiser - I'd rather go running or cycling with some friends.
Nancy did a practice triathlon with Iron Chicks this morning at the Texas Ski Ranch. It was an early start - we got up at 4am and left at 5:15am to drive the 60 or so miles to get there. I volunteered and helped run one of the water stations. Not an easy task while looking after Gavin at the same time, but it was a lot of fun. In fact, I can see myself manning a water station at some of our local Austin races in the future.
Nancy did really well and I was very proud of her. She got to show Gavin off to all her friends and I got to see a wakeboard competition and a dirt bike meet that was going on at the same time. Some of those dirt bikers were crazy - they were doing jumps a good 10-15 feet in the air. The wakeboarding was cool though - they didn't use boats, they had these giant winches that circled the lake like cablecars, and it looked like a lot of fun.
I'm going to go cycling with the Austin cycling association tomorrow. They do rides all over town most weekends and some week nights. It's a good cross training for my running (which I have been neglecting somewhat of late). Still thinking of doing another marathon in the Fall, and the one I'm looking at has some really good (though extremely challenging) bike rides in the same area. Could I do a 70 mile bike ride through the mountains the day after a marathon? I don't know, but maybe I'll find out.
.....you get into trouble before you even wake up. The other morning I was woken by a hefty dig delivered with no small degree of relish by my "better half". The reason? She'd had a dream in which I had apparently been a bit of a jerk.
As if I don't get into enough trouble when I'm awake!!!
Got back into town this afternoon - not a bad weekend all told. We bumped into the infamous Aunt (aka the Wicked Witch of the Wild West) at the Red Wagon (the local greasy spoon where all the locals go for breakfast) but as per usual I didn't exist. To be fair, she was too busy yelling at the waitresses for burning/not burning/using the wrong bread/being too slow with (delete as appropriate) her toast. They say there are times you want the ground to open up and swallow you.......
Anyway, we managed to avoid her for the rest of the weekend. Grandpa Tom was so excited that Gavin was coming to visit that he'd cleaned his house top to bottom before we got there. I mean everything was put away, the carpet was vacuumed, the kitchen and bathroom was scrubbed, the boxes were all gone from the spare bedroom and the spare bed had been put up. I thought I was in the wrong house. Tom had gone and gotten some toys from somewhere - he was delighted that Gavin enjoyed playing with them and insisted we took one (a Tonka bulldozer) home with us. Gavin also seem attuned to this, because every time one of us told him off he'd run over to Grandpa and "report" us. It was quite funny watching this "tough old cowboy" so obviously enjoying his grandson.
Yesterday afternoon we laid flowers on Nancy's mum's grave. The cemetary was at the end of a country lane just outside the small town she grew up in, and was very peaceful and quiet. After we laid the flowers, I took Gavin for a walk and let Nance and her dad have some time to themselves. At one point, Nancy came and took him to show him to his Grandma. She kept herself together really well, but I could tell she was upset. We wandered among the other family graves, ranging from the 1800s to the present, and I suddenly realized that the name on one of the stones was a guy I knew to still be alive. Apparently they will just add the date when he dies. Coming from the UK, I'd never seen that before. That would give me the creeps every time I visited the cemetary and saw my name up there. On the other hand, maybe it's not such a bad idea - perhaps I could visit myself and bring myself some pizza.
We went to Comanche for supper last night. Comanche is a small town best known for being the place where the infamous outlaw John Wesley Hardin (in the words of Bob Marley) "shot the sheriff" of Brown County. They also have a BBQ cookoff every year which I've been meaning to go to but never have. Anyway, no such fireworks last night, just a really good Mexican supper at a place called Miguels. Had a wonderful burrito plate and then helped Nancy finish off her fajitas. Gavin also discovered "hot sauce" for the first time. They always serve chips and salsa before the meal, and Gavin wanted to try the salsa. Now, I'd had a bit and even for me this was slightly on the "warm" side, but we put a little on the end of a chip and handed it to him. Bugger me if he ate it down and wanted more. By the time he eventually gave in and began sucking the water down, he'd offed nearly half a bowl.
Mexican food must have the same effect on him that it does me because he slept really well last night!!!
Hello everyone. It's been a while since my last entry, so what have I been doing? Not running, that's for sure. In fact, yesterday was the first time I went for a run since the Roundup 10k. I've been a busy boy getting my web server set up and getting LAMP components (Linux, Apache, MySql and PHP) working together. Not quite there yet, but not far away. Figured it's about time I applied my Perl knowledge to learning PHP.
We've been having some freaky weather too. Lots of thunder storms and torrential rain, with hot hot days inbetween. Slept through my alarm several times in the last few weeks, but it was nice to get back out there running yesterday - it was one of those rare mornings when it's nice and cool. Had a good run and didn't really feel any bad effects from my two week break.
We're going to Nancy's hometown for the weekend tomorrow. Don't really like going there - get on well enough with her dad and most of the rest of the family, but there's one particular Aunt (aka the Orc) who is Cruella DeVille's older, uglier and meaner sister. She can't stand me (since before we first met) and the feeling is mutual. I think my main crime was marrying her niece and having the nerve to be a foreigner. The good thing is that we had a big fight before Gavin was born and we don't speak anymore, so I no longer have to pretend to be friendly (not that I ever did much of that before). There are very few things in life that really piss me off, but somebody telling my wife that she needs to break up with me is guaranteed to awaken the Welsh fireball that sleeps within. The old bag was somewhat taken aback to discover that Nancy felt the same, and we've been pretty much persona non grata ever since Gavster was born. I guess we're being punished, but you know what? That suits me just fine. I need that woman's poison like I need a kick in the, well, you get the idea.
Spent the day in the garden yesterday. Mowed the grass, weeded, troughed and edged. Even if I say so myself, the garden looks good. Unfortunately I also got bitten by some fire ants. Now I am extremely allergic to ant bites and they got me about five times around the ankle. Needless to say, my lower leg is swollen and sore today and probably will be for a week or so. Used it as an excuse to stay in bed this morning instead of going to run. Oh well, every cloud has a silver lining. And I really enjoyed the extra hour's sleep.
Had my own back on the ants though as I put some amdro down later. This is supposed to kill the Queen and remove the ants for the entire season. That'll teach them to bite me. We shall see how it works.
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