Taking a Cue...or just that good

Sam is on it and he doesn't even know it. If it were anyone else I'd say he's taking a cue from Junya Watanabe...but I don't think he is. Miss you buddy.

Totally stole the pic and link from The Sartorialist.

Gosh he's sweet (my boyfriend that is)

Soooo. James was kinda being a butthead (his words, not mine) the other day...


he knows he doesn't need to buy me things to make me happy...but this was beyond sweet.

My favorite kind of wine, flowers...and toothpaste. I love Tom's toothpaste, but as you may know that shit is SUPER expensive. In my ongoing effort to cut unnecessary expenses from my life I don't buy it anymore. He got it for me. If that isn't nerdy love I don't know what it.

Jesus Christ

Have you ever seen anything this cute before? Ever!

NO!

Tejas

4 1/2 mnths. Crazy that it's been that long already since I left Minneapolis for Austin.

July 7th will be my 5 month anniversary of moving, as well as James and my 1 year anniversary of knowing each other.

So. Almost five months of Texas, and I can say that it's growing on me. I don't like the heat; but I also don't like the cold of MN winters. At least in the heat I can still go biking and cool off with a drink or jump in the pool. My fingers don't go numb here, but I do burn my legs and my ass on my stupid leather car seats a lot. Shorts + hot leather = burnt legs.

Jesse Stensby texted me that past weekend, saying he wished mpls had the equivalent of Magnolia's. Sam, I think you might be the only mpls'er we've brought there...remember the Mag Mud? I wish Austin had a Fuji-Ya...I'm really missing that spot. There are some really great sushi joints down here though. One spot is reminiscent of Fuji-Ya, and that makes me happy...but I've only been there once.

Besides the burnt legs and the lack of Fuji-ya, I really can't complain. Happy in Austin, hoping to get back to MN for a week pretty soon, missing your faces, thinking of you guys, learning about living in Texas.

Hipopotamo Fun

I like oreos too

Remember that time...

Tucker bought Bill a hot dog?

Blonde Bombshell

The one and only.

Rando

We went swimming in Barton Springs the other day and were all psyched on this guy>
you can't tell in the photo, but he has one nipple pierced and was striking poses all day long. He totally busted me taking his photo, so I took another.

A pretty summertime drive with Jenn and Ryan.^^

And a MONSTER at the Sexy Gazebo. Everyone told me this is a cicada shell, but I think they're wrong. Anyway, James put it on Jenn's shoulder and she and I both screamed. I ran. Dick.

Amazing Adventures

This girl:
Moved here today:

Best of luck darling. We'll be missing you.

Mumford & Sons

I don't get paid well, but I do get a lot of perks. Mumford & Sons in studio at work. Seriously. Amazing. Breath-taking. Phenomenal. These guys are really, really good.

Mumford & Sons later that night at La Zona Rosa. FANTASTIC.

One of the best shows I've been to ever, and I go to a lot of shows.

My Girl Likes to Party All the Time

Saw Kid Sister at Mohawk the other week. She's a little played out, no? Don't think any track lasted longer than 30 seconds, but I guess that's expected? It was still fun.

Stage part ^^^

We went to a show at Hole in the Wall after. Biked over with James and our friend Ericka. Jenn tried to meet us but got a flat tire. She was resourceful and patched it. It went flat again. She was finally able to make her way to HITW, and we had a pretty cheery time. Until 2am, then you better get the eff outta there.

Took a cab to her bike, and then the 3 of us had a nice walk home:

Late nights in Austin.

Employee of the Month

I have a pretty cool job. I'm not sure if any of you know what I do, so I thought I'd take a second to explain it. I work for a radio station cluster. I work in marketing. When we have clients who want to advertise and be involved in events I help plan the events and make sure they run smoothly. So far I've worked on:

~ a 5k run that benefitted a disadvantage youth camp

~ ROT Rally (Republic of Texas) motorcycle rally. 2nd largest in the country behind sturgis (I did almost nothing for this event, but helped coordinate the radio station involvement).

~ ran a street team of 25 people for car2go which is a rad car-share program that just started in austin

~ organized a World Cup viewing party for 300 people at an indoor soccer stadium

~ helped with Summer Cinema, which is basically movies in the park. Back to the Future!

I really like what I'm doing. I'm really good at it. I've made some cool friends here. One of the stations I work for, KGSR, had a team building day last week. We went out on the boat and it ruled.





Then, in total nerd-alert fashion...I was voted employee of the month today at work. I must be a baller, because last month I was nominated for Rookie of the Year. I didn't win that, but I did take home the trophy for EOTM. (There is no trophy, I made that up). What I did win was the entire company getting this photo of me in their email:

So that was pretty embarrassing.

The big boss did write a very nice note, which I'm sharing with you all so you know what a bad-ass I am when it comes to marketing and stuff.

"The Employee of the Month for June (for the work she did in the month of May) goes to Ashley Ryan, for doing an awesome job juggling EMG, CO, KGSR and KLZT! Rachel was out of town for 10 days and Ashley picked up all of her work in addition to her already packed schedule. She always has a positive “Can Do” attitude. She never seems to be stressed out. She is such a quick learner so it seems like she’s been working here for years. Thanks for all of your hard work Ashley."


Booyah. Plus I got a gift card for an hour massage. Word.

Supernatural Surprise

I thought my eyes were cheating me at El Chilito. Just after we ordered our tacos from the window, and I'd had my first sip of the icy frozen sangria, I turned and spotted THIS:

WTF??? I started talking to the owner of the mysterious MN skateboard bike. Turns out his friend gave him this bike 5 years ago, and he's been riding it ever since (in MN). The guy just moved down to Austin like ten months ago, and he brought the bike with. I don't remember his name, but I did see him later that night at Thunderbird for Jenn's art opening.

Pretty craze to see.

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner

So, after Sam's grad party in Houston we drove back to ATX pretty exhausted. While trying to decide what to do we came to the conclusion we needed a drink and an air conditioned movie theatre. Ding Ding Ding!!! Alamo Draft House. We also wanted mindless summer block buster action...Prince of Persia it was.

We decided to head to Black Sheep Lodge first, where my friend Jill works. We got some wings and split a burger, and then James declared, "I can't wait to finish this burger and then kick your ass in darts."

I can't remember the last time I played darts, and I've never played on a real dart board (versus the plastic electric games).

This would be me. Pointing to the scoreboard.
Because I WON.
BOOYAH.

We went to Prince of Persia, which was like watching a way less cool Pirates of the Caribbean meats The Mummy. Wha wha wha. Whatever. I won at darts.

Houston

We made the drive to Houston 2 weeks ago for Sam's graduation (James' nephew). Got to see his mom, and her best friends who were visiting from UK.

And Sam had the most awesome graduation cake EVER^^^

Houston is a pit. James drove me around his old neighborhood, and past the house he grew up in; which was cool. I just can't ever imagine living there. Boring boring boring. It's like Agrestic.

Bike Ride in East Austin

I think this was already 2, maybe 3 weeks ago...but James and I decided to go for a bike ride on the east side a random Saturday afternoon. This is dangerous for a couple reasons.

Reason #1
Your Mom's is def one of my favorite guilty pleasures in Austin. Come visit, and we'll buy some beers and bike there for a burger treat. You'll love it.

Reason #2
It's hot as hell in the middle of the day here, and we were on our bikes. It was a sweat fest. Ick.

The real reason I wanted to go for a ride was that we had taken a weird way home one night and I was intrigued by all the cool party stores in the neighborhood. Camera in hand we took off on a party store mission.

Victory almost immediately^^^ Kitty corner from Raquel's was another party store, but I like Raquel's blatent middle finger to Disney and copyright laws, so it's getting featured.

An old Johnson & Johnson store right across the street from Raquel's. It's being remolded, not sure to what. Weird side bar: I watched a documentary recently by the most current Johnson & Johnson heir, Born Rich. It's not great, it's really not even that good, but the power went out with like 15 minutes left and I was streaming it on Netflix and so I still haven't finished it and I'm intrigued I guess.

So anyway. We biked around for a while, took some pictures, ate a burger, and got real sweaty. As we were biking home I remembered seeing a little book store on the ride I wanted to swing through. I think I fell in love. Domy books will be taking money from me, and I don't feel bad about it.