“I owe the city birthday cake, and thank you cards are due”(1)

It’s been nearly 18-months since I moved to Austin, and many things are making it seem like home, places, faces, events and more. Some events are more memorable than others, good and bad.

One of the surprise things I did last year, and will be repeating this year, is bike to work day. Last year I headed from South Austin up north to work. I do this often, but only in the quickest, shortest, most direct route, it’s an 25-mile round-trip and not particularly memorable if you discount racing the buses, and sometime breakdowns, getting caught in a true Texas downpour,and the occasional car drivers’ abusive hand signals. Mostly though, I’d say the car drivers here are better than most other cities I’ve cycled in!

Bike to work day last year was much more fun than the normal ride to work! I rode the shoulder on 360, up Great Hills Trail to Jollyville Rd and finally coming to rest at Bucks Bikes. Donuts and a quick chat with some other bike to workers including one of Austins tireless(no pun intended) Volunteers @anetmarie, and I was off to work.

This year there is an even longer list of places providing a “free” breakfast for cyclists and the weather is looking good. I’m going to venture a bit further, in fact all the way up to Music City Cycles on W Parmer, where this year @anetmarie is a co-host.

In fact, checking the current list of breakfast stops, if I plan my route carefully, I could end up in a calorie surplus, there goes the waist line!

Bike to work day is part of Bike Month, the Austin Cycling Association usually have a calendar online, but as of writing it’s gone AWOL. Hopefully it will be back in shape soon. In the meantime, the current list of breakfast stations includes the following and official hours are 7-9am:

•Whole Foods, Sixth & Lamar
•City Hall Plaza, 301 W. Second (sponsored by city of Austin employees)
•Texas One Center, 505 Barton Springs Rd. (also sponsored by city of Austin employees)
•Texas Bicycle Coalition, 1902 E. Sixth
•Mellow Johnny’s, Fourth & Nueces
•Wheatsville Co-op, 3101 Guadalupe
•Bicycle Sport Shop, 517 S. Lamar
•Shoal Creek Boulevard at the Far West Bridge
•Music City Cycles, 6301 W. Parmer #504
•Jo’s Coffee, 1300 S. Congress
•Freewheeling Bicycles, 24th & San Gabriel

If you see a big guy cycling on 360 on Friday with a bag over-flowing with donuts, that will be me, make a wide pass please!

(1) Lyrics (c) Steven O’Reilly, Tammany Hall NYC, Ceilings in the sky.

So if you bother to move to the outskirts of Austin, you must be doing so to get a big house on a big lot on a quiet street, close to “good” schools, for much cheaper than Central Austin. If you do so, you have no right to complain that you can’t walk to the store.

Well, people in Oak Hill and Southwest Austin apparently want their cake and to eat it too. As much as I am an avid proponent of denser development and public transit, I find it disingenuous of the community leaders in that area to now start blaming the Save Our Springs ordinance for the fact that their neighborhoods aren’t (and may never be) more pedestrian friendly and dense.

Tomorrow night, the city’s planning staff will present the tentative Future Land Use Map (FLUM) and plan documents to stakeholders for one last discussion before the planning commission and city council vote on it. David Richardson, who lead the effort at the neighborhood level, complains to Community Impact that the SOS ordinance blocks any and every kind of good development because

landowners cannot develop or put impervious cover, which is anything from rooftops to parking lots, over more than 25 percent of an individual landowner’s property, in the area called the contributing zone.

Mr. Richardson complains that you can’t put in denser muliple-use development that would make walking and biking more appealing because of the “roadblocks” like this.

The SOS ordinance *should* be a roadblock. Its intent is to discourage development, which causes water pollution in the sensitive contributing zone and the more sensitive recharge zone of the Edwards Aquifer. If you want to live in a densely developed area, move to Central Austin!

The entire known world had gone accordionistic. People were actually dancing in the aisles. The event at the MACC turned out to be indoors. The room has a good little stage, and the acoustics are excellent, surprisingly. According to a placard, the capacity allowed by the fire marshal for this hall is 210. All the seats were filled, and additional happy peoople sat on the floor or stood against the walls or took a spin on the impromptu dance floor. The young contestants were enjoyable to hear and Viva Seguin, as always, was a crowd-pleaser. Los Texmaniacs and those sitting in with them were very generous with their time and delighted all, from tiny babies to near-centenarians. Afterward, many followed them over to Guero’s on South Congress, where they held forth outdoors in the garden. This was a day of happy people, happy music, and happy feet, all gratis and here in Austin.

