Three-Letter Acronyms & Four-Letter Words

So i'm sitting here at SBC (Short's Brewing Company) enjoying the recommended dark beer, Bellaire Brown.

It is more of an amber than a DARK beer like Guiness. But it is mighty tasty, not to mention it boasts a 6% alcohol level.

For some reason I sort of expected this place to be a little darker, maybe a little more drab. But it is bright and open, they have Blind Melon playing on the sound system and there are a couple of families in here with their kids.

I am not sure why I thought it woudl be drab, maybe that is just my impression that the places in Austin have left on me. The places there tend to be tiny, dark, fire traps with speakers that are taller than me.

I have to say that I like this place. I forgot the camera, so I guess I will have to bring that next time I come up here. They look to have a pretty good menu so I will have to plan my next excursion back to civilization with Lunch in mind.

Patty & Sara made it up the cottage last night. They were able to stay for dinner, which was really nice. They talked about going further north that night. I haven't heard from them yet to find out where they stopped for the night, it was rumored they might stop in Petosky, MI.

I hope they get to come up and spend some more time, they were only here for a few hours. I told Jeremy to sail his boat over here, but apparently there was something about it taking too long to sail from Long Island, NY to Intermediate lake. Oh well, maybe next year. If they leave now, they might make it in time for the 4th.

I hit page 100 in the Synthetic Worlds book, that means that there are only about 180 pages left to go. I hope to cover another 40 or 50 pages before the end of tonight. The subject matter is just getting good, the book is an economists point of view of the virtual economies and the communities that growing them in games like EverQuest, World of Warcraft and what not.

I think this is the end of this blog post I need to try to figure out a few things about static pages on serendipity and call it a day here @ SBC. I think next time I will take the tiny table, this stool is a little unconformatable now.

Laterz,

So the Dallas office at the Infomart was dismantled today. Everything taken down and put into boxes and hauled off by the movers.

The new Dallas office is much better. Has room to expand and a lot of cool amenities.

But this meant that they also took the internet away. So that meant I had to hang out down @ the Hi-tech lounge. I felt sort of bad about the idea of me sitting there for several hours and leeching their free wifi. Which apparently you can get arrested for... (Article).

So I ordered my favorite beer, Guiness, they didn't have it on tap, or in a can, only in the bottle.

I am not sure what the difference was, maybe I should have asked for a glass to pour it into. I like a bitter bear, but this was just too bitter.

Anyway, I nursed it for about 3.5 hours before I left for Austin, having only finished about 1/4 of it.

Oddly enough, the CEO of my company was in Dallas and was heading out to Austin too. So we raced to Austin (I lost). He has a nice Audi, with cruise control. And well I have my trusty Corolla. I had a nice 3 mile head start, thanks to my short cut of taking the access roads as far south as you can, rather than fight through what they call the "Mix Master" on I35 south in Dallas.

He passed me about 2 miles outside of Hillsboro. I probably could have kept my lead, but I was running low on gas (damn low fuel light wouldn't go off) and I didn't want to run out of gas, so I had started to go about 60-67 vs 75.

Anyway, as it turns out he had to stop in Hillsboro for gas as well. Seeing as he was apparently running on fumes as well.

so 10.41 gallons later (interestingly, the Corolla only has a 10 gallon tank), which came to around $28.75, I was back on the road.

He passed me again shortly beyond Hillsboro, I kept pace for a bit, but eventually lost sight of him as I got stuck behind some truckers.

It was a long day. I will try to post during lunch.