Fearless Captain Kirsch navigates the rough waters of Lake Travis

This past Labor day (Monday) a bunch of friends and I headed out to Lake Travis, and rented a boat and skis. The main lesson of the day is that I can’t water ski. Will have to work on that. Go see the photos. And then, that’s it. Go home. There is nothing more to see. It’s over.

[UPDATE Sep 7 2006] Well, looks like a forgot to place an obvious link to the album here… so here it is. Also, if you saw the album already, go see it again because Maya sent me the photos she took. And it’s a good thing, because Jaramillo spent the whole time playing with his camera in video mode.

As you, MKX® reader most certainly already know, Austin Texas is home to the largest urban bat colony in the world. Yup, 1.5 million bats live under the Congress Avenue bridge and shoot out every night. Some say they go out to eat between 10,000 and 30,000 pounds of insects. Others say they go to Sixth Street to get a Flaming Dr. Pepper at a local bar. I say they should come over to my place and do some eating around here… I can use it.

But I digress. So as part of the Summer 2006 Keep Austin Weird tour with my mom and dad, we went to check out the famous bats. It’s very cool, and it looks like my mom’s pigeon phobia does not translate to small flying rodents. Now that makes sense. See the photos and relive the emotion in the new-ish Photo Central. Or, a The Marcos Kirsch Experience® first: see the video in YouTube.

In the spirit of Halloween, I carved a pumpkin for the very first time.It was a very educational experience. I decided to carve the globe. I carved out the full American continent, Africa, Europe and parts of Asia, but if I did Russia I’d be left with no pumpkin.Unfortunately, after a day, the pumpkin collapsed right on Panama (note to self: next time leave the Panama Canal in for support).Debbie carved a very scary angry face. It was much scarier after the thing sat in the kitchen and I got back from spending the weekend in Monterrey. It grew some strange foamy white and black fungus inside (note to self: next time don’t eat it).

Tonight I went to a lecture by Nobel Peace Laureate Elie Wiesel at the Bass Concert Hall.Not only is he a fantastic person, he’s also a fantastic speaker who absorbs all your attention with engrossing stories and thoughts from before, during and after the War. It was a great experience and I’m glad I got to listen to him.This was organized by the Texas Hillel White Rose Society, and my ex-camper Josh Gottesman (sh*t I’m old) was one of the organizers and even got to speak on-stage. He also got me tickets. Thanks Josh, next time you google your own name perhaps this website will come up. When it does, do leave a message.

On Sunday, we were playing freesbee in Zilker park, wearing shorts and t-shirts. On Monday (yesterday), it took us 2 hours to drive from the University of Texas (where our bi-annual company meeting is held) back to the NI Campus in north Austin, due to an incredible hail storm, and low temperatures that caused the streets to get covered with ice. Add to that the very effective shortcuts that Andrés took, and you can be stuck in traffic for a long time. The fact that I had to go to the restroom and that I was sitting in the back seat of a Camaro just made the ride so much more enjoyable. Ussually, such ride takes about fifteen minutes.Well, it seems like it’s still freezing out, road conditions are bad, and the office is still closed, if at least for a few hours until road coditions improve.

Last night I went to a conference by former president Bill Clinton. Very interesting indeed. Besides the fact that the gathering seemed to be a democratic lovefest at first, where people would cheer about anything Clinton had to say that they agreed on, it got better when they let him actually speak. Very interesting opinions on North Korea (they are what worries him the most), Iraq (10 years of U.N. resolutions that the U.S. only wants to enforce), the Middle East (Arafat made a grave, grave mistake by rejecting the peace proposal in 98), Yitzhak Rabin (the man I’ve loved the most in my life), Colombia, the economy, Al Qaeda and terrorism, his newly recovered personal life and other themes.It was very interesting to listen to an ex-president talk to you about so many themes, specially one that talks to you like you’re not six years old. What I found to be the most interesting, is his view of the world as a ver interdependent place where no one can escape anyone nor ignore anyone anymore. I believe this can be applied to many things, one of them is solving the Arab-Israeli conflict. No one is going away, after all.