TR: CFN Board Meeting Austin 2007; 10/25/07-10/28/07

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 26, 2007
SEVERAL VENUES AROUND THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS
AUSTIN, TEXAS

In my 23 years on this earth, I’ve done my share of gutsy, unusual things. Forked out good money to see your team play even though you know they’re going to get butchered? Check. Skydived? Check. Moved halfway across the country by myself? Check. Ride a roller coaster 17 straight times without leaving the loading platform? Check. But flown halfway across the country to meet some folks who post on the same message board as I do? Haven’t done that yet. Therefore, as my Southwest Airlines place roared off the deck at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, I really wasn’t sure what the hell I was getting myself into.

I actually flew to Austin on Thursday night, and was met at the airport by Erin (UTerin03). I had my first taste of authentic Austin food at the Magnolia Café on South Congress on Thursday night. I could definitely tell that everything I ate had been prepared fresh, with quality makings. All of Erin’s friends bailed out on her for going to the bar that night, which was for the better, as I was pretty wiped out after a long day at the office and 5 hours of flights.
Friday morning I finally met razorchique, KSULady, and Gatorama in the hotel lobby, and I rode with them down to Ruby’s. I took a liking to the place immediately. It is your typical Texas hole-in-the-wall barbecue joint, and I’m partial to places like that. I also had my first taste of the national beer of Texas, Lone Star, and it does a good job of washing down some of that FANTASTIC brisket.

Roby’s is where most of the Board Meeting met up for the first time. The four of us ran into MikeDeTiger, SunDevilFroggy, 847badgerfan, hooky, BurntEyes, and several others that I can't remember off hand.

After Ruby’s, a few of us went over to Cain and Abel’s to have a drink and chill out for a while. I must say that Cain and Abel’s is my kind of bar. Good atmosphere, $2 pints of Dos Equis, and a jukebox where “I’ll Just Sit Here and Drink” by Merle Haggard was the song that stuck in my craw.

BurntEyes and badgerfan needed to get some smokes, plus I wanted to walk through the campus, so BurntEyes led badgerfan, and myself (correct me if there were more of us) through the campus. It’s a very nice campus, and definitely has a big-league feel to it (compared with my foray into Eugene). Badgerfan said that it definitely felt like a Big Ten campus, but with a Southwestern flavor to it.

En route to the tailgate site, we stopped at the souvenir shop at Darrel K. Royal Texas Memorial Stadium. It’s your typical team store, but trying to find the bathroom was a confusing maze. I picked up a t-shirt to verify that I have indeed been to Texas.

The laws of Texas are significantly different than anywhere else I’ve been to when it comes to drinking in public. Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Washington lawmen would give you a $300 open-container ticket for drinking on the sidewalk (and be harda$$es in the process). Seattle cops would give you an additional ticket for not putting the drink in a plastic cup. Texas lawmen will let you drink on the sidewalk, but not on the state parking lots until they open for tailgaters to set up at 6 PM Friday night. This peculiar setup was demonstrated to us when we got to utee’s tailgate site about 5:00 Friday afternoon. Several of the tailgating setups were parked along the sidewalk waiting for the 6:00 bell, and they were already having a good ‘ol time, throwing washers and drinking beer. We helped utee get his tents set up, then went to Badgerfan’s hotel for him to change, then went to dinner.

Dinner was up at Trudy’s, just down the block from Rudy’s. Erin had raved so much about their Mexican martinis, I had no choice but to try one. Very tasty. I also had a mixed grill plate, and that was fantastic. If anyone complains about not eating or drinking well this weekend, it’s their own damn fault.

The party then shifted to Cheers on 6th Street. The waitress with the shot tray made out like gangbusters. When she came upstairs where the group was, someone suggested buying the whole tray. My hat was passed around, and there was a fair bit more collected than what she was willing to sell us the shots for. This happened twice over the course of the evening. I also had a nice talk with the barman about how the RRS is conducted up in Dallas.

Shortly before midnight, the folks who were riding in Gator’s car back to the hotel decided to call it a night, in preparation for the next day’s long haul.

