June 22, 2010 Archive

22Jun
1

Austin

I went to Austin this weekend. Yep, this Cali girl went to Texas.

I’m not going to lie. I had a lot of preconceptions about Texas. And given that I was in Austin (which I understand is not in anyway representative of the rest of the state of which it is a part), just about none of those were accurate. Did I see cowboys? Maybe one. Did people have GIGANTIC belt buckles? Nope. I didn’t see a single one! Was everyone packing heat? Not as far as I could tell.

In a way, this disappoints me. I mean I kind of wanted to see all these things. But at the same time, I felt pretty safe (vs. fearful of getting shot for making some hippy-liberal remark) and actually really enjoyed Austin. Minus the weather of course. Sweet Jesus, that heat + humidity was like a punch to the face every time you walked outside!! (97 degrees + 80% humidity!)

Here’s the summary/highlights:

Friday:

  • We got in around 9. I was wearing capris and a short sleeved shirt, thinking this would be suitable for night time. False. I wanted to be in a bathing suit running through sprinklers.
  • Our group of 9 somehow ended up at three separate hotels, each a solid half a mile+ from each other. We headed straight to one of them when we got in. I met Grant’s new girlfriend, and was expecting to see Danny and Sabrina’s new (6 month) kid, but I guess he was tired and cranky so Sabrina took him back to her hotel. Sad.
  • We walked for what seemed like forever and got some food. Apparently there’s a lot of bats in Austin. We saw a few under a bridge on our way to the restaurant.
  • It was J’s birthday so we hit up 6th Street for some drinks and shuffleboard. 6th Street is apparently like Bourbon Street – no cars allowed for several blocks, and just a long row of bars and drunk people. It was pretty cool!!
  • Apparently you can get into a bar in Austin with a photocopied ID. That’s totally legit right? lol

Saturday:

  • Got up ridiculously early and headed to Danny & Sabrina’s hotel. We got to meet their son, who is SO CUTE – little chunky monkey! Spent about an hour there before meeting up with the others.
  • Grant brought his boat, so we headed to Lake Austin for some wakeboarding and swimming.
  • Sabrina wasn’t comfortable bringing the baby on the boat, and I’m not sure what happened after that, but the three of them ended up driving back to Corpus Christi. Seriously? I was both upset and sad when I realized what had happened (seriously, I wouldn’t have gone to Texas if they weren’t going to be part of the weekend)
  • J attempted to wakeboard for the first time. He made a noble attempt, but didn’t really ever get up.
  • J and I shared a Hu-La-La at the Hula Hut off the lake. It was 2 kinds of Bacardi + fruit juice served in a fish bowl. DELICIOUS! We then shared a Texas style FEAST.
  • Hit up the hot tub after we got home. J toweled off, and realized his stomach was red and in pain. He cried out “OMG I think I’m allergic to this towel!” Upon further inspection I had to explain to him that, actually, he was just sunburned. Yeah, he forgot to put sunscreen on his front. I applied sunscreen like 12 times. How do you forget that substantial of a section of your body?! lol yeah he’s magenta. It’s hilarious
  • Headed to a couple of lounges, which were fun, but I was tired. Headed back around 1. (Several of the lounges played music straight from the 90s. What’s up with that?? I thought Austin was the homeland for new music? At least the last place we went was awesome. Like seriously the best place I’ve been to in a long time. I’ll have to find out the name of it so I can properly review it, but dude, this place had free skeeball!! And pacman! What not to love? Also, they had a Chuck Norris painting on the wall. Don’t mess with Texas!)

Sunday:

  • Tired Caro and hungover everyone else decided to sleep in. Then we headed to Uncle Billy’s Brew&Que for some Texas style BBQ. Why I didn’t take a picture of my food is beyond me, but it was AMAZING. I got ribs with a side of glazed carrots and a side of mac n cheese. A great meal experience.
  • It was father’s day. I had to get a gift for my dad, and he wanted something from Texas. Too bad we were scrambling to make our flight!! Thankfully my dad is the easiest person EVER to shop for, so I spent about 5 min in the gift shop and found some treasures: jalapeno hot sauce, ‘ass-kickin’ raspberry jalapeno jelly, hot beef jerkey, a ‘Don’t mess with Texas’ mug, and of course a shirt. Sadly they had no belt buckles, but I think my mom was really happy about that (she begged me not to get him one lol).

All in all a great weekend, and I’m the slightest bit tan to boot!

a fishbowl of liquor for two

Don't Mess With Texas

random sign at a parking lot

Posted by Caro in Food, Life, Music, Travel and tagged with
22Jun
0

Purely Stupid

Yep, that’s me.

Let’s talk about my student loans for a minute. (To anyone considering borrowing money – don’t do it. If you absolutely HAVE to, seriously consider the repayment amount BEFORE you borrow. Then borrow the bare minimum you have to.)

Anyway, I’ve already bored you with a portion of the consolidation drama. What a pain in the ass. Now that I’m in repayment and everything is “set”, this should be easy right? Nope.

I went to school at a bad time. Interest rates were HIGH. So now that I’m in repayment my interest rate is like double what any current going rate is, and you can’t refinance this type of loan. Awesome. Thankfully my lender offers incentives: 0.25% reduction if you enroll in auto-debit. 0.8% reduction once you make your first 12 payments, on time and in-full.

That’s over 1% off my rate. YES PLEASE.

So I signed up for auto-debit. Apparently it takes them “60ish” days to get that set up. There’s a very clear disclaimer once you submit your info: You are not enrolled in auto debit until you receive something in the mail. Continue paying as usual until you get this notice.

So I don’t get a notice. It’s been over 60 days, but there’s nothing in the ‘scheduled payments’ section. And no mail has come to me saying I’m enrolled. 2 days before the due date, I freak out. I can’t miss this due date or I lose out on a 0.8% interest rate reduction. And over 30 years, we’re talking about a substantial amount of money saved. So I scheduled a payment.

The payment posted.

I went to my parents house and saw that I had mail. SHIT. My loan paperwork gets sent to their house. I open the letter. FUCK. I’m enrolled in auto-debit. FUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCK. They auto-debited my account the day after I made a manual payment.

Yep. I’m retarded, and I paid my loans TWICE this month. TWO LARGE PAYMENTS!

Because I borrowed so freaking much, I paid more on my loans in June than I did on my rent. So now what? I’m already broke, this was NOT a good time for this to happen. (I’ve checked – auto-debit will still collect my money on the next due date.)

Basically there’s nothing else that can be done but sell a kidney.

Maybe that’s drastic. But I am selling TONS of stuff on eBay right now in the hopes of recouping some of that cash so I can pay my July rent.

THIS, ladies and gentlemen, just proves that you should never borrow money. The end.

Posted by Caro in Money, Rants and raves