Back in the day Brian and I both had variants of the vehicle to the right, although never quite as fancy (no racing stripes - probably why we had such a hard time in the College Station dating scene). I had the wagon varietal, with a broken windshield and he had the Mercury version, the Tracer (or Tee-racer as he dubbed it), complete with custom kayak-roof-rack (a wooden pallet tied to the top of the car). Both vehicles saw some completely inappropriate usage (right hand turns at 60mph, baja-rally style driving out to Reimer’s, shoving five kayaks on top for a trip to the river - and more that my lawyer has advised me not to disclose). How we are still alive and not guilty of vehicular manslaughter is often a mystery to me.

About 8:30 this morning I heard my phone make it’s pleasant little text message noise. This was a good thing because it implied my phone made it home. By extension, from my position under three pillows avoiding any possible light sources, I could summarize that if my phone made it home, my pants (that normally hold my phone) we’re mostly likely here, which means that against all odds, I had made it back safely from badowski’s bachelor party.

A few notes -

The wine bar, where all this chaos kicked off was lovely, but why the hell did they have the UFC up on the big TV ? It’s a bit of a miss-match (wine bar and cage fighting), and only served to get certain people even more riled up.

JagerBombs are always a bad plan.

Many apologies to the girl who’s foot I ran over with my bike. I’m sure the tire marks will come out of your over priced shoes. Wedges are so last year anyway.

Shots of straight Jager are an even worse idea.

Many thanks to the dude who offered to help us fix the busted chain on the bike that Brian stole from Germ. While your laughter at how incredibly mangled the thing was wasn’t exactly helpful, I guess it’s the thought that counts.

Ok, fine, the JagerBombs were my plan.

I’m not really sure who’s idea it was to buy a massive Braut from the street vendor, but dear god that was good, and probably contributed greatly to our continued survival. May the gods continue to bless the wonder that is german sausage, and all the fine street vendors who distribute it.

And finally, even though we are old, it’s good to see that Badowoski Tim and Rob still posses freakish, near superhuman skills at foosball.

(Also, many many thanks to Kyndal for giving Rob her sunglasses and then taking the picture above)

Riding amtrak in New England is like participating in the Italian train experience -  the trains aren’t quite as late, but they are also distinctly less nice ( although i do appreciate the power plug next to my seat).

This really is the way to travel though. I didn’t have to go though security, take off my shoes or even show seventeen types of ID/boarding pass combinations. I just walked on to the train. The drinks are much cheaper too.

Being from Texas  though it’s a bit disconcerting - un four hours I will have gone through four states. I doubt If I could go through four counties at home in that period of time. Seriously, how is Rhode Island not just another county of one of the neighboring states?

The difference from home even is striking, the closer we get to the City the denser things get, all these old buildings with old people in them. The picture on my desktop is this epic shot of the road into Terlingua, with the Chisos basin prominently fixed in the center, while out the window to my right it’s small-windowed houses, aged industrial parks and old mills – remnants of a time when this country made things –  as far as the eye can see. It’s not bad, just different. It’s pretty in parts, quite beautiful, but it’s a very occupied kind of beautiful.

They also talk real funny-like up here.

No it’s not the car company spelled wrong. It’s a city of 50,000 being build in the Abh Dhabi desert with a carbon footprint of zero. Why would a country with 10% of the worlds oil spend $18 billion on a project like this?

“The answer is simple,” says Sultan Al Jaber, CEO of Abu Dhabi Future Energy Co., the developers planning the city. “There are two reasons. Number one, because we can. Number two, because we should. And because this is a logical step and a natural extension for our involvement in the energy markets.” - npr

An interesting idea, I’d love to see an American attempt at something like this (we really are smarter than everyone gives us credit for), but seeing as we can’t even put New Orleans back together, that’s probably not going to happen.

I had a freakishly realistic dream last night that David Crosby of Crosby, Stills & Nash (Neil Young sucks, it was better when he left), was sitting in my bedroom, having a beer.

I’ve taken it as a sign to listen to more music from the early 70’s.  No Neil Young though. Annoying voice and a silly hat–no thank you.

