I meant to stay for a while and then come home to blog about the Cinco de Mayo conjunto festival and encourage others to attend. That isn’t the way it happened. I started taking pictures at first and then became too caught up enjoying the music and the food and the strolling and more, so plans changed. I created a conjunto festival group at Flickr for the few pictures that I did take.

The annual conjunto festival began at Parque Zaragoza in July all those years ago and was successful from the beginning, despite the small venue, biting insects, the heat of the height of summer, and the unshaded dance floor. These days, there’s more comfort at Fiesta Gardens than could ever have been imagined way back then. I’ve never missed a single one, even though it hasn’t always been possible to be there from start to finish.

I was afraid that the scantness of publicity, the weather forecast, and fears of the H1N1 influenza might keep people away, but they just kept on arriving. As always, this was a wonderful event for those of all ages. A great crowd favorite that most of us were hearing for the first time was the group Leti y El Conjunto Central, from Corpus Christi. Leti has charisma and a rich alto voice. I’m sorry that I forgot to ask where any unsold posters or t-shirts will be available, although it did appear that they were going fast. Many thanks go out to organizer Johnny Degollado and the sponsors of this wonderful event.

Just when you thought it was safe to go back on the street!

Yep, the next round of this increasingly confusing topic is due on the agenda of Thursday April 30th council meeting as item #25. For those of you not paying attention, that means today, unless you are reading this before midnight, by which time I’ll have hopefully finished writing it…

You can find the full agenda here. I’m not a specialist on city council meetings/processes, but as far as I can tell, this is open to the public, but possibly only to listen. So far in the City Council meetings it has been heard in the afternoon or evening, in the Public Hearing section. As I read it, this time it’s being heard in normal council business, where no separate discussion is necessary unless desired by a Council Member. Unless you know better!

It would seem that since the last meeting, city staff have been busy. There is a comeback on the taskforce recommendations, which seemingly pretty much explains why they are not really implementing any of there major points. This can be read here.

Instead of a separate office for events, staff is recommending folding the responsibilities into the Urban Transportation Commission (UTC). This may be prudent, but it’s not at all clear its right. Prudent because at a time of trimming city budgets, declining tax revenues etc. the last thing the city could probably afford, was a new department. However, adding the “special events” to the UTC will double the number of monthly meetings and “require additional support staff” – which probably just means saving headed notepaper then, and then a potential new head of department on the city “shilling”.

Depending on which side you take, events, churches/business(not claiming they are the same, just lumping their objections together), residents or Task Force members, you can be sure that the final recommendations don’t add up. There seems to be a new 30-day Rules Posting Process, according to Jason Redfern, Right-of-Way Management Division Manager, Transportation Department – “that has not started yet, which will provide stakeholders the opportunity to make suggestions”.

Joey Trmyer of Conely Sports, isn’t pleased with what he’s seen far and wrote this blog post and this letter to the council. I have to say, and I’m taking Joeys “council” on this, a number of the plans might work for static events like the Art Fest, but they introduce significant safety questions for sports events of all sizes. Kathie Tovo, ex-Bouldin Creek Neighborhood Association prez. is also concerned with a number of the proposals too. So far two out of four.

News reaches me though that Council Member of Mayoral candidate Leffingwell is this evening proposing his own set of changes which reach a more effective compromise. Hey Larry, why didn’t I hear about this from you?

So, who knows which way this will go, if you are at all interested, and able, head down to city hall in the morning but be prepared to be confused and delayed as the agenda, ordinances and time keeping get shifted around to suit the political time table. I won’t be there this time, please post comments and let me know how it goes.

Over on austin360.com, Omar Gallaga is reporting that Time Warner Cable have annolunced the tiers they are going to use for capping and overage-charging for their broadband cable offering. For the last couple of weeks this has been a hot topic on the interweb thingy, and has generated piles of bile, some useful analysis but much of it missing the point.

There is no doubt, there are out there amongst us interweb users, some leaches and obsessive, compulsive overachievers. In opposition to the TWC changes people are marching out all sorts of claims and justifications for being big-data users, why they are the “bleeding edge”. What they do today, will be the norm’ in a few years time. Well, that maybe, but probably not.

Time Warner Cables business model is under attack on all fronts. They are doing what all nascent monopolies do when under attack, they push the boundaries of what can get away with. This usually more broad in America than in Europe, because America is the great defender of free enterprise, freedom of choice, and commercial innovation. No amount of facebook pages is going to change that.

