Buckets and Lists

When I moved out on my own, I planned on being adventurous and trying new things.  And while this has been accomplished to a point, I still tend to not do things out of the ordinary.  Thus my Austin Bucket List was created. 

Ideally, my bucket list will become a living document that grows every day.  At the moment, my Austin-specific bucket list has ten things on it, with one of those already being completed.  I believe I wrote it one night while drinking in my apartment, which is a very new concept for me. 

1) ride the giant mustache- if you remember, I posted a picture of a giant mustache in front of a local restaurant.  Well maybe three days later, I rode that bitch.  Pretty sure I don't actually need to point this out, but I'm on the left. My fellow rider is one of my co-workers.  Seems like I may be enjoying this more than him.

 

Mustache ride indeed

2) see the bats- I've spoken about this before as well, but I want to see the giant bat colony fly from under the bridge.  I've been told that there are boat tours one can take and watch from the river.  I've also been told that the bats shit all over those boats.  Looking forward to it!!  Pictures and maybe even videos will be posted when this one happens.

3) go to South by Southwest- for those who don't know what SXSW is, just ring your call button and Tommy will come back there and hit you in the head with a tack hammer.  The music portion of SXSW starts on March 16th.  On Thursday, March 17th, which also happens to be the birthday of Ireland, my oldest sister is coming to Austin.  I magically was able to get the next day off work (hooray for working MLK Day) and we will proceed to do what people do at SXSW.  I'm not really sure what that is yet, but I'm super fucking excited to find out. 

4) ride bikes with Lance- Lance being Austin-native Lance Armstrong.  I've heard all kinds of stories about Lance and most of them have not been positive.  I've heard he only has one testicle.  Pretty sure that one is true, but its still not positive.  I've also been told that he tends to ride his bike around the city and surrounding hills.  While I haven't owned a bike since about sophomore year in high school and do not have one here, this goal will be mine.  Oh yes, it will be mine. 

(Not to get off topic, but the bike I used to have was a Dyno NSX.  Blue frame with yellow lettering, black pegs on the back, hand breaks; it had it all.  My mom sold it at a garage sale for two fucking dollars.  Can you tell I'm still a little bitter?)

(The last word in that last paragraph originally was spelled biter which is still true, but is a different story for a different time)

5) tailgate a UT game- I went to college at a small-ish school in northeastern Ohio.  Not terribly small, pretty sure there were around 30,000 students.  (Just made that number up, could be way off).  In my four years, the football stadium was located 8 miles off campus.  On several occasions I went and tailgated for our sad, sad football team.  (2005 MAC Champs though)  No matter how shitty the team was, tailgating was always amazing.  With that being said, UT has more than 100,000 students and the stadium is the 6th largest in the US and 9th largest non-racing stadium in the world.  So if I thought that tailgating at a stadium with maybe 15,000 spectators was awesome, I can't even comprehend tailgating for UT.  (Related note: I drive past the stadium on my way to work.  The thing is massive.)

6) get boots and a hat- everybody wears boots down here.  And I cannot wait until I get some.  However, they are pretty damn expensive.  $200 for a cheap pair.  Wonder how much mine made out of mustache hairs will cost.  Same thing goes for a hat.  They aren't an accessory down here, they're a way of life.

7) go to a rodeo- this one is kind of self-explanatory.  To be honest, I've been to a rodeo in South Dakota or Wyoming.  The one thing that I remember from this rodeo was a conversation my mom had with an usher:
Mom: "excuse me, can you tell us how to get to Crested Butt."
Usher (not the singer): "It's pronounced Butte."

While hilarious to a ten year old, this is the extent of what I remember from the rodeo.  This is the reason why I need to experience one again. 


8) ride a horse- I have never ridden a horse.  The closest thing I've come to riding a horse is getting a piggy back ride from a fat kid in college.   

9) kayak down the river- another activity that I've never done.  My family went on a fishing trip to northern Minnesota one year.  We planned on a canoeing trip near the Canadian border.  My parents, two sisters, and I were all in one canoe.  Parents sat on the seats as they paddled.  My sisters and I sat on the floor of the canoe and slowly became soaking wet once we realized the canoe had a tiny hole.  We were in the middle of nowhere, sitting in water, and just had to deal with it.  That kind of ruined canoeing for me.  But I'm hoping kayaking is nothing like canoeing.  I'll let you know. 

10) float down the river- So it seems that there are lots of outdoor things to do in Austin.  Floating down a river in an inner tube and a cooler of beer sounds awesome.  My family did this sort of thing in Arizona about 12 years ago.  The whole time, the river was rather calm but the current was definitely taking us downstream.  My dad, uncle, oldest sister and myself broke off from the rest of the family at one point.  This was good until we went around a bend and noticed a tree had fallen into the river.  My sister couldn't avoid the log and was dragged underneath it.  She ended up losing one of her water shoes and the sheet that was covering her tube.  Don't fuck with the river. 

I'm hoping there are no trees in the river here.

This is the extent of my Austin bucket list at the moment.  I'm sure once I get more familiar with things here, I'll be adding and hopefully crossing things off.
___________________________________________________________
This last Tuesday, I went to a roller rink for the first time since about '96.  And it was awesome.  It was adult night so there weren't any bastard kids around.  There were afros, short shorts, track suits, knee high socks, tank tops, sequined shirts.  And that's just what I was wearing. 

As with nascar, people go roller skating to see other people crash and fall.  Or maybe that's just me.  But I saw quite a few nasty spills.  There was one guy who had a black tshirt, black jeans, and a whistle around his neck.  His shirt AND jeans were embroidered with the name of the roller rink.  Either he was the owner or their best customer.  Whenever someone would fall near him, he would stop traffic like a crossing guard and blow his whistle. 

Sadly, no pictures from this event but roller skating was quite enjoyable.  I can't remember the last time I'd actually worn roller skates instead of blades.  And yes, I did feel like T.I. in ATL. 
__________________________________________________________
I don't own a vacuum.  I didn't really think that this would be a problem until I realized that I clean off my table and counter tops by brushing everything onto the floor.  After six weeks, the carpet was looking pretty rough.  So while I don't have a vacuum, I do have a roll of duct tape.  I spent my afternoon wrapping my hands in duct tape and attempting to get all the shit out of my carpet.  Well a half hour later and half of the duct tape gone, I had cleaned roughly a fourth of the carpet.  If anyone has a vacuum for sale, I'm looking. 
_____________________________________________________________
One last short note: I was driving home from the store today when I saw two blind people walking together.  It was literally the blind leading the blind.
_____________________________________________________________
65 in Austin today.  Y'all come back now y'hear