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.

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.

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.

Running sucks, but running at 6 a.m. sucks exponentially worse. Think black-hole vs dustbuster. I don’t really even remember driving down to the trail, just sort of edging into semi-consciousness at the two-mile marker. Thankfully, I was dressed. I was right-ready to be thoroughly pissed at this turn of events that had placed me at this particular junction of the space-time continuum but then remembered it was me that had agreed suggested it in the first place. If back-to-the-future taught us anything it’s that we control our own destiny. And that 88 mph is how fast you need to go in order to travel through time. Thanks to Doc Brown both these things are now common knowledge. Point being I’ve only myself to blame for finding myself jogging on semi-dark trail at some ungodly hour.

Anyway, we’ve taken to doing the morning run thing because the flooding has shut down the rowing dock (a much more relaxing and easier sport to handle at dawn). Three unhappy miles later, at home, I park the car and find myself unmotivated to remove myself from the vehicle, for several reasons. The stairs aren’t looking too fun right now. It’s only one flight, but man it seems like a ways. I’ve also done a poor job parking (swinging in to close to the wall) and actually wiggling out of the driver’s seat is going to require a Reed-Richards-Fantastic-Four maneuver that I really don’t feel like executing at the moment. Then there’s the next steps of my day that wait me – the whole getting ready and going too work thing that requires me to reverse all the steps just described.

Normally these aren’t such perceivably herculean tasks, but cast in the light of the morning I find it easier just to take a quick nap. Yup – after running three miles I essentially hit the snooze button one more time before tackling the rest of the day. If there was an award for non-morning-person behavior I think that should get it.