Austin City Limits 2011, Day 3

The Austin City Limits Music Festival is finally over. Sunday didn't have quite the star power of the previous two days, but since there wasn't anyone I was overly excited to see, it allowed me to sample several bands on different stages throughout Zilker Park. I caught little bits here and there of: The Lee Boys, Death From Above 1979, Manu Chao La Ventura, Fleet Foxes, Bomba Estereo, Jack Ingram and Randy Newman (I saw half of his show). Most of the acts I couldn't really get into. One was country music (Jack Ingram) which I don't care for at all, nor do I like Latin music (Manu Chao). I watched most of Arcade Fire's closing set, but left about 15 minutes early to avoid the mad rush to the shuttles. If you left early, you could get to a shuttle pretty quick, otherwise it was easily a 90 minute wait.

It was a pretty fun experience overall, but it's not likely I would do the 3 day pass again. By the end of the day, it's pretty exhausting. It was nice to see a lot of old people in the crowd among the teenage masses, though.

Video - Austin City Limits 2011 - Stevie Wonder

Stevie Wonder singing "I Just Called to Say I Love You" at ACL, 2011.

Austin City Limits 2011, Day 2

Here's some pictures from day 2 of the Austin City Limits Music Festival. The kids came with us this time, so we spent some of the time watching kids bands like "Recess Monkey." We also caught Cee Lo, who wasn't that good. The highlight was the closing act, Stevie Wonder.

Video - Austin City Limits 2011 - Coldplay

Coldplay performing "Yellow" at ACL 2011.

Austin City Limits 2011, Day 1

Here's a few pictures from the first day of the Austin City Limits Music Festival. We didn't arrive there until close to 6pm, so we only caught two bands, Bright Eyes and Coldplay. I had never heard of Bright Eyes, and wasn't particularly impressed, but Coldplay put on an excellent show.

Ramblings #12

I was reading an old blog I wrote back in October of 2008, where I wrote that Barack Obama would become president by a landslide vote. I was right, of course, and I think now I can safely say that, even though it's 14 months away, Obama will lose by the same landslide in 2012. On Tuesday in New York, a Republican took the House seat that was recently vacated by disgraced democrat Anthony Weiner. What does it say when the Republicans start winning in places that always vote Democrat? It says that the Democrats are in for a horrendous loss next year.

But, you know, we deserve it. The Democrats have not done a good job. I've gone on numerous rants about Obama in previous blogs, so I won't keep beating a dead horse. It doesn't mean I'll jump to the dark side and vote Republican, though, and watching the GOP debate the other night just confirmed my beliefs that this party will never be for me. During one particular exchange, GOP candidate Ron Paul was asked if he would let a 30 year old man without health insurance just die if he was hospitalized from a terrible accident.

"Yes!" shouted several members of the audience, followed by laughter and thunderous applause.

To give Ron Paul some credit, he never actually said yes himself, but he kind of avoided the question, instead implying that maybe a "church" would help the guy out.

I don't want to get into health insurance again. I think I've already talked about that enough. I agree (to some extent) that "healthcare begins at the supermarket." People eat crap, and their poor health is a result of their own bad decisions. However, sometimes what you eat at the supermarket has nothing to do with medical emergencies. Healthcare is just one of many issues that I disagree with Republicans on. I also disagree with them on: taxes, abortion, gay marriage, military spending, regulations, climate change, wages and unions, etc. I could go on. I think the only issues where we see eye to eye are the death penalty and immigration reform. So, as much as I am disappointed with our current Commander-in-Chief, I won't sell out my beliefs just because I'm mad.

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The Texas drought is really wreaking havoc on our front yard and backyard, and since we're only allowed to water our lawn two days a week, there isn't really much I can do to save it. We've got some hideous looking cracks on our lawns. It almost looks like there's been an earthquake and the ground is opening up. It's going to take lots and lots of rain to fix this, and I don't see that happening anytime soon. We haven't had a good rainstorm here in months, and when it does rain, it's just for about 10 minutes.

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Sara is just tearing up 1st grade. She's gotten a score of "100" on every test that she has brought home. She even got "104" on one test, since she got the "bonus question" correct. I'm really proud of her.

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This weekend is the big "Austin City Limits" music festival. I'll post some pictures from the festival over the next several days.

(Picture: The GOP contenders for President. A scary bunch, to say the least)

Pictures of New York, 2001

As I mentioned previously, on my recent trip to Taiwan, I managed to salvage some pictures I took over the last 10 years, which included some pictures from England, France, and New York.

On the 10th anniversary of 9/11, I thought I'd share these pictures I took of New York the last time I was there, which was May of 2001. It seems pretty weird now that I was there just a few short months before the attack. I took several pictures from the top of the World Trade Center, but unfortunately, like the towers themselves, they didn't survive. There is one picture, though, where you can see them in the background.