Ants on the Melon
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Ok, so it’s been a week and a half since I last posted anything. I’ve been really busy, and haven’t been in the writing mood. Anyway, here’s the news…

Friday, June 1 was my last day with the CORE Team. I was with the group for almost 2 years and I enjoyed working there, but it was time for something new. Last Monday I started at my new position (still at Rackspace) where I will eventually be administering the DNS servers. This is much closer to what I am interested in, and I am excited to have the opportunity to work on something like this.

Last Saturday I went to see War of the Worlds with some friends. I was really disappointed with the movie. That’s all I’ll say about that.

On Sunday Brandon and I went over to Pepper and Ethan’s house to play nickel-and-dime poker. I had never played poker before, but I can totally see how that could become addictive. I think I ended the night down a dollar or two, which bothered me enough to know that I would never want to seriously gamble. Speaking of that…

This week I bought plane tickets to go to DefCon, which is in Las Vegas from July 28 – August 1. DefCon is the big hacker conference where all sorts of interesting ideas make their way to the public. I know of 6 friends that will be out there for the conference, so it should be a good time. I’ll be back in Vegas 2 weeks later for my college roomate’s bachelor party, after spending 3 days in Reno to work. On the subject of travel, I bought plane tickets this week to go to Tampa, Fl to visit Sarah. I’ll be out there Sept 9 – 12.

On July 4th I played music with Evan and Issac for a couple hours, and then headed over to Brett‘s house for the pool party. After 5 or 6 hours in the pool and hot tub, I was exhausted. I went home and crashed early that night.

Tuesday Brandon come over for cigars and movies. We watched two more episodes of Band of Brothers. We have watched through episode 7 now, and I’m really into it. Winters and Spears are my favorites so far, and Lipton is pretty cool as well. We’ve got 4 more episodes to go.

On Wednesday I went over to Issac’s for the Wednesday Night Dinner and had a great time. I took Crawfish Etouffee and rice, which tasted pretty damn good if I do say so myself. Evan, Issac and I played music for the crowd for almost an hour, including a soon-to-be-famous acoustic version of “Ice Ice Baby.”

Thursday I had to relax after being social for like 10 days straight. But it started all over on Friday night…

A few months ago when Chris was in town a bunch of people showed up at Rebar to hang out and catch up with him. I ended up talking with his friend Isaac quite a bit that night, and I remembered that he mentioned something about Wednesday Night Dinner. That was all I had heard about it until last night.

Chris is back in town this week, and he got a bunch of people together at Gruene Hall last night for the live DVD that Two Tons of Steel was recording. Isaac was there again and was telling us the story behind the WND. Apparently some people in Austin started the original Wednesday Night Dinner as a way to meet friends of friends, enjoy music, art, and of course, good food. Isaac started up the WND thing in San Antonio earlier this year, and last night he invited us to come over. Everyone brings something: food, drinks, supplies, or if you are Brett, cigarettes. Music is also a big part of the night, so he suggested that I come prepared to play something.

Lately I’ve been trying to make an effort to meet more people outside of work, so this sounded like a good opportunity. After work I stopped and bought some red beans & rice mix and a jalapeno smoked sausage, headed home and cooked it up. I showed up at their place around 9 (when things were supposed to get started) with the beans, my guitar, and my mandolin. Pretty much everyone was there by the time I arrived, which was great because I only knew like 3 or 4 people to begin with. Immediately it was time to eat, and let me just say how great it was to see some real food on the table. Green bean casserole, another type of bean casserole, and about 6 or 7 other types of casseroles (it was casserole night, if you didn’t pick that up). I ate a plateful of casserole and loved it. I topped it off with some sort of Oreo and whipped cream dessert, at Richard‘s recommendation. Whoa, it was all good.

Once the eating slowed down it was time for music. There were several guitar players there, so I grabbed my mandolin and handed my guitar to someone else. We played some Gourds songs (El Paso, Gin and Juice, and Ants on the Melon, of course), Friend of the Devil, and a few other things for about 20 minutes or so until some of the other musicians wanted to play stuff from other genres. That was cool too, because I wanted to hang out with people anyway. The rest of the guys continued to play on and off for the next 3+ hours, and it was fantastic. I really enjoyed just sitting back and listening to the music.