Only, we just don’t have any of those things really when it comes to digital communication. Cellphones here in the US are restrictive, expensive, fragmented and fine examples of monopolistic practices. Some of the best cellphones in the world are now crippled when sold outside the US, so that when they are used in the US, they don’t get full network, 3G speeds, meaning the “network” operators can charge and tie you to multi-year contracts, oh and it’s OK coz we get “free” phones.

Cable TV here in the US has hardly changed in 30-years. The addition of HD has been done in a haphazard, fragmented way with no real innovation. Unlike Europe where broadcast, often free to air, HD offers many more channels and multi-screen viewing, interactive services etc. See for example what Sky and the BBC have done with that little red-button in the UK. Why is it for example, that when watching a “home shopping channel” you have to dial 1-800 and wait, press buttons and speak to a person? Broadband, is bi-directional you know…

When the cutover to broadcast HDTV happens here in the US, it will be a pure swap, no new advance services, just the same old channels, mostly showing repeat programs(not in HD) and thats about it. What most Americans will find is that the signal will break up frequently during rain storms and other bad weather thats affects b roadcast quality. Unlike conventional TV(non-digital) though, you won’t get a degraded picture, you’ll get nothing at all.

And so, back to Time Warner Cable. I’m a triple play subscriber. I don’t watch much TV, mostly I record a few shows per week and only watch them on Sunday evenings. I have my home phone service through TWC, although heaven knows why. No one has the number, and I don’t use it for outgoing calls, especially now I don’t work from home. Many people don’t have “home” phones now, they use their Cellphones, I should join them, except my cellphone has no docking station and really isn’t suitable for a 2-hour conference call using any kind of headset.

Here is another example of lack of innovation in the US. When was the last time you saw a phone in the US that was your cellphone when outside the home, and when inside the home, used the broadband service to connect rather than wireless, and allowed you to switch seamlessly between the two as you walk out of the house, without dropping the call?

I think that in the 2.5 years I’ve had my TWC service, I’ve watched maybe 5 on-demand movies. This is an area that most people focus on when analyzing the effects of broadand usage capping by TWC. It’s clear, isn’t it?

TWC have every reason to stop you downloading legally or otherwise, movies from the Internet or watching them online. If they can stop or price that to discourage, THEY can charge you for the same movies, either through subscription channels, or on-demand.

So, lets recap. TWC offers four services:

- Basic cable inc. subscription channels
- Basic internet cable broadband connectivity, soon to be tiered by usage
- Landline telephone service(wired)
- On-demand movies(chargeable)

The threats to their business are:
- Declining use of basic cable, subscription channels and on-demand movies because people get their entertainment elsewhere.
- Telephone service is under attack from cellphones and VOIP, Vonage, Skype etc.
- Basic broadband is underattack from “unlimited” subscription and pre-pay cellphone data plans, 802.11 wireles in coffee shops, down at Austin City hall etc.
- Basic cable is stagnent, uninteresting, overloaded with cheap promotional shows and home shopping networks and 24-hour news channels that basically make the news up as they go along.
- Consumers are also increasingly savy, well you’d hope so. What many realize is that it’s all data. The cable you watch, the telephone calls you make, the on-demand movies, even if you do everything the TWC way, it all arrives and leaves your house as data.

So, here we have a high-noon showdown. The customers don’t understand why part of their data service should be metered and priced seperately from the other parts of the same data connection. The cable company, in this case, TWC, is playing the typical, dumb, fat and happy monopoly that can and will charge as it sees fit, easy things first and trying to paint a small section of their customers as the problem.

TWC should be forced to compete for my business, not get it on a plate. After all, if I don’t subscribe, I can’t get anything back for the ugly, 1920’s style cabling and poles that litter my street, having to have the trees cut back to protect their golden-egg.

First, TWC should be forced to unbundle it’s TV service. The cable channel selections should be offered in more flexible groupings or by individual channels. It is simply way past time this should have been done. I’d pay a premium for about 8-channels total and would prefer more bandwidth than more channels.

Second, the broadband service offered by TWC should be split into two. A bulk data backbone service and a last-mile service. The bulk data backbone service has to be sold, on a tiered/metered service to companies that handle the last-mile service. TWC is more than welcome to compete as a last-mile provider. Yep, this is effectively turning TWC backbone into a “utility” by the back door.

Third, irrespective of the first two, the home telephone service offered by TWC should be unbunlded. If the first two recommendations are adopted, this becomes largely irrelevant as the last-mile providers will need to provide advanced services, or just compete in race-to-the-bottom cheap pricing. If race-to-the-bottom pricing is the only innovation, then overtime TWC will just rebuild it’s monopoly through acquisition. This is exactly what allowed AT&T to come back from near death to semi-monopolist(and yes, I know it’s not the same AT&T and it didn’t really come back, it’s just branding, but the point remains.)

Fourth, again irrespective of the first three, TWC needs to design, develop and deliver REAL digital cable offerings. This isn’t just the same old channels and a 1980’s style programming guide sent down a digital channel. It’s interactive TV; it’s online HD games delivered without a PC or gaming system; it’s an interactive YouTube channel; it’s interactive news; it’s bidirectional video calling; it’s something that America and especially here in Austin we could be proud of.

Arguing about broadband caps/tiering, overage pricing is just missing the point, and will end up in tears in 10-years time, TWC will be the next GM looking for bailouts to subsidize it’s “essential” services. And please Omar, suggesting stimulus money now for TWC is just rubbing salt in.

It’s strange to see democracy in action, or rather process over people. In a response to one person who asked me before the meeting what they had to do to ensure the “event” community won the current battle, I replied, the city process isn’t set up to create winners, it’s there just to make sure there are no losers!

And so it was tonight, at the City Council meeting where the staff recommendations for implementation of the Downtown Street Closure Task Force recommendations were heard. It was public hearing and a large number of people from 4-sides showed up, with a few others including marginalized neighborhood associations.

The Churches were well represented, as were the Race and Event organizers, and the task force members. In addition there were a large number of runners and event participants, but they had been effectively neutered by the race organizers through their emergent AREA organization. The Austin Races and Events Alliance (AREA), had appealed for people to attend but not speak until they’d spoken, probably fearing a backlash similar to the earlier one at the early taskforce meeting.

In the end the meeting was conducted in a relatively orderly and positive fashion, with Mayor Wynn and a number of the speakers enjoying entertaining interaction. After some 2-hours 30-minutes, most of it hearing public testimony, what became clear is that the City staff had turned months of work from the taskforce into a lose-lose-lose situation and wasn’t clear why this was.

The staff recommendations introduced rules like ensuring that Caesar Chavez was ALWAYS open, which the task force had never considered, as far as I know. That, had the Art Austin, 1st Night Austin and many other event promoters and producers losing out. The recommendations did not institute the Special Events office that the Task Force had recommended, thus they were losers. The Churches didn’t get their access needs met and they lost out, and well, the race organizers didn’t get it their way either, so they lost out too.

After the meeting I was asked “did we win?” My answer was, no, but you got what you wanted. What did they want? Well almost no one it seemed wanted it to go ahead as prescribed, and that’s what they got.

What happened was Council Member Leffingwell proposed to adjourn the public hearing and pass the staff proposal on the caveat that the letter submitted by the Task Force would considered and the proposal amended to accommodate. After a small amount of discussion and clarification from council members and Mayor Wynn, thats what they got, approved on first reading with the Leffingwell compromise. 2nd reading with be on either the 23rd or 30th of April, based on City Staff’s ability to meet with Task Force members and incorporate the changes.

However, quite why and how we got to where we did is beyond me? Why would staff come forward with these recommendations that were so out of line with a process that had taken months of compromise? Given that it’s been three of four months for staff to come forward with that, how likely is it that they’ll come back in as little as two weeks with the update thats acceptable to the task force and everyone else?

I found it personally interesting that none of the Mayoral candidates publicly took a stance on this and push it through one way or the other. One can only wonder if they really hope they’ll get the election over and done with before the Street and Event Closure really does claim a loser, the mayoral candidate that backs the wrong horse.

And so it was, process over people. – Oh yeah, before anyone suggests I’m a conspiracy theorist, I’m not. I also know that things don’t happen by accident.

