Austin!
Oh how I love Austin. The sun! The bike rides! The frontage roads! The music! The gregarious people! The warmth! Oh it is so great. It was so great. I am going to try to get down there for a week every winter from now on. Well, there were a lot of reasons why I went on this trip. Firstly, to sell my bicycle that I left down there. Secondly, to escape to warm weather and sun. Thirdly, to get away from work while I transition jobs. And Fourthly, because although I hadn't realized it at the time, I needed to get out and do something exciting.
Prior to this trip, I had decided to give www.couchsurfing.org a try while in Austin. For those of you who do not know, couchsurfing is a concept where strangers act either as hosts and promote their abode's couch or sometimes even spare bedroom as available for other strangers acting as couchsurfers who surf from couch to couch while traveling. Although some thought it may be kind of awkward, I thought it was an idea worth trying, but I had no idea how incredibly awesome it would all turn out in the end.
Couch #1: Nick's Couch
...or should I say the cats' bed? Although I have stayed at random people's houses before in traveling to races and such, I hadn't done this couchsurfing thing before. Unfortunately, the owning couple of the house was off on vacation in the Virgin Islands (I guess paradise is relative for everyone). However, their housemate Nick was in town. I was quite surprised that although I had no references on the couchsurfing website, Nick simply left the keys for me that evening since he was working while I was arrving. The house was fantastic and undoubtedly had to be occupied by awesome people. Nick is a far more interesting man than I despite being about the same age. He works at a sausage food cart and has a pdx-ex-pat-now-living-in-Austin girlfriend. So he was out of the house more often than not.
But that was fine by me. The first day I car2go'ed out to the office and was at long last reunited with my Felt F75. And I realized that I had also taken the wheel/cadence sensor and watter bottle cages which I then promptly purchased over at Bicycle Sport Shop. The location of the couch was very close to the edge of town, so it made for an excellent home base for bike rides. During the four days I stayed there, I rode approximately 200 miles. I rode most of the way to Bastrop twice and just relaxed or pumped iron the rest of the time. It was such a great experience and although I didn't spend all the time with my housemate and didn't get to meet the owners, it was overall awesome altogether.
Couch #2: Aaron's Mini-Frat House
Only it was more awesome than a frat house in that two women and two men lived in the four bedroom house of awesomeness. I first met Aaron as we went to Winger's which is of course where all the cool UT college kids go. And it seemed like Aaron knew everyone there, ok maybe he didn't know 20% of the people there, but definitely everyone else. Aaron is at any given point in time doing something really cool. And this summer his coolness is going to be taken to higher levels as he participates in the Texas 4000. But in the meantime, he's going to school or hosting his Texas 4000 teammates over for some backyard firepit sessions.
I got the pleasure of going on a ride on the Lost Creek loop with Aaron where he proceeded to get his workout on. He recorded a "somewhat high" heart rate of 188 on the loop which required more zone 4 than I had planned in order to keep up. He is a naturally strong rider and that was enjoyable to see. Although I got sucked into doing some contract work that required me to miss some of the firepitting, Aaron was always welcoming and always smiles. Although he'll probably crush it on the biking part of the Texas 4000, he could probably use some additional help getting to his fundraising target, so click here to give him some money.
Zoom into the pic for the BEER PONG rules!
Couch #3: Ulf's
Ulf is the culmination of Austin hipness and technology. He lives in a meticulously organized apartment in quite possibly the most hip neighborhood in Austin. Although he is known to party from time-to-time, it was mid February which meant there was serious work needed in order for him to prepare properly for SXSW. Ulf is the type of person that could not simply just skim through a music guide of bands that were given a good review - no he reviews all 3,000+ bands in alphabetical order himself. Ulf has made a custom database that records every single band's relevant SXSW information - their bio, SXSW website, Myspace website, his own classification of genre and whether they make the cut of bands he may actually see. Since I was out and about, he was pleased that he could still be a good host and make good progress on his listening to at least 2-3 songs of every band. On Thursday night he was still in the E's, by Friday night he was working through the "Fat" artists like "Fat Pimp" from Dallas or "Fatima Al Qadiri" from NYC, and by my departure Saturday morning he was in the G's.
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