I hate supermarkets. Their business model seems to be constantly churning the list of products that they carry. Or maybe its the manufactures that get rid of products that I like and introduce “new and improved” products that I don’t like. So, when I was hooked on 4 teas that I used to make iced tea with (in an effort to move away from high sugar fruit juices in the morning). I knew I was in a bind. It came as no surprise to me when my local grocery stopped carrying the variants that I liked. I now had to drive down to Central Market to buy the tea I wanted. Why one store stops carrying something when another store in the same chain still carrys it is a mystery to me.

So, this week I said “screw it!” This is what the inter-webs are for. Amazon.com grocery with prime shipping carrys my flavours. They even offered a $10 dollar off coupon and with prime shipping I can get it in two days for free. The only problem is that the minimum size is a case. Now I have 24 boxes of tea. That is probably a year’s supply for me.

Sigh. This news really crushed me today. I was really psyched about Yoga and getting into a weekly rhythm of 3 sessions a week. At the end of June, I bought a one year pass.

But then the owner announced that he was having health problems. In July, he said that he had soft cell renal carcinoma (kidney cancer). The docters found out it was a rare type and very slow growing. But when they tried to remove it, they could not control his heart rate or blood pressure. So they aborted the operation.

I thought he was making progress when he got three yoga instructors to teach his classes. But the turnout was on a downward spiral. And he has been continually cutting back classes over the years. I guess it was finally apparent that this studio would not turn a profit.

So now I am trying classes out at Yoga Yoga. Fortunately, it is right across the street from work.

I wish Joey the best of luck. He is the most positive person that I have ever known. And a role model for how more positive I should view this life.

They finally opened up the toll roads today! Now, I have a more direct way into work. And it is pretty fast. I can get into work in 15 minutes. But that was because that the couple mile stretch of IH-35 from Old Settlers Road to the toll road onramp was empty. It is normally stop and go for that length of road on most days. So it would be interesting to see if this is a new flow for IH-35 or those days were aberations.

Going south on IH-35, there are two exit lanes. There are three lanes for the toll roads (even for the speed-pass part). And there are three lanes when you drop off into Mopac. The only problem is the constant stream of people driving from Parmer onto Mopac. I have to weave through these people when I exit onto Duvall.

Going the other way is not so easy. It is fine until you try and exit the toll road onto IH-35. There is a hugh overpass that narrows down to one lane and merges into IH-35. IH-35 is stop and go through this section. So there is quite a backup on the toll road. They really need to fix the 620 exit. Because when that backs up, it causes a lane of 35 to be stopped. That causes gridlock for miles both behind and past the exit.

What I really don’t like about this toll road is how they screwed up IH-35 and 1325. Remember back a couple of years when they spent millions of dollars building U-turn lanes to help fix 1325 traffic flow problems? Well, they have removed an on-ramp and an off-ramp for both directions! If I want to head south to la Frontera or the big-block stores on the east side of IH-35 (Home-Depot, Walmart, OfficeMax, etc), I now have to exit at Hester’s Crossing. And go through the light! Hester’s Crossing cannot handle this load of traffic any more than 1325 could.
So now many, many, millions of dollars have been spent building roads and we still have hugh traffic problems. There was enough room for another lane where the onramp now is. They could have kept the 1325 exit!

Flawed!

Out at lunch today, I noticed this on a car. We definately need to “Keep Austin Weird!”.

Perhaps there is some truth to the above poll…

On my bike ride today, I saw that plane again. It was flying around off in the distance. I was really tempted to go home, get my camera, and try to chase the plane down.

While I was riding down County Road 110 (aka Hutto Road), I saw a huge flock of birds that landed on the road. I was wondering what I would do when I got to them when an oncoming truck got there first and solved that problem. I think that birds have right-of-way. And, plus, if you scare them, you can get pooped on!

I wonder how long this one is going to remain upright. It was leaning just a little bit recently. But then came the rains and now it is really tipping over.

I went out this morning to get some photos of birds. And I learned some things. More pictures after the break…

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I went to Duke’s BBQ Smokehouse to try out their breakfast tacos. I noticed that they were now offering waffles and I was amused by their choices for accompaniment. I guess that “chop” is chopped beef. But what would “puddin” be? Bread pudding? More likely it would be bananna pudding. “BBQ sauce” is just plain gross.

Afterward I went to the Rivery to photograph this.

I went to Leif Johnson Ford today for my 30K checkup. While I was waiting, I looked around in the showroom. They had three new 2007 Shelby GT500 Cobras there. These are the Mustang versions of my truck. The new model boasts 500hp! So very tempting. However, I don’t think that they are pretty and, at 45K, they are expensive. I think that I would rather get a Corvette at that price. Look at that sticker in the second picture. There is a 20K “fair money adjustment” charge added on. And it was sold! For 65K, you are in performance Corvette territory.

They also had two Ford GTs there for 150K a pop. Definately a pretty car, but it costs as much as a house.

They even had a 1971 Ford Mustang Mach 1 for sale for 40K. While old cars look cool and retro, they do not have all of the technology that has been discovered in the past 30 years. Technology which I would consider as critical.

I stopped by Ichiban for lunch afterwards and was greeted with this sight in the restroom. A urinal full of ice. Must be a Japanese thing…

For my birthday present and Christmas present, I bought myself another camera lens. A EF 70-200 f/2.8L IS USM lens. This complements my already existing EF 24-70mm f/2.8L IS lens. I hope to take some birding pictures with it. Since I am a member of Amazon prime, next day shipping is only $4 per item. Pretty cheap given the price of the lens. Also, Canon came out with a rebate program that included this lens. So, I decided to order it. What I was not expecting was just how long it would take to deliver the lens. I waited around my house all day for the delivery person to arrive. So long that I gave up hope. It arrived at 8pm at night! After being “out for delivery” at 6:30am in the morning! Gah! That is not next day air. I am sure that businesses get packages early in the morning when they can actually use them that day. I was reduced to taking a picture of the refrigerator magnets at night. That depth-of-field is razor thin!

In fact, you notice it when using this telephoto lens. By default, the picture that you see through the viewfinder is at maximum aperature of f/2.8. This allows for the brightest picture. But the trade off is that the amount of the picture that is in focus is thin. When you zoom in and out, you can see that thin field moving back and forth.

This lens is also big and heavy. It is almost 8 inches long and weighs 3 1/4 pounds. The lens is so heavy that you mount both the lens and the camera at a balancing point on the lens itself. Which is what alot of people complain about. They prefer the much lighter and cheaper f/4.0 (at 27 ounces). But you loose a full stop of light gathering ability. At an equivalent ISO film speed, your shutter speed will be twice as much.

This lens also has a gyroscope built into it. Which will allow it to be stable at slower shutter speeds. The trade of is a slight loss of image quality as you add more glass elements for the gyroscope bit.

I also bought the Extender EF 2x II. This doubles the focal length of a lens at the cost of 2 f/stops of light gathering power. That water tower is at a 385mm focal length from my back porch.