Viewing Category: Austin
2011 Mar 22
This past weekend we went camping at Pedernales Falls State Park. We’ve visited here a few times, but never stayed overnight. The park ranger asked if it was our first time there, and since it was, she assigned us to campsite #8. She said it was a nice one but if we didn’t like it we could select another site. Well, campsite #8 was great! In fact, most of the sites looked really nice. Each one had an electric hook-up if you needed it, a fire-ring, water faucet, picnic table, and open area for a tent. Our campsite had an open area underneath the trees, so we pitched our ”castle” back there.
After a lunch of submarine sandwiches and chips, we headed to the falls for some fishing. Of course I had forgotten the nightcrawlers back home, so we had to use some cheese as bait. While we didn’t catch any fish, we had fun climbing around the rocks and dipping our feet in the water. After that we decided to head to the wading/swimming area to cool off. The weather, by the way, was perfect: light clouds and a temp of 80°F. The water was nice and cool, but not too cold. The kids splashed around a bunch, and I had fun making underwater videos.
When we returned to the campsite, we started up the fire and made a great dinner of gyu-don (beef bowl). Cooking rice at the campsite was pretty new to me but is really easy if you have the right cooking pot. We also enjoyed some wine in small containers. They looked like large juice-boxes and were so convenient for discreet consumption at the campsite. After a dessert of smores we retired to the tent and slept well.
The next day we went back to the falls for some more hiking and fishing. We walked up-river and found a lot of cool little fishing holes but unfortunately we were unsuccessful landing any fish, although Mariko had something big on her line at one time. We left the park at about 2pm and headed home, tired but happy. Pedernales Falls is not the most popular state park, but I have to say it was one of the better campsites and had some fun activities. It’s not far from Austin and would make a nice daytrip as well. We will surely come back!
You can check out some more video that I took over at Pedernales Falls at my YouTube Channel, or see more pictures at my Flickr set.
2011 Mar 09
Last weekend we went to Explore UT, which is an all-day event held on campus. University student volunteers from all the disciplines have exhibits and activities set up for the visiting school-age kids. There’s quite a range of things to do and learn about, but Bay and Koa always are most interested in the Engineering and Science activities. This year, the highlights for them were the Robotic Soccer game, which was played by Aibo and Nau robots. That was pretty cool to see. Another thing they really enoyed was the VR environments. Koa got to walk around the room and interact with virtual drumkits, piano keys and a life-size statue that you could punch. Bay did a VR race around a city environment. He said the graphics were “pretty weak”, though. At the Science area, we got to see exploding gummi bears and the diet coke geyser using mentos. We’d never actually seen that in person although we’ve heard about it before.
I always like Explore UT and we have gone the past three years now. It’s kind of fun to visit campus and experience a little bit of University life again!
2009 Mar 09
This weekend Bay and I visited the UT campus for their annual Open House event. There were lots of kids there, from all over the state. Basically the UT students have activities for the kids to do, based on the students’ specialty. Bay and I had looked over the schedule of events in advance and decided that we should check out the engineering and science areas. The engineering school looked pretty cool, and Bay made a “robotic” hand out of cardboard, rubberbands, and masking tape. He also participated in a fossil dig at the Geo-sciences plaza area.
It was actually the first time for both of us to walk around the UT campus, and it was a lot of fun. The campus is pretty big, and many of the buildings were really cool. Bay seemed to be interested in UT, and of course living in the area, you are constantly seeing the longhorn logo everywhere, so I am thinking that UT will probably be #1 on his list of schools to go to, and that’s fine with me!
2009 Feb 24
For the past few months, I’ve been visiting the Cedar Park Public Library pretty regularly. It’s a relatively small library, but has some excellent materials. The dvd and cd sections are pretty good, and they even have quite a lot of anime, not that I’m really into it. They also have a teen manga section, and an anime/manga club. In fact, I saw a little flyer for a guest speaker, a computer game artist from Bioware Austin, who presented to the club. Check out their events calendar (which is a Google calendar that you can subscribe too) and you can see their upcoming schedule. The kid’s section is really nice as well, and they have lots of computers to work on. And of course, Wi-Fi Internet access is available.
