Life isn’t all about networking events and making business connections. Sometimes you need to find like-minded geeks for some relaxing fun. Once a week, we round up the best geek social events in Austin.
This week Austin is host to the politically incorrect but ever awesome Extreme Midget Wrestling, the fantasy improv adventures of EPIC! and plenty of assorted gaming goodness.
Geek Girls of Austin Book Club
Oct 4, 7:00 p.m.
The Sugar Factory
1800 W. Koenig Ln
The ever active and ever awesome Geek Girls of Austin have started a new book club. If you’re a geek and you happen to have an innie rather than an outie between your legs, come to this inaugural meeting and share your ideas for which print books, ebooks, graphic novels, or other storytelling you want to share with a brand new reading group.
Tech Tots
Oct 5, 10:30 a.m.
Microsoft Store
3309 Esperanza Crossing
Raise your little geeks right! TechTots hosts a digital story time, hands-on technology learning with Tech Mouse, and a snack time for children ages two to five years old. It’s not free babysitting from Microsoft. A parent or caregiver must remain present. But it is a good chance to take your little ones out to play with other kids from tech friendly families.
Extreme Midget Wrestling
Oct 5, 7:30 p.m.
Southpark Meadows
9500 S IH-35
I’ll be honest. This one isn’t obviously tied to fantasy, science fiction or nerd culture, but half the geeks I know already own tickets, so it must tap into some deep nerd feelings. The title describes it perfectly - little people engaging in WWE style wrestling while the audience is encouraged to dress up in their fancy pants and enjoy cocktails while watching. Judge all you want, but I’ll be there.
October LARP Meetup
Oct 5, 6:00 p.m.
Big Daddy’s Burgers & Bar
9070 Research Blvd, Suite 101
Are you interested in Live Action Role Playing? Are you looking for a game here in Austin? Meet your fellow lovers of costumed shenanigans at Big Daddy’s Burger Bar for a monthly LARP meetup.
Geeks Who Drink Meetup
Oct 6, 9:00 p.m.
Opal Divine’s Marina
12709 Mopac
Trivia lovers can join a team for the chance to show off their smarts and win free drinks.
Epic! Improvised Interactive Fantasy Adventures
Oct 6, 8:00 p.m.
3708 Woodbury Dr
It’s back! If you love improv and have a (not so) secret fondness for epic fantasy, the same crazy minds who brought you The Professor (an ongoing Doctor Who themed improv) take on all the tropes you’re afraid to admit are in Game of Thrones and then some. If you have a shelf of anything from George R. R. Martin to Terry Pratchett, you owe it to yourself to see this show.
ATX Horror, Fantasy, and Sci-Fi Meetup
Oct 7, 1:00 p.m.
The Highball
1142 S Lamar Blvd
Share a lane of bowling, enjoy some unique custom cocktails (the cucumber infused gin is really fantastic), and have a laid back night of talking about your favorite science fiction and fantasy films. If there are any you’re dying to see in the next few months, suggest them to the organizers for a future meetup. Meanwhile, enjoy some drinks and dorks.
Girl Geeks of Austin Board Games and Brews
Oct 1, 7:00 p.m.
Black Star Co-Op
7020 Easy Wind Dr
Enjoy some microbrewery beers along with Euro style boardgames in the company of your fellow geek girls.
Girl Geeks of Austin Nerdy Knitting and Fiber Arts
Oct 8, 7:00 p.m.
Genuine Joe’s Coffee House
2001 W. Anderson Lane
Enjoy a laid back night of knitting, crochet, embroidery, or whatever fibercraft you love in the company of your fellow nerd girls.
Pathfinder Society Meetup
Oct 8, 7:00 p.m.
Dragon's Lair Comics & Fantasy
6111 Burnet Rd
Looking for some new faces around the gaming table? Delve into ancient dungeons, uncover lost knowledge, and advance the secret goals of your faction--whether it be the freedom-fighting Andorans, the good-hearted Silver Crusade, the shady dealings of the Sczarni, or the strict laws of Cheliax--and gain experience and loot for your character no matter where you game!
South Austin Game Night and Boards and Brews Meetup
Oct 9, 6:00 p.m.
Rockin Tomato
3003 S. Lamar
This weekly gathering of gamers regularly hosts over 40 people playing a dozen different games. New people are always welcome.
Want to see your event listed? Contact the Austin Post with the date, a current link, and a good reason why your event belongs in This Week in Geek.
Technology is a notoriously cutthroat industry. The nonstop battles for venture capital and industry attention are known to split marriages, end friendships and start bitter rivalries.
Except here.
Before Austin was a technology hub, it was a laid back hippie town full of musicians and artists. While the weirdness that gave Austin its 20th century reputation has faded in the light of 21st century commercial success, some legacy of that old communal spirit lingers in the downright casual attitude towards what is supposed to be the cutthroat world of commerce. We asked a dozen of Austin’s technology pros what makes the local tech scene work.
Dan Graham
BuildASign Founder and CEO
"One of the great things about Austin in general is it’s a city that lauds the individual. No matter who you are or what you’re interested in, there’s a niche and a home for it here in Austin - whether you’re a bike enthusiast or a baking enthusiast or a technology enthusiast. That really influences the world of technology and entrepreneurialism. If I’m starting a new company, I never get a negative word. Instead, there are so many people telling me I should really go for that dream. That lauding of every individual’s uniqueness is unusual, and it’s what makes the general level of innovation we have here in Austin work. That’s my favorite thing about the local technology scene. It’s success comes from applauding everyone’s individualism."
Josh Baer
Capital Factory Director
"My favorite thing about Austin’s technology scene is the community we’ve built here. There’s an amazing openness and ability for people to get involved. Austin is growing and thriving and it’s the kind of place where entrepreneurs know they’re all going to change. They’re going to come up with ways to change and improve things. The fact that it’s so easy to plug into the community and is so easy to make an impact here is really special."
Stu Smith
Osmek User Experience Officer
"One of the best things about the Austin tech scene is it’s not cutthroat. Some of my colleagues in San Francisco describe how everyone is very anxious to sign a NDA before they’ll talk to you. It’s very tense and high stress. Here, people want to sit down and discuss what you’re working on. People are more friendly and laid back, and that extends to the tech scene as well."
Lani Rosales
AGBeat.com Founder and CEO
"I think what’s really unique, and I know it sounds cliché, but it’s passion and the drive. I feel like in some other cities people are building companies or apps for fame and glory. In Austin, I feel like people really are trying to make things better, solve problems and fix things instead of just becoming the next Facebook and making a bajillion dollars."
Arturo Coto
Tabbed Out Vice President of Marketing
"I came to Austin in 2004. I used to be the CEO of a software company that sold in 2008. What kept me here after the sale of that company was the openness of the community. People here share ideas and help each other out. It isn’t guarded. You go to other markets and it’s very secretive. I love stopping by the different incubators here in town, going to the networking events, and everyone is so open about what they’re doing and are ready to help people out. That just creates the right kind of environment for startups to thrive. I think that’s why so many are coming here. They’re finding a really strong support system in Austin."
Matthew Winters
Austin Visuals Founder
"The culture here is almost patriotic. Everyone is really into Austin local. I think that’s nice. I’m really impressed that people are very willing to sit down and have a meal with you. You can have a lot more real connections over coffee and conversations than in the big tech cities. Places beside Austin can be a less friendly environment. People here are still productive, but they still value community and person to person contacts, so they’ll take the time out, where other places the people don’t have time and aren’t as intent on building those necessary bonds."
"People in Austin are also into sharing their resources. Its more communal, cooperative, collaborative, so if you do a good job they brag about you to their friends or coworkers."
Q Manning
Rocksauce Studios Founder and CEO
"Austin has become App City USA, which is a wonderful thing for me. We have a lot of cool stuff here. TabbedOut, Gowalla - South by Southwest has become an app launching ground, and that’s great. That’s something we deserve to be proud of."
"I like how in general Austin is a more laid back city. I’m not the kind of guy who normally wears a suit, but I was going to the symphony, so I dressed up. When I got there, there were people dressed in suits, there were people in jeans, there were people in shorts, and on one cared. I’d say Austin tech is the same way. It’s that laid back ability Austin has to get real work done without being so cutthroat. There’s not a lot of trying to poach each other’s workers. We could be in competition, but instead we work together."
Matt McCloskey
Osmek CEO
"Austin’s tech scene works because of the culture. People are so relaxed and excited to work together and talk to one another. It’s great. There’s all sorts of tech, design and interesting things happening all the time. People want to know all about it."
Joseph Merante
2012 Code for America Fellow
"I like the vibrancy and connectedness. For such a small city, Austin has so many meetups and events and conferences. It’s everything people say it is. It’s a thriving community of interest - and not just in technology stuff. If you look around on different developer meetups and interest groups, you see the increasing overlap between the technology community and the civic and community groups. That’s been impressive and striking to me."
Sheena Colbath Harden
Austin Free-Net Director of Operations
"Austin’s technology scene works because of the people. We have such amazing, creative minds here. I love the fact that Austin is such a casual city. I interned at National Instruments, and when the CEO was on the floor he was in a Hawaiian shirt with flip flops and was really into talking to everyone on the floor. He wanted to make people comfortable, and it turned out that was normal for Austin technology CEOs. I feel like anyone could go to any high tech happy hour here and fit right in no matter who you are or how you’re dressed."
