Wow! What a day!

[JiminRussia]

I fianally amde the short drive up to Austin today to visit the Collings factory and take the tour. Right now I'm thinking,why haven't I done this months ago? It was GREAT! The tour was informative, entertaining and full of lots of little surprises. We got to see the F-5 that will be going up to Winfield to be awarded to the winer of the mandolin competition. It is awsome with a very nice inlay on the headstock of crossed pair of wheat stalks. We saw some incredible guitars of course, includig a really nice all maple arch-top and several Brazillian rosewood guitars in various stages and the new Nugget/Collings mandolin. There were no takers when it was graciously offered for us to try. I was afraid that I'd drop it or something. The end result is that I have my Christmas present picked out. I absolutely have "the wants" for an MT.

After the tour wife unit and I went out for some great barbeque and as an after though my wife says, "Lets go see what the downtown area looks like." Well, she has never seen the state capitol, so off we went. We arrived downtown and suddenly found ouselves in the middle of some kind of festival like atmosphere. Well, I'm thinking that Austin IS a college town and this IS Friday evening, so maybe it's like this all the time. When we finally got the car parked and walked down a few blocks to where the center of action seemed to be, we were just in time to catch a parade complete with marching bands, color guards, motorcycle cops and a firetruck. It didn't dawn on me at first, but this was the welcome home parade for Lance Armstrong. We stayed to watch him cycle by waving to the crowd. Hey, if this is what Friday the thirteenth is going to be for me from now on, then lets have more of it!

[Emmiemando]

Stop bragging about your fun times when I'm stuck in the subburbs!http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[Emmiemando]

Stop bragging about your fun times when I'm stuck in the subburbs!http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[JimRichter]

I moved from Indiana to Austin with my wife and a one year old (had two more-twins while down there) about 5 years ago and stayed for 3 years. Always dreamed of living in Austin--at the time I had just finished the audio program at the IU School of Music and was also a fairly bad-### electric blues guitarist and figured I'd make my way there. Problem was, when I got there rents were sky high, traffic awful, the city changing from a distinctive college town to typical upscale area (same old shops/businesses you'd see in any town--though of course this was more true of the northside than south of the Colorado River, South Austin will remain distinctive for awhile), and it just didn't strike me as a family friendly town. If it were just me or my wife and me, Austin would have been great. But, with three kids--all under age 5--never really seemed like much for us to do. This, of course, was especially true of any hopes of me breaking into the music community. I remember reading the classifieds for bands and seeing ads, "No one over 30 or with kids need inquire." We decided to move back to Indiana and now live in Bloomington which is very family friendly, yet is very much a college town and still has a vibrant music scene.

Any case, just had to do my bi-monthly Austin bash. Loved Austin, really do miss it, but it just never seemed friendly to a family trying to make their way there. Great town to visit and you definitely leave feeling that everyday is a carnival there.

By the way, I remember driving south on the Capital of Texas Highway once and passing Lance Armstrong up on the road. I think that was just before he won the first Tour De'France.

My venting is now over, I'll go back to wallowing in my own misery

Jim