A run-in with The Police

Number 145 on my list of things to accomplish before I die was "Build a Time Machine and see the Police". Well, I can finally scratch this one off! Last night Madelyn and I saw The Police play at the American Airlines center in Dallas (no time machine needed). For those who don't know, The Police reunited for a tour this year after 20 something years apart. If you are reading this and wondering who The Police are, well then, you can read all about them on the internet somewhere.

Here is how it all started (skip to the pictures if I'm boring you)..... About two months ago I woke up early on a Saturday morning and started hitting the refresh button on Ticketmaster.com. The tickets were expensive, so I wanted to make sure to get the best "cheap seats" available. When I say "Cheap Seats" I mean $50.00 a piece.... ouch. Floor seats for the show started at like 400 dollars, so 50 bucks didn't seem so bad. I couldn't let price get in my way. The Police hate each other (like Beatles vs Yoko, Simon vs Garfunkel level of hatred) and have never gotten along, I couldn't risk that they would tour again. There was a good chance they would kill each other by the end of this reunion tour. After securing the tickets I just had to wait.....

Tuesday was finally the big day, Madelyn picked me up from work at 2:00 and we hit the road up to what is becoming our home away from home..... Dallas. We drove through the rain and made it in a quick 2 and a half hours. A new Austin to Dallas record for us.



(Madelyn outside The Police show, she wore flip-flops.... it was raining. She was not happy)

We were there in plenty of time to get some great parking, and we headed over to the House of Blues for some dinner (sharing a Quesadilla and a piece of cake is dinner right?). I bought these tickets a while ago, and being unfamiliar with the layout of the AA Center I was a little unsure about the quality of the tickets. Well, what did I expect for 50.00? After taking a bunch of escalators up, we finally reached the summit..... and our seats. At first glance you might think these seats suck (ok, they kind of do), but I was most interested in seeing Stuart Copeland (The Police drummer... and music legend), and these seats gave me a great view.



(We felt right at home in all of that thin air.)


(This was taken right before the "nose bleeds" started)

The opener was some band called FictionPlane. I had never heard of them, and was wondering how an unknown band could get such a great gig..... oh! The lead singer of FictionPlane is Sting's son! Got it.



(A picture of the video screen with Sting in it. How do I become known only be one name? And more importantly, a name with a ring to it like Sting.)



(Come on guys, you don't have to put on the red light....)


Once The Police hit the stage I was in music nerd heaven. The show was not only for the "greatest hits" crowd. They played all sorts of lesser known tracks like So Lonely, The Bed's Too Big Without You, as well as all the classics, Roxanne, King of Pain, Message in a Bottle, ect.



(Picture with Stuart Copeland. The best part of the show? Him, the gong, and King of Pain.... music heaven)

The show was awesome. The trip back to Austin after the show was not. Even though the trip home also took only 2 and a half hours, it seemed like a lot longer than the trip up! We finally pulled in at around 1:45 AM.... WAY past our bedtime. It was all worth it, and it was a great show.

Old Pictures Part 1

This weekend Madelyn and I decided to tackle a huge project. We put all of our boxes of pictures in albums. This would usually be an unbearable task, but we were able to dig up some really old and funny pictures of us..... and other people. We have only gone through half, so I know there will be more to come.

Enjoy!

First up comes an awesome family portrait of the Fowles family circa 1980's....or at least, that's what I gather by the hair and different colored polo shirt theme.



The next picture is a side by side of me and Madelyn at about the same age. I wish I had the morphing thing that Conan O'Brien uses to see what our kids look like.... but it will be a mix between these.



The next picture is us as kids again at around the same age. Most people do this type of thing at their weddings.... but we didn't know these pictures existed! P.S. Check out my stylin' dad--nice mustache!





There are so many other bloggers to tag in the next photo! We had to put this one up.



This one had me laughing really hard. Eric looks so innocent! He doesn't know what to do with the all the ladies in bikinis. Don't worry Eric... everything will be OK.



I got to save the best for last. The following picture looks like a normal Clayton Junior High graduation. Little does 8th grade Madelyn know.... she's going to marry the nerd walking in the background.



There will be many more to come..... stay tuned!

We’re Peppers

This weekend me, Madelyn and my sister Cadence (or as I call her, Cady) traveled to the Big D to visit my Grandpa and my Great Grandpa for Fathers Day. Driving to Dallas is always a chore. You can either take I-35, which is bumper to bumper traffic traveling at 60-70 miles an hour. Or you can take the scenic way, which is a lot less stressful, but it takes a little bit longer. We opted for the scenic route so we wouldn’t have to sit in Friday evening traffic. We realized that a crucial mistake in taking the scenic way is to hit the road hungry thinking, "we'll just grab something on the road." Wrong. A word of warning: there is nothing to eat from Austin to Dallas (4 hours or so) on this route. Out of desperation after about 2 hours on the road, we stopped at a local Dairy Queen in Nowhere, Texas, and as I was staring at the menu I decided I would rather starve than eat at this nasty establishment. I have nothing against the DQ, but from what I could see this one was violating at least 100 health codes. We moved on thinking there would have to be something in Hico...the largest city on this “scenic” route. Hico is the supposed birth place of Billy the Kid, and it has the Billy the Kid Museum. We thought that we would at least find a McDonalds. We were wrong. All we found was a sit-down restaurant called the Koffee Kup.

Why do people think it’s cute to change the first letters of the name of their business? Especially when the letters were already the same! There was no need to bring any K's into this…The C already had things under control. For some reason people seem to think that K is a cuter letter than C...and we wonder why children are getting worse at spelling. We decided we would be better off at the convenience store across the street. I ate a bag of Cooler Ranch Doritos, and my sister bought a bag of chips and a jar of yellow Jell-O. The label and my sister claim is was queso, but I wasn’t about to try it. Madelyn was positive that there would be SOMETHING else to eat along the way and refused to eat chips for dinner.

The trip up was interesting and long, but getting to visit the family for the weekend made it all worth it. We went shopping, celebrated my sister’s birthday, and played a family game of poker for chips, not money. For those of you who don’t know I consider myself a pretty good poker player…I’ve watched the games on ESPN, I’ve played in tournaments, and I’ve played in Vegas, but on Saturday night I lost to my 14 year old cousin. Turns out there is some chance in the game!

Sunday we ate some lunch, said our goodbyes, and we headed back home. This time we decided to try our luck with I-35 (which is always a gamble) so that we could finally do something I’ve always wanted to do. We traveled through the construction zone of terror outside of Dallas: 2 lanes, wet roads, semi trucks, downpour, and potholes, not to mention the louge-like feel of the cement walls on either side of our car. Finally, we got to our road-trip destination and stopped in Waco Texas: birth place of Dr. Pepper, and home to the Dr Pepper museum.



The museum was really cool, and we learned all sorts of information about Dr Pepper. We learned how it got its name, that it doesn’t have a period after Dr because of the font, that caffeine was added to it (none of the ingredients are naturally caffeinated) and the recipe has never had prunes (big DP myth). The best part was getting to have some Dr. Pepper made from the soda fountain, and buying all sorts of cool stuff in the gift shop.





We got home in plenty of time to make some dinner and chill out in front of the TV. We had a great time in Dallas, and it was really nice to see everyone. And if the stars align correctly we will be back up there in a week to see The Police!

Eight Day Birthday Celebration!

(waiting for our table at the Gristmill)

As you might know from Cody's last post, a week ago was my birthday and my parents' gift to me was taking a trip out to Austin to visit (and a few new clothes)! I was so excited to see them and it was a great birthday gift. My dad was only able to stay for the weekend, so we packed in as many tourist sites and activities that we could (mostly our favorites). On Saturday we went to breakfast at Kerbey Lane Cafe and gave my parents the grand tour of our terrace level apartment. We showed them the garage, balcony, kitchen, study, library, living room, parlor, dining room, office, guest bedroom, laundry room, master bedroom and master bath. Our apartment is so large it took nearly 10 minutes..... 776 square feet is really too big for us, but sometimes you have to spoil yourself (just a little bit of sarcasm). After the lengthy tour we were up for a much needed break and headed down to the Alamo Draft House. For those of you unfamiliar with the Alamo (we've had some other blog posts about it) it's a popular movie theater in Austin where you can eat food and watch movies. It seems simple enough, but you really have to experience it to have a full understanding of what the Alamo is. It's known for its theme nights, like the "Harold and Kumar go to White Castle" all you can eat tiny hamburgers, or the "Babe" vegetarian feast, or the 80's hair band ballad sing along. It is our favorite movie theater for sure. We like to get there early because they play hand-picked clips that have to do with whatever movie you are about to see instead of commercials or lame movie trivia like some of the "other" movie theaters. After the movie we climbed the 100 stairs (literally, I counted) to the top of Austin's highest point (745 ft above sea level), Mt. Bonnell. From there you could see a great view of the city, the river, and all of the ridiculously large and expensive houses on the lake. If you look closely, you can see some of the houses.