Cole Stevenson
Eye in the Sky CTO
"I think what really makes Austin’s technology scene work is the culture and the collaborative environment. It's a really big draw away from the San Francisco mentality. People like getting in these little work pods where they're collaborating closely on a particular issue. We're getting more progress in more areas because of these smaller teams and pods doing crazy and innovative things. People in Austin have a really good way of finding something that needs help. They’re really giving. And when they find that thing, somebody in the tech world always says 'Great! I have a way to fix this!'”
Anthony Erickson
Eye in the Sky CEO
"My favorite thing about Austin’s tech scene is the open-mindedness - both creatively and technologically. People come together and are way more into collaboration and discussing ideas. There can be such a snobbery in some cities about how to find the right person and how to break through barriers and how to network, but there’s a lot less of that here."
Do you agree that Austin's tech scene is a collaborative love-fest? Or do you disagree, and see hidden darkness? Weigh in with your comments!
The Bearded One and I recently discovered that roundtrip flights from Austin to Denver are surprisingly affordable (we got ours for about $160 each). We decided to go just at the end of the tourist season in September, spending most of the time camping in the Rocky Mountain National Park. This is the second part of my journal of our trip Into the Rockies. Read Part 1 here and Part 2 here.
Day Six – Today, we left the campsite and drove to Hot Sulphur Springs for some rest. Although it was hard to leave the high mountains, I was ready for a bed and some warmth. The area around Hot Sulphur Springs might be my favorite. As we drove, we noticed the mountains in the distance and the rocky, scrubby hills in the foreground. We began to notice more rock formations and patches of color that dotted the land as the trees change for the season.
We visited Hot Sulphur Springs Spa, the only business in town that seemed to be open later than 7 p.m., where we soaked in 20 outdoor pools that ranged from about 95 degrees to 112 degrees. Although the smell took some getting used to (Hot Sulphur Springs smell like … hot sulphur), the mineral water felt amazing on our tired bodies. We soaked for several hours in the afternoon and then drove into Granby for a dinner of steak and river trout. We returned to the spa to soak as the sun went down. Little rabbits and chipmunks were out eating when we returned, and the sky lit up with beautiful reds and pinks as the sun went down.
We stayed at the Ute Trail Motel, a very cute and clean motor lodge with a contingency of dogs and transient hippies who seemed to call the place home. It was a great night of sleep after four cold nights in a tent.
Day Seven – Our last day of vacation … le sigh. We drove up Mt. Evans today, the peak of which reached above 14,000 feet. We didn’t reach the summit because the road was closed near the top, but from about 13,000 feet, we could see the Denver skyline and look down into the valleys that were carved by receding glaciers 10,000 to 20,000 years ago.
The colors here were beautiful, as the aspen leaves turn from green to gold and red. We stopped at Echo Lake as well. I just love mountain lakes; there’s something so impressive about a lake so high. The highlight was seeing a group of female big-horned sheep and their babies on the side of the road. They perched on rocks and grazed on the browning grass and posed for our pictures.
We stayed in Idaho Springs, a cute old mining town. We walked around town a bit and saw a waterwheel that used to power the stamp mill for a mine, as well as a couple old train cars. We ate at a brewpub called Tommyknockers. The beer was fantastic and the food was decent bar fare.
I didn’t want to leave. I love the hills and valleys, the many streams and, of course, the mountains. I realized how much I missed having a tree canopy over my head and fall colors, things you don’t get much of in Central Texas. We drove past a 147-acre ranch with multiple cabins on it for sale for $2.15 million, and I thought about how great it would be to buy it.
We would have guests stay with us, and we’d teach them how to appreciate the outdoors, how to stay still and quiet to see animals, how to walk softly and minimize their impact, how to observe their surroundings. We’d teach them not to throw their trash on the ground, not to tramp off trail, not to use those terrible disposable water bottles. We’d take them on trail rides and hikes. We’d have campfires and tell stories and play music. They’d have great experiences and tell all of their friends from all the cities to come visit us. They’d come back year after year and write us letters and always remember their visit.
But then it rained, and I got cold and remembered winter. We remembered that we don’t have $2 million and that no vacation can last forever. We went back to our motel and settled in for our last night of sleep in Colorado. Tomorrow, it’s back to Austin.
For pictures, check out the Into the Rockies slideshow.
The American Library Association launched Banned Books Week in 1982 to combat challenges to books in schools, libraries and bookstores and celebrate the right to read. Thirty years later, the good news is that here in Texas, the American Civil Liberties Union reports that the lowest number of books ever has been banned or re-shelved over the last year – a mere unlucky 13 – according to the Houston Chronicle’s book blog.
The issues some parents have with certain books include sexual content, profanity, nudity, violence, religion, race and politics, and some of the greatest books in literature have been attacked across the nation. ACLU Texas executive director Terri Burke notes that getting parents to actually read the books they oppose has helped reduce the number.
“[I]n an ideal world parents would monitor kids’ reading and it wouldn’t have to come to banning,” says Burke.
There is no truth to the rumor that the Dean Koontz thriller that is on this year’s list was banned for flagrant hackery.
A hitman passes security carrying only a briefcase. Slipping into an unused conference room, he opens his case and assembles... a printer. Not just any printer but a 3D one. He pulls a bag of plastic beads from his jacket, pours them into the printer and, voila, instant gun. Yes, he'll only have one shot but he won't have a problem getting past the metal detectors and into the hall where the president is speaking.
It's a scene pulled straight from a Philip K Dick novel, and it just got one step closer to reality. UT student Cody Wilson was recently stopped from using a leased 3D printer to "print" a plastic gun of his own design. When the company that leased the printer, Stratasys, found out what he intended to do, they quickly demanded the 3D printer back, citing no notification of his intentions, which they said could be against the law.
This bizarro case, reported in the Austin American Statesman today, brings up a litany of questions revolving around the legality and threat posed by this emerging technology:
At least for now, the project is on hold, said Wilson, the 24-year-old director and co-founder of Defense Distributed, the online collective managing the Wiki Weapon Project. To legal experts and law enforcement officials, this particular situation falls under a new frontier of the law.
“It is unclear if what we are doing is legal or illegal,” Wilson said Wednesday at his home. “We have turned around and realized that technology got ahead of the law, and I am not saying this with any hubris.”
A license is not required to manufacture certain types of guns if they are not intended for sale. But whether the Wiki Weapon prototype falls under that category depends on whom you ask, and Wilson said he is not willing to risk that question in court and is applying for a license.
Michael Reyes, resident agent in charge of the ATF Austin office, said it had received a referral on Wilson because his project had received so much buzz on the Internet. But Wilson visited the office Monday on his own accord — before agents reached out to him — because he had questions about the license process and legalities of his project. Wilson is not under investigation and has not broken any laws, Reyes said.
“Some of the questions we were able to answer, some we were not,” the resident agent said. “If you are going to manufacture or be in the business of manufacturing, then you need a license, so it’s going to come back to whether you are in business.”
To anyone that has followed 3D printing technology, it's clear that it will transform our world in countless ways: Hospitals will be able to make custom hip replacements in their own building, kids can make their own action figures from downloadable plans, and people will potentially have the ability to make weapons in their home. This scenario, good and bad like much of our technological advances, is not that far from reality and will have the government scrambling to keep up.
Even if Willie Nelson spends more time at home in Hawaii than his Austin area abode when he’s not on the road – can ya blame the guy? – the Red-Headed Stranger remains one of our city’s most dedicated boosters. And now his Willie’s Roadhouse channel on satellite radio will be broadcast from Willie Nelson Blvd. as SiriusXM opens its new broadcast studio at ACL Live/Moody Theater downtown.
Weekday afternoon Roadhouse jock, country singer-songwriter and Heybale! frontman Dallas Wayne will be live in the studio from Austin from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Texas time, so expect more of our local C&W and Americana artists to drop in and get an even bigger boost than they already do on the satellite service’s country channels. The priority on Texas acts is now doubled down with the new studio here, which will also broaden the spectrum of Austin’s presence on SiriusXM, especially during SXSW. Plus. the Outlaw Country and Radio Margaritaville channels will also broadcast from the facility within the W Austin Hotel and Residences tower.
Willie will be at the grand opening bash next Friday (10/12) and on air during Wayne’s show, on which he already makes a habit of stopping by as often as he can. Austin world media dominance continues to grow... Hey, maybe if people can more easily connect with us they won't feel compelled to move to our burgeoning burg. However, we do welcome SiriusXM with open arms.
Frank Taylor Ramsey worried not only about his own legacy, but about that of his customers as well. The nurseryman once wrote fondly of the trees around his childhood home, trees “whose remembrance gives pleasure of a kind that cannot be obtained with money.” Frank urged his catalog readers to create such priceless treasures for their own families. “Are you willing,” he asked, “that your children shall have similar memories in future years?” Enough of Frank’s customers answered “yes” that his trees and shrubs still dot the landscape of Austin’s older neighborhoods decades after his death.
Alexander Ramsey (1825-1895) proved so adept at raising fruit trees after moving to Texas in 1860 that he turned his hobby into a full-time business. (Photo from http://www.charlottes-web.com.)
Frank launched his career in his teens by following in his father’s footsteps. In 1858 Alexander Ramsey sent a few peach seeds from Mississippi to his brother in the tiny Burnet County town of Mahomet. By the time of his arrival in Texas in 1860 a small peach orchard awaited him. The Civil War hampered his efforts but by 1875 Alexander had enlarged both the quantity and variety of his trees enough that he issued a catalog offering trees for sale. Two years later sixteen-year-old Frank quit school to go into business with his father.
Frank Ramsey as a teenager. This photograph was taken about the time that Frank began working with his father. (Photo from http://www.charlottes-web.com.)
