
Texas Jeff
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Everything posted by Texas Jeff
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The destruction of America's public education system
Texas Jeff replied to Captainant's topic in Cloak Room
Well, in this one case, I dug in to it a bit expecting to be outranged it's hard to tell exactly what happened. There is an email from a nutrition director saying that kids can no longer charge to their accounts directly from the cafeteria. But, they do have a free and reduced meal program like everyone else: https://www.davidson.k12.nc.us/apps/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=800358&type=d&pREC_ID=1189912 They also have a school cash online program, which is what we used to pre-pay for meals for our kids when they were in school. For non-free-lunch kids, the parents put money into the accounts via cash deposit or a credit card and the kid has so much money in their account. When the money is depleted, the account adds some via a credit card or the parent/kid can go add some via cash or check. It's possible that this was a change in policy to not allow a kid to charge to an account at the cash register if their account would go into a negative balance. If you were not on free lunch and you could do this, then there would be no incentive to fund the account at all. Just keep running up a tab and never pay it. If everyone did this, the cafeteria might not have money to fund operations, free, reduced, whatever. It's possible that someone posted this email out of context and folks interpreted it to be something different than what it was. Personally, I think we should just have free food for all kids in the public schools, just to make everyone equal and not have anyone stigmatized. On the flip side of that, kids waste a ton of food at school and we should try to cut down on food waste where we can. -
Texas 49 Wyoming 17 333 yards LEDs will be activated...
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UAW Strike / Absurd Executive Compensation discussion
Texas Jeff replied to horn4life's topic in Cloak Room
Austin city council? -
Looks like the East Mall Fountain to me, back when it was a fountain. They were headed towards the Alumni Center.
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CM Leslie Poole has passed a resolution to direct the city to create code amendments that will allow RV's on single family lots as housing. Austin, Texas ... where the shitter is about to be full.
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NFLPA Calls for Natural Grass in all NFL Stadiums
Texas Jeff replied to Vic Mackey's topic in Football
I told my kids during COVID vaccinations that when the university decides to do something, they drop the hammer. Just watch. The city of Austin will be talking forever about who gets in line first and where we can equitably and sustainably have COVID shots. The website will suck. And UT will have eight lines moving swiftly with phone apps, good signage, and cheerful folks helping out. I was right. CoA eventually figured it out, but UT was a vaccination machine. If UT wants to water a field, watered it will be. Having said that, the previous grass sucked by the end of the season. We probably needed 2-3 more Aggies to tell us what was wrong. But I’m confident that if Texas decides to do it, it will eventually be done well. -
It’s going to be a party and at times folks may forget that Wyoming is there too. The team deserves a celebration. 45-17 Texas once the team remembers that a game is in progress. It’s going to be a party and at times folks may forget that Wyoming is there too. The team deserves a celebration. 45-17 Texas once the team remembers that a game is in progress.
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About 3.5
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AISD schools are used to it. Some of them have Westlake and LT in back to back weeks. It is not fun to watch and I'm sure it's not fun for the players. You root for the clock to run and kids to get out without injury. Dripping Springs joined the district as the third school to pound away on AISD. It's harder to get kids to participate when they know they are signing up for at least three public ass kickings per year and have little chance of making the playoffs. It would be nice, at least from the Austin ISD perspective, to have some kind of regional relegation process instead of drawing leagues based on number of kids. Even within the school district, LBJ would be better off playing Anderson, Akins and Austin High than playing Eastside, Northeast and Navarro. Last year, LBJ was winning games by margins approaching 90 points at halftime. AISD brought some of this on themselves by not updating facilities. I marched at Burger Center in the early 1980s in state marching prelims and I was impressed by what it was at the time. Other than adding turf and maybe a power wash, it's the same stadium today. AISD is finally adding a turf field to all high schools, after Westlake already has four fields and a swim center. But hey, Westlake, LT, Drip, Hays ... y'all invested in your programs with nice results. Enjoy it ... but it would be nice for our teams to play competitive games.
