Week in Review – May 8th, 2022

“Happy Mother’s Day”

We made the drive down to Austin on Monday morning so that I could attend a Board Audit Committee meeting in the afternoon. Sounds exciting, doesn’t it? Those meetings are just as tedious as they sound. It was uneventful and the Board members were happy with the story we told.

Much more exciting was meeting up with Brad and Jocelyn for dinner at their house and then a Lonelyland concert at the Saxon Pub. Those two have been busy with a very cool metal building they’ve put up in the back yard of their new house. The plan is to finish it out (Brad doing a lot of the work), and then have Brad’s Dad move into the existing house. All I saw was a ton of work in the Austin summer weather, with no cooling inside that metal house. Better you than me, Brad! The 16 foot high, cantilevered garage door was very impressive.

On to the concert. Lonelyland is Bob Schneider and a group of fabulous local musicians. They play a regular Monday gig at the Saxon Pub when they are in town. It’s always a very unique shows as Schneider writes all kinds of songs – melancholy ballads, to rapping and everything in between. His story telling is always hilarious and unpredictable – a very interesting brain, that I don’t think ever shuts off. Here’s my favourite song from the evening, “Tumbleweed”:

I love the piano player on cello:

Another one of the slow ballads that I enjoy so much:

And finally, an example of the variety of styles, ending with a Beastie Boys song:

What a great evening. It was nice to introduce our friends to some new music that they really enjoyed.

Board meetings continued on Tuesday. Diana enjoyed some pool time at the hotel with Lisa (our COO’s wife that she met in Miami Beach). The executive committee and our majority shareholder (Phil – more on him soon) enjoyed a lovely dinner at Swift’s Attic in downtown Austin. This is an old favourite of ours – it closed after a fire and Diana and I were very excited when it reopened. The beauty of going there with a large group is that you get to sample so many of the dishes – lamb meatballs and mushroom risotto were the standouts for me. It was our CFO’s birthday and I got him a special mug and a “Buck Buck Moose” cookbook – he loves cooking exotic meats.

We got back to the hotel around 10pm, and Phil wasn’t ready for bed yet. He had just flown from Australia and was on who knows what time zone. I asked Diana to come down to the bar and help me entertain him. I’m not sure what he said to get the big D eyes. He is often described as “eccentric” and I appreciate Diana hanging out with him for so long. She definitely earned her girl time by the pool in the afternoon.

Wednesday was a relatively quiet day at the office, and D had a quiet day at the hotel pool. We enjoyed an early dinner at the Odd Duck – one of our two favourite restaurants in Austin – it was awarded best restaurant in Austin in 2021. The menu changes monthly or so, based on what’s in season, and is always so creative and unique. The valet parking our car recommended a couple of appetizers and we tried them both – the root vegetable medley was right up my alley with delicious fresh veggies and a terrific sauce, the crawfish queso fundido was excellent. The sourdough bread served with the queso fundido was the best we’ve had in a very long time.

I really miss having this place nearby. And right across the street from the Saxon Pub.

We drove back to Dallas on Thursday afternoon. Severe thunderstorms were forecast on our drive – and they weren’t lying. For about an hour around Waco the driving was hard going – very low visibility due to torrential rain and light hail. Everyone had their hazard flashers on and driving speeds were way down. Things cleared up just north of Waco and we actually made it home in reasonable time – just around 4 hours of driving.

We had a nice long walk on Saturday, with a break for a coffee and snack along the way. We ran into a “Shakespeare in the Park” festival at Adriatica – apparently an all day event with four plays performed. There were lots of booths set up, including a petting zoo with a llama. Such an entertaining animal. It took Diana way back to the Dr. Doolittle move with the two headed “push me pull me” llama.

The New Orleans crew were teasing us with reports and pictures from Jazzfest. It’s the first time in ages that we haven’t attended. That’s Derek Huston on the large saxophone.

I tried a new recipe on Saturday night. Our CFO had given me some homemade Thai green curry paste a while ago, and I used that to make a Thai chicken curry for dinner. Thanks to D for shopping for all the unusual ingredients. I think it turned out really well – my first experiment with cooking in a wok.

I’ve been enjoying a couple of new games to supplement my crosswords in the mornings. Wordle is a word guessing game. You get 6 attempts to guess the word of the day. It typically takes me 3 guesses if I’m lucky, and 4 or 5 if not. A good game of logic and language. Here are the Saturday and Sunday attempts:

My other new game is Heardle. Similar concept – you get 6 tries to guess a song and artist by hearing 1 second of the song at a time. I’ve found that I either know it immediately or don’t.

Sunday featured another long walk – and it’s starting to get pretty hot. We’re going to have to venture out earlier in the day. It’s currently 93 degrees and Diana is enjoying her first dip in the pool this year.

After our walk, we picked up Finn and drove to downtown McKinney for Mother’s Day brunch at C.T. Provisions. We all chose the voodoo shrimp Benedict. I always feel like I should choose something else on the menu, but it’s just so good – a perfect brunch item. Finn even brought a pretty card for Diana.

We tried to get Diana her preferred dessert after C.T.’s – a chocolate dipped cone at Dairy Queen. The line was way too long, so we dropped Finn off and then tried Sonic – nothing on the menu there that worked. Third time’s a charm – a waffle cone from Braum’s.