• There was South by Southwest coverage galore. Some print outfits offered accounts by multiple journalists (e.g., NYT). So far, though, I’ve happened across not much that seemed like genuine enthusiasm. An exception would be the WSJ of March 24, wherein reporter Jim Fusilli (”Where SXSW Points Talent“) says that he loved Austin’s own Band of Heathens, giving the group credit for “the best set I came across during my five nights in town.” Fustilli tweeted from Austin.
• An outpouring of generosity organized by the local AustinMama community was highlighted in today’s NYT (”Helping out With Cash: A Delicate Art,” byline Ron Lieber). A family with a seriously ill baby and few healthcare resources has been amazed by the support from this local on-line group of caring parents who’ve been known to charge into action as benefactors IRL, as in this case.
• An Austin-area Voting Rights Act case has attracted national attention and much has been written about it, both as news and as analysis. The best writing that I’ve seen about how this case arose, why it was taken to the Supreme Court and how, and what the issues are is to be found in today’s WSJ (”A Showdown on Voting Rights,” byline Jess Bravin). Note the little remark on how it was that Austin went from single-member districts to an at-large city council. Here’s coverage by the local daily upon the issuance of a writ of certiorari (January 10, 2009; byline Chuck Lindell). The case was originally entitled Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District v. Mukasey and is now v. Holder (08-322). The current Court docket sets this for oral argument on April 29.
• Austin stars in How Perfect Is That, a novel of social comedy and manners written by our own Sarah Bird. I don’t buy many books these days, and this one’s been constantly checked out from the library, so I only recently caught up with it. I know that Sarah Bird has a national following, but I always wonder what outlanders make of specific references to aspects of Albuquerque (in the case of The Flamenco Academy) or Austin (in this case). Although she sets it as occurring in April, not our current waning days of March, the author offers a wonderful appreciation of the arrival of spring foliage as we see our local trees bursting forth in blossoms and leaves. She pays special tribute to those crispy oysters with yucca root chips on the menu at Jeffrey’s. And one of her composite characters, an earnest and saintly sort, gets about via recumbent bicycle, reminding one of a certain sometimes columnist for the Wheatsville Breeze, frequent writer of letters to the Chron, and former candidate for city council (initials “AB”).
• One series of accounts from SXSW that I’ve particularly enjoyed appears to be destined for an on-line existence only, but it would be a shame for anyone to overlook these brief takes from some fine folks reporting for The New Yorker magazine.

Mark your diaries, I hear that City staff will brief to Council and taskforce members today at 2:00pm (time varies) at City Hall Council Chambers. The brief will cover the progress on the Taskforce recommendations.

April 2nd at 6pm, a public hearing will be held with possible action by Council for amending City Ordinances related to Street Events Closures and review of the new Right-of-Way Closure Rules. Citizens may provide comment to Council at this hearing.

I’ve reported on this twice, and posted a summary on the difficulties faced and reasonable progress made taskforce. If you remember, one of the early meetings was attended “mob-handed” by the athletes community, and most never got the chance to speak. This is your/their chance.

I’ll find out where the documents can be obtained, and update this post.
[Update: 3/30/09 The documents covering the current state are all now posted on the city website http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/council/dsectf.htm - Thanks to Taskforce member Kathie Tovo for the links and work on the taskforce.[/update]

The best results from public participation at city hall meetings is garnered by actually having a considered, factual input based on what is being discussed. An emotional rant might make you fell better, but they rarely “move the ball forward”, but hey, feel free to do either :-)

Sounds like the start of a novel, in reality it’s a new coffee bar on S 1st St. Hopefully you can’t have too many coffee shops, the economic downturn hasn’t stopped the flow here in Austin.

One thing Once over Coffee has got right, literally, is that it is on the right side of the street for the downtown commuters on their way to work. Since it has a good few parking spaces there should be a steady stream of early morning drinkers heading there. However, based on my visit this morning, it deserves much more than a quick in and out with a paper cup full of “joe”.

Jenee and Rob the co-founders of Once over seem to have a real passion for coffee. The cappuccino I had this morning was simply the best I’d had for a very long time. Far from the now popular over-milky, bland big cup drinks, it was presented French style. Rich coffee flavour, bigger than an expresso, and with just the right amount of throth. I had to have a croissant to go with it, sadly there was no butter to spread and it was cold, but still light and fluffy.

Jenee tells me that their focus is on “the quality of the coffee. Really good coffee takes a lot of money, time, and passion.” Rob and Jenee have been in the specialty coffee industry for several years and they believe that “you cannot fake the passion[for good coffee]“. They’ve spent many dollars and days traveling the country learning from the top people in the industry. Their first shop, Izzy’s Coffee Den in Asheville, NC, taught them that you never “get it”. You have to always keep trying to do it better.