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Today I learned that Texas has a private high school named Smoking for Jesus and they have a football team.
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Nuke that CVC. It's a relic of the 80's. What view is being protected: 1. The view of the capitol seen by new arrivals at the Robert Mueller airport that vanished 20+ years ago, or: 2. The view of the capitol seen from inside a car on the IH-35 upper deck that will soon no longer exist. Even if they keep the CVC from Mueller, I think it goes over the parking garage by the baseball field, so you have at least that amount of height to work with. Further south near downtown, there are a lot of CVCs that were originally intended to provide a view from IH-35, and IH-35 will no longer be there. Time to revisit and revise...
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IMHO they go where the bus lines go, and/or where they can camp out of the view of most folks. There is little bus service in Tarrytown. Used to be a nice loop route to downtown and campus, but no more... Some stuff for students but that's mostly from married student housing and those apartments on Enfield to/from campus. There are some homeless camped out under the highway, in the woods around 5th/6th and Mopac. Easy to hide along the creek. I tried hiking Shoal Creek a few years ago and ran into several camps along the creek. The trail running under the street smelled so bad of urine and other fluids that I gave up and walked street side. The parking lot by House Park is a mess. Folks are car camping there overnight, which doesn't bother me, but there is a ton of broken glass and other trash all over the lot. If you have bus service, some fast food or convenience stores, and greenbelt with shade, you're going to attract a homeless camp.
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Do you FIRE? Financial Independence, Retire Early
Texas Jeff replied to UTGrad98's topic in Business and Markets
As others have said, this would not be tax avoidance, just tax deferral. And at 8% I would pay the taxes rather than defer. I'm not sure you have to pay off the mortgage to do this, but I'm not an expert. You may be able to keep the mortgage and just tell the county you are deferring taxes. Since the taxes are frozen, they are being eaten away by inflation now so they'll be cheaper every year. I think the deferral is until death or until you sell the property, which ever comes first, but again I am not an expert. There are other things to think about. If she keeps the property until death, whoever gets it will probably get a step up in basis on the value of the house at the time of death. It's potentially a big capital gains savings. But, do you think she will own the home until death? The last years of life can be expensive and difficult, particularly if you don't have a younger spouse as a caregiver. And as an aside: We are NOT prepared for what is coming in eldercare. Today we are caring for folks born in the depression and early war years. The first of the baby boom is just now getting to the point where things are really going wrong. The first boomers are maybe five years away from the wheels coming off. It will be rough for the middle and late boomers, because we don't have the facilities to take care of them. -
We do not. All we need is a guy who occasionally says "Quarter". Maybe tells you who made the play. I was in the band in the 1980s. During one of my first times on the field, we had some hold for some random recognitions. They were delayed and we were just standing out there and it was pretty quiet. And suddenly you could hear some students trying to get stadium yell going behind us. At first not much and then the other side started up and it got stronger. And it was way out of sync for a few seconds. Then it got going and it got LOUD. It was so cool to hear it on the field in this wacky not quite synced up stereo effect. No one said "Hey everyone we are going to yell Texas Fight now so let's get it started!"
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Surly Horns Official Week 1 Rice @ Texas Score Prediction Thread
Texas Jeff replied to Wulaw Horn's topic in Football
Texas 59 Rice 6 over/under on people carted out with heatstroke: 80 People remaining on the east side at the end of the game: Longhorn Band + 50 -
How much are cities surrounding Austin helping with the homeless problem? I think the answer is ... not much ... but I could be wrong. Travis County kicked in a little but there are wealthy towns around Austin that are pretty quiet on the issue. Austin seems to be trying to go it alone with solutions. I think that's why the homeless population is rising, and it may be dropping outside of Austin. Honestly just a guess but it seems that way. We need regional and statewide solutions but I'm not holding my breath waiting on that to happen. The "regional" solution seems to be let Austin handle the problem.