Here is a view from the other side of the "mountain" where you can see the city (far far away) in the background.



After Mt. Bonnell we headed over to the famous Salt Lick BBQ out in Driftwood, Texas. This place is famous for their BBQ and we all agreed it lived up to its reputation. It was definitely worth the 45 minute drive. I caught Cody nearly drinking the sauce (when he ran out of meat he just squirted the sauce directly on his bread!). My dad even said it was the best BBQ he has ever had. After dinner we took a much needed walk around Town Lake in downtown Austin toward the Congress Avenue Bridge. Each night at dusk about 1.5 million bats emerge from underneath the bridge and people crowd the area around to watch. It's a strange Austin attraction, but it's definitely something worth seeing. Cody and I have been a couple of times but this was the best bat emerge we had ever seen. We also got some interesting bat facts from the bat enthusiasts that were very eager to share their knowledge--and wanted us to join some bat club or something.


(Cody and Me from Town Lake with a view of downtown)



(My parents still in recovering from culture shock after the bats)


The next day we headed about an hour south of Austin toward the area where Cody was raised. We drove past his old house in Garden Ridge and made a stop by one of the most famous and biggest caves in Texas--Natural Bridge Caverns. It was discovered in the 60s and is privately owned (imagine finding that under your house!). It was pretty incredible, very well-lit and a nice cool temperature. During the tour we traveled 200 ft underground and walked probably about half a mile or so. Luckily we had modern staircases and walk ways and didn't have to crawl through the 11 inch "discovery trail" that the original explorers used.



Of course, the suckers that we are, we bought their one of a kind souvenir picture.



This one looks like it was a green screen--but it was real I promise!


(me and my mom in the cave!)

After the cavern we we headed over to Greune (pronounced green), Texas for some sightseeing. Gruene is a small town that once serviced the cotton fields owned by Mr. Gruene. The town consisted of a general store, feed store, cotton gin, and a dance hall. All the buildings are still in tact, and Gruene Hall (Texas' oldest dance hall) still plays music nightly. We had dinner in the old cotton gin that they turned into the Gristmill restaurant. It was a really good dinner, and we all agreed that its rare that you get good food and good atmosphere in the same place.


(Me and my dad in front of Gruene Hall..... why not dance in the street?)


(eating dinner at the Gristmill overlooking the river)

On my dad's last day he requested that he be taken back to the Alamo Draft House for another movie. I don't know which my he liked better, the movie theater, or the fresh baked chocolate chip cookies they serve. I saw his eyes light up when he ordered the cookies and the waiter said that it would take 20 minutes because they are baked to order! That night we visited one of Cody's favorite Austin destinations...Peter Pan Mini Golf. The course was built in the 1950's and I don't think its ever been updated. It's fun to visit because it's like stepping into a time capsule. We had a great time (unfortunately the picture that the very friendly, but very intoxicated mini golf patron offered to take did not turn out!)

On Tuesday my dad and Cody went back to work, and me and my mom started a shopping marathon. We hit all the good stores (Forever 21, Ikea, DSW, Ross, Marshall's, even Target!) and were able to dedicate an entire day to the Texas-sized outlets in San Marcos. We bought tops, pants, shorts, shoes, sunglasses and even jewelry for an average price per item of under 6 dollars! I had to brag about that because I come from a long line of talented bargain shoppers.

On my Mom's last day she requested that we go to the Texas History Museum. Texans are serious about their history, and this three story museum proved to be too much to take in before my mom's flight. We were able to get a nice picture of us in front of the GIANT Texas star out front of the museum--this place is nuts sometimes.


(Me and my mom in front of a giant star...which strangely seems completely ordinary)