Austin or bust

Special thanks to our tour guide for taking this picture for me!

I got a chance to go to Austin for a few days. I was there primarily to interview for a job, but we'll see how that pans out here in the next week or so. All in all I feel pretty good about how the interview went and will continue to be hopeful until I hear otherwise.

Now my visit wasn't all work or an attempt to get work. I got a little bit of time to explore the fun city of Austin and one of the days I was there I spent on a Segway (the idea of me taking a Segway tour prompted my sister to call me either a mega or super nerd). I thought it was a blast. It was also a great way to see a new area, since we were traveling at about 10MPH. I think that the tour could have been better if we had a little ear piece so that we could hear our guide a little better, but all in all it was pretty good. We heard about deep musical history of the city and toured many of the "important" buildings in the city like a few hotels, the capital, and a couple of cultural sites. Did I mention that this was a great way to see the city? Being on the Segway lifts you up a few extra feet off the ground which gave an interesting perspective and removed the need to try and look around the rest of the people on the sidewalks. I wonder if this is how someone like Kevin Garnet feels as he is walking around regularly, but I digress...

I think that after being in Austin for a few days that this really is a place that the we would enjoy. The culture is laid back and unassuming much like I feel Seattle is. They also have tons of great food and some good local breweries in Texas. For now, cross your fingers while we wait and hear if I get the job that I want and I will update once we know more =)




Cruising through a neighborhood on the way back to the car!

Sports update...

The 2nd year and 1st year MBA students went to Charlottesville to play softball in UVA's annual MBA softball tournament. Our team went last year and got to the semifinals, but couldn't beat the 2008 team from UVA. This year much like last year we had a great time up in Charlottesville for the weekend with registration at a local Irish Pub and the second night at a great bar with food, drinks, and an opportunity to mingle with MBA's from around the country.

Once it got to game time the 2nd year team was poised to win. We had been practicing off an on to help get back in the swing of things and help people like me remember how to catch a ball. Day one during pool play we played four games and ended 2-2. We beat Harvard and Boston College, but lost to the 2008 UVA team and Kellogg. At this point it was 6 or 7pm and we were in the quarter finals for the playoffs. We had an interesting and fun opponent in Babson college, but we played well and made a clean sweep of all the schools from the Boston area...unfortunately in the morning we had drawn the 2008 team from UVA again for the semi-finals...we played well on defense except for one inning and that inning killed us. Not that it makes it any better, but the conditions weren't great (it had rained for most of the night so we were playing on all grass) and all of a sudden I couldn't catch the ball anymore. Oh well we played great, I had fun playing, and spending time with the team and some of the other teams.

After we got back from the tournament, a few days later, we had the intermural playoffs for volleyball. We were more successful in this en devour since we won and got some new t-shirts =) But, I wish we could have won one more match...we were one game away from beating the men's club volleyball team for a second t-shirt. Unfortunately, they rebounded after we played the best game we had all season to come back and beat us. It was fun playing volleyball again, but it would have been sweet to beat the club team.

Day Trippin'

While we are on the East Coast we decided that it would be fun to go to Atlanta for the day. Yes, the day...I know lots of other people have given us strange looks as we told them we were headed there for the day. But, when we looked at it there was only a few things we wanted to do, which included going to the Aquarium and the Coke factory.

The Coke factory was a fun and interesting historical tour with a bunch of memorabilia from all of Coke's history. As we walked through there was a introductory movie, a 4-D movie, an Andy Warhol section, an opportunity for tasting, and a gift shop. The 4-D movie was something we could have passed on and spent more time with Fizzy Bot the robot and in the Andy Warhol section. It was really neat to see and try all sorts of new flavors from around the globe. I forget how many flavors they actually had, but I do remember a number that weren't to my taste preference...

After a couple of hours at the Coke factory we were off to the Aquarium which is about a stones throw away. First on the list was another 4-D movie this time with fish...clearly we didn't learn our lesson as this was more programming that was designed for a considerably younger crowd. Ah well next time we might remember. The rest of place was amazing, but one of my favorite things in the big tank was the whale sharks! This place is definitely worth going to see. In fact, I would say that it is worth going out of your way to go see, but we are a little biased since we love the ocean and all that it has to offer.

After all that we grabbed a quick bite to eat and then back home. Great day!