Exploring Austin, Part 1

So I have now been in Texas for about 2 weeks and have been doing a little bit of exploring and doing things. Last weekend was mostly recuperation for me as I basically did not have a break for 2 weeks. I had to finish my school stuff and pack and then I drove for 4 days and then I got to work for a week. So pretty much I was very tired. The first day I basically just chilled, and I got an oil change and went grocery shopping. Basically it was really nice to just not do much. I also looked up things to do in Austin. One of the things that was listed was that the Orion Capsule from NASA was visiting and also there was supposed to be a free IMAX showing. But.... we were too late :P lol. But the capsule was still cool. This is supposed to be the replacement for the space shuttle.... of course, it isn't going to be able to be launched until about 2016 or so. I am not sure that I really agree with the policy, but it was cool to see the capsule.


And ... that was pretty much the excitement of my first weekend. It wasn't really a whole lot, but I really needed to rest up. This weekend contained many more activities.

The first activity on Saturday was to go to an Alamo drafthouse and watch Cars 2, which Kyle, one of my roommates was really excited about. It might not have been my first choice, but I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought that I would. It was pretty clever and it was sort of like a Bond movie... only.... well with cars as the main characters. :p


The Alamo Drafthouse is really cool. It is like a normal theater only you can order food and beverages, such as beer and wine while you watch the movie. They also have a very strict policy about Cell Phones and if you are caught using one then they have the right to kick you out of the theater. They also do events like sing alongs or Pancake theater, where comedians do a sort of MST 3K type thing for a really bad movie.

After the movie was over we headed back to the apartment to get our swimming stuff and then we headed down ot Barton Springs Pool, which is an aquifer fed pool that is really close to downtown Austin. The pool was really awesome. I would say that the temperature of the water was probably around 65 degrees, and compared to the 100 degree weather it was kind of shocking to get into. I had to just dive in or else I am not sure that I would have been able to really stay in.

Here is a picture from our spot in the shade. It sort of shows off the pool.

This is a picture from the end of the pool, near the dam that creates it. There were not many people there as it was a bit deeper. In the majority of the pool you could stand up in it, and it was probably about 5 feet in depth on average.
Here is a picture from the other end of the pool where it is much shallower and sort of has a beach if you don't want to use the stairs that they have created on the side of the pool.
The creek that feeds into the pool was very dried up, so I am not sure if the pool is going to get lower as the summer goes on, but this is a picture of that creek. It doesn't really show off the dryness, but it is! I swear it!

If you would like to see all of the pictures from Barton Springs Pool you can follow this link:
Barton Springs Pool.

After wards we went to Chuy's which was vaguely famous, since it was the restaurant where Jenna Bush was caught drinking when she was underage. After eating there I can see how she got away with it. One of my roommates, who is 21, ordered a margarita, but they didn't card him. I guess he looks older than 21? lol... not really.

Anyway, I wanted to go to the Bat Bridge to watch the bats fly out at dusk, but we finished dinner slightly too late to be able to see it, but we drove by, so now I know where it is... I guess that helps? We also drove through downtown, and it was really pretty. All of the buildings were lit up and the capital building was in the middle of it. I definitely want to go back and check that out. Then we headed home for the day.

Today Kyle, Jacob, and I went out for a hike. We choose a trail that was very very close. Actually, just at the bottom of the hill near our apartment.... but we drove. :) Which actually turned out to be a very good choice, since walking up our hill after our hike would have been much too difficult.

The trail was called the Bull Creek trail and in a couple of places it crossed the creek, which made it pretty difficult since we had for..... oh wait, no we didn't, we are in a drought! This is the "creek".

We ended up walking down the dry creek bed for a while, then suddenly.... a fire hydrant! In the middle of the river. I can't figure out exactly what it was for. Considering how dry the river bed was.... I am guessing that it was to fill up the river. Someone should definitely turn it on.


Eventually after walking down the trail a bit more, we come upon some actually water. It was very still and wasn't moving much... but it was water. Jacob was unimpressed.

I think that this area would be really fun if there was more water. There was a rope swing further down the trail that would have been really fun if there had been an actual swimming hole there. Instead there was a pitiful little pool that was full of rocks.

There were a lot of trails that led up the ridge and we scrambled up one, but we quickly got to a point where we could go no further. So we slowly backed ourselves down and kept going down the trail.

