I've been coughing like an aging smoker all week. My doctor says I have bacterial and viral infections and prescribed some antibiotics to help. That and Mucinex has kept my hacking to a tolerable level. Well, most of the time. This morning was not a good morning to ride.
However, I felt well enough yesterday to join Slow Food Austin on their farm to cafe tour, following the local food chain from Sand Creek Farm in Cameron to lunch at the Monument Cafe in Georgetown. If you're at all curious about the food you eat, you really should check out Slow Food Austin's site.
The tour started out at Ben and Alysha's Sand Creek Farm. They are a source for, among other things, raw milk, cheeses, and grass fed meats:
Ben tends the farm without the use of any tractors. Instead, the family (Ben, Alysha, and their 5 girls) uses work horses to pull farm implements. It's amazing how quiet and peaceful their farm is without the added engine noises.
After the farm, the group (all 50 or so of us) traveled to Georgetown to have lunch at the Monument Cafe. Our meal was prepared with ingredients sourced from Sand Creek Farm:
Afterward, we visited Monument's demonstration farm behind the cafe where Rusty Winkstern, the owner of the cafe, gave a short talk about sustainable farming, sourcing ingredients locally, eating seasonally and discussed the upcoming Monument Market opening soon that will feature organic food from a 300 mile radius of Georgetown:
All this food talk is excellent. However, I've been sourcing my food from two primary sources this week, Annie's and the Girl Scouts:
I do doctor up the raviolis just a bit with spinach, carrots, and portabella mushrooms to add a bit of excitement:
...with my car dealer, that is. I take my convertible in for an oil change and inspection once a year. I only drive it about 4500 miles annually, so the timing is about right. Besides, an oil change is $250 for some crazy reason, so changing the oil more than necessary seems like a complete waste of money. While the car was in this time I asked them to check on the passenger side door lock sensor. Seems on hot days the sensor fails in that door and the window won't roll down half an inch to clear the roof gasket when you pull the door handle.
After a couple of days, I got a call saying my car was ready. When I asked for the total bill, I was fully expecting some astronomical figure - there is no such thing as a cheap Porsche service visit. Remember, these are the same people who charged me $1.50 for a tail light bulb and almost a hundred dollars to install the tail light bulb.
Anyway, I was pleasantly surprised when my bill came to $316. That's $250 for the oil change, $20 for the inspection, and the balance for installing a new license plate light and cleaning out my drains. I was shocked to find they took care of the door sensor as a warranty item. Pressing my luck, I decided to ask if they could give me the part number for the center caps on my wheels. Apparently, it's fairly common for the emblems to be pried off by vandals. I walked out to my car one day to find 3 out of my 4 emblems missing.
The dealer wanted almost $100 a piece to replace them. I thought if I could get the part number, I could search eBay for suitable replacements for a lot less. Anyway, the parts guy told me there were 2 versions of the center cap - one with full color shields, and another with black and silver shields. He said the black and silver ones weren't very popular, so he offered them to me for $30 for the set of 4. That was a major score, and I'm happy to report my car looks whole again.
Btw, Porsche drivers are a pampered lot. When day light savings time rolled around recently, my dealer called me up and left an automated message instructing me on how to adjust the clock in my car ahead one hour. If I still had trouble, I was told to bring my car by the dealership, and they would be happy to adjust my clock while I waited. Not only that, Porsche doesn't just send you a card saying your car has been recalled for a safety issue. No, they send a card saying your vehicle "may benefit from a product improvement campaign."
So Ursula and Gregg were married this past weekend. The ceremony was very nice, with a mix of Christian and Jewish traditions. I would like to point out the obvious here - Gregg is tall and Ursula is not. And they are one very happy couple:
The week prior, a number of us guys took Gregg out to San Antonio for his bachelor's party. Nothing really wild took place - especially if you're at a Denny's at 2:48AM:
I wished we had rented this late model Buick for the stud wagon, but alas, it was already spoken for.
I was pretty tired that weekend, because I decided to ride with Pete and Ondre from Hyde Park to Samsung for the Rosedale Ride - and then ride back home.
The wind and heat were brutal, especially on the leg back. However, I did get a nice tan:
All-in-all, we rode 84 miles - then I drove to San Antonio. Needless to say, I fell asleep during some of the bachelor party activities that evening.
