Hecho en Clarksville

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When it comes down to it, the rent here is a bit absurd. It’s not downtown, hell it;s not even Manhattan absurd, but to the Scottish Presbyterian side of me, it pains me to write that rent check every month.

At the same time its worth it. Normally post-work, when not cooked here, is obtained by bicycle. Tonight, having experienced the aforementioned epic bike fail at the regular Thursday night Driveway Crit (yeah, I was hanging with he juniors, the girls and the old guys -yeah, I rock), the thought of putting my hindquarters on a bike seat again seemed quite unappealing, so i elected to walk.

Living in a pedestrian neighborhood, where you can stroll to restaurants, and the local grocery without succumbing to the modern wonder of motorized transport, you see a lot. The newest pair of shoes thrown over the power lines, the teenagers making-out in the beater truck on the corner of 12th (ah, young love), the metal pac-man face hanging on one of the utility poles, the random dog chilling on the corner enjoying a beautiful Texas evening, while the newly reilluminated moontower slowly takes over lighting duties from the big ball of hydrogen that’s slowly fading off towards the western hills. These are the things that use to make a city a city before the days of interstates, and Loop highways. We miss a lot careening around in the giant metal boxes, the little bits and pieces that make a place worth living, worth talking about, and most importantly, worth giving a damn about.

And yeah, the rent is worth it.

Memorial Day Bits

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We’re going to go ahead and call this weekend a success as I have a nice sunburn, and somehow still smell vaguely of Barton Springs and Margaritas (somebody observed that if I could figure out a way to bottle that smel , that might in fact be a good career move).

One of the reasons I love Memorial Day weekend, aside from the 3.5 days of not working is, it’s as if the cable networks have time-lock safe on all the WWII movies that only opens at the end of May. From Band of Brothers in its entirety, to the History Channel bonanza of Pacific War documentaries – if it hadn’t required being inside all weekend, I could’ve sat on the couch and viewed 72 hours non-stop of the last communal-global-suicide attempt.

Speaking of being outside, after a thunderstorm shut down the springs on Saturday, we made another attempt on Monday, and were greeted with a 20 minute line to get in (really guys, how hard is it to hand someone $3?). The line wasn’t that bad, but more excruciatingly painful was the High School kids behind us talking about how hard their lives are. Remember the days when the hardest thing in your life was when your dad wouldn’t let you get your ear pierced? Yeah, me neither, because I don’t suck at life.

And speaking of douche-bags, the drama continued after we picked out a spot on the hill above springs,as the folks behind us treated us to a litany of how great Greek parties were back when they were in school, including various different chants (complete with re-enactments), nicknames and a couple of really unfortunate anecdotes, involving a slip and slide, KY and a trip to the ER. Like, I really, like feel stupider for having over heard that, and like really fear for the future of our country if this is all we have to offer.

In the good news department, Momma and Poppa Treichler have completed the cleaning of the garage in preparation for the upcoming remodel. I have mad respect for anyone who spends a week cleaning out a garage, but even more so for cleaning garage, that has been steadily piling up up crap for the past 20 years. Construction should get swinging as soon as they can get a crew moving. I’m also looking forward to the fourth of July weekend up there which we will spend building cabinets (yes, this is my idea of fun). Doing b_258_exteriorconstruction work is always satisfying – doing construction work at 9,000 feet (sans oxygen) even more so. Check the Cabin project page for more updates on that chaos.

And speaking of building stuff, while at the springs, trying to ignore the washed-up greeks up hill from me, I stumbled across an ad in touting the benefits of the new Austonian, which at 56 stories will be the tallest residence in the western half of the country. The guys building this thing, have either been of planet for the past year and didn’t hear about this whole series of small problems we’ve been having with the economy, or they have brass balls the size of a 1974 Buick. I’m guessing the latter. Still this project pisses me off – the name for one thing. Guess what, folks here call them selves Austinites, not Austonians. That particular suffix is claimed by our slightly more humid cousins to the East, in my humble opinion they can have it. And point two, holy crap the size of this thing –  the tiny building off to the right in the rendering there is the Frost Bank at 35ish stories. Inferiority complex much?

Finally, while the three-day weekend is great, it is in fact important to remember the nature of the holiday, and those who didn’t make it home.

Mondragón Cooperative

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Let’s take it as a given that the current system of education to workplace to post-work-productive member of society (aka retirement), is unbelievably busted. Those who want to pursue vo-tech careers have very limited options, those who get the four year degree are often times saddled with absurd dept, and prospect of needing to pursue further education to continue to succeed in their career. Then there’s our unrealistic, underfunded retirement situation that is well on its way to bankrupting our country.

Enter the Mondragón Cooperative Corporation, the worlds largest worker run co-operative organization in the Basque region of Spain.

The company was founded in Arrasate, a town in Gipuzkoa known as Mondragón in Spanish. The town had suffered badly in the Spanish Civil War and there was mass unemployment. A young priest, Father José María Arizmendiarrieta, arrived in 1941 and decided to focus on the economic development of the town, settling upon co-operative methods to achieve his goals. Co-operatives and self-help organisations had a long tradition in the Basque Country but had died away after the fascist victory in the Spanish Civil War.

In 1943, Arizmendi set up a democratically-managed Polytechnic School. The school played a key role in the emergence and development of the co-operative movement. In 1956, five young graduates of the school set up the first co-operative enterprise, named ULGOR (now Fagor Electrodomésticos) after their surnames, which during its early years focused on the manufacture of petrol-based heaters and cookers. In 1959, they then set up the Caja Laboral Popular (“People’s Worker Bank”), a credit union that both allowed the co-operative members access to financial services and subsequently provided start-up funds for new co-operative ventures. New co-operative companies started up in the following years, including Fagor Electrónica, Fagor Ederlan and Danobat.

What brought this to mind was the UAW’s recently aqquired big stake in the newly reworked Chrysler  and GM. What would it be like if this country had affordable, democratically managed institutions of banking, education, public utility, healthcare and employment as opposed to corporations concerend only about the bottom line? Organizations where the needs and concerns of the employees were complimentary to the needs of the stockholders because they were one and the same. There would still be competition that would lead to innovation, money would still be a prime motivator, but for once we might actually give a shit about people and long term health of the company as opposed to the short-term profits and shareholder benefits.

Plastic

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Once again, as an upstanding citizen with a damn near perfect credit score, I’m about to get screwed.

Now Congress is moving to limit the penalties on riskier borrowers, who have become a prime source of billions of dollars in fee revenue for the industry. And to make up for lost income, the card companies are going after those people with sterling credit.

Banks are expected to look at reviving annual fees, curtailing cash-back and other rewards programs and charging interest immediately on a purchase instead of allowing a grace period of weeks, according to bank officials and trade groups.

“It will be a different business,” said Edward L. Yingling, the chief executive of the American Bankers Association, which has been lobbying Congress for more lenient legislation on behalf of the nation’s biggest banks. “Those that manage their credit well will in some degree subsidize those that have credit problems.”

Awesome. I’d go on a full-fledged rant on this, but apparently in order to stay competitive, I’m going to be busy for the next 6 months wrecking my credit score, purchasing a bunch of crap i don’t need and can’t afford so I can be on the receiving end on one of these great new economic policies for a change.

Space Geekery

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The NASA Twitter feed- possibly the best use of twitter ever (updates from outer space!!), plus the Space Shuttle wikipedia pages equal hours and hours of wasted time/useless knowledge gained.

Conversations

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The long neglected comment section of the site has been modernized to handle threaded comments (meaning you can reply to a previous comment in a conversation like manner), a setup that makes mocking Brian that much easier.

Lots of Lots

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Ok, so we’ve today we’ve heard the grim news about the number of dealerships that Chrysler and GM will be shuttering. Aside from all jobs lost and commerce stunted with these closings, you’re about to end up with yet another case of impressive urban blight on your hands. Even if some of them don’t close, according to the NYTimes…

The dealerships losing their franchises will not necessarily close… 658 of them sell more used cars than new ones and therefore might be in a position to stay open as a used-car lot.

Ah, the used car lot – every urban planner’s favorite. These dealerships are usually acre upon acre of parking lot, with a giant central show room in the middle. In spots like the motor mile here in Austin, the condemned will be eaten by their neighbors, but what about the standalones? Could you make them in to tent-city style homeless shelters, schools, or perhaps the worlds most awesome paintball/lasertag course? Pocket Solar Stations? Inner city Farms? Giant parking lots/charging points for the hypothetical fleets of electric cars that will be here soon (for G.M. there’s some poetic justice there)?

Anybody else? Is there a decent way to make this into a bright point as opposed to just another concrete wasteland, another used car lot or some other unnecessary strip mall.

Lewis & Clark

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On this day in 1804, Meriwether Lewis, William Clark and a bunch of other dudes who didn’t secure naming rights, left Illinois on a really long road trip, except with no roads.