Linens 'n Things

One of our dogs (Casey, if you don't know them well enough to tell the difference...) has an extreme love of linens. Especially wet towels. If a pile of the laundry is in the floor, she will seek out the wet towels and partake of a backflop on them, only after rubbing her nose in them for a bit. What follows is a sequence of pictures of just such an event. If you scroll fast enough, you may get a real-time effect (think digital flip-book...).

Happy 17 days after Halloween!

Camping

We've been looking for a weekend to take a little camping trip with the dogs. Between August and Thanksgiving, we found a single weekend where one of us wasn't working and we were both in town. It was the weekend before Halloween. (Sure, the post is late, but better late than never...) I got home from a work trip at midnight on Friday night, and we headed out Saturday mid morning. We went to a state park about an hour and a half north of Austin called Colorado Bend State Park. It was really a lovely park, and the weather was so beautiful that weekend that it was packed. We hadn't reserved a campsite, which was almost a problem. But not a terrible loss because we wanted one of the sites that requires a pretty significant hike-in (about a mile) to try to get the dogs away from the crowds.

Saturday afternoon, we first hiked into our campsite. (Note to selves: we need a new tent; the one we have is a six-person two room tent, which is simply not made for carrying any distance at all. Plus we discovered a pretty substantial hole...luckily it didn't rain, and Tim's an expert tent surgeon.) Once we were at the site, we got everything set up. The dogs behaved surprisingly well, especially with a river just across the way and us not allowing them to jump in it. Our campsite:

Sure, we had a slight amount of concern about the very large tree we put our tent under, but we figured it hadn't fallen all the way over yet, so what were the chances it would do so that night?

After all that was set up, we took a pretty short hike with the dogs (about 3 miles, maybe). It was in the 80s and Hannah got pretty hot. We bought the dogs a little backpack (think saddlebags for dogs) so they could carry their own water and such. I think Hannah got a bit tired (she was tasked with carrying it most of the time):


After we got back from the walk (and the park had some really nice trails), we made some dinner (dehydrated something to which we just had to add boiling water). As an aside here, Tim purchased himself a little backpacking stove before we went out, and this little thing can boil something like a liter of water in three minutes. And it weighs practically nothing. Anyway, dinner was adequate (I really didn't feel very good, so nothing would have tasted good), the dogs gobbled up their dinner, and we got ourselves ready to turn in. Everyone was quite tired, including the pups, but apparently they weren't up for sleeping with nothing between them and the ground but a tarp and the tent floor. Their pillow beds here at home have spoiled them. And in a goldilocks style event, Tims's sleeping bag wasn't quite good enough for them either. So this is what I had to deal with all night:

I finally got them to move enough so I could get inside my sleeping bag, but all night anytime I tried to move, I had to shove one of them with my foot to get some slack in the sleeping bag. Two asides about the night: 1) the dogs had to get up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, and we were forced to get out with them, only to be greeted by the most beautiful night sky we've ever seen, and 2) I've determined that peeing outside is not for me (a mile+ is a little too far to walk to facilities at 2 in the morning, it turns out...). The dogs were pretty good, even with all the sounds of wildlife outside the tent and a few other dogs within earshot. They quieted down pretty quickly and pretty well.

We got up in the morning and cleaned up our campsite. We'd put some thought into going to look at the gorgeous waterfall they apparently have in the park, but you can only get there on a guided tour, and they don't allow dogs on the tour. Neither one of us was willing to single handedly chaperone the dogs for two hours, so we opted for some different hikes instead. We trolled around the park for another 4 hours or so and got to see some little waterfalls at least. By the time we were finished with this, we were pooped (or at least I was pooped) so we headed home. Here are a few more views of the park:

Julien 2.0

We are pleased to announce the upcoming release of Julien 2.0. This new version promises to improve on previous versions (Julien 1.0, code named "Tim" and Julien 1.1, code named "Christine"). You should expect the new release to (most importantly) be much cuter than previous releases. We hope that existing Julien plug-in packages ("Hannah" and "Casey") will work seamlessly with Julien 2.0. We do warn our frequent users that the first few months after the release are expected to be, well, messy, as Julien 2.0 is not expected to have the complete, mature capabilities of previous versions upon initial release.

The new release can be expected near the middle of the second quarter of 2007. To pique your interest, we're glad to be able to deliver an early screen shot:

As Julien 2.0 matures towards the release date over the next several months, we expect that certain features will be able to be shown more clearly and will update our announcements accordingly.

Dogs and Babies

Last night we had some friends over for dinner. One couple has a seven month old baby, and we've always kept the pups outside when they've been over. But last night they had their first test... which they passed. I'd like to say with flying colors, but alas, there was a barking incident (at someone walking down the other side of the street), and that scared the baby a bit. But other than that, the baby liked the dogs, the dogs were interested, but not beyond letting her pet them (as much as a 7 month old can pet dogs), and licking her toes and fingers. We caught some of the action at the dinner table:

A Visit from Lucky...

Two weeks ago (it always seems that my posts are about things long past...) our friend Lucky came to visit from California. He ostensibly came for an interview, but we knew he just couldn't take any more time without seeing us, so he didn't have to set up the pretend interview...

We had a pretty standard Austin weekend (or what Tim and I like to pretend is a standard Austin weekend, though in truth we mostly sit at home...). We went to Guero's Taco Bar to eat dinner (Tim loves this place, I think it's OK, but we always have to wait forever) then the boys got some draft Paulaner at the Ginger Man. Sure, we know it's a chain, but the beer selection (for one who likes beer) is apparently impressive. We're getting old, though, and called it an early night that night (after running into one of my students at the bar).

The next day, we had a quick bite to eat at Jo's Coffee:

then wandered around the South Congress neighborhood. We took Lucky to a very goofy store called Monkey See Monkey Do!, which was simply fun. Then we met James and Laura and a friend of theirs at our favorite Italian spot in town, Asti. It's not quite Italy, but it's the closest we've found in town.

After dinner we all headed to the Elephant Room for some flamenco guitar:


We had a good time with Lucky visiting...we only hope he likes Austin half as much as we do and wants to join the small group of friends we're gradually pulling towards the Lone Star State.

For Grandma...

So grandma doesn't think we update our blog often enough. It's just that our lives are not the most exciting in the world. :) Today we both went to work. When we got home, we fed the dogs, we went to Chipotle for dinner (we love the new nearby Chipotle) and then went to Michael's to pick up our newly framed photo prints. Here's how they look on the wall in our family room:



And since we've no other photos of our house on our blog, here's one of the other focal points in that room, the fireplace we made after we tore out the old mantle and hearth:



And finally, here are the pups this evening also:

Austin City Limits: The Festival

This past weekend, we had a blast at the Austin City Limits music festival. Picture 8 stages, 10s of thousands of your closest friends, and 3 FULL DAYS of Austin's September sunshine and music. Check out one of the smaller crowds:



The weather almost held completely for the weekend, the first two days were gorgeous (if a tad on the warm side). Sunday it rained torrentially on us as we walked to the park (well worth it because we arrived in time for the Stills).

Here's us just after the rain:



It also rained a bit Sunday evening at the beginning of the Tom Petty show. This was a fortunate turn of events for us, though, because it meant a ton of people left instead of sticking it out, and we got to get a bit closer to the stage for the awesome Tom Petty show. Here's a little run down of the bands we caught (between the two of us):

• Los Lonely Boys: Good show. Not as good as the last time they were at ACL (two years ago), but this band is a must see live.


• Thievery Corporation: not very memorable, it seems


• Ray Lamontagne: he was good. He would be better in a small club than in the huge outdoor venue of ACL.


• John Mayer: one word. AWESOME. If you haven't heard the new CD, buy it. Not only is he cute, but his music is plain fun to listen to.


• Van Morrison: we love Van Morrison. Or at least, we love Van Morrison's music. When he used to sing it. If you're thinking about seeing him live, don't. Just get the old CDs.


• Phoenix: a French band; Tim caught the last couple of songs, and deems it worth seeing again.


• Galactic: instrumental band (mostly guitar), they were really really good.


