Hellraiser97

We have one Coscto one like that plus a smaller HEB one. They are excellent. I usually put the frozen/cold stuff in them while I shop to keep them cold. That said, I'm not bringing in the Costco one when I just need one or two things, and I'm not sticking a cooked rotisserie chicken in them either.

I've found quite a few of them on the greenbelt I walk my dog on, but that's about it. I do think people are being more responsible in disposing of them, but again, the net effect is not positive from what I have read.

Doesn't this go back to catalog sales? You were only required to collect sales tax in the state or states that you had s physical presence. The rest was on the consumer I do not like OU

If I get unlazy, I'll dig it up the article I read about it, but essentially it goes like this: 1) You have to use those 'reusable' bags like you buy at HEB something like 250 times before the environmental impact of them is a net positive over the disposable ones. It's like the Christmas tree real vs fake debate. You need to use the fake one for 30 years before you're helping the environment. People just aren't doing that. You run to HEB and forget your bags or leave them in the car. You tear them or just get them nasty and toss them out, well before the break even number. I bet we've purchased 50 of them in the three years we've lived here, maybe more. 2) Instances of salmonella poisoning have increased significantly. They technically can still give you the disposable ones for meat, but a lot of people use the reusable ones, or put the disposable one inside it. 3) There was a much better solution that was completely ignored. There's a plastic made from vegetable oil. They use it at the AT&T conference center for the disposable drinking cups. Once wet, it fully dissolves in something like 72 hours. They can and do make disposable bags out of it., though they are more expensive of course than the traditional ones. If they had mandated using bags made from that for any disposable bags, points 1 & 2 are irrelevant, but that would have made too much fucking sense and didn't read as well with groups like the 'Campaign for the Environment.'

The net effect of the ban has been negative so in good to see it. Come back with something that makes sense I do not like OU

So let me get this straight. Someone steals my shit, I catch them in the act. Previously, I'd call the cops and they'd get arrested. Now, the cops can't do shit. Well, looks like we'll have a lot more castle doctrine cases in the future.

I never said anyone was being altruistic. The point is that right now, the ONLY thing we can do in many cases is tear down a <1500 sq ft home and build a 2400-3500 sq ft home in its place or a duplex/condo with ~2000/1000. That house being torn down is barely livable, but we can't replace it with 3-4 <1500 sq ft homes, even if there is enough land to do so. Very rarely are you seeing a house torn down that doesn't have major structural issues with it, and when you do (like one I recently demoed), while the house might be ok, due to it being built over a build line or something stupid like that, and that getting a variance is damn near impossible, there's no opportunity to do ANYTHING to the home to make it more appealing, etc. To give you how asinine our current code is, I have a project near Shoalmont. The house is a 900 sq ft 1948 piece of crap that wasn't built particularly well in the first place. After 70 years of minimal maintenance, nearly pier is rotted out, there's severe mold and the roof is shot. The lot it is on is 11000 sq ft. It's deep, but still has about 60' of frontage. In any normal city, you could put 3-4 housing units on this, with each one in the 1500 sq ft or so range. That's three additional households not commuting down Mopac and I-35. And while they obviously wouldn't be priced at $100k each, they'd probably all fall in the $350-500k range. Instead, we're building a 3000 sq ft home on it that will sell for $1.3M. I'm much rather build four units like I described above, but I can't because minimum lot size is 5750 sq ft, which means I can't split the lot legally into to and even if minimum lot size was not an issue (and most major cities that have minimum lot sizes are in the 3500 sq ft range), we also have minimum 50' fronts on lots (again most major cities have much smaller if they have it), and if that wasn't an issue, it's zoned SF-2, so I can't even put a duplex/condo on it, I can literally ONLY build a single family residence, and at $385k for the lot, it would be impossible to build something any smaller than about 2500 sq ft and actually make a profit. Our existing code is specifically designed to prevent affordable housing. Don't let anyone tell you any different. It all goes back to the 1929 plan that segregated the city and pushed all the blacks to the east side.

Developers are out to make money. And it's a lot less risky to sell three $350k houses on a lot than 1 $1m house. Restricting development just increases prices and this taxes. Has zero top do with developers. Most of us would love to see lower property taxes as it makes up a good chunk of carry costs. On affordability, it's something most of us would like to see, would support initiatives that actually allow for it and would work with in programs that promote it, but the current zoning makes it economically impossible to build anything even remotely affordable to any but the top quartile of income earners in the urban core. Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

My brother is looking for a new tenant for his garage apartment, starting August 15th. http://cartymedia.com/duval/ Built in 2014 Large 12x12 bedroom and 12'x12' livingroom Huge walk in closet (5'x8') 9' ceilings Full kitchen including range, fridge, dishwasher, disposal and microwave Washer, dryer in unit Central Heat and Air Private entrance No smoking; No pets Water/Trash/Gas (water heater only) paid by landlord 1 Block to Hyde Park restaurants, coffee shops and grocery 1 Block to Shipe Park, pool, basketball court and tennis courts 1 Block to #7 bus stop 3 blocks to IF (Intramural Field) UT Bus Street Parking only For more information contact: Chris Carty 512-947-4246 cecarty31@yahoo.com

Goiod article on the affordability crisis (which CodeNEXT was supposed to help with): https://www.bizjournals.com/austin/news/2018/06/14/as-home-prices-soar-realtors-warn-of-crisis.html TLDR: Median income up 17.5% over 5 years while median home prices are up 42.5%

We're going to be there July 22nd to 28.

Nothing quite like a nice side of aggy misery to go with my morning coffee.

Thanks for all the great suggestions. Going to go through them with the wife this weekend.

My dad worshiped this guy. Said he was literally the only person on Earth he was envious of. RIP

Late change of plans and it looks like we are going to Chicago to visit friends for the last week of July. I've been to Chicago once for work in January. That sucked ass. I'm told Chicago is awesome though, and that either it has beaches or there are beaches reasonably close. My 6yo and 3yo want a beach as part of the summer vacation, so I'm trying to accommodate. What does Surly recommend? (besides drinking heavily, which is a given).

I'm not sure your wife is going to like you drinking and whoring again!

I'm not worried about my retirement (socially/work, financially might be a different story), I'm the type that is always involved in something, Church, Texas Exes, whatever, so I'm sure I'll find something to keep me social and keep my brain engaged. My father on the other hand, I don't know what to do with him. He's 73 and literally, I think his brain is atrophying and has been for some time. He last held a full time job when he was 49. He got laid off and financially secure enough that he could just do some consulting on the side, which he did on and off for about 8 years. He finally admitted he was retired around 2002. His last full time job was as CFO of a fairly large jewelry manufacturer. He got canned shortly before it went in the toilet. He could have found another full time job and worked easily another 10 years at his max earning capacity, but like I said, he didn't need to. Instead, he and my mom bought a travel trailer and they traveled anywhere from 3-6 months a year as the consulting became less and less. They loved those trips and as he likes to tell it, hit 46 of the lower 48, plus several parts of Canada. I could see that his mental capacity was decreasing even then. Outside of managing his investments and planning his next trip, he just didn't have any intellectual stimulation. He eventually started volunteering with the AARP to do taxes (he's a CPA). That's good, but it's only about 6 weeks total a year. Part of me has always felt that it was a mistake for him to retire so early, regardless of how much they enjoyed their travel, but then my mom died about 2 years ago. She'd been sick for close to 2 years (F Cancer). In retrospect, if he had worked until 65, they'd have been a hell of a lot richer, but they would have only had 2-3 years of travel time. Would his brain be in better shape? Almost definitely, but is that worth not having those nearly 20 years of travel? If he was objective enough to admit what's going on with his brain, I think he'd say it was worth it. The question though is what to do with him now? He's spent 2 years liquidating his house in anticipation of moving .... somewhere. He wants to be near a university so he can attend cultural and intellectual things, but he really doesn't like Austin, where he actually would have a good in on those things. My brother and I have contemplated involving him more in our business (Home building), but he doesn't want a full time job and frankly with his speed, or lack there of, combined with his propensity to launch into hour long stories, I'm not sure we could survive his help! He alternatively berates us for 'never taking his advice' or 'not asking for his help', when in reality we did ask for his help a couple times and only once was he really interested. So, yeah, not sure what to do with him. Haven't read through this thread yet as its fairly long, but I'm going to and see if maybe I can pick up some ideas. I fell like his brain would recover if he were simply engaged in something, as his physical health is largely fine.

Yeah, they aren't fucking around this year. I'm on the 11th for my personal. Haven't received the notices yet on our projects.

Well, she obviously was in good company with many of the black community leaders then!

Just started reading Mistborn since I liked Sanderson's finish out of Wheel of Time. Not far enough in to have an opinion yet. Also listening to Steamborn, mainly because for one Audible Credit, I got three books and it was well rated. First 6-7 chapters seemed kind of boring, but its picked up and I like the Steampunk setting.

Got my 'offer' from the county yesterday - down 0.3%. No thanks, see you in August Fuck OU

Sanderson said he had enough material that he could have done 3 more books out of what became the last book. Part of me would have liked to of seen that, but it probably just would have been too much. It's a shame Jordan never did the other two prequels. A lot of people were expressed interest in books from the 4th age, but I'm glad its not going to happen. While it could be cool, I remember what happened with Dragonlance and how bad those novels got. It took a bit for me to get into it and frankly, I wasn't completely hooked even at the end of the first book. I liked it, but it just didn't seem anything overly special. I could have stopped there and been satisfied. Ultimately, based on the reputation, and my desire to have something to occupy my time in the car for the next 2 years, I pushed through. Very glad I did, thought reading nearly straight through, there are plenty of spots where it seems repetitive or it just drags. Overall though, I think its worth the investment.

And just finished the Wheel of Time. Man, that was a great read! I thought Sanderson did a great job. He tied up just about everything. I googled one thing from the end and found a chat he did at torbooks. Turns out most of the things he left open ended Jordan had left in his notes that that was supposed to be that way!

They put up a mesh in front of the studs before drywall then blow in loose batts insulation through small holes. It get really compacted and is nearly as good as spray foam. Fuck OU

With the energy code in Austin now, you pretty much have to do spray foam ceilings and at least blown in bats in the walls to meet the code. Fuck OU