Ah AISD… Part 2
So I looked at the recommendations from the school board, and they’re mostly sane if a bit sad.
The central part of the District, south of Lady Bird Lake and east of IH-35, is an area undergoing significant changes. Linder Elementary School is currently experiencing significant overcrowding and is at 155% of capacity.
…
Continued population increases in the apartment communities located between Woodland Avenue and Oltorf Boulevard have resulted in an overcrowding situation at Linder. While at the same time, redevelopment of older apartment communities in the Metz and Sanchez attendance zones have decreased these schools by 76 and 107 students, respectively, from 2006-07 to 2007-08. This trend will continue as other apartments also begin redeveloping into higher priced apartments and condominiums.
In other words, we’re going to price the families out of the neighborhoods. I wish I wasn’t helping to fulfill that prophecy.
Of course, they still expect Linder to hit 195% of capacity in 2010-2012. Just that the other schools near the water will have low enrollment so no need to build anything new.
Ah AISD…
Just reading this article from the Statesman. So the school board is trying to decide where to build two new elementary schools. They’re apparently planning on putting one in Circle C, because they promised it to developers a long time ago. And they’re also planning on putting on in another one in North Central Austin. Apparently the schools in North Austin are overcrowded with students and so they need a new school.
More likely overcrowded because of transfers students from other parts of Austin. I can’t believe that there’s been a sudden influx of families with greater than average numbers of children living in sub-1600 sq/ft houses. Perhaps if they fixed problem schools in South and East Austin they wouldn’t have every kid transferring into a North Central school.
Of course I’m biased since the school we’ll be sending Stella to is Linder Elementary. From the article (emphasis mine):
District 2 Trustee Sam Guzman, who represents East and Southeast Austin and whose term also expires in May, said he is concerned that the two proposed sites won’t relieve crowding at Linder Elementary School, which is east of Interstate 35 between Oltorf Street and Ben White Boulevard and is the most over-enrolled campus in the district.
In their recommendation, district staff members said Linder students might have to be transferred to other schools. It’s an idea that isn’t sitting well with parents in the area, Guzman said.
Guzman said he has heard from several parents about crowding and the condition of the Linder campus, which he said is showing its age and has moisture problems.
“The more and more I talk to people about it, the more it strikes me how dire the situation is there,” he said.
But the money quote is:
“Everybody wants the best for the kids they represent, but ultimately, we represent all the kids,” he said.
And by all the kids, I’m sure they mean, all the kids whose parent’s are heavily involved in community politics.
Views, VMUs, and Parking
So, on my long run today I got to thinking a lot about parking and these new development communities. I’m sure this was inspired by something AC or M1EK said, but heck if I can remember. I’ve got to say that I think that parking like at the Domain is a really great idea. It would be great if we could make people only go to the Domain via public transport, but that’s not going to happen. So short term that kind of public parking is great. Not just for the Domain, but because other businesses can piggy back on the domain. There’s no reason that you couldn’t buy a plot of land next to a development like that and get walk in customers, building off of their pedestrian friendly environment. We’re going to have cars for some time, so it’s best to plan for them. I’d like to see something like this on Riverside. Put in a big parking garage, and then people stroll up and down the street (hopefully with a light rail running down the middle).
I was thinking about this as I ran past the lake front Radio Shack on Riverside. I’m not normally for the city deciding what sort of things its citizens should be buying by using eminent domain to redevelop property, but this Radio Shack has a lake front view. Except it doesn’t. Because it has no windows in the back! I’d be all about a lake front Radio Shack if they had windows. Look for an obscure cable connector while admiring the beauty of town lake. There’s a Starbucks in Kerrville that is right on the river. And it’s amazing.
But why are we allowing businesses to essentially just block the view? There’s a lake front Jiffy Lube too, except of course, the customers can’t sit by the lake while they’re car is repaired. They get to sit and look at cars whizzing by on Riverside! I realize that there is a plan for the neighborhood and I really want to make sure that some of the cool businesses over here can afford their leases after they transform the area, but for the love of Pete, let’s get rid of these businesses waisting valuable real estate.
Speaking of views. When we bought this house the MLS listing mentioned that there were possible downtown views from a theoretical second story you could build. We’ve had our Christmas tree up in front of our main window, so we haven’t been looking out it at all. Julie took it down Wednesday night, and last night I was walking past our front window when I noticed the Frost Bank tower. And the rest of downtown. We both just stared. There are a lot of trees in the way, and I think it’s going to be a winter only view but it’s really beautiful.
Just mentioning this I noticed that I can see the Frost Bank tower from where I’m sitting right now in my office. It’s a little bit harder to discern during the day, but you can see the shape.
I love this house. I love this area. Everywhere I run there are amazing views of downtown and nature.
Parker Lane Kicked My Ass – Twice!