• Nada Surf: also not very memorable, they must have been fine.


• The Shins: not at all memorable. Probably not worth it.


• Aimee Mann: possibly my favorite show at ACL. She was fantastic. Though she should eat more.


• Charlie Sexton: a local rocker, he gives a good show as well.


• Raconteurs: Tim thought they were good, I don't really remember them, other than the single song I knew...


• Kings of Leon: good. Not much else to say.


• Willie Nelson: gosh, this had such potential. But the sound was so terrible we could barely hear him. It was a real disappointment, though through no fault of Willie's.


• Massive Attack: this was one of those things you felt like you had to see, if only because they were the headliner. But we didn't stay long...the music was a bit psychadelic for our taste.


• Rocky Votolato: we accidentally caught the last few songs of Rocky's set and it was FANTASTIC. I would love to see him again.


• The Stills: this was the band we got drenched for, and are we glad we did. An excellent concert; this is one of those bands that is better live than on their CD.


• Sam Roberts: another Canadian band (like The Stills), these guys were also great and gave a fun show.


• Damian "Jr Gong" Marley: I'm pretty sure Tim was high through this whole concert (from second hand smoke...), but he was really good.


• KT Tunstall: wow. She gives a great concert. She is a great performer, and I love her music.


• Jose Gonzalez: Tim liked him. I thought he was ok. He was alone with his guitar (a Swede of Argentinian descent), and he probably would have been better in a smaller venue as well. But his music was solid.


• Patrice Pike: I didn't listen long, but she's a fixture of the Austin music scene. I left for...


• Buckwheat Zydeco: incredible. Some rocking Cajun music and a packed tent dancing and clapping...it doesn't get much better than this.


• Matisyahu: Tim's been excited about seeing this guy for a while. Tim equates him to a more talented and cooler Jewish Jars of Clay.


• The New Pornographers: they were poppy and just ok.


• Son Volt: better (like Wilco), but still nothing to write home about. Some alt country flavor for the middle of our day.


• The Flaming Lips: so these guys had the most entertaining show of the weekend. The lead singer came out in a human-sized gerbil ball, which he rolled across the crowd, while half the stage was filled with dancing Santas and half with dancing aliens. The music was kind of a let down, though.


• The New Orleans Social Club: so we skipped out on the Flaming Lips and headed over to the New Orleans Social Club. And glad we did. Some quintessential New Orleans music...and the trumpeter was fantastic. As was the blind pianist. Never miss them if you have the chance to see them.


• G Love and Special Sauce: I've never loved G. Love, but Tim's a big fan. They're a cross between blues and rap with a guitar and harmonica thrown in. Good wholesome party music.


• Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers: and then there was the finale. Tom Petty has lost nothing over the years. While the storm dampened the show a bit, he came back and played his heart out, and it was more than well worth the wait. Great stuff.

And one more picture...into the crowd:

A Visit from Colorado

Labor day weekend (two weeks ago, I know) Jeannette and Xavi came to visit us from Boulder. Yes, these are the same friends that were married in Alaska this summer, and they think we're special enough to deserve a second visit in the same summer! We had a great time; we don't get to see the sights of Austin (or central Texas, for that matter) much unless people come to visit us. The first day, we went to visit the Texas State Capital (see Jeannette and Xavi playing with a statue outside):


We also went to the Austin botanical gardens, where Jeannette and I unfurled our wings, and Tim, well, learned something:


These were both completely new to us, but we also caught some old favorites like Mt. Bonnell (a great overlook of Austin and the surrounding hill country), Rudy's barbecue (because no visit to Austin is complete without the "worst barbecue in Texas"), saw some live music at the Saxon Pub, saw the bats under the Congress Avenue bridge (see below...all of the blurry black spots are bats), and, of course, took a little visit to Central Market (Jeannette and Xavi were adequately impressed, and they even bought some Spanish chorizo, cheese, and some other unidentifiable Spanish thing to take back with them).


