I’m back in Austin after a 6 month “working vacation” in New York… and I really miss the smelly air, the deafening subway sounds, the crowded sidewalks, and the feeling of living and walking through a living and breathing brick, metal and asphalt monster. I miss doing things like visiting every museum possible, eating at every kind of restaurant desired, exploring different neighborhoods, moving my car to avoid parking tickets, riding subways, getting lost in central park, looking for restaurants, trying to find the stores i always wanted to visit that happened to just be a couple blocks from the Manhattan apartment.
I’m also sad to have missed on this:
Austin is extremely relaxing and laid back, and I must say that I appreciate that more now than ever. My new place is downtown right by the Amtrak station, a half mile from work, across from Whole Foods, and 5 times larger than its Manhattan counterpart. I have yet to really move in – my current wardrobe can fit in a duffel and my furniture is made up of shelves and a futon that I had given away at the last minute before leaving for New York in June.
Its funny that my new place is so close to Whole Foods since my New York place was closer to the Houston Whole Foods than my last apartment in Austin was to the 6th St. Whole Foods that i’m not even a block away from now. Since its my historic hangout and has been dubbed to obviously be my “most favorite store in the whole world” since i’m always either there or suggesting that people meet me there or whatever. single beer is less than $2, lots of rooftop seating, fresh food that i don’t have to cook, pastries, chocolate milk… really, why doesn’t everyone spend their free time reading and eating there?
Now that I’m back in Austin I should have time to work on updating the design and content of my personal websites and ride my bike and rock climb and such. I’m hoping to find the time to put some real thought and love and design into the my sites like i do for other sites. Every new project i take on has an aspect to it that i want to add to my own site that i haven’t had a chance to create.
I finished building the commuter bike and its riding beautifully. We had a scare after I ran the cable from the right shifter (9 speed Ultegra) to the derailleur (9 speed XT M750). I purchased these shifters for $85 from craigslist and they were pretty much brand new with no wear and clean insides, so, after I ran the cable and no shifting or pulling of cable was happening at all, I assumed that they were so cheap because they didn’t work. After playing with them for a bit, I noticed the cable wasn’t coiling up inside the way it should, so, we pulled the cable out of the housing and ran it again, this time, the correct way. Shifting is wonderful. Still breaking in the cables, but i’m loving it so far. Now for the rack and panniers for grocery shopping and future touring!
In other news, you can now watch all 6 minutes of my oddly famous “Grackles of 6th and Lamar” in High Definition! You have to click on the link, though, because i’m not paying to have HD embeds. Be sure to stick around for the craziness that occurs around minute 3.
This is essentially my first video that i’ve cut together like this (other than some really boring videos of me walking around Austin), but i’m really enjoying it and looking forward to learning more.
The Coldsprints was a lot of fun although i left early because i was so tired. Next time, i’d like to try it, but i was “still recovering from my accident”.
Lately, i’ve been building up a touring / commuter bike from a Bianchi Premio frame i had lying around. It has enough clearance for a cyclocross tire, but no brake bosses, which only slightly concerns me. My roommate has been coming across all of these great components on craigslist and sending them my way, so i’ve gotten shimano ultegra integrated shifter levers for $85 (practically new, its crazy) and an xt rear derailleur for $20. With the ultegra front derailleur and 36 spoke wheelset that came with the $60 frame, i can just drop another $200 and have myself a nice commuter. In order to get it running, i’ll need:
9 speed chain
9 speed cassette
brake cables
shifter cables
bar tape
and then i’ll need to get a few more things to make it comfy and super useful:
in other news, its looking like i’m definitely going to be in DC this summer which means that i will be hemorrhaging books, musical instruments, clothes, bike parts, bikes, etc. if anyone knows of someone that might want a 15 inch swr la series bass amp and sdgr active pickup bass, or a purple singlespeed bianchi, or really large black and white photos of america’s most beautiful places, let me know.
i recently got a canon hf10. its an hd camcorder the size of a coke can that has 16gb of internal flash memory as well as an sd card slot. throughout my travels, i’ve come across situations where i wished i could get a few minutes of video to capture what film couldn’t: movement and sound. after looking at the nikon d90, i discovered that it couldn’t keep focus on something that is moving. no auto focus? i had to have auto focus for the kinds of things i wanted to capture, so i went with the hf10. i’ll have two cameras in my bag at all times, but, i’ll be able to capture everything the way i want (further filling up my hard drives with more stuff).
so, i’ve been keeping the little camera with me at all times. its small enough that it fits in a large black diamond chalk bag (that i found on sale for $5 at whole earth provisions), so i can just pop it into the chalk bag, put the chalk bag into my shoulder bag, and reach for it when i need it and drop it back in when i’m done.
yellowtrenchcoat.com was soft launched a couple weeks ago, btw. i caught a snippet of video from that and posted it here.
Was it just me, or did Bush heave a sigh of relief during the ceremony and look overjoyed as he climbed onto the helicopter for his ride back to Texas? As Texas Gov. Rick Perry so aptly phrased it “Adios, mofo.”
In other news, a couple new articles on A List Apart discuss a problem i have been pondering lately: why are universities insufficient at teaching web design and what can be done to groom the next generation in the field.
Since these topics have been on my mind, I left the following in the comments:
“I’ve been developing and designing websites professionally since my senior year of high school in 2000. I do not have an undergraduate degree. Ironically, I’m working on a web team for a major university system in Texas on a site emphasizing that “higher education is for all of us”. After reading these articles, I’m left wondering “where does this leave me?” Do I have to put my career on hold, go back to school for 6 years learning about a field I’ve professionally practiced for 9 years if I want to teach what I know at the university level?
“It seems that most of the people I have worked with also lack degrees. Maybe universities are too limited. Maybe we need to look for solutions in places other than the overly structured realm of higher ed. Is higher education failing web design and development because it belongs somewhere else? How many fresh graduates are really ready for the working world in other fields? When did college become trade school? Maybe this industry needs a kind of apprentice program to teach its successors instead of trying to shape universities to fill the needs.”
