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12 of 12: January 2010

Tuesday, January 12th, 2010

Howdy, 12 of 12ers! Happy New Year! I hope your new year is off to a good start.

12 of 12 is Chad’s idea – all hail Chad. He claims this is the last year, but maybe if we collectively whine loud enough …

If you’re really into all out geekiness, check out my 365 photo project that I started on January 1!

Anyway …

8:53 am: Kahve Içmek Istiyorum

I’m a late riser today—I’m driving out to San Angelo, Texas, in the afternoon and see no pressing (no pun intended) need to go into the office first thing. Ray is home, too, as he got laid off last week (more on that if you’re curious). We’re doing fine – he’s signed up for extra classes this semester, and we’ve got enough to tide us over for a while. It’s just, y’know, a completely sucky situation.

9:28 am: Today’s Gratuitous Picture of Mocha

I know better than to try to run a set of 12 without one

9:50 am: Packing

These are the clothes that have been ordained for tomorrow …

11:40 am: Lunch

It’s a buffalo chicken panini from a place that does flatbreads. Makes a nice break from what we have in the pantry.

12:55 pm: My Nemesis

This is Chloe. Chloe is Natalie’s cat. Chloe has significant disdain for everyone who is not Natalie, and is generally homicidal toward anyone who is not Natalie and also male. Chloe hates me, and has tried on more than one occasion to kill me. (It probably has something to do with the fact that Chloe usually sees me when I’m coming to pick Natalie up for a business trip, meaning that I’m the reason that Chloe will be alone for a while.) If you are a cat person and making, “Oooh, lookattheprettykitty” noises, please know that Chloe will eat you alive if given the chance.

This is her innocent look, which is supposed to lull you into coming close enough for her to pounce. Don’t let her fool you.

2:45 pm: Pontotoc

Between Llano (that’s “lan-o” – never mind how it should be pronounced) and Brady on the way to San Angelo is this little ghost-town-in-the-making (seriously: three quarters of the buildings are either derelict or boarded up) called Pontotoc. It has this little old stone farmhouse that has no roof walls or floor, but it’s always intrigued me, so I stopped to take photos.

This is the view from Pontotoc.

5:12 pm: Hotel Sweet Hotel

Never mind that I had to sit in the lobby while they cleaned my room before I could check in … at 4:30 pm.

5:40 pm: You know you’re in the Bible belt when …

Is it me, or is there something contradictory about it being “Bible” automotive and having computer diagnostics? Either you’re receiving Divine guidance or you’re not, folks…

5:50 pm: Wine

Happily funding the local economy at San Angelo’s only wine bar.

6:56 pm: Nothing says Mexican food like a smoking Buddha.

… kinda speaks for itself.

7:06 pm: Dinner

Decor aside, the food at Armandita’s cafe – which is the sort of place you’d probably drive right by without blinking – is good. How do I know this? Most of the clientele spoke Spanish. This is always a good sign for a Mexican restaurant. Oh, and the handwritten note from Bobby Flay extolling the virtues of the meal he had there helps too (although it does make me wonder what the heck Bobby Flay was doing in San Angelo, Texas.)

… and now I’m in my hotel room editing photos. How was YOUR 12th?

Tags: 12 of 12, Bible, cat, coffee, driving, food, Home, Mocha, photography, Photos, texas, Travel
Posted in 12 of 12 | 11 Comments »

Up in the Air

Wednesday, January 6th, 2010

If I can borrow from my new blog for a moment.

I saw the movie Up in the Air on Christmas Day with my parents. The movie, in case you haven’t seen it, stars George Clooney as a man who works for a company that gets subcontracted to assist employees with “career transitions”–essentially, this means that Clooney is the guy who gets to deliver the news that they’re being laid off, and his company supposedly offers placement services.

One of the things that I thought was a bit of a Christopher Buckley-esque touch was the “packet.” Every employee who went through the process got a packet of information with some flowery cover and a positive inspirational message. “Your true career awaits,” or some such bull shit.

