I’ve been catching a lot of flack for not updating the website, so here’s a quick overview of the past two weeks…
Labor Day weekend started out with a bang. I was afraid that the Metallica concert was going to suck on Friday night but it turned out to be one of the best yet:
Blackened
Fuel
No Leaf
Clover
Creeping
Death
Frantic
King Nothing
Turn the Page
St. Anger
Kirk Guitar Doodle
Fade to Black
Master Of Puppets
Battery
I Disappear
Melbourne
Nothing
Else Matters
Sad But True
One
Enter Sandman
The Four Horsemen
Seek and Destroy
Needless to say, I could barely speak afterwards (singing screaming along with James Hetfield). It was awesome to be able to take Elise to a good Metallica show. A lot of old music that really pleased the crowd.
After the concert, Elise headed home because she had to work on Saturday. Victor and I burned the midnight oil. We met up with Philip and went out. After closing a bar, Victor and I caught an early breakfast at IHOP. I think I got home somewhere around 4 a.m.
Saturday morning I got up and went for an ear lowering. Tommy came over and we headed to the SoCo Festival to people watch. We met up with Philip and Chris. Chris started feeling ill so we made our separate ways. Tommy and I went to Applebees for some grub. Tommy went home, I hit the hay around 8 p.m. ( I was still exhausted from Friday night).
On Sunday I took Elise to buy a new pair of tennis shoes at Academy. After that we headed over to Philip’s apartment for a
Labor Day barbeque.
On Labor Day, Elise and I went shopping. Before we hit the mall, we had a nice lunch and the Bombay Grill. Elise slammed her fingers in the truck door when we were getting in the truck to leave the restaurant. If you’ve ever slammed your fingers in a car door, you know what I’m talking about. If you haven’t, don’t. We next stopped at Foleys to look for bedding. We wound up buying your humble narrator 6 new work shirts for a steal. Next we went to JC Penney where we didn’t find bedding, but we did find two mighty nice king-sized Sealy Posturepedic pillows that we scooped up.
After leaving the mall we met up with Erin and Cyndi at Zuzu’s to plan John and Christine’s baby shower. I sat there and drank 2.6 gallons of Coke while the girls hashed out the details.
Elise and I went to Bed Bath & Beyond after meeting with the girls where we decided on pillow shams and a comforter for our new bed.
Long, but much needed weekend. We had a lot of fun.
That week: Work. Sucked. Big time. Muy grande. That’s French for “don’t slam your fingers in a Japanese miniature pick-up truck”.
Spiral down to this past weekend…
On Friday I came home from work and played on the Xbox for most of the night. On Saturday I woke up and guarded the TV. I watched Jaws 3-D and a few episodes of season 5 of the Sopranos. Elise was at work for most of the afternoon. We reconvened and John and Christine’s baby shower. Much fun was had. I cooked a ton of hamburgers that Erin’s mom hammered out for me. We played a few games that guys aren’t used to seeing how guys usually don’t find themselves at baby showers. Great turnout and great company.
On Sunday Elise and I headed out in time for lunch at Hickory Street Bar & Grill. That was so-so. I had something that I think was called the banana fire chicken sandwich. It was a grilled chicken breast topped with Buffalo hot sauce on jalapeno bread. Elise had the brunch buffet.
After lunch we headed to the Austin Museum of Art for the Ghost Stories: The Disembodied Spirit exhibit. Very cool. There were some very eery photos, paintings and multi-media displays. We both really enjoyed the exhibit but were both more impressed with the Jun Nguyen-Hatsushiba Memorial Project videos.
JUN NGUYEN-HATSUSHIBA
Memorial Project Vietnam — Two VideosSeptember 10 — November 28, 2004
Japanese/Vietnamese artist Jun Nguyen-Hatsushiba (Jyun Nú-win Ha-tsú-she-buh) creates graceful and otherworldly underwater films. This exhibition features two films which explore current events and cultural traditions of Vietnam and are remarkable for their underwater setting, saturated color, choreographed movements, and hypnotic soundtracks.
Jun Nguyen-Hatsushiba was raised in Japan and educated in Texas, Illinois, and Maryland. The artist now lives and works in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. His work
has been included in the Yokohama Triennial and the Kwangiu, Venice, Sydney, and
Sao Paolo Biennials.This exhibition was funded by The Rockefeller Foundation and LEF Foundation. Happy New Year-Memorial Project Vietnam II was produced by the MATRIX program at UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, California, with assistance from The New Museum, New York.
This is my late night post interpretation/recap: The first film consisted of an underwater cyclo race. The second was an underwater interpretation of the Vietnamese new year. I’m so tired right now and would love to write about my initial interpretation and how I was way off after reading the exhibit program, but I’ll find solace in knowing that I had my interpretation and the memory of the experience. Anyway – go to the Austin Museum of Art (if you’re in the vicinity) for these two exhibits. Both are truly awesome.
After being cultured, Elise and I played our role as consumers and swung by Four Hands in south Austin to finally decide on an Indian rosewood dining room table that weights 48 billion pounds. We had our next door neighbors come over on Sunday night to help up put it together.
So that’s it for now. Work is beating the hell out of Elise and I both.