Insomniac's Lounge

Rode my bike home from work the other day.
I have a bike rack for the car. So, the wife takes me and the bike to work. And, I ride it home.

Episode 1:
Was weird. The bus was heading to the depot, not going downtown. East Austin here we come!
So, I'll heave to show up between 5-6 next time.

Door to door my route was 16.7 miles.
2 miles on bike to bus
miles 2-11 on bus (long way since bus was heading to depot)
miles 11-16.7 on bike (via town lake+lamar)
~ 7-8 mile ride Easy.
If I get there earlier and go the normal way, it will be around a 5-6 mile ride.

The game is on! Tonight is the season opener for the Austin Aztex v Minnesota Thunder. It should be a good one so come on out.

Aztexan has a decent write-up of the match.

Nelson Field at 7:30pm

Chantico's Army will be there early. There's chant practice from 3-5pm in the parking lot (and tailgating).
And, then we head over to Nomad bar for a quick "pre-game".

At 6:45PM we arrive back at the stadium to march in. With all our drums and other loud nose makers.

Come join the fun. No cost to join our group.

I probably shouldn't say this. BUT. If you can't make it to the match, you can watch it on USLLive.com tonight : USLLive.com

It's official. Austin is racist. Or, at least a lot of businesses and the people that run them. Oh and some musicians too.

Apparently, the Texas Relays brings in a lot of black people. Gasp! What will we ever do if people come to town that don't look like us.

This is the same sort of passive (not that passive) racism you see in tourists that visit NYC from the middle of the country. They look very timid because they've never really been around that many people of color. So sad. Not every person of color is in a gang you dumbass hick.

I don't know. Maybe I mistake moving back to Austin. I thought I lived in the People's Republic of Austin (the island of liberalism in the sea of conservatism) but this is just sad.

Furthermore, Austin's Highland mall is closing all day on Saturday. For reals. Yes. a whole mall. And we just drove south on I-35 tonight after the Aztex game. Horrible as that was, it was made worse because the cops had closed off all the major southbound exits downtown. There was almost no one down on 6th from the glimpse I had from I-35. I'm guessing all the scared white people stayed home tonight.

And, also closing is Emo's and Flamingo Cantina. The former claiming they are protecting their staff. Tell me another lie.

Ridiculous. Well, I'll be smack in the middle of downtown tomorrow getting my haircut and riding my bicycle.

I, for one, welcome our new black overlords.

More from Austinist

Vancouver gets awarded the next MLS franchise.
Portland should be next (maybe announced this weekend?).
Tonight is the first game for another new team: Seattle Sounders FC vs Red Bulls.

And with Vancouver comes the Steve Nash story.
It has been said that Steve is good enough to play in the MLS but has been an NBA player of some repute for some years now.
His little brother plays for Vancouver. Oh yeah. Vancouver is not a new team.
The Whitecaps are being promoted to the MLS from USL-1, the same league that the Austin Aztex play in.
So, Austin will get to play Vancouver and Steve Nash's brother this season and the next. Vancouver starts MLS play in 2011.

A great commercial with Steve Nash.


Could Steve do a Michael Jordan and play 2 sports? Or switch?

While in NY (and even some now), I read a lot of Brooklyn blogs. Especially Gowanus Lounge.

Robert Guskind, the guy who created the blog and recently passed away. Very sad.

This is a very kind write up of him.

From over at Gothamist, it looks like Kelso Brewery was trying to encourage people to give blood.
If you did that and showed them a receipt you got a free pint. Nice.

Apprently the NY Blood Center didn't like the idea so much. Doesn't mean it's not a great idea.
Give blood first. Have the beer later :-) Beer's good for you. Enjoy.

So, CapMetro released their schedule for the MetroRail this week.

As Mike suspected, it's gonna suck. Let's see. Lets' only run the train during rush hour, vaguely defined as the ass-crack of dawn (5am ish) and stop sometime after 6. Because don't go out after dark kiddies. All the bad people come out at that time.

Anyone wanna make a bet that they end up with double their estimate of riders? Of course, watch me be wrong because there are so many people out of work they might otherwise be riding the train.

I'm not cynical tonight, only bitchy. Use my tax dollars wisely bitches.

OK. An update. There is a blog. Make your opinion known here. I think many othes already have.

CapMetro Blog: Capital MetroRail Schedule--First Pass

Woohoo. The 171 (aka the Oak Hill Flyer) is being changed. The Oak Hill Park and Ride is being moved next to William Cannon. For me, that's great. I just moved to our headquarters office near that. I'm walking distance from that bus. There's another bus (970 Lantana) that goes straight to our campus but it sucks, only running twice a day. Yeah. Twice. The nice thing about the 171 too is that it lets off closer to Lamar and that will make it easy for me to get home, on my bicycle. I can't wait.

