Fresh, Hot Wastes of Time

I got this telephone call tonight from Rep. Lamar Smith. He was having some virtual town hall meeting via telephone, and he called a couple hundred constituents from his district. If we wanted to ask a question, we could press zero. Mildly curious, I listened to the whole thing, which was pretty [...]

The rut is in full swing for the Austin whitetail deer population, and nowhere is it more evident than in West Lake Hills. In the last week I’ve seen an 8 point buck in my front flowerbed, menacing me (and the puppy) through the front door window. Earlier today we saw a blonde [...]

We paid a load of money to get off our septic tank and onto West Lake Hills’ sewer service. We were pretty shocked when we started getting our bills every month - right now we’re paying $80/month for sewer ONLY, not counting water. Today our bill had a notice that the city council [...]

My neighbors just cut my favorite tree down. It turned the most amazing colors in the fall. It had just started to lose its deep green.
You’d never guess who they hired to do it. Too bad that flyer campaign works.

Restaurants we’ve been to lately:
Dirty Martin’s Kum-Bak Place. Still excellent after all these years. The back room now has three, count ‘em, three window air conditioners, so it’s frigid in there, yet still smells funky. Their sirloin sandwich is to die for. Cheese tots are a must. The kids (after [...]

I live in a little suburb of Austin that’s in the middle of a nasty, nasty election campaign for city council. On one side are the people who’ve been on the council for a while. On the other side are newcomers who want to see a change. We get daily junk in [...]

Hub and I went to the Backstage Steakhouse for dinner tonight, and we were completely blown away. We started with the Jalapeno Corn Cake with Crawfish and Gorgonzola with a Mustard and Red Chile Sauce - the corn cake itself had a nice crunchy texture to it, and the crawfish was nicely spiced. [...]

We went to see Zodiac at the Alamo Drafthouse last night. It was long, but I thought it was a great flick. The first half deals with the murders themselves, while the second is about the subsequent investigation. Great acting by all involved, and nice period settings.
After I came home, I spent [...]

After hearing for years about their fabulous enchiladas, the family and I went to Dart Bowl today for some bowling and dinner. We entered the restaurant area around 6:20, and ordered at 6:25.
At 6:45, still nothing. A customer from another table went to the kitchen and stood in the doorway until someone finally acknowledged him.
At [...]

Finally more about The Nutcracker!

A few weeks ago, David Wyattsent an email to the Austin Bloggers mailing list offering local bloggers the opportunity to attend a technical rehearsal of Ballet Austin’s The Nutcracker. I had already purchased tickets to one of the performances, but I thought that the kids (okay, okay, and me too) [...]