After a tough week, the prospect of the weekend buffet at Taj Palace was attractive. It had been a while, and seekh kebab seems to be available on weekends only. The dal today was the best ever, not too thin, and seasoned with lots of whole spices with large bits of red chile pepper visible and even small bits of identifiable small yellow lentils or split peas or the like. The perfect accompaniment was the constantly refilled tall glass of iced tea, served with an entire quarter of a good-sized lime. It was a treat to find samber (sometimes transliterated as sambhar) on the buffet table, another delicious broth and one full of fresh vegetables. Although the naan was somehow different, softer in texture without so many air puffs, and a tiny bit disappointing, every other item tasted was delicious, and we tasted every dish. The person who sampled the rice pudding enjoyed it very much and reported that it was seasoned with cardamom. There was a good-sized child’s birthday party in another room, dining from the same buffet; perhaps the host specified some of the dishes served. Most of those making up a large party of over a dozen people in our room were obvious academics. Our lunch was a great restorative and the perfect choice for today. As we made our way home, we stopped at various library branches, some of which were polling places. Reports are that turnout is light on this election day. The polls don’t close until 7 pm, so there’s still time for laggards to vote in this important contest.

Or acordeonistica, with buttons, for a modest cover charge at Jovita’s on Saturday and for free at the MACC on Sunday. Cerronato, the factor other than the presence of accordions that these events have in common, will take the stage on about 4:30 on Saturday and at about 2:30 the next day.

At Jovita’s the event is Las Chicas del Barrio, a showcase for women in Latin music sponsored by the Austin Latino Music Association. The music starts at 2 or thereabouts and continues until it’s over. On the bill are Girl in a Coma, Bocastria, Frenetica, Cerronato, the Texana Dames (6:00), Eva Yabarra y Su Conjunto (7:30), Melinda Hernandez y Sister Sister, and the Gina Chavez Band, not necessarily in that order (call Jovita’s at 447-7825). Cover will be a mere $10, which will probably amount to about a dollar an hour for this great program.

Sunday at the MACC is brought to us gratis by Texas Folklife. We’ll hear great personal favorite Cerronato backing four future stars of the accordion who are semifinalists in the Big Squeeze, followed by another great personal favorite, Los Texmaniacs.

The Austin scene of Web designers and usability experts, technologists, social media enthusiasts, game developers, and beyond seems to be thriving, with an almost overwhelming number of groups and corresponding events every week.

• Refresh Austin - for Web designers and developers working to keep it fresh. The next meeting is Tuesday, May 13^th.
• Geek Austin – their blog includes interviews with lots of tech industry and startup stars. Geek Austin and Refresh Austin are hosting a WordPress Fest on May 21^st to celebrate the release of the blogging software’s version 2.5.
• Jelly Austin! – although not exclusive to tech workers, this co-working group meets currently every Friday at Café Caffeine.
• Creative Commons Austin Salon - this group advocates for Creative Commons, which “provides free tools that let authors, scientists, artists, and educators easily mark their creative work with the freedoms they want it to carry.” They have a Google group and meet occasionally.
• 501c Tech Club - affiliated with NTEN, the Nonprofit Technology Network, this group meets monthly although I don’t see the next meeting date’s info on the site. (If you’re interested in the intersection of technology and nonprofits, check out the great blog FISpace.)
• Austin High Tech Happy Hour – is just what it sounds like.
• Social Media Club - a fairly nascent group of social media professionals and enthusiasts whose next meeting is May 15th.

Speaking of co-working, if you do freelance work, often work from home, or are starting your own business, you might be interested in the work of Conjunctured, a co-working company and the forthcoming LaunchPad, a co-working space (so you don’t have to go to your local coffeeshop all the time and you can have a place to meet, make copies, etc.)

Long-time Austin resident and former game developer Paul Stankiewicz (whose paintings of Seaholm Powerplant, a Shady Grove trailer, and Sandy’s are below) and Orange Mothers front man Ethan Azarian, along with other local artists, have an art opening this Friday evening at Art on 5th (which happens to have a collection of Dr. Seuss art!), at 1501 West 5th Street, from 6:30 to 8 pm.  Other artists include Linda Dumont, Zita Raymond, John Hopkins, Dan Burns and up-and-coming figurative artist Anna Bleker.  According to the announcement:

The variety of techniques range from palette knife to pastel to acrylic and oil and the variety of styles is even broader, with Linda Dumont creating her signature bold and bright cityscapes, and Anna Bleker’s contemplative figures.

