I suppose it is time to let the cat out of the bag, so to speak. Only a few of my closest friends and family knew the truth about last Friday. Yes, I ditched work to mow my lawn. Oh, and I attended the 5th annual ACL Festival. But why would I write about that? Yes the Yankees played the Red Sox. I recall this being the 2nd time in my life they did this on the 15th of September (although it could be more).

Last Friday I had a birthday. Yep another one. This time it was the big 3-0.

I try not to make a big deal of it. I often will go out to dinner, by myself, and have a really nice meal. Last year I went to a local steak house called Reed’s and they gave me a free desert. That was nice. This year, because of ACL, I have not made the same pilgrimage.

I did go see a few friends and do a few shots. I think 4 in about 2 hours. By the time I hit the pillow about 1am, I was pretty buzzed but was more worn out from sitting in the sun all day. There were a few phone calls and text messages. It is nice to here from family and friends although I didn’t get to talk to anyone until I called my sister on Saturday.

All in all. Nothing Special. Just the way I like it.

Now for the past. I have done a fair amount in my 3 decades. I moved to college 700 miles from home and basically only visited on holidays. During college I worked all over including the sticks of Tennessee (is there anything else :-)) and the big cities of Washington and Seattle. I have an FBI file because I spent more than a couple of days working for them in the Hoover building. I moved to Seattle, Redmond actually, and working for the “Company” for awhile. I met some of the coolest people and some great friends- although I have not talked to them in eons. In the summer of 2000 I moved to Austin. I really like it here. It *feels* like home, even though I knew *no one* when I moved here-I even rented my apartment sight-unseen. 6 years now, two jobs, one IPO, one acquisition, one layoff, and one home purchase later I have no intention of leaving. The people here are just good, the food is great, the woman are hot (this *is* Texas after all).

The Future? Who the hell knows. I know I need a new job next year for starters. If that is an internal transfer, or a new company outright has yet to be determined, but it is inevitable. I’m sticking around. I’m not going anywhere for awhile. And I truly hope that I can keep the friends I have here. But where to go from here? I just want to keep going. I can’t spout off life lessons because, although I have had a pretty good life, it isn’t like I *planned* it all out. This is really all I want to do:

• Drop that 30 or 40 extra pounds I have been toting around. I was skinny once, not that you would know it now.
• Enjoy the hell out of my friends: take trips, have great meals, hell just enjoy the football game and a few cold beers.
• Learn something new, anything. Once you stop learning the slope begins to lean forward- hard to stop momentum.
• Don’t get all stressed out over details. I lead a pretty blessed life with a solid paycheck and a great friends and family network. There really isn’t anything in my life getting an ulcer over.

OK, I’m done spouting self realization shit now. At least until next year.

Oh, and how did I know the Red Sox/Yankees have played at least one other time on September 15th? My folks took me to a game on my birthday when I was in grade school on a Thursday back in the day. The Sox lost. At least they only got rained out this year.

PS: Happy Birthday Dad! and Happy Birthday Grampa!

— Ben Kweller on his *really* bloody nose that caused his set to be late and the paramedics to stop it early.

It is that time of year again where 65,000 people cram into Zilker Park here in Austin, Texas for a great festival call The Austin City Limits Music Festival. I’ll try and put some of my notes and thoughts along with this small writeup.

I took friday off from work so I could get down there early. deadboy and the Elephantmen were playing at 2:30 and I had heard good things so I wanted to check them out. Unfortunatly TxDOT decided it was a good idea to close a lane on the highway and repave an off ramp. I was stuck in traffic for 45 minutes and with parking, walking to the gate, getting my wristband and getting practically anally probed by security I missed their set. Bummer. We had a group camped out to see Gnarles Barkley so I made the first real tacticle mistake- I failed to catch Stars. I have now heard the set (it was broadcast on XMU on XM Radio) and I should have walked over to see them. Gnarles Barkley put on a great show, highly recomended. They played a few things off their new album and a bunch of covers of old school songs with a really new twist. I was able to catch most of Gomez- another great show. This is when I made the *2nd* mistake. I left Gomez a bit early so I could grab some food and get back to the home base. Yeah. The lines were at least an hour long. Every. Last. One of them. No food for me. Thievery Corporation was next. This is the 2nd time I have seen them and they get better every year. They were in town on Thursday night and put on a show that others said was better than ACL, but I was blown away. I really needed food at this point. So I braved the lines, which were a touch shorter now, but not much. The layout of Zilker is pretty cool, pretty much three stages are always live (of the main 5 stages). One of these faces the food court. The Tragically Hip were playing on that stage while I was waiting for my spicy chicken wrap and venison wrap. Although I could not really watch them I heard them clearly. Pretty cool stuff. Then off to the main event for me. No, not John Mayer. I picked Van Morrison over that lull-fest. Van Morrison put on a great set, he played for almost two hours. Good stuff and I am glad to see him, because I will probably never get the chance again.

Saturday was dubbed “Seperation Saturday” by the football analysts. Seven top 25 matchups and I was going to be sitting under a tree in Zilker Park. Oh well. Cell phones are a wonderful thing and we were able to get scores most of the day. Despite SMS Google claiming to do NCAA sports- it turns out they only do NCAA Basketball. Bummer there too. I made it down to see the first act I wanted to see: Murder by Death. Pretty good stuff, I had not heard most of their music and I was impressed. Phoenix was next. They are in my top 5 acts this year. I’ll definatly going to have to get some of their music. About 1/2 way through their set I figured out I was woozy. Yeah, 95 and sun bearing down and I was done. Time to head back to the safety of the shade tree. I hung out there for Ben Kweller and his bloody nose- a shame too he really wanted to play. He even stuck a tampon up his nose- I shit you not- to try and stem the bleeding. The Shins were next, very good afternoon band. I was able to lean back and just enjoy the set. The crowd really started to pack in because in an hours time Jack White and his new band The Raconteures were on. No point in moving now. That was a pretty good show as well- very Jack White, go figure. Iron and Wine were playing the opposite stage after them so a few of us popped up to catch a few of their songs. Very cool, another band to get the album for. The main headliner for me was Massive Attack. Most people checked out Willie Nelson, but that is not for me. Massive Attack was pretty cool- but after about 45 minutes I was done. Back to the truck and back up north to get a bit of dinner and off to bed.

My goal for Sunday was to catch 3 main acts. The day started with poaring rain as I got on the highway to drive to Zilker. It had stopped by the time I parked, but a text message confirmed that a few of my friends were there and were drenched. I got to the homebase in time to catch 1/2 of The Stills. It would have been nice to see the whole set, they sounded pretty good. The first of the three acts I wanted to catch was up next. KT Tunstall is great, she put on a great set and the crowd really enjoyed it. I then set off to get a bandana (more rain was predicted) and some grub. This time a BBQ sandwich from Stubb’s. I had to fight a huge crowd to get back to base for the next main stage show- Matisyahu. He put on one of the highlight shows of the festival. I’d love to catch him in a smaller venue- next time he comes to town I guess. I then tried to watch The New Pornographers but could not even get to the center to hear them. Sun Volt was playing at the same time and that would have been a better choise. Apparently ACL put a bunch of cash-n-carry one day tickets on sale for Sunday. I think this was because of the rain. But it really didn’t rain during the day so there were several thousand extra people milling around. It was *packed*. Back to the main stage to catch the last of the must-sees: The Flaming Lips. What a truly visually fantastic show. With bubble boy crowd surfing, the air-cannons full of confetti, the gaggle of alien women dancing, and the lead singer donning fake blood as a tribute to Ben Kweller, it was just nuts. Pretty good set as well, but his monologes between songs were a bit preachy. I came to see music not listen to politcal speeches. Tom Petty was the headliner of the entire festival and lightning could be seen as he started his act. We hung out for 4 songs then started out. The rain started before we even got to the gate and it was a wet trek back to the truck. I heard on the radio this morning that they did a 30 minute delay in the set, but that he came back out to do an extended set. That was cool of him, even though I wasn’t there to see it.

All-in-all it was a great time with fantasic music, great food, a pretty cool venue, and the weather held pretty well being in the low to mid 90s. Even if I did miss a bunch of football. I’ll be back next year, that is for sure.

I played in the live Tanner Evers Charity Event on Friday night. I was nearly felted before the first break but was able to chip up and get back into the game.

Two hands of note: 99 in the big blind against Jim UTG and Zach in the SB. Everyone was all in, Jim had A7 and Zack 33. Jim was the short stack and hit running 7s to tripple up. My 9s were good against Zach and I ended up just a bit and he was left with about 1 bet. Later on I was able to stay in cheap with JTs and rivered my flush. Wes pushed me in and I happily called. He had hit two pair. We hit the final table and it was nearly a crap shoot. I was one of the larger stacks (2nd or 3rd) and had about 1/3 the stack of the chip leader. I was able to work a decent stack up and watch the attrition. It ended when Melissa and I were heads up and I pushed from the BB into her limp from the button. She had kings and I was done. The game lasted 6+ hours, and I was beat tired. For my efforts I got a $100 gift certificate to BBQ Pits from Henry and Carol.

No other poker this weekend.

Football! I watched Texas get smoked Saturday night. It wasn’t pretty. They slipped to 8th in the rankings which seems pretty harsh considering they lost to the #1 team. I hope this isn’t the end of this type of out-of-conference match-ups. It would be great to see more ACC-SEC-Big 10-Big 12-Pac 10 match-ups between perenial top 25 teams. The Hokies won (mostly *not* in the 1st quarter) and moved to 14th. They should be able to get into the top 10 this year even having to play BC, Miami, and Virginia. Luckily FSU is not on the schedule.

I spent Sunday recovering, Saturday was a long one. I did finish the new Jeffrey Archer book _False Impression_. It was pretty good, I’m going to go back and get some of his older stuff because I enjoy his style a lot. I now have a few poker books and two “critical thinking” type books on my reading list. Speaking of poker books, my folks sent me Scott Gallant’s book _Pressure Poker_; it arrived today and will be put on the reading stack.

ACL Festival starts in 4 days. It looks like it will be in the low 90s. I’m was hoping for upper 80s, but I’ll take it.

Off to the dentist today. Yeah! Or not.