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Texas Jeff

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Everything posted by Texas Jeff

  1. Austin says "Those are rookie numbers".
  2. Travis County now out. I'm down 17% after being up 90% two years ago. It must be nice to be a county appraiser and just throw random numbers at the wall for a living.
  3. McCallum talk not going away... Here's the latest presentation showing what they are planning (starts around slide 12).
  4. Austin ISD offers at least three ways to get college credit, maybe more. Most are free or cheap and cover the basics for a kid's first year or two of college. Students can take AP classes, and then take the AP test, and maybe get credit if a college offers credit. Austin ISD provides the AP teachers and the class, and the student signs up for the test. The test is $98, but economically disadvantaged kids pay around $21. Students can take ACC dual-credit classes, where the student is enrolled at ACC and high school in the same class. Most of the "ACC" teachers for this are actually Austin ISD high school teachers with the credentials to teach at ACC. The student ends up with high school credit and ACC credit, and the ACC credit can usually transfer elsewhere. I think public schools in Texas are required to accept the credit. Students can take UT On-Ramps classes, where the student is enrolled at UT and the school. UT provides the curriculum. The student ends up with UT credit. It's like ACC dual credit but the kid earns UT class credit using UT content. The district has a number of "early college" high schools, which are mostly the schools with the highest percentage of low economic students. At these schools, students can earn an associate's degree from ACC while still in high school, leaving them with just two years left to complete a degree. Eastside Memorial is across the street from an ACC campus. I think ACC classes are already free for kids in high school, but I can't remember for sure. There's no reason why an Austin ISD student can't knock out most of their freshman year and a big chunk of their sophomore year at almost no cost. The district also has a fire academy, cooking schools, nursing training and bunch of other CTE stuff for kids that are not college bound.
  5. I was near the Georgia border for the last eclipse. Getting to a spot was easy. After it was over, we had about ten minutes before gridlock started. Waze saved us and it routed us some very weird ways, but we kept moving. I had planned a three hour buffer at the Atlanta airport and I ended up walking right on the plane when I got to the gate, but I made it. So when it’s over, get moving as soon as you can, get as far as you can before the rush and have a plan. Or … just be prepared to wait.
  6. I'm sure you know this but I wanted to remind everyone that the way the school gets money is to have students in class. The school has to pay for the teacher, the building, the admin, the custodians ... everyone who keeps the school open. If you miss five class days to go to Hawaii, the school does not make revenue for those days to pay everyone who works there. Each family taking a few days off across the district adds up to a ton of lost revenue. Lots of us donate to our schools above and beyond what is asked, but if you are going to go on vacation and miss school, you might consider asking them what their daily revenue per student is and cutting them a check, just to make up for not being there.
  7. Nobody and I mean nobody wanted Steve Adler in charge.
  8. Well, you can "eyeball" it if you wish... I was surprised with the amount of glare from the sun during the 2017 eclipse, and how dark it didn't get. More like dim. It was tough to tell exactly when it was safe to look, or when the sun was going to suddenly come back. The app gives you some kind of assurance that you are in totality. I waited until the app said I could look, counted to ten, then looked without glasses. I put my glasses back on about ten seconds before the app said it was over. I am paranoid about retina damage, especially for kids who will need their retinas a lot longer than I will.
  9. Consider getting an eclipse app for your phone and practicing beforehand. I just re-downloaded Solar Eclipse Timer that I used in 2017. It's not free but it's not that much: https://www.solareclipsetimer.com/ It uses your GPS location to calculate exactly when the eclipse is starting and stopping and plays some recorded messages during the eclipse to remind you when to look around. I'm not associated with the person developing this app, it's just the one I picked. It's nice to have something to tell you when exactly the eclipse is at 100%, and when it's over.
  10. We used More Than A Teacher in Westlake over a summer and it worked well for us. They have a few locations and they also do some prep classes on campuses. The most useful part of their program was being able to sit for unlimited practice tests. I'm not sure if they still do this or not. We my kids did it, once you had paid the tuition, you could sign up for as many practice tests as you wanted. Simulated "real world" conditions helped my kids get used to the timing and pacing.
