12-30-2013 Starting Three Months in Austin SoCo

After enjoying a nice Christmas with our families we headed south to escape the cold.  So, we actually made an appointment with Louis Divino of The Leaf Group to help us find an apartment in Austin.  We met him early in the morning the day before New Year's Eve.  He listened to what we wanted and our requirements (3 month lease at a reasonable price).  He took us to three great properties, but didn't rush us, and by that afternoon we had made a decision, signed the paperwork, and actually moved a few things into our new place!

We could have been a few miles away and had all kinds of amenities (gym, heated pool, washer/dryer in the apartment, etc.), or we could be in the heart of it all and have less amenities (drive/bike to my regular gym, un-heated pool, washer/dryer across the parking lot, etc.).  We went to location over luxury - no surprise there, I'm sure.  So, we are walking distance from SoCo and Downtown, which means we are also biking distance from tons of stuff in Austin.  Our building overlooks Lady Bird Lake, and you can pick up the greenway trail right outside.

This is what the greenway trail looks like where you pick it up outside our building.

Looking back you see our building overlooking the lake.

Cheers to life in Austin!

12-8-2013 Fountain Square Brewery

Fountain Square Brewery offers inexpensive growler fills on Sunday (5 bucks)  It is a nice place to hang out and they play good music and there is always something going on.

Today they built a christmas tree from 6 pack boxes.

12-6-2013 First Friday in Fountain Square

Various parts of Indianapolis participate in First Friday. So, on the first Friday of each month the businesses in these areas showcase local art, and galleries and artist studios open up to the public. This Sunday we chose to check out Fountain Square.

Our first stop was New Day Meadery, where we each bought a yummy hot mulled cider.

New Day Meadery has a nice back room that you can rent out for meetings, events, etc.

Nice local art is displayed in the back room also.

Our next stop was the Murphy Building.  We checked out every studio that was open (although we didn't make it in to see the movie at Heartland), we listened to a little music, then headed downstairs to get something to eat.  Pure Eatery had looked good to Cara, so we quickly found a seat at the bar.  We enjoyed a meal and drinks (see full review here), then headed out.  We popped into the Wheeler Arts Building, but everything was pretty much closed down there - we'll remember to get there earlier next time.  So, we ended the night at Fountain Square Brewing Co.  Cara found a pop-up shop from Athena's Fashion Boutique and made a purchase.  We both enjoyed the live music.

They had a band called The Hardees playing, and they were pretty good.

11-29-2013 Downtown Indianapolis - lighting of the tree

We parked downtown and went to see the lighting of the Christmas Tree.  It was pretty cold that night and we got distracted by the City Market who had a little bazarre going on.

cute little wooden reindeer

The top floor of the City Market had a lot of little pop up shops

By the time we left the City Market the tree was lit.  From years past we realize that it is no big deal to see the actual flip of the switch, but it is impossible to get around in the crowd that does care.

the fanfare had finished and lots of people threw trash down

Everybody was orderly

The lights are very nicely done

The Swat Team has a really really nice command vehicle

hopefully they will never need to use this

11-24-2013 Girls Day Out

We left our husbands at home, and I (Cara) went with several of my female friends (Annette, Denise, Cheryl and JoEllen) to Cincinnati for the day.  Our first stop was IKEA, and we arrived around 11am.  I'd never been, but Cheryl was over the moon excited about it because she was shopping to furnish her new house.  Truly, the place is a-maze-ing!  You wind your way through the showroom, following the arrows on the floor.  You pass by decorated room after decorated room, and everything that is for sale has a price tag hanging from it with info on where you find it.  They even had a whole 960 square foot apartment set up, with a furnished kitchen, living room, bathroom and bedroom - very cute.  I saw some good ideas.

I like the balance of the off-kilter shelves and the "bird cage"

This is a cute way to show off photos (and change them out easily).

Just getting through the showroom took about 2 hours.  After that we definitely needed something to eat, so we stopped at the IKEA Restaurant & Cafe.  It's cafeteria style service, but much better than cafeteria style food.  Plus, it's cheap (my meal cost about $5) because you are supposed to bus your own table, which I don't mind a bit.

I had a nice Cranberry Walnut Salad with mixed greens, plus some nicely cooked veggies.
My friends like the Swedish Meatballs, and they all shared the desserts, which they said were fabulous.

After lunch we hit the "Marketplace" to pick up the items we all liked.  We all found several things, but the big spender was Cheryl, whose purchases included a bed frame, artwork, wine glasses, decorative pieces, and more.  By the time we finally got out of IKEA it was nearly 5pm!  We hightailed it over to Cincinnati Premium Outlets, with only 2 hours to shop.  We started together at The North Face Outlet together, then split up.  We all found some good deals and shopped until the stores closed.

After a long day of shopping we were all hungry, so we stopped for dinner at Ruby Tuesday before heading home.  I had steamed veggies and the salad bar (called the Farmers Market), while several others had burgers, and Annette had seafood.  The burgers were liked, but Annette's seafood was overcooked, as were my veggies.  In addition, the salad bar has gone downhill because it has fewer toppings in general, and some of my favorites were gone altogether (like garbanzo beans).

Cara's "Farmers Market" veggies at Ruby Tuesday
(lots of butter on the squash and green beans, but no apparent seasoning on the broccoli)

11-24-2013 A day with Mark Wilcher

Cara took off with some other girls and went shopping.  Eric hung out with Mark Wilcher all day.  We played some games then went to Dave and Buster's for a birthday party.

I had never been to Dave and Buster's before and for my taste the place isn't that great.  They don't have pinball, and none if the games really appealed to me.

