[geeks] All this talk of music has me playing stuff from the '70s..

[Bill Bradford]

On Fri, Sep 28, 2001 at 03:51:48PM -0400, Kurt Huhn wrote:
> > 27, Austin, sysadmin, and a Kia Sportage (doesent quite qualify as a
> > SUV..)
> What!?  I can't think of anything more SUV-y.  How so?  I mean - it's a
> little sporty, quite utilitarian, doesn't that account for the Sport Utility
> Vehicle monicker?

I have the lame 2WD version.  "hauls lots of shit, including the dog, and
gets my fat ass from point A to point B".  If I'd thought it out better,
I would have just bought an old Volvo station wagon.

> Admit it, you're a yuppie.  I'm a yuppie.  A good portion of this list is
> yuppies.  We don't have to like it - but it's, unfortuantely, true.

My image of "yuppie" is somewhat in the middle of all these:

- David Spade in "P.C.U."
- Michael J. Fox in "Family Ties"
- Suit jacket, dress shoes, very Young Republican
- shops at the Gap, J. Crew, etc.
- Woman who weighs 95 lbs driving a Ford Expedition to the grocery
  store, talking on her cell phone the entire way, SLOWING DOWN to
  go over the railroad tracks, with a "MY (SON|DAUGHTER) IS A (LOCAL SCHOOL)
  (SOCCER|FOOTBALL|CHEERLEADING) STAR AND HONOR ROLL STUDENT" window sticker
  or bumper sticker
- etc

I drive a Kia Sportage (definitely not a BMW) with a broken tape player,
TiVo sticker in the window, and a small American flag on a window-mount
bracket sticking up from the rear passenger window.  Most of my clothes are
from Wal-Mart or Casual Male Big and Tall.  I'm wearing a year-old pair
of Doc Martens, and I bought my wedding ring at Zales in the mall.

("I cant be a yuppie, I've had my hand up a cow's ass...")

I grew up in a town so small (~3000 people) that when my mom was sick
and not at work one day, the UPS delivery guy drove the four blocks from
her office to our house, to deliver a package - because he knew where we
lived (one UPS guy for the whole town).  A town so small that EVERYONE 
knew me or my mother (I hated this after a while.).  A town where the 
traffic tickets and police log was printed in one column of the paper
every day.  I went to college in a town that had (*gasp*) 10,000 people,
to a school with a total enrollment of 3000, and then had minor culture
shock when I moved to Oklahoma City in 1995, then on to Austin in late '96.

My first night in Austin, I was supposed to get to town, then call my 
employer, who would fix me up with a place to stay while I found an 
apartment.  Well, I got to town (10pm at night, never having driven in
such traffic before - I found out later a UT Football game had just gotten
out), and the number he gave me was wrong/disconnected.

Luckily I had the phone number of the only other person I knew in town,
and gave them a call.  (He was a friend off of the SWGoths list, and at
the time I was gradually getting un-goth).  I managed to crash at his 
house (where a party was going on), and we all got up (most of the 
people, mind you, in full "Goth Regalia") and went to have breakfast
somewhere at 6am.

We ended up, on a Saturday morning, at Magnolia Cafe, a little 24-hour
joint on the south end of town.  Picture six full-dress goths (some of
us big, some small, some almost indecent) piling out of a Jeep Cherokee
to stumble in and order breakfast.

In Oklahoma, this would have caused quite a ruckus, or at least some raised
eyes, some muttered commemnts, or perhaps even "I'm sorry, you'll have to 
go elsewhere, we dont serve your kind".

In Austin - the waitress, who had a tongue piercing, looked at us and
said "You guys DEFINITELY had a rough night; lemme get some coffee and 
I'll be right back".  Later, she complimented one guy on his makeup.

I fell in love with this town right then, and bought a house here in
February of '99.  I "fell out" with the local Goth crowd (too much
politics, etc) in late '98, but by then I had Amy and all of my friends
from the SunHELP lists. 8-)

(okay, enough rambling...)

Bill

-- 
Bill Bradford
mrbill at mrbill.net
Austin, TX