Hey stackers,

Writing from the hotel after another action packed day here in Austin. I haven’t played poker yet today so here is a Hand breakdown of one I played around midnight last night after making my day two post.

#1604264

Woke up rather late again but I was fine with that today as I didn’t really have any set plans. Other than exploring and slanging sats I had one goal for today—ride a Robotaxi! They have their own app which I had installed yesterday and got my account all set up and quickly ordered my ride. You get two choices. A two seater that doesn’t have a steering wheel and has a ton of leg room or a four seater that does have a steering wheel and less leg room (but still plenty). The two seater is always slightly more expensive but I wanted to try that first so that’s what I ordered. It only took five minutes for it to show up to my hotel.

Pretty slick looking I thought. But the most impressive part about it by far is the way it drives. It was very cool and I really enjoyed cruising around in this thing. Gave a lot of time to contemplate how this might shape and evolve the future of cities. And I’m torn honestly. On one hand roads and parking take up so much city space and resources to accommodate the car and proliferates infrastructure that makes owning a car mandatory. I love a city built for the walkers and bikers. On the other hand I can’t see this business model doing anything but expanding rapidly. It just worked so so well. The price was competitive to other ride share options, the product worked incredibly, and being alone in there without social friction was really refreshing. It was really enjoyable to look around the city while some…thing else drove me to my destination.

Which was another Medici Roasters! I needed to start my day with another red eye. As we (the car and I) got closer to our destination I was more and more pleased with my decision to not drive myself. I didn’t know when I booked but this coffee shop is located directly across the street from University of Texas, Austin. It’s on Guadalupe St. right in in the middle of a big college town. Tons of traffic, people, and shops. No parking. Perfect job for Robotaxi.

This Medici is HUGE. Much much bigger than the previous one and it’s full of students on lap tops and reading books and such. At the counter I ordered my red eye and again I didn’t need to bother asking if I could pay in bitcoin. They had the square terminal with the toggle option. They also had a sign that said “pay with bitcoin” so that’s great. I contemplated asking the cashier lady about people paying with bitcoin but it was so busy and bustling I didn’t want to waste her time. So I silently paid with Phoenix and shortly after walked upstairs with my coffee.

I chilled and read and sipped my coffee before heading out on foot to cruise the city I was dropped off in. I didn’t really have an agenda. Quickly though I ended up in a second hand store called 2nd street. They had some nice looking clothes in there and I still needed a dressy undershirt for a wedding tomorrow. No bitcoin accepted sign there unfortunately but I got a nice shirt for $9.

Onward into the college town. Nearly every person and building has some Texas Longhorn attire on it. There were frat and sorority houses, all sorts of food and clothing shops, and orange bull heads every where I looked.
Everyone seemed to be anticipating a game between Texas and Mississippi state. I probably should have taken a picture but one fraternity house had a huge sign in the front of it with a football player urinating on what I assume was the Mississippi state mascot. “Go Long Horns. Piss on miss” it said. I walked where ever my mind decided was the direction to go for about an hour before deciding it was time to eat. There was an overwhelming amount of options but one taco stand caught my eye. Closed unfortunately. But that at least set my mind on what I wanted.

So I cruised around sure I would happen upon another source of tacos and lo and behold, I was gifted a spot. It’s called Don Vegas tacos. Tucked away with some other food trucks and brick and mortar food places with benches and ample seating. I notice they have a square terminal and start to get hopeful… could it be?

I took the opportunity to practice my Spanish and ordered five street tacos and a jamaica agua fresca. When she rung me up sure enough the toggle to Bitcoin option was available!! “Yo pago con bitcoin!” I said. Which is a bit broken, but she understood. And she was excited! No one had ever done it before she said. I didn’t talk about bitcoin too much but just explained how some square terminals allow it and some don’t. Another successful lightning transaction, I knew, would make my tacos taste much better. They didn’t need the help though… they were soooo good. Con tortillas hechas a mano they were so fresh and warm and perfect. I got carne asada. They came with limes and fried onions and cheese and avocado and cilantro. Heavenly. Mi jamaica complimented them very well too. This was a great experience because I was just looking for tacos, not a place to spend bitcoin. But I found both out in the wild.

