Tuesday, March 15, 2011
A Wedding at Casa Kenwood Guesthouses
Today was a special day at casa kenwood guesthouses. We hosted our first wedding here in our backyard! We got so many compliments about the landscape, and the bride and groom (Natalie and Bryce) did an amazing job of decorating. Couldn't have been better weather for an outdoor wedding.
We're in the midst of SXSW and there's so much activity in Austin right now! The energy is amazing. The interactive part just ended, and now music is starting up. I'm excited to see some live music this week, including The Strokes in a free show on Auditorium Shores on Thursday night (!) Makes me happy to be living in such a great town.
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Austin: Home of the Whole Foods HQ
...Okay, this isn't the greatest photo of the Whole Foods Global Headquarters (in Austin, TX), but at least it gives you somewhat of an idea of what it looks like. The building in the back is the actual HQ.
Why am I posting about Whole Foods? Well, it's just a little tidbit of fact that Whole Foods' humble beginnings happened just down the street from their current 6th and Lamar behemoth store in what is now Cheapo Records. I remember their quaint little first store. Even way back then (we're talking early '90s) I remember how I gravitated to the natural soap section, and the way the store employees used to get on the loudspeaker and banter with each other. All of the employees back then smelled like patchouli (among "other things", ha ha) and most of them had dreadlocks and wore tie-dye. I've never actually seen the Richard Linklater film "Slacker", but it supposedly captures early 90's Austin in a moment in time, back when Austin was truly laid-back and "weird" (if you weren't already aware of it, "Keep Austin Weird" is our official--or unofficial--mantra), and some of the scenes were shot right by the original Whole Foods.
I have to admit that I look back at that time in Austin with fondness. I grew up only an hour north up Interstate 35, but I moved to the ATX officially in the summer of 1993 after graduating from college in Sherman, TX (an hour north of Dallas) and just entering film school at the University of Texas. I'd just missed Robert Rodriguez' (filmmaker) time there, he graduated from the undergrad RTF program the year before. And I thought that parking around the university was crowded back then! This was before the LA/NY invasion of hipsters that would gobble up Austin property like PacMan gobbled up little dots and dashes. This was back when South Congress was not the nicest place to be, and we used to joke about the ladies-of-the-night that used to hang around the seedy motels there.
No more. South Congress (and the surrounding neighborhoods of Travis Heights and Bouldin Creek) are THE place to be in Austin. It's the last vestige of authentic Austin, if only the "artistic interpretation" of what Old Austin sort of...meant. We South Austinities like to joke around that anything north of the river (it used to be "Town Lake", now it's "Lady Bird Lake") was Round Rock (the uber-conservative suburbia of sprawling sameness). South Austin is anything but sameness, "and that don't sit well with some people." But that's okay.
The days of winter are slowly slipping past us now, and cool, crisp, blue-skied days are ever more present (including today), and so with that reality I'm making it my goal to start highlighting some more haunts and hallowed ground of my fair city. Stay tuned!
Why am I posting about Whole Foods? Well, it's just a little tidbit of fact that Whole Foods' humble beginnings happened just down the street from their current 6th and Lamar behemoth store in what is now Cheapo Records. I remember their quaint little first store. Even way back then (we're talking early '90s) I remember how I gravitated to the natural soap section, and the way the store employees used to get on the loudspeaker and banter with each other. All of the employees back then smelled like patchouli (among "other things", ha ha) and most of them had dreadlocks and wore tie-dye. I've never actually seen the Richard Linklater film "Slacker", but it supposedly captures early 90's Austin in a moment in time, back when Austin was truly laid-back and "weird" (if you weren't already aware of it, "Keep Austin Weird" is our official--or unofficial--mantra), and some of the scenes were shot right by the original Whole Foods.
I have to admit that I look back at that time in Austin with fondness. I grew up only an hour north up Interstate 35, but I moved to the ATX officially in the summer of 1993 after graduating from college in Sherman, TX (an hour north of Dallas) and just entering film school at the University of Texas. I'd just missed Robert Rodriguez' (filmmaker) time there, he graduated from the undergrad RTF program the year before. And I thought that parking around the university was crowded back then! This was before the LA/NY invasion of hipsters that would gobble up Austin property like PacMan gobbled up little dots and dashes. This was back when South Congress was not the nicest place to be, and we used to joke about the ladies-of-the-night that used to hang around the seedy motels there.
No more. South Congress (and the surrounding neighborhoods of Travis Heights and Bouldin Creek) are THE place to be in Austin. It's the last vestige of authentic Austin, if only the "artistic interpretation" of what Old Austin sort of...meant. We South Austinities like to joke around that anything north of the river (it used to be "Town Lake", now it's "Lady Bird Lake") was Round Rock (the uber-conservative suburbia of sprawling sameness). South Austin is anything but sameness, "and that don't sit well with some people." But that's okay.
The days of winter are slowly slipping past us now, and cool, crisp, blue-skied days are ever more present (including today), and so with that reality I'm making it my goal to start highlighting some more haunts and hallowed ground of my fair city. Stay tuned!
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