PlatKat.com: Down in the Town

Friday, January 21, 2005

Down in the Town

The Andy Goldsworthy exhibit is on display at the Austin Museum of Art (AMOA), and as members, Gus and I thought we would attend the official "ArtHip!" event. Beforehand, we went to the Mediterranean restaurant, Marakesh, which was both convenient and tasty. I plan to return to both the exhibit and the restaurant despite my lack of proximity to them.

I spent most of today downtown as well. First, to appear for an post-operative eye exam that never happened. A flighty member of his staff told me he was running 15 minutes late. When 15 turned to 45 and the doctor still hadn't seen me, I was not impressed. As I left the office, I flagged down (yes, I had to actually call out to get her attention) a staff person to say I was leaving because I had been waiting much longer than originally prescribed. So what's the first thing she says? "Wait just a minute before you go..." Heh. I don't think so.

So then Gus and I continued our journey to a NARAL Pro-Choice Texas fundraiser at the Shoreline Grill. We had never been there before, and thus got an unnecessarily extensive tour of the 100 block between San Jacinto and Brazos. When we finally made it to the restaurant, we were greeted with some dynamic and informative speakers, including Representative Jessica Farrar and Reverend James Rigby.

Most of the attendees were older philanthropists, political folks/lawyers, and college students. As with the Andy Goldsworthy exhibit, Gus and I were in the minority as North-Austinite techies. We didn't get much of a chance to meet and greet the folks at our table, since my late eye appointment forced us to slip in just before the speakers began, but it would have been nice to know them.

After that, Gus and I went to Little City to meet with Jason Sabo, a lobbyist for the United Ways of Texas Capitol. He has a great blog that documents the happenings in the Texas Legislature. We met with him to "pump up" his existing blog, so he can archive his posts and Gus can view it on his RSS feed. I'm hoping that we can help him out because he's a nice guy and a lot of people are counting on him for information that is relevant to non-profit organizations that help regular folks like you and me.

I've had too much coffee today and am overly excited about happy hour at the new Baby A's in the old Bahama Breeze location. Work is boring. There must be a job I can do where I just roam around town consulting people and attending activist social functions. And happy hours.

posted by platkat @ 1:59 PM