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Friday, 7 October 2016 - One down, one to go

 
It has been the laughing stock of Austin for the last week, but the so-called "Stuck House" properly hit the road yesterday en route to its new home about 30 miles (50km) south of Austin, