I guess I do love Texas. Who knew.

Best pork sandwhich in all the South at everything you ever wanted to order on the menu, open 24-7, Kerbey Lane: $7

Best beef tacos in all the South at crazy bright lights and Corvettes coming out of the side of the wall at Chuy's: $7.50

Best raspberry ice cream made by Amy's Ice Cream and free wi-fi at cozy, brick walled, low lighting, open 24-7 Mozart's Coffee: $3.10

Realizing you should have been born and raised in Austin simply because of the food and nothing to do with the over-abundance of burnt orange t-shirt wearing Longhorn fans: Priceless.

I'll take the everything burrito

I really need to bring Lyndsie with me more often when I need to run errands, find the best hole in the wall taco shops, improperly load the back of work vehicles so as to hear a constant rolling and smashing sound while driving, get around speeding tickets in school zones, and intensify the out of control rage from other drivers on the road.

If you happen to be driving down Palm Ave. in Chula Vista take note:

* Buses do actually pull over at their bus stops
* Beware of honking drivers behind you when buses stop at said stops to acquire and drop off passengers
* Understand there is nothing you can do to get around the bus and learn to be at peace with incessant honking behind you
* Come to terms with the fact that when you start messing with this unreasonable driver after you've passed the bus by slowing down to merge on the freeway and giving him two thumbs down out each side of your vehicle, you will either a) be very pleased or b) very unsatisfied with end result, which will be:
*Him speeding up to pass and cut you off, angrily rolling down his window, sticking his own thumbs down out the window and then quickly flipping his hand into what I will refer to as "the bird"
*If you yourself happen to be with Lyndsie, you will probably be a) quite pleased.

Highs and Lows

Whenever I have dinner with Heidi and Kevin and the kids, I have the priviledge of being a part of 'highs and lows'; i.e. today ______ was my high and ______ was my low. On Tuesday, even though I wasn't having dinner at home and had no reason to report highs and lows, I was searching in my head for a high, and couldn't find one. It seemed like an altogether "craptacular" day, as I was counting down the days until my head spun completely off my body.

However, when I got home I heard a recap of a comment Owen made over dinner. "We don't have four people in our family, we have five! What about Katie?"

That is what I like to call my high of the day.

Fun Toys

So I could have done this way better in Photoshop, but I couldn't resist playing with this picture here. I knew it belonged on the front of Sports Illustrated the moment I saw it on my camera (I think Barry actually took it at the retreat before I got my camera back).

Utata

This past weekend, a few of us in the Utata photography group in Flickr.com decided to hold San Diego's first official Utata meet-up. Similar to a round-up, but without all the horses and stinky hay.

We (Katie, Susan, and Andrew) got together at Peet's Tea and Coffee, and officially deemed Saturday, September 16, 2006, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., the life-giving time of the weekend. (well, that added with a Lost marathon, taking pictures and tennis with Doug, and time with old friends really made it an all-around all star weekend).

Andrew is bascially a sucessful 55 year old man trapped in a 21 year old body. Oops, you're secret's out to the five people who read this blog - sorry Andrew. Susan leads a full life of political campaigning and finding passion in seemingly everything she's involved in. People who can make me laugh, stay engaged in conversation for three hours straight, and lead me to believe that a parking ticket could really matter less in the whole scheme of things, are more than alright in my book.

NOTE: If you park under a sign, make sure to read the fine print that might just say "One Hour Free Parking", otherwise you too might leave your three hour life-giving session with a fun little yellow envelope holding a $30 parking ticket.

NOTE (2): Find something you love. Find people who love the same thing. Get together with those people, even if it's just once a month. You will find your passions and dreams will be stirred to the point of fizzing over, and you will have no choice but be pressured into following your dreams.

Today is National Talk Like a Pirate Day

If I was a pirate, I think my name would be something classy like Lady Kate, and I don’t think I’d go around saying things like “arrrrr matey” or “blimey!” for fear of seeming too cliché.* But I would hunt treasure and probably call it booty, because that would just make me giggle.

Also, I’d understand the whole point of the treasure hunting lies in the hunt, not the booty itself, just as I did last night. I recently decided to win the girlfriend of the year award by purchasing a GPS unit for Doug, fully equipped with waterproofing and fire breathing capabilities. Little did I know I would create a monster, and I’m not only talking about Doug.

If you haven’t heard of geocaching, know that it’s something I’d normally make fun of people for doing before I learned the whole story. I’d assume it was for granola eating hippies and leave it at that. However, suffice it to say, I love it . . . and this is where the booty comes in . . .

Basically, you go to the website, type in an area of the world, and learn that there are possibly tens of hundreds of secret treasures hidden all over the place. Each geocache will have exact coordinates, which you will then plug into your GPS, and voila, you have yourself a hunt, or as the nice people at geocaching.com like to call it: “hiking with a purpose”.

I seriously felt like a kid again, traipsing around in the dark with our flashlights, digging through foliage and giant spiders with our bare hands to find 1) the smiley face box and 2) the long pole, each with treasures hidden inside – the point being to leave something and take something. Sure the whole, “don’t we look like we’re going to rob someone out here with our flashlights digging through property in Rancho Bernardo?” ran through our minds, but the hunt won out.

So maybe when it came down to it, yes, upon finding the booty I probably would say things like “arrrrr” and “blimey!” despite the cliché-ness within the pirate community.

*If you can’t beat ‘em, you might as well join ‘em.

A little slice of heaven