  11. In the video, it looks like the ship had a bunch of lights turn off for maybe 30 seconds or so about a minute before impact. Almost like they lost power, then got it back.
  12. A marching snare drum. Anytime the rest of the entire marching band is not playing. STFU snares, everyone else is trying to be social.
  13. I think the census folks take an American Community Survey every year, which is like a light census using sampling rather than a full enumeration. I got one once and sent it in.
  14. That’s part of the path between their office and Rudy’s. Expect police saturation.
  15. Dome the lake. Could get a little sweaty in there…
  16. There is one switch on the center console that you should learn how to use. It switches the car between Econ, Normal, and Sport modes. Econ will save you some gas ... but ... alternatively ... Normal and Sport will make the car more fun to drive.
  17. Probably lots of little things. It takes a long time for population decreases at the bottom to result in decreased housing demand. When interest rates went low, I would bet lots of wealthy folks purchased a 2nd home. Others bought a new home but kept their old one and AirBnB'ed it. Many people that might want to move now have no financial incentive to do so. Think of older owners who have a large unrealized cap gain in their house. If they sell, they will have a big income tax bill and, in Texas, the property tax on what they buy might go up even if they buy a smaller place. Why move to a smaller place with higher property taxes and pay a big income tax bill to do so? Even those that might want to move up and build a nice custom expensive home may not have the incentive. Why give up their 30 yr 2.5 pct loan to buy a bigger house at 6 percent? Lots of folks are staying put in their current housing rather than moving up or into retirement housing, or own a nice vacation house with a nice low mortgage. That doesn't help supply.
  18. Yes. I just put down a deposit this week on a Honda Civic that is in-transit. This will be a car for my wife for a bit and then handed to a kid. Here is the process we followed: Get a general idea of what class of car you want. My wife wanted a small car just because it's easier to get around town and park. She wanted options so I made a list of all of the cars in that class and a list of at least one dealership in the area that has that model. We spent a half-day driving around visiting showrooms and sitting in different cars. We were able to eliminate most of the models just by sitting in them and finding something we didn't like about them. I watched some YouTube reviews for in-depth info. Safety and reliability were my top concerns. This pretty much left the Civic as our best choice for right now. My wife wanted a specific color combo and trim. I used the online inventory tools to figure out who had that model in stock or in transit. I reached out via the web site to all of the dealers in the Austin area and one in San Antonio (Gunn Honda) where we had a good experience with another Civic purchased during COVID for a different kid. I asked for an email quote and got back a few PDF quotes and a few email responses and a lot of text messages and other emails inviting us to come on in and discuss it. I did not come on in and discuss it. Just use email to negotiate. Most of the quotes were at MSRP, and a few have created a thing called a MVRP (market value price) which is just a made up number. Know the MSRP for your car. They added difference dealer accessories like tinting, windshield warrantees, paint and fabric protection, what ever. Their goal is to pitch a MSRP price and add $1000 to $1600 in accessories. I was able to find the car and get the price down close to MSRP, plus TTL for an out the door price. Generally, they will offer you a discount on the price but still include the accessories because they put the "accessories" on most of their cars just after they get off the truck. They add some paint protection and take the cars to a tint shop. It looks like you are getting something more but really you are just getting their standard prep package. It is very difficult to NOT buy the accessories. Prices are coming down post COVID and it's hard to tell what a real market price is for the car. During COVID, dealers were charging above MSRP and they are trying not to give that up, but prices are slowly coming down. Showrooms now have cars again and supply is coming up. The more flexible you are with model and color and trim, or purchase time, the more you are going to be able to negotiate or find a deal. You are at a slight advantage if you can close right at the end of a month. Try not to overpay but at the end of the day just make a deal and move on with your life. Look at the car before you drive off for scratches or defects and maybe test drive it a few miles at highway speed to make sure it seems OK.
