Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Small talk
Hi. How are you? How was your day? How are your children? How is your spouce, mom, dad, brother, sister? Did you have a good week? Do you like your new job? How are you feeling? How was your vacation? How was school? Why do we ask these questions? Are we trying to start a conversation? Do we want to hear the truth or are we just being polite? Does the possibility of silence make us uncomfortable? How do we answer those questions? Are we truthful with our answers or do we just say "fine"? Everyday we encounter our spouse, our children, friends, co-workers, our parents, acquaintances, strangers, or any combination of the those people. Everyday we ask, are asked, and answer one or all of those questions or similar questions. Why do we ask these questions to those that we encounter? Most of the time it is just to be polite unless we are talking to those that we really care about. We ask the questions because we are expected to ask the questions. Do we want to hear the truth when we ask these questions? That probably depends on who we are talking to. For example, do we really want to hear "I feel like crap. I have a headache, my feet hurt, I have irritable bowel syndrome, and I am wondering if I am coming down with the swine flu. I have gained 20 pounds. I feel like a beached whale and I can not wait to eat another snack cake. My son did not learn anything in second grade and I am having to teach it all to him now. My daughter has imaginary friends and the school counselor wants us to schedule an appointment witha psychologist. My week has been a disaster. I have worked 60 hours and not gotten any of my work done. I am expected to do my work along with the work of everyone else on my team. After work I come home to a disaster of a house filled with people that do not share my sense of cleanliness. I take the kids to activities that they do not care about. I have to pay money for these activities and volunteer my time when my kids goof off and do not pay attention. My new job sucks. It is worse than my old job, and I thought that job was bad. My new boss is the village idiot who thinks that he knows what he is doing. He hits on me all day long and wants me to wear short skirts or my appraisals might not go so well. My vacation was a waste of money. The parks were crowded and we did not even see Mickey. The weather was hot and humid and there were screaming children everywhere. While away all I could think about was all of the work piling up back home. My sister is addicted to reality tv. She has 5 kids with 7 possible daddys. She is about to get thrown out of her apartment and wants to move in with us. " How would we like to hear one of those answers? Or would we rather hear "I'm fine". How do we get to know someone unless they answer truthfully? And how do people get to know us? As an experiment, the next time you are asked one of those questions, give the truthful answer and watch their reaction. I think they will be surprised. If they do not run away, I think that answer will lead to a much deeper conversation and a better relationship with that person.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Correction
I was delicately reminded that Terry and Mary also helped out watching the kids this past weekend. I apologize for the omission. Thanks again. Sent from my iPhone
ACL
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The Austin City Limits Music Festival, or ACL, is a three day music festival put on in Zilker Park, just outside of downtown Austin. The festival started in 2002 and has been held every year since. This was the first year that the festival was held in October. I had not heard of the festival until this year. Deborah, one of Courtney's college roommates who still lives in Austin, expressed an interest in going to this year's ACL. Courtney and Mike decided to go and invited Jen and I. We purchased our tickets and made our hotel reservations. Jen and I only had tickets to Saturday and Sunday while the others had the three day passes. Previously I shared our Thursday and Friday adventures along with pictures from the event. What follows is a recap of our Saturday and Sunday in Austin.
We met everyone over at Deborah and James' house a little before noon. James took their two kids to the Natural Bridge Caverns and we decided to have lunch at Texadelphia. After ordering our food, I tried to pay with my debit card, only to find out that I did not have it with me. The last time I remembered using it was the night before at Perry's Steakhouse. I called the steakhouse and spoke with a manager. He stated that it had not been found, but he took my information and would let me know if it showed up. I immediately checked my account through the iPhone and the card had not been used. That was a good sign that the card was lost, and not stolen. After eating great cheese-steaks at Texadelphia, we left and went back to the hotel to see if the card was in my jeans from the night before. We searched the room and did not find the card. I decided to wait a little while to cancel the card in the hope that it would show up at Perry's. We went back to Deborah's house and watched some college football.
Quick side note, the Georgia vs LSU game had a crazy finish that was heavily influenced by the referees. A Georgia wide receiver made a great play and scored the go ahead touchdown in the final minute of the game. He then did what just about anyone would do in that situation, he jumped up and down with his teammates in celebration. The referees threw a flag and penalized the Bulldogs 15 yards on the ensuing kickoff. That meant that they had to kick from their 15 yard line. LSU returned the kick to Georgia's 45 yard line. Then two plays later they were in the end zone celebrating their go ahead touchdown, and another flag was thrown for the same thing. At least they were consistent. It is crazy to expect these athletes to just put the ball down and run to the sideline. I want to see them celebrate. I do not want to watch a robot. I want to see their personalities come out.
Back to ACL. Due to the weather, we contemplated not going on Saturday. We decided that we had enough rain ponchos and other foul weather gear and headed out. Mike stayed behind because he was not feeling well. To avoid taking a shuttle, Deborah found a parking space via Craig's List. It seems that people that live close to Zilker Park will rent out their driveways to festival goers. We paid $20 a day to park in a driveway. Then we walked to the festival. I would guess it was about 2 miles from the driveway to the festival entrance. We got our daily exercise out of the way. As soon as we walked in the gates, it started to rain. Raincoats and ponchos were put on and we started slogging through the mud to the main stage area which was on the opposite side of the park. The Dave Matthew's Band came on at 8 and put on a good show. It actually stopped raining for the show which was nice. We stayed for most of the show. After packing up our chairs and picking up everything else that we brought, we trekked back to the car. Our shoes and lower legs were covered in mud and we cleaned up as best we could before getting into the Infiniti.
Sunday went much like Saturday. We ate at Waterloo Icehouse and watched the early NFL games. By 4, it had stopped raining, and we drove back to our rented driveway. After the hike to the festival entrance we were met with worse conditions than the day before. The mud was horrendous. Every step was an adventure. If you were not slipping, you were worried that your shoe was going to get sucked off of your foot as you tried to pick it up. I was amazed that none of us fell that day. We found a good spot on some semi-grass-mostly-mud and set up camp. Mike and I left the girls and found the TV tent. They were showing the Cowboys vs Broncos game. That was fun except for the outcome of the game. After the game, we texted the girls and got their food order. We quickly picked up BBQ sandwiches and then stood in live for 45 minutes at Children of the Kettle Corn. There we purchased a large bag of the best kettle corn popcorn that you will ever have. I said it was like giving crack to children as I was eating it. It was hard to put the bag down, but I managed. While in line, Mike was treated to a squirrel completely covered in mud running around in the lines. Only at ACL.
Pearl Jam came on at 8 and put on a great show. They sounded great and played a good mix of old and new songs. This was my first time to see them live and they lived up to the hype. After the show and the journey with thousands of others out of the park and across the Town Lake Bridge, we again tried to clean up a little before getting back in the car. Back at Deborah's house, we took out the hose and sprayed down our mud covered shoes. Jen and I brought them back to our house to attempt to save them with the washing machine.
We made it back home safely Monday morning. Thank you to Jim and Cathy for watching the kids. Thank you to Rob and Pam for taking care of Austin on Thursday and Sunday. The Perry's Steakhouse manager did call and they found the debit card. I had already cancelled it, but at least I knew what happened to the card.
The picture was taken from the footbridge on the way back to the car on Sunday.
Sunday, October 4, 2009
From the hill
From the left, the shopping area, Livestrong Stage, and the Dell stage. With downtown Austin in the background.
Today's conditions
I thought yesterday was bad. The conditions today are horrible. Woodstockesque I imagine. No rain at least.
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