Father and son battled freezes and grasshoppers throughout those early years but, as Alexander’s 1895 obituary noted, “The temperate, industrious, honest man who loves his business succeeds.” During 1893 and 1894 the pair moved the business to Austin to ease the process of shipping plants throughout Texas and beyond. Alexander, on the far side of his 70th birthday, then sold his share in the business to his son. According to the obituary, there was “never a word of disagreement uttered” between Alexander and Frank during their long partnership.
The Ramsey home in Mahomet. That's Alexander Ramsey standing on the porch at left. To his left are Frank, Belle and their children Murray and Jessie. (Photo from http://www.charlottes-web.com.)
A nursery needs land and Frank therefore had to locate his business on the edge of the city. He purchased several hundred acres in the vicinity of Austin’s first planned subdivision, Monroe Shipe’s Hyde Park neighborhood. With the nursery office at 45th and Guadalupe, Frank’s commute from his home at 4412 Avenue B merely involved walking north across 45th Street.
The 1894 catalog for Ramsey's Nurseries. Notice the stamped reminder at upper right about the move to Austin. (Photo from http://www.charlottes-web.com.)
The Ramsey family quickly became an integral part of the Hyde Park neighborhood. Because of his initials, locals began calling Frank “Fruit Tree Ramsey.” Frank joined the North Austin Fire Company and remained a member until the city founded its own professional force in 1916. His wife Belle served many an impromptu dinner to unexpected guests brought home by her husband. Years later neighbors remembered the Ramseys serving iced watermelon at gatherings on their lawn. Frank invited the American Legion to use his nursery for an annual Halloween celebration. And for the Hyde Park Christian Church annual picnic Frank would load a hay wagon with men, women and children for a fun-filled ride to the countryside. One woman later recalled, “There was one favorite place where there were trees, grass and a running stream; and when those big baskets of food were spread out on table cloths on the ground, life was perfect.”
The Ramsey family home at 4412 Avenue B in Austin's Hyde Park neighborhood. (Photo by Jeffrey Kerr.)
Frank had located his business ideally. As more families purchased lots in Hyde Park they turned to F. T. Ramsey’s Austin Nursery for landscaping. Added to an already thriving mail-order business, this demand sustained the nursery as a major player in the Austin market for decades.
This advertisement for the Ramsey Nursery appeared in the 1922 Austin City Directory.
His passion for plants led Frank to develop several unique varieties of trees and ornamental shrubs. He wrote articles for trade journals and popular magazines. He served as president of the Texas State Horticultural Society. In his annual nursery catalog he included his own poems that extolled the beauty to be found in nature.
It’s sweet to walk out when the sun’s brightly shining,
And sweet to sit down with my friends in the shade.
My homeyard abloom with vines that are twining
Is the best place, I know, that God ever made.
As he had followed his father into the nursery business, so Frank Ramsey’s son John Murray Ramsey followed him. A 1927 newspaper advertisement for F. T. Ramsey and Son’s Austin Nursery boasted the slogan “Builders of Beauty and Bringers of Bounty.” Frank’s grandson Murray Perkins Ramsey took over the business upon his father’s death in 1944. In 1965 he halted retail sales and restricted business to landscape contracting. When he died ten years later the century-old family business died with him.
The 1945 catalog for Ramsey's Nursery. The last remant of the storage building at upper left and the office building at upper right were demolished within the past few years.
Four generations of Ramsey nurserymen, as pictured in the Spanish version of the 1911-1912 catalog. (Photo from http://www.charlottes-web.com.)
Frank Ramsey’s nursery may no longer be with us but many of the trees grown there thrive yet in Hyde Park and elsewhere. His legacy includes many unique varieties of fruit trees and ornamentals developed by his hand. He served Austin as a member of city school and hospital boards. His heirs donated the land used to create the Rosedale neighborhood’s Ramsey Park, named after Frank. But it is his love of plants and trees that is Frank Ramsey’s greatest enduring feature. The poem he composed for his tombstone highlights his passion:
It’s sweeter to wander on this earth and gather flowers,
But sweeter still the thought, some day it will be ours
In Paradise to walk with her and we loved the best
And gather fragrant fairer ones for longer hours.
Or, as one of the pithy aphorisms from a Ramsey Nursery catalog put it, “Look on beauty and shame the devil.” Over the years Frank “Fruit Tree” Ramsey gave Austinites the opportunity to do just that.
Frank Taylor Ramsey (1861-1932), Austin's "Builder of Beauty."
Door64 recently hosted the Painpoint Job Fair for companies at the “pain point” where they couldn’t move forward with vital projects until they hired new coders. They focused on four skills: Java, .NET, UI/UX, and software QA.
Back in the 1990’s, UI and UX (short for "user interface design" and "user experience") was mostly done by graphic artists. We talked to three local recruiters about what Austin companies want when hiring for today’s hot job title and how people can learn those skills.
“User experience is huge. Every software company out there is looking for people who can make websites easy to use and easy to navigate,” said Johnny Chang, a recruiter with Lifesize Communications. “UX is a great career choice if you’re an artist and feel pressure from your parents to get a real job. UX would be a very interesting skill set for you. You can combine your passion for art and layout with user experience, which is what art is all about. That with some technical skills will make you money.”
Traci Hughes, Principal Founder at Third Coast Search, agreed. “It’s becoming more valuable to have employees that aren’t so siloed. They can do and understand multiple things. In UI, they want someone who can look at a project from the perspective of a marketer and artist then execute it as the technical coder person that they are."
Combining art and technology is a vague demand. Renee Diaz, a recruiter with Vitamin T, a division of Aquent, said one of her greatest challenges is helping companies define what they want from the role and setting realistic expectations for what they can expect from a single employee. “Companies want to increase the overall usability of their sites, and to do that they think they need a user experience person, but they don’t know what that means.”
Diaz defined four main skill sets employers may be interested in when they say they’re looking for someone to do user design:
“People will come to us and say they want a UX person. Then we have to help them narrow it down. It’s rare to find one person who does both visual design and user research,” said Diaz. “We have to work with employers to figure out the real expectations of the role.”
On the coding side, Diaz said the most commonly requested UX skills included JQuery, JavaScript, HTML (including HTML5), CSS and testing plugins.
Chang added that older languages such as PHP (also known as the "P" in LAMP) and AJAX were also helpful. Since PHP is open source, it’s both inexpensive and accessible. AJAX is the use of JavaScript to bring information back from a server without reloading a webpage, the way that Google Maps, for example, creates a dynamic popup when a user mouses over an object.
To get a feel whether you’d have a knack for UX, Chang recommends building a website using nothing but Notepad. “Don’t use Dreamweaver or Frontpage. That’s a screening question I’ll ask people - do they know how to code a website from scratch in Notepad.” If the answer is yes and they have a good visual and aesthetic sense, they probably have the skills necessary to succeed in UX.
Chang, Diaz and Hughes agreed UX positions are hard to fill because it’s hard to find people who are simultaniously passionate artists and passionate coders.
“Beyond technical skills, you need someone who can think in terms of the experience your user is going to have. Is it going to be easy, fun, interesting or valuable? All of those things are about real emotions that people have when they’re interacting with your software,” said Hughes.
Chang said the best UX designers wanted to be artists when they were young but discovered a love of technology along the way. “The best designers are naturally artsy and have an eye for that sort of stuff. That’s not something I think you can teach. Smart employers want someone who started in an artistic fashion and picked up technical skills.”
Diaz said those people are hard to come by because most people who get into coding do it because they enjoy interacting with a system and discovering what they can make it do. UX designers can’t put on headphones and go into a coding fugue because they need to constantly collaborate and interact with the development team, QA and management.
“UX is misunderstood, but companies know it’s absolutely vital to their success. Sites no longer just give out information. Now, they react and are responsive to users, and to do that well you have to understand what the end user needs from your site,” said Diaz.
While Chang recommended artists interested in UX start by trying to create a website in Notepad, Diaz suggested coders interested in UX start by taking a photography class, which can introduce them to the basic elements of design. From there, attend panels at SXSW about art rather than just the ones about tech, take art history classes, and try to expose yourself to as many diverse types of art as possible so you don’t fall into a niche of making everything look like an infographic circa 2010 or whatever single art style you forced yourself to learn.
Forgive me if I get a little over-excited here, but man, I love going to the movies in Austin. This is my tenth city, and honestly, in the last nine I’d reached a point where renting DVDs from Redbox was an excuse for a girl’s night in. Going to the movies had lost any sense of outing or adventure. Heck, the conditions at most theaters made moviegoing only marginally more fun than spending the day in airport security.
All seven of you who are actually from Austin don’t understand what the movies are like out there in the great beyond. Your only food options are prehistoric candy and popcorn with a heavy orange dusting of “butter flavor” powder that smells like incipient cancer. Instead of indie videos playing before the previews, you get painfully branded TV commercials and Coca-Cola ads. Worst of all, you can’t have a beer.
There are a few family friendly throwback theaters scattered around Austin, but as a newcomer, I am delightfully overwhelmed by having four genuinely good options where I can enjoy a sandwich and a Shiner while watching the movie.
I heard legends of the Alamo long before moving. People gushed reverentially about Master Pancake and classic movie nights, but somehow they completely failed to mention the full bar and dinner menu. Imagine not knowing about that the first time you’re seated in an Alamo. It was like expecting to have your picture taken with a homeless guy who hadn’t shaved in six years and instead getting to meet Santa Claus. I actually got up and walked to a random spot in a different aisle to make sure the Meetup I was with hadn’t slipped me a fake menu just to see if I’d fall for it.
