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Thursday, 3 March 2016 - Not my commute

 
Working from home certainly has its perks, probably the biggest of which is not sitting in this shit for several hours a week. Instead, my commute consists of rolling out of bed at 8:59am, and walking to the other end of our apartment in time for a daily 9am conference call hehe. Incidentally, this is Texas State Highway Loop 1, a 25-mile (41km) highway that traverses west Austin. It's better known locally as "MoPac" after the Missouri Pacific Railroad, which has tracks running along the median further up the highway. The street we live on loops off of MoPac which makes it a really convenient little spot for driving anywhere, outside of rush hour that is.
 

Wednesday, 2 March 2016 - Happy birthday Texas!

 
Fun fact of the day: modern-day Texas used to be part of Mexico (back when Mexico was a much larger country having recently declared its independence from the Spanish Empire), until today in 1836 when Texas declared its independence to become the Republic of Texas. Ten years later it was annexed into the United States of America as its 28th state, as the US continued to grow west. History is interesting.
 

Monday, 29 February 2016 - Work for Free Day

 
Nice little Google Doodle for leap day today. I always feel as though I'm working an extra day for free during leap years, because I am. If, like me, you're paid a fixed annual salary (as opposed to a hourly wage), your salary doesn't increase by a day to compensate for the extra day in a leap year, so we're all sitting here today working for the man, for free. Now get back to work while you ponder that.
 

Sunday, 28 February 2016 - River cruise

 
Food trucks are a big thing in Austin (as they are in New York), and this bunch of about half a dozen are a short distance from our apartment selling everything from greasy burgers to French toast. Good stop for lunch before a bike ride.
 
This is where my tire went pop a couple weeks ago, so Kristina and I headed back here to pick up where we left off.
 
 
This is the Colorado River which meanders through Downtown Austin, not to be confused with the other Colorado River which is one of the principal rivers of the Southwestern United States (and which we saw a lot of during our US road trip). This Colorado River here only exists in Texas, but still spans over 862 miles (1,387km).
 
 
While apartment hunting we did look at this apartment complex here, perched right on the river. The apartments were nothing great though, and none were available on the water anyway.
 
After cruiksing along the river for a few miles, we crossed over and headed back down the other side. Nothing too strenuous while we both get our bodies back into the cycling frame of mind :)

Saturday, 27 February 2016 - Trust me, I mostly know what I'm doing

 
 
I pulled my first car apart, I pulled my second car apart, I pulled the Fusion apart (my third), and now I'm pulling Kristina's car apart. After almost a year of having satellite radio and satellite navigation in the Fusion, Kristina's new car has neither of those and she misses them.
 
So I spent the whole day pulling her dashboard to pieces, threading and hiding cables everywhere, and putting it all back together again so Kristina can listen to Justin Bieber apologizing hehe. Seriously though, satellite does put ordinary terrestrial radio to shame, so fair enough.
 
I also wired up a charger and mount for her phone in lieu of navigation - kind of a necessity in a big new city. So that's my husbandly duties taken care of for the time being.

Friday, 26 February 2016 - Chimp shit

 
I love YouTube, and this video here is one of the funniest I've ever seen. It's two minutes of wild chimps going ape shit (pun intended) at themselves in a mirror, thinking they've encountered other chimps invading their turf hehe. Enjoy :)
 

Wednesday, 24 February 2016 - After work burn

 
After the front wheel of my bike blew up last week, it's now got a decent set of tires on it and is back in action. So, after work tonight I gave my very unfit legs a quick 12-mile (20km) burn around Downtown and back. It's not exactly Manhattan, but then again I don't think anywhere else in the world quite compares. Incidentally, the bridge on the left with the graffiti all over it is a rail bridge. You'd need a pretty large pair of balls and/or a pretty small brain to walk along that just to spray-paint your name (or whatever it's meant to be).

