deep in the heart

howdy m'darlins! i'm melting here in san antonio where it was almost 90 degrees at about 7 am for the 5K i ran in this morning. the news predicted the temperature would be 100 degrees by 5 pm. we go from air-conditioned building to air-conditioned car. apparently in texas, the colder your A/C is, the richer you are -- that goes for trucks too -- the bigger it is, the better you are. hm, interesting status symbols you have texas.

i'm here for a computer conference through my work, and am thoroughly enjoying staying in a fancy hotel right on the riverwalk with my colleague leigh. the flynn sent me to tucson two years ago for the annual tessitura conference, which helped me break the surface of understanding our intricate database system that we use to keep track of constituents. this time around, i feel like i've got a snorkel and mask, and can now see at least 20 ft down. i'm not a computer geek, i swear, though i'm sure most of the computer geeks here claim that too...

i came to san antonio back in 2003 when my friend sarah got married, but didn't have much time to explore with all of the wedding festivities. last night was "on your own in san antone" night (tessitura is all about the puns and catchy phrases), so leigh and i headed out to "el mercado," the mexican markets where brightly painted pottery, sombreros, & those wooden croaking frogs abound. we had a feast at mi tierra, the classy mexican restaurant pictured above. we sampled the requisite margaritas, and just barely managed to avoid eye contact with the men who were attempting to serenade any table that would listen.

next we hit the alamo. nothing notable to say about that because we all remember it, don't we? it's small. it's adobe like. there were horse drawn buggies hoping to snag the next willing tourist. the flag wouldn't quite cooperate for the picture because there is no breeze here.

we walked up & down the riverwalk hoping for some relief (quintessential photo below). leigh searched for hot sauce for her husband, while i searched for the perfect cowboy hat for myself. you can't see the many hats i donned because all of the stores had signs up that clearly read "no taking pictures with hats." i still haven't found the right one -- perhaps tonight, our last night on the town. i only wish i could afford a matching pair of cowboy boots with spurs.

it's nice (sortof) to visit (ok, not really), but truthfully, i would never ever in my right mind want to live here. don't tell texas that though, you know what they say about messing with it.

can't wait to get to my home sweet home vermont.