This year, Peter Hillary headlined the Nature Conservancy luncheon. He’s the son of New Zealand adventurer Sir Edmund Hillary. Like his father, the speaker has climbed Mt. Everest. He’s also sledded to the South Pole.
He trained for by jogging while pulling an old tire on a rope and pushing his child in a stroller.
Letterman: “You forged a new trail to the South Pole.” Hillary: “Yes.” Letterman: “What was wrong with the old one?”
I love hiking. Don’t get the allure of mountain climbing.
State captain Laura Huffman wrapped up luncheon Must profile her some day. In another lifetime, the she would run for Texas governor. She’s that good.
Shane Pavonetti and Joyce Chen at Nature Conservancy Luncheon
The Texas Relays are in town. Besides the ultra-fit youngsters over at Myers Stadium, there are packs of visitors all over town. You can generally distinguish them from those attending the atheist convention, since they wear T-shirts decorated with contentious arguments.
Sheryl Cole, Marc Ott, Gregory Vincent, Charlie Betts, Cis Myers were among the guests at City Hall Texas Relays reception. I tried to Vine Cole and Vincent, but kept getting the micro-video GIF system wrong. Should have practiced more before going out.
The reception cheered the souls of those who have felt that Austin was less than welcoming to the track-and-field fandango, which attracts numerous African Americans. Recall that in the past, Highland Mall, various bars and even major thoroughfares were closed in ways that appeared distinctly inhospitable.
Ambria Boyd, Erica Cray and Linda Jackson
With Jacob Steton, rode Metro up to campus for the David Mark Cohen New Works Festival reception. It was held in a room at the UT Student Union which wasn’t the easiest to find. Clearly, the reception wasn’t planned with off-campus visitors in mind.
Yet we had a tremendous time with Longhorn theater types such as Kirk Lynn, Suzan Zeder, Charlotte Canning and others. I kept hearing that “Colossal” was the play to catch. Too bad there was no extra time this week to sit happily in a theater for hours.
Ryan Belock and Jocelyn Pettway
There was much confusion at the Emerging Leaders reception for Eastside Community Connection. What exactly does the Connection connect?
Joe Deshotel, Abi DeLeon and David M. DeLeon
Turns out it is mostly UT students who intern through projects in East Austin. I promise to learn more, but meanwhile was caught up with the fine-grained conversational skills of Andy Brown, Andy Cates, Joe Deshotel, Abi DeLeon, David M. DeLeon and the chairman of the board at Citizen Generation whose name I can’t remember for the life of me.