kirktastic

The title of today’s post comes from an old X song. It came out after Billy Zoom left the band and when Dave Alvin was in the band. The whole albume has a much more country/pre-alt country vibe to it. Anyhoo, today’s date reminds me of this song more than the old patriotic ditties that came from the 19th century.

History. The 4th of July is a holiday celebrating the day the evil terrorist insurgents in the English colony of America had their insurrection and had the audacity to proclaim its independence from England, one of the largest superpowers of the time. As a strategic part of the British Empire, they did not let the backwater yokels (many of them religious fanatics) take the resources that were paid for and financed by the Crown. With the help of the French (without it, these insurgents would have be easily put down and order restored, the United States would remain an British territory much like Canada and Australia for several more year. The fact that 21st Century Americans forget this fact when they call on boycotts of France and French goods — remember Freedom Fries — because France didn’t think invading Iraq was a good idea). Eventually, the British decided the Americans could sod off and cut them loose. As history is written by the winners, you may have learned in school that these insurgents were patriots and heroes and that Britain was the evil empire. One person’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter. This hasn’t changed since humans started rallying around a common flag, and probably won’t until space aliens come and the race must set aside its petty differences to battle a threat from outer space.

In other news, yesterday was a good day except for the work part. I had an appointment with my doctor to go over my blood tests last week. My A1c is down to non-diabetic levels. My cholesterol is “normal” and my triglycerides (which is like cholesterol but a type of fat in your blood) is down to normal (normal = 150. when I was first diagnosed with the beetus, it was at 4,500… over the years I got it well below 1000, but had struggled with getting it below 400 until now). My blood pressure is normal. In other words, if I eat right and exercise, I can be healthy and live a normal life. If I fall off the wagon, I could be dead in 5 years. So that was great positive reinforcement.

Since I was working from my home — or a nearby coffeehouse as I tend to do — before lunch my buddy from the office (also working from his home) said he was going to Wahoos with for lunch and I should meet them, in the IM he teased me that if I got on the bus right then (9:30) I could meet them at 11:30. Interestingly, I hadn’t thought of taking the bus downtown since mentally I had bus=work, but it got me thinking. There are express buses that go downtown every half hour and Wahoo’s is only a few blocks from where I get dropped off. And I have a bus pass and a desire not to drive, or find parking and then find coins for the meter, etc. So I took the bus. I was surprised how crowded it was. For one thing the park and ride spots were full but I was able to get a spot a construction worker had just opened up. The bus itself was full — with a lot of students going to UT.

After lunch I decided to stay downtown and work from a coffeehouse I used to frequent a few years ago when I was on my sabbatical (a nice way of saying jobless) called Halcyon on 4th and Lavaca. Lots of comfy sofas, wifi, outlets for my shitty work computer, and cute girls. What a change from the usual corporate coffee places I’ve been going to around my house. (On Wednesday I took an earlier bus downtown on my way to work and stopped by the Austin Java at City Hall to get some coffee while waiting for my bus to the office). When I had a enough work and iced tea, I walked to the corner and got on the express bus home (which was less crowded and I used the wifi the whole time wrapping up work before the 3-day weekend).

This morning I went to Tacodeli for my tacos blancos con queso y chorizo (that’s egg white tacos with cheese and chorizo to the gringos) and rather than go to the myriad of Starbucks I decided to go to the little local place in the same strip mall called Sodade (nothing but great things said about them on yelp). I went over to their shop and saw their window was broken. The owners were there (they were going to be closed today for the holiday) because someone broke into their store last night. They said the crooks stolen the cash register but it only had $5 in quarters in it. It will cost a lot to fix the glass today for $5 in quarters. I was pretty saddened by hearing this. Here’s a couple that owns a small business and to have this happen was sad. I’m sure at least a dozen Starbucks in the US were broken into last night but to a giant faceless corporations it does feel as bad to me.

So I’m at Starbucks having my morning fix. It really is one of the only choices in this neighborhood and besides I have a balance on my Starbucks Card. Among giant faceless corporations Starbucks is one of the better ones. But I think I’m going to start going to Sodade more and support the little guy. At least now, I don’t feel like if I’m not frequenting Starbucks I’m not taking food from out of the mouths of babies.