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Texas Jeff

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  1. This is off topic, but I am an old in tech... I started in the early 90's and 50 year olds were getting early retired by the truckload, but to a nice pension with retiree medical. Olds in tech have a new advantage that young techies lack ... they are willing to work face to face and speak to others using their voice rather than text messages. They pre-date the smartphone era. Young people could counter this by getting together and talking, but I'm not sure they are willing to go that far. Many young techies are giving up their "energetic" advantage by trying to work alone rather than learning to lead groups. I see a lot of folks working on their own problems but lacking the skills to put the pieces together or lead others. If you are old in tech, build a team of people that are willing to work as a team and you'll have something substantial. They will eventually rebel and push you out because you are old, but at least you can enjoy the ride.
  2. I actually did call AT&T when we dropped our land line. It took a while, but an AT&T guy did show up and did remove the line running between the power pole and the house. I asked him to leave the terminating box on our house because we had wires running out of our house to it. I just wanted the overhead wire gone.
  3. Reagan left office at 77, almost 78. Trump was 74 when he left office. Eisenhower, Jackson, Buchanan ... all right at age 70 when they left office. Biden is already over 80 and Trump, if you factor in the fat, is probably the same biological age. I'm around a lot of old people thanks to my parents. A tip to the young: Get everything done that you want to get done in life by age 80. Your 70s can be really nice, but kinda slow, but you're still there and you can still do stuff. And some people can keep going into their 80s. But things start breaking and a lot of people in their 80's are just hanging on. It's not a good time to take on a four year assignment, even if you are trying to keep yourself out of jail or keep someone else out of the White House.
  4. They said "We need someone that does not matter to go out there and test the waters" and someone in the room said "Wake up Lloyd!"
  5. I’ve been there. Fun place full of random stuff. Kinda hard to find. Not air conditioned so don’t plan a long stay. The times I have gone they have had some athletic stuff, practice jerseys, extra shoes, just a bunch of misc.
  6. Texas Jeff

    SEC Network

    He's SEC ready....
  7. I originally missed this skit on George Washington's dream for America, but here it is:
  8. 2023 Texas Alabama game on LHN tonight at 8pm. At 11pm, you have your choice of the 2023 Big 12 Championship on the SEC Network or the 2006 Rose Bowl on the LHN. At 2am, time to choose between the 2022 volleyball national championship and a UConn/Texas women's BB game on the SEC Network or stick with Vince at the 2005 Ohio St game on the LHN. For those of you still conscious at 4am, you can stay with Vince at the 2005 Kansas game on the LHN or wait for a Texas/Ok State baseball game at 5am on the SEC Network. At 6am, stick with Vince at the 2005 Big 12 Championship vs Colorado on LHN and you can make it to sunrise.
  9. Austin ISD does have some examples of schools that are under enrolled that are very, very close to each other. Yet change is hard because as soon as you suggest change, the parties involved react ... uh ... strongly. Metz, which was closed in 2017, was four blocks from Zavala and six blocks from Sanchez. Sanchez was rebuilt and Metz was closed. Sanchez took the students. Zavala is still open. Neither Sanchez or Zavala is at capacity and the students at Sanchez now have a brand new school. People were really pissed off about Metz closing, even though the new school was not far away. LBJ HS is 2.5 miles from Northeast (Reagan). Both schools are getting bond investments of over $100 million. The population of both schools would fit into either school. Why are we refurbishing both of them? McCallum is over capacity and needs improvements. Half of Mueller goes to McCallum. But Northeast is closer. Why not zone Mueller to Northeast and ease the burden on McCallum? Add a little progressive diversity to Northeast? If I suggested any of these ideas, the folks affected would mobilize like crazy against me. There would be 100 callers to each board meeting all reading the same message over and over. There would be professionally printed t-shirts and signs. It wouldn't happen. AISD could consider many strategies to combine and consolidate schools without causing anyone more than 5-10 more minutes on a bus. And, having fewer schools would mean lower operating costs and fewer buildings to maintain. It's very doable but politically impossible.
  10. Most people, when challenged on what the ten commandments are: 1. Do not kill! 2. Do not steal! .... uh .... 3. Oh yeah, no coveting! .... uh ... well there are some others but America was founded on this stuff....
  11. I looked it up: WSU and TT haven't played since 1982. WSU and MSU last played in 1977. TT and MSU last played in 2021, and before that their last meeting was in 1970. So you have to hang your hat on the 2021 Liberty Bowl. Tech won 34-7 with Leach on the other sideline. They should just give Leach credit for the bowl game after his death. It was his team and he should get credit if he is so close to qualifying otherwise.