We ran into a random guy and he tried to tell us there was a trail that led to the top of the ridge and pointed us to a trail.... I stared at it and could easily see that it ended about 7 feet away at a fence, but the dude insisted and when I just stood there, he ran up and showed us how to get around the fence. We decided to not go that way.

If there wasn't a drought I think that this area would be really amazing, but as it is, the river was dry and it was very hot. So we headed back to the car before we collapsed due to the heat.

For all of the Hike pictures go here.

We then went to the store and got some stuff for a BBQ, and eventually headed down to our pool. It was packed as there was a party going on, but we were able to squat at a grill and make some burgers, which was a good ending to a busy weekend.

Go... Southeast! wait... that doesn't sound right?

As some of you may know, this summer I have an internship in Texas. Since I had heard that there is very little public transportation in Austin, I decided that I should drive. I am not quite sure that was the correct decision, since it was a long, long drive. About 2000 miles, which took about 36 hours over 4 days. I had contemplated doing it in 3, but I am glad that I didn't, since that would have been way too many hours per day, and I was already tired when I ended on most days.

So I left on Thursday and after bidding adieu to Sprinkles... who seemed... slightly ambivalent about me leaving, I headed out. I always forget how absolutely boring much of Eastern Oregon is.... here is an example. In fact the most interesting thing about this picture may be the bugs splattered on my windshield.

At the end of the first day I pulled into Boise, Idaho. It was a pretty good 9 hours. I actually contemplated going farther.... but I sort of had to do a drug test for my internship, and it was either stop at Boise and do it on my way to Texas, or drive up to Portland the day before I left... so Boise it was.

I woke up early Friday and headed to the drug testing place. I tried to drink a lot of water before I went... but.... it wasn't enough. So I ended up having to sit in the drug testing facility drinking water.... for about an hour. That was annoying.... but I finally got it out of the way. Then about five minutes down the road, I was forced to stop at a rest area.... as I once again would have been able to take the drug test. I ended up having to stop several times in the next 3 hours, so that was fun :).... although it did diminish my travel time.

By the end of Friday I had made it to Green River, Utah which is kind of like an oasis in the middle of the Utah desert, but at least the barren landscape provides for nice sunsets.

The next day I got up bright and early and headed out. It resulted in lots of empty roads, but the landscape was very pretty, so it made the drive a lot better.

Early in the morning, probably around 10 or so, my car passed the 200,000 mile mark. I took a picture to commemorate the milestone. On a random side note, my car did very well. I was a little worried about the whole trip and so I was very careful about using the AC too much and spent a fair amount of time with the window down.


After my mileage milestone, I then encountered a first for me. I was slowed by a cattle crossing in Northwest New Mexico.... which was interesting. I got flagged down by a cowgirl, then all of a sudden lots and lots of cows rumbled across the road and just sort of stopped in the middle. Finally they got organized by the uh... cowboys and cowgirls... cowpeople? lol... that doesn't sound right, but anyway, they were soon out of the way and I was back on my way across New Mexico.
I couldn't really get a good picture of it, but the Arizona fires caused the sky to be hazy and the smell of smoke to linger in the air for almost all of the day as I drove across the state. About halfway through I realized that my arm was pretty warm and the sun was beating down on it, so I figured that I needed to put some sunscreen on... but... it was too late! I got burned just driving in my car! :p Luckily... despite what it looks like, it didn't hurt much.

The third day ended in Clovis, NM which is right on the border of Texas and that meant that the last day was basically going to be nothing but Texas! Unfortunately for my entertainment.... there is even less going on in Northern Texas than Eastern Oregon!

Well that is not really that true, there are loads and loads of Windmills (The electric generating kind). I swear that there must have been something like.... hmm... 745... but that is just a rough estimate.

So my last stop before Austin to fill up my car and get lunch was in Sweetwater, which must have been ironically named, because I did not see any water, and certainly nothing that could be considered sweetwater, whatever that is... (sugar water?)


I arrived in Austin at around 4 PM or so.... I am in a pretty nice complex. I am in a 2 bedroom apartment with 3 other interns, but it is nicely furnished. So that is a perk, and the price is very good since the place that I am working at is picking up half of my portion of the rent.

Anyway, here is a picture of my bedroom, mine is the not messed up bed.





Here are a few pictures from my desk at work... I got a window seat!


Which means that I get to daydream and stare out the window, and also occasionally get to see window washers or birds flying around, which is also a nice distraction.


