Funky Town Donuts Is The Donut Shop Fort Worth Deserves

I like donuts. I REALLY like donuts. So much so that when I heard Funky Town Donuts were finally having their grand opening and it is less than a 10 minute drive from my home, you better believe I was there at 8am to join the other deep fried dough fanatics for some oh, so sweet treats.

I’ve been very fortunate enough to travel and experience some of the great bakeries that this country has to offer. I’ve been to the ever popular Voodoo Donuts in Denver & Portland. I still lived in Denton, TX when Hypnotic opened. I’ve been to Springfield (yes, THAT Springfield) and had a very large Lard Lad donut, and I’ve been to the “local” Dallas donut shop, Glazed. You could imagine my excitement when it was announced that Fort Worth was finally getting a boutique donut shop in close proximity to me.

Around this area there are loads of your typical mom & pop donut shops. You know, the ones that open at 5am and close by 11am. The ones run by the sweet asian family who will occasionally tack on a few donut holes because it’s the eighth time you’ve been in there that week. The kind of donut shop where the most “exotic” donut you can get is a bear claw or a strawberry sprinkle donut. Don’t get me wrong. These mom and pop shops are great and do a great justice for the early risers of our community.

Fast forward to May 28th. I woke up early that morning knowing good and well that there would probably be a decent crowd for Fort Worth’s first gourmet donut shop. I arrived around 8am and there was a pretty decent turn out already. I waited a good hour and a half, I was only able to get six donuts, and Funky Town was sold out of most things. The half dozen that I did get were INCREDIBLE.

I’m a huge fan of The Samoa, The Witherspoon, The Double Stuff, and the S’moors. Runner up goes to Bart (mostly because the name is reminiscent of Bart Simpson). They also offer vegan and gluten free options!

Funky Town Donuts is located at 1000 8th Ave in Fort Worth. Check it out if you haven’t had the chance yet.

 

Sally is Back!

After a year of living with my parents and after getting settled in to my new apartment, I made the drive back to the DFW to pick up my dog, Sally. With another 3 1/2 hour drive back, my newly acquired road dawg, and loads of traffic, we headed back to Austin after a long weekend.

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Road Dawg

 

Sally liked the new place a lot (so it seems). After work yesterday, we ventured over to Zilker Park and I let Sally run all of her energy out until the sun went down. While at Zilker, I had flashbacks to Primrose Hill in London, a very scenic spot that overlooked the London skyline. I didn’t think that I would miss London THIS much, but I have. I have kind of adopted the London approach and being in a new city since I have been here in Austin. I have substituted the Underground for the Metro (bus) and have slowly started to familiarize myself in and around Austin.

Sally at Zilker Park

Sally at Zilker Park

– Trip

FrostBite Open

FrostBite Open

This past weekend, I drove down to Dallas to play in the Frostbite Open. Most fun I’ve had playing a tournament in a long time. Thanks to Greg and Jed for such a greatly ran event. And thanks to the Shockwave homies for having me out.

I'm Justin Willingham and I ride with Dale

I’m Justin Willingham and I ride with Dale

Catching Up

I am going to attempt to touch on all the relevant / cool stuff that’s happened in the last two weeks. I officially moved to Austin December 29th into a cozy 2 story apartment off of 35W & 290, just 5 minutes from downtown. I moved in with one of my good buddies, Josh who I did a little touring with in the past summers.

A few days later, I brought in the New Year with Josh & his girlfriend and Dilly & Tara. We waited for the countdown at a bar on Rainey Street then made it to all the madness on 6th Street. I spent the next day finishing unpacking and got ready for my first day of work at my new job.

I was overly stoked for the public transit that Austin has to offer. I got up early for my first day of work, made breakfast and walked a few hundred feet to my bus stop. It was about a 15 minute bus ride to downtown and it was awesome! I was under the impression that I would just be filling out paper work and get shown around what they do at GetMeFriends. On the contrary, I was writing blogs and monitoring all of the 40 social media accounts for our clients. It was fun and exciting.

I got on the right bus home but headed in the wrong direction. What was a 15 minute bus ride downtown to get here turned to a 3 hour ride home.

The following week of work was great. A little more repetition of work and I already feel like I’ve the hang of it. The following weekend, Mollie got back to Texas from her Christmas vacation in Switzerland. She came down to Austin for the weekend to visit and it was very refreshing seeing a pretty, familiar face again.

2013, You’re Out. 2014, You’re In.

Justin Willingham

Welp, as you can read below, my blogs have been pretty few and far between. It was in fact one of my resolutions to try and keep up with this blog a little more regularly. Two weeks into the new year and I’d say I haven’t too too bad yet 😛

Let’s rewind just a little bit. 2013 was a killer year! I graduated from UNT, I got to travel and study in London & Paris, met an awesome lady, landed my first “big boy” job and moved to a new city. With that being said, I am continuing my ambitions and running head first into 2014. I don’t have any half-hearted resolutions for the new year, but there are a lot of things I will accomplish this year and I look forward to sharing them with you.

– Trip

 

My summer across the pond

Sorry it’s been so long since I’ve updated my website. Allow me to fill in the gaps from the last few months! So, this summer I attended the Mayborn in London study abroad trip through my university. I had the time of my life. It was the most humbling, eye-opening experience I have had in all my traveling experiences. But, less talk… More rock! Here is a link to my blog about my travels 

UØ Farewell Tour. The End of a Decade of Influence

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It was bitter sweet watching one of my favorite bands thrash the stage in Dallas, Texas one last time.

Lets rewind a little bit. The year was 2004. During my early years of high school, lost and trying to figure out who I was, the things I was into, etc. I found myself playing Greg Hasting’s Tournament Paintball on XBOX. One of the soundtracks on that video game happened to be Reinventing Your Exit by Underoath. Outside of my father’s metal (AC/DC, Metallica, Skid Row, Steel Panther, etc.) that was the first time I had heard music of that genre and I was instantly hooked. 

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This was the pre-Myspace days. I had at this time also discovered PureVolume.com and began frantically searching for screamo/heavy music. I started going to shows at the local skatepark and eventually filled in on bass in a band with some of my best friends that I still have today. At this point in my life (and mostly now, as well) my life revolved around music. 

After a couple of years of being a constant show-goer around the DFW local scene and after having my parents consent, my best buddy Tyler and I attended our first Vans Warped Tour in ’06. The first festival that I had ever attended and one in which Tyler and I made fake lamies to get into the show. Believe it or not, it worked. The fine people at DHL Event Security aren’t the sharpest tools in the shed. 

It was at that point that everything I had known about music, the music business, shows, and festivals would be forever changed. Most people that go to large festivals know that a part of the festival experience is the vendors. Tyler and I met a Rastafarian by the name of Inoch who sold random merchandise and trinkets. After some small talk and a nearly sold out crowd at that year’s Warped Tour, Inoch asked us to help him sell his merchandise for the day. It was that action that helped build a mutually beneficial relationship for the last 6 years of being able to work nearly EVERY music festival, tour, and radio show in the country. 

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Through meeting Inoch, I have been able to network and meet some of the greatest people ever, travel the entire country in a haggard van and eventually a tour bus. 

All of this really hit home for me as I stood in a sold out Palladium Ball room surrounded by people that I had met over the years at all the local DFW shows. It was a very emotional, humbling experience. It was a little heartbreaking to see over a decade of influence come to an end, but when I look back and realize everything that Underoath had indirectly done for me, I couldn’t have been more happy.  Thank you for the memories

Below is a link to my YouTube Channel where just about the entire set from Underoath’s Farewell Tour can be viewed.

ENJOY!