Freak weather in Austin

Temperatures were unusually high over the past few days. Today we had a true to God thunderstorm in the middle of the day along with unusually large hail (my wife says this is the largest she has seen). Here are some pics courtesy my wife :-)

First near opera experience

My wife and I got to enjoy Kathleen Battle perform last night at the newly constructed Long center for the performing arts . Wow! This is my first such show and the closest I have been to an Opera in my life.

Kathleen Battle was amazing! she moved with incredible ease from English to German to French to Spanish and finished with English again.

Now that was a Diva worth watching and listening :) nay feasting on. I seriously encourage you guys to check out upcoming shows at the Long center. It looks like Austin is going to be enjoying some great performances. We are excited about Yo-Yo Ma performing here in September.

Thanks to Yobany and Denise for giving us this very special evening.

Btw, if you want to know more about the acoustical design at the Long center, check out this link.

Austin to Bastrop and back

I upped my PR this past Saturday. I managed to finish a 95 mile ride on Saturday, thanks to Nathan, Drew and Andy :-) No I am serious, this is not an Oscar thank you list, this is a biker thank you list.

I hope to finish strong on my MS150 ride next weekend.


(photo credit: flickr + creative common license)

Austin and commuter rails

Even though I really have nobody to visit in Leander, I see myself going there multiple times through 2008 just to ride these guys :-). They look very cool! let us see what the ride is like.

Seeing and Listening

Due to the fact that my new office is located in downtown Austin I have started to take the bus to work. The reasons 'for' are plenty and I have not bothered with the reasons against :-). The 'for' reasons include , saving on gas, more reading time, less stressful commute, saving on downtown parking... like I said a lot.

While in the bus I noticed a "Jack Brown" dry cleaner store. The store was closed but there was a window washer at work and I could not take my eyes of him. He was so meticulous in his attention to detail, making sure that he cleaned the blade of his wiper between every wipe. It reminded me that sometimes a job well done is its own reward. I design software for a living and more often than not I get frustrated with mundane tasks but seeing that clean sparkling window was a cool reminder to the power of commitment.

I get of the bus and am waiting to cross the street. The light turns red, a car pulls to a stop and as I am crossing, I see this man run from the other direction straight to the car, the window rolls down, they smile at each other and the running man gives a package to the car driver and takes of. The windows roll up and the car drives away. My mind started to race at the possibilities of what happened there :-)

All in all, i like taking the bus. It is teaching me to observe again. Hopefully listening will follow.

Kia Austin commercial - 2

What is going on with Capitol Kia in Austin. It has that commercial featuring Bill Dickason. I blogged about it earlier here. Last night, Kim and I saw their ad again and this time the kitten was replaced with a shot of a cow chewing cud contentedly. I am not sure how a contented cow is relevant to me buying Kia but it sure is making the dealership look pretty darn amateurish.

If anybody can point me to a video link of the Kia commercial that would be great :)