The food seems like it is the cheapest unhealthy food possible.  I personally ate some chips and cheese dip.  The salsa was bland, the cheese tasted like really cheap canned cheese, and the chips had a funny taste.  I think they are just really cheap chips that were slightly warmed up.

Above is a time lapse video taken of Zora eating an omelate.  This was shot in 8x fast speed on my Note 2.

Above is a time lapse of Zora and Ella playing a light game

11-22-2013 Open house at DK New Media

On Tuesday Doug Karr of DK new media spoke at the speakeasy and he invited us to his open house that started at 3 in the afternoon.  His office is right downtown on 120 E Market Street.  We spent a couple of hours there and had some really nice conversations.  Doug is super nice and humble and is filled with good ideas that sprout from years of experience.  He is successful in a tough industry and his core philosophies are similar to ours....so this encourages us a lot.

After the open house we went to Tomlinson tap room and had 1 beer and went home.

Tomlinson Tap Room is on the second floor of the City Market

11-20-2013 Trip to Fort Wayne

Eric left at about 8 to go to Fort Wayne to work with Abby of Save Maumee during the day and met with Brian and Miranda.

I ended up getting home at 1 in the morning.

I guess I didn't document my day very well with pictures.

11-19-2013 Smartup meetup at the Speakeasy

On Tuesday evening I went to the speakeasy in southern Broad Ripple and listened to Doug Karr of DK New Media.  The does the tech marketing blog and I had heard him speak before.  He makes common sense.  My takeaway from his talk was:

1. carefully screen your customers to find the right fit
2. develop a continuing relationship with the customer
3. do the right thing and deliver value
4. don't focus on the trends and instead focus on creating good solid content and good solid customer service and let the traffic and benefits come to you instead of always chasing it
5. be humble about your knowledge

There were about 25 -35 people at the Smartup Meetup

 The event was very very enjoyable and well worth attending.

11-15-2013 2-Night backpacking trip Daniel Boone National Forest in Kentucky

We met up at our friend Susie's at 7 on Friday night and left for Daniel Boone National Forest (specifically the Red River Gorge area) near Slade, Kentucky.  You could go out I-74 or I-65 and it was only 1 mile and one minute difference according to Google.....Interesting....we went down I-65 since that is what we always do.   The trip takes 3:45.

We kept track of each other on the way down and the trip was fast and smooth.

That Friday we camped at Koomer Ridge Campground and got up and left early on Saturday.

Our spot at Koomer Ridge Campground

The plan was to do a 6-7 mile loop with some side trips.  We left from the main parking area for Courthouse Rock.

Parking lot was pretty full, but we didn't see tons of people on the trail

We hiked the old road out to Double Arch, then went back to the Auxier Branch Trail and found a campsite.  The next day we saw Courthouse Rock and took the Auxier Ridge Trail to loop back to the parking lot. (That is not my thumb in the picture by the way)

We did the loop trail and this was an old road that we started on

I reminded Jay to be careful....the cliffs can be dangerous

Shawn always has to look over the edge

That night we found a nice campsite that had been used a lot in the past.

There were many beautiful vistas

This was our great lunch spot on day one

This was our camp spot on Sat. Night

This was our camp spot on Sat. Night

Courthouse Rock

On the hike out Sunday, there was rain, mist, fog, etc.  We knew strong storms were coming

They had a small fire there that was contained to the area of a football field

As we left a fog rolled in....this is looking back over the valley near where we hiked

We stopped in a quaint town called Midway.  We had a good meal at The Grey Goose (the only place open that Sunday).

11-13-2013 Yelp Paleo Party

We got our hair cut and then we went to the Yelp Palio Party that was held in honor of the opening of the Mammoth exhibit at the state museum.

We started by seeing a 3d imax movie that had some interesting effects, but was targeted to somebody that had never heard of a mammoth before.

There were about 10 vendors there that gave samples of their foods.

11-12-2013 Green Drinks at Indiana City Brewing Company

Indiana City Brewing Company is downtown basically on the corner of Shelby and Washington Street in downtown Indianapolis.

There were about 20 people there at the meeting and we got a great tour of the facility.  We learned that the very same building was a very successful brewery and across the street was a 10 story brewhouse that was put out of business by prohibition.  The building had no electricity or water and they have done a marvelous job of restoring this building and highlighting its age.  It is really cool.

This says."the day will again dawn upon Indiana when a man can drink what he wants, when personal liberty will again be a citizens right."  This was written in a letter to all businesses as the old brewery was forced out of business by prohibition.

Picture of the fermenting vessels

They are a small brewery that brews much as a home brewer would....no doubt they will grow.

This is the burners for the vessels above....I wondered if they built it or bought it?

11-11-2013 Meeting and Dinner with Mark Davis

When we first started our business in 1996, Mark Davis had started an Internet Service Provider.  We tried to help each other with our businesses for years and had strikes and gutterballs....but we always had a great time.  Mark retired 4 years ago and I hadn't seen him since.  We always had Tech in common and that connection has weakened.

But Mark informed me that he is going to move to Belize in February and hopefully we can go there and help that area with Tourism marketing on the Internet in the future.  He had a lot of cool new things to show us then we went out to dinner.  Here is the review of the Dinner.  I didn't want to embarrass myself and geek out and take pics of all the dishes since we were with somebody I hadn't seen for so long.  I only reviewed my meal.

11-9 to 11-10 Backpacking in Morgan Monroe State Forest

We parked at the backcountry campground area lot and hiked in for 2 miles.  We camped about 100 yards from the creek.  Everybody had a great time and no injuries were reported.

We had a really nice area with a couch