If you can’t make it to the artists’ reception, the exhibit will be up until May 31st.  Comment here if you know of other artists who are documenting Austin, its past, and changes.

Only listeners to KVET seemed to be following this issue up until a day or so ago. Up until about that time, it was not under discussion on neighborhood listservs around town, which leads me to conclude that more people should be reading the local daily and the Chron from cover to cover, not to mention listening to KVET. There’s a resolution forming the “Energy Efficient Retrofit Task Force” with an unwieldy number of members. The task force is due to report to the city council on or before June 1 (see agenda item 64 from December 13). Its next meeting is set for tomorrow. Today’s newspaper feature has given the gift of greater visibility to the Keep Austin Affordable site (”Austin Realtors question plan to require efficiency upgrades for older homes: City says complaints are premature, alarmist,” byline Katie Humphrey).

Why should those of us who seldom or never consume over 500 kilowatt-hours of electricity pay for the ever-growing consumption caused by those evidently compelled to build in a cornfield, tear down a perfectly good structure and construct a monster in its place, or “remodel” by expanding an existing house by four or five times? Only this morning, we learned that additional tree limbs will be sacrificed in our vicinity to add a transformer “required” because voltage is now “insufficient.” Somebody’s recently installed multi-kitchens and other upgrades and proliferations of electricity-operated conveniences in a bloated edifice demand this service upgrade; not only that, another outfit of the same sort will soon be completed and is likely to “require” the same sort of service upgrade, with accompanying destruction.

So much for affordable housing. So much for preserving Austin’s shade canopy.

Someone besides me (and the people who made all those printed copies disappear) has read the recent audit report that took an in-depth look at operations of the police department. As I did, reporter Tony Plohetsky paid particular attention to the fascinating section that recommends abolition of the APD aviation unit. When I wrote about this before, I noted that the daily’s report was brief.

Today’s analysis goes quite a way toward remedying the oversight. The on-line version lacks some of the accompanying sidebar material that enriches the print feature: “Police Department defends helicopter program as audit suggests cost-cutting measures: Some say Air 1 too costly to stay airborne” is the on-line title; the print version headings are different and include this language: “Helicopter unit is under scrutiny” and “Department, auditor disagree over cost-effectiveness.”

There’s a big opportunity cost involved. How many staffed patrol cars would be available on the ground for the amount invested in this aviation unit? Without the night-time disruption caused by noise 500 feet above and the lurid beam of the searchlight sweeping yards and rooms, how much better would we all sleep? My disposition would certainly improve. The reporter does not mention or analyze the factor of rising fuel costs. I wish that somebody would.

Over at the Mexican-American Cultural Center this afternoon can be found hours of free family fun. Local favorites Los Texas Wranglers will step up to play conjunto music at 5 pm. In the meantime, expect food, ballet folklorico, mariachi, and more. There are many power lines and poles and much major construction in the sightlines at the new MACC, but also a fine view of the downtown skyline. This is the first time I’ve been to the MACC grounds since the building was completed, and I’ve yet to explore indoors.

We didn’t find signs of anything doing at Fiesta Gardens this afternoon, but tomorrow evening starting at 4 pm (Monday, May 5, itself) there will be a small program, including a conjunto fest with lots of returning favorites. Known to be on the program are Johnny Degollado, Los Fantasmas del Valle, and Dueto Carta Blanca (Jorge y Mague). According to the schedule, this year’s dance contest with Johnny Degollado will be after the mariachi (6:30 to 7) and Los T-Birds (7 to 7:45) and before Carta Blanca (8:30 to 9:30) and Los Fantasmas (9:30 to 10:30). Adult admission for all that music is just five dollars. The bandstand and the dance floor, along with the seating area, are under a roof that protects from whatever the weather brings.

There’s a big free do out at the Expo Center today, with big-time music (Diana Reyes and also Banda el Recodo!) on the program from across la frontera, but the MACC and Fiesta Gardens events are traditional family-centered local attractions right here in the heart of town.