Ray called me this morning on my cell phone. I was in a meeting with Kim, my assistant, and almost rejected the call, but I answered it, figuring that he was calling with a quick question about condiment placement or something similar.

Instead, he was oddly formal. “Good morning, Chris,” he said.
“Hi,” I said.
“I just wanted to call and let you know that my 12 year career at [name of employer] just ended.”
“What??”
“I just got laid off.”

I was in shock, naturally, and at the urging of my boss and several other people, I went home. In addition to finding Ray sitting on the sofa watching a television that wasn’t actually on, I discovered that, among the paperwork that he’d brought home, was a packet just like the one that George and Anna Kendrick handed out in the movie.

I’m less enthusiastic about this as a device used in reality as opposed to in the movies.

We’re going to be OK. Ray is, understandably, still in a daze–he worked there for 12 years. “I’ve been with them longer than I’ve been with you,” he said at one point. But he got a decent severance, and we’ve put together a budget, and we’ll be able to make ends meet for a while, even if we have to tighten our belt straps.

But, man … we did not see this coming. But, that’s life, though, ain’t it? We will get through this, no matter how unpleasant it may be.

At least Mocha will have someone to pay attention to her all day long for a while.

Tags: blog, christmas, Home, ice, khowaga, life, me, men, Mocha, Movies, news, parents, Photos, Ray, tea, Television, Will, work
Posted in Home | 7 Comments »

Happy New Year!

Saturday, January 2nd, 2010

Yes, I’m a day late and a dollar short, but *meh.

I’m not sure whether it’s that we’re getting older, that our usual party hosts are, like everyone else in the free world, feeling the pinch of a hard economy, or that we were just feeling less celebratory than usual, but the New Year’s gathering – which was nice, don’t get me wrong – came to an early end. And I’ll be honest—I didn’t mind so much.

I was annoyed, however, that we weren’t able to watch the ball drop in Times Square live. Apparently, the networks have finally caught on to the fact that we’re not all on the east coast and started tape-delaying the NYE celebrations, which meant that at midnight in New York, which is 11 pm here, we were almost unable to do our usual “one hour left” countdown—until, that is, that I discovered we could watch the proceedings en directo por Univision.

Anyway. New Year’s Day was a slow affair: I took down the Christmas decorations, discovering in the process that I’d left most of the good ones off the tree this year (Ray acquired a new, ornament specific container, which I may have slightly mocked but did turn out to be cursed useful). I made chili, not because it’s a tradition (the traditional Tex Mex foods for New Year’s are either menudo or pozole), but because it’s cursed cold down here and it seemed appropriate. Elliot went home with his mother, and, as predicted, Mocha started moping even though she spent the entire time we were dogsitting pretending she was annoyed by his presence.

And I posted my first picture to my 365 project.

What does 2010 bring to the table? Well, here’s what I’ve got penciled in so far:

I’m going to Egypt in March with yet another group in tow—my parents are coming this time.
I’m taking fourth year Arabic again in the spring semester, in large part because I will need a recommendation letter come fall when…
… I apply to the doctoral program in History. Which also necessitates…
… taking the bloody bollocky GRE exam at some point in late spring or summer because apparently my 12 year old scores from 1998 have “expired.”
I have business trips lined up to San Angelo, Kilgore, Mount Pleasant, Edinburg, and Laredo, Texas. You know you’re jealous.
I also have business trips on the horizon to either Savannah or Denver (probably Denver) and San Diego.
There is the potential—in my own mind, if not reality—for a visit to Brazil in summer.
And the potential for a trip to New York City in late spring.
And, of course, my 365 photo project.

So much to do! But first … I’m going to have another cup of coffee.

Happy New Year, everyone!

