Everything should be running now. I upgraded the hardware that this, and the rest of my domains are hosted on. More RAM, faster CPU cores, and faster disk. Moving was pretty painless, though I’m still finding a few small behind the scenes things that have no impact on the Internet visible services. Next up is moving domains to another registrar and getting IPv6 enabled here…
First Painting Class
For our anniversary, Heather gave me some art books and some painting supplies. I’ve been reading them and experimenting with mixing and blending on some paper, but decided to step it up a little. Michael’s does beginners painting classes in the evening, so I signed up for the floral class. What few supplies I didn’t have were purchased in advance, and I was ready to go. The class was very enjoyable, and I learned quite a bit about basic techniques. I also discovered that some of the paints that I had weren’t that good. The reds and yellows just didn’t want to play nice when blending. I shouldn’t have gotten brown out of a 2:1 ratio of ultramarine blue and cadmium red light. Using the instructor’s better quality red and my blue produced the desired color, so it’s definitely my red. I had a few other issues like that, all with the lighter or more transparent colors that were fixed by using some of the instructor’s paints. The end result looks pretty good, though I can see that I’ve got a lot of work to do on my technique, as well as some upgrades on paints and brushes. I’ll definitely be taking a few more classes because this is a heck of a lot of fun!
Mumford and Sons
We had tickets for the June 11th Mumford and Sons concert, but it was postponed due to one of the band members needing emergency brain surgery. Today was the make-up day, and we were still free and able to get down to Fair Park for the concert. Heather scored some great seats, about 20 rows from the stage, under the covered section of the Starplex (yeah, I know, it has another name, but they keep changing them and it’ll always be the Starplex to me). The opening acts were pretty good, and while we did enjoy them, we were there for Mumford. They put on a fantastic show, playing stuff from both [amazon_link id=”B0032Y8XH8″ target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Sigh No More[/amazon_link] and [amazon_link id=”B008NW67E0″ target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Babel[/amazon_link] as well as some jam sessions. If you get a chance, go see them, and if you haven’t heard much of their stuff, go buy their albums.
1st Anniversary Trip – Day 4
One year ago today, the girl who stuck around walked around the table with me and became my wife. It’s been a wacky year, with some major suckage, but also with some really great stuff.
Happy First Anniversary, my love!
We enjoyed one last wonderful breakfast courtesy of our hosts, loaded the car up, and headed back home. We stopped for lunch at the Berry Street Cafe in Llano and were blown away. It was fantastic! If you’re in the area, you need to stop there. After that it was just a straight drive home and then unpacking and enjoying a quiet evening.
1st Anniversary Trip – Day 3
We got up and moving, had another delicious breakfast, and headed out to the National Museum of the Pacific War to nose around and check out the Pacific combat reenactment. When I first started going to Fredericksburg, the only museum was the Nimitz Museum, located here because this was Adm. Nimitz’s home town. Over time that has morphed into a world class museum covering the Pacific theater of World War II. The museum is so large that you really do need two days to get through it and the tickets are good for two days’ admission. We snagged our tickets and then made our way down the street to the theater where they do the combat reenactments. The show was fun, with lots of functional (blank firing) vintage firearms, both from the Americans as well as the Japanese. The reenactors were mostly younger kids, in their late teens and early 20s, but there were some older folks there as well. After the show was over, we went back to the museum and went through as much as we could.
From there, we did some walking around and shopping, finding some neat stuff, including some liquid filled chocolates from Chocolat and some wines from the Fredericksburg Winery.
For dinner, we decided to head over to one of the local German places, but were defeated by a combination of timing and hostess apathy. We pulled in to the Auslander, saw many open tables, but were told there was an hour wait to get seated. So we bailed on that and decided to check out a different place. After wandering a little, we settled on Hondo’s on Main, a small dive close to our cottage. We weren’t disappointed, not a bit. This is a no frills place, don’t go in here expecting table service. You order your drinks and food at the bar and pick up your food at the kitchen window. But the food is excellent and the drinks are well priced. I got the ribs, made a mess eating them, but loved every minute of it. We even saw our hosts eating at another table, so it’s obviously good enough for the locals too. That capped off our evening, so we headed back to the cottage to finish packing up and get ready to head home in the morning.
1st Anniversary Trip – Day 2
We got up early this morning and got ready for our trip out to Enchanted Rock. Breakfast arrived on time and was delicious! I didn’t feel in the least bit guilty about the extra calories because we were planning on taking the ranger lead tour. The drive out to the park was nice, we got some really good views of the hill country. We were actually a couple minutes late, but the ranger at the gate radioed over to the ranger leading the tour and had them wait for us.
