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Ghost of LL

Burnt Ends
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Posts posted by Ghost of LL

  1. I have to tell you--you're not giving us a lot to go on.  Saying "tell me what to do with a couple days in two of the most diverse cities in the world" is pretty impossible if we don't know your interests.  Do you like art?  Are you a history buff?  If you're a history guy, what era?  I'm not going to send you to the Churchill War Rooms if you're primarily interested in Medieval history.  Or are you more of an outdoor/stroll through a park type of guy?

  2. 26 minutes ago, Pasken said:

    I'm not sure what the timing is on the 3rd runway. High projections put our current runways at %60 capacity in 2037. I think an issue might be that they have to close the east runway for up to a year for repairs and I'm not sure what our capacity would be with just the west runway.

    What are the assumptions that go into the "high" projections?  And what is the capacity based on?  Is that hourly capacity?

    Runways have a fixed capacity--somewhere between 45 and 70 movements per hour, depending on the aircraft type and various other factors.  Obviously, you're going to come closer to your runways' capacity at 4:00 PM than you are 4:00 AM.  

    Right now, AUS isn't a hub, so its traffic is what you would ordinarily expect in an O&D market--a high number of flights in the morning and late afternoon, and a relatively low number in the middle of the day.  But if the discussion of an DL hub (or focus city) comes to pass, that changes.  Hubs work by grouping flights at the same time.  The hub will come in all at roughly the same time so that passengers can connect, and then the flights all go out at roughly the same time.  It's not a particularly efficient use of runways, but it's more convenient for passengers.

    Over the years, the legacy airlines have made efforts to "de-hub," with varying degrees of success.  But if we have hopes of operating a DL hub in the future, I think we need to assume that there's going to be a hub-type operation with a high volume of flights at least three or four times during the course of the day.

  3. 12 hours ago, Chet Steadman said:

    Love this stuff.  It’s amazing how many people are traveling though ABIA.  Every month seems to be a new record.  If I recall correctly, we weren’t expected to hit our numbers until the early-mid 2020s.  

    Likewise, I’ll never understand the constant desire to have rail to an airport.  Outside of perhaps a stadium or arena on gamedays, you’ll find a greater contingent of cabs, taxis, busses, etc. at the airport than any other place in the city.  I don’t think I’ve ever had to wait more than 3-4 minutes for a ride at a major US airport.

    Why has there been such a pressing need for a third runway?  Heathrow, Gatwick, Dubai and a dozen+ other international airports operate with two or less runways and each have exponentially more traffic than ABIA.  

    A third runway is necessary if you want ABIA to be anything more than a nice regional airport.  If you have any hope of ABIA ever being a hub--and if you favor economic development in Austin, you need to have a hub--then you need a third (and probably a fourth) runway.

    LHR and DXB are really poor analogies.  For one thing, LHR is very tightly slot controlled, and its congestion is a constant problem.  But for another, both LHR and DXB are major long-haul hubs that Austin will never be.  And so the type of need they're catering to is entirely different.  LHR is going to have flights to Dallas and Dubai and Dehli and Dhaka--but it'll only have a handful per day to each city.  LHR doesn't have the type of short-haul traffic that Austin has (and needs).  For example, there are only 15 flights a day from LHR to CDG.  In contrast, there are at least fifteen flights a day from AUS to Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago. 

    In other words--by being a mid-continent city in the middle of a large country with a high number of domestic flights, AUS is going to have a surprisingly high number of aircraft movements vis-a-vis large international hubs like LHR and DXB.

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  4. So a few disparate and disjointed thoughts:

    On the Rhine: Along the stretch of the Rhine between Bingen and Koblenz, there are a number of castles that have been converted into hotels, most notably Burg Gutenfels in Kaub, Burg Rheinfels in St. Goar, and Burg Schoenburg in Oberwesel.  For view and rustic feel of a castle, I would go with Gutenfels; for restaurant and bar, Schoenburg; for accommodations, Rheinfels.  They're all fairly reasonably priced, and typically include breakfast.  Beware that you probably want to have a car, as the castles are all up on steep hills above the towns--taxi service is limited, and it is a real drag to carry your bags up those hills if you're just traveling by train.

    KD Line runs boats up and down the Rhine in the Summer.  It makes for a nice afternoon--bring a loaf of bread and some meat and cheese and a bottle of wine and sit up on the top deck.

    Cologne: People are going to disagree with me, but I really like Cologne.  From a tourist standpoint, there are two things to see: the Cathedral and the Roman museum.  But right around there are a number of great beer halls in which you can score a Kolsch or five, including Peters Brauhaus., which I really liked.

    Potsdam: Just outside of Berlin is Potsdam.  There's so much shit going in in Berlin, that I don't think too many people go out to Potsdam, which is really a shame because it's a beautiful town with an outsized amount of history.  Just before you get to Potsdam is the Wannsee Conference site, where the Nazis spelled out their plans for the Holocaust.  About a mile down the road from that is the Gleinicker Bridge--i.e., the Bridge of Spies--on the way to Schloss Cecilienhof, which was the site of the WWII conference.  Cecilienhof is one of a number of Prussian royal palaces in Potsdam, including Frederick the Great's palace at Sans Souci.  

    Honestly--if you're doing a week in Berlin (and Berlin deserves a week), it wouldn't be a bad idea to stay a couple days in Potsdam.