Sunday we took a jag down to San Antonio to see the missions and the Riverwalk; here's Jeannette and Xavi together at Mission San Jose:


All in all, we had a fantastic time. It's great to get to see and spend time with old friends, and it's always fun to show someone your hometown, even if its a relatively newly adopted hometown. Oh, and I have to thank Xavi for all of the photos; I couldn't find our camera to download my pictures before I started posting, so I used the pictures he took instead...

Meet me in Saint Louis

At the beginning of August, I was finishing a trip for work in Saint Louis, so we decided to spend a relaxed weekend with old college and grad school friends in Saint Louis. People have gradually been moving out of the area, but we still have several friends in town there. We stayed with our friends Tyler and Trish (Tyler and Tim ran cross country together in college), and they were gracious enough to show us around to all of the old hangouts and some new ones too. Check out the new piece of art outside the Saint Louis Zoo (one of our old favorites):



And here's Tyler and Trish posing with the art:



We headed out Sunday morning for some coffee at Kaldi's and a nice walk around Demun. Here's Trish with some coffee-art of her own:



Mike (a friend of Tim's from vet school) and his wife Gina also met us for coffee:


before we all met some more of Tim's former classmates for lunch.

And we finally caught up with Jaydee and Brian and got to see their awesome new house in the Tower Grove neighborhood. Here they are in their living room with their dog Tottie:

Taking the pups to the park

This past weekend, we decided to take the pups to the park again. So this is a good time to introduce them to the blog. Or the blog to them. In either case...

We have two dogs. Hannah, the black labrador retriever is 2 and a half now, and she's been with us pretty much since we moved to Texas. Casey is a black lab/collie mix that we adopted about 9 months ago. We're guessing that she's something around 15 months old now. (I was out of town at a friend's wedding in Kansas City when Tim first brought her home; hence the name "Casey").

The dogs, Hannah (red collar) and Casey (blue collar) love the park and especially love to swim. Here they are waiting for Tim to chuck their "duck" into the lake so they can take a flying leap off the dock.

Hannah, as always, loves to swim, and she can still beat Casey off the dock and to the "duck" every time. Casey's swimming has improved, though she still tends to hitch a ride back to shore (sure it looks like she could be swimming, but she's mostly just being towed):

Instead of being an expert swimmer, Casey is perfecting her rabbit impression. Instead of running when they fetch on shore, she hops like a rabbit. When Hannah is amid the tall grasses actually looking for their toy, Casey hops around the patch of grass looking in from the top. Soon she will be a champion dog vertical leaper. She's at three feet easily now.

A trip to Alaska

I've decided that we need to join the world of blogs, and so I am initiating a blog about our lives. Luckily, I get to start with an exciting post, since we've just returned from a lovely vacation in the state of Alaska. First, the primary purpose of the trip was to attend our friends' (Jeannette and Xavier) wedding in Fairbanks, AK. OK, so officially, it was their second wedding ceremony (the religious ceremony), but who's counting. (Jeannette's a friend of ours from college; Xavier she met in graduate school.) The event was an especially good time since the people attending were half American and half Spanish (since Xavier is Spanish), and everyone really knew how to kick up their heels and have a good time.


In Fairbanks, Tim and I hooked up with another college friend, Larissa, and after a few days seeing sights in Fairbanks, the three of us headed down to Denali National Park. Simply put, if this is something you haven't seen, get on a plane right now. It was just absolutely beautiful. I'm not absolutely sure we would say the same thing if it had been winter, but... we had beautiful weather in the 60s, basically 24 hours of daylight, and, oh yeah, more wildlife and mountains than anyone could dream of. We did a little bit of mild hiking, and on one of these hikes, we came within 30 yards or so of a female moose.


But the most memorable portion of the days in Denali was definitely the bus trip we took into Wonder Lake and back. It goes something like this:

Our bus and its tour guide (Peter, who was stellar, by the way) leave at 6:30am. On the way in, Peter says, "I hate to be optimistic, but it looks like a pretty good day to get to see things; it's been raining for the past week." Great news for us. So Peter's pretty chatty for the first few miles. He's pointing out that he chats up the beginning of the trip because it's usually a good distance into the park before there are good opportunities to see wildlife. Not but a few seconds later, Peter has to slam on his brakes for a caribou that's just hanging out, trotting down the middle of the road. A good omen, it turns out. Before the entrance into the restricted area of the park, we also encounter a pair of grizzlies (a good distance off the road, which is a good place for them, if you ask me).

