So let's see I left work early a week ago last Thursday. Picked up my buddy at Love Field and swung by Cafe Istanbul for dinner. Which was fantastic. Had to listen Beautiful by Moby on the way out of Dallas after seeing "Haute Baby" and other such stores downtown. They sure do love spending in Dallas.

Got Austin in time for a couple beers at the Draft "Horse" with my other friend and his math cronies. Next morning we piled in my car and made it out to San Antonio by noon. With the doctor and her cute friend we set out for South Padre, determined to make it by the time the sun went down.

We made it in good time (she's so cute when she speeds) and the four hour drive felt like 20 minutes. The sun was too low for us to want to swim but we went to the beach and waded and splashed and got excited about Saturday. I forget what we ended up drinking that night but everybody got pretty trashed, me included. The great thing about dating the girl that puts together a trip like this is she gets dibs on the big bed. My buddy from the 'Lou hooked up with the other single girl, which I saw coming from miles away. He's not the kind to screw up that sort of opportunity and she had the look of somebody who was open to that sort of thing if the guy appealed to her. I was very pleased with the whole night.

Saturday we got up early and had eggs and chorizo for breakfast. After much prodding on my part everybody mobilized all the way down to the beach where we spent the better part of the day playing frisbee and laying about. All the honkies got a little burned but I didn't at all. The beach was quite nice, not quite as pristine as Gulf Shores, but on the level of the Outer Banks. There were plenty of people and kids about but it wasn't crowded at all, nothing like Spring Break.

We had a barely mediocre dinner at some nearby place with a short wait and proceeded to drinking. We mixed it up drinking beer, margaritas, and pina coladas at the hotel and on the beach. I think about 4 of them brought iPods so we had music all night, all different kinds including a lot of Mexican music I'd never heard. We drank too much and smoked too many cigarettes (well everybody except me, I wanted to be sober enough to be...fun...all night). We did get a round of tequila shots in at least.

We all slept in until about 15 minutes before checkout Sunday but still managed to get out by noon with the place not destroyed. Due to great fortune we wound up eating lunch at a place in Port Isabel called Manuel's. Everything on the menu sounded great and it looked authentic. But the best part was going into the back room and watch the little old Mexican lady rockin out to her FM radio and hand rolling out these massive, delicious, flaky yet almost doughy tortillas which where the best flour tortillas I've ever had. I had one of these beasts stuffed with barbacoa "Mexicali" iirc which means with onion & peppers. This was also the best barbacoa I've ever had in Texas. I can absolutely not recommend this place enough...don't dare miss it on any Padre trips.

We made it back to San Antonio with just enough time for my buddy and I to make it to the AT&T center for game 2 of the NBA finals. Yep that's right, somehow the doctor had managed to snag two tickets to the game at work and offered them to us. There was no way I was going to turn them down unless it was too much of a problem for everybody else, but my buddy had never been to an NBA game and really wanted to go, changed his flight for it and everything. Even though it turned out to be a blowout for the Spurs, who I'm no fan of, I'm glad I went. The fans were pretty good and loud and not classless jerks like Miami fans and the atmosphere was wild.  Afterwards we hung out at the doctor's apartment and reminisced for a bit.

Drove back up to Austin Monday morning, stopping at the barbecue capital of the world for some real barbecue. No grilling, no sauce...hell no forks! The ribs weren't ready by the time we got there, so we had to make due with brisket and sausage. The sausage was easily 5 stars, utterly perfect, the best I've ever had. Perfect density, both smoke and meat flavors, great snap to the casing, not greasy at all. The brisket really illuminated what you miss if you never eat great Texas bbq brisket in your life. Yea you can get "sandwich quality" brisket at a million places: glorified roast beef, kinda dry, maybe sometimes with a bit of smokiness. This was nothing like that. Two thick slices of beef, juicy and delicious, perfectly seasoned so that you taste the meat, the smoke, and nothing else. The perfect end to a perfect weekend.

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So then last weekend was my first long awaited "date" with the girl from the gym. Due to her having a life and such the only time we could get together was Saturday afternoon. So we went bowling at a place right by my apartment. I guess she had a bad morning or whatever because she just came right up and gave me one of those "I need a hug" hugs. Which is a nice way to start a date. I was worried she'd kick my ass bowling but we were really even and with some trash talking and teasing I think I managed to get her in a good mood. Even though it didn't end in a kiss I had a great time and she said we could go out again. I'm still not absolutely sure that these are official dates but she's fun and cute so I'm going to remain hopeful.

After that I spent the entire rest of the weekend watching the first two seasons of Major and the last few episodes of Nodame Cantabile, barely moving from in front of my computer. All in all it's been a good past couple weeks.