January Through Aborgeddon
One January morning the Admiral asked me if I wanted to go to the Texas State Archives with her, I said I would drive her down and then go for a walk around the Capital grounds until she was done researching. We had already rediscovered the downtown part of Austin on recent walk just South of the Capital so I thought I would walk North toward the University of Texas to see the changes. Back in the 70's I worked for more than one Texas state agency, so I could see what was going on around the state area complex that surrounds the Capital and a few blocks North.
The first thing I saw was the new Rotunda they buried just 100 yards from the Capital, I guess it is an underground annex. to expand office areas etc.
Just 1 block North is the Texas State Workforce Commission known as the Texas Employment Commission when I worked there so long ago. We had just moved to the Austin area when my Construction job evaporated during a construction recession in those days. I got a job as a Clerk I pushing Employers Quarterly report forms around on the third floor where all those pages that poured in from around the state were put into numerical account number order and then filed into a sea of file cabinets.
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| And then I found a job here at The Stephen F Austin Building on the 4th floor working as a Topographical Map Tech. Here I filled orders from around the State for State of Texas USGS Topographical maps. This job was so much fun that I had a minor anxiety attack and decided that I needed to resume my college education. I went to my boss to my department the Head Engineer, Mr. Baskin, and explained I needed a night job so I could get myself back into school. So he put me in the Computer Department working nights as a Computer Operator I. Perfect. |
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| The New Capital area Complex is nearing completion as they have added many new buildings throughout the corridor and it appears to have tripled in size. I could not help myself from thinking how the long time Republican controlled state (who always profess to believe in small conservative government) had tripled the size of State Government in Austin, Texas in just the last 10 years. |
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Working nights here was great, I always had a parking space right up front and since University of Texas as just three blocks away I could walk to and from in just a few minutes. The surface level parking has been replaced by a big plaza and now has parking underground. Check out this video of the new plaza and underground parking facility available to the state employees now:
https://youtu.be/h_FOLDoQicI |
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A public notice was mailed to our daughters west Austin home concerning a property at 7304 Knox Lane:
Demolition and Relocation Permit Applications
18. PR-2022-143328 – 7304 Knox Ln. – Discussion
Council District 10
Proposal: Demolition of a residential structure. (Postponed on January 11, 2023)
Applicant: Ricca Keepers
City Staff: Kalan Contreras, Historic Preservation Office, 512-974-2727
Staff Recommendation: Consider initiation of historic zoning. Should the Commission
decide against historic zoning, release the demolition permit only upon receipt of a City of
Austin Documentation Package and a plan for archaeological monitoring.
Since the property was just a few blocks away we decided to just walk that direction and see what was going on. See: https://www.austintexas.gov/cityclerk/boards_commissions/meetings/31_1.htm
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| So we think They want to relocate this home and probably demolish the out buildings, barn, shed etc. so this acreage can be developed and absorbed by the longstanding neighborhood that surrounds. We never knew that a small farm even existed in this neighborhood. |
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| Then on the way home we decided to drive by a section of Tannehill Branch Creek that has been a concern in our own neighborhood association to see what all the fuss is about. Well there is a developer over here that is developing land by filling in a huge section of land and built a long retaining wall with huge rectangular stones along the creek. The retaining wall is collapsing and so that is why so many complaint's are pouring in. |
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| The next day we decide to take an extended walk through the Mueller neighborhood and end it with a visit to a monument that has been in our neighborhood since the 80's. The Neighborhood wants the monument to be removed since it is disparaging towards Native Americans. Someone has put two dead crows at the foot of the monument. |
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| The Monument is just a few feet away from the relatively new Windsor Park Neighborhood sign. |
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| He doesn't care. |
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I have started a project to remove the grass along and replace with rock a 4'X80' section along the curb so that I do not have to water this area that is hardly ever green anyway due to the drought. It will save a lot of water trying to keep it green. Stay Posted.
I liked this one, I apply it to my guitar practice by choosing pieces that I am not sure I can do, you always learn the most when you are out of your comfort zone.
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This is one of those pieces, a Stevie Ray Vaughan
Might as well not try if you want to play it exactly like Stevie Ray!
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This also spoke to me
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| After completing the Lenny project, I knew that El Vira needed to go to the guitar hospital for some surgery. The number one Doctor in Austin was not even taking appointments until March, thank goodness I found this Surgeon. All is well now. I tried to make adjustments on my own. There are literally 6 different adjustments to the hardware and electronics on a Electric guitar. The adjustments have an order, any adjustment you make can totally throw the whole thing into chaos. I was having an issue in the upper register of the fret board so if I made adjustments to solve the issue then later I would find I had messed up an area on the lower register. I should have gone for help a two years ago but attempting a SRV tune tested the upper registers like no piece before. |
Winter disappeared for a while, the trees are so confused, all the trees in Austin held onto their leaves way past fall but this one tree just wont let go.
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| Now we are like Ft. Worth?? Turkey Buzzards have acclimated to city life in Austin now. |
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| The the Ice Storm hits Central Texas, Thank goodness we still had power, our 82 year old neighbor across the street lost her power so she came to stay with us. |
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| Then the next night we lost power. We bought this Duromax 8500 generator two years ago after the Snowmeggdeon that hit All of Texas. Now we put it into service. We ran the generator 7-9 hours per day. We could run our frig, TV, wifi, and a small space heater. We have a gas stove and water heater so no problems there! |
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| Everyone was glued to the Austin Power outage map checking it several times a day to see when help was coming. |
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| This was total BS, Feb 12 Would have been easy. |
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| If you click on the picture and zoom in you can see the branch that fell on the electric line at our adjacent back door neighbors house that cut the power line. |
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| After 5 days of no city power the Calvary arrives as noted by the small red and white dot. |
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| I Survived! |
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| El Jefe directs the crew. |
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| When they arrived I see we at least made it into the top 2%! |
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| Repairing the downed line by splicing the two ends back together |
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| By the Time the lights came on we were in the remaining 1%! Way to Go!!! |
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| Retrieving the fuse from the transformer. |
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| Placing a new fuse into the fuse holder |
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Putting the endcap on the fuse.
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Yaa HOO! Electricity is back on!
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| We will still have to deal with a few more trees that threaten our roofs and the electric line in future storms. They will be priority to have removed, we hope our neighbors do the same. |
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| Our trees did not have very much damage from the ice storm, most homes all over Austin had a whole lot more stacked up by the curb waiting for removal. |
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| The Very Next day the Brush removal guys showed up, Great Timing! Our neighborhood was the first to get this attention, many had not yet had time to get their debris moved to the curb yet, but they would make a second pass later. |
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The Offending tree that cut electricity to 6 homes on our end of the block. I hope they cut rest of it down!
Life after the pandemic is not normal routine. Or you could say the old normal is Out. However the new Normal just has not arrived yet Has it? |
Venus and Jupiter by the Moon! We still have the this however.
