Back Home from Austin!
whoo hooo
We got in last night from Austin! State Capital! Home of UT! Twas an awesome trip even though I was committed to the conference. We stayed at the ATT Executive Education and Conference Center on the UT campus. For Friday night dinner, we were bussed to MAX’s Wine Dive to eat and then back to the hotel to crash.
Woke up the next day and completed the conference, then drove around a bit looking for my work headquarters. Found various organizations that we all send stuff to or call on a fairly regular basis, so now my mental vision of where they are and what they look like have been adjusted. Most of them were not housed in colossal glass enclosed skyscrapers like we have in town, but older vintage buildings which make up the flavor of Austin.
We also experienced the hills and valleys while driving through the town, which was a definite difference to the flat lands of our city. IT is also to be noted that Texas is a beautiful, lush, green state, complete with awe inspiring vistas and unusual and surprising structures just around the bend.
Austin itself has lakes and rivers traversing through it, that give it the atmosphere of a coastal city like Galveston, but smaller and more compact. People gather in large, festival like groups with music everywhere.
Due to the fact that it's the Capital of Texas, there are more hotels, luxury hotels per square foot in the town. It has pubs, restaurants, walk-up stands and anything you can think of for a nice, laid back time. It's like that college town that everyone thinks they'll be going to when they get to college.
Ok, I'm shilling for the city.. sue me.
B and I are definitely planning a trip back to enjoy the city without the constraints of a conference. As an admirer of history, it's the perfect place to explore. For instance, staying at the ATT Center, we were literally a couple of walkable blocks away from the famous, UT tower where Charles J Whitman of Florida and student shot 14 people and wounded 32 others before he was brought down by police. Until the Virginia Tech massacre, Whitman this was the worst shooting incident in America. It's also a short distance away from the State Capital building which is awesome.
That's not to say it doesn't have its malls, traffic congestion and everything else associated with a large city. I guess living in Houston, which is spread out over a vast area, it was nice to have things fairly close at hand downtown.
There was also one thing we do every time we've gone up to Austin... At some point, we'll be driving down a street and go. "Babaca, lives here somewhere. Do you remember her address?" Answer is always...duh..no.
So, our next thing to do will be to remember to put the addy somewhere on our person or in the car for future reference.
Veep
We got in last night from Austin! State Capital! Home of UT! Twas an awesome trip even though I was committed to the conference. We stayed at the ATT Executive Education and Conference Center on the UT campus. For Friday night dinner, we were bussed to MAX’s Wine Dive to eat and then back to the hotel to crash.
Woke up the next day and completed the conference, then drove around a bit looking for my work headquarters. Found various organizations that we all send stuff to or call on a fairly regular basis, so now my mental vision of where they are and what they look like have been adjusted. Most of them were not housed in colossal glass enclosed skyscrapers like we have in town, but older vintage buildings which make up the flavor of Austin.
We also experienced the hills and valleys while driving through the town, which was a definite difference to the flat lands of our city. IT is also to be noted that Texas is a beautiful, lush, green state, complete with awe inspiring vistas and unusual and surprising structures just around the bend.
Austin itself has lakes and rivers traversing through it, that give it the atmosphere of a coastal city like Galveston, but smaller and more compact. People gather in large, festival like groups with music everywhere.
Due to the fact that it's the Capital of Texas, there are more hotels, luxury hotels per square foot in the town. It has pubs, restaurants, walk-up stands and anything you can think of for a nice, laid back time. It's like that college town that everyone thinks they'll be going to when they get to college.
Ok, I'm shilling for the city.. sue me.
B and I are definitely planning a trip back to enjoy the city without the constraints of a conference. As an admirer of history, it's the perfect place to explore. For instance, staying at the ATT Center, we were literally a couple of walkable blocks away from the famous, UT tower where Charles J Whitman of Florida and student shot 14 people and wounded 32 others before he was brought down by police. Until the Virginia Tech massacre, Whitman this was the worst shooting incident in America. It's also a short distance away from the State Capital building which is awesome.
That's not to say it doesn't have its malls, traffic congestion and everything else associated with a large city. I guess living in Houston, which is spread out over a vast area, it was nice to have things fairly close at hand downtown.
There was also one thing we do every time we've gone up to Austin... At some point, we'll be driving down a street and go. "Babaca, lives here somewhere. Do you remember her address?" Answer is always...duh..no.
So, our next thing to do will be to remember to put the addy somewhere on our person or in the car for future reference.
Veep