ACL Defining Moment

Idaho Candy Company:
The name is on the sign of the building, and I have a certain affection for a similar image from San Antonio, along South Flores.

The red image is from a box of candies that nearly jumped off the shelf. Idaho Candy Co., still does it the old way. Real, pure ingredients. Good stuff. Bought a box to take to my chocolate addicted mother.

Hardware: iPhone
Software: CameraBag.app

Two Meat Tuesday (the book)
astrofish.net
Pink Cake A commonplace book.
kramerwetzel.com (A Friday Photo)

I was in Seattle. The sweet little Gemini gushed at my phone number, “OMG, Austin, that’s so cool. I go there, like, twice a year.”

For a total of seven letters, let me guess, SXSW and ACL.

Twice year, it behooves one to get as far away as possible. Amateurs and poseurs and the ubiquitous two-phone minimum.

Which was how I became a “plus one” in Boise, ID. Not that I minded the junket, either, really, quite fun. Downtown Boise, other than the rather unfortunate and contrived slang-name of BoDo, or DoBo, or whatever it was, besides that, I mean, me, personally, I’m on a single-minded mission to eradicate unfortunate “ad-agency” names like “SoCo” for South Congress, although, I’m sure, I’ve lost the battle. London’s Soho remains a single place that can properly carry a name like that.

In downtown Boise, I felt much at home. Mountains to the east, high desert to west, a river runs through town, the men are manly and “western,” and the women were warm and buxom. Not that it matters, just an observation.

“Noveau Pho Cuisine” was just regular Vietnamese food, priced higher for a fancy name. Good, just no “noveuax” that I could detect.

Coffee shops on every corner, most near, and then, a little slice of an apple nerd heaven: Mac Life (store). An independent Apple store. I wandered in and through the store several times, nothing I needed. Not really much I wanted, either, but I’d like to see them stay in business. Which, according to one hand (on deck), the Mac Life store was much busier than the new Apple Store in the mall. Well, that’s cool.

I cruised the sale tables closely, too, with opened and returned goods, still serviceable, and cheap. Way cheap. Again, nothing I really wanted, not even remotely. Still, so nice to see in the ever increasing world of corporate look-alike, there are some that are different.

The Texas State capitol in Austin, sits at one of end of Congress Avenue, and makes for an amazingly fetching view. Never get tired of it. Likewise, Boise has Capital Ave, which ends in the capital building, and although it is majestic in its own right, not nearly as cool, or taller than the one in Washington DC, like the Texas capital.

Some people say I’m biased. I just don’t get that.

Boise has a very acceptable downtown. Quite nice and utterly charming. Mostly. Weird Boise laws on the books, to this day? Can’t fish from a giraffe, and can’t buy more than 50 pounds of candy as a gift for one person.

I was going to ship that box of chocolate home, but shipping was prohibitively high. Why so much?

“Ice. We’re shipping chocolate to Texas. It’s hot there.”

Still charming.