Their objective is to run the place to give the feel which is very similar to a bar. They both worked in bars (among other professions) before opening a coffee house, so they modeled their first one after a bar, they didn’t know how else to do it. It worked, and they are trying again!

Oh, the name comes from an X song – The Once Over Twice. Rob and Jenee liked that it’s a familiar phrase, easy to say, easy to spell and we’re big on coffee pun names. I didn’t get it, maybe someone could ask on their first visit and leave a comment to explain to me ;-)

Once over coffee is located at 2009 S. 1st Street (between Mary and Live Oak) and is open Mon-Fri 7am-7pm and Sat & Sun 8am-6pm. They do plan to extend opening hours in the summer. They will have wireless available, I didn’t get to check it out this morning as I was too engrossed in discussion and with both cappuccinos.

For the sake of transparency, yes I paid for everything, and didn’t extract any futures promises to write this :-) It was a pleasure.

I’ve posted about both of these in the past, but they’re worth mentioning again.

Tomorrow morning is the Cowboy Breakfast that kicks off Rodeo Austin. Even though I’m not a big fan of rodeos or country music, I’m a pretty big fan of free: free coffee, free donuts, free pancakes. I seem to remember some chainsaw wood carving and livestock as well. This annual event at Auditorium Shores is always packed. You can park at the Palmer Events Center garage, but you’ll want to get there early. It starts at 6am. The kids have enjoyed themselves every year.

Explore UT is this Saturday from 11am to 5pm. It’s billed as the “Biggest Open House In Texas”. Many of the departments at the University of Texas hold demonstrations or exhibits. It’s great for school aged kids.

not to mention appalled.

I was cruising the channels over the w/e and caught the end of a this movie by Richard Linklater. I pressed the “info” button and the description said, Coming to age movie filmed in Austin TX. I scanned through the guide and set-up to record a later showing on HBO.

Seeing “The Unforseen” gave me a great insight into some old Austin politics, places and history. Dazed and Confused, with a long list of todays movie stars including Matthew McConaughey, Jason London, Ben Affleck and an uncredited part by Renée Zellweger, did none of that. There were a few glimpses of the Austin of what was 1993 when the film was made, rather than 1976, when the film was set, but nothing much.

I’d like to hear from folks. Was there any approximation to reality in that film? Did American teenagers really act anything like that in the 1970’s or worse still today? Were any of you extras in the film??

Don’t get me wrong, I’m no prude, I’ve even got the pictures to prove it. Back in the UK I’d gone through the skinhead phase, the Bowie phase and was into disco by 1976 and sure there were some less than shining nights out now I look back. But the hazing stuff, the beatings, the humilation of the girls? Really, in the 1970’s – Wow. No wonder the rasied the drinking age to 21 in the US.

As for the claim in this trailer, the film featured the best music of the 1970’s, actually I’d say the music was mostly offset by 2-4 years before the film was set.

Or was this film about as close to reality as Friday 13th?? Discuss.

Funny how you take things for granted. I’ve just switched to a new corporate Blackberry phone, and as I had a busy day downtown yesterday my first reaction was to use the phone to look-up the next bus rather than take the car. I don’t know where I first learned about it, but since I arrived in Austin I’ve been using a service called “dadnab” to find out the bus schedule.

It’s simple, painless, and quick. 5-mins before I’m ready to leave I just send a txt message on my phone to austin@dadnab.com with my current location and my destination. Yesterdays txt message read: s 1st and live oak to Austin convention center

Except on this new fanlged, all singing, all dancing phone it wouldn’t take a txt message with an email like address. It turns out that I had send the txt to 121 on the AT&T network, and the first part of the txt message had to include austin@dadnab.com – within 30-seconds I got the response:S 1ST ST & W LIVE OAK ST to AUSTIN CONVENTION CENTER/depart SOUTH 1ST & LIVE OAK at 11:54 AM/10-NB/arrive BRAZOS & 4TH at 12:03 PM back as a txt message.

I walked up the street, waited a few minutes and Cap metro arrived as promised. All very quick and efficient. So I figured I’d post this tip here, only to find that Austin metroblogger ttrentham had posted on this topic in time for SXSW in 2007. So here’s an update, the service is still working, if you have problems txting to austin@dadnab.com checkout their website for the tip above and others, also to try out the service.