SAFUN

There’s something about the Weston Centre in downtown San Antonio.  Louis always waves to you as you enter the parking garage, Morris and Hilton always greet you with your first name as you walk to the elevator and Bee from the café, Panache, always has a big smile on her face. It’s a warm and familiar place and doesn’t feel like your typical office building. In an upscale law office high rise, Rackers stand out like sore thumbs.  In my 7 years of working for Rackspace / ServerBeach, my job has taken me back to the Weston Centre 3 times.

As a Racker, you learn to be a nomad. I started at Rackspace in the Broadway building for 3 months, moved to the Paragon building to work for ServerBeach for 6 months until we moved to join the rest of Rackspace at the Weston Centre. I remember literally rolling my desk chair with all my belongings down Pecan Street to the Weston Centre building.  We worked at the Weston Centre until we outgrew the space. Rackspace moved headquarters while ServerBeach stayed at the Weston Centre. I left with Rackspace. After a year, I actually came back to the Weston Centre to work for ServerBeach again. ServerBeach finally outgrew the space and moved headquarters. After working for ServerBeach for 4 years, I returned to Rackspace but this time working for the Cloud Division. And guess where The Rackspace Cloud was living? That’s right, the Weston Centre.

Rackspace is moving headquarters to the refurbished Windsor Park Mall which we have renamed “The Castle.” The Rackspace Cloud’s last day at the Weston Centre is today. This time, I think my move away from the Weston Centre will be permanent. A Racker wrote this really kind email to The Rackspace Cloud staff with his thoughts on the move (I reposted to The Rackspace blog). I actually got teary eyed and that might be because I am an emotional person to begin with but nonetheless, it brought back memories. So what are my special memories from the Weston Centre?

1-     This is the place where I met Jason, my husband. Sounds so cheesy but I do remember the first time meeting him.

2-     I attended my first Rackspace holiday party at the Weston Centre. These were the days we’d always end up at Daven Port’s.

3-     The days when you didn’t know what to eat and ended up at Lula’s

4-     The fabulous Fiesta party the Weston Centre puts together for the River Parade

5-     Panache bean and cheese tacos are the best!

6-     Most recently, my long but fun walks to Starbucks with my marketing team

7-     Morris & Hilton– The friendliest guys I have ever met. They are always laughing about something.

8-     Rubbing shoulders with lawyers and feeling so under dressed.

9-     Even though I never went to Bill Miller’s I feel like did go because every day at least 1 person picked up Bill Miller’s.

10-  I can’t forget every weekend going out on the town and parking at the Weston Centre!

The Weston Centre is definitely a special place in San Antonio and will be missed!

You either hate or love Fiesta. As a San Antonio native and one that enjoys celebrating San Antonio, I love Fiesta. San Antonio puts together an 11 day celebration filled with over 100 events.

Fiesta really is one of America’s truly great festivals. It began as a way to honor the memory of the heroes of the Alamo and the Battle of San Jacinto.

NIOSA (Night in Old San Antonio)  is one of my favorite events. It is an evening of food and drinks in La Villita (heart of San Antonio). It is open from 5:30pm to 10:30pm Tuesday through Friday. Various areas represent different cultures, serving their respective foods such as German, Italian and Asian. I go to taste different foods,  have a few beers and visit with family and old friends. It is quite an adventure and not for everyone. It does get crowded in some areas. Here is a clip of an area that got really crowded.

And then of course, NIOSA brings the best out in my parents. It’s really hard to out do this couple.

San Antonio has a tag line “Keep San Antonio Lame.” I knew that it was created in response to Austin’s “Keep Austin Weird” but didn’t know the fully story. I was reading the SA Current Blog and finally discovered it’s roots:

San Antonio visual artist Aaron Forland, contributing writer to emvergeoning.com (billed as “America’s most difficult art blog”) and co-conspirator with Justin Parr at emerging-artist hotspot Fl¡ght Gallery, originated “Keep San Antonio Lame” as a catchphrase in 2004, partially in satiric response to Austin’s “Keep Austin Weird” sub-culti PR blitz. It’s a pretty telling comment on San Antonio’s self-image: We think of ourselves as significantly less, well, cool than Austin. Austin’s middle-class, educated, indie, hip, self-aware. SATX is much poorer and way more old-fashioned. We love metal and the accordion, and could largely give a shit about trends if we even know about them. You know: “lame.”

