Austin Trip, part two
Saturday
Saturday got off to a late start. I both woke up late, and I wanted to stay in to catch the season finale of The Legend of Korra. But while I was doing that, I also made plans for the day. First order of business would be breakfast. For some reason, I was in the mood for crepes, so used my phone to both search for and get directions too a crepe place. I found one in the downtown area, and so I slowly made I way to downtown. I ended up getting off the bus a little too early, and I was accosted by some volunteers looking to raise money for Planned Parenthood. I told them while I agree with their work, I wasn't in the position to be given any money. Must be tough work for them, though. Afterwords, I had a nutella and strawberry crepe. Delicous.
While I was waiting for my crepe, I tried to figure out where to go to next. I knew the LBJ presidential museum was in town, so I figured I'd go check that out. In hindsight, that was probably a mistake because much of it was under renovation, so only the top floor was accessible to the public. While I was walking to a bus stop before going their though, I took a detour up and down 6th street, where I'd be spending time later that night when I went to the Master Pancake show at the Alamo Drafthouse. But more about that later. Already, at noon on Saturday, the place bustled with activate. After the LBJ museum, which was free, I made my way to a natural history museum on the University of Texas campus. This museum made me feel a little better about the quality of my work because there were all sorts of problems with the exhibits that only someone like me would pick up on. Namely, this had to do with stuff in disrepair or lights being out and that sort of thing. The very top floor was probably the best part of the museum. Up there, they had their newish looking exhibit, and it was on evolution. they also had a comment box set up, and looking through the book of comments that people had made was fascinating.
Afterwards I had no idea what to do next. I needed to kill some more time, as I was going to meet Scott and Krystal downtown later that night. I decided to walk to a near by art museum. Unfortunately, that walk took a lot out of me, and I was in no mood to fully appreciate the museum itself. I'm not the greatest fan of abstract minimalist art on the best of days, so seeing some in one exhibit just put me in a sour mood for the rest of the day. Why is a drop of paint on a note book paper considered art anyway! Well, after this, my phone was in need of a recharge. I had been using it's map and search functions pretty heavily all day. So I found a coffee shop downtown, bought an iced green tea, and proceeded to chill and recharge my phone for the next hour. Eventually, I got a call from Scott. He agreed to meet me at a nearby hat shop, so I could kill some more time by trying on more hats. I do so love wearing hats, and I almost considered buying a new fedora, but I decided to pass. Already I spent too much on this trip. I later meet up with Scott and Krystal again outside of the shop. They didn't know of any great places to eat nearby, so I suggested pizza. Being in a big city again put me in the mood for some, preferably big New York style slice. I took us on a long walk to one that wasn't located where my phone said it should be! That was embarrassing. But eventually we found another one nearby, and they did NY slices. It was fine, but far from the best I've ever had. After that, the drinking started. Not much to say about that. We tried one bar, but they didn't have beer on tap, and their mix drinks sucked. We eventually found ourselves in the Shakespeare Pub, which I had tweeted about earlier that day. We spent the next few hours chilling at a table on the roof top.
The plan was that eventually I would depart to see that 10pm Master Pancake show. I had bought my ticket earlier that week, and sadly they sold out shortly after that. However, Scott and Krystal decided to come along just to see if maybe they could get a ticket. And boy were they lucky, as it just so happened an extra two tickets had opened up after I got mine. So they were able to enjoy the show with me. The Alamo Drafthouse far exceeded my expectations of it. I assumed it would just be a theater that served alcohol. However, it's more like full scale restaurant that shows movies. The servers would come by the tables to get your order and bring you drinks or food whenever you wanted! So awesome. Master Pancake is basically the same thing as MST3k. Well, I guess it's more like Rifftrax, since they tend to do big movies. That night, they were doing Twilight: Eclipse (or whatever the third one is called). I've seen other people try to do the MST3k thing to various degrees of success, but I must admit these guys were really good. I enjoyed myself immensely, thought I might have had just a little too much to drink. I waiter messed up my order, and I ended up with two more beers than the one I thought I was ordering. But I was too drunk to say anything, so I just started in on both. That was a mistake. Somehow, I forced myself not to finish the other one, or my mistake would have ended up all over the theater floor. Afterwards, they again drove me back to my hotel. I'm not sure what I did after that, though I think it involved buying a diet dr. pepper, and watching Toonami.