In addition to feeding and boozing you up, the Alamo goes out of their way to entertain you before the movies. I have tremendous respect for the film festival shorts I get to see before each show. If there isn’t a film festival, they always pick a collection of well chosen, thematically relevant, funny videos for each movie. There’s no question someone who loves movies is paying serious attention. They’ve got your eyeballs. They want to pump them full of goodness.
On top of that, I really like the Alamo’s blog. It’s obvious this place is run by movie lovers for movie lovers. The Alamo has come out aggressively against letting people text during movies, and I love them for it. They sponsor Fantastic Fest and do a heck of a lot to encourage indie movie making. They break their own no-talking rules by letting Master Pancake turn every movie into a Rocky Horror style event. They do so much right it’s no wonder the Alamo is quite possibly the most beloved cultural institution in Austin. Not too shabby for a movie theater.
I am stupidly delighted that they’re spreading out of Texas. Soon, people from San Francisco to Kansas City will understand our mildly irrational love of a movie theater chain. Once they do, they’ll never be able to go back to the old ways.
They're so serious about keeping your movie screen sacred they'll turn your hate mail into a reminder that this is a movie theater, not a bus stop.
Settle down. You’re right. Flix is obviously a knockoff of the Alamo Drafthouse. The thing is, the people behind it paid a lot of attention to what did and didn’t work at the Alamo.
They don’t have their own Master Pancake or Fantastic Fest, which means they’ll never have the cult-like loyalty Alamo has earned. What they do have is better food, more user-friendly trays, and a nice local microbrewery on site. If you’re out for a night at the movies instead of a major event, it’s a noticeable trade up.
I know there are haters out there who can’t stand to see someone take a good idea and improve on it. Skip ahead to the section on iPic.
Right. Now that I’m only talking to people who moved here in the last year or so, Flix is doing a darn good job of creating an all inclusive night of entertainment for average moviegoers. It has zero hope of replacing Alamo, but it’s not trying to. This is an experimental pilot theater meant to see if people are interested in dinner and a beer at the movies if it doesn’t come with Master Pancake. The answer is yes.
Honestly, Alamo, you guys are awesome, and there’s no way Flix would exist without you, but could you please steal back a couple of Flix’s improvements? I’d love to see the two of you get into a sort of customer service war. Oh, you think you can make life easier by giving each seat a spacious tray that slides all the way to their lap, Flix? Well, let’s see how you handle our new secret innovation! I see you think buttons to summon waiters are a good idea. Well, let’s see you cope with our startling new wait-o-tron 2000! You think high quality entrees with in-house microbrews attract customers? Well wait until you see our new gourmet menu!
You can do it, Alamo! I want to see this turn into a full-on movie arms race. C’mon, guys, show each other up!
Once the Alamo penetrates enough national markets, there will be a lot more Flix-style clones waiting in the wings. You can start learning how to compete with them now, on your own home turf, or you can fight a much harder battle in cities where you and your competitors are both new innovations. It’s up to you, Alamo.
Situated right downtown, the Violet Crown isn't as funky as the Alamo, and isn't as pricey as iPic (described below). The Crown is sort of like flying business class. The theaters are small and intimate, with big comfy seats, which makes for an intimate movie-watching experience.
Buying tickets is no-muss-no-fuss and you're always guaranteed the seat you want. The way it works is you buy your tickets online and pick seats. That way, once you get to the theater you can have a drink or some food in the pleasant lobby bar and you don't have to stress about getting a good view of the screen. The downside of having a bunch of small theaters is that they sell out pretty quickly. (You can buy tickets in person, but you're apt to be out of luck if you take that tack.)
The theaters may be small, but each has excellent sound and good views of the screen from every seat. The food and drink is what you would expect now that the bar has been set by the Alamo -- in fact, it's a little bit fancy, ranging from homemade pizza to tapas to spring rolls.
Since the movie house is broken up into smaller theaters, there are five movies to choose from at any given time, which also means that showtimes occur throughout the day.
iPic Theaters
In parts of the country bereft of the Alamo’s awesomeness, iPic is the only dine-in movie alternative. I’ll be honest. I haven’t actually sat through a movie at an iPic theater. That’s because tickets start at $28 per person (yes, really) plus the cost of your food and alcohol. It’s almost impossible to get out of there for anything less than $50 per person, and that’s only if you skip dessert.
However, I have been to multiple networking events at the iPic in the Domain (and other iPic theaters in other cities). Each time, they had great appetizers for the event, tasty drink specials, a swanky lobby, and totally empty theaters they were eager to show off.
For $28+ per person, you get your own individual recliner with a comfy footrest and your own blankie. For those of us who consider movie dates a good excuse for a little discrete cuddle, these are horrible. If you’re anti-social and need your space, they’re a godsend.
The menu is predictably pricey, but the food itself is actually top notch. I was pleasantly surprised. A few of us at one networking event essentially ordered the entire appetizer menu as a big shared plate and every single thing they brought out was shockingly excellent. In this case, you really are paying for quality. It’s possible they were showing off for the networkers in the hopes of luring us back for a movie. I hope not, though, because if I came back and the food was anything less than great, I’d feel robbed.
If the other four theaters didn’t exist, this would be a good excuse for a pricey romantic night out. The place is never crowded, which lends itself to a nice, exclusive air. You can enjoy fine food, well mixed cocktails, excellent dessert, a couple games of pool in the lobby … actually, since you do have the Alamo and Flix and Violet Crown here, why not treat iPic like a wine bar with good cocktails, great food, and a semi-private pool table? Enjoy all the features of the lobby, but save the $60 you would’ve spent on the movie, rent something from Redbox, then go home and make out while the DVD plays on your home TV.
I love movies again
With Alamo, Flix, Violet Crown and iPic to choose from, I’ve fallen in love with movies again. This time last year I saw one movie a month. Now, I’m averaging one or two a week. These four genuinely good options reintroduced me to the excitement and thrill of going out to the movies. If you’re from here, you can’t understand why the Alamo is so revolutionary. If you’re a N00b like me, the first thing you want to do whenever someone visits is take them to the movies. Sure, they can see whatever film you pick when they get home or just rent the DVD in a couple of months, but here, a movie is only a fraction of the experience. The point is that we have real, honest-to-goodness reasons to enjoy the cinema just as much as our great-grandparents (who were in it for the revolutionary free air conditioning and ice cream).
As Austin becomes a full-on upscale metro boutique high-dollar shopping experience, there are times you still wanna save a few bucks, right? Even more so, in fact, as costs of living climb skyward. And that’s when I go downmarket and head to Family Dollar.
Some of you may resist the store as it generally serves the 47 percent that Mutt Romney couldn’t give two shits about. It’s as proletarian as eating squirrel, a total no-frills We The Po’ People kinda place. But what's cooler than saving on the basics?
As Austinite Koko D. notes on Yelp:
This place is kept clean and organized and the employees are nice. They have cheap stuff there. What else do you need?
Perzackly! It‘s a store that could theoretically provide all the basics of life you might need… I stress might. That’s not how I shop there, but one woman in Chicago, Jillian G., has this to say:
I love me some Family dollar.
Man this store has gotten me through some rough times. I spent some time living in the Congress Theater apartments. There are no grocery stores around here. I do not count the wack CVS down the street. Thus, I have done entire grocery shopping from Family Dollar.
I have purchased the following from Family Dollar: Hello Kitty underwear that fit weird, Socks, Mac N' Cheese, Pre-Cooked Bacon, Soda brands I have never heard of before or since, a skid of tuna, weird foreign dog toys, etc.
This place does lead to weird eating habits though. I did go through a pre-cooked-bacon-out-of-the-package-on-the-way-home phase I try not to think about.
Unlike Jillian G., I get my food elsewhere. But I shop at Family Dollar in a fashion similar to my grocery shopping: I get most of what I eat at H-E-B, but also some special items at Central Market, and a few other things at Sprouts sometimes. (I generally boycott Whole Foods.)
So I stop into Family Dollar for certain items at prices well below what I would pay elsewhere. As a working reporter, I record all of my interviews and I transcribe by playing them through a battery-powered set of small speakers. The process gobbles up AA batteries like a growing pup eats chow, so the $6 pack of 20 is a deal I can hardly pass up. (Yes, greenies, I know I should get rechargeable batteries and will soon, I promise.)
They’re conveniently located by the toiletries section where I find most of my regular Dollar bargains. The way-overpriced Gillette Mach3 razor blades I use to keep my chin-chinny-chin smooth are $13 as opposed to $16.27 at the H-E-B. And I recently got a two-pack of the same brand deodorant I prefer for $6.50, not much more than what a single one costs elsewhere. Shampoo and conditioner are similarly priced well below what most other stores charge, and the variety of offerings is fairly wide.
A four-pack of Scott toilet paper is only $4, dishwasher soap (45-ounce phosphate free Palmolive eco for a bargain $2.50) and laundry detergent (62.5 ounces of Arm & Hammer at $5) are both cheap. And how can you scoff at four plastic pot scrubbers for a buck? Or a roll of paper towels for 50 cents?
When I needed a small fuzzy rug for my bathroom floor? You guessed it. I also found a nice picture frame for a small piece of art I wanted to hang. Cheap scented candles? The list goes on.
I do skip over the clothing (except for 3-packs of socks for $3.50). Admittedly, the packaged and frozen food sections don’t offer much I'd eat, and the offerings could send you off into the realm of adult-onset diabetes and obesity if they were your full diet. But a 32-ounce V8 for two simoleons or a 64-ounce Ocean Spray cranberry juice for three bills helps me afford the premium vodka to spike them with.