I guess around 20 people showed up this week, maybe more, but overall it was a great night. I hope to attend the WND as often as possible from now on, it’s just the type of social gathering I like: laid back with good food, good music and good people.

Last fall the CORE team won the Rackspace Fanatical Award for the improvements we made to the company’s internal software. We took a picture for it back then, but it was pretty bad. Now that the company is at the new office building, there is a dedicated wall with pictures of those who have won the Fanatical Award. A couple weeks ago we were asked to pose for another picture so that it could go on the wall. Fortunately we had a few days notice, so a few of us decided that we would dress up a little bit that day for the occasion. Unfortunately, only Will and I remembered to do this, but the pictured turned out fairly nice anyway.

Last night I traveled to Austin with Pepper and Ethan to see Neko Case at Antones. I had never seen her before, but had heard a lot of her music on KSYM and at Pepper and Ethan’s house. The show was scheduled to start at 8:30, with doors opening at 8:00. As it turned out, we had two extra tickets, so we got there a few minutes before 8:00 so that we could sell our extra tickets. After entering we found out that Neko was not going on until 11:00, and that there was an opening act going on at 10:00. Soooo, we had a few hours on our hands.

We walked down to Waterloo Records and looked around there for a while. I decided to buy Mofro’s Lochloosa CD, after all, it is on Chris’s approved live music list.

After leaving Waterloo we walked over to an Asian restuarant for dinner, then headed back to Antone’s for the opening act. This may or may not have been a good idea because the dude simply could not sing. And he was weird. His drummer and keyboard players were excellent, so he had that going in his favor. Anyway, before he began playing his second-to-last song he mumbled something about a young girl asking to sing with him, and that she had never performed before. So this normal looking girl goes on stage and in the middle of the song begins to sing, I couldn’t believe it, this girl had an amazing voice! She stayed on stage for his last song as well, and that’s when I realized that it wasn’t just any girl, it was Neko!

When Neko and her band came on stage we were all ready, and the venue was almost full. It’s really awesome to hear something so original and unique. Neko has this great voice that is both extremely powerful and lofty, it’s pretty hard to imagine. If you have never heard her you should head over to amazon.com and listen to some samples of her music. The show was terrific and lasted about an hour and a half, during which I was able to record video for two songs. I don’t know the names of either of the songs, but she preceded one by saying that it was a story her grandmother told her, and the other is apparently a Hank Williams song. Here are the videos: Grandma’s Story (65MB), Hank Williams song (48MB, missing the last 20-25 seconds of the song). If anyone can help me identify either of these two songs I would appreciate it. After the show Neko signed a poster for Pepper, and we got a picture of them together. It was an excellent evening overall, and I can’t wait for Neko to perform in this area again.

We left Austin about 12:45, which put me at home a little after 2am, and I was asleep by 2:30. Just enough time for 4.5 hours of sleep to power me through the RHCE exam the next day at work.

A couple weeks ago I came across a page of jokes and quotes from Mitch Hedberg. I remember Strunk talking about how funny this guy was, but I don’t think I ever really saw or heard enough of his comedy to appreciate it. Sadly, Mitch died earlier this year at 39 years old. Here are a few lines from the genius:

• “I think foosball is a combination of soccer and shish kebobs.”
• “I tried to walk into Target, but I missed. Damn.”
• “I would imagine if you understood Morse code, a tap dancer would drive you crazy.”
• “When someone hands you a flier, it’s like they’re saying, ‘Here, you throw this away.’”
• “Once I saw this wino who was eating grapes, and I said, ‘Dude, you have to wait.’”

Strunk says that the Mitch Hedberg DVD is hilarious, so I may have to pick that up as well.