The hike was a lot of fun. We made it to the top, and then went down the side and hiked around the back before returning to the parking lot and heading back into town. The view from the summit was pretty amazing, and to see the ghost shrimp in the small pools on the rock was cool. On the way around the back, our guide pointed out different features and discussed the local plants. I tried one of the wild persimmons, which was delicious and quite unlike the ones in the stores. By about half way around the rock, the heat had started to build, and by the time we got back to the car, we were ready for the air conditioning. We headed back in to town and grabbed a quick lunch and rehydrated before heading over to Pedernales Brewing Company for another tour. They’re a much smaller operation than Real Ale, but they make some tasty brews and have a nice little operation.
From there, we went over to Opa’s to pick up some brats and other meats. We’ve tried to stop there on other trips, but they close early and we were never there early enough. We made it this time and were rewarded with some yummy sausages, smoked cheeses, and seasonings. It’s a good thing we brought a cooler! Loaded up with carnivore yummies, we went back to the room to get ready for dinner.
Since this is our anniversary trip, we decided to splurge for a nice dinner and chose the Navajo Grill. It was definitely a dressed up place, not just your average restaurant. What was nice was that the food and service exceeded our expectations. Delicious appetizers, perfectly cooked steaks, and wonderful desserts made for a great end to a really nice day.
Heather and me at the top of Enchanted Rock
1st Anniversary Trip – Day 1
This coming Monday is our first wedding anniversary, so we decided to take a few days off of work and head out of town to celebrate. We decided on Fredericksburg for our destination and booked one of the guest houses that the Cottages at Limestone on Main had to offer. We left in the morning and drove down to Hico to have lunch and pie at the Koffee Kup. From there, we went down to the Real Ale Brewing Company in Blanco and took the brewery tour and did some beer tasting. It was a really fun tour, and I got to talk to the brewmaster about using souring bugs in my homebrew. Maybe some time soon I’ll do something sour.
After that we headed over to the cottage and got checked in and unpacked. The cottage is a decently sized open bedroom/living room/kitchen floor plan with a full bath. The proprietors are really nice, even rescheduling our breakfast for tomorrow due to us needing to be on the road a little early for a hike.
For dinner we went over to the Fredericksburg Brewing Company for dinner and some more beer. I also got a growler filled with their porter, it might get drunk this weekend, but if not it’ll come home and get finished off then. That was about it for today. Tomorrow, we’re heading for Enchanted Rock and then a nice dinner…
Texas Rangers Game
Reese, Heather, and I went down to the Ballpark in Arlington to meet up with Brad, Reese’s godfather, to catch the Rangers game. It was good to see him again, and we had a great time. It was a really good game, a nail biter until the end, with yet another walk-off home run ending the game. We picked Reese up some swag, enjoyed some dollar hot dogs, and just in general enjoyed ourselves. Much thanks to Heather’s employer for letting us use the corporate seats, they were really, really good.
The 2013 New Mexico Trip – Day 9
The last day, just a driving day, with no stops planned except for food and gas. We got cheated out of lunch due to crappy service at the restaurant we stopped at. No greeting, nobody offered to seat us, or even acknowledge that we were there. So the Green Frog, in Jacksboro, TX didn’t get our money. We finally pulled in to the driveway and got the car unloaded, at around 4:00. It was a great week, but I think we were all ready to be out of the car for a while…
The 2013 New Mexico Trip – Day 8
After breakfast we walked to the park across the street where a farmers’ market had set up. We browsed through the tables, picking up a few things here and there, including some garlic for planting, some lamb jerky, and a bag of hot green chiles for Jason. Then, with the car loaded up, we started driving east, making our way over to Portales, NM. The drive is what it is, without much scenery to distract you, but there were no issues. We took the long way into Portales so that we could take Reese past Cannon Air Force Base, where his mother was stationed when she was in the military. After that, we stopped at the Taco Box across the street from where my old dorm was, to have lunch. I then took Reese and Heather on a tour of Eastern New Mexico University, where I did some of my undergraduate work.
With that done, we got back on the road for the last bit of driving for today. We pulled in to Jason and Vic’s place late in the afternoon and spent some time catching up before heading out to Cagle’s Steaks for dinner. More catching up, plus some good food, makes for a great evening and a great end to a trip.