With Halloween fast approaching, if you need lots of candy for the costumed munchkins knocking at the door... you're getting the picture now, right? Yep. Dirt cheap at Family Dollar, with eight Austin locations.
As I like to be a socially aware shopper, I did some research and found a site that took Family Dollar to task for its labor practices. But it’s nowhere near as across-the-board objectionable as Walmart, which I recently renewed my longtime pledge to never spend another dime at after seeing the documentary “WAL-MART: The High Cost of Low Price” detailing the company’s pervasive vile scumbucketry for the sake of profits (plus hypocritical public pronouncements about being good corporate citizens and caring stewards of the planet).
I don't like to spend my hard-earned lucre at places that make it filthy by their policies and practices, but being politically correct to the point of obsession is something I just can’t manage. Spank me if you wish – metaphorically please - but I take a middle path on spending as a political act. A path that leads me down the aisles at Family Dollar.
Maybe you feel above shopping at a store where WIC cards are a regular form of transaction. Your call. If you don’t want to be seen shopping with the great unwashed you can always wear a hat and some dark glasses, but frankly I’ve never run into anyone I know there. (On my most recent visit, though, some folks in the cash register line had a decidedly upscale look about them. Maybe the place is catching on with a widening demographic.)
In the end, it’s just hard to argue with saving some bucks when there’s a high price to living in Austin on the lower end of the middle class. In my lil family of one, a dollar saved is one more to spend.
The Austinist turned us on to the sad news that two cheerful message-murals painted on the railroad bridge between Lamar and South 1st Street have been painted over, redacted in rust red.
We don't condone illegal behavior of course (!), but the murals reading LET'S PRETEND WE ARE ROBOTS and FOCUS ONE POINT AND BREATHE seemed to become an accepted part of our local iconography, messages of comfort and hope to the drivers, paddlers, walkers and cyclists who are legion on the Lamar auto and pedestrian bridges.
Take a last look for old time's sake:
(Photo courtesy Swanksalot on Flickr.)
(Photo courtesy Dingatx on Flickr.)
The only good news is that, just as Keith Haring got his start chalking the black paper coverings of defunct New York subway advertisements, the bridge has again reverted to a blank canvas. We will watch, and wait.
The bridge pre-ROBOTS and pre-BREATHE, in 2010. (Photo courtesy jfre81 on Flickr.)
Tolly Moseley has brought us the Austin Eavesdropper since 2007. The newly minted 30-year-old describes herself as a book publicist by day, blogger by night, and aerial silks dancer in between. She talked to the Austin Post about her love for Austin’s creative scene, the inspiration behind her blog, and how to find your own community as a new Austinite.
Austin Post:
No one is from Austin. How did you get here?
Tolly Moseley:
Actually, I lived here as a kid until I was six years old. Then my family moved to San Antonio, then I moved back to Austin for college. I went to grad school in California, then after that I moved back to Austin.
AP:
What brought you back to Austin?
TM:
I went to college in Georgetown, and when I moved to Austin for a year after college I was just enchanted, it was just ridiculously cool. I’d never been in a city with such a vibrant creative scene where artists seemed to be all around. The city is just populated with artists and creative people.
I remember driving down Guadalupe between 24th and 54th street and just being taken with all the signage. I know that sounds crazy, but I’d never seen signs like that before. I felt like this was so creative, and these were my people. I was just sort of converted.
When I got to grad school in California, I became a loud and proud Texan, so when I moved back to Texas, this was my city. I think Austin picks people. It plucks them out of the aether and says you, you’re one of us, you belong here. One of the greatest things about living here is that people chose this place. People aren’t [only] here for their jobs or because they were born here. They’re here because they chose to be here and they’re proud of this city.
AP:
What made you decide to start the Austin Eavesdropper?
TM:
This is my 3rd blog. My first two were horrible. Maybe my mom and dad read them. They were both on LiveJournal, back before the content of blogs had solidified, when a blog was more like a diary you kept.
I started Austin Eavesdropper as soon as I moved back to Austin. I think I made my first post in 2007. I didn’t really get going on it until 2008. Honestly, I think that’s one of the biggest reasons I have a readership. I just stuck with it. Even when people weren't reading, I just kept on going. That’s why it’s a thing now.
I did a lot of freelance writing at the time. Doing that made me want something kind of personal that wasn’t on assignment. But really, I was so so excited to be back here. Austin’s changed a lot the last decade. I was enchanted by everything. My small town hippie city was becoming a thing, a destination.
AP:
I know it’s almost politically incorrect to say this, but coming from outside, Austin isn’t anywhere near as weird as I expected. How do you think it developed such a weird national reputation?
TM:
Austin is weird in context of the rest of Texas. If you grew up in Texas, you know how refreshing this is to us. It’s not weird compared to Tokyo, but it’s really weird compared to Plano.
AP:
Do you think the rise of local tech culture had an impact on the decline of local hippie culture?
TM:
No, not really. There are a lot of cities with that same combination. Seattle, San Francisco, places with a big tech community and a big arts community. I think those tech and arts communities go hand in hand. Experimenters are attracted to places like this. It’s all about people who are willing to try different things and go out on a limb. Even for weird hobbies, you find the early adopters here.
There’s a deep love of art here in Austin. The city council votes for measures to fund public arts projects. We’re the first city in Texas to back marriage equality, and the city legally supports these things. We have an infrastructure here that supports more than just creating a brand or catchy slogan. The city creates spaces where people can be creative and the city puts dollars behind having creative people here.
AP:
If you’re new to Austin and want to jump head first into that creative culture, what can people do in addition to religiously reading the Austin Eavesdropper?
TM:
They can do the same things I did when I moved back. I think people should just go to coffeeshops and make a regular study of bulletin boards. It was how I found out about shows, and so much cool stuff. I’d got there every day to blog and people watch and check out the bulletin board to see what was going on.
One day I saw a flyer for a trash fashion show where the models were literally dressed in garbage. Historically, coffee shops are a place for intellectual exchange and Austin is no different. Going to coffee shops is the easiest thing people can do to get immediately connected.
It’s also important to find things to participate in. A year and a half ago I started aerial silks and it changed my life. You can take yoga classes, cooking classes, join a meetup, whatever appeals to you, and that will let you plug in right away and meet people. A social scene will form around your interests. Instead of going to a show randomly and that’s that, you enter a community of like minded individuals.
When I moved here I got involved in some random things just because they were there. I started blogging and met up with bloggers, I hung out at coffee shops, I joined a group that helps elderly people go grocery shopping on weekends. Find something that sticks and it’ll become part of your community.
AP:
Your blog posts are mostly random things you like about Austin. What do you think makes that such inspirational reading for people?
TM:
It’s hard for me to be objective about that. I think I try to share myself in the blog, so the things I highlight on there aren’t just things a publicist pitched me and I got free stuff for it. It’s all stuff I’m genuinely into. I’ve somehow attracted a cult following of people who are also into the same things. It isn’t for everybody, but for that small devoted corner, I think it’s a combination of what’s interesting and creative and cool and what’s Tolly’s take on it. I’m a lot funnier writing than I am in person. I’m only mildly funny in real life, but in writing, I can be more so.
The enticing thing about blogs is that voyeurism. Some blogs can act like a strip tease giving you a hint of someone’s personality. What is it like to turn 30? What’s it like to have a friend who is an alcoholic? What is it like to have a fraught relationship with your dad?
AP: Your posts are so photo intensive. It seems like you’re trying to tell a visual story along with your writing. Did that visual emphasis inspire you to branch out into webisodes with Eavesdropper TV?
TM: Totally. When I first started blogging I didn't have a good camera. About a year and a half ago, I broke down and actually got a nice camera. Ever since that happened, it’s added this whole new dimension and allowed me to get more expressive and tell people a story that shows people what I’ve seen more accurately, and gives them some of the magic I saw.
The TV came about because I was having dinner with my husband one night and summer 2011. I started crying in public and he asked what was the matter. I told him I don’t know what I’m meant to do in this world. These are really 20-year-old questions. I was about to turn 30 and I knew I was never going to be a savant, never going to be a prodigy, I wasn’t going to be someone who made it when they were young.
So he asked, if there’s one thing I could do in the world, what would it be? I said my dream was to have a little show about Austin where I show the people here off and have fun with them and give them the space to be their quirky fun selves. And he said why don’t you call our friend Carlos, who is a film maker and just ask him. So I called Carlos, and he said okay, I’ll help you, and the first person I interviewed was an opera singing pie baker. From there, the show took on a life of its own.
AP: A lot of good blogs languish in obscurity, but you’ve managed to get attention from places like Geeks Are Sexy and Mental Floss. What do you do to promote the blog?
TM: That was just luck. Those two came to me. I featured Whole Foods in one of my cooking show episodes, and they retweeted and shared the video on their massive Facebook page. It wasn’t intentional marketing, but a hometown business with a massive national following suddenly spread the word.
These days, I don’t do a ton of marketing. I love blogging, but I don’t want it too be my job. I’d like it to be a way for me to enrich the community. My goal isn’t to make money off it as a full time job. I want to have a blog just popular enough online to support offline professional endeavors.
In the last couple months, short story writers suddenly realized Kickstarter was a great way to finance an anthology. Heck, there are 192 anthology projects on Kickstarter alone, and those don’t include the ones on IndieGoGo, RocketHub or any other crowdfunding platforms. A lot of those anthologies get full funding, which means even though The Big Six Publishers gave up on short stories in the 1990s, readers are still willing to shell out the bucks to read some short fiction.