Tuesday night I drove up to Gruene Hall for my first Two Ton Tuesday of the year. Two Tons of Steel is a really awesome band, and I appreciate them more every time I see them play. On Tuesday they started playing around 8:00 or shortly thereafter, and played until after 11:30 with only one break of 20 minutes around 10:00. It’s amazing, especially considering how high-energy their performances are anyway.

I watched the show for a little over an hour, during which they played my favorite Two Ton song, “You Know” which is on their Transparent CD. After an hour or so I headed over to the CD/shirt/merchandise table to see what was available, and as I was standing there I heard someone call out my name. I turned and looked out the door and standing there were Edwin, Annalie, Dirk and Annie. Apparently they were up there to celebrate Annie’s birthday along with Brett and some other rackers and friends. I stayed outside and chatted with everyone until almost midnight and then headed home. I hope to make it to as many Two Ton Tuesdays as I can this summer, I just love being at Gruene Hall.

So it’s been a while since I have posted anything, but I have been out of town and have been really busy, so here’s an update.

I flew to Virginia on the 26th of May to attend my cousins wedding. It was good to see my family, many of whom I have not seen in several years. The wedding was held at The Stony Point School, which is really very nice and has an interesting history.

Dad and I went fishing on Friday evening, which was a lot of fun. I didn’t catch anything, but I wasn’t really trying. Later that weekend we watched Napoleon Dynamite, which I had been telling them about for a long time. I really love that movie.

I left Virginia on Monday evening and headed down to Atlanta for a few days of contract work and hanging out with Brian. I love those trips because I actually get to be 100% productive, non-stop 10-12 hours a day, and it feels great. I wish I could figure out a way for my regular work to be that interesting. It’s also great hanging out with Brian. Tuesday night we started talking finance and before either of us knew it 4 hours had passed and it was 1:00am, that was a lot of fun.

I made it back to San Antonio in time to see the dance that Alana choreographed for me. The dance was to The Hot Club of Cowtown’s version of “Deed I Do”, and it was really awesome.

I also got my mom a new computer while I was in Virginia, but I will talk more about that in another post.

It’s been a busy few days, fun though.

Brandon and I got together on Wednesday evening for our regular ritual of pizza, cigars and beer on the porch, followed by a documentary/movie. Last time we finished watching the series of episodes in The Elegant Universe, so Brandon suggested that we continue the tradition with Band of Brothers, an eleven part series that follows “The story of Easy Company of the US Army Airbourne Paratrooper division and their mission in WWII France during Operation Overlord.” (quoted from the Internet Movie Database) Brandon had been telling that this was a great series, and after seeing the first episode I am anxiously waiting to see the next one.

Thursday I had to get a few cavities filled, which is normally not a fun thing to do. Dr. Ngo makes it all okay though, he is awesome. Chris recommended Dr. Ngo to me, and after having a bad experience at another dentist in town I decided to go see him. I was very impressed. If you live in San Antonio and do not have a dentist, you should consider making an appointment with Dr. Ngo.

Last night I went over to Pepper and Ethan’s house for dork card night. Ethan and I teamed up to out-dork Jason and Josh, although in real life our dork powers are no way near as strong as theirs.

Tonight I am going up to Floore’s Country Store to see Eleven Hundred Springs lay it down. I’ve been listening to their stuff a lot lately, so I’m really looking forward to the show.

I returned to San Antonio today after spending the last 5 days in New Orleans. A few months ago Mandi called me and said that she was planning to give Tate tickets to Jazz Fest for Valentine’s day, and she wanted to know if we would be interested in meeting up with them there. I am always looking for an excuse to go to New Orleans, so when Mandi told me they were going to be there for Jazz Fest, I bought the tickets right on the spot. Tate had no idea that we were coming, so while he was grabbing their luggage, Mandi called me where I was waiting in the rental car across the street from the airport. She told him that their hotel shuttle would be there in 5 minutes, but instead we picked them up!

We spent a lot of time hanging out and eating at restaurants throughout the city, it was a lot of fun. Mandi booked a suite a the Prytania Park Hotel, which turned out to be really nice. Chad let us stay with him on Thursday night, and we stayed at Prytania Park with Tate and Mandi on Friday and Saturday nights.

