ARRIVAL IN AUSTIN
AS SXSW ENDS
In many previous instances, I’d
take my vacation and hang out with Brian because he didn’t live in the same
area I did, so it was nice to get away from home. Other people I knew
from college or online weren’t local (meaning within a reasonable driving
distance), and it’s not cheap to fly. Now that I was back at college
taking classes part-time (in addition to my full-time job), available money was
still tight. Brian had moved to Austin
the previous November to become Chaz’s house-mate (who had gone down about a
year-and-a-half before that). So when Brian invited me to fly down, I
figured I could swing the cost this one time. Considering the sequence of
classes I was looking at doing (to increase my marketability to potential
employers), I’d be in college for a bit, and didn’t expect I’d be able to swing
any other trips like this for awhile.
I scheduled this visit to happen on
the week of “spring break,” and coordinated that time with my job. It
just made sense to have both happen at the same time (as opposed to being off
from class one week and still going to my job, and vice versa). Travel arrangements were made through AAA (as
that’s why I have a membership). The only available flights were real
early in the morning, or at noon. I opted for noon, even though it meant
I’d be having dinner during layover, and arriving in Austin at 11 pm. Yeah, I was going to blow one whole day of my
vacation in travel, and that was just getting there.
Many times I’d gone to the airport
to pick someone up or drop them off, and I’d be able to escort them to the gate
(or be there waiting for them, whichever the case was). Now with new security measures, it was weird
once I’d gone through the checkpoint, the airport was pretty barren. The
only people beyond the security gate were ticket passengers, and there still
weren’t a lot of people flying in this post-9/11 world. I had to chuckle
when I thought back to some of the items people considered their “carry-on”
only a year ago (specifically seeing a hockey stick and a freakin’ huge white
pumpkin come to mind).
My
layover was in Atlanta ,
and I used the opportunity to stretch my legs and explore the airport. I
also used it as part of a practical joke (more on that below). It was
interesting that the book I happened to be reading (Wild Cards, Volume 6: Ace in the Hole) was set during the 1988
Democratic Convention in Atlanta .
I didn’t choose that time to read that particular one, but that’s just
where I happened to be where I was in reading the series.
The flight from Albany
to Atlanta was about half-full, and the flight
from Atlanta to Austin was less than a quarter-full. A
plane which could normally hold a hundred-something people had only a fraction
of that. I spent a lot of time looking out the window to see the city
lights over the dark country. Delta had assigned seats, and the guy
across the row looked like he didn’t care to fly much. He kept holding
his head like it was going to explode. I just hoped he didn’t hurl.
So once I exited the gate to baggage
pick-up, Brian and Chaz were there waiting for me. We drove up from the
airport into downtown, so they could show me the hysteria of the final night of
this music conference which had been going on all week in the city (something
called “South By South West”). As we got closer to the city, I looked
across at the skyline, and liked how some of the edges of the taller buildings
had some lights to enhance their outlines. Leaving the highway, we dipped
down to street level, and drove past a bunch of clubs and bars which had masses
of people gathered around.
It was a Saturday evening nearing
midnight, so the revelry wasn’t anywhere near dying down yet. I was
bushed, as sitting all day in travel somehow is draining. Chaz asked if I
wanted to check out any clubs, and I had no desire at this point. I did
get excited when we passed a Goth-looking place called Elysium. As I was
running two Vampire: The Masquerade campaigns back home (and “Elysium”
is the name for the havens where the bloodsuckers hang out to be safe from
normal humans), that got me really excited. I said I wanted to go back
and check this place out at some point this week.
THE BBQ THAT DIDN’T REALLY HAPPEN
The next morning when I got a
better look at the house, and the neighborhood that Chaz and Brian lived in.
It was pretty, and had more trees than I expected. That made a lot
of shade in this suburban housing development. The backyard wasn’t very
big, and the other residences were pretty close on all sides (a lot closer than
I liked, but I wasn’t living here).
Chaz had purchased a portable BBQ
pit which was shaped like a steel drum (and even looked like it). The
plan for the evening was to grill up some good steaks to celebrate my arrival.
This grilling apparatus had just been obtained a few days earlier by
Chaz, and we ran out to get the charcoal for it at the same time we were
picking up the steaks. I was used to the grill that Dad had at the house,
so I didn’t think anything of this. I
assumed everything had been all set. Once we dumped the bricks into the
barrel and lit them up, Chaz commented how this was the first fire this was
seeing.
At that point, I let him know this
was something that needed to be “primed” first by making a fire, letting it
rage for a bit, and then burning out. Brian pointed out that a tag on the
grill happened to say the same thing. The steaks were finished in the
oven as the grill was being primed. We’d just have to try again another
day.
POST-CARDS FROM THE EDGE (OF INSANITY)
When I made the arrangements to
spend the week in Texas ,
the only people who really knew were my co-workers, my room mate (John), and my
parents. This wasn’t by design, but they way things worked out, as I
hadn’t seen some people to tell them. I didn’t tell Pete at our monthly
lunch meeting before this, because I saw an opportunity to play a fun prank.
Pete and I are big fans of the
British show Red Dwarf, and have read the novelization (which gives some
show background). In the novel, the main character (Dave Lister, who
lists his occupation as “bum”) gets drunk one night in his home 23rd
Century London, and wakes up on Pluto Colony with no money or ID, and wearing a
gingham dress. At that point, Lister signs on to the mining ship Red
Dwarf in order to get back to Earth, and thus the events of the series
begin.
I brought Pete’s address and some
stamps with me on my trip. During my layover in Atlanta , I saw there was a mail drop-box
within the airport. I bought a post-card, and wrote on it that I’d gone
out drinking Friday night, and woke up a day later in Atlanta with no money or
ID, and wearing a gingham dress. I sent it out there, so it’d have the Atlanta post-mark. A
couple days later, I bought a post-card in Austin ,
and wrote on it that in my haze I’d mistaken the “Austin ”
gate for the “Albany ” gate, ended up in Texas , and was still
trying to make my way home.
Pete told the events from his
point-of-view when I got back home. He said that his wife (Colleen) had
come in with the mail, and mentioned they’d gotten a post-card from me.
When Pete asked where I was that I’d been sending a post-card from, she
said “Atlanta .
Apparently he got drunk, and ended up there wearing a dress with no
ID.” Pete’s response was this was the
tip to a very interesting story (as he got the reference). When they got the following post-card a few
days later, Peter said the story has now become very more interesting. We
got a good laugh about it when I filled in the details for him. This just
confirmed with Colleen that both of us were nuts.
For current information on the places visited (or mentioned):
South By South West: http://sxsw.com/
### 30 ###
No comments:
Post a Comment