So following up on this weekend. Friday night after getting really vayned and drinking several beers, I snuck into the Austin City Limits Festival. On Saturday I went on a death march of a mountain bike ride, in which I thought I would pass out from heat exhaustion and got two flats. I was literally screaming at the television on Saturday afternoon, as OU lost to Oregon with like a minute left on about the poorest officiating I've ever seen, any game, any year. Although I did meet some cool Texas fans who own the glass piece store next to the bar, which was cool.. They gave me a coozie, two in fact to ease my suffering from the loss (the girl who blows glass is also a Texas rollergirl, who had great stories about breaking bones in the rollerderby, cool as shit) I'm kind of becoming a regular for late afternoon football at this bar Freddies down the street from my house. It is a typical Texas bar, with outdoor seating, a mixture of greasy food, vegetarian, and weird tex-mex fusion, and washers of course.

Saturday night I did the same thing, which meant, wait until it gets dark, there is no security around, and jump two consecutive fences, next to the port o' johns and run into the throng of people. Saw Van Morrison (which was lame as fuck), then Willie the next night (apparently he got busted in Louisiana the next day with a bunch of pot and shrooms) which was really good. I had tickets for Sunday which was definately the day to see. Caught a bit of Damien Marley, which was all right, then Ween (f'n'a dude), Son Volt (big f'n'a dude), Flaming Lips (f'n'a dude), and Tom Petty which was also quite good, although at this point my back hurt so bad I thought I was going to pass out.

So the weekend was good. It felt really good to do something risky for the first time in a while. I pretty much hate my job and feel like its killing me (boredom wise). Basically what I do is fly to whatever city has hired our firm, ask them how they finance capital improvements, and request data. Then I take the data and have to divide the total programmed budget (by class, like for water, wastewater projects) by the expected growth in households to get an average cost per household to provide X level of service. Mind you that they basically tell me put this in a spreadsheet and figure it out (with no instruction on how to proceed). So needless to say I sit at the computer all day and feel my brain leaking out my ass into a puddle on the floor. Also, I was initially hired as an intern, and told that in three months I would be promoted. Then almost a month ago they told me I was getting promoted. While that was great news, my pay hasn't increased and I remain, as my boss put it when I started, the poorest paid professional in Austin. Hopefully this will not continue for that much longer (read that however you want). I feel you Pat.

So long term I'm keeping my carreer choices wide open. Whitney and I still want to travel soon, and we're still thinking South America, but its going to take a little longer to make that happen. Maybe winter? Long term jobwise I see myself in the public or non-profit sector (at least temporarilly). I've realized I like much more to work with the public than sit in front of a computer all day, which means I could land in devpt. review (if I'm going to stick with planning). But, eventually, I want to basically start a commune. There will probably be some money making activities, but more than anything a place to relax, and work very little, and play a lot (music, extreme sports, art, crafts, tourism, and natural building). Maybe even a school. I've never really felt like I had a lot of artistic drive but can see myself getting back into trade oriented work (working this job has made bike repair sound so much more fun for some reason)

Another thing I've learned in this job is that I don't want to travel for work, and I don't want to spend my life like the people I work with. As Bob Seger said about LA in the 80's. You know a lot of type A personalities. I never want to take work home, and I certainly want to talk about work as little as possible, which from what I can tell is the total opposite of the people I work with, and I don't want to be one of those guys eating TGI Fridays at the Dallas airport on a tuesday night. Anyway at the risk of boring you all to death I'm finished, there you go Pat. The job's allright I just think my true strengths are in public planning, becuase ultimately it is all about fucking with their heads, and that's what I love doing...problem solving. Although I'm not totally sure I'd be happy doing that for the rest of my life either.

It's funny, I think I've pretty much figured out the psycological aspects of the bum/yuppie cycle. You know, you make some money and feel good about yourself for a while, then you realize how much you hate what you do, so you decide to quit and be a bum for a while, then get pissed because you can't afford to do the things you want, so you decide to be a yuppie again.

I think ultimately the commune is the way out. Honestly its all about self actualization, which I guess really isn't that far from art. I just hope I can make these communes appear sophisticated enough (marketing wise) that I could also pitch them for upper incomes as well to roll some money in and get bigger, that's where I see the public planning skills come in. There's got to be a middle path.

Seriously though, its good to have this platform. I would be in a pretty horrible place if it weren't for some intellectual stimulation right now, because the mechanics of this shit is burning me out and you mfers keep me sharp. Oh and I've come to some conclusions about the whole Skexies arguement from Rob's blog. I think I do believe in essance, but not of the DC variety; more of the Princess Bride variety, as in they hook dude up to machine and it nearly kills him. I think I can identify more with getting fucked over by something mechanical because the obvious allusions to the System. Also, if you haven't watched it in a while you should give it another look, because I watched it last night and was having some errie revelations about the similarities of the plot and geopolitical events surrounding Gulf War I (probably GW II as well and maybe III after todays UN love fest). Don't you love it when Bush addresses the Iranian people, I just bet they love it. Totally didn't catch the conspiracy aspect of that film until the second time around. Anyways, hope you get your fill. I'll try to spice things up soon, I just haven't had a lot of energy to go on head trips lately, this job is stealing my soul.

-Nron