Unfortunately, we are waiting on my wife retiring from the state. My job is portable so I can live anywhere. I guess if the legislature destroys public schools in the next session, we may just say fuck it and bail early so my youngest can spend her last 6 years getting educated.
IIRC, a residential water system is built to support fighting maybe 2-3 fires at a time. Trying to fight 20+ and you won't have water in about 3 minutes. As each house burns down, that water line is now spewing water, taking pressure out of the system anyway. Don't forget that water pump stations and tanks that force water up those hills also burn up. You can have 1 million LAFD firefighters out there but there's no way to get enough water to residential areas so it won't make a shit.
Plus, the only real way to fight wildfires is to cut fire blocks. Good luck doing that in the steep canyons these fires are burning through.
West Austin, you're up next.
Just spent a week in Colorado and having back to back weeks of 30-something degrees between CO and TX, I finally could tell that 30 degrees in Texas is so much worse. Never once felt cold in CO. Even when it was 18 degrees one day when we were skiing, it was perfectly fine. The lack of humidity is huge. My uncle grew up in Glenwood Springs and he always said cold days in TX were way worse than the same temp in CO. Until I experienced it immediately back to back, I didn’t realize how big of a difference it actually was. Only 7 more years until we move to Fort Collins.
Sports don’t mean shit because they are the differentiator for athletic scholarships and lessened admissions standards for recruited athletes. Having a job matters more especially if they get promoted while working. Community service and extracurriculars related to their major are valuable. But to be honest, for 99% of colleges none of it matters that much. AP course load is supposedly the biggest indicator of college success and if they take the most rigorous offering for each class and have good grades, they’ll do well. For that 1% (Harvard, etc) You better be in the top 1% in grades, test scores, and cured cancer in an extracurricular you founded.
Carriers wouldn't fit. But, yes, let's anchor billions of dollars of naval assets in the grid lock that is the Port of Panama while waiting days/weeks to transverse the canal. Talk about shooting fish in a barrel.
I took my 12YO to Waterloo and she asked for her first vinyl. It was a Taylor Swift record of course. Taught her how to use the turntable. She sat there listening in silence and said “there’s so much more music in these songs.” She was blown away at how much better vinyl sounded than Spotify. She listened to the album in its entirety. I may have a convert.
I've barely been at my current company for a year so I inherited all of my staff. They are all in roles that could be filled domestically. I've filled these exact roles at other companies for 25 years without having to resort to visas.
We do pay for their citizenship legal fees after 3 years of employment and they have to agree to stay 3 years past that. It takes 4 years for the green card process. So, we have staff for a guaranteed 10 years with no risk of them leaving. That could be the reason why we favor H1B visas over domestic candidates. On the other hand, I've gone to one of our college recruiting events and 90% of the attendees are foreign students so maybe that's just what the hiring pool for my company looks like.