Tags: art, bla, christmas, coffee, dog, dogsitting, egypt, food, history, Home, ice, khowaga, me, men, Mocha, parents, party, Ray, SHE, summer, texas, Will, work
Posted in Home | 1 Comment »

2009 in Review

Wednesday, December 30th, 2009

January (N-Seoul Tower, Seoul, Korea)
Family visit to Korea. No casualties.

February (St. David’s Hospital, Austin, Texas)
Welcoming Madison Maguregui into the world.

March (Home, Round Rock, Texas)
Ray and Mocha.

April (Home, Round Rock, Texas)
New floors! Followed soon by new furniture.

May (Home, Round Rock, Texas)
Baby bird nesting in the hanging flowerpot on the back porch.

June (Home, Round Rock, Texas)
7 months after their dog of 17 years passed, my parents acquired a puppy. They named her “Brandy”, but everyone calls her “Boo” because she startles really easily.

July (The Bazaar, Şanlıurfa, Turkey)
Voyeuristic snap of these boys waiting for … something.

August (Campus of the University of Texas, El Paso)
UTEP at sunset.

September #1 (The Driskill Hotel, Austin, Texas)
Wonderful dinner for our 9th anniversary.

September #2 (Castillo San Felipe del Morro, San Juan, Puerto Rico)
I had a free day, all right? Don’t question me.

October (Home, Round Rock, TX)
… no comment.

November (Old Granary Burial Ground, Boston, Massachusetts)
Paul Revere is buried here.

December (Downtown, Round Rock, Texas)
Bokeh Madness.

Tags: anniversary, art, Austin, bird, blog, boys, dinner, dog, family, furniture, Home, khowaga, me, men, Mocha, parents, Ray, SHE, texas, turkey, university, university of texas
Posted in Photos | 2 Comments »

Playing Around

Sunday, December 27th, 2009

One of the things on my Christmas list this year was a 50mm f1.8 lens for my camera. It’s a fixed lens, meaning you can’t zoom in and out, which is new and different for me, considering the last lens I bought goes from wide angle to extreme zoom in one fell swoop.

I like it. It’s forcing me to look at things differently. Since you can’t zoom, if you want a wider angle, you have to walk away from your subject. If you want to zoom in, you get up closer.

Rather than go into detail, I’ll just show you what I’ve done with it over the past few days.

That effect with the lights is called bokeh, which is currently an “in” effect. This lens is really good with bokeh, and I’m enjoying playing with it.

We went to The Salt Lick, legendary Texas BBQ, to help celebrate a coworker’s graduation (she finished her M.A. in Linguistics). At some point, the camera was turned on me. I was … relaxed, shall we say, from the beer.

I went to shoot the Christmas lights in downtown Round Rock the other night. This is the water tower that they turn into a big Christmas tree every year. Like I said, I was having fun with various effects.

My therapist’s office is in South Austin, which is the home of the Keep Austin Weird movement. One of the landmarks down there is the Broken Spoke, an old-style honkey tonk with live country music and live dancing nightly. After my appointment the other morning, I stopped off and took photos of the old bus parked next to it.

I am, apparently, the only person in the universe who likes this photo I took of the busted window. I keep trying to get more traffic to it on Flickr, but I guess it’s more boring than I think it is.

Up the street from The Broken Spoke is Maria’s Taco XPress, which has a rusted out old car in the front yard. I got some photos of the textures.

Today, I had to go help my parents with the XM radio I bought them for Christmas. On the way up, I stopped in downtown Georgetown and took some photos of the Williamson County Courthouse in the main square.

Georgetown also has a community theater, which we don’t have in Round Rock, even though we’re three times larger. Georgetown’s has a nice art deco facade.

And that’s a little glimpse into my week. How have you been?

Tags: art, Austin, christmas, fun, heat, Home, ice, landmarks, me, men, Music, parents, Photos, press, radio, SHE, texas, traffic, weird, Will, work
Posted in Photos | Comments Off

Tag: ‘Home’

12 of 12: January 2010

Up in the Air

Happy New Year!

2009 in Review

Playing Around

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