<a href="http://www.mapmyrun.com/run/united-states/tx/austin/698839896" _fcksavedurl="http://www.mapmyrun.com/run/united-states/tx/austin/698839896">parker lane kicked my ass – twice!</a><br/><a href="http://www.mapmyrun.com/find-run/united-states/tx/austin" _fcksavedurl="http://www.mapmyrun.com/find-run/united-states/tx/austin">Find more Runs in Austin, Texas</a>
So this is the route I ran today. I’m trying to make Fridays my long run days. Plus I just like picking up the hike and bike trail. But I had no clue I went that far! The first part was nice. The trail was pretty much deserted. I did encounter a man with his car parked just off the trail (I don’t know how he got his car on the trail) with no pants on. He had underwear on thankfully.
Other than that I was having a nice time tooling around the lake. It’s really pretty this time of year. Looking at the apartment complexes on the south bank they’re demolishing for condos. Noticing that UT is building a business school off of Riverside. Then I got to Parker. I wanted to run up parker because there’s lots of interesting architecture, unlike Pleasant Valley my normal haunt that is all apartment complexes. I made it all the way up to Woodland running, but I had to stop and walk. It was too much. Something about hitting the flat bit after the climb made me even more tired. I crossed woodland and started running again. Passed a house that looked fairly similar to ours. Same brick. Same beams. It was smaller and had fewer windows though.
After crossing Oltorf I made it all the way up to my friend Erin’s apartment complex before having to walk again. It was so steep there that I passed a kid who was having to walk his bicycle. I had a pleasant run through Mable Davis and then came on home. All in all, a nice run.
Oh. And it appears I ran 8.5 miles. I didn’t think I’d gone that far. I think the map would be more impressive if you could tell that my starting point is only a quarter of a mile from 71.
Wow
Julie awarded me a cool blogging award. That’s awesome. Actually she awarded it to me yesterday and I’m just now getting around to posting on it. So, I’ve been thinking about who to spotlight. I’ve been told that the thing people find most entertaining about my blog is the sheer randomness. And my spelling mistakes. So in that tradition here are my top 5 :
I have no clue why I’m so fascinated by real estate information. It’s goofy. But these guys slice and dice MLS data like seasoned statisticians. Fascinating for the arm chair realtor.
Just go look. It’s always interesting over there. I can’t categorize or summarize. You’ll just learn something.
The best cooking site I’ve found. The pictures are amazing and somehow the food always gets related to real life in creative ways.
More Austin new urbanism ranting. Frankly you need more ranting in your life, especially from a fellow Austin bus rider. Sign up for the RSS feed.
This is my daddy technology/vintage toys/youtube video source. I can’t read most Daddy Blog’s because they’re too damn saccharine. Greg has a great sarcasm/seriousness mix.
So that’s it for me. Enjoy!
I know I’m enjoying the new paint on the front of the house.
I also was putting away our Christmas decorations in the attic last night (and swearing at Julie under my breath), when I put my foot through the bottom stair. Thankfully it was the bottom stair. There are definitely downsides to owning 40 year old houses.
Hopefully there were no mangled homonyms in this post.
so tired
So, I’ll admit, I wasn’t really paying attention when Julie said she wanted to get the outside of our house painted over the Christmas holidays. I always want to play video games over the Christmas Holidays, but Julie’s got plans. So I wasn’t really paying attention. It’s been a busy season. We moved into a house. Moved at work. Had 3 Christmases. I had other things on my mind. Until Thursday that is. When in preparation for painting we rented a pressure washer and I washed the house. I was freezing, wet and realizing that we were in way over our heads. I voiced my concerns to Julie, but she noted that I had blasted paint off of large sections of our house and there was no turning back now.
The reason I hesitated is that I severely underestimated the size and architectural complexity of the size of our house. When I look at it I always think of the houses they built in the seventies that are like it. Only the ones they built in the seventies have all the architectural detail simplified, and the size of the house cut by 400 square feet. When I was pressure washing I realized there was a massive amount of trim to paint. It doesn’t look it, but our house has almost as much detailed trim as some sort of New England Gingerbread jobbie. There are beams everywhere. Criss-crossing. Coming out from the house. There are probably over 40 on the front of the house. I am not exaggerating. And these aren’t 1970s, “think about the earth” crossbeams. They’re 4x16s I think. Simply massive. You would have to special order these beams today and they would cost you a fortune.
So I was feeling like we might have a problem. Then we got to home depot and purchased 20 gallons of paint. Which should have been another red flag. It takes us a weekend to paint 3 gallons of paint and we’re going to paint 20?
So I decided that we had to try a paint sprayer. No way we were getting that much paint on there. So I tried the paint sprayer. It worked fantastically for about 5 minutes at which point it started seizing. I went over the directions again and in fine print it was noted that you shouldn’t paint at a greater that 45 degree angle off of center. Which was pretty much everything I had to paint. So I cleaned out the sprayer.