James joined Tate and me on Friday for JazzFest while the girls shopped on Magazine street. I had some great Jambalaya for lunch that day, and then I discovered fried plantain, that stuff is great! Later that night we had dinner at Figaro’s Pizzeria, a nice little Italian restaurant that I used to eat at every Sunday when I lived in New Orleans.

Ken flew in on Saturday from Oklahoma for his first visit to the Big Easy. After picking him up from the airport we all caught the Dave Matthews Band show at Jazz Fest. It had been raining that morning, so the venue was a little messy, but not bad enough to deter the DMB fans. After the shows we drove back down Carrollton avenue and met up with Chad for dinner. It was really great having that many friends from all over the place at dinner, it’s not too often that stuff like that happens.

Chris had been telling me about this band Mofro, and I was excited to see that they were playing at The Maple Leaf, a bar close to where I used to live. Tate, Ken and I showed up at 11:00, when Mofro was supposed to go on, we paid our $20 covers (a bit expensive, but i really wanted to see this band), and go inside. There was a band play who obviously wasn’t Mofro, but I figured they would be finishing up soon so we just stood there and tried to ignore the idiot fratboys who were dancing like idiots in front of us. The band finally finished up, and I said something to Tate about Mofro when the fratboy in front of us turns around and informs me that they aren’t going to be going on stage until 1:00am. This was a serious bummer, as we were all dead tired and probably shouldn’t have been there in the first place. So, after paying $20 to see 5 minutes of drunken college idiots dance to some local band, we decided to ditch the effort and call it a night. BOOOO…

The weather on Sunday was much better, but the bad news was that we had to take Tate and Mandi to the airport after lunch. It really sucks when good times have to end, but so it goes…. After dropping them off at the airport, Ken, Alana and I rode over the Maple Street P.J.’s Coffee to get a snack and check email. Once we were sure that the Internet was still moving along, we got back in the car and headed to our third day of Jazz Fest. We met up with Justin and Traber at the Trey Anastasio show, which was really good. I tried to get some more of that tasty fried plantain, but the lines were too long, sigh. We made a couple stops at the Blues and Gospel tents before finally calling it quits.

After the show we drove over to Covington to have dinner with the Taurman’s. It had been a really long time since I had seen my third family, and there was no way I could go all the way to New Orleans and not make a trip over there. As usual they had this amazing dinner for us, including my favorite artichokes. When we finished eating dinner we all went out to the famed back porch and talked for a while, consuming pound cake and coffee like it was going out of style. It was really great seeing them, and there is no way that I can go another year and a half without making another trip out there.

Earlier in the day we decided with Ken to get a double room at the Prytania Park Hotel for Sunday night. So after leaving the Taurman’s we made it back across the lake to the hotel by about 10:30. Ken had never seen the French Quarter, so I took him down there for the standard tour: Bourbon Street, Jackson Square, Cafe du Monde, etc. And that was pretty much the end of the trip. Alana and I woke up extremely early today to catch our flight back to Texas, and I should have gone to sleep hours ago.

I can’t wait for Jazz Fest 2006.

Today turned out to be a pretty good day. First, Will brought in his new Great Dane puppy, Titan. It reminded me how much I love dogs; that little thing is so cute. I got a lot of work completed today at the office, and that always makes me feel good. Brett, Sameer, Todd and I went to lunch today at Jason’s Deli, and afterwards Brett and I had a chance to talk for the first time in a while. In the afternoon Will and I worked on a new procedure for rolling out code to the production systems before heading down to the rec room to win a doubles match of ping pong. On my way home from work I stopped by ThunderCloud Subs and picked up two smoked chicken sandwiches for dinner, mmmmm good! After filling my belly I played my fiddle and mandolin for an hour or so, and then decided to come hang out on the front porch with a candle, my PowerBook and a nice Punch cigar. Nothing particularly exciting today, but a good day nonetheless. I can’t wait for tomorrow.