Our fair city

/in , /by

I’ve been bound and determined to write something at least slightly positive on the site lately, but the Bush Administration has been ruining that plan. However, on a local level the city looks ready to approve the updated citywide design rules. This is a very cool development, that will hopefully stem the onslaught of the Big Box stores on our area, or at least help them look a little cooler.

“Everyone has talked about having more mixed use on those transit corridors like South Lamar, but the city code hasn’t kept up,” Planning Commission Chairman Chris Riley said. “This will help create stretches of pedestrian-oriented developments. It’s just a whole different approach.”

Drive-throughs will have be tucked behind restaurants, and car-related businesses will not be allowed on corner lots unless trees obscure them. Shielded lighting will replace glaring pools of light. “

Austin is also the first city to pass a ban on ‘coal tar sealants’, a asphault sealant that has been causing problems with the water supply and the cleanliness of Barton Springs.

Go us. Glad we have a nice place to live that hasn’t completely sold out.

NPR & Penn and Teller

/2 Comments/in /by

A couple of months back, Austin’s KUT was a sounding board for NPR’s ‘revival’ of theThis I Believe series. To be honest I was fairly underwhelmed. It was nothing too thrilling till the other morning when I was making the 5-mile/30 minute slog to work. Of all people Penn Jillete submitted an essay on why he doesn’t he believes there is no god. In addition to the clever bending of the rules i was floored by his statements, which paralleled my interactions with a highly conservative small town, in which all my friends went to church and I did not.

…I’m saying, “This I believe: I believe there is no God.”

Having taken that step, it informs every moment of my life. I’m not greedy. I have love, blue skies, rainbows and Hallmark cards, and that has to be enough. It has to be enough, but it’s everything in the world and everything in the world is plenty for me. It seems just rude to beg the invisible for more. Just the love of my family that raised me and the family I’m raising now is enough that I don’t need heaven. I won the huge genetic lottery and I get joy every day.

Believing there’s no God means I can’t really be forgiven except by kindness and faulty memories. That’s good; it makes me want to be more thoughtful. I have to try to treat people right the first time around.

Man, that is one very interesting and well adjusted magician. Kind of ( hopefully, at least) gives your average self righteous american a little to chew on. I’m not entirely sure that I agree with him entirely, but none the less, good stuff.

abductedcow….

/in /by

For a long time, I’ve tried to make this site be a lot of things: portfolio, photoblog, personal rant space, etc. The real kicker is, if this is supposed to be a professional portfolio site then how do I justify posting a political rant ? Or starting another blog talking abou the music I’m currently listening to ? Or a page about our trebuchet project. It’s fun, but it looks unprofessional, and I’ve become keenly aware lately of how impportant it is to leave your politics out of your work life.

Therefore, a few things will be happening. First of all I’ve launched an independent portfolio site:
wadetreichler.com. This is a site for my design work only.

Next, there will be some changes going on around here. The code for the site is seriously sketchy, and I’m going to attempt to bring it all up to date. We’ll also be adding some new sections, like the music blog, changing the navigation around and (signifigant probably only to me) dropping ‘portfolio’ from the title.

Finaly the, climbing photo section. This was one of the main reason’s i launched the site in the first place, and i’ve really hated having it as a subset of the exisitng photo section, its bulky, non-intuitive and dumb. I’m revamping it, and more importantly, sorting through the hundreds of crap photos, and repostng the couple of decent ones underr the appropriate section.

So that’s it. hopefully the site will reamin realtiovely stable through all this, and in the end the 6 people who look at it on a regular basis will have a better user experience.

Good times.

…At least we got the parks

/in /by

Here in our fair city, the hate-mongering prop 2 was handily defeated. Sadly the rest of the state failed to follow our lead (what else is new).

Ninety percent of the young people have voted against this amendment. That shows me that we got our message out,” Anne Wynne with No Nonsense in November said. (via KXAN)

Sadly though its not the young ones who run the country, its the old hateful white guys. Maybe it’s time to start working on how so suceed. I still think this idea has a lot of merit. We’d get to be in Texas, and not have to put up with the rest of the people, or at the very least not have to claim them as our own. I guess that’s the worst part, is that so many of my fellow Texans belived so strongly in this vote.

At least we managed to pass the bond issues that’ll keep a great climbing area from being covered with McMansions.Too bad we couldnt get the other ones right.

Showing our best sides in Austin

/in /by

So part of being the state capitol means we get to occasionally have upleasent guests come to town.

Some folks hve thought up an excelent solution.

Saturday at 1-3pm at City Hall, Austinites will be showing the Klan their good sides. You can bet your bottom, i’ll be there. (via Austinist)

One Election Ballot with a side of Hatred and Bigotry please

/in /by

Well I went to vote today in the Texas version of California’s referendum thing.
Except in ours we just amend the state constitution.

Every. Damn. Year.

What a way to run a government. No wonder we cant fund our schools. No, Today we voted on a series of amendments to our state’s fine (and often misspelled) state constitution, One of which was a Same-Sex marriage ban.

Cool. Now, not only do we have a reputation of being bigoted and stupid, we can now back it up with law. And not just with any law, but an amendment to the central document of our state governance.(for crying out loud even the Stateman came out against this one)

What would be really cool, is if next year we got to vote on banning old white males who make laws, drive gas guzzling cars, launder money, commit fraud, and have decided that a platform of hatred is a good way to run our government. Ban them, there doing us a lot more harm than people who love each other that are trying to marry.

An did i mention the Schools ? The ones that still aren’t funded ? Maybe we should look into that….

Prefab Fried Chicken: Good or bad

/2 Comments/in /by

I’m not sure whether to be horrified or not. My architectural education plus a desire for solid construction instilled in me by many a home improvement project with my parent and grandparents, want to scream and go build a log cabin. However, I cant help but think about poorer places of the world and if something like this could help.

“What the hell are you talking about?” you ask.

Sorry, I digress. Five miles form my standard concrete and wood house, across the street form my favorite coffee shop, Churches Chicken recently demoed their store and rebuilt it in 9 hours.

Yeah, not really sure what to think. Wave of the future or a frightening contribution for even more urban sprawl.

Regardless they have good biscuits.

Videos

/1 Comment/in /by

Ok, so i’ve jsut spent my first real session messing with iDVD trying to get my Cousins wedding pictures into a reasonably presentable format. man. not that the learning curve is all that high, but these things are tricky. i think I’ll be sticking with my non moving graphics from now on.

Travels

/1 Comment/in /by

I’ve been up at my grandmothers place in Redriver NM for my cousins wedding, for the past week. It is so stinking beautiful up there. Taos is the kind of place i could eventually see myself living. Small, but with a vibrant cultural aspect. It was difficult to come home to 108 degree heat wave in Texas. Anyway more photos will be posted next week, but for the time being check out this and this. (Oh, and those are just a wee bit large on the file size. )

Slick Willy – we miss you !

/in /by

Our position on energy reminds me of what (Winston) Churchill said about America when we took so long to get into World War II. He said, ‘America always does the right thing after exhausting every other alternative.’

A bigdamn interview with Bill Clinton from finance asia. I know he did many MANY things wrong, but he’s still got a better batting average than the current administration. MUCH better. (via mefi)