They're baaaack

It's been move-in time all over the neighborhood as the students return to campus. Rental trucks have been showing up every day. Today was the most intense: A huge apartment block between here and the UT campus opened for move-ins, and when I rode by on my bike this afternoon I lost count of the U-Hauls when I reached 20. Traffic on Nueces Street was severely backed up into the evening.

I've been grousing about all the big new buildings in the neighborhood, but the new housing stock already seems to be exerting downward pressure on rents. The three-bedroom unit downstairs from me, which I think is a bit overpriced, is still vacant a week before classes start, and a house down the street has lowered its advertised rent by more than 10% (it was way overpriced and probably still is). I don't like seeing empty apartments, but as a tenant I like it when prices stay reasonable.

And until the landlord finds someone to move in downstairs, it's always quiet. And I can be noisy if I want.

Things are going to hell, sign # 483

A storefront down the street, last year:


The same storefront, now:

Oh, GREAT

The last thing I need on the way to the bus stop:

Last week's hailstorm

Last Wednesday night around midnight an impressive hailstorm blew through Austin from the west. It also had lightning, thunder, and high winds. I'm lucky not to have west windows, but the sideways hail did a lot of damage elsewhere. I found several hailstones that measured 2 inches across.

According to the newspaper, trees were down all over town; some landed on houses. The state Capitol grounds lost eight big old trees. I saw some of that damage from the bus today; if I get over there with my camera before it's all cleaned up I'll post a pic or two.

My neighborhood seems to have escaped the worst of it. A lot of branches came down, and one landed on the car in the picture at right. Nearly every west-facing window lost some glass. Two-inch hail does a lot of damage when it's being driven by tree-felling winds.

The impressive fallen tree below blocked a busy street for hours Thursday before the city crews could get the offending branches cut away and cleared. Removing the rest of it will be quite a chore for whoever owns that house.

Toy store humor

Toy Joy put up this display (actually a larger version; they must have sold some mugs) shortly after the New Hampshire primary.

My neighborhood. Let me show you it.

Not long after I moved to Austin I took a few pix of the things I see when I walk around the neighborhood. Les voilá. (The foliage shown is thicker than it is today because these were taken in September.)

Here's the view of 28½ Street from my kitchen window, flanked by two big Magnolia trees.

One thing I had to get used to in Texas is that some evergreen trees have actual leaves instead of needles, including magnolias, live oaks and some other type of tree in the yard here that so far I haven't identified. Austin doesn't look nearly as barren in winter as Kansas or even Fort Worth.

(I'm using the term "winter" loosely; it was cold for a week or so, and cold at night for a couple weeks more, around the end of December and the first part of January.)

Right outside my door, at the top of the stairs, is a morning glory vine that finds its way up into a big pecan tree. I've heard of morning glories but this was the first time I've seen them up close; the flowers bloom blue in the morning, turn purplish by afternoon and die by nighttime. Unlike some flowering plants they keep it up, a few blooms at a time, for months -- at least this vine did.

Toy Joy is the oddest thing in my neighborhood. It has a lot of funky things inside. A good place for gift shopping if you do that sort of thing. Those things along the edge of the roof are plastic nuns. There's a vegan bakery and coffee shop, Dhaba Joy, attached on one side.

I didn't bother with pix but there are three pizza places within half a block of 29th and Guadalupe. Conan's is the best. One stays open till about 4am on weekends. That's a nice college-town contrast from Fort Worth, where if you got the pizza jones after about 11 your only choice was a frozen über-puck from 7-11. But I digress.

This lovely hot-doggery is, sad to say, closed now. I had a veg chili dog there, and it was reasonably tasty. But overpriced.

One of two video stores two blocks apart that cater to cinephiles. (The other, Vulcan Video, isn't visually interesting.)


I get my health-food necessities at Wheatsville. One big draw of the neighborhood I moved into is that I can walk here. Austin is the most friendly city I've lived in for getting by without a car. Except for one weekend when I had to rent a car to take one of my cats to the emergency vet, I haven't been behind the wheel since August. There are places I have a hard time getting to sometimes, but OTOH I never have to find a place to park.

The Spider House is a funky coffeehouse behind the funky video store (owned by the same people) that has live music sometimes and apparently has a long history with the counterculture crowd. I used to like going there to hang out, but the last few times the service has ranged from indifferent to hostile, so it's off my list. It's still cool to look at. These pix are from the alley in back.

Martin's Kum-Bak, a.k.a. Dirty Martin's, is an old-fashioned burger joint and soda fountain. I don't go in much but I like the building.

And we're back! Thanks for taking the tour. Please visit our gift shop on the way out.