Info on the route change for 171

Only 3 months til Austin's MetroRail will be ready. I won't be using it for work, but I'll probably use it to get to Aztex games since there's a station at Highland Mall and a bus going to Reagan High. We'll see.

Went to the trail of tears..err lights last night with friends. Call me anti-holiday. I don't have kids so I was sort of..meh. but I had fun anyway since I was with friends. I also finally ran yesterday down at the trails on town lake. I guess playing that open premier team (full of guys that looked and ran like 19 year olds) reminded me that I need to keep in shape.

This year will be at Nelson Field with House Park still a possibly the following year.

I would have preferred something closer, but there is a bus route there next to Reagan High School. And, that takes you to Highland mall where one could hop on the train. And, there's a neighborhood bar (Nomad Bar) on the route as well. Pre-game anyone?


Aztex: Austin Aztex FC Announce New Stadium for 2009 Season
USL: Austin signs USL-1 stadium deal

Aztexan has a first look at Nelson field (and a Flickr set).

Test post from Eljay a livejournal client for Android. Damn. People keep beating me to app ideas.

I have two blogs now. So, I struggle over whether to double post sometimes.

This time it's probably worth it.

Check out the screenshots of my new application called Golan. It runs on the Android platform.

Some info about the application
Golan Project Home
All cedarpark.com projects

This was so much fun. I can't wait to get started on a new project now. I've got a list of stuff to pick from.

Everyone needs a little laugh. And a little inspiration.
Man, this does it.

Enjoy.

Wassup 2008
Opie and the Fonz

I got my new phone today. I am the proud new owner of a new generation of phones. It's important to remember that it's not about the hardware. It's about the software, and it's openeness. If the hardware matters to you, get an iPhone. There are clear diff's. Just wait about a month and you'll see what I mean. Wait 3-6 more months when another 2-3 devices are running Android and it will become even more clear. You can finally hack your phone without knowing C or Objective-C. Yeah for Java.

I blogged a little on the publishing bit's over here.

Android Guys
Google Mobile
T-Mobile G1

I went canoeing with the wife today on Lake Austin. No, I will not call it by its new name. And, I still think it's a river, not a lake. But, I digress. I had never canoed in Austin, so it's one less thing on my TODO list.

Later, we walked over and played 9 holes of disc golf at Zilker. I'm really impressed with her accuracy today. She's gotten a lot better also, probably from playing at the Circle C course twice. I impressed myself. I nailed the basket with my mid-range from pretty far out today. I did a happy jump. Damn, I love my hippie sport.

Well, there's lots of interesting things to blog about recently. But, I really like this photo, or rather the conversation it generated on Boing Boing. Stop looking at the world economy. Pop open a beer. Talk about Star Trek. We'll make it through this crap.




Direct link to the Observer piece

The wife and I went and watched the debate last night at the Drafthouse on South Lamar. Get this. $5 gets you in. They aren't actually charging. The $5 is a food voucher. And, we had to reserver it online. They had it on 2 screens there and it was sold out. Craziness. So, basically we get to go out and watch the debate on the movie screen with a bunch of neighborhood folks and a few beers. That was so entertaining!

Today, I get cable finally. I can join "middle America" again by watching lots of useless entertainment. Yummm. :-)

I fixed my flat tire on my bike. OK. I just changed out the tube. Man, I'm getting mechanical, huh?

I'm a little jealous these folks attending ACL this year get to enjoy weather in the 80's. I think I may bike down there this morning, to the pedestrian bridge just to get some exercise.

Have a good weekend.

So, I have to wait one month to get my new phone. They come out on October 22. I can wait. Well, I can't wait, but I will. My good good goooood friends loaned me their old Motorola phone which is unlocked. I popped my SIM card in it and voila, I have a phone now.

In the meantime, I downloaded the latest Android SDK to play around. Wow. It has changed in 6 months. It's very impressive. I was able to create a simulated SD card and add some mp3's to it and play the music on the emulator. w00t.

The documentation is much better too. It looks like it only takes 2-3 lines of code to interact with the music player. Man, this is gonna be fun.

If you've been trying to reach me on my phone, don't bother. It's pretty much dead. And, duct tape can't save it. Alas. You know how to find me anyway. Email or my wife.

I'm holding out for an Android phone though. There's an announcement tomorrow. But, it sounds like it will be late October. I may have an interim phone until then.

This made me laugh. I don't care. I'm still getting one.

The primary reason I will be getting this phone is it fits a person like me. Unlike other asshat companies, I will not need to seek the permission of some stupid company to write a program for my phone. Asinine.

We watched Sauna at Fantastic Fest this weekend. Wow. It was good. I was really surprised by the quality of this film. Here's a review. Maybe I'll have more to say on this one later. I think there is more symbolism and culture in this film than that review suggests. Maybe it's my background in history that made me look for those things too.

Imagine a historical piece which is also a horror/suspense film. This was beautiful to watch.