Pinero told me about this, and I was skeptical. Then I tried it and my running theory for the idea behind this thing is that Buddah, Jesus, Allah and God had a mean a case of the munchies one night, and decided to create the ultimate snack/meal/pile-of awesome. I had to steal this pic from another website, as we ate ours so fast, I didn’t have time to snap a picture. Gordough’s, the fine, fine provider of quality donuts from their humble airstream on South Lamar, takes a fresh-fried ball of dough, tops it with honey butter and strips of just-slightly spicy fried chicken and dubs it the Mother Clucker.

This is up there in the pantheon of best-things-ever-eaten, and works fantastic as an appetizer to the Odd Duck food trailer, next door. An because its a savory treat, you can wash it down with a glass of cheap BYOB wine and still feel classy.

The very real threat of creative staleness is looming large in my life. All the websites look the same, all the blog post are pull quotes and filler video. The internet bores me. My day is spent more with spreadsheets and email – the vaunted design applications, their sad-little squares of color lying dormant on the dock, have not merrily bounced in weeks.

Maybe this is why people move towards management as they get older. The spark is faded, replaced by an inexplicable need to hold too many multi-hour meetings (something I have thus far avoided), and create an endless array of spreadsheets that explain your yearly activity in excruciating, cent-by-cent detail. And maybe the spark isn’t gone, it’s just focused on other things. The weird part is, I find myself liking it. There’s a deep underlying sense of stability there…can I make solid decisions that will benefit myself and my employer? Chances are yes. Can I consistently dream up awesome, kick ass designs while working in a creative vacuum? Spock is telling the Captain there’s low statistical chances of success on that one.

In 36 hours we hit the road for another round of work-camp at the house in New Mexico. Say a prayer for my knees and lower back. More floors, counter-top, appliance setup, door hanging, light fixture installation, and much much more. At least I’m flying this time, and be warned Southwest Airlines, I come armed with copious drink tickets.

Austin’s second least favorite highway is getting a Windows ME-equivalent upgrade. From the world worst newspaper…

MoPac would not be widened. Instead, in the tight section between RM 2222 and the lake — where the Union Pacific railroad sits in the median — officials envision that the managed(tolled) lanes would be squeezed in by narrowing lanes slightly in some spots and using most of the existing shoulders. The new lanes would be separated from the free lanes by a row of flexible pylons and have a handful of entrances and exits.

As Germ said re-striping the shoulder is like putting a Band-aid on a severed arm. But hey, at least all those tolls are going to pay for those sound barriers in Tarrytown…God forbid that the house you over-paid for that next to a highway, be you know, loud. I know that TxDOT is secretly (or maybe not so secretly) trying to destroy Austin through a mix of strangling us with unused tollways, while letting I-35 (you know, the last free road) rot out from underneath us, but this is just absurd.