Finally, here is a short video tour of the apartment.

KEC Krew Game Report

Teamwork and offensive rebounds helps KEC Krew destroy Believe

By Duc Le, KEC Krew Beat Reporter

It’s been a nice day, the weather has been really good as the sun was shining, and the sky couldn’t be bluer. And here we are, in the basketball courts of Timberhill Athletic Center, watching a historic KEC Krew basketball game. Yes, you read it right, today marks the establishment of this KEC Krew game report, funded with 3 bottles of beer and 2 buritos, thanks to the generosity of Bill Gates. Today we are wearing red, and the other team is wearing white.

It’s been two minutes since the game started, and Alan Fern had already scored 4 points, as he usually does, dominating the glass and towering over his opponents. Following him are David and Jun, who combine to score 3 more points. What an amazing beginning for the team in red.

The scoring of both teams slow and at the 7 minute mark the score is 9-2. The Krew is doing really well in this game, particularly on the defensive end of the court. One of our opponents dribbled around, trying to drive to the basket. He was met by a wall of defenders and had to pull back and throw up a shot. The posture, the angle, the momentum – everything was right about the shot. The only thing that was wrong is that it missed the basket. Jun grabbed the rebound and streaks down the court Instead of shooting, he passes it to Chris, who was cutting down the middle of the lane. Chris was fouled shooting and made one of two free throws. Pretty good job Chris!

Later in the first half the other team had the ball. They tried to pass the ball around to scatter KEC Krew’s “concrete” defensive system. After a while, one guy tried to shoot, but was cut short by an amazing block by David. They were able to retain possession of the ball and one guy grabs the ball, drives down the lane and tosses up a desperation shot. The ball drops right into the basket. What a shot! It was really nice effort. But, that was a travelling foul, and the shot was negated, which frustrated the team even more.

The KEC Krew is doing really well. Jun has the ball, drives towards the basket and pretends to shoot but actually passes it to David. With all his Polish pride, David took the ball and nicely places it into the basket without shedding any sweat.

The dominance continues and later on offense, Eric was holding the ball. He fakes a shot and then throws a bounce pass to Jeremy, who turns around and quickly passes the ball to Rob. With all the experience and confidence of a CGE president, Rob stands calmly at the 3 point line and, slowly, he takes a 3 pointer. The ball swished through the net. What a shot.

As we were on fire, the other team began to get really physical. In one sequence Chris was pushed onto his back chasing after the ball and Rob was crawling on the court and trying to pull the ball from the other team. They eventually got the ball and Jeremy was forced to foul into prevent a fast break.

With 23 seconds left in the first half, a furious combination happened with the ball whipping from Eric to Alan to Jun and resulting in 2 points and a five point lead, 25-20, for the Krew. Unfortunately, a the other team came down quickly and threw up a 3 that banked it as time expired, leaving the halftime score 25-23

In the second half, the defense got much better, particularly in the early minutes as the Krew got several steals and forced many poor shots. On the offensive end, Alan’s size began to become a factor, garnering many offensive rebounds, resulting in easy put backs or more offensive opportunities. With the defensive intensity picking up, this led to easy points. With 7 minutes gone in the half, Rob blocked a shot and several plays later Jun followed suit. These blocks led to easy run outs and lay-ups for the Krew.

The other team seemed confused about how to attack the zone, and they were just passing the ball around a lot. The ball was finally thrown into the block, but Alan was waiting. He stood like the greatwall in front of him and the guy in white could do nothing but turn the ball over. Nice defense, Alan.

While the shooting continued to be streaky, the defense continued to be stingy. Eric stole the ball from their point guard and streaked towards the basket, attempting a lay-up, which missed. He was able to get the rebound, but missed the putback. Alan grabbed the miss, and again missed. This was kind of unlucky but OK. We are doing so well today.

Jeremy is on fire today. Besides being a really good defender, he is really active in the center of the court. Once in a while, he grabs the ball and takes a shot and gets a three point easily.

With two minutes left in the game, we are up by 20, but the boys in white are coming back. They hit two 3 pointers in a row, but not a problem. Jeremy kills their enthusiasm by softly putting the ball in the basket. Then Jun takes over, scoring 5 quick points, giving the boys in white no hope for revenge.

Final score: 66-43. Crazy game today, The crowd here at Timberhill Athletic center is on their feet and I have never heard it this loud before. They are chanting for their heroes. This is a day that will not soon be forgotten!

