Trip to Dell in Texas

For the last 3 days, I have been in Austin Texas at Dell Corporation.  We are rolling out a new internet-based product that will help us with our asset management.  The trip was a lot of fun and we had a great time!  In addition to the great people at Dell training us on what we needed to do to make this product a success, we stayed at a great hotel (Intercontinental Stephen F. Austin), ate a ton of good food, and had a lot of fun.

What I always think is funny when I visit Dell is the fact that all the doors/entry ways to the buildings have stickers on them that say that no firearms are allowed in the buildings.  Only in Texas where everyone is “packing heat!”  🙂

The second night we were there, we went to an AWESOME restaurant that has some incredible “wild” food, named Hudson’s on the Bend (http://www.hudsonsonthebend.com).  For our appetizers, we had diamond back rattlesnake cake in a pistachio nut crust and venison wrapped sea scallops.  For our entrees, I had the Hudson’s Mixed Grill, which consisted of venison and rabbit tenders, smoked quail, game sausage, and buffalo.  Others had duck, elk back, and pheasant.  It all tasted wonderful!   The restaurant itself was pretty cool as well.  It was in a converted home, and we ate in what looked like what used to be a bedroom.  They had apples hanging from the ceilings all over the place as well (in preparation for Christmas)…

I also saw a sign at the restaurant that I absolutely loved that I wanted to take home with me and put right in the middle of our living room:

I laughed really hard when I read it and couldn’t help but thinking of Ben!

Our last night in town, we went into downtown Austin and ate dinner at a GREAT Tex Mex restaurant and then hung around the main street there which makes Austin famous.  It is EXTREMELY weird and liberal and they are proud of it.  We went to Pete’s Dueling Piano Bar (no alcohol for me) and listened to the musicians.  They were amazing!  Any request that came in, they could play.  They were pretty funny too!

It’s nice to be back home with the family now.  I really missed them and was really bummed that I couldn’t go to Sarah and Brittany’s Collage Concert at the high school.