One story is that I got an honorable mention in the Austin Art Boards competition.
It's a cool project--Reagan Advertising agreed to work with the Austin Visual Arts Association to display art on its billboards when they aren't being leased to paying customers. So instead of some stupid "DO BILLBOARDS WORK???? JUST DID!!!!!!" filler ad, motorists get to drive past giant works by local artists.
Oh, man, I wanted to get this up on a billboard SO BAD. If I got to drive past this on I-35 on my way home from work for a week I would be the happiest woman alive. But there were lots of entires, so even being in the top 30-odd is still pretty good, right?
I will just have to keep entering some improved variation of this until I: (a) win; (b) read with sadness about the discontinuation of the Austin Art Boards contest; or (c) die.
Anyway, check out the winners because they are pretty great (or, if you live in Austin, just wait until you see them in the wild). Dan entered a photo too and is going to enter every year until the above conditions are met as well.
The other story is that I bought a kayak. We were driving back from Windy Point last month behind someone with a shitty little boat in the back of her pickup, and I realized I had always kind of wanted a shitty little boat too.
After some research, a quick trip around Lady Bird Lake* on a rented kayak, and some advice from a friend whose boyfriend makes great use of his inflatable boat, I settled on a not-so-shitty but fairly little inflatable kayak.
It was delivered last night, so I took today off to test it out. We took it to Lake Walter E. Long** and had a fine time paddling from one shore to the other. It's a little hard to control because it's higher and lighter than a regular kayak, but by the time we turned back Eric and I had figured out a rowing rhythm to keep us from yawing too much.
Sea Eagle! Caw! Caw!
I had so much fun today. I want to launch it everywhere.
*Town Lake
**Decker Lake. And really, do we have to rename every damn thing in Austin? It's not like it was all named after some Joe Paterno-like figure before.