Beer Update!

Just a quick beer update:

The first thing is that we had a very active fermentation of our wheat beer, which resulted in some yeast in our airlock, as can be seen in the following two pictures. This happened on Sunday, or at least that is when I noticed it.



For the last week I have been shaking the bottles of our brown to try and get it carbonated and so today I tried our beer. As the picture below shows, our beer is no longer flat! I have been shaking it up everyday for the past week and today I tried it.. and... bam! Overflowing beer! lol... That can be seen in the last picture.

Flat Beer and Dry Malt

Yesterday we made our third batch of beer, as well as did a long awaited taste test of our second batch, which was a brown.

Sadly, it seems like we did not quite get the process totally down, and we aren't naturals as we thought after our first batch that turned out amazing. So the beer itself tastes pretty good, however, it is kind of rare that we get a bottle that actually has good carbonation. It seems like most of the bottles we have tried have ended up flat, which was disappointing. So I have begun the process of shaking bottles every day to hopefully agitate the yeast and get a little bit of carbonation. It is like my own version of the shake weight.... only slightly less suggestive. :p

For our third brew we decided to make a wheat. Mainly because Eric wanted to try a beer that used only one kind of malt. This way, we will know how the malt affects the beer and thus will be able to make our own recipies. I am skeptical of this, but wheat beer is fine with me, so I went along with it.

Mainly I am skeptical because there are so many different variables in the recipies, sice as different kinds of yeast and different kinds or hops and then the extract, so I am not sure that we will be able to tell... but its a nice thought.

For this brew, we had a guest brewer, Rob Hess. We told him about our brewing after one of our basketball games and he was pretty interested and wanted to see what it took, so we invited him to brew with us, and see how easy it was.

As always we started slowly, we tried our beer and cleaned the stuff and then put the malt on the burner. Unfortunately, we forgot to .... actually turn the burner on. But once we got that going, everything went well.

This beer is much lighter than what we have made in the first two brews. We can even see the bottom of the pot!

The beer eventually darkened up as it got hotter and closer to boiling.

We took the malt out and then brought it back to a boil. And then it was time to add the extract. Unlike the last two beers that we made, this recipe called for a dry malt extract, which wasn't quite as fun as the syrupy extract, but it was certainly interesting.

It also made the beer really foamy....


The rest of the process was pretty similar and hopefully it will turn out well. Rob seemed to enjoy the process and said he made get a kit of his own. So more beer makers! Woo hoo... we are slowly making the world a beerier place!

Sheng's Game 9 Review

Since our brewery has taken off we have been able to bring it a beat writer to follow our awesome basketball team, and also to practice his written english.

His review of our latest game is below: (Note the pictures are from a previous game)

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It was a wonderful win for the team!

Our team did pretty well at the beginning of the game. The other team got the ball to start, but Eric stole the ball and passed the ball to Jun. I wished that he had taken the shot. In the next minute, Eric again passed the ball to Jun, who made a shot. After that, Chris shot successfully, with an assist from Jun. In the first two minutes, we scored 4 points.

In the following minutes, we were stuck on 4 for quite a while. We shot several times, but we missed all of them. In addition, we had many turnovers and fouls. The other team got several points during this time, especially the big fat guy, who may be the best player on the other team. After eight minutes, the scores was 4 to 7. In another following three minutes, we still didn't score a basket.

This is maybe one of the patterns about how our team performs. In the last game, we scored the first 9 points of the game and then we were stuck for a long time, while the other team scored 19. I should check whether our performance follows the 80/20 rule, which is very common in computer science. Newton's law has taught us that objects at rest remain at rest unless acted upon by external force, which implies that one needs more effort to get points when the team is in a stuck state than when it is in a regular state.

Back to the game, we recovered thanks to Travis's successful shot at the 11th minute. After that, we got many good passes and shots. For example, Travis passed the ball to David who made a shot, Alan made one of two free throws, and Eric had a nice shot, which must have been too nice since it caused an argument between our team and the score keeper who didn’t record Eric’s shot.

This momentum was kept for the remainder of the first half. Eric got another basket in the following minutes, followed by Jun making another field goal and one of two free throws. Jun then had a nice drive and pass to Rob, who made our first three-pointer of the game. The other team was lucky and did well too. In the last 25 seconds, they got a three-point from way behind the arc. At the end of the first half, the score was 19 to 24.

