Friday, September 19, 2008

Rules for Living in Austin

If you're from Austin, chances are you've seen this, but it's always good for a laugh. The trip to Chicago was AMAZING, even though Ike followed me up there and dumped more rain on Chicago in one day than they've had in 137 years. Will post pictures soon!

1. First, it's pronounced AWS-TUN. It doesn't matter how they say it in other places.

2. Forget the traffic rules you learned elsewhere. Austin has it's own set of traffic rules. There's no book about them. All you can do is get in your car and hope you survive to learn them.

3. All directions start with " Go down Mopac...'cause you don't want to get on 35."

4. Burnet, Braker, and Lamar have no beginning and no end.

5. It's impossible to go around a block and wind up on the same street that you started on. The Chamber of Commerce calls this a "scenic drive"

6. The 8:00 am rush hour is from 6:30am to 9:30am. The 5:00pm rush hour is from 3:30pm to 7:15pm. Friday's rush hour starts on Thursday morning.

7. If you actually stop at a yellow light, then you cannot be from Austin. You may only apply your brakes when the end of a yellow light and the beginning of the red light create a "burnt-orange" hue.

8. If you like being an individual, don't even think of working for Dell. You'll be branded like cattle and made to walk all over town with your "Dell tag" around your neck or clipped on to your belt loop. 98% of the people within a 200 mile radius work for Dell. When someone says "Michael Dell", Dell employees are trained to face Round Rock, hit their knees, put their face to the ground, weep, and rock back and forth.

9. Just remember that Mopac IS Loop 1, Capital of Texas Hwy IS 360, and 183 IS Research, Anderson, Ed Bluestein, Old Bastrop Hwy. 2222 IS Northland or Allendale or Koenig. Ben White IS 290 AND 71. Don't try to figure it out. Just accept it. If you question the intelligence behind this naming convention, people will simply tilt their heads to the right and stare at you.

10. If moisture is determined to be rain, not sweat, all traffic must immediately cease. Ditto for daylight savings time, girl applying eye-shadow across the street, or a flat tire 3 lanes over. Do not attempt to access any road after an apocalyptic event like snow or South X Southwest.

11. Construction on I-35 is a way of life, and a permanent form of entertainment. Get used to it!

12. Keep in mind that the sloppily dressed "hippie" in sandals and earrings is probably the latest IPO millionaire around here.

13. Stay away from the Congress bridge at sundown if you do not like the thought of being in an Alfred Hitchcock movie.

14. And, yes, we all know that's a man in a teddy and a tiara on Congress. It's Leslie, and he probably makes more money than you do.

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Labor Day fun and Chicago!

Happy Labor Day weekend!

We had a fantastic weekend!! I spent Friday night at a friend's house for game night and ended up staying out until 1 a.m. (For those of you who know me, you know that is HIGHLY unusual, but I was having so much fun I didn't even realize what time it had gotten to be!)

Also, one of Alex's best friends came into town for the weekend. He makes it in to visit about once a year--he is in the Air Force and is back stateside after being recently stationed in Qatar. He is a huge Longhorn fan (I mean, really, who isn't?), so we got tickets to the home opener Sat. night. We were only about 20 rows up from the field in the newly renovated stadium (with the new seats just completed, there were over 98,000 people at the game!). Tim LOVED all the girls walking around in short skirts/shorts and cowboy boots. I don't remember so many risque outfits at football games when we were in school...I guess times have changed. That makes me feel old. The other thing that made me feel old was realizing that we were 11 YEARS older than the freshman. Yikes! Anyway, the game was awesome and we had tons of fun--and we ended up eating at an all-night joint on the Drag at 1 a.m. Two nights out past midnight and you know we're really living it up.

We spent Sunday recuperating and had dinner and a sizzling scrabble game with our good friends and their adorable daughter. (For all of you scrabble fans out there, don't challenge "AE"--it is a word and you'll lose your turn.) Monday was spent getting in some quality solo time with Alex, which was better than all the excitement of the previous days combined.

In other good news, Alex's next business trip is a 10-day-er to Chicago. We had discussed me flying out over the weekend but decided to keep the miles in the off chance he will have another exiting international work trip in the not-too-distant future (think South America!). Last night, my world's-most-kick-ass dad gave me HIS free airline ticket so that I can do it all!! So it looks like a weekend getaway to Chicago is in the near future. I've never been, and I'm so excited!

Hope all your lives are as charmed as ours!