Austin360 blogs > Out & About > Archives > 2010 > May > 05
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Your A List: Best Place to Skate
Skating never goes out of style, does it? Just when you think it’s turned irretrievably retro, another generation finds its balance on tiny, speeding wheels or thin, sharp blades.
Competitive Playland Skate Center won the readers poll for Best Place to skate with 26 percent of the vote.
The outdoor Veloway was favored by 25 percent. Two ice-skating spots — Whole Foods and Chapparal Ice — tied with a bit over 12 percent.
Mabel Davis Park spun out 7 percent.
All the rest — Skate Park of Austin, Skate World, Millenium Youth Entertainment Complex and Intellect Rollers Realm — skidded into 5 percent or less.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Sports, Your A-List
Your A List: Best Punk Group
As always with club music, we face a genre problem here.
Not matter. Hard-driving Riverboat Gamblers were the big winners with 36 percent of the overall vote.
The theatrical and boisterous Flametrick Subs kicked up 23 percent.
The demonstrably undiluted Krum Bums banged out 15 percent.
World Burns to Death and Midgetmen tied exactly at just under 6 percent of the tally.
Meriting less than 4 percent were Hex Dispensers, Sex Advice, Spin Alley, Manikin and Camp X-Ray.
If they really rate as punk, they probably don’t care what readers think.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Music, Your A-List
Your A List: Best Patio
Warm afternoons. Cool nights. It’s patio season in Austin.
A-List voters liked the Oasis with its famous terraces overlooking Lake Travis for Best Patio, devoting a full 27 percent of the tally to the expanded mecca.
Hula Hut, picking up the breeze from lower Lake Austin, came in second in the readers poll with 17 percent.
Hotel San Jose, lushly landscaped, maintained 13 percent.
Iguana Grill nudged out Mozart’s, Stephen F. Austin, Vivo and Opal Divine’s. Doc’s Motorworks and Freddie’s tied for last place.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Food, Your A-List
Your A List: Best Waitstaff
What do you expect from the waitstaff at an Austin restaurant? Promptness? Geniality? Accuracy? Knowledge of the fare?
Their top choice was bifurcated Vespaio, the creative Italian spot on South Congress Avenue. It served up 23 percent of the vote.
Popular Hyde Park Bar and Grill — now at two locations — trayed 19 percent. Jeffrey’s, the club-like spot in Clarksville managed 14 percent.
Ruth’s Chris and Wink tied exactly at a little over 12 percent. Clay Pit did nicely at 8 percent.
Cashing in on 5 percent or less were Mansion on Judge’s Hill, Mother’s, La Traviata and El Borrego del Oro.
Nice, broad voting patterns.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Food, Your A-List
‘Party of the Decade’ planned for September Fête
The stakes continue to rise for top-shelf charity events.
Dubbed “Fête to the Power of 10,” the gala will include pricey cocktails, dinner and performances staged by Stephen Mills at the Butler Dance Education Center (tables go for $10,000; individual tickets for $1,000). Tickets for the performance — celebrating Mills’ 10 years as artistic director — cost $250.
The party will migrate to the Seaholm Power Plant for an evening-long event (tickets: $95-$125).
Neiman Marcus will present a fashion runway show there featuring Carolina Herrera designs. Celebrity chefs for the event will include Kenzo Tran (Piranha Killer Sushi), Harvey Harris (Siena Ristorante Toscana) and David Garrido (Garrido’s Restaurant).
The all-star Fete committee includes top connectors like author Kristin Armstrong, lawyer Becky Beaver, community leader Karen Landa, philanthropist Susan Lubin, former TV reporter Crystal Cotti.
The following social dance party is expected to continue until midnight. For more information, call 476-9151 or link here. Tickets go on sale May 10.
Pictured: Andrea McWilliams, one of the 2009 Glossy 8
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Arts
Luci Baines Johnson returns home to recuperate
Luci Baines Johnson has returned to her Austin home after being treated for the rare and serious Guillian-Barre Syndrome at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.
Johnson and her husband Ian Turpin expressed gratitude to the doctors, nurses and clergy at Seton Medical Center Austin, where she was first treated April 14 following the first episode of GBS, which can paralyze a patient’s extremities. She also thanked the staff at the Mayo Clinic, where she was flown on April 16.
“They are the best, they gave their best to me and my family and I am eternally grateful,” Johnson said about the two hospitals in a statement today. “No care has been more precious than the prayers of all my family and loved ones some who I have adored for a lifetime and some who have graced my life only because of my parents’ service to our country.”
Like other GBS patients whose symptoms are identified early, Johnson received round-the-clock immunoglobulin treatments in an intensive-care unit. She attracted nationwide support from others who have suffered from the autoimmune syndrome and who required months of rehabilitation.
Among them them was Joe Dunn, a Westlake High School graduate who plans to return to the United States Merchant Marine Academy after a 2009 battle with GBS.
“She’s going to get better,” Dunn said in a message of hope to Johnson last week.
Speculation about Johnson’s possible return raced through the Wildflower Gala at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center on Friday. Turpin attended the annual fundraiser, as did Johnson’s sister Lynda Johnson Robb and her niece, Catherine Robb.
Permalink | Comments (5) | Post your comment Categories: City