During the break, Duc and I had an interesting talk with the score keeper. He though that we were from KFC and were selling fast-foods. In fact, we are doing (E)lectronic things rather than (F)ood things and we are the KEC team.

In the first several minutes of the second half, we did OK but they did really well. We got two two-pointers during this time: David got a nice offensive rebound and put back, and Chris made a good pass to Jun and Jun made a layup. Meanwhile, the other team scored about 11 points, I guess. The big fat guy made several three-pointers and the black guy (maybe I should not say this, but how else should I describe that guy?) made both his free throws.

In the fourth minute of the second half, there was a huge mess. We had the ball, tried to shoot but missed, got the rebound, and then tried and missed again. This process was repeated several times, finally Chris passed the ball out to Travis but he missed it.. The whole mess ended when one guy on the other team hurt himself accidentally. The injury was so serious that he had to lie on the ground for several minutes before he was able to be helped off the court.

The next following minutes were the golden time for our team., Eric passed the ball to Jun, who made a three-pointer. Travis made another one shortly after that. Eric passed the ball to Alan twice and he made one two-pointer. On the next possession Alan passed the ball to David, who made a layup. After these baskets the score was 33 to 39. Eric made two straight three pointers which brought loud cheers from our team and the score was tied 39-39.

The next several minutes were close. Although they scored four points, we got five. Travis hit a three-pointer with the assist from Jun and Alan made a two-pointer with an assist from Chris. We were ahead 44 to 43.

Our lead was expanded in the following minutes. Chris stole the ball and made a layup. Then Jun passed the ball to Alan for a layup. On the next possession Travis made another three-pointer. After this the other team seemed to lose its morale. They did not score in that time, even missing their free throws. The game ended with several fouls from which we got another three points. Jun made one of two and Travis made both of his free throws. The final score was 54 to
45.

Besides our shooting, our performance for the overall game was good. It was quite impressive that Alan got 5 rebounds in the first several minutes and that pace was kept for the whole game. David also got some nice rebounds. Eric's defense, Jun's passes and the others’ perfect cooperation all contributed a lot to the success of the game.

Thanks for your guys' playing. You all as a whole made the game interesting, exciting, impressive and successful.

Sprinkles takes a trip

So the Thanksgiving holiday has come and gone, and with it came my typical trip to my parents house. This trip marked the first time that Sprinkles would:
1) Go on a long car ride
2) Interact with other cats for a long period of time.

The car rides themselves were.... a bit loud. Sprinkles meowed a lot from her cage, but we made it safely, and I suppose that is the main point. I tried telling her everything would be all right, she just meowed a little louder. I almost let her out of her cage, but the one time I had let her do that before on the way home from the vet she managed to squeeze between my steering wheel, so I felt it would be safer to leave her in her cage.

So we got to my parents house and Sprinkles immediately set up shop on one of their chairs. At this point their cats are not inside the house, so everything is safe, and Sprinkles explores around and then lays down:
She basically stayed in that chair for the entire day. Broken only by her interaction with one of my parents cats, who came in and whom Sprinkles followed around the house hissing at until she confused/scared him enough to make him leave. At first he was interested in her because she was different, but it seemed after being hissed at he just sort of lost it and left. So Sprinkles controlled the house.

During the party, she was set up on the chair for the entire night, and everyone talked about her, but whenever anyone would go up to try and pet her she would either hiss or nip at them or hit them with her paws. It was kind of funny, people still thought she was cute though.

Sprinkles during Thanksgiving dinner:

Sprinkles looking at the leftovers:

The next day Sprinkles met the other cat, who was too scared of me to come in the house, but they had fun watching each other through the window. They are very similar in marking, so it was almost like they were looking in the mirror. It was odd since she seemed to like this cat, but whenever the other cat would come by she would hiss and growl.

However, her dominance of the house continued and she reigned supreme on her "throne".
Whenever the other cat would come in, she would follow him around and make sure that he wouldn't get too comfortable. Here she has followed him to the door and he is now begging to get out.
Here she corned him under the bar:

Here she stalked him while he was sitting on the scratching post.
In general he didn't seem to worried about it, but he did tend to back off, by the last day, he was hissing back a little.

During my trip we also went and got our family Christmas Tree. Once we brought it inside, Sprinkles was interested and walked around in and sniffed it



And of course... played with the water and the branches:

Once all the ornaments were up, she even jumped and played with them(sorry for the unnecessary tilt.)