Town Lake Photos

This is a picture I took last summer under one of the Town Lake bridges here in Austin. Me and Stassney decided to go downtown for some picture taking and the temperature was peaking at 100 degrees, possibly a little bit over. I just personally like the picture because at the time I was a bit jealous of the people under the bridge getting to relax in the shade while I was lugging around a camera bag. It was a nice day though and a few good pictures came out of it. Also here's another one of the pictures. For those of you who haven't been to Austin before there's an old defunct power station downtown that's more of a landmark than anything now, but it's an amazing looking structure especially the entrance which looks less like a power station and more like a front for some old school supervillian hideout.

I figured I'd get back into blogging again after a bit of a long hiatus. I actually used to have a semi-successful blog about my previous job as an IP relay operator that was actually getting a few thousand hits a day to the point where random people were writing articles about it and people at work would come up and ask me if I was the guy writing the relay blog. It was cool and all but I was breaking a long, long list of work rules by making the blog and rather than deal with the wrath of the Verizon legal team I shut down the blog. Then I got laid off from my job, not due to the blog, but due to outsourcing. Maybe there's someone in the Philippines who is writing the spiritual successor to my blog. One can only hope.

Other than that I guess introductions are in order. My name is Thomas and I live in Austin, TX with my girlfriend, Stassney. I'm an occasional writer, sometimes photographer, full time technical support representative. I figured if I write it'll go up here, same with any photos or general nonsense I feel like talking about.

Also I'm huge into reading. You know, books, that archaic form of storytelling. Right now I'm staring down a large stack of books.

Why We Suck by Denis Leary
Sabbath's Theater by Philip Roth
The Myth of You & Me by Leah Stewart
How to be Lost by Amanda Eyre Ward
Personal Days by Ed Park
Weird Contemporary Fables by Alvin Fixler
An Invisible Sign of my Own by Aimee Bender
Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris
and Blow-Up and Other Stories by Julio Cortazar

Those are just the ones I have at work. That doesn't count Franny and Zooey by JD Salinger that I have waiting for me at home along with a few other books I can't put my finger on at the moment.

I do wish I had more time for reading, but between my long work commute (at least for me it's long, an hour there, an hour back) and other responsibilities some things have fallen on the wayside, mostly reading, writing, and photography. Yet I still manage to find plenty of time to play video games. Maybe my priorities are a bit out of whack.

Anyways, I digress. This blog will be mainly for book reviews, stories, personal photography, and anything else.

On that note your first assignment is to read The Harvest by Amy Hempel which can be found here. It's a pretty short fiction piece and one of the best short stories ever. That should hold you over until next time.