I find this to be hilarious and very true. Don’t get me wrong, I love my city but I am the first to admit that San Antonio can be very lame. I often find myself saying “This is why we have our rep of being lame” in response to situations that I can’t believe we are so behind on. I can definitely provide a few examples.

This is a pretty big week for San Antonio – it’s Fiesta. Fiesta is a 10 day celebration full of parties and parades. San Antonians come out of the wood works ready to eat some tasty foods, have a few drinks and visit with family and friends. The city comes to life and is painted in every vibrant color.

On top of Fiesta, it is also Spurs Playoffs season.

We attended the River Parade on Monday night at the Weston Centre. The Weston Centre is located right on the River and is where Jason’s office is located. They throw an all out Fiesta party every year for their tenants to celebrate and there are seats to watch the parade go down the river. It’s a wonderful treat that we are always so fortunate to go to. This night happened to be the 2nd Spurs Playoff game against the Dallas Mavs. It started at 8:30 so we walked to find a bar that was showing the game. We landed at the bar at Acenar. I really like Acenar. It’s located right on the river next to the Valencia Hotel. They have a great vibe, great food and great drinks. They had the game so we kicked back there and had some chips and drinks. Spurs were finally kicking butt.
Unfortunately, the service was terrible. I have experienced this before at Acenar so I wasn’t surprised. I kept having to remind the bartender about my drink order. It was so frustrating.
Around 10pm, they call last call. Last call? Are you serious? It was the 3rd quarter and it was a Fiesta night. Apparently they close at 10pm. So we went ahead and ordered a couple of more drinks and stayed to continue to watch the game. At 10:30, they turned the lights on hinting that they wanted us out. Are you serious? It’s about to start the 4th quarter and again, it’s Fiesta night.
This is why San Antonio is LAME. A very well respected restaurant in downtown San Antonio was closing their bar at 10pm, right in the middle of an important SAN ANTONIO Spurs game and on Fiesta night. I realize it was Monday and I realize that they normally close at 10pm but can we please make an exception?

This is a typical example of why San Antonio gets their rep of being LAME. I have many more examples and I will post them as we go along.

Again, I love my town but if we don’t first recognize that we are LAME and why we are LAME, then how can we promote change? San Antonio has great roots and an awesome culture, we are just late adapters. Or maybe we just don’t want to adapt.

We checked out Luna, a Jazz venue, here in San Antonio this past weekend. I have heard good things about this place but hadn’t checked it out because I forget it’s there. It recently underwent a renovation back in the Fall so it was closed for a couple of months. We dropped in on Saturday night with a large group of people. Cover charge was $6.  Afrofreque, a band out of Austin, was playing. I personally thought they were awesome. I even purchased their album. They were funky, groovy, smooth. Easy to dance to also. Interesting guy on the keyboard. He was able to play with his tongue. Different. Talented but different. I recommend the venue and I would definitely go check out Afrofreque again. They were jammin.

San Antonio is finally growing up.  I remember the days before the Alamo Quarry, then Huebner Oaks now it’s La Cantera. We now carry names like Urban Outfitters, Zara (my favorite), United Colors of Benneton, Nordstorm and Neiman Marcus. I couldn’t do this kind of shopping unless I was traveling to a major city. San Antonio is turning into a major city. We have always been that typical family tourist destination offering the Alamo, Riverwalk, Sea World and Fiesta Texas… oh and good Mexican food. There’s so much more to do now.

What about our nightlife? The hottest night scene right now is way out at 1604/281. Downtown nightlife is just so dull. There are no new up and coming bars opening up downtown and the bars that do exist are so vacant on the weekends. My sister works at a 5 star hotel downtown and the major complaint they recieve? Lack of nightlife. Why can’t all the bars that are opening out at 1604/281 open up downtown? What is the problem here?

Some good news though is that we are opening some major condo high rises downtown such as Vidorra and La Cascada. We have also committed to the San River Project which is in place to revamp 13 miles of the historic river. And we just recently began the reconstruction to River Center Mall which hasn’t received much of anything for the past 20 years! This is all good news for downtown San Antonio.  I am just hoping that all these projects bring a better nightlight to downtown San Antonio. I would hate to see us become a Houston or a Dallas. Why can’t we be a Chicago or San Francisco? Or even Austin? Austin has a centralized night scene. Let’s walk and take public transportation. Let’s live downtown without having to own a car.

We are getting there SA Town!