As of Saturday night, I am the proud owner of what I can hope is Austin’s first Sport Kilt. A sport Kilt is apparently a traditional Scottish kilt, with a little less fabric and a modern closure system, in this case velcro.

Before we start deriding me as a scot-poser-braveheart-wannabe, let me start by saying that while that movie was good, Mel Gibson has turned out to be something of a chump in his later years and has really given some us of the semi-scotch persuasion a hard go if it. Indeed, there were even a couple of ‘Freeeeeedom!’ yells on Saturday (inaugural kilt day) … come on guys, that’s so 1996. Anyway the round-about point I’m making is that while Treichler is Swiss, if you bounce a little farther up the family tree you run into the McClain branch of the tree. That’s right, I am distantly related to John McClain from Die Hard, who’s saved the world from terrorists way more times than President Bush has.

Now sadly, according To Seamus at Sportkilt.com – ‘…the McClain Tartan, it’s a quite ugly.’ So on his advice my parents wisely choose the ‘Irish Revenge tartan.’ I’m not sure what I’m being vengeful about, but when ever I put it on, I clearly am ready to kick some Irish ass. I mean, just look at the picture (although I have no idea how I got to Ikea, what I bought or when it will arrive (actually that’s pretty normal for me and that store)).

Irregardless, good times were had with friends and family - a nice way to bring in a new decade. Oh, and you you’re getting old when there’s more pictures of your friend’s kid than anybody else at your birthday party.

Maybe the $50K Airstream was a bit over the top - How about one of these instead for my birthday. 100mpg and, what ? yeah its badass too.

This marks the 300th (give or take) post to the site. Possibly the longest ongoing creative endeavor I’ve taken on or at least stuck with. Rather than do my King Leonidas impression (very few people want to see me in spartan garb, although having a sword would be nice) I’ve dug through the site archives and found some of my favorites (some of the links are dead, and some of the punctuation is bad…I apologize but I pay the server bill, so not to be rude but get over it).

This year we discovered the joys of New York and drinking on the lower east side, tempered with the hardship of the great domestic realignment of 2007.

We also ate and were chased by large quantities of meat in Sonora.

This summer the hotel Subaru traveled a bit the American west for a much needed walkabout.

Then there was the death of hippy wade.

On the subject of hippy’s, the speculated hippy wars would short and funny.

Then there are the joys of eating BBQ with strangers in South Austin.

New Years of 2007, I got to discover snowboarding, winter-time air travel and my incredible family.

Then there was the week or two when my ibook died, and I was forced to watch television.

Apparently, I enjoy self-deprecating humor.

However, I enjoy moving much less, especially where uhaul is involved.

Back in the day, I was a bit obsessed with mowing. Not sure why.

Sitting in a pressurized meal tube always seems to get the creative juices flowing, as does travel in general.

Ah, the glories of Ice Dancing.

And finally, the Trebuchet.

And that’s it for gratuitous self-linking. The whole ‘blog-thing’ is a bit strange sometimes, especially when you read it in order. A public chronology of your life, accountable to the faceless masses of the internet. A bit like the ultimate architecture critique. Maybe its a creative reset, maybe its cheaper than therapy, or maybe it’s just something I can get away with doing at work when i don’t feel like designing another sad-purple-lady brochure. Irregardless (which is not really a word), here’s to the next 300, and hoping it doesn’t take me another 2 years to get there.

As Indiana said, “ it’s not the years honey, it’s the mileage.”

I used to think in terms of good years and bad years, but it’s not as if the fates really conspire to confine their plan for us to a specific three-hundred-and-sixty-five day period. They have the cosmic luxury of throwing as curve balls whenever they feel like it. The trick is what we do with the pitches that come our way.  There’s just the short time we have and what we do with it.

Live large. Enjoy 08.

Between a freelance writing project that is eating my brain, a purely absurd amount of work at, well, work and the holidays I’ve been neglecting my little site. We’ll be firing up anew come January. For now if you really need something to read check out Salon’s summary of David E. Kelly’s (of Donnie Darko Fame) new movie Southland Tails. If you’re not totally confused, I applaud you. Even so, if you’re going to make a movie about end times, it is a good idea to have a giant blimp, The Rock as  time travelers (the plural is intentional) and Justin Timberlake reading the bible.