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You've got it correct, at least from my time in west Austin schools. PTAs raise money for affluent schools ... and the school district gives more money to schools without strong PTAs. PTAs, aka parents, donate a ton of time at "strong PTA" schools, things like reading programs and cafeteria and playground monitors. The "weak PTA" schools have "parent support specialists", which are paid positions that help kids and supplement teachers. The PSS positions are funded by the city of Austin and the school district. In 2021, AISD told the PTAs that they could no longer fund positions at schools. They did this at the end of the school year. PTAs raise money during the year for the *next* school year, so they already had the money raised and ready to go. Now they were not allowed to hire people. I'm not sure who got cut, but during my time at Casis, the PTA funded the Spanish and keyboarding (computer) teacher, plus some lunchroom monitors. Those people likely got cut. AISD did not go after foundations like the one at the Ann Richards school, just after PTA money. AISD did not balance money to make up for the PTA cuts, they just blocked the PTA funding. The district was deliberately cutting funds from schools with donations because other schools did not have donations, even though those other schools were receiving higher funding. Well, the lege was in session while that was going on, and they saw yet another chance to dunk on Austin. They passed a law requiring schools to accept donations from PTAs. So, what AISD had done was now illegal. The superintendent said that since this had happened after the budget was passed, it was OK to not accept donations for that school year but they would for the next school year. So, after all of that, nothing changed except some PTA supported teachers at West Austin schools were probably fired. My neighbors with kids in elementary were royally pissed off at the district. The superintendent left, then the new superintendent left, then everyone kinda dropped the whole idea. That's how it turned out.
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They do, to some degree. The Austin Ed Fund is a district-wide non-profit. The Ann Richards school has a foundation just to benefit their school. They are spending more that a million dollars a year. Other schools have other funds and groups, but most of the donors are parents or businesses owned by parents. But nothing approaching the impact of giving 800 million to the state in recapture payments.
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Yes, that's generally what happens. AISD closed four schools in the last round and the trustees that did that are all no longer trustees. In the case of some of the elementary schools, they consolidated two old schools into one brand new school. I am thinking of Norman-Sims and the new Sanchez on the east side. The east side rightly is still upset about the closing of Anderson High fifty years ago during desegregation, which devastated their community, so they see any school closing as a repeat of that event. It's not as big of a deal in elementary, but the result for middle and high school is that the parents succeed in keeping their school open, but the kids that go there have less opportunity than kids at a school between 1800-2000. In some cases there is more opportunity, like a better chance to start on the varsity basketball team. But they also lose a lot. The orchestra dwindles down to five people, the band is tiny, booster clubs don't form, the schools have less equipment. AP classes don't make so some kid that might have been good at math, or science or whatever has no advanced path to get there. Kids that want an advanced path transfer to a magnet, or a big school, and the small school gets smaller. The bigger schools also end up with less, because to add something they have to buy one for every school in town. So instead of maintaining 9 football fields, they maintain 13, when the district could get by with 9.
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There is some very blocky art on the top of the parking garage at the airport. The first time I saw it I thought “hey, looks like they are staging supplies to build something.” Then I realized … oops … it’s art. There are occasional yellow metal things on the Lance Armstrong Bikeway. They looked like bike racks to me until I realized … oops … it’s art. Fortunately I didn’t embarrass myself by trying to lock a bike to the artwork.
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Really? I thought the re-vote to authorize bonds got nuked, but perhaps there is another...
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Why does Rice play Texas? So that we can inspire people to go to the Moon, duh… It’s our moral duty to this nation.
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Deleted ... 'cause it's that hot....
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Camp Mabry just dropped from 106 to 82 in one hour, a 24 degree change. The all time record one hour drop is 28 degrees, set on Aug 31, 1954.
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I caught the end of this one on YouTube -- very nice of AISD to stream games online. The game was 21-21 in the 2nd quarter and both teams just stopped scoring. Guys on both sides were cramping up every other play. Stony Point got a late FG to take the lead. Austin High had the ball and was driving, but ran out of time around the 30 yd line to end the game.
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