Austin by the plateful

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Two girlfriends and I ran away to Austin for a Testosterone-Free Weekend (TFW … like a GNO, only better). I’ve been to the capital city many times, but only passing through or for a specific purpose/destination. It was fun to go with no agenda and just relax.

The hotel was a disappointment — one that shall be reflected in my customer review. But, the a/c was cold (hallelujah!) and the beds were decently comfy, so that’s something. What really made the trip fun was finding new & different places to eat. We were aiming to not repeat places and to try different types of food at each meal. It was absolutely not a low-carb weekend, but we had a ball.

  • Friday lunch, as we arrived in town: Vivo, where I had verde chicken enchiladas and a cucumber frozen margarita. It sounds strange, but it was really good!
  • Friday dinner: Bacon, where every dish has – you guessed it – bacon! I had a bacon reuben sandwich that was scrumpdillyicious. One of the gals had chicken & waffle with bacon in the waffle batter. Again, it sounds odd, but omg – you have to taste it to believe it!

  • Tiramisu at Mandola’s Italian Market in Austin

    Saturday breakfast: slept blissfully late, then coffee & scone 🙂

  • Saturday lunch: Opa for late lunch/early happy hour. I had a falafel plate with hummus & pita and a nice glass of Astica Malbec.
  • Saturday dinner: Mandola’s Italian Market, where I tried the grilled caprese panini (like a mozzarella grilled cheese sandwich for grown-ups!) and tiramisu for dessert. One of the gals also got a scoop of pistachio gelato, and it was yummy!
  • Sunday breakfast before we headed home: Biscuits & Groovy, where the menu items are named after famous musicians. I had the Philly Nelson, which consisted of three biscuits smothered in amazing stuff like cheesesteak, sausage, gravy & chives. I had to box up half of it for a delicious leftover lunch when I got home. They also make a splendid iced coffee for only a buck, so I had two!

    “Philly Nelson” breakfast at Biscuits & Groovy in Austin

We actually did do [a little bit] more than just eat & drink all weekend! 😉 We went to the used bookstore (because between the 3 of us, we “only” had about a dozen books … not counting what’s in my e-reader library, LOL) and did a little shopping at an outlet center.

I even logged on to my school system to see the final exam topic for my essay test that is due on Tuesday. Did I work on it? Um, no. But I looked at it, so that should count for something. E for Effort. We also did plenty of gabbing and laughed till we wheezed & cried and lazed around the hotel room in our jammies like luxurious divas.

One of the other gals and I felt adventuresome and went kayaking at Lady Bird Lake on Saturday morning. It was loads of fun, and we didn’t capsize! 😉 We’ve decided to try to make it a tradition for our TFW adventures to do some kind of water-related activity.

So, there you have it … and now, I think I shall go enjoy the rest of my leftover tiramisu before I get back to writing essays!

What will history say?(Prayer Devotional for the week of July 22, 2012)

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The accounts of the various leaders of Israel in 1 Kings and 2 Kings tend to wrap up the same way: “As for the other events of the reign of That-Guy-Whose-Name-I-Can’t-Pronounce, all he did and his achievements, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Israel?” History has a way of keeping tabs on us. We can read about heroes of generations past, see their personal correspondence and other household artifacts in museums, and in more recent years, we even have audio and video clips that allow us to see and hear what they were really like.

Imagine, if you will, that 100 years from now, a local student is assigned to write a biography report about you. They might find a photo from your high school yearbook, search public records or interview children and grandchildren of your old neighbors and friends to find out more about you. As for the other events of the life of [insert your name here], all he did and his achievements, are they not typed in the Timeline of Facebook, the Stream of Twitter and the Gallery of Instagram? What are those entries saying in the history book about your life?

After my brother died, it felt like pages from the story of my life had been ripped out by the fistful. The whole world came to a stand-still. It seemed surreal to me that other people kept going about their day-to-day lives as if the Earth was still orbiting the Sun, while I felt like I was spinning off into outer space with no oxygen. Then, one day I realized that most of the world would continue functioning like it always had. His birth, life and death were significant to those of us who knew him, but not to society at large. There would be no day of mourning with flags at half-mast. There would be no mention of him in the history books. He was just a regular guy who lived a regular life. And yet, his life story is part of my life story. It’s part of our kids’ life stories. It’ll be part of their kids’ life stories.

Like my brother, most of us will not fit the bill for the type of hero or historic figure whose life will be documented in a museum, but our lives do make an impact on the people around us. What are we adding to that history each and every day through our actions, attitudes – and yes, even our wall posts, tweets and snapshots? Does what we say and do really communicate to future generations the things we wish they knew about us?

American Exceptionalism

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I felt like sharing my latest discussion post for my Comparative Public Policy class concerning American Exceptionalism. The question was whether we agree with the notion that the U.S. is exceptional and whether we believe that public policy will reinforce that concept into the future.

I absolutely believe that the United States is exceptional, not only for the ideological reasons Lipset cited, but also because of the entrepreneurial spirit that is woven throughout the business sector – and, by extension, philanthropy.

The Gross Social Expenditures, 1995 chart on p. 2 of our lecture notes stood out to me, not so much because of the low public spending in the U.S. toward social causes, but because of the exceptionally high level of private spending toward such issues. The U.S. practically triples at least five of the sample countries, nearly doubles another and is at least a third higher than the remaining three. As someone who has spent the bulk of my career in Development, that is fascinating news to read. Private philanthropy underpins American society like no other place in the world, and that is something of which I am very proud.

The Association of Fundraising Professionals reports that in 2011, private foundations in the U.S. contributed $46.9 billion, and $5.2 billion of that came from corporate foundations1. Giving USA reports that in 2010, total charitable giving in the U.S. exceeded $290 billion2. To put American generosity into perspective, $290 billion is more than the budgets of the Departments of Education, Agriculture, Veterans Affairs and State, combined3.

It seems that public policy (such as proposed increases to estate taxes) is shifting away from rewarding hard work and generosity; on the contrary, such measures penalize people for building assets that they might otherwise leave as an inheritance to their families and charitable causes. However, I do believe that the notion of American Exceptionalism will continue into the future, partly because of De Tocqueville’s observation regarding “the strength of religion in the United States,” as cited in our lecture notes. There is a spirit of individualism in the U.S., but it is coupled with a congregational sense of neighborly obligation to help the less fortunate, tax break or not.

1 – http://www.afpnet.org/Audiences/ReportsResearchDetail.cfm?itemnumber=11783

2 – http://www.nptrends.com/nonprofit-trends/giving-usa-2011-report.htm

3 – http://www.whitehouse.gov/our-government/executive-branch