Enjoying Texas

Jeromey Balderrama

It’s day three down here in College Station, Texas, where were are visiting my sister (who is going to grad school down here) and her husband.  We flew into Austin late Wednesday night and saw that even the airport has stages for live music!  We’re heading up to Austin as I write this, so hopefully will have some pictures to post of the live music scene.

As soon as we stepped out of the airport, we were welcomed by that Texas humidity.  It’s definitely not the pleasant Colorado fall weather out here. Thursday had temperatures spanning to the high 80’s, with the humidity approaching the same.  I think we ended up bringing the cool weather with us though, as on Friday it cooled down to the 60’s with very low humidity.  Today is the low 70’s with the humidity staying low, feeling like a pleasant late-summer day.

The last two days were filled with me working, but I did manage to break away in the evenings to enjoy some great restaurants Christina & Tony found.  We had lunch at Madden’s, in the neighboring town of Bryan.  They had the most amazing tomato bisque that was simply to die for!  We also enjoyed lunch at “Freebirds” which is basically a variation of Chipotle.  For those in Fort Collins: I’m not sure if it would rate the quality of Big City Burrito, but it was definitely a step up for Chipotle and maybe Qdoba.  For dinner we went to FishDaddy’s Grill House, which had some excellent smoked ribs that were a great value.  We’ve definitely ate well down here in Texas!

On Friday afternoon we went to the Messina Hof Winery and experienced a brief tour followed by an excellent tasting.  if you’re a fan of sweet wines, this would be a great winery for you.  They had a really good Port that went well with chocolate, as well as the Solera Sherry – which tasted like a cinnamon roll.  At the vineyard there was this pond that was full of turtles.  When we approached them, they all swam right over to us, thinking we were going to feed them.  It made for a crazy picture:

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The Vineyard also made for some pretty pictures as well:

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Before we left College Station my sister gave us a tour of the Texas A&M campus.  It’s a beautiful, spread out campus.  One of the highlights was this tree that created it’s own arch over the sidewalk.  They say that if you walk under the branches with the person you love, that you’ll be together forever.  Bethany and I snapped a picture under this tree:

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We then stopped off at the book store and snapped a picture in front of her new university:

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Next up: Austin!

Gizmodo: Don’t Get Review Unit, Drop F-Bomb

Jeromey Balderrama

Nice playbook move guys.  Looks like Gizmodo (a gadget blog), didn’t get a review unit of Blackberry Storm 2.  Their journalistic response: tell their readers that RIM thinks they’re mother F-bomb’s.

Look, I get that you’re pissed that you didn’t get a review unit, but airing out your dirty laundry in this manner for all to see is not the way to fix this.  I’m fine with them pointing it out and acknowledging that they didn’t get a review unit while other publications did – but to throw a tantrum like this is just classless and pretty much demonstrates why companies like RIM may be leery about giving you a review device.

This isn’t the first time Gizmodo’s acted like children.  Last year they took some universal remotes to CES and randomly turned off TV’s.  It looks like some things never change. Stay classy guys.

Way to be on the map

Jeromey Balderrama

Yesterday we were all captivated by the story of “Balloon Boy”, and while we were down here in Texas we found it crazy that all of this was taking place in our home town of Fort Collins.  When they found the boy safe and sound, I was relieved as everyone else was.  Then you see some of the initial interviews and back-story regarding the family, and the deeper you dig, the shadier this has become.  It just feels like the parents are on their 14:59 of their perceived fame and are trying to hit the snooze button and extend their window.

Unable to resist the publicity, in comes these two gems from CNN:

Which prompts this classic response from the father (that’s sound you hear is frantic back-pedaling)

Definitely more of this story to be told.  All this time I’m thinking “THIS is the way our city needs to be placed on the map?”.  Fantastic.

Greenfoot @ Signatures Thoughts

Jeromey Balderrama

Last weekend Greenfoot played our first show at Signatures Night Club, a fantastic show at a great venue for musicians.  I don’t think Signatures is necessarily new, but it’s under new ownership that has definitely put a lot of time into making it a classy place.  It’s clean and laid out well.  It’s got a great “small club” atmosphere, essentially two separate rooms: 1 has the bar with the pool tables and TV’s, while the other room is tables and the stage for the band.

The atmosphere brings out a good energy throughout the whole club.  The regulars are receptive to live music and definitely give bands the benefit of the doubt.  Considering that Denver went through a snow storm that left a ton of ice, and that we were playing in weather conditions that postponed the Rockies game, we had an ok turnout.  The weather definitely kept people away, but we still really appreciated those that made the trip out and made sure they weren’t disappointed.

This was our first show back from taking the summer off, and I was surprised at just how tight we played.  We kept things laid back and loose (which I know sounds contradictory), but really felt comfortable, especially with introducing the new covers that we had.  We did some fine-tuning of our originals, introducing some songs with some noticeable changes, which came off pretty well.

The owner at Signature’s is a really stand up guy, who is really supportive of live music, rock & roll, and the musician community.  He was great to us all evening and really took a genuine interest and appreciation in our music.  We are definitely looking forward to going back in the winter, hopefully in December.  Sorry that we didn’t manage to get any pictures, but I’ll share a video of us performing 1 Night Stand (from an earlier show) – the owner’s favorite song.

Off to Texas

Jeromey Balderrama

I’m writing this from the airport terminal as we’re waiting to board our flight to Austin.  We’re heading out to College Station to visit my sister and her husband for a few days.  I’ll be working from out there, but it’ll be nice to have the evenings and weekend to spend with my sister.  We’re really excited to be heading out.  I’ve been pretty good about keeping up with NaBloWriMo so far, keeping up a post a day.  Thank you for taking the time to read my posts, as I hope it’s at least half as enjoyable as it has been to write these.  I’ll hope to be able to share some great Texas pictures over the next few days and get a glimpse of what my sister and her husband’s life is like in Texas.