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Texas Jeff

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Everything posted by Texas Jeff

  1. City of Austin + Wilco ... keep it weird but don't get busted.
  2. The new Apple campus is part of Robinson Ranch, which is the big undeveloped triangle of land between 45, Mopac North, and Parmer Lane. I did some searching yesterday and discovered that the area is already covered by a PUD agreement that allows high density, transit oriented development. The city signed the agreement with the Robinson family in 2004. The Ranch is about 6050 acres, which is about 8-9 times the size of the Mueller development. Some of it is in a flood plain, but there is probably room for at least 7.5 Muellers. The city claims that Mueller will eventually have about 13,000 residents and 13,000 jobs. At the same level of development, Robinson could have about 100,000 jobs and 100,000 residents. That's similar to the number of jobs as Austin has downtown. Capital Metro's Red Line runs right through the property and you can ride it from the Howard Station to Highland Mall in 20 minutes, and all the way downtown in 38 minutes. In the other direction, you can get from Howard to Lakeline in 14 minutes and it's about 30 minutes to the end of the line in Leander. IMHO, the city needs to work with the Robinson family, the ranch owners, to come up with a long term plan for that area and start development, before it becomes a string of unconnected corporate campuses and a parade of slow-moving SUVs up and down Parmer.
  3. There was an earlier plan to rework Red River so that it goes straight north from where it is today when passing the Erwin Center, passes by the swim center (where the parking lot is today in front of the swim center), and connects to Robert Dedman Drive as it goes past DKR, which might become "Red River" and continue through campus. I"m not sure if that is still the plan, but there were a few images around that showed that alignment.
  4. Texas Jeff

    Tax reform

    I think there are a lot of people that though of themselves as "well off" or "upper middle class" because they were able to itemize and get credit for property taxes, mortgage interest, and so on. The new $24,000 standard deduction for MFJ is going to make the standard deduction the better choice for a lot of middle and upper-middle income taxpayers. In theory this is a tax break but I think it's going to piss a bunch of people off. People are going to feel like they spent money on property tax and mortgage interest payments and got no income tax benefit for doing that. It's going to be harder for charities to get donations because fewer people are itemizing. Also, the new re-arranged 1040 sucks. What a lame idea. Move some of the numbers to other statements so that the end result kinda looks like it might be around the size of a large postcard, in an era when more of us are just filing electronically.
  5. Forget it, he’s rolling...
  6. I think there is still a requirement to have coverage, but the penalty for not having coverage is $0. Technically the tax is still there -- it was not repealed, it's just set to zero right now. It could be set to something other than zero by a future Congress.
  7. Please let the pool boy be named Jesus...
  8. All of the living presidents will be there. It's what they do, even Trump. If they showed up for Nixon they will show up for Trump. Trump will ask for the same pageantry he saw Bush get, but I would bet he won't get it.
  9. A threat of rain would keep Trump away... Have we ever in our history had as many living ex-presidents as we did yesterday? (five -- Carter, Bush 1, Clinton, Bush 2, Obama)
  10. It's great for an older employee that needs health care but is not looking to move up in the company. I managed a software developer like this that moved from a 40 hr week to a 30 hr week and I saw almost no drop-off in productivity. The employee was one of the happiest people on my team, showed up to meetings on time, did not get on their phone, did not have youtube or facebook up on one monitor during the day. For the right person and job, it's great .... but you kill any progress up the corporate ladder.
  11. I would like to see some reform to the Supreme Court, so that each president shall more or less be able to appoint two judges during each four year term. Perhaps if the Supreme Court reaches the end of its term in an odd year and the president shall not yet have appointed and confirmed two justices to the bench, then the longest serving justice shall be removed from office. I think this would cause the Supreme Court to roll over about every 18 years with 9 justices, and each president should be able to get two on the bench, but maybe more if there is a rash of deaths or retirements. You would not have judges staying until they keel over in the hope that their party would one day control the White House and thus their replacement.
  12. If you voluntarily drive into a parking garage for an event that holds 100K ... and you park anywhere not close to the exit and/or you don't back into the spot... ... and you lollygag your way out of the event at the end rather than sprinting for your car... You friggin' deserve the wait. Either park on the street away from the venue or hustle to get to your car. Or wait. Once you see cars gridlock inside the garage you are toast.
  13. During the CNN town hall, Beto said he would not run for president. He may have meant just in 2020, but he did say no when asked.
  14. I would guess that it’s the people that marked the straight ticket box at the top of the ballot. You can leave this blank or you can mark it, then change individual votes. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
  15. I believe an incumbent Texas Republican US Senator has never lost a reelection bid. If you include Democrats, very few have ever lost. It is very difficult to beat a US Senator running for reelection. Most retire, freeing up the seat for an election ... then whoever is elected holds the seat until they move on to something else or retire.
  16. Both UT on-campus sites have been red (over an hour wait) or yellow (30-60 minutes) all day. They have 20 machines at the FAC and 10 at the PCL. That's a lot of students voting and probably good for Beto.
  17. Ok, well I will revise my theory to say I don't know what's going to happen! Also, I think polling places stay open until everyone who is in line when they close has a chance to vote, so that could delay polling places from closing in urban areas with higher turnout.
  18. I would not be surprised to see an early Beto lead with Cruz closing as the night goes on. I have a theory that ballots get counted faster in urban counties than rural counties (because they are generally having to count more votes and thus have to be more efficient). I also think that polling locations closest to where they are counting votes probably get counted first, just because it takes some time to pack up the polling area and drive over to the counting location. Suburban areas should have more Cruz votes than central city voters. I have no idea how they transmit votes from the polling place to the central county, but I hope they physically drive the votes over with the machines rather than phoning them in somehow. If I am right, then rural is slower than urban and suburban votes will come in after central city votes. That means an early Beto lead if he is to win ... and Cruz catching up later. Cruz either catches him or he runs out of votes. If Cruz is ahead right from the start I think Beto is toast. El Paso closing later is the wildcard. It would be great if it came down to Beto's hometown. Of course, I could be wrong!
  19. In addition, the City of Austin now requires food businesses to divert organics and mentions donating food as a preferred alternative. Restaurants saying that the city or state prevents them from donating food may be misinformed.
  20. Travis County total turnout through the end of Thursday was 19%, versus 21% in 2016, 7% in 2014 and 12% in 2012 at the same point in the election. That's about 148,000 voters at this point in 2018, versus 153,000 in 2016, 47,000 in 2014 and 90,000 in 2012.
  21. I would bet that a poll worker just periodically takes a count and plugs in a number. They really only know how many people per hour are checking in to get that little four digit code, and then how long it is until the four digit code is used in a booth. I think to know the real count you would have to make everyone walk through a counter at the start to measure the arrival rate.
  22. If you don't want to wait in line, the Del Valle Admin ISD building has seen the fewest voters. They are pulling in 200-300 people per day and they have six booths. The Randalls at Brodie and Slaughter is the place to go if you enjoy lines. So far they are seeing about 1900 voters per day using 20 booths. The Travis County website will tell you how many people are in line at each location and how many booths are at each location (click on the stoplights in the map at the bottom). The Randall's voting lines are the longest ... perhaps those folks are trying to vote and score some bottled water at the same time...
  23. "Get off my reef!"
  24. When that drone video shows the back side of the dam, it looks like water is seeping through it. Is that really happening or just my imagination?
  25. Lady Bird Lake looks like a scene from Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory...
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