Then I tried it again the next morning. And it seized up. And we bought a 12 foot stepladder. Because I wasn’t going to be able to paint the house on a 16 foot extension ladder. Without dying. And we rented a paint sprayer from Home Depot. Which worked great pointing up at the trim, but applied paint at roughly a gallon per minute. Which was far too much. You squeezed the trigger from five feet away and you had so much paint it was dripping. We called home depot and they couldn’t help me. They seemed to think that was normal. So I had to clean another paint sprayer. And at this point we’ve got about 10 feet of trim painted, and so we just hop to it by hand. And Julie got most of the back finished, and I finished most of one side.
Then yesterday my Dad came over and helped, and we finished about 2/3rds of the front. Yes. 3 people. 2/3rds of one side of a houses’s trim. Trim. Not actual walls. Just trim. Today we finally finished our first coat on all the trim around 3:30. We managed to get a second coat on the trim on the back, and 1/2 of the front (although the easy half of the front, the part that doesn’t require a 12 foot ladder).
So hopefully tomorrow we’re going to get some color at least on the back. And we might cheat and just put a second coat on the parts of the front that will impact us putting color up there.
But good grief, this has been a massive job. We’ve already put on 7 gallons of paint. And we’ve painted the trim. It hurts to rinse the paint out of my hair. It hurts to hoist this beer. We’re hoping that by the time I go back to work we’ll have the front and back done. And we’ll finish the sides this weekend. We hope…
I need to pay better attention.
I love my neighborhood.
So I realize I have posted almost nothing about my new house and neighborhood. We love it here.
I’ve been working from home because my work still hasn’t figured out how to get me into work. I sold my car shortly before they decided to move and then they picked the one location they were looking at that wasn’t accessible by bus. “No problem,” they said, “we’ll find a way to get you there.” They haven’t yet, but I’m not in a rush. It’s wonderful being at home every day. The view out the windows is fantastic, and I like being able to give Stella a hug whenever I want. Plus I’m much more productive without a commute. I have no problem adding the 30 minutes to an hour that I would normally commute on to my work day. It’s nice.
We’ve realized that this neighborhood is full of cool people. Everyone is friendly and actually talks to each other. It’s quite a change. I’ve found out one of the bloggers I read lives in this neighborhood as does the respected artistic director of a local theater.
This week we’ve mostly been Christmas shopping and making quick trips to Ikea to finish up our house. We had to pickup a dining table and chairs for our new dining room. We ended up choosing this table and these chairs:
The chairs are actually office chairs, but they look great. You can’t get as many under the table, but we’ve figured out a way to get 10 settings at it anyway. Of course we had to test out the chairs at Ikea which meant I had to carry a chair from the office area over to the dining room area, which of course is the furthest distance possible from one Ikea’s “short cuts”. I was waiting for a comment from the employees in Kitchen design, but they didn’t give me any guff.
Other than that we’ve been settling in. Last night we went to a neighborhood watch meeting and learned more about our neighbors. How to call in about suspicious characters in the neighborhood. Good stuff.
At lunch this afternoon I went running. There’s a hike and bike trail just across from where Santa Monica dead ends into Burleson. I jumped off and found myself on Pleasant Valley just a couple of minutes later. I ran all the way up to Riverside and Pleasant Valley before having to turn back (Julie asked me to be back by 1:30).
All in all we love it here. The neighborhood has some rough sides, but all in all it’s really cool.
I’m currently working in the backyard, watching Stella. Julie’s gone to get her haircut. It’s in the mid-seventies and this my view:
Stella looking for the march hare
turning blue
Just wanted to key in people who don’t read as many politics blogs as I do. Dan Barrett just won a house seat runoff in Fort Worth last night. This narrows the difference in the state house to 79-71. Democrats have been winning in districts deliberately redrawn by Tom Delay to prevent them from winning.
Next time someone says that Texas will never be a Democrat majority state again, remind them that we’re awfully close.
you can’t spell xmas without x
So we talked about the origin of the word Xmas in church a few weeks ago, and I wanted to share. Apparently Xmas as a substitute for Christmas is religious, from wikipedia (search:Xmas):
The word “Christ” and its compounds, including “Christmas”, have been abbreviated for at least the past 1,000 years, long before the modern “Xmas” was commonly used. “Christ” was often written as “XP” or “Xt”; there are references in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as far back as 1021 AD. This X and P arose as the uppercase forms of the Greek letters χ and ρ), used in ancient abbreviations for Χριστος (Greek for “Christ”), and are still widely seen in many Eastern Orthodox icons depicting Jesus Christ. The labarum, an amalgamation of the two Greek letters rendered as ☧, is a symbol often used to represent Christ in Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox Christian Churches.[1]
All you atheists are on notice to come up with a new way to mock the birth of the Christ child.
But hopefully you’ve learned something. I like to learn things. I guess this is why I have no desire to buy this new product from the people who brought you “The War on Christmas” – Brawndo.