Texas, Day 3

Still can't get the pics to load at the moment (our digital camera is more used to hooking up to a Windows XP machine and it's nothin' but Macs here) but I'll be showing the cream of the crop from the bunch when I get back. In the meantime, I can report that it was another action-packed day here in Texas...

My friend Deborah and I got in my rented Jeep about 10 this morning and headed to Austin. She got us on Congressional Avenue and I got some awesome photos of the Texas State Capitol. Then we headed over to the University of Texas at Austin campus, and Deborah got a pic of me standing in front of "The Tower". And yes, this is the building from which Charles Whitman shot and killed all those people. Which isn't really why I wanted to see it: it's always struck me as a great design for a building. But I couldn't disassociate being there from the history of the place, either.

After that, we got on I-35 and headed north to Waco, 'cuz there's something I've been bound and determined to do ever since I found out that I was going to this year's Butt-Numb-A-Thon in Austin: visit my brother-in-law Jonathan who's a seminary student at Baylor. About 1 p.m. we got to his apartment and hooked up with him, and we went to this place in Waco that serves up Chicago-style deep-dish pizza... which was the first time in my life that I'd had any. After that (and it was a lot of pizza, believe you me) we went to the Dr. Pepper Museum: Waco is where Dr. Pepper was invented and I think the whole state is pretty darned proud of that :-) Then Jonathan took us around Baylor: a school with more steeples than some entire towns that I've been too.

We got back to Jonathan's place, and we said goodbye for now (I'll be seeing him again in a few weeks). Then we got back on I-35 for the drive back to Austin. I dropped Deborah off at her home around 7 and then high-tailed it back to town. The reason? A get-together for the Butt-Numb-A-Thon people at some chili joint in downtown Austin. Took me awhile to find it but in the end I got there and met some of the Ain't It Cool gang: Nordling (will be posting a funny story about when he and I met when I get the pics up), Massawyrm, and then the man himself Harry Knowles! Will have a pic of Harry and me up soon too.

Then I came back here, and I'm gonna be hitting the hay soon 'cuz I'm gonna be getting up early tomorrow morning so that I can be at the Alamo Drafthouse (the Ritz one) at 10 for Butt-Numb-A-Thon. Which is where I and a few hundred other movie geeks will be spending the next 24 hours watching Lord-knows-what.

So this is the last report that I'll be filing 'til Sunday afternoon. Expect tons of good stuff that I'll be writing about when I get back :-)

Butt-Numb-A-Thon starts in 13 and a half hours. Here we go, fast and furious...

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First report from Texas

I arrived in Texas just after noon local time yesterday, flying in to the airport in Houston. On the flight from Orlando I saw the Gulf of Mexico for the first time in my life, New Orleans (got good pics of the French Quarter and the causeway across Lake Pontchartrain), offshore oil rigs, Johnson Space Center and the Astrodome, and then touched down in Houston. Waited there 'til 1:30 and took off for Austin. The girl at the car rental place recognized me from when my school board commercial ran on E!'s The Soup a few weeks ago!

The car rental people said that they didn't have too much to choose from at the moment. I said "Give me the most Texas-ish thing you got." The girl said "You want the big white Jeep." So that's what I'm driving.

I'm staying with friends in Travis County. If I'm not mistaken, this is the home turf of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Today I went down Highway 281 to San Antonio and visited the Alamo. Am having trouble uploading pics at the moment but hope to have them up soon.

Tomorrow I'm hitting Austin, then driving up to Waco to hook up with my brother -in-law. Butt-Numb-A-Thon starts at noon on Saturday.

This has already become far more an adventure than I could possibly let on right now.

More soon :-)

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4 days to Butt-Numb-A-Thon: Austin-bound!

Hee-hee-hee... not bad eh? I didn't have much time to do a perfect job on it, but ever since I found out that I'm going to the Butt-Numb-A-Thon film festival in Austin, Texas this year, I've had it in mind to do a spoof of Preacher: Gone to Texas (a really good graphic novel that I discovered some years ago). Just 'cuz it sounds cool to say "gone to Texas" like that, and this'll be my first time ever going there.

I'm not staying in some swanky hotel in Austin, either. I'll be staying with some friends who live outside of town, in an area notorious for scorpion infestations and whatnot. They tell me that I'm going to love Texas barbecue... which is not pork at all but beef. "Porkless barbecue ribs" ummm sounds like blasphemy to me. But you know, "when in Rome..."

Expect posts on this blog from Austin, San Antonio, maybe Waco, and a blow-by-blow after-action report on Butt-Numb-A-Thon over the next few days, including photos (well not from Butt-Numb-A-Thon 'cuz cameras aren't allowed 'cuz there's going to be some real top-secret unreleased movies going on in there :-)

The next time you hear from me, I will be somewhere in the Lone Star State: home of the Dallas Cowboys, the Alamo, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Ron Paul, Leatherface, millions of illegal immigrants, J.R. Ewing, Ann Richards, Howard Hughes, Gene Autry, Dale Evans, Charles "Tex" Watson, and world-famous Texas Pete hot-sauce!

(Actually, Texas Pete is made in Winston-Salem, North Carolina... but French Fries are from Belgium too, so go figure.)

See y'all on the flip side!

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