Wow. A page and a half, and this is only Friday. Hard to tell how long this thing is gonna go for the Saturday recap.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2007
DARRELL K. ROYAL TEXAS MEMORIAL STADIUM AT THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS
AUSTIN, TEXAS

Saturday morning dawned bright and clear, albeit a bit chilly, on the plains of central Texas. It took a little while for me to fully come around, after short rest the past two nights and lots of cold beer the previous day.

When I saw Gator outside my hotel room shortly after 9:00 Saturday morning, he reported that I looked awful. I didn’t disagree with him, but assured him that once I got some food and some beer in me, I’d look and feel better. The whole bunch of us that were riding in Gator’s car piled in, and off to downtown we went. We ended up parking in a lot on 15th and Congress for the staggering cost of $5. Who said game-day parking had to be expensive?

After we piled out of the car (a la the clowns piling out of the Volkswagen), we made up an impressive menagerie of different school colors. Shirts, jackets, and hats from Florida, Minnesota, Kansas State, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Arizona State, and Auburn made up our little group as we walked the three blocks or so over to utee’s tailgate. Several times we were asked if we were lost, and once we explained what our motive for being in Austin was, they thought it was very cool. In fact, we were offered beers at several points during the walk, but we declined.

I mentioned earlier that we helped utee set his tents up on Friday evening. By the time we got over there about 9:30 Saturday morning, he had a very impressive spread out there. Beer kegs on ice, plus more cans in an iced tub in the event we drank the kegs out, plus lots of other beverages. A dish set in a bucket of sand to pick up ESPN and all the early games of the day. Lots of chairs, and the breakfast tacos out and ready to eat. An impressive setup indeed. Utee’s organization donates all proceeds from the tailgate to noteworthy Austin-area charities, and we were all glad to contribute. I also thought utee’s Texas hockey sweater (for those of you who aren’t too familiar with hockey, it’s frequently called a sweater) was one of the more unique things I’ve seen.

The rest of the group trickled in from their hotel rooms over the next hour or so. By 10:00, everyone was there and wearing their respective gear. I believe the final tally of schools represented at the tailgate was 12 (Host school Texas, Florida, Minnesota, Kansas State, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Arizona State, Auburn, Georgia, LSU, Nebraska, and Wisconsin). Also, there were folks there in gear of Penn State, Illinois, and Oregon, but I don’t know how they fit into this whole situation. It was an impressive blend of colors, and the only regret of the weekend was that we didn’t get a group shot of all of us in our gear.

Around 10:30, utee and the other Longhorns in the group led us on a walkaround of the tailgating going on in that part of campus. I’ve never seen so many meat smokers in one place in my entire life. As with before, our group got a lot of jokes, jests, and stares as we maneuvered our way through south Austin. We walked past the State Museum of Texas, which looks to be the kind of place I could lose myself in for a full day or two. While we were told that the number of elaborate setups is down from many big games (Ohio State, A&M), there were still a lot of big rigs there.

We got back in time to see the early games get under way. Badgerfan and Gator sat down to take in Wisconsin-Indiana on the big TV, while Texas Tech-Colorado occupied the other one. By now, the main food had been set out, and we set out to devouring the catered Tex-Mex, and washing it down with all that cold beer.

I had to find an ATM, and I was told there was one down at the Scholzgarten, a few blocks down San Jacinto from the tailgate. I stepped in the door and into a sea of red. Turns out I had wandered into the semi-official Big Red Bar in Austin. I later learned that after the Big 12 was formed, the first time that Nebraska came to Austin, Texas fans were surprised that the visiting team had even found a bar to congregate at, much less show up in the sheer numbers that Cornhusker fans tend to.

At this point, it was getting really crowded around the tailgate. We stood around enjoying the tailgating scene, discussing football in general, and finding tickets for the members of our party who wanted them and didn’t already have them.

A little after 1:30, our group (Erin, Mike, TigerKing, SDF, Razor, and myself) headed into the stadium. I figured our seats were going to be a ways up in the upper deck, but after huffing, puffing, and damn near blowing the house down, it occurred to me that Row 54 was not only high up in the stadium, it was the VERY TOP ROW. The view of the field was good, though. It was just like watching a game on TV from Ohio State.

