Austin thanks to Dave Weintraub
This post is dedicated to Dave Weintraub who felt neglected on the blog.
I promised myself I wouldn’t do this—ever visit Texas. Nothing against the state really, just Dallas, and for no other reason than those damn Dallas Cowboys. Who’s with me? Let’s ditch it and deport all the fans? Anyone? No? Anyway, after changing our first flat tire of the trip in New Mexico we pulled into El Paso and became the only native English speakers in town. Then we trekked across this behemoth of a state towards Austin. Texas is huge. Like, way huge. I’m not sure how big exactly but I am sure there exists some stat about it being two times bigger than all the coke Michael Irving ever snorted, which is a hell of a lot. Brian was real excited about Austin as they have a vibrant, budding film community and he thinks of it as a possible place to set up shop after college. I on the other hand didn’t know much about it, nor was I very excited at all. Our good friend and New York playboy Dave Weintraub had been in touch and told us one his best friends lived there, so with a series of phone calls we got ourselves all set up with yet another free place to stay. We pulled in late, about 12:30 and after some brief getting-to-know you small talk with Katie, Dave Weintraub’s good friend, who turned out to be a totally awesome girl, we settled down and watched a movie. Katie’s boyfriend Wilsen was there and he started chatting about his month in an Alzheimer's drug test, a month that earned him $6,000. I guess I vaguely knew these trials existed but I never really knew they did if you know what I mean. He told us some crazy stories about the month there and in turn Brian told about a place in Madison, WI, that, to teach students how exactly it’s done, removes and reattaches your pinky toe for $5,000, or, for $10,000 removes and reattaches your picky finger. No joke. And in twenty years they’ve never had a rejection. $5,000 for my pinky toe? I would take $500 for that thing. We talked more about tests, apparently Brian has repeatedly tried to sign up for marijuana trials but has yet to be accepted. We laughed and told jokes about this and eventually I fell asleep dreaming of a lucrative salary testing drugs and removing appendages.
The next day we said thanks and goodbye and headed downtown to see the town itself. It was a pretty cool place and I felt as though I could live there one day. I think it had less to do with Austin and much more to do with college coeds walking about the 50,000 student strong University of Texas. I love and hate college campuses. SCAD didn’t really have much of a campus and I look at the sprawling buildings and benches and youth everywhere and while they make me feel some warm feeling, collective youth maybe?, they also make me feel envious. The thing is I always assume college kids are on the way to some great party or orgy and do nothing but smile, play intramural sports, and watch big time college football. The truth of it is most kids don’t enjoy college to the fullest while they’re there. They drink to much and sleep in, they sit and watch Comedy Central instead of reading on a campus bench and Brian and I are lucky to have enjoyed not only our own school but many others along the way. We left in the late afternoon, north towards Dallas to see Brian’s brother Paul. I thought of college and smiled, not because of college but because Dallas lost their game in the last minute while the Redskins won theirs handily and if you ask me life rarely gets much better than that.
More about clinical trials. In Dallas I visited a clinical trial website to see what I could find. I think a vast future in ADD trials and a few sleep and dream studies, one in Australia, awaits me. Unfortunately there I found quite a bit in the way of ACL trials and instead of paying a grand for my last reconstruction I could have made cold hard cash for it, damn. At the time of publishing I still have both pinky toes.
I promised myself I wouldn’t do this—ever visit Texas. Nothing against the state really, just Dallas, and for no other reason than those damn Dallas Cowboys. Who’s with me? Let’s ditch it and deport all the fans? Anyone? No? Anyway, after changing our first flat tire of the trip in New Mexico we pulled into El Paso and became the only native English speakers in town. Then we trekked across this behemoth of a state towards Austin. Texas is huge. Like, way huge. I’m not sure how big exactly but I am sure there exists some stat about it being two times bigger than all the coke Michael Irving ever snorted, which is a hell of a lot. Brian was real excited about Austin as they have a vibrant, budding film community and he thinks of it as a possible place to set up shop after college. I on the other hand didn’t know much about it, nor was I very excited at all. Our good friend and New York playboy Dave Weintraub had been in touch and told us one his best friends lived there, so with a series of phone calls we got ourselves all set up with yet another free place to stay. We pulled in late, about 12:30 and after some brief getting-to-know you small talk with Katie, Dave Weintraub’s good friend, who turned out to be a totally awesome girl, we settled down and watched a movie. Katie’s boyfriend Wilsen was there and he started chatting about his month in an Alzheimer's drug test, a month that earned him $6,000. I guess I vaguely knew these trials existed but I never really knew they did if you know what I mean. He told us some crazy stories about the month there and in turn Brian told about a place in Madison, WI, that, to teach students how exactly it’s done, removes and reattaches your pinky toe for $5,000, or, for $10,000 removes and reattaches your picky finger. No joke. And in twenty years they’ve never had a rejection. $5,000 for my pinky toe? I would take $500 for that thing. We talked more about tests, apparently Brian has repeatedly tried to sign up for marijuana trials but has yet to be accepted. We laughed and told jokes about this and eventually I fell asleep dreaming of a lucrative salary testing drugs and removing appendages.
The next day we said thanks and goodbye and headed downtown to see the town itself. It was a pretty cool place and I felt as though I could live there one day. I think it had less to do with Austin and much more to do with college coeds walking about the 50,000 student strong University of Texas. I love and hate college campuses. SCAD didn’t really have much of a campus and I look at the sprawling buildings and benches and youth everywhere and while they make me feel some warm feeling, collective youth maybe?, they also make me feel envious. The thing is I always assume college kids are on the way to some great party or orgy and do nothing but smile, play intramural sports, and watch big time college football. The truth of it is most kids don’t enjoy college to the fullest while they’re there. They drink to much and sleep in, they sit and watch Comedy Central instead of reading on a campus bench and Brian and I are lucky to have enjoyed not only our own school but many others along the way. We left in the late afternoon, north towards Dallas to see Brian’s brother Paul. I thought of college and smiled, not because of college but because Dallas lost their game in the last minute while the Redskins won theirs handily and if you ask me life rarely gets much better than that.
More about clinical trials. In Dallas I visited a clinical trial website to see what I could find. I think a vast future in ADD trials and a few sleep and dream studies, one in Australia, awaits me. Unfortunately there I found quite a bit in the way of ACL trials and instead of paying a grand for my last reconstruction I could have made cold hard cash for it, damn. At the time of publishing I still have both pinky toes.
posted by Eric at
6:51 PM