  5. 5 minutes ago, XR4ticlone said:

    I'm fine not funding those either.

    I'm in construction and there are no shortage of asinine, never needed, projects there...most funded with Fed grants.  

    If there is value in it, it should be paid for at the State & local level.  There will never be more OPM than what other people can piss away.  

    It's how we got $21 Trillion in debt.  

    These projects are paid for at the state and local level--to the tune of billions of dollars.  But they need federal regulatory approval.  And if you want federal regulatory approval, it often helps to have members of Congress intervene on your behalf.

    I'm talking about critical infrastructure projects like roads and dams and transmission--if you don't want those, then you're going to be awfully hungry, thirsty, and cold sitting there in the dark.

  6. Just now, XR4ticlone said:

    Frankly I wish all of them would be like that.

    When the Gov spends money it's usually a complete waste.  

    And any private 'project' that needs millions, much less billions of Fed money shouldn't happen.  It's not an example of what's wrong with Cruz...it's what's wrong with our Fed Gov.

     

     

    It's not a private project.  It's a public infrastructure project that needs federal approval.  

  7. 51 minutes ago, TahoeHorn said:

    How fucking stupid can you be?

    I didn't even vote for the guy.  How much power do you think I have?   Your theory of my political power is bizarre.  

    Yeah, man--Tahoe just brings the donuts and carries the water.

  8. 19 hours ago, TexasEd said:

    Give me some reasons to vote Beto and I will.  Not Ted Cruz is almost enough.

    The honest answer is "because he's fucking useless."  I have clients who are trying to get billion-dollar projects built that rely on federal funds/approvals, and they know that when they need help in the Senate, they call Senator Cornyn.  Cornyn is actually really good at that type of stuff.  He needs to be, because he has to do it all for the State of Texas, because Cruz is completely MIA.  If you need something done in Washington, there's no point in calling Cruz, unless it's something on which he would be insulted if you didn't call him and he'd throw a monkeywrench into it just out of spite.

    I mean, look--his policy positions aren't to my liking.  But whatever.  I'm a Texan first, and Texas needs representation in the Senate.

  9. 2 minutes ago, GSU&UT said:

    Definitely true, but Charter Schools/vouchers will still need a funded education system though right? I just read that this is the first time there has been a tax increase passed in 28 years.

    To some degree, but it can be nothing more than a skeleton system--one basically that does little more than funnel public money to private schools.

  10. 2 minutes ago, NameAlreadyInUse said:

    I don't know, but I do know that it should be more than what they are making in Oklahoma.  The people of Oklahoma should be ashamed of what they are doing to their education system there. Those legislators need to take a few minutes to quit fucking their sisters and fix their shit.  Then they can go right back to their sister fucking. 

    You act as though this is the result of negligence, and not intent.  You're wrong.

    There is a strong faction within the Republican Party that seeks to undermine the entire concept of public education, and would prefer that public money just go to fund private (overwhelmingly parochial) schools instead.  You've seen the first part of that strategy in how schools are funded--most Oklahoma schools now only have class four days a week.  The next phase of that is the passage of vouchers.

    So if you're a parent, you'll have a choice of (1) part-time poorly-funded public school, or (2) using a voucher (plus some of your own money) to send your kid to a private school.  If you have a job and can't afford to stay at home with the kid on Friday, that's probably not much of a choice at all.  So the GOP succeeds in undermining public education in Oklahoma, all while touting "school choice."

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  11. 36 minutes ago, Wally Fairway said:

    Here is the best photo of the night - guys at Johnny's Ice house stopping to watch one of their own play for the Blackhawks

    DZgoGPTV4AAaN99.jpg

     

    and according to their twitter account - you can go see Scott Foster in the Johnny's Ice House elite league semifinals tonight (I bet it is played to a packed house)

    Just seeing that picture--a bunch of guys in beer-league uniforms and gear--brings that smell of the dressing room back to my nostrils.

    Dudes really need to spend more time cleaning their pads.

  12. Now if you tell me they serve a bad ass roast on sundays....  might just have to give it a shot. Sounds like a lot of fun. 

    That I don’t know, but I would assume so. The food is generally pretty good.


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  13. 1 hour ago, WhatTheBuck said:

    Two sources, one referred to as a Trump interviewee, the other not. The one not identified as an interviewee could be anyone. We don't know. If it was an interviewee then it seems they would have said so like they did with the first source. But it's someone familiar with the investigation. I can't rule out that it was someone from the Mueller camp.

    You'd have to agree that if it was someone from the Mueller camp then that would be a signicant development. One that would hardly seem to be a coincidence given the recent advance of personal attacks against Mueller himself. 

    Just stating my first impression. If it was accurate then we'll see further examples. I'm done litigating it. 

    I can't rule it out, but you have absolutely no basis to rule it in.

    I think the much safer reading, based on Mueller's history of non-leaking and the subject-matter of the information provided by the source (i.e., the topic of Mueller's questions), is that the source isn't an interviewee but is instead somebody outside the OSC who knows what the interviewee was asked (e.g., the interviewee's lawyer).

  14. That's part of the appeal, from where I sit.  It's kind of a "every hotel has a bar, but this bar has a hotel" kind of deal.

    Here's a good Telegraph review of the place.  It is somewhat unique from the standpoint of location and recent renovation, but there are plenty of other pubs in London that offer rooms upstairs.

    Personally, for London this would be my #1 pick.

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