Veggies and dirt!

This morning a truck full of dirt woke us up - it may not look like a lot here, but really it is - a full day's worth of work ahead of us. But it's to top off the lawn so it won't need as much watering this summer. It's Dillo Dirt, so the ultimate in captilalism and recycling. We do all the work to clean up the yard waste (limbs, weeds, leaves, whatever), put it out on the curb, pay the city to pick it up, and then a few months later, pay the city to drop it back off, only this time in the form of dirt.
And, to be even more Austin-hippie like, we also went to our neighbors' to pick up our half of half a bushel of fresh veggies from a local farm. There are so many, I'm not sure what we'll do with them all (recipes for radishes and mustard greens anyone?), but definitely looking forward to a season of this.

Water, water - where?

I subscribe to a Wired magazine RSS news feed, and some really amazing stuff comes up on that. Since we've abandoned cable, I don't get to watch the Daily show or Colbert Report any more, but check out Dean Kamen as he presents a water purifier on the Colbert Report. How great is it that this guy actually spends his time, and his employees' time, inventing stuff that will actually help people?

Beer Bike 08

Last weekend we went to Houston for Rice's annual Beer Bike event. John woke us up with the traditional Sid anthem of 'Back in Black,' then we headed over to Kegs and Eggs, then to the alumni tent, and finally the pub crawl. Afterwards we all convened on John's place for some of that Rock Band stuff, though I have to admit a few of us escaped for some dinner (though others couldn't pull themselves away and ordered pizza in). A really great Saturday. Here you can see the group at Kegs & Eggs (there was actually another group 'tailgating' Beer Bike this year, but we think they may have been slightly younger alumni - many in our group are migrating over to that 30-something age... yipes!) and then this crazy girl at the alumni tent who wouldn't stop petting our dogs!

The following Sunday John hosted an awesome crawfish boil - I haven't had any in a long time, and they were soooo tasty. Especially that last spicy batch! And, you can see a very not creepy guy snuggling on Lola ;)

Vote!

If you're in Texas, today's the day to vote! I'm heading out to caucus (the 'Texas Two Step') and will report back...should be interesting.

UPDATE
So, turns out that our precinct has the 2nd most delegates to the county convention, which is exciting. The polling place only holds 90-some people according to code, so we basically convened outside in the yard - thankfully it was not too cold of a nite. There were at least 300 people there - absolutely amazing. The voting didn't finish until about 8pm, at which point we were able to sign in to officially caucus and vote. I got through the line around 8:45, and there were probably still 1/2 of the people yet to sign in. It's really great to be able to participate in another form of voting.
Now, I don't think the returns will be in for quite a while, so we'll have to wait til tomorrow to see how the democratic party divides up.

NEW YORK!

so much fun, and great to help Kiyomi & Amber celebrate their birthdays. Thanks to Thom for the manis & pedis!