Whether the blistering hot summers drive you mad or the impossibly long drives to escape the state make you feel like Texas is an endless post-apocalyptic wasteland, for some reason Texas is blessed with an unusually good crop of horror writers. Therefore, it’s no surprise Austin is home to Texas or Die: An Anthology of Horror.
A. Lee Martinez, Robert Jackson Bennett, Ed Kurtz and a slew of nationally known Texas writers have already signed up for the project. In order to make it a reality, they need cash. Like most anthologies, a $15 donation gets you a copy of the ebook. For $25, you get both the ebook and a trade paperback hardcopy. Autograph collectors can get their copy signed by every single one of the authors for a mere $50. For $100 or $200, they pile on extra horror books from Abbattoir Press.
As an avid reader, I really like the Kickstarter approach to funding anthologies. If there’s a demand (and hoo boy, in genre fiction you can bet there is) then the anthology editor gets a good gauge how many copies to print and gets automatic feedback from the readers. If there’s not a demand, no trees are wasted in production and no writers are disappointed while watching spiderwebs grow on their lonely books. I think this year’s unexpected bumper crop of Kickstarter-funded anthologies is the beginning of a new era in short stories. If you love horror and want to be in on this change from the beginning, support Austin’s own Texas or Die: An Anthology of Horror. The campaign is set to close in early November.
_____
Curious how our previous Austin Kickstarters did?
The Live Action Jem and the Holograms Movie was over 250% funded! Mind you, they were only asking for $200. Go ahead and throw them a couple more bucks just to be part of something awesome.
Jumpshot made an amazing 500% of their goal! They raised more than $147,000, putting them in the top tier of all Kickstarters.
My Education was fully funded! Our instrumental band is set for their European tour.
Rockrgrrl Magazine’s GRL Talk Book was fully funded! They made over 120% of their original goal.
Strange Kid Comix was over 114% funded! They raised more than $2850 for their taste of pure pop culture nostalgia.
The Anachronist didn't make it to the $17,000 goal.
Wholly Kabob is fully funded for just north of $15,000.
Stabil-i-Case sadly didn’t reach its goal and therefore didn’t receive funding.
The Doctor Who Review Project sadly didn’t reach its goal and therefore didn’t receive funding.
The original Spinferno Kickstarter was cancelled and replaced by a new Spinferno for Android kickstarter.
Once a week the Austin Post rounds up all the networking, social and just plain nifty technology related events taking place in the greater Austin metro area.
This week, Austin is host to both our last Game Developer’s Conference and the ongoing wonder that is Austin Startup Week. If you’re overwhelmed by major events with thousands of people from across the country, there are also still plenty of cosy local networking events and user groups. These are some really great opportunities for networking and job searching. Take advantage of them.
Austin Startup Week
Oct 8 - 12
Downtown
One neighborhood. Dozens of companies. Thousands of people. This week, Austin’s vibrant technology scene shows off to the world. There are over 50 related events, most of them open to the public, so take advantage of this wonderful, mostly free opportunity to check out our tech companies, enjoy some free beer and BBQ, and network with your fellow tech professionals in a variety of settings. You won’t see another opportunity like this until SXSW (which is neither free nor locally focused.)
Game Developer’s Conference Online
October 9 - 11
Downtown Convention Center
If you work in gaming, from casual gamer apps to MMORPG’s, this is your big industry event of the year. If you’ve always thought of going but never made the time, this is GDC’s last year in Austin. At the very least, you owe it to yourself to sneak into some of the after parties.
Professional Headshot Day at Link Coworking
Oct 9, 9:00 a.m.
Link Coworking
2700 West Anderson Lane #205
If you’re putting together a professional portfolio, your roommate’s point and shoot isn’t good enough. For $50 ($75 for multiple poses and/or backdrops) a professional headshot photographer will take your photo and photoshop out your hangover eye bags and random nervous acne attack. A good headshot is a useful asset for your startup staff page, and these will almost certainly look better than the old picture your roommate took using a point and shoot.
Party with PocketGamer at GDC Online
Oct 9, 6:00 p.m.
Hangar Lounge
318 Colorado St
If you don’t have the cash to attend the Game Developer’s Conference in the downtown convention center but still want a chance to network, check out this party in the nearbyHangar Lounge.
Refresh Austin Meetup and Resources Fair
Oct 9, 7:00 p.m.
Capital Factory
701 Brazos St, 16th floor
Austin is one of the fastest growing markets in the tech industry, and we have many resources at our fingertips for folks in the startup community. Come and learn about meetups and resources in town, and find one that is right for you and your business. This is just one of many great events that are part of Austin Startup Week.
Zombie Marching Band and Gaming Party
Oct 9, 9:00 p.m.
Cedar Street Courtyard
208 W 4th St
In honor of the Game Developer’s Conference’s last year in Austin, Free to Play is hosting one heck of a blowout party including tapas, music, and a zombie marching band.
Austin Python Monthly Meetup
Oct 10, 7:00 p.m.
Texas Tribune
823 Congress Ave
We typically have a main presentation or a series of lightning talks, followed by discussion and Q&A. There is a diversity of domains and experience levels represented, so come with your questions and be prepared to talk about how you use Python!
Austin All-Girl Hack Night
Oct 10, 7:00 p.m.
Build-A-Sign
11525 Stonehollow Dr #100
Bring your laptop, bring your projects, bring your knowledge, and bring your questions! From now on, hack night is going to be a more informal affair, a chance to drop in and work together with other female developers in Austin on side projects, work projects, or larger open source initiatives. You can also come get help with presentations, technical articles, testing, or just general feedback.
Austin Startup Crawl
Oct 11, 5:00 p.m.
Capital Factory
701 Brazos St, 16th floor
ATX Startup Week is happening and it's also the night before the Austin City Limits music festival. You've had an awesome week and are ready to get the party started... so now what? Why not stop by for a quick beer, game, snack or just say hi at one of the many downtown tech companies from 5pm to 10pm? At SXSW we had more than 50 companies and 3,500 registered crawlers. This won't be quite so big because it's not SXSW but it will still be thousands of people. Stop by some of the best in Austin Tech, have a free beverage, drop off a resume, see the office space or just kick back before the Austin City Limits music festival! Hop on the free shuttle to take you from startup to startup and end up right back at the beginning. Shuttles will run from 6pm to 10pm. It’s just that easy! Every office will have a unique beverage, activity, tee shirt or all of the above. Stop on by!
Walk the Austin Startup Crawl with CocoaCoder
Oct 11, 5:00 p.m.
Capital Factory
701 Brazos St, 16th floor
The Startup Crawl is an opportunity to market your app, your skills and yourself. Meet angel and venture investors, co-founders and other business professionals while also learning something and getting a peek inside the offices of Austin’s hottest startups. If you don’t want to wander alone, join this meetup.
Austin PHP Lightning Talks
Oct 11, 7:00 p.m.
Join to learn the location
Join us for short, fast presentations on topics of interest to PHP coders.
Drupal Dojo
Oct 11, 7:00 p.m.
Mangia Pizza
8012 Mesa Dr
Theme: The Drupal Dojo is for anyone interested in hanging out with other Drupalistas in a "hive mind" environment. There is no set topic or presenter so bring your laptop, a pet project and an appetite.
The Austin Drupal Newbie Meetup
Oct 11, 7:00 p.m.
Join to learn the location
The October meeting will focus on installing Drupal 7 on a local machine, installing modules and themes. As usual, we will be there to answer your questions.
Mobile Joomla Strategies and Techniques
Oct 15, 6:30 p.m.
Opal Divine's Freehouse
700 W 6th St
Remember a few years ago when everyone was saying mobile was the future? Welcome to the future! There are close to 1.2 billion mobile web users in the world. With the onslaught smart phones and tablets over the last few years, it's no surprise that mobile web use is on the rise, and will only continue to grow in the coming years as more and more people get their hands on mobile devices. What are you doing with your website to get ready for mobile? Join Cory as he discusses strategies and techniques for going mobile with your Joomla-powered website.
MySQL 5.6 features and enhancement presented by Oracle at Oracle
Oct 15, 6:45 p.m.
Oracle
5300 Riata Park Court Building B
Learn about new MySQL features and how to use them, then network with your fellow coders.
North Austin Monthly C/C++ Pub Social
Oct 15, 7:00 p.m.
Join for location details
Theme: All are welcome to show up and chat about C, C++, Objective-C, C#, Java, Python, or software engineering in general. We'll have a sign saying "C/C++" on our table, so look for it! During the first hour, people come in and find a seat at our table. At 8:00 we ask the servers not to interrupt for a little while, so we can give everyone a minute or so to talk about who they are and what's on their mind. After that, people can shuffle around into new groups based on those introductions.
I am not a festival fan. I’m not saying I can’t enjoy them, but as someone who has spent a most of my years seeing live music, they are among my least favorite places to do so.
My lack of fondness for festivals is a lesson I first learned at Woodstock. Not exactly at Woodstock. But close enough, some six or seven miles away on the road from Monticello, NY, where the state troopers waved over the car of the sweet hippie couple from Buffalo who’d picked me up hitchhiking early that morning in my hometown of Binghamton, some 100 miles northwest up Interstate 17.
I didn’t have a ticket and wasn’t aware that if I made it to the fest, I’d still get in with no problem as the fences around the site had already been trampled down and it had been declared a free show. I just figured that even being within the surrounding scene was bound to be cool, and maybe there was some way I might be able to slip in.