The main stacks have a decent selection. I’ve found a bunch of Neil Gaiman books, and now I am working on Terry Pratchett’s Discworld books, of which the library has about seven on the shelves. But what I found really cool about the library is their use of technology. They have a self-checkout station where you scan your library card, put your books on a magnetized scanner, and you see the titles appear on the monitor above. When you have scanned all your books/dvd’s/etc, you can either print out a receipt, or have it sent to your email address. This is so cool because I can then just add it to my Google calendar so that I won’t be late returning items. Also, from their website, you can see your library account and even renew books online. You can even browse their catalog online to search for a book. It’s so convenient!
Other cool things at the library that I see on their website are: teen gaming tournaments, Movie Mondays, chess club, Family Gaming Nights, adult knitting club, book clubs, and downloadable audio books. While I love bookstores, libraries are cool too, and free!! If you haven’t been to your library in a while, now’s a great time to visit.
2009 Feb 07
Went down to New Braunfels to meet my uncle and cousin to do a little fishing. We caught only one trout and three perch, but it was lots of fun. Must do it again soon! Fishing is so fun.
2009 Jan 27
Last weekend Mariko and I took a cooking class at Central Market. She has been to a few before, but this was my first one, and it was great! I love oysters, so Mariko signed us up for “The World’s Your Oyster” with Chef Scot Loranc. The class was a hands-on type, as opposed to the others where you just sit and watch (and then eat), and therefore the class size was limited to 16 students. We were separated into four groups and each group had a chance to learn how to shuck oysters. When our group’s turn came, we were pleasantly surprised to find out that our oysters were the Kumamoto variety. They were smaller and actually easier to open than the larger types such as the gulf oysters. One of the other students and I actually sneaked a couple while the chef wasn’t looking. It was just too tempting!
Chef Scot Loranc is a great teacher and everyone enjoyed his style and depth of knowledge. He was funny and nice, and generous with the food too! We had so much to eat, everyone was stuffed! During his shucking instructions, he was handing out oysters on the half-shell with a variety of different sauces. They were all really good, but I actually preferred to have the raw oysters without any sauce. Besides the oysters on a half shell, Chef Loranc showed us how to cook four oyster dishes, including Oysters Rockefeller, which were amazing!! Definitely my favorite of the four. The others were oyster po’boys, deep fried oysters with corn and tomato relish, and smoked oysters with jalapeno cream sauce. It’s funny, but when the oysters went on the smoker, the smell reminded me of a memory that was buried for years. When I was maybe nine years old, my family went camping up the coast of California for a couple weeks. At Drake’s Bay, my dad bought a bunch of oysters and grilled them on the campfire. That smell of oysters cooking at the campsite was the same as the oysters on the smoking rack at class. Back then, I didn’t like oysters, but now I love them. Funny how the sense of smell can evoke memories from long ago.
Anyways, all the different oysters tasted great, and we also got to enjoy some Turbo Dog beer and wine. My favorite oysters were the Kumamoto and also the Blue Point varieties. I definitely recommend the cooking classes at Central Market, and especially Chef Scot Loranc’s classes.
2009 Jan 26
This year we celebrated Chinese New Years at the Hsiang Yun Buddhist Temple. Koa performed with his Kung Fu class, and there was an amazing Lion Dance. In the evening we ate a great vegetarian Chinese dinner, then went to the Lantern Dharma service. It was a long day, but lots of fun!
2008 Dec 19
Looks like some extreme temperatures are going to hit Austin on Sunday… Thanks for the forecast, News8Austin!
2008 Dec 09
A warm day is gonna turn into a chilly evening. From 77°F down to 35°F tonight. Welcome to Texas! Brrrrr.