Sunday
Sunday was a more chill day that also started late. Last evening, while drinking, I had mentioned how I wanted to see Moonlight Kingdom, the new Wes Anderson movie, while I was in town. I think both of them wanted to see it too, so I then and there pulled out my phone and bought tickets. I wanted to thank them for driving me around all weekend, and being genuinely awesome people. So they came by my hotel at noon to pick me up for that. This was also at an Alamo Drafthouse, though it was a different one from the one we were at the previous night. This time, I ordered and actually meal. I also got a custom shake to go along with the movie. I'm kind of glad I don't live near one because I think I'd be there ever week, and broke. The movie was great, but the main reason I went to see it was because I didn't think it would come to Lubbock. And then two weeks later, I saw it did come to Lubbock. Huh.
Afterwards, we still had half the afternoon to kill, but no idea what to do. Somehow, the idea of going to an arcade came up, and so we did, and Scott and I played some DDR for old time sake. I hadn't played the game in years, but I still had some of it, especially when I got back into the swing of things. After building up more sweet than I'd like playing DDR, we went and got some ice cream before they took me to the airport. The Austin airport had a bit more going on for it, and I kind of wish I was more hungry so I could have got something to eat. but I didn't. The plane ride back wasn't as fun as the one two. It was more crowded, and I made the mistake of sitting next to a couple who had a baby. Fortunately, the baby didn't cry at all. An hour later, we touched down in Lubbock, and my weekend was over. All in all, it was a lot of fun, and I'm glad I went. Only thing I might change would be to actually spring for a hotel downtown. Or at least one that was on the bus route.
Well, not much has been going on with me lately. I'm slowly restarting my job search. Already got a few jobs lined up that I should apply to. I don't have very many fun things to look forward to doing in the near future, so I decided to buy a ticket to see the midnight premier of the Dark Knight Rises. Except my local theater was doing a special showing, and showing all three movies in one night. I thought that looked fun, so I bought a ticket for that, and I enjoyed it a lot. I was dead tired the next day though. And hearing the news of the shooting in Colorado also put me into a sort of a shock. Still, at least nothing bad happened at the showing I went to. and the energy in the theater was incredibly high, so I'm glad I went.
Saturday got off to a late start. I both woke up late, and I wanted to stay in to catch the season finale of The Legend of Korra. But while I was doing that, I also made plans for the day. First order of business would be breakfast. For some reason, I was in the mood for crepes, so used my phone to both search for and get directions too a crepe place. I found one in the downtown area, and so I slowly made I way to downtown. I ended up getting off the bus a little too early, and I was accosted by some volunteers looking to raise money for Planned Parenthood. I told them while I agree with their work, I wasn't in the position to be given any money. Must be tough work for them, though. Afterwords, I had a nutella and strawberry crepe. Delicous.
While I was waiting for my crepe, I tried to figure out where to go to next. I knew the LBJ presidential museum was in town, so I figured I'd go check that out. In hindsight, that was probably a mistake because much of it was under renovation, so only the top floor was accessible to the public. While I was walking to a bus stop before going their though, I took a detour up and down 6th street, where I'd be spending time later that night when I went to the Master Pancake show at the Alamo Drafthouse. But more about that later. Already, at noon on Saturday, the place bustled with activate. After the LBJ museum, which was free, I made my way to a natural history museum on the University of Texas campus. This museum made me feel a little better about the quality of my work because there were all sorts of problems with the exhibits that only someone like me would pick up on. Namely, this had to do with stuff in disrepair or lights being out and that sort of thing. The very top floor was probably the best part of the museum. Up there, they had their newish looking exhibit, and it was on evolution. they also had a comment box set up, and looking through the book of comments that people had made was fascinating.