I got within easy walking distance of the gathering of the Aquarian Tribes on Saturday, August 16, 1969, and turned around and went home. And never really regretted it.
Three Days of Chaos & Mud… Plus Historic Music
Most of my friends who did get to Woodstock returned with mixed reports. Yeah, there were some cool things about it. The vibe was mellow, cooperative and brotherly. It was a peaceful and fun three days for most. But there was the rain and the mud. What little food managed to get in was not enough. Unless you were fairly close to the stage, the sound kinda sucked. It was a mess that was declared a disaster area by New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller – three days of mud and chaos.
I did know a few people for whom it was a wonderful experience. My late friend Anthony Santa Croce was a production assistant on the “Woodstock” movie. He spent the better part of one night into the next morning on a boom crane directly in front of the stage tripping on LSD while helping to film the concert. The look of glee on his face as he told me about it conveyed just how much of a – as we used to say – trip it was. How could it not be with an elevated front-row seat for sets by some of the most legendary musical artists of the era? Then you add the acid (and obviously not the bad brown acid people were warned from the stage not to take)….
Woodstock was all the legend says it was for my friend Vinny Campo. He was the one who gathered our gang of teenaged aspiring longhairs after the funeral of the hippie in San Francisco in 1967 for a ceremony where he solemnly buried his hippie beads in the backyard of his family home.
Vinny came back from Woodstock in a state of near bliss, glowing from the experience, which included tripping for three days straight (or three days anything but straight).
He’d had the time of his life. If you look closely, you can see Vinny almost in the middle of the crowd photo (above) on the inside gatefold of the original Woodstock soundtrack album, standing with his arm around his girlfriend, both wrapped inside a comforter. He was totally psyched when he pointed himself out to me after the album came out in 1970.
(Vinny later went on to do three stretches in Attica Prison for possession of heroin and died of a heart attack in this mid-20s – a genuine casualty of the dark side of the 1960s.)
My own experience was far less psychedelic, yet still a trip indeed.
Longhairs Marching to the Promised Land
After the state troopers ordered the car I was riding in onto the shoulder of the Interstate as we hit Monticello, I climbed out, thanked the couple for the ride, and set off across a field past the nearby Monticello Raceway trotter track.
It’s not like I had to ask directions. All around me fellow freaks and longhairs were converging like drops of water into rivulets all flowing along the same course towards County Rd. 117 that led to Bethel/White Lake and Max Yasgur’s farm. As I hit the two-lane road winding up a hill and out of Monticello under a canopy of trees, I ran into someone I knew: a short, burly one-legged Hells Angel biker by the name of Bear.
Bear had lost a leg up to his hip in a motorcycle accident, but it didn’t seem to much affect his general mood or mobility, happily hobbling around on his crutches and taking rides with the motorcycle club in a sidecar. He tended to spend more time hanging around my hippie crowd than at the local Angels clubhouse, and was often found at “The Wall” – a concrete retaining wall in front of a store on Main St. next to a Dunkin’ Donuts where many of us would gather on weekend evenings.
So it seemed only natural to run across him perched atop the hood of a car just after I started walking down the road to Woodstock. I stopped for a few minutes and chatted with Bear, learning of others he'd run into from the freak community in the Triple Cities area of upstate New York around Binghamton. He also gave me the first report on rumors filtering back from the festival, and it was a mixed bag indeed.
I carried on past a mounted horseback state trooper with a bullhorn waving and urging us pilgrims over and over, “Go back! It’s a disaster area!” It was as if he were invisible and inaudible to the throng of youth inexorably making our exodus towards the promised land of Jimi Hendrix, The Grateful Dead, The Who, Jefferson Airplane, Sly & The Family Stone, Janis Joplin, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and the 23 other acts that ended up playing.
For an accurate depiction of what it looked like on the road to this momentous gathering, check out the road scenes in Ang Lee’s 2009 movie “Taking Woodstock” (see still above). When I watched the film it felt like an uncanny flashback, sans the acid, to that cloudy Saturday morning in August ’69.
As “Taking Woodstock” portrayed in a way most other film and TV depictions get dead wrong, not everyone who was a freak or longhair in that era was decked out in full flower power regalia. In truth, most all of us were not. That day on the road to Woodstock, I had on a striped t-shirt, straight-legged jeans and a pair of rough-out Acme cowboy boots.
Don’t Bogart That Joint, My Friend
While walking along, I caught a sweet whiff or marijuana. A few guys on the side of the road were passing a joint among them. They were decked out in colorful boutique hippie finery in front of a brand new tricked-out Volkswagen camper van.
One of the unwritten rules of the head counterculture was that once you lit a joint in a crowd you passed it along so that anyone could enjoy a few hits. The smell of the nearby jay stoked my appetite for a taste of weed. As I looked over at the hippie arrivistes, one of them took a long draw of smoke and then sneered at me, saying: "Hey maaann. Get some bellbottoms!!"
It took all I could muster to not lash back at the guy. (Earlier that year, I had walked into my first period 10th grade science class wearing a pair of bright pink and white striped elephant bellbottoms. The crusty old teacher took one look at me, threw out his arm with index finger pointing to the door and yelled, “OUT!!”)
By the time I was walking towards Woodstock, I had concluded that bellbottoms may have their advantages for sailors, but as everyday pants they were kinda stupid -- the belled-out material would get caught underfoot; hems would drag on the ground. Being a freak wasn’t about what you wore.
The memory of that moment became for me the sign that the 1960s were over and the real hippie culture was dead. The accepted wisdom is that Woodstock was the apotheosis of the hippie movement and Altamont was the death knell of a brief and shining moment of possible cultural sea change towards a more peaceful, loving, spiritual and aware way of living that could, just maybe, transform the planet into a better place. Idealistic and naïve, I know, yet how can anyone who is not a total shithead argue with the merits of the goal?
That ersatz hippie jerk on the road to Woodstock proved that the real 1960s bohemian deal was over. The counterculture was becoming an over-the-counter culture that anyone could buy into with some dough. The spirit of being one among many enlightened souls was being replaced by cooler-than-thou status seeking. A movement was devolving into a trend.
Perhaps I make too much of the guy not offering me a toke or two, but a genuine freak would have done so without giving it a thought.
(I would later chuckle at the memory of getting mocked on the road to Woodstock as my straight-legged jeans and cowboy boots became de riguer fashion in the mid-1980s for all my rock’n’roll friends in the East Village, and again in Austin now.)
Wanna Split? Sure, Why Not….
After my run-in with the faux boutique freak, I continued down the road to Woodstock for another mile or so until I ran into a guy and girl I knew from home in a car parked on the side of the road. I can still see their faces. I climbed into the back seat to rest for a while. As we passed around a bota filled with cheap sweet wine – hippies were not connoisseurs of the liquid fruit of the grapevine – we discussed all of the rumors we’d heard through the human telegraph emanating back from the festival site a few miles further down the road: The rain had washed out the entire concert; The Beatles were on their way to perform; it was total chaos; it was a groovy bacchanalia of free love and drugs…. It was hard to determine fact from fiction.
I hung with them in the white Dodge Dart for about two hours, ever less motivated to get out and carry on walking to Woodstock, given the mystery of what I might find. Then the mounted state troopers came along, yelling: The traffic jam has opened up! Start up your cars and move along or you’ll get towed!
The three of us looked at one another. So, wanna split? Head home? We all shrugged yet began to nod our heads yes. Why not? No reason to stay here, right? Hey, we can get back by the early evening, maybe find some pot and get high.
So we left. The car crawled along amidst the others heading back to Monticello. As we got onto the Interstate then called Route 17, the traffic thinned out and we headed back to whence we came. As the highway threaded through the verdant Catskills Mountains, we witnessed a gorgeous multihued sunset over the hills.
The 1960s were over. But my life of rock’n’roll was only beginning.
The Birth of a Beautiful Myth
Most of the people I knew who had made it to the festival found it a mixed bag, even for all the fun they had. I later came across others who had set out but never made it (from the liner notes of the 25th anniversary Woodstock four-CD box set, I learned that a couple hundred thousand others never made it). It made me feel like I was part of a whole other allied phenomenon.
The few reporters who actually were there did recount something phenomenal, if only how half a million people descended on what became a disaster area and all got along. And heard some awesome musical performances. Those were the snowflakes that began to snowball into something bigger in the annals of pop culture history.
Joni Mitchell spent the Woodstock weekend in a Manhattan hotel room while her friends Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young were airlifted into the festival to perform. Watching the news reports on TV, she wrote the song “Woodstock.” CSN&Y recorded it and their version reached No. 11 of the pop charts in 1970.
In March of that same year Michael Wadleigh’s film “Woodstock” was released. It captured performances as well as scenes backstage and out among the audience. In May the double album of the soundtrack was released.
For me it meant that I was able to see and hear what I missed in the comfort of a movie theater – no rain or mud – with superior sound. And listen to the album again and again. You'd think it would have bummed me out to experience what I was so close to being a part of, but it didn’t.
Within the swirl of pop culture and memory, the movie and album gave Woodstock its full imprimatur as the hallmark moment of the 1960s youth movement. It’s like the line at the end of “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” – When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.
Woodstock & The Twin Towers Collide in My Life
In August 1984, Joe Cocker was a client of the Los Angeles based music PR company I was working for as its New York office, Jensen Communications, Cocker was managed by Woodstock promoter Michael Lang. In the movie, he was the Botticelli hippie boy, barely a man, with his cascading ringlets of hair framing a youthful face, his chest bare but for a leather vest, riding a motorcycle around backstage.
