Cheers!

SXSW is finally here, and I will be leaving for Austin soon. We managed to book the last available room in all of Austin for tonight, so I’m free to drink as much as I want. And with it being St. Patrick’s Day and all, today is sure to be a good one. There are tons of shows I hope to catch and I’ll be in the best of company.

My rugby game against OU on Saturday was a mess. We won 47-22 which is cool and all, but hitting my head as hard as I did in that game wasn’t. To be completely honest, I don’t remember what happened, I just know I opened my eyes and was on the ground, my head throbbing. I was taken out of the game after only playing 30 minutes. I didn’t have a concussion or anything, just lots and lots of frustration. Good times!

In other important updates, Shane and I will soon be expanding our little Gardiner family. That’s right, we are pretty close to adopting a dachshund at last! A dude came to inspect our house yesterday and determined we would make coherent dog owners. We’re just waiting to hear from the fosters of this little guy:

And we’ll see what happens next.

We also recently added a pistol to our household. It took some convincing, but I gave into Shane getting a gun, like everyone else in Texas. Shane has been teaching me all about it and took me to a shooting range yesterday to make me feel more comfortable with the thing. I ended up really liking it, and feel totally cool about having a 9mm in my house. I also feel bad for anyone who ever decides to mess with me, because I now know how to shoot someone in the face.

Shane’s been off almost a week now and it’s been really nice. We’ve been pretty big bums during the day, and our nights have been filled with our new addiction to watching “24.” I guess we tend to catch onto tv shows 5-10 years later, as we also just finished up
”Arrested Development.”

Now through Saturday we’ll be in party mode though. With the king of music fests in town, Shane, and good friends, I think it’s safe to say I’ll be pretty on top of the world.

Oh, and like every St. Patrick’s Day for the past 8 years, I called my grandma earlier to ask her what time I could pick her up and take her to city hall. Why, you ask? To get our butts painted green of course.

See, that cheesy little joke used to be my grandpa’s favorite line every March 17^th, when he’d call me to ask that very same question. Since he passed away in 2003, I’ve made sure to call my grandma every St. Patty’s Day and pull one over on her. So, in the spirit of tradition and everyone’s favorite drinking day, cheers and down those green beers.

It’s party time!