Monthly Archives: September 2008

I’ve become a master of the small-scale urban environment.  Living in Austin these last four years, a city of around 1,000,000 has taught me how to travel quickly and efficiently, how to utilize the public landscape to my advantage, and how to work with fast-paced “single serving” social interactions.  I say small scale because after spending a decent amount of time in and around London, population 12 million, I can definitely tell you that big differences come with increasing numbers.

It’s been a fun learning experience, that’s for sure.  When I first moved to Austin as a university freshman, barely past my 18th birthday, I was a bit lost.  Especially considering I’d never set foot inside Austin city limits before that point, you can probably imagine my difficulty.  With no concept of North, South, East, or West, I tried in vain to learn the good bus routes.  Luckily my childhood development included a proper how-to for riding a bike in traffic, but I still didn’t know the good roads and safe routes.  Now, I can get anywhere [within reason] quite fast, and in an environmentally sustainable fashion.  Navigating the city’s public transportation is a thoughtless process after a bit of practice, and works very well when my legs are tired.

The trick is in the daily scheduling – one must never be in a hurry, or put oneself in a tight situation.  Waking much earlier than required is a big step in the process, allowing carefree travel to the urban center.  I love this because it allows me to drop by my favorite coffee-shops on the way to work, giving me a pleasant hour or two before the work day begins to send email, write, or read current events.  It’s leisurely, and works as a way to break up the four mile bike ride to work into shorter pieces.

Too many people ignore public space, instead dividing their time between home, work, and various commercial establishments.  The hike and bike trails are probably the biggest exception to this…  But what about the parks, benches, squares, and the like?  They’re always empty, with the exception of a few homeless people, and perhaps a construction crew on lunch.  It’s a very American way of [non]interaction, from my experience.  In Europe for example, public space plays a huge role, with families hanging out in parks, business types lunching in the plazas, and young people doing what young people do.  I’ve come to love green spaces downtown, and could sit on a sidewalk bench watching people walk by for hours on end.

I tend to meet a lot of new people each day, some I’m confident I’ll never see again.  This adds a very casual dimension to human interaction; I think that when we know a relationship will need to be sustained, we all have a tendency to hold something back.  I don’t really like doing that, and I think I used to be very reserved.  But, like everything requiring practice, my daily encounters with random people has made me better at communicating “me” to those who aren’t quite so random in my world.

It is such a beautiful morning today in Austin, with temperatures in the low 70s and not a single cloud in the sky.  As I was riding my bicycle downtown, I couldn’t help feeling sorry for the drivers, starting their day of enclosure an hour or so early, on the way to the day’s second cubicle.

Speaking of downtown, I’m heading back to work downtown later this morning.  Monday and Tuesday saw me commuting to Round Rock to assist with the new REI store opening, a tedious 25 miles from home.  Carpooling with coworkers definitely helps shoulder some of the burdens of such a terrible commute, but it still wasn’t fun or sensible.  Setting up a brand new store was interesting though.  This new Round Rock location is a REI prototype store, making it a test location for new fixtures, layout ideas, merchandising concepts, and the like.  Some of the new stuff was great, and some of it was terrible to work with; however, after two days of working alongside the company’s corporate store design team, I have come to a more important conclusion.  The day my career and life focus is poured into designing a store display widget, or placing X product in Y location – all based on Z percentage of revenue increase, I will make my graceful exit from society.

On that note, I think I’ll make my graceful exit from technological ties today as well.  It’s a bit too nice outside to be sitting behind this computer screen…

I’m sipping on a beautiful cup of dark liquid downtown at Halcyon, and can’t help but be drawn towards two of my fellow patrons as they push me into that downward spiral of loosing faith in American society.  What we have is a mother and her older child; if I had to guess, I would put mom in her late 40s and her son in his mid-20s.  They’re both from New York.  I know this because they insisted on telling the friendly bartista this meaningless bit of information about six times as they were placing their order.  Apparently they have coke in glass bottles in New York, but they don’t call it “Mexican coke”.  Fascinating.  My worldview has been greatly enhanced now that I have this great knowledge.

These two individuals embody everything I dislike about contemporary society.  Every morning, they bathe themselves in the tainted water of materialistic excess.  Gucci sunglasses, clothes stolen from the latest MTV rap video, over-sized jewelry, with all the details manicured to perfection.  Their attitude reflects their clothing choices, as rude as can be to the complete stranger.

The pair took their “Mexican cokes” out to the porch so they could smoke their fucking disgusting clove cigarettes, right in front of the entrance, blowing that shit in the faces of every person walking by.  Their disregard for others in the vicinity is bad, but that’s not what really attracted me to their actions.  Secretly watching them through the window, in the thirty minutes or so it took them to finish their drinks, neither one even came close to cracking a smile or any nonverbal expressing happiness.  Their talk was of something distant, and even in the confines of their own interaction, life wasn’t pleasant.

I never want to be like these people.  People whose lives are so swallowed by the unhappy influences that surround us on a daily basis.  People who can’t laugh, can’t smile, and can’t live for the moment.  Whether I’m walking through the woods in the absolute middle of nowhere, or walking through the landscape of downtown Austin, I always want to be entertained by each step and each breath.