The University of Texas Marching Band, the Show Band of the Southwest, has a very nice pregame show. However, am I the only one who found it more than a little awkward to announce the emergency evacuation procedures AFTER the band has taken the field and began their pregame show? Also, “The Eyes of Texas” does a good job of pulling double duty. When played at a fast pace, it’s a good fight song. When played at a slow, deliberate pace, it makes for a fine school alma mater. The tune for “Eyes” also happens to be the same as that of “I’ve Been Working On The Railroad.”

The game has been discussed ad nauseam, and the second quarter was so exciting that I apparently fell asleep while leaning against the top wall. Erin brought binoculars, and they were used frequently throughout the game. SDF also used his cell phone to find the answer to this past week’s Resident Genius question.

For as many people as DKR seats, I didn’t find that it was much more than average. I realize that this may have been a function of being at the very top of the stadium, but the place wasn’t very loud either. Husky Stadium in Seattle is still the loudest college stadium I’ve been to, and also the most unique/scenic. After the end of the game, it took quite a while for us to get down to the concourse of the upper deck. We waited for the women to use the facilities, and took some pictures as the sun set on a gorgeous day for football in Texas.

On the way back to the tailgate, we stopped at one of the T-shirt wagons so that TigreRex could get a souvenir of his visit to Austin. While we were waiting, a man who was so drunk he could hardly stand accosted MDT and started talking smack about LSU and Texas. After a few minutes, his accomplices were able to drag him away from our group, and we all completely cracked up and laughed all the way back.

We thanked utee for letting us crash his tailgate party, found our way to Gator’s car, and after driving around what seemed like half of Austin, ended up at Sports Bar. It was crowded, and it took a while to get our food, but the turkey melt sure did hit the spot, and the onion rings were fabulous. Mr. and Mrs. Badgerfan both left during this time, and it was too bad we didn’t see them again before I left for Seattle the next morning. The rest of us were perfectly content to sit at our tables/booth, drink beer, and watch football.

Strangely enough, for a bar in Texas on Saturday during college football season, the sound from Game 3 of the World Series was being put on the house sound system, instead of any of the many, many football games on the different TVs. At the back of the bar, there were a big crowd of Red Sox fans cheering on the other big projection in the back of the bar. There were also delegations from both Ohio State and Penn State in the bar, watching the OSU-PSU game from Happy Valley on one of the big projection monitors. Since it was Halloween weekend, one guy had dressed up like Coach Tressel, sweater vest and all, and I had to get a picture with him (it’s in my Photobucket album).

Let no one accuse KSULady of not being a passionate Wildcats fan. You could see her blood pressure going up during the third quarter of the KU-A&M game when the Wildcats were taking it to the Aggies, and most other folks in the bar cheering for the Jayhawks out of their hatred of A&M.

We sat there and drank until halftime of Cal-Arizona State, at which point we headed back to our hotel for a nightcap. Mex had a hard time getting more beer to take back to Razor and KSULady’s hotel room, but get it he did. SDF was able to watch the end of the beatdown his Sun Devils put on Cal, and we sat, drank, talked, laughed, and basically agreed that we were going to SEC country for next year’s Board Meeting. I also suggested not bringing the Board Meeting to Seattle unless we had a booooooooat to stern-gate from near Husky Stadium.

Fate is strange. 48 hours earlier, I hadn’t met any of these crazy folks before in my life. Hell, I’d never been within 500 miles of any of them in my life. I’d only read what scraps they’d posted on an Internet message board. But saying goodbye to everyone that night was like bidding adieu to dear friends that you’ve known forever. Because we are all friends. We have GOT to get together sometime in the spring for a half-year meeting or something. I had way too much fun to wait a year for it.

It’s hard to top Washington State for natural beauty. The approach into Seattle took us south of Stampede Pass before turning over Issaquah and Lake Sammamish. Since it was a clear day, you could see well into the North Cascades National Park to the plane’s right, and the impressive profiles of Mounts Adams, St. Helens, and Rainier to the left. Absolutely beautiful mountain scenery. After leaving the airport, I realized that the fall colors are still in peak around Puget Sound, which meant that the 405 from SeaTac airport around to Eastgate was awash in natural colors. Seattle is badly underrated when it comes to fall colors.

So there it is. My bloated epic of a two-day visit to central Texas. Any questions, comments, or complaints? Send ‘em my way. Thanks to everyone for making it such a great weekend.