I forgot to mention. Earlier in my Robotaxi the screen kept giving me recommendations on different commands to give or ask Grok. “Make the car feel like a sling morning in Kyoto” “what would happen if the moon disappeared” but I decided on my own prompt. “Hey Grok,” “can you give me places where I can spend bitcoin for a haircut?” And it gave me several. It said it referenced bitcoincities.org which I had never heard of. Seems to be some similar project to BTCmap. Grok gave me three options:

Royalties Barber

Geiser barber

South Austin barber

After finishing mis tacos y jamaica I started to go down the list with phone calls to ask if they do in-fact accept bitcoin. First call Royalty’s didn’t pick up at all. So I called Geiser. Someone quickly answered and I said I’ve got kind of a weird question… will you accept bitcoin there? “Oh sure I accept bitcoin…” a bit hesitantly. He said it had been a while and only one other person (a repeat customer) had done it. I asked if he used square and he said yes. “That should take care of us” I assured. It was 1 pm and we settled on an appointment time of 330 PM.

So I had a couple hours to kill and decided to go do something I’ve wanted to do since my walk with @Scoresby on day one: rent a paddle board and cruise the river! So I booked my second Robotaxi. I chose the cheaper four door option this time. Again the car was quick to show up and I had another pleasant and impressive drive to my destination. Lady bird lake rentals.

This little box didn’t accept bitcoin or cash so I had to use a credit card but they quickly had me on my way to the dock on the river. I had to hike a tiny bit but it was pretty out so all good. I’ll let these pictures describe the experience:

That bridge is the same bridge @Scoresby showed me that first day where all the bats live. I used it as my turn around point and could hear those bats again. I dropped off my paddle board at about 240 and ordered my third Robotaxi of the day for destination haircut.

Geiser Barbering was on this quiet street in a cute little commercial building that look to once be a house. Very pleasant experience here. Nick is a master barber and beardsman. He has one single high quality barbers chair and I ordered a straight razor clean shave and a basic haircut in preparation for the wedding tomorrow. We talked a lot the whole time. He was interested in my traveling and poker playing. He has a life long friend who is a full-time poker pro so we related on that topic a lot. Earlier I had seen a “get Elon’s dirty money out of Austin!!” Sign plastered multiple times on the side of a building and was curious what his opinion of the Robotaxi was. He had only done it once as a joy ride with his wife but was equally as impressed as I was.

We talked about bitcoin in Austin and his experience with it. He said he loves accepting bitcoin because it’s free to do so and that he knows a lot of self-identified bitcoiners but none of them like to spend it. He said mainly it’s because they’re afraid of tax obligations. I told him all my favorite parts about bitcoin and I was glad he was willing to accept. He was glad I was willing to pay. He would be using square to auto invert to USD however. We talked a lot about Bitcoin and merchants and what may or may not happened in the future. He said he’d love it if more people started to spend so that “us merchants” can start to learn and use it more too. He was a cool chatty guy and very willing to have a nice conversation about it.

The straight razor shave was great. He had me all lathered and lotioned and hot toweled and he apparently doesn’t use an alcohol based after shave. It’s for the birds he said. Instead he uses an antiseptic chalk base after shave that feels and works better to seal everything up. I agreed, it was comforting. All spick and span it was time to settle. He uses square on his phone and pretty quickly used it to present a lightning invoice which I paid with no issues. I tipped in cash, saving some sats.

He had mentioned that he some times goes to Medici and I thought it would be cool to ask if I could tip him further with bitcoin and try to get him to spend it on a coffee but I didn’t follow through. The service was a bit pricey already and I was scared to recommend some wallet that I wasn’t familiar with that would be easy for him to use.

I ordered my fourth and final Robotaxi of the day that would conclude today’s adventure and bring me back to my hotel. The ride was a projected traffic-filled thirty minutes but I didn’t mind at all because I knew I would just be chillin and gazing out the window. “RelaxiTaxi!” (IYKYK)

Instead of window gazing though I asked Grok to pull up my favorite chess grandmaster Eric Hanson. His videos relax me and his chess is wonderful to watch. I’ve been a big fan of the Chessbrahs for many years.

Another great action packed day here in Austin and I’ll be heading out for a few hours of poker very soon.

If you missed day one and two you can check them out here.

Day one: #1602995

Day two: #1603699

Thanks for reading and following along!