Give-Away Again

He lost an ear during the firing and you first saw him back in April. I just wasn't ready to give up on him but now he's somebody's Rescue Dude. He stayed in place for a week before disappearing.

In Austin we have Ghost Bikes as memorials. I put a Sweater Child here over a year ago. It's still at the bike.  Sometimes miracles happen.

 

 

And another Give-Away at Jennifer's wall. If you want to see what the whole area looks like, pull up Google Earth and put "1101 W 31st St, Austin, TX" in the search box, then drag the little Google man over to get the street view. Their image is better than my pictures.

Netflix report: The Wolf of Wall Street was stupid. I can't believe Martin Scorsese did it. A huge self-indulgent, self-absorbed swamp of the F-word. It made Susan mad for 2 days. Finished reading The Boys in the Boat - 5 stars for that great book.

Give-Away

 

Here's another Give-away near where I live. I'll leave it up to you to do your Google Earth deal - it's where the red car is, right at a bus stop. He was going to be another big Dude but wound up being an Anguished Man so it was time to set him free.

My favorite street-art/graffiti wall. It's been painted over so many times it could probably walk. The little tile piece is at the top left. If you aren't from the south just remember that "y'all" is the same as "you guys" but is gender neutral.

Latest Netflix movies: Lunchbox - 5 stars for creativity and because I had to have Susan explain that the ending really did resolve the Final Question of Did He? (If  you aren't sure, replay the first few minutes and then look at the ending again.) Her - 5 stars to Joaquin Phoenix and for eerie creativity. Bad Words - 5 stars for holding your attention, sappy ending but you kept wondering the next day what had been so horrible in the guy's childhood to make him such an evil yet strangely sympathetic character. The little kid was incredible.

Fully Flummoxed Again

Actually, this time it's Susan who is Flummoxed. She was researching jigsaw puzzles for our group that does them here and put several into her Amazon Wish List so everyone could "vote" for the ones they would chip in to buy. A few days later she happened to be looking for something else on Amazon and decided to check out the "Recommended for You" section, just to see if there were some new art books mentioned.

What??? She had absolutely NO idea why Amazon would recommend bug stuff for her because we've never bought any of that stuff online and besides  we live in an apartment where we have "Eco-Pest" treatment provided several times a year. So she clicked on the link that asked if she wanted to know why they recommended bug stuff . Oh yeah, being interested in butterfly jigsaw puzzles means you might want to kill bugs. Nice search algorithm, Amazon!

Another Sweater Child Give-Away. Can you see it here in the path by Shoal Creek that I walk down?

How about now?

On Friday I'll be back down there and see if it's still there. I use a long pole thingy to put it up high.

We Remember, September 11

 

We remember.

 

 Rest in peace, Bob.

Sunday Mornings

 

A bike ride to the Turtle Pond on the UT camputs. The turtles, pods, flowers and bees could not care less about the score of last night's football game.

Then the reward. That's my wimpy bike there. I look like an old man riding it. Oops, I am an old man riding it. For years I had a road bike with skinny tires and lots of gears and no basket on the back. When I rode I was bent over in that aerodynamic biking position and all I saw was lots of road. Now I sit up straight, see loads of interesting stuff and can carry stuff back in my basket. One of the distinct pleasures of growing old is not giving a damn about what you look like.

Or what you eat, since you are on the downhill slide of life anyway.

Still working on these pods/squash for a special friend and her family.

El Paso Food

When we travel we look for Olive Garden restaurants -- lots of salad to eat, fairly fast service, and several simple, plain pasta choices on the menu.  OK, not very gourmet but usually dependable. Unfortunately, they've just changed the menu and taken her favorites off, so in El Paso Susan had to make her choices off the appetizer menu.  She thought this item sounded good so she ordered it:

 Inspired by Italy’s southern coast.

Sautéed shrimp served on creamy polenta and topped

with a fresh blend of olives, capers and tomato sauce.

 

It came served on MASHED POTATOES. What?!?!? Did they think she wouldn't know the difference? While she waited a long, long time for the server to come back and politely ask "How is everything?" she ate the 4 shrimp  Then there was a long, long delay while the offending plate was taken back to the manager and finally we were told that the item would be taken off our bill. No sorry, no kitchen excuses, nothing. But at least she got the 4 shrimp for free.

 

Very strange. How is it that a restaurant thinks they can get away with that? Maybe quite easily, if most of the people eating there have no idea what polenta really is. Maybe the kitchen staff doesn't have any idea either.

Maybe I need to go into the food service business. After all, this is how at the Embassy Suites in Phoenix I made sure Susan ate some of her daily fruit/vegetables. She did, but that was after she ruined the nose on the great Food Face by insisting she needed the shampoo in the shower.

 The other strange thing in El Paso was the really nice Hampton Inn we stayed at - quick and courteous service at the front desk, clean room located in requested quiet area, and .....

 

 

this hole in the bathroom door. It had us flummoxed, because the door didn't back up to anything that would cause a hole and it's down low, not where someone would try to punch a door open.  And housekeeping didn't notice it and have it fixed????

 

Strangely, their Barnes&Noble bookstore at SunValley Mall has one of the largest magazine selections we've ever found in all our travels.  Go figure.

 

Thus, to us, El Paso is a strange town and we usually choose to drive on past to Las Cruces or Deming on our way west.  But coming back east there is nothing after it for another 120+ miles so sometimes it becomes a stop before the long 9-10 hour drive back to Austin.

Since we've come back I've been working on some special pieces for my friend Ana - this is preliminary, they will be for members of her family.

 

My bike rides to the Turtle Pond always give me something to photograph: