The Trail of lights is uniquely Austin, working or non working. Its a little small, a little cheap, and very different. First there was more Halloween and non Christmas related lights and decor than anything. Truly a celebration or attempt at a celebration of light then a celebration of Christmas. Second there was a FREE SPEECH zone where Christians could yell at the heathens and vice versa. Unfortunately there was only one guy and the Austinites didn’t feel the cold fury of hell raining down upon them. Thirdly there was the yule log, basically a hole in the ground dug by a back hoe with a giant tree in the middle burning. It gave off a lot of heat, unfortunately that was of no use on the 75 degree night we decided to go on.

I think my favorite part of the whole adventure was the very end, when you go to the Giant man made pole with lights on it, slightly if you squint resembling a tree. Basically the point of this “Section” is to eat as much of the AMAZING kettle corn as you can and then go into the middle of the Tree and spin in circles to make yourself dizzy from the lights, which conveniently are laid out in a spiral fashion. Coincidence? Think not.  I give super props to the PROFESSIONAL kettle corn staff, as I haven’t seen that kind of magic from a food in a long time. It had the perfect combination of salty and sweet. Simply amazing.  I am still in wonder of its greatness.

All in all, the Trail of Lights was uniquely Austin. It wasn’t something that you would take awe in, except the kettle corn, but its something that you do. Everyone in the neighborhood is there and why not go and hang out!

Today i went to a little Bar-B-Que, held by the awesome Central City Group through the Austin City Life (a.k.a the Church I am now attending). It was really good food, awesome sausage, some Cajun thing that i have never eaten, and plenty of drinkage (albeit with Styrofoam cups).  I have noticed that people in Austin claim to want to be green. There is a bike movement in the city to go green, people have their own bags for groceries, carpooling, you name it we have it, but this city has a MAJOR Styrofoam addiction. I have never in my whole life seen so much of this substance that will exist in its current form for CENTURIES and people in Austin LOVE it. Whatever. Anyhow, i am also preparing for my trip to South Padre. This should be good. A different part of Texas i have yet to explore. We are staying in the Days Inn, but on the 4th we should be going to see a friend of Stephs play in his band at like Dr. Frogs… or something like that. Then on Sunday i think we are not going to make it to church and go to Schlitterbhan. I know, I know, it could be horribly crowded and disgustingly overloaded with little kids. All i say is…. WHO CARES. I am going anyways.

I moved to Austin for a job, but i think the job could only exist in a handful of cities in the United States. The job is National Instruments. Its a maker of hardware and software to help engineers create, design, and test innovative solutions to their problems. This is not really why i came, however, i came because it was an opportunity for me to have fun while working, to open my mind and meet new and exciting people. I am an applications engineer so i help people solve their problems, i do that for 5 hours a day, for the rest of the day i talk to people, i network, i work on side projects, i do things. Its exciting, its new, its weird. It has a character of the City that it calls home.

Speaking of the City, Stephanie and I went to the Round Rock Express baseball game. When we got there, we spent our last 5 dollars, literally last 5 as the last dollar was paid in loose change, for parking. We walked up to the ticket counter and stood in line and debated which of the cheap seats we wanted, the 7 or the 6 dollar BERM seats. As we were waiting this lady came up to us, i thought she was going to sell us some tickets, which would have been acceptable if we had cash, but NO she wanted to give us her BERM tickets. We later found out these BERM tickets were actually grass seats and watched as Eric Gange gave up 2 runs in 2/3 innings in the first. a beer, a hotdog, and a funnel cake later and it was all over. We lost. Have no idea of the score, because we left before it was over. Tripple A baseball may not be very glorious, but atleast i got to see some kids run over old ladies and elbow another little kids teeth out, all for the pursuit of the glorious slingshot T-Shirt.

Saturday, me and 7 other companions of mine went out San Marcos for an exciting tubing trip. It was at some place called Don’s Fish Camp or something like that. You basically drive up to Don’s Farm, where Don is there to personally meet you and give you directions to park. Pay 5 dollars per person to get in and then pay 10 dollars a tube later on. After paying for a tube, we stood around for about 45 minutes waiting for a yellow school bus driven by a man bent on suicide to pick up about 25-30 boozed out college kids to drive up the river. In this crazy bus our excited shirtless guys openly drinking anything from keystone, budlight, to naty light, girls wearingskimpy bikini’s , and beer cans strewn throughout the bus. It was a hot sweaty mess as my sweaty back from the 95 degree heat peeled against the Lycra school bus seats. After we survived only what i can describe as Car Chase speeds through dirt country roads, we arived at a small bridge where we and our floatation devices (plain black intertubes) were released. We deposited our cooler in a specialty floatation device (black intertube we black piece of plastic zip tied too the bottom) and got to floatin. It was good time though, as i got to know Matt, who works with me and is in my start group, eric who is my mentor, jen (matts gf), Kate (jens best friend), Jack (Matt’s friend from Vandy), Nick and R&D guy from NI, and Brian (the intern that Kate is trying to get with). We discussed college sports, work, and anything else down the line. I got a little burnt under this Texas sun, but only on my back which is surprising as i was face up in an intertube the whole time. We were then going to go to a burger joint called Franks recommended by the owners son James who we met while rope swinging into the river, but it was closed to 8:00 when we got there, so we at freebirds. Amazing. Poor Steph got sick and wasnt able to come so she was kinda mad, but it happens. I hope we get to go again and she gets to experience the greatness that is Don’s fish camp. Lol.

Today, Steph and I went to Austin City Life, an amazing church that we have been going to the past few weekends. It is a church in a small theater called the Hideout in the middle of downtown Austin, on Congress right before the capital building. I originally found the church by google searching a few keywords that i used to describe the Journey a church that i belonged to in St. Louis.  Such words as Community, Biblical, City, Worship, etc, and amazingly ACL showed up. The people at Austin City Life are amazing. Service is run by Jonathan Dodson, who reminds me alot of Derrin Fitzpatrick. He is an approachable, nice guy that sees the church much like how I think i do. A church full of sinners meant to give worship to God. I think he sees what i call the “New Church” a church dedicated to teaching Gods word and working with all sinners to come closer to christ, not just some sinners. This week Jonathan called out Joel Osteen for bringing a false message to christians everywhere. I like that because even though Osteen is getting millions of people to come to god. What God is that? Its doesn’t seem like my god at all. Anyhow, this church is small, it just started like 7 months ago, about 30 members, which i like for now because it gives me alot of time to really get connected and truly meet people. They are uber nice and even invited me to a city group barbeque to get connected to other christians. So it was a definitely good find. My only problems with the church is that the guy running the lyrics powerpoint sucks at his job, one which i might try and take over and they don’t give the Eucharist, or at least they haven’t yet. Maybe its good that they don’t yet. I think i need to really want it more. To really hunger for Christ. I feel that though every Sunday so far building up, so maybe its a good thing. Austin City life is Radical, its Community oriented, it cares about worshipping god and spreading the word. Its most things that i want in a church.

For now, this is my adventure of this weird city called Austin.