It’s been over two weeks without writing.  Well, that’s not exactly true; just two weeks without writing for this particular audience…  The world is still turning as it should for me, and I must say, life is pretty good at the moment.  Fall weather decided to arrive a few days ago here in Austin, with mornings in the upper 60s and highs in the upper 70s.  Combined with our endless sunshine, it’s been quite stunning.

Work is still work, enjoyable yet slightly uninspiring.  I have made some progress on updating and revamping my resume – an important step – and hope to have a few good leads pointing me in the right direction early next week.  I hope to stay at REI on a limited part time schedule so I can hold on to some very nice perks.  There’s a relationship or two there as well that I wouldn’t mind keeping a hold of for a while.  We’ll see where it all goes; I’m excited.

Cooler weather has brought on a few more hours on the bicycle for me, and I’m starting to really come into some nice form.  The mileage hasn’t been all spandex-clad seriousness though; the track bike is getting a bit more mileage too these days.  Last weekend was the Harvest Moon Ride.  To shortly summarize: 500ish bike riders from all imaginable corners of this crazy city, some intoxicated, gathering at 2:00am on a Saturday night for a 20 mile cruise through downtown Austin and the surrounding areas.  I was home safely around 5:30am, making the 8:00am wake-up call a little rough, but had a really great time.  Times like that make me reluctant to leave this city.

It’s a gorgeous day outside.  Unfortunately I’ll be working for most of the afternoon…  My time is limited right now, but I’ll be sure to post some more details about everything tomorrow.  Off to work I go!

It’s going to be a nice cool day today, with a high temperature of only 92 degrees!  It was about 75 outside when I hopped on the track bike this morning to head towards coffee.  I like 75.

The day is very young at the moment, making this a moment I’m quite fond of.  The anticipation of new surprises, new faces, and new experiences is a welcomed feeling.  I had some nice human interactions yesterday that make me want to think today will be equally good.  I met a new girl at my neighborhood coffee-shop who was rather intriguing, although not in any typical ways.  She was sitting next to me on the couch as I typed out the last entry, actually…  There was a mostly uneaten cinnamon roll left over from past patrons sitting near me, that was clearly destined for the trash can as soon as one of the bartistas spied it on the table.  She saved it, and consumed it with little hesitation.

It wasn’t a bad looking cinnamon roll by any means, but the consumption of a stranger’s left-overs is usually an act reserved for those slightly more desperate.  She didn’t look too desperate.  There’s only been a few times in my life when I would eat the cinnamon roll in a similar situation…  She lives near me, or at least that’s what I gather from seeing her riding her bike around my neighborhood.

Yesterday I sold a very attractive all pink Townie cruiser to an attractive middle aged woman.  Work was slow last night, so I took some time to polish the frame and wheels up a bit with some special bike cleaning supplies before I let her take it away.  She really liked that, and it really sparkled when I was finished with it.  Electra puts a really nice paint job on the Townie cruisers; I enjoy working on them.

I have the day off tomorrow, and I’d really like to find something exciting to do.  Step 1 will be riding my bicycle in the morning – this much I know, but the rest is still up in the air.  Of course that means I have to do laundry this evening…

The weather is expected to start cooling off near the end of this new month, but we’ll probably have to wait until mid-November to really start seeing some changes.  Alaska, on the other hand, is already getting cold.  I’m feeling left out.

Mid-November should be an interesting time.  I have another wedding to attend; this time it’ll be for my brother, which should be pretty cool.  I guess I saw it coming – he’s been living with his now fiance for a long time now, but it’s still a little unexpected.  I have a difficult time understanding actions and ideas that I can’t directly experience or touch.  Never knowing just one person I’d be willing to be chained to for the rest of my life, the idea of marriage is just too far away from me to touch.

But I’m happy for him – I really am.  Despite growing up together, the two of us live remarkably different lives.  My brother’s never seemed to shy away from long-term commitment like I do.  He picked his current career path when he was 15 years old, while I’ve been forcibly trying to avoid anything resembling a career for just as long.  He bought a house when he was 21, while I won’t even buy a couch out of a fear of being grounded.  It’s odd how sharply lives can diverge.

I’ve been checking out some graduate programs at the University of Alaska, and even pondering a few research ideas I could chase up there.  We’ll see in about 8 months what I decide to do.

Life has been happily entertaining for me these past few days.  I haven’t been riding my bike too much – just the fixed gear around town and to work – partly because my cyclo-clothing has been dirty and I haven’t felt motivated to do laundry.  I think I’m secretly holding out for colder weather.  Labor Day weekend was a big one for Austin, with lots of concerts, the Nike Human Race, and a triathlon going on downtown.  I didn’t really participate in anything, but I did watch the Human Race go by on the road near my place.  It was pretty cool seeing a pack of 15,000 runners – all wearing red shirts – go trotting by.

I worked yesterday, on Labor Day, but it wasn’t too terrible.  At least I got paid double.  A few friends stopped by the store throughout the day, some I haven’t seen in a long time, which was nice.  I spoke with a few Gustav evacuees in town from New Orleans; all seemed glad to have their city spared by mother nature this time around.  A few were unhappy with what they felt was an over-reaction by the local and federal government, complaining that they felt like cattle as they were forced out of town.

In other news, my living room hammock is still securely attached to the wall, and the cat hasn’t hung herself from it…yet.  It’s sunny and breezy outside, and I don’t want to go to work this evening.