You can NEVER go home again.

Austin has it's highlights, like the "biggest Mexican I have ever seen".

So, P30P is not winning a Pulitzer this week. It's just more incessant complaining on what used to be and what will never be again. Call it the Andy Rooney approach.

I spent twelve years of my childhood in San Antonio, where I learned my appreciation for good Tex-Mex and Spurs basketball. When you are young and "poor", it's the little things you tend to appreciate. As a perfect attendance award winner at Pecan Valley Elementary, we were awarded a free dinner at Pesos Cafe every six weeks we achieved the goal. The cheese enchiladas were great, but they were free and as an eight year-old. About 10 years ago, my parents and I went back to Pesos for the same traditional menu and ornate goofiness you would expect at a 20 year-old Tex-Mex restaurant.

"Welp, you can't go home again."

Those were the only words I remember my dad saying the whole time we were there. I'm sure he said some other important things, but this statement resonates for the depressing realization of the passing of time.

Fast forward (then hit rewind) to last weekend. Of course, as the timing pattern would have it, The Lovely and I would land in Austin for a third consecutive year for the last weekend of South by Southwest (SXSW). The tradition continues for us, but the insanity seems to exceed the previous years by indication of the local annoyance levels.

Sure, it was the perfect storm on Friday night with South-by out-of-towners roaming about and the old Thursday Night crew coming in from out of town as well. But when driving in from MoPac onto 5th Street under the cover of night...welp, you can't come home again...anymore.

Off the bat, you see this monstrosity scraping the formerly tranquil skies of Austin. Seriously, this is the biggest sore thumb I have seen in a while. It has to be 50-75 feet taller than anything else, if it's an inch. Once driving down 5th...it's absolutely ridiculous. It's the absolute opposite of "gun store, gun store, liquor store, gun store". It's high rise, retail space, parking garage, high rise, retail space, parking garage, rinse, later, repeat. Yeah, sure, California real estate is retarded (satire!) but that doesn't mean they have to develop downtown Austin like some gentrification experiment on speed.

I didn't recognize the place.

I hate to get on the old man platform, but it's pretty bad that ten years ago the UT Tower was on of the top five tallest buildings in the city...ten years ago! I don't know if I made up that stat up, but it sounds good. It was also the perception. The sleepy college town from the sixties and seventies grumbled with nineties expansion. Now you have...present day Austin.

Granted, I don't want to sound like the huff that complained about the Frost Tower or the DKR expansion. Austin is blowing up - has been for the last fifteen years. Slackers and professionals alike are still moving to the capital city in droves even if they don't have a job, a plan or any permanence to sustain living in the 512. If there's expansion, there has to be growth. I just didn't think it would be all vertical and saturating one zip code.

So, I did not go "home" last weekend. I was previously forlorn every time I had to leave my beloved Austin. Now, with the unrecognizable characteristics, Austin has become the ex-girlfriend that has a kid and never lost the baby weight. Oh well. I have my Dallas to fall back on.

Lessons Learned, my three things.
1) Uh, yeah...SXSW 2010 final score: a) crowd is either getting out of hand or b) locals are getting more and more crabby. I am scoring this a draw.
2) Sure, the food might be marginal, but Baby A's have fantastic margaritas. Remember kids, a cab or a DD is ten times cheaper than a night in the clink.
3) As much resistance as there is with Texans and toll rolls, Toll 1 should be a case study in how to do it. Stress-free, worry-free, check's-in-the-mail system that works for me and gets me where I need to be sooner than effing I-35.

For those that are unaware, I will be shifting to vampire mode starting this week. If you can't tell by the post time today I will be doing work overnight from here on until...I don't know when. It will be an interesting three months, especially with SANS, Beach to Bay and other training goodness. But nevertheless, if an email or text or phone call is in order, I will always answer the bat phone and respond to the bat signal - day or night. So, please bear with me as I haven't been this nocturnal since my wedding night. Talk later.

Several Random Topics All At Once

From this perspective, every topic is random

Let's be honest, I think I speak for everyone when I say that the first three months of oh-ten have been retarded (I used satire). On this eve-eve of St. Patrick's Day - the day he drove all those snakes from Ireland then we appropriately drink green beer at two bucks a pitcher (what?) - and on the eve-eve-eve of The Madness (what, you haven't filled out your seven brackets yet?), my brain and consciousness can only handle scattered thoughts and expanded Twitter entries. So, why don't we load this literal shotgun of scatter-shot and see what we hit, shall we?

I start with a question: would you rather have full job security with all the benefits you could think of, but have to work the absolutely worst shift known to man OR work for a spot with a shaky stance for continued employment with the hopes that someone might pick you like it's some grade-school dodge ball game? See, that's a trick question because I already made that call. However, the worst shift to man is terrible (ref: Cleveland Brown, "Terrrrrible"). Come 29 March, I will clock in...at 11PM. Yeah, you read that right. HEB shelf stockers have a better shift than I do. It's a 10-hour schlep with three on and two off. So, I'm like the fireman of cyber security...but it's not a 24-hour shift. Well, that parallel didn't make me feel better! Anyway, that's coming. At least I get to visit Boston before I turn into a vampire. But it's okay, sports fans. I signed up for this. But, I won't be doing this tour forever.

Responsibility is an awesome power because it gives you foresight such as, "hey, I think we should take a cab tonight." Might I say that cabs are brilliant. Whoever thought of cabs is a certified genius. I go out. I get silly. Someone drives me home. It's absolutely brilliant. It's so effective in it's simplicity that I kick myself for not using cabs earlier. Yeah, I will admit it. But, seriously, this cab thing is awesome.

Is anyone else in the camp of celebrity-news-makes-me-lose-brain-cells? I know I can't be the only one thinking, "Why do I care what Jessica Simpson thinks of Gabby Sidibe? Wait, how do I know who Gabby Sidibe is? Oh, never mind, I know why? Because she was on 'The Soup'. I watch 'The Soup' to shortcut all the terrible television out there so I don't have to suffer through it." I just can't be the only one. But seriously, why is Charlie Sheen's (his name is Estevez!) court appearance infiltrating coverage on POTUS's last push for health care reform? Granted, John Boehner has a Hollywood orange skin-coating...err...tan. But still, leave it out. Baby steps toward Idiocracy is not a winning formula.

I think everyone should go out to dinner on a school night. There is a 100% possibility that you will either end up with heartburn or a hang over, but sometimes enjoying other people's company on a night you wouldn't normally reserve such activities for, it adds that fear of, "oh, I have no idea how I am going to feel tomorrow, but damnit, I am going to have another scotch." Sure, the risk is there, but sometimes the reward is just getting out of your comfort zone, even for a few hours, to throw that hair back and feel like a man (or woman) of leisure. It's a great feeling, especially if you have accomplices.

I may have to go into a part two, but that's enough shotgun target practice for today.

Lessons Learned, my three things.
1) Nothing against my surrogate home town of Austin, but if you ever have to plan anything in that crazy city, DON'T DO IT DURING SXSW (no hyperlinks needed, just search austin360.com, wired.com or sxsw.com and you will understand the Charlie-Foxtrot that city is right now until Sunday).
2) Amazing that a miserly nerd can a) get a show on TELEVISION and b) scare the eff out of everyone simultaneously. Where's my agent?
3) This town does St. Patty's Day (weekend) right. Great job, Dallas Drunks.

So, sneak preview of next week's post...the Inglorious Basterds of Whiskey Bar are having a reunion. The only difference is...we all have WAGs (wives and girlfriends). Very...very...extremely interesting. Oh yeah, and it's during the last weekend of SXSW. Yeah, I am going to need to post this. Talk later.