Austin Day 4

Today seemed almost anti-climactic in the wake of Schlitterbahn. First thing this morning I got a call from Julie, and we arranged to do lunch at that one Mexican restaurant up by Dell again. I forget what it's called, but it's on the south-bound service road, just south of 620 and I-15. Then I went over to Susie's and worked on her computer until she had to leave for work. She can't play DVDs on her machine—Grandpa forgot to install the necessary codecs when he gave her a new hard drive. So I fixed that. Sort of. Then it was lunch time. There was some pretty good food. Ryan (her fiancée) came along. I think I spent more time talking to him than to Julie. You know, I hadn't thought of it until today, but I wonder if he's a little uncomfortable with me. I mean, if my fiancée invited some old guy friend to lunch knowing there had been romantic interest however long ago, I would be uncomfortable. Anyways, it was a good lunch. And I just learned that Julie quit her job. Tired of the rat race. Ryan and I actually spent a while exploring career options for Julie, like coaching or physical therapy or something, and I can tell Julie felt uncomfortable about that kind of attention. Funny thing—I forgot my wallet. But I didn't even notice until I saw Ryan grabbing the check and was about to protest, only to find out that I didn't have a card to counter with.

I dropped back by Grandma's to grab some stuff to deposit at the Credit Union while I was down here. I went out to the one up at Parmer, only they were closed for the week, so I raced down to the one by Capitol Plaza. I also upgraded my Visa card to a Gold account, so now I've got better rates and a higher limit. Doesn't matter too much—it's just the $2500 limit was very restraining when I went to Europe and bought the PDA and other plane tickets all at the same time. I just barely missed rush hour traffic on the way home (cutting through the back streets on over to MoPac instead of heading on up I-35 probably helped there). Then I went back to Grandma's for a little food (she invited the missionaries and Michael & Aunt Linda over), but I had to leave part way through to get down to the Ultimate Frisbee game. Which, of course, was right near the credit union. Well, actually it was in a park just south of the old Airport—but close enough. It was pretty fun. It took a little bit of a power struggle between me and another guy on the team (who refused to run routes for me at first, always dropping back and asking for the dump), but I soon earned some respect as the best handler there. I'm sure it was a poor turnout (talent wise—number wise, we probably had 5 subs per team), though, because I can't imagine there aren't better handlers in the Austin area. And my defense was actually pretty good too. I wonder if the altitude change was helping my endurance or something.

Anyways, that lasted until dark. Then I went home, showered, and called up Susie/Amy to find out what's up. Except Amy was working. She was supposed to call me so we could hang out before I left. But she didn't. So I'm a little upset about that. But I did get to spend quality time with Susie. We went down to some coffee shop off the Drag. It was a pretty cool place. We sat outside and waited for a few of her friends. It was a great evening. Not too hot or humid. A slight breeze. Her friends came about 11:00 or so, and we chatted for a while. A guy and a girl, and honestly I've already forgotten their names. They were kind of the Gothic type—Susie warned me they'd be really intense and depressing, and I told her I was used to it, but they really didn't end up being too weird or depressing tonight. Mostly just mellow. Spent some time talking about a movie short the guy wants to do. Also looked at photos. And we left probably about 12:00 or so. Then I came home, and Susie went to say hi to some friend. I've got an early flight tomorrow, so bye.

Posted June 10, 2003 (04:43 PM) | Comments (1)