  12. Alumni Band game kickoff at 7pm ... awesome. Last year's temps were beyond what I could take. This is the 125th year of Longhorn Band. The 100th seems like it was 20-something years ago...
  13. Are we talking about Austin's plan to build a subway to the airport? Some fun facts: The City of Austin collects your tax money and gives it to Austin Transit Partnership, which is not governed by the city. Some city council members are also ATP board members. ATP now has 87 employees who split $16.1 million per year, or an average taxpayer cost per employee of $185,057. The median base salary of an ATP employee is up to $143,520. Over the last year, the cost estimate for the rail portion has risen from $4.8 billion to $7.1 billion, however this rise mostly reflects a change from 2022 dollars to 2033 dollars. They expect to break ground on the rail in 2027 and expect trains to roll in 2033. Expect to be disappointed. They are getting sued by folks that think that Project Connect promised a downtown subway with surface rail to the airport, and 20 miles of rather than 10. They got these ideas from the original Project Connect promotional pitch prior to the vote, which showed a downtown subway, rail to the airport, and 20 miles of track rather than 10. They are getting close to opening two new bus rapid transit lines. They got a federal match for those and they are very cheap compared to rail. Cap Metro is getting 26 miles of BRT for under $100 million with more than half of that paid for by the feds. Compare that with 10 miles of rail at a cost of maybe $5 billion in today's dollars. The two BRT lines are delayed because they want to use only electric buses and they are having trouble getting the buses and are figuring out how to keep them charged. Also, compare the BRT development timeframe (about five years even with the electric buses) with rail (13 years if it opens in 2033). For now, you'll have to wait if you want to take transit from the UT campus through downtown and on to the airport .... unless you hop on the #20 bus, which goes exactly down this route, is available now, arrives every 15 minutes, and costs $1.25 to ride. More info here: https://www.statesman.com/story/news/2023/09/21/austin-transit-partnership-budget-oks-190m-fiscal-year-2024/70913560007/ https://communityimpact.com/austin/south-central-austin/transportation/2024/03/25/71b-project-connect-light-rail-to-break-ground-in-2027/
  14. No idea. Here's a pic from a reddit post of the ruins from 1908 and 2020. The post contains a clue: "Very close to Barton Springs. Just a few hundred feet upstream. You can see it if you walk down to the creek next to the greenbelt trailhead."
  15. There was an original bridge over Barton Creek that I think connected Bee Cave Rd through Zilker to Lamar in the 1870-1900 timeframe: I have thought about taking a hike to find the foundations of the bridge, which I think are still visible from the trail through Zilker, but I've never done it.
  16. Austin ISD's budget is in bad shape, although IMHO the admin is doing the best they can with the constraints they have. Austin ISD thought that their deficit for next year was going to be around $60 million, and they had a goal of cutting $30 million without touching classroom spending to get to a $30 million deficit for next year. Attendance was less than projected and home values did not go up as much as planned. They are now an additional $30 million in the hole ... so even with the admin cuts they are looking at a possible $60 million shortfall. Once solution to this is to ask the voters to up the tax rate to close the gap. They can, with voter approval, raise taxes by 9.1 cents -- this is called a VATRE tax election. 0.1 of these cents are "golden" pennies, meaning that the district gets to keep all of the money. 9.0 cents of these are copper pennies, which are subject to recapture. At Austin ISD's recapture rate, 75% of the copper penny funds will go to the state, and the district will keep 25% of the taxes raised. The state currently has a surplus, so these "extra" Robin Hood funds won't go towards education, they will just make the surplus larger. Austin ISD would get to keep about $41 million of the new tax revenue. From that bucket, Austin ISD teachers and librarians would get about $15 million and district would spend about $25 million on other stuff (individual specialists, registrars, reducing the deficit). The state of Texas would get about $120 million. Austin voters will probably have a chance to vote for or against this tax at the November election. The district can't deficit spend forever. Within a few years, their fund balance will hit a critically low level and there will be no more savings to spend. Without legislative action, they are turbo-screwed at that point, even if the new VATRE tax passes. Also, Austin ISD is currently under a TEA monitorship because of past problems with special education evaluations. As part of their punishment, the trustees had to agree to a "Lone Star Governance" TEA-approved process. Part of this process mandates that the board can only spend 50% of their time talking about issues that do not relate to student outcomes. The budget is a non-student outcome issue. So if they want to talk about the budget for an hour, they have to also talk about "student outcomes" for an hour. Talking about student outcomes is great, but at some point in the year you have to buckle down and talk about the friggin' budget for a few days -- and the board has to be very careful to not violate their agreement with TEA to avoid a state takeover.
  17. A word of caution when looking at school ratings .... COVID caused school ratings to be all over the map and probably inflated scores. I don't understand 100% of the system, but here's the basic idea: The state ranks schools in a set of categories. Pre-COVID, they averaged all categories to get a rating for the school. School ratings were averaged to get a rating for the district. So a school could get a F, D, C, B, A in five categories and that would average to a C. During COVID, "bad" grades were changed to "not rated". So those same ratings could have changed to NR, NR, C, B, A during COVID for an average of B. Now, post-COVID, the NR's are being changed back to what they were before so a F, D, C, B, A school is back to a C average. In extreme cases, schools got a F, F, F, F, A before the pandemic for an F rating, then during COVID got all NR's and one A ... which gave them an "A" rating, and are now back to F, F, F, F, A post-COVID for a brand new "F" rating. Give it a few years to stabilize but I would not trust any school rating during the pandemic to reflect the real state of a school. I have seen test scores which show that eco dis populations were really hit hard by COVID and are struggling to recover.
  18. Fair enough but I was actually thinking good for all of the plants and creatures on the planet, not just humans. Forests, whales, bison, whatever. Too many of us is not great for them.
  19. 1960 - three billion people 2023 - eight billion people The planet really didn't need an extra five billion of us. We obviously shouldn't kill people but a long term slow reduction through slower birth rates is probably good for the planet.
  20. McCallum sounds better than the other AISD bands because the district has designated them as a magnet, so they get transfers for Fine Arts. Bowie sounds louder than the other AISD bands because they have 700 more kids than many of the other schools, and in some cases 2000 more kids. Austin High, Anderson and LASA also have good band programs, they just aren't fine arts magnets or larger schools. At McCallum or Bowie, your somewhat talented kid may find themselves in a lower band or chair because the really talented kids are beating them out. At Austin High, Anderson, or LASA, your kid may be challenged to take a solo or sit first chair. My kids were at Austin High and I often saw kids respond to a challenge by working harder and leveling up. Not just musically. We put kids in charge of trailer crew or game day prep or other leadership positions and watched them mature into the role. The Austin High band programs are double blocked, so the kids see each other every day and band becomes their high school community. If you really want to put your kids in the most award winning bands, McCallum and Bowie and the other AISD bands lose out to Leander, just like the rest of the state. Leander has some structural reasons why they are doing well and AISD doesn't have their advantages. AISD is taking steps, with new instruments and putting turf practice fields on campuses, but they are a generation behind the suburbs. AISD has been lazy, IMHO, by designating magnet schools, and then saying "hey look, wow, they are better than the other schools we have, what a great job we are doing." McCallum and Bowie get the spotlight within AISD, but there are other programs that may be great for your kid and shouldn't be overlooked.
  21. I can add a little more .. what you said is pretty much correct... The College Board supplies the AP content and the exam at the end of the course. The teacher can be straight out of school and needs no special training, but usually they are interest in the subject. The College Board recommends, but does not require, that the teacher have a bachelor's degree in the subject. Students learn the material and spent time taking practice exams to get ready for the test. The test costs about $100 if you are not low income and maybe $20 if you are low income. Students who take the test get a score from 1 (lowest) to 5 (highest). Generally, 3 is a passing score to get credit. Each college has a list of what tests they accept and what score gets you credit for what class. You are not guaranteed to get credit for a class. Some students collect lots of AP credits so that they can max out their college application. Dual credit is usually a community college class (like ACC) or something like UT OnRamps (UT's dual credit offering). The students usually take them in a high school classroom and get "dual credit" for the class, meaning it counts for high school and college. You take the class and you get a grade in the class, credit in the class, and it is on your college transcript for that school. Texas requires universities to accept credit classes taught in Texas and has a standard naming structure for them, so they are easy to transfer. At our kids' school, sometimes the AP teacher was considered "best" and sometimes a dual credit teacher was "better", so ours ended up with a mix of AP and dual credit. The US News "Best schools" list gives a lot of weight to schools that have a high percentage attempt or pass AP tests. You can collect "smart" kids at a magnet and/or max out AP participation and almost guarantee that school will have a high ranking. Do the same with dual credit and your school goes down the list.
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