  19. Texas Primary turnout, percent of registered voters: Dem: 5.4% Rep: 12.6% Did not vote: 82% Most of the winners are now decided. R's will sweep the statewide races and Trump will get Texas's electoral votes. D's will take everything in Travis County and other local offices in blue areas. Outside of just a handful of races, the fall election does not matter and that sucks. Even worse, a few close races will be decided by party runoffs, where even fewer people vote. We will end up with the extremes from both ends holding office, and they will fight with each other and not accomplish that much. We should have a "top-two" candidate system, where every primary is open, the top two vote getters advance to the general election, and there are zero runoffs. It would encourage voter turnout and attract moderates to run for office.
  20. West Lake Hills city tax rate: $0.16 Rollingwood city tax rate: $0.19 Austin city tax rate: $0.54 Other benefits: People you aren't able to vote for are not going to change the zoning on your property. The same folks aren't going to propose a tax for a downtown subway to the airport, and then delete the subway part and the airport part once it passes. No one's cancelling Uber or Lyft. If the Lost Creek mayor went to Mexico and recorded a video telling other Lost Creek residents to stay home, the mayor would be forced out of office upon return. If you do have a city government, you are more likely to encounter people you know and who know your neighborhood. Austin is too big for city staffers to have a motivation to talk to the residents, so stuff happens based on what groups have the time and money to lobby the city.
  21. The new Zilker Eagle estimated first year ridership (from their website): 175,000 Actual CapMetro Red Line ridership for the last 12 months (from their website): 485,500 The Red Line has 10 trains serving 9 stations and is drawing 3x the crowd that a 1 train 1 station mini-train will.
  22. BTW, I have been to the new permitting office and I happened to go during an early voting window. For that election, they were offering free parking. The ballot place was in the first floor lobby. I was there for another reason, but a few folks were voting. It's a nice new building close to the new ACC Highland Mall campus. A little hard to find, and I felt that driving around ACC was a bit confusing, but a phone GPS should take you straight there. I agree that Austin is trying some electioneering here that may backfire. They don't want you to leave, so they don't want you to vote, so they are making it difficult. But that may ensure that only those angry enough to drive over there will vote.
  23. You can’t early vote at the Randall’s in West Lake Hills? Oops, I was thinking about the primary…
  24. CapMetro's new station is about a third of a mile from their existing station. We paid $60 million to move the station 1500 ft to better serve the needs of the soccer population. It will be used once every 1-2 weeks for four hours during soccer season. Folks on reddit said that to get on a train you had to drive to one of the rail endpoints, park, and hop on there. So to ride the rail to a soccer game, you have to drive to either Leander or downtown and find parking. Then get on a train and ride halfway down the line. Then fight for space on the train on the way back to your car, which is all the way at the end of the line. Or ... you could pay for parking, walk a bit, and save yourself a few hours. Rail is great for a steady flow of traffic but it sucks for special events. Buses are great for special events, like Texas used to do for football games.
  25. Eastside shut down their varsity program in 2021 for a year. I think they were back for 2022-24 but they played in an all-Austin ISD league. They got crushed by other AISD schools for two years. They are now in 4A with some Austin and some non-Austin schools, and they are probably going to be crushed for two more years by smaller schools. Eastside is only slightly smaller than Austin LBJ, but LBJ has a focus on football. LASA has some decent sports, but football isn't one of them. They went to state for the first time last year in tennis. They may do well in non-contact sports like tennis, diving, maybe cross country. They have the worst high school building in AISD, the second lowest percentage of poor kids, and tons of homework, so any kids that want to play sports need something that is more individual. The parents have the resources to pay for coaching. They don't have team training facilities or decent fields like you would find at Westlake, LT, or really any school west of AISD. Or north of AISD. Or south or east. Eastside has a cool stadium that hopefully AISD will renovate as part of the 2022 bond. It's a historic on-campus stadium and it was the only stadium for Black students in Austin during segregation. Most of the seating is on one side, but that side is a nice hillside with downtown views. Lots of potential for fun Friday night lights at a smaller school.
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