Afterwards I had no idea what to do next. I needed to kill some more time, as I was going to meet Scott and Krystal downtown later that night. I decided to walk to a near by art museum. Unfortunately, that walk took a lot out of me, and I was in no mood to fully appreciate the museum itself. I'm not the greatest fan of abstract minimalist art on the best of days, so seeing some in one exhibit just put me in a sour mood for the rest of the day. Why is a drop of paint on a note book paper considered art anyway! Well, after this, my phone was in need of a recharge. I had been using it's map and search functions pretty heavily all day. So I found a coffee shop downtown, bought an iced green tea, and proceeded to chill and recharge my phone for the next hour. Eventually, I got a call from Scott. He agreed to meet me at a nearby hat shop, so I could kill some more time by trying on more hats. I do so love wearing hats, and I almost considered buying a new fedora, but I decided to pass. Already I spent too much on this trip. I later meet up with Scott and Krystal again outside of the shop. They didn't know of any great places to eat nearby, so I suggested pizza. Being in a big city again put me in the mood for some, preferably big New York style slice. I took us on a long walk to one that wasn't located where my phone said it should be! That was embarrassing. But eventually we found another one nearby, and they did NY slices. It was fine, but far from the best I've ever had. After that, the drinking started. Not much to say about that. We tried one bar, but they didn't have beer on tap, and their mix drinks sucked. We eventually found ourselves in the Shakespeare Pub, which I had tweeted about earlier that day. We spent the next few hours chilling at a table on the roof top.
The plan was that eventually I would depart to see that 10pm Master Pancake show. I had bought my ticket earlier that week, and sadly they sold out shortly after that. However, Scott and Krystal decided to come along just to see if maybe they could get a ticket. And boy were they lucky, as it just so happened an extra two tickets had opened up after I got mine. So they were able to enjoy the show with me. The Alamo Drafthouse far exceeded my expectations of it. I assumed it would just be a theater that served alcohol. However, it's more like full scale restaurant that shows movies. The servers would come by the tables to get your order and bring you drinks or food whenever you wanted! So awesome. Master Pancake is basically the same thing as MST3k. Well, I guess it's more like Rifftrax, since they tend to do big movies. That night, they were doing Twilight: Eclipse (or whatever the third one is called). I've seen other people try to do the MST3k thing to various degrees of success, but I must admit these guys were really good. I enjoyed myself immensely, thought I might have had just a little too much to drink. I waiter messed up my order, and I ended up with two more beers than the one I thought I was ordering. But I was too drunk to say anything, so I just started in on both. That was a mistake. Somehow, I forced myself not to finish the other one, or my mistake would have ended up all over the theater floor. Afterwards, they again drove me back to my hotel. I'm not sure what I did after that, though I think it involved buying a diet dr. pepper, and watching Toonami.
Sunday
Sunday was a more chill day that also started late. Last evening, while drinking, I had mentioned how I wanted to see Moonlight Kingdom, the new Wes Anderson movie, while I was in town. I think both of them wanted to see it too, so I then and there pulled out my phone and bought tickets. I wanted to thank them for driving me around all weekend, and being genuinely awesome people. So they came by my hotel at noon to pick me up for that. This was also at an Alamo Drafthouse, though it was a different one from the one we were at the previous night. This time, I ordered and actually meal. I also got a custom shake to go along with the movie. I'm kind of glad I don't live near one because I think I'd be there ever week, and broke. The movie was great, but the main reason I went to see it was because I didn't think it would come to Lubbock. And then two weeks later, I saw it did come to Lubbock. Huh.
Afterwards, we still had half the afternoon to kill, but no idea what to do. Somehow, the idea of going to an arcade came up, and so we did, and Scott and I played some DDR for old time sake. I hadn't played the game in years, but I still had some of it, especially when I got back into the swing of things. After building up more sweet than I'd like playing DDR, we went and got some ice cream before they took me to the airport. The Austin airport had a bit more going on for it, and I kind of wish I was more hungry so I could have got something to eat. but I didn't. The plane ride back wasn't as fun as the one two. It was more crowded, and I made the mistake of sitting next to a couple who had a baby. Fortunately, the baby didn't cry at all. An hour later, we touched down in Lubbock, and my weekend was over. All in all, it was a lot of fun, and I'm glad I went. Only thing I might change would be to actually spring for a hotel downtown. Or at least one that was on the bus route.
Well, not much has been going on with me lately. I'm slowly restarting my job search. Already got a few jobs lined up that I should apply to. I don't have very many fun things to look forward to doing in the near future, so I decided to buy a ticket to see the midnight premier of the Dark Knight Rises. Except my local theater was doing a special showing, and showing all three movies in one night. I thought that looked fun, so I bought a ticket for that, and I enjoyed it a lot. I was dead tired the next day though. And hearing the news of the shooting in Colorado also put me into a sort of a shock. Still, at least nothing bad happened at the showing I went to. and the energy in the theater was incredibly high, so I'm glad I went.