My boss had booked Lang and fellow Woodstock figure Wavy Gravy onto “The Today Show,” “Good Morning America” and a CNN midday news show on August 15, the 15th anniversary of the first day of Woodstock. A limo picked me up as day was dawning at my Upper West Side apartment, and we then went to fetch Lang from his Park Avenue abode, and rode further down in the soft morning half-light to the NBC headquarters at 30 Rockefeller Center.
Wavy was already in the “Today Show” green room when we arrived. As junior show staffers offered us coffee, juice and pastries, he began to shed his aging hippie street clothes and transformed himself as he donned full clown regalia.
Mr. Gravy, as he would be referred to in the fussily formalistic stylebook of The New York Times, was born Hugh Romney and is a link between the Beat Generation and the 1960s freaks. At Woodstock he was “Chief of Please” and his Hog Farm Collective the “Please Force,” charged with "security." He’s the guy who announces in the movie and on the album, “What we have in mind is breakfast in bed for 400,000!" He actually didn’t get his fitting moniker until two weeks after Woodstock, given to him by B.B. King here in the Lone Star State at the Texas International Pop Festival in Lewisville. I think of him as one of the last and true hippies.
After “Today” we headed up to the ABC studios for “GMA,” and then down to the World Trade Center, where CNN’s New York bureau was headquartered. It was a little after 9:00 a.m. and the interview was scheduled to be done live around noon. With time to kill, Wavy, Lang and I decided to go up to the observation deck atop the north tower. Then we descended down into the mall in the bowels of the WTC to get something to eat.
There is something about wandering the halls of global finance with a clown that was – that word again – a total trip. People couldn’t help but turn their heads. Their reaction was a litmus test. If they smiled and showed delight at the sight of a clown in such an unexpected place, it was obvious they were cool. If they looked askance or sneered, well… I have always imagined that the "get some bellbottoms" hippie ended up working on Wall Street.
Eighteen years later, on September 11, 2001, I came out the front door of my Travis Heights home to take my dog for her morning walk and encountered my neighbor across the street. He looked pale and shaken. “Have you heard what happened?” he asked. No. “Two planes just crashed into the World Trade Center towers.”
The news hit me like those airliners had also crashed into my gut, being a New Yorker for 14 years when the twin towers were an inescapable landmark in the skyline, wayfinders you could spot if you came up out of the subway confused about directions. I’d been up to the observation deck, and eaten and gotten drunk at Windows on the World atop Tower Two a number of times, but none more memorable than that 15th anniversary of Woodstock with Wavy Gravy and Michael Lang.
I won’t speculate on whatever cosmic connection there may be between the two earth-shaking events. It simply just is.
When I pass through the gates at Zilker Park into ACL Fest on Friday, I do know that there is a connection I cannot deny with Woodstock, the event that engraved the rock festival into the American consciousness. There’s a lineage that runs from Max Yasgur’s farm to the Great Lawn at Zilker; ACL, Lollapalooza, Bonaroo and Coachella are the great-grandkids of Woodstock.
And even if I'm not so fond of festivals, I hope that I nonetheless have a grand ole time.
Austin City Limits Music Festival is one of those times when we give over a good part of our city to visitors. If you aren't attending but still want to have some fun this weekend, one option is to head out of town. Here are some nifty weekend getaways, suggested and tested by Austin Post writers, to put some distance between you and the multiplying masses.
Go Cowboy Cool in Bandera
Nestled in one of the more scenic corners of the Hill Country some 120 miles southwest of Texas, the “Cowboy Capital of the World” boasts a classic Texas Western-style downtown where the Frontier Times Museum summons up echoes of the era when Bandera was a staging point for cattle drives. Dude and guest ranches teem throughout the area, and you can go full-on cowhand in cabins and bunkhouses at the Twin Elm Guest Ranch or on the working stock operation of the Dixie Dude Guest Ranch, or laze in the more modern luxury suites and condos of the Flying L Guest Ranch after horseback riding, fishing and hayrides, and smack a small ball around on its 18-hole championship golf course.
Not to be missed on Saturday night is Arkey Blue’s Silver Dollar on Main St., where the homey honky-tonk's lovably eccentric country-singing coot proprietor Arkey Blue entertains with his Blue Cowboys, singing such catchy yet bizarre tunes as “Too Many Pills” and enough songs with Bandera in the title to fill a four CD box set. Sit at the table that Hank Williams carved his name into, toss back some cold ones, two-step, shuffle and waltz out on the dancefloor and know that you can’t be anywhere else but in the gawd damn State of Texas, y’all. – Rob Patterson
Go Camping in Central Texas
One of my favorite camping spots is within a couple hour drive is Enchanted Rock State Park, near Fredericksburg. Enchanted Rock is one of the most interesting geological features in the Central Texas area, as it’s part of a segmented ridge that was formed more than six million years ago. What you can see, visible for miles around, is the part of the ridge that rises above ground. The park features rock climbing as well as hiking trails, which run around, over and on top of the rock formations. The Loop Trail is the longest hike in the park and takes you around the base of the rocks, giving you several great viewing points. From the Loop, you can also access other trails, including the daunting Echo Canyon Trail.
Another perk this time a year is that the place is just overrun with deer. Unfortunately, they’re in search of food because it seems they associate humans with salty treats (wonder why!?), but they are pretty to observe.
Let’s say you’re more into trees and water than rocks though. Another state park within a couple hours is Pedernales Falls State Park, a 5,000-acre state park just east of Johnson City. The falls themselves are fantastic – water cascading over 3,000 feet of limestone, creating crevices, steps and caves that you can walk through, over and under. The falls alone are enough to spend half a day discovering, but the park also features miles of hiking trails, including the seven-mile Wolf Mountain Trail, as well as equestrian trails. My favorite part about this park are the bald cypress trees lining the river. They can grow up to 120 feet high and live up to 1,200 years; I’ve spent entire days simply staring at them in awe. It’s a worthy weekend getaway. – Stephanie Myers
Bald cypress trees abound on the Pedernales River.
Enjoy Romantic & Family Weekends in San Antonio
If you're looking to get out of town but remain in an urban milieu, San Antonio makes for a great two day trip. It's only 75 miles down Interstate 35 but offers a very different vibe than Austin – more Hispanic flavored, working class, and funky. My wife and I have used it as a "just the two of us" overnight getaway and as an inexpensive family vacation.
For a romantic outing, I suggest reserving a room at the Hotel Havana (room at left). This downtown historic building has been transformed into a cool hang by Liz Lambert, who designed the Hotel San José and Saint Cecilia in Austin. It also boasts a great restaurant called Ocho, the upper half of which opens onto the river. After dinner, take a stroll along the riverwalk (cheesy, yes, but pleasant too), or go over to the Observation Deck at the Tower of the Americas for a great view of the city (be sure to get there before they close at 11PM).
The next morning head out for a late breakfast at Guenther House, where they mill their own flour for their biscuits and waffles. It’s also right next to the Blue Star Contemporary Art Center, which is a multi-space venue that shows a variety of independent artists.
If you’re bringing kids to the party, come early on Saturday and visit the San Antonio Zoo. It’s an older zoo that has been remodeled but maintains an intimate feel. My kids love getting extra close to the hippos, especially during feeding time. One caveat, however, is that many downtown hotels, other than Hotel Havana, have been a mixed experience for us. One family alternative we often do is find a business hotel a little out of city center that has a good-sized pool. Our five-year-old thinks staying at just about any hotel is awesome. Throw in a pool and - ideally - a balcony and you're already a weekend hero.
Once downtown, of course a visit to the historic Alamo is considered de rigeur . While I’m not an Alamo buff myself, it is an interesting building, and a good way to school your kids on some gory Texas history (bonus, the Alamo has a live reenactment planned the weekend of ACL Fest). It’s also right next to a Ripley’s Believe It or Not “Odditorium” and a surprisingly cool wax museum (be sure to check out the 100-years of history mural, especially the Vietnam Era).
While some of the suggestions above can put a dent in the pocketbook, on other trips we’ve simply tooled around the older working class hoods, stopping at a taco stand or making a pit stop at a Santeria shop like Botanica Yemaya. What’s great about San Antonio is that it offers some of the big city fun but without the pretentiousness of Dallas or the headaches of Houston. It’s an easy way to feel like you’re in a different place but without the stress of getting there and back. - Cisco Ryder Gilliland
Wax Museum in San Antonio: photo courtesy user grantlairdjr via flickr
Try Budget Beds & BBQ Around Llano & Lake Buchanan
A weekend out of town that won’t bust the bank can be enjoyed just a little over an hour northeast of Austin. There are multiple cabin communities along the northernmost and largest of the unspoiled Highland Lakes chain. I’ve stayed at Cottonwood Cove in Tow (pronounced like “tao”) on the northwestern end, which has a few cabins right on the water (when its level is higher than in the current drought) from which you can toss a line from your porch and reel in your catch from the most abundant fishing lake of the Highlands.
The Dabbs Railroad Hotel in nearby Llano is a restored Victorian structure that remains true to its 1907 vintage. While closer barbecue purveyors like Franklin here in Austin and Kreuz Market in Lockhart get the media props, Cooper’s Old Time Pit Bar-B-Cue – where “It’s All About The Meat” – is thought by some to at least be their equal and possibly better. If you’re a voracious carnivore, sink your teeth into their sizable and scrumptious “Big Chop.” - Rob Patterson
----------------------
More in ACL 2012:
Be sure to check out our ACL Infected Zone map for Austin areas to avoid this weekend.