The next big thing we see on our tour is, well, the mountain. Mount Denali. (Mount McKinley for those not Alaskan.) Apparently only 20% of the park visitors actually get to see the mountain because it is often obscured by clouds. So we're already doing well. We take a couple of breaks at some scenic overlooks, take some photos, see some Dall sheep (if you don't know, protection of the Dall sheep population was the reason the park was founded), and continue along. Until Peter slams on the breaks again. "Everybody be really quiet; there's a wolf in the road up here, and voices can scare them off." Sure enough, there was a wolf in front of the bus. Now, it turns out, Peter tells us later, that wolf sightings in the park are pretty rare. He does the tour every day it seems, and he sees a wolf maybe once a week. So again, we're doing well. Soon, another wolf joins the wolf in the road, and then a third. And then...they throw back their heads and howl. Just amazing. Sure, you've heard it on TV, but it's simply not the same. After a few more minutes, the wolves wander off into the roadside brush. Peter tells us that very rarely do you ever get to hear the wolves howl, and never from that close. Fantastic. We hang out a bit just in case the wolves are going to come back out, but they don't. As Peter goes to start the bus, someone in the back hollers, "Hang on, there are caribou on the ridge." Peter says, "Sure, we can hang around and watch the caribou for a while." There were four bucks just up grazing on the hillside, maybe a half of a mile off to the side. We watch them for a while, then off to the side, someone notices the wolves, slinking up the hill. Guess who else saw the caribou? The caribou, apparently not being the brightest animals in the food chain, hear something coming towards them and decide to check it out. Whoops. Then, just like you see in nature documentaries, the wolves start chasing the caribou. They single out the slowest one, one wolf flanks from the opposite side, and they start chasing the chosen caribou down the hill...back towards the bus. And in fact, after a minute or two, the caribou comes tearing out of the brush, crosses maybe five feet in front of the bus and disappears into the brush on the other side. He was followed at about 10 second intervals by the three wolves, and the pack of them headed down the hillside. It's left to your best guess how it all ended; the caribou looked healthy, but Peter tells us that the wolves have pups to feed. We never saw the end. I was cheering for the caribou. Tim was cheering for the wolves. Such is nature, carried out every day in the park.

We continued on our journey and soon got another fantastic view of the mountain before it started to cloud up. Then we also saw a grizzly mom with two young cubs, a golden eagle on the ground not 10 feet from the bus that picked up and took flight in front of us, some snowshoe hare, ground squirrels, ptarmigan, and beaver dens. By the time we got to Wonder lake and beyond, the clouds had moved in around the mountain, so we didn't get a really close up view. Our tour finished about 200 yards from the end of the park road (about 90 miles into the park), where we had lunch and a little nature hike at a lodge. Then we headed back. On the way back, we saw some more grizzlies, a moose, some more caribou, some more Dall sheep, and beautiful mountainscapes. And Mt. Denali came out for one last peek before we headed out of the park, to arrive back out at the highway right around 7pm.

Our last day there, Tim climbed a mountain (Mt. Healy, at 1700 feet or so), while Larissa and I took a slightly less strenous hike through the forest and saw a demonstration of the sled dogs that are still used to patrol the park in the wintertime.

I can say with a fair bit of confidence that we'll be back to Denali some day.

We had to go back to Fairbanks to catch our planes, and, with some extra time to kill, we drove to North Pole, Alaska, which is, in fact, slightly south of Fairbanks. (As an aside for those of you Extreme Makeover: Home Edition fans, they were doing a house in North Pole while we were in Alaska, and we happened to run into Ty Pennington on the streets of Fairbanks.) In any case, North Pole was pretty cheesy with Christmas decorations up apparently year round, but we did the tourist route and took some goofy photos.

We're back now, we're tired, but it seemed apropos to share some photos and stories. More later.