 
 
Not exactly Manhattan traffic either, which is actually a negative for me hehe. Half the fun of cycling through New York (or any big city) for me is the traffic. Anyway, this is Congress Avenue which cuts Downtown Austin into east-west halves, and is interrupted by the Texas State Capitol here. Austin is the capital city of Texas, so this is where the state's legislature and governor are based.
 
Nice we area surrounding the capitol. I haven't gone into much detail yet but Austin is home to a little over 900,000 yeehaw'ing Texans (and me), making it the 11th-largest city in the United States. Its greater metropolitan area is home to 1.95 million, and the state of Texas itself is home to 27.5 million making it the second-most populous US state (behind California with 39 million). In terms of size, Texas ranks second behind Alaska (one of the least populous states). Anyway, after just 12 miles I was completely stuffed, having barely touched a bike in over seven months. The legs still have plenty of strength and power in them but no stamina. A few more of these rides will take care of that though, after which I'll be able to start exploring further afield.

Sunday, 21 February 2016 - The weather gods

 
 
A while back Kristina and I took a little sunset stroll along Barton Creek here, which winds its way past the back of our apartment and eventually to the Colorado River in Downtown Austin. A seven-mile trail (including trails for mountain biking) follows the creek which is supposedly one of the top hiking trails in Texas. Not bad to have in your back yard!
 
My bike is still out of commission waiting for new tires, so Kristina and I decided to spend the day exploring the creek. But, after several weeks of endless sunshine, the rain gods decided today was the day to grace us with their presence, so that was the end of that idea. All in good time.

Saturday, 20 February 2016 - Civic duties

 
This year is the last of Obama's second and final four-year term as US president, so next January he's out. I don't know how much coverage this gets outside of the US (hopefully very little, because it's a bit of a shit-show), but for the next few months the country will be in the midst of voting for the presidential nominees that will represent the two major political parties (Democratic and Republican) in the general election this November. On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton (yes, former president Bill Clinton's wife) is in a tight race with Bernie Sanders, who at 74 years old looks as though he could keel over and kick the bucket at any moment. On the Republican side, well, it really is a who's who of idiots. No less than 17 candidates threw their hat in the ring (compared to just three on the Democratic side), including Jeb Bush (former president George W. Bush's little brother - Lord help us), Ted Cruz (a senator from Texas who looks like a serial killer), and none other than Donald Trump. Yes, Donald Trump is running to replace Obama as the next president of the United States hehe. As bemusing as that sounds, Trump is actually my pick of the lot. This country's economic state and national debt is a disgrace, and smacks of prolonged mismanagement, inefficiency, and blatant waste. Rather than having some life-long politician continuing the trend, I would really like to see a politically-incorrect and business-oriented mind take the reins for a while and see what happens. And it seems I'm not alone. Of the 17 candidates that started, only six still have active campaigns and Trump is looking very likely to actually win the Republican nomination. However, the serial killer is close behind in second place, so we'll see.

Anyway, each state has its own voting schedule for this process, and voting is currently open in Texas. I'm not eligible to vote since I am not (yet) a US citizen, but Kristina took care of her civic duty this afternoon and put a tick a box. Presidential nominees aside, various other positions are up for voting as well such as representatives for Texas in the US House of Representatives, district judges, and county chairmen such as Mr Dickey here. The problem is you can't not vote for these positions which seems ridiculous given I'm sure that 90% of people going in to vote haven't heard of any of them, nor give much of a shit. So, good move by Dickey to plant his name outside the polling booth so at least people know his name.

Actually, as I write this, Jeb Bush (initially presumed to be the guy who would win the nomination) has just now announced that he's suspending his campaign, having received very few votes from the key states in which voting has closed. Thank Christ for that - I really think we could do without another Bush in the White House, sending us into more wars we have no business or reason to be involved with (a la his brother and father).

Wednesday, 17 February 2016 - Perks

 
I took this shot in Saint Lucia about 18 months ago (which made for a good Valentine's Day canvas for the living room wall). This was just one of the many incredible trips Kristina and I were able to do at least in part thanks to the perks of her being a hot-shot travel agent in New York. Well, since moving to Austin, Kristina has found more work as a travel agent, at least temporarily while she pursues other potential opportunities in the travel industry. Either way, we're hoping to be able to capitalize on a few more those travel perks in due course. We have nothing planned just yet since we're still solidifying our situation here (not least of all our finances having just forked out for a four-month road trip, new furniture for our new apartment, a second car, new bikes, and all the rest of it), but stay tuned!

Monday, 15 February 2016 - Bang!

 
 
For Valentine's Day yesterday Kristina and I decided to head out on our flash new bikes and go exploring. Well that turned out to be short lived. Just a few miles into the ride, while slowly meandering along this path here that follows the Colorado River through Downtown Austin, my front tire exploded hahaha! Amid people sitting, jogging, walking their dogs - BANG! At least a few of those people let out screams hehe. I didn't know what it was at first until I noticed my front tire was hanging off the rim.
 
Fast forward to today and it's a public holiday (President's Day / Washington's Birthday), but most retail stores are still open including Kristina's, so I had planned to spend the doing some more exploring on the bike. Instead I drove up to Kristina's work to meet her for lunch and check out this nearby creek she'd told me about. I haven't taken photos of it yet but this looks similar the creek that our apartment balcony overlooks. Not a bad little spot to chill out and feed your face but very little water. We've been in Austin over five weeks now and have had absolutely no rain in that time (in fact we've barely had any clouds in the sky either), which doesn't bode well for the water levels this summer. As for my bike, I'd already ordered a new set of tires for it (from Germany of all places) that will be much better suited to the punishment they'll get from me, so I'll try again once they get here.

Sunday, 14 February 2016 - Valentine's shake

 
 
Kristina and I were in Christchurch less than two months ago over Christmas and New Year's to visit my family, and I did wonder if we might get another quake during our two weeks there. However, having not had a sizeable quake in quite some time, it was starting to look as through the long string of repetitive quakes that started with the two big ones in 2010 and 2011 (that all but destroyed my once-beautiful home) might finally be over. Unfortunately, that doesn't appear to be the case. A decent 5.7 quake shook the city and the whole South Island right in the middle of Valentine's Day, and was centered in the same area as the 2010/11 quakes. Seismologists have determined this quake is yet another in the aftershock sequence that began with those quakes, and Christchurch is likely to get another 5.0-5.9 quake within the next 12 months. Despite some minor damage, and a series of cliff collapses that had couples picnicking on top (like these two) and people on the beach below, there have been no major injuries reported. Minor aftershocks continued into the night as some parts of the city are back in cleanup mode. Really, really discouraging.

Friday, 12 February 2016 - Free parking

 
If this kid was a little older, something tells me we'd be friends.
 

Thursday, 11 February2016 - My kinda winter

 
 
February in Texas - 26 degrees (79F for my American viewers).
 
February in New York - air temperature of -2 but feels like -8 (18 F) with the wind chill. Three years of that crap was enough for me!

Tuesday, 9 February2016 - Lemons

 
A little over a week ago we bought Kristina a 2013 Ford Focus, purchased second-hand from the dealership. It's one owner put 47,000 miles on the clock, which is higher than I would have liked but that's pretty average for a car that age in this part of the world with its Interstates and long commutes, and we talked the dealer down to $10K for it. Anyway, the car drove fine for the first several days but then started to sporadically crap out between gear changes while upshifting (i.e. while accelerating). At the point when the transmission would normally shift up to the next gear, it instead effectively put itself into neutral for a second (which sent the revs up pretty high, depending on how hard you had your foot on the gas) and then finally engaged the gear. Eventually the check-engine light came on. I have a scanner to pull the code(s) that triggered the engine light, and sure enough the code is transmission related. So we were back at the dealer at the crack of dawn this morning to return their lemon. As is usually the case, the car has stopped playing up now that it's going to the mechanic, but at least we have the check engine light and transmission code to point at. So, my new bike (below) - back in the shop. Kristina's new car - back in the shop. Not having much luck here.

Friday, 5 February2016 - I want to ride my bicycle

 
After more than, umm, seven months of not riding a bike - one of my greatest joys in life - I finally picked up a new bike tonight. And first thing tomorrow morning, it's going straight back to the damn shop. While putting it together it looks like they've somehow managed to completely strip one of the two bolt holes in the front forks that holds the front brake caliper in place, so the caliper is free to move around. That's no easy feat, but these clowns have managed it. This is after they called me earlier this week to tell me it's ready, only to then realize it actually wasn't, but not before I'd fought my way through rush-hour traffic to go get it. I gave them an earful for that, and now they're going to get another one tomorrow.
 

Thursday, 4 February2016 - Standard

 
Quick trip out to IKEA tonight to buy a lamp. Standard.
 
Evidently someone else also made a quick trip to buy some crockery. Too bad we didn't just need a couple dinner plates and a bowl - could have grabbed what was left of these for free.
 
 
They say everything's bigger in Texas, and for the most part it certainly seems to be, but not this cinnamon bun.
 
That's too bad.

Wednesday, 3 February 2016 - Newest member of the family

 
The public transport in and around New York, albeit somewhat adventurous at times, is awesome. Down here in Texas though, a car is sort of a necessity. After deciding that sharing one car between the two of us probably wasn't going to work out, I bought out Kristina's share of the Fusion (which now has its own little carport) and we picked her up a little 2013 Ford Focus to run around in instead. So now the Fusion has a little brother, and we're just a regular old Ford family :)

Monday, 1 February 2016 - Change of scenery (and temperature)
After a three-month hiatus from this website, I'm back at it again :) The break was partly due to circumstance (more on that in a bit), but mostly it was because I was completely and utterly burned out from almost four months of tirelessly taking and processing a few thousand photos during our USA and Canadian road trip, all while keeping this site up to date at the same time to thoroughly document it all. Afterwards I really just needed to put the camera down for a while and give us both a rest, although it's been a longer while than I anticipated.

I already had a job lined up before Kristina and I left New York, as a home-worker based, well, wherever I happened to be. Upon arriving in San Antonio at the end of the road trip to stay with Kristina's folks, we had two weeks to ideally find an apartment in Austin and get ourselves moved in before my first day back at work. We immediately set about apartment hunting, and after a long day spent in Austin checking out nine different apartment complexes, we narrowed the choices down to just two: a more expensive option that ticked all of the boxes and more, and a cheaper option that didn't tick all of the boxes but would have sufficed and made more financial sense. Well the cheaper one got snapped up the very next day, so we immediately snapped up the only option left that we really liked. The apartment was one of twelve in a brand-spanking new building in an already long-established complex consisting of about a dozen apartment buildings altogether. It was a two bed / two bath on the top (third) floor, right on the end of the building that got all of the sunlight throughout the day, had a big wrap-around deck out back, and so much space (close to 1,200sqft or 110sqm) that it made our little studio apartment in New York (350sqft or 33sqm) seem like a walk-in closet. Oh, and it had a walk-in closet too ;) Being on the top floor it also had high vaulted ceilings, which made it feel even more spacious. With the paperwork and up-front financials taken care of, we were given the all clear to move in the weekend before I started back at work, which was the weekend of October 31st. Perfect! Or so we thought.

A few days later we were told the apartment would not be ready until the following weekend due to last-minute construction delays. Then we were told another week. Then we were told December. Then we were told some time after New Year's hahaha! So week after week we got messed around, and had we not been so fixated on this particular apartment we would have bailed, got our deposit back, and looked elsewhere. But instead we waited it out. These delays were made all the more inconvenient by the fact I was now working again, from Kristina's parent's dining room table hehe. Furthermore, it didn't make a lot of sense for Kristina to start seriously job hunting and driving back and forth to Austin (a 150-mile / 240km round-trip from San Antonio) for interviews, so she has been unemployed for a lot longer than she'd hoped. At least we weren't living out of a hotel. Eventually in mid-December we were finally given the all clear for the weekend before Christmas, but Kristina and I were heading back to New Zealand for Christmas and New Year's to spend it with my family, so instead we finally moved in three weeks ago on January 9th (two days after we got back from New Zealand, after 24 hours in transit). We saved ourselves two months of rent at least.

 
 
Before leaving New York we sent ten boxes down to Kristina's parents in San Antonio to store for us, in addition to the dozens of other boxes they had already been storing for us from Kristina's bridal shower almost three years ago (which didn't make sense to lug up to New York since we were always intending to come back to Texas at some point). I had also amassed a lot of stuff for what would be my new office in the apartment, which also sat around taking up room and gathering dust while we were continuously delayed. It all fit in the back of the U-Haul just fine though, and our new wrap-around deck doubled as our personal wrap-around skip for the first few days hehe.

 
Fast forward three weeks to today, and we're finally all settled in! We had already ordered furniture for the whole apartment back in San Antonio, and after hanging our various goodies on the wall and taking care of a few loose ends, it's nice have a home again (albeit a much quieter one than we had in New York :) So, a quick virtual tour: dining area and living area (with its vaulted ceilings) looking towards the back of the apartment, kitchen off to the right, and a 60" telly in the distance - nice!
 
 
No shortage of useable space in here, but if I did have one gripe...
 
...it's that the kitchen is rather on the small side, which for a budding chef like me is a bit of a bummer. However, every apartment we looked at seemed to be the same in this regard. At least I don't have to store my clothes in here like I did in New York hahaha!
 
 
King-size bed! Kristina can toss and turn and fart all night, and I barely notice :)
 
While our kitchen in New York doubled as my own personal walk-in closet, here were have an actual real one hehe.
 
 
And here we have my new place of business, and also the guest bedroom (that's a queen-size sleeper there). Not exactly the same view I had from my 37th-story window seat in Manhattan, but it'll do :)
 
 
When I've had enough of being cooped up working inside, I bring the work laptop out here instead. And while it's below freezing in New York right now and the place is covered in thick snow and ice courtesy of a massive winter storm last weekend, it was a balmy 75 degrees (24 C) here today, which is set to continue into next week. Now this is more like it!
 
 
It's not a Manhattan view, but it's still a view :)
 
And this is our (new) building. Our apartment is on the far end up the top, and behind me are covered carports for our flash road-tripping car. I just recently found out that this building was a replacement for the original, which caught fire a couple years ago after some clown in one of the second-story apartments started cooking something in the middle of the night and then fell asleep (probably drunk). He later awoke to find his apartment engulfed in flames, jumped off his second-floor deck and broke both his legs, but still managed to run off into the night hahaha! The building was a write-off and had to be gutted and rebuilt.

So that's what we waited two months for. Could have been worse - our neighbors downstairs waited four months and lived in temporary accommodation for a month at a time! I'll take more photos of the apartment complex at some point, which even has its own pool area and gym, and for all this we're still paying less in rent than we did in Manhattan hahaha! I'll also get some snaps of our new neighborhood which is located just a few miles from downtown Austin in the Spyglass - Barton's Bluff area (named for the two main streets in the neighborhood, of which we're on one of them - Spyglass Drive), and backs onto an awesome green belt that winds along a large creek. Good stuff! As for Austin, I'll talk more about that once I actually get out and start seeing it for myself. I ordered a new bike last week which should be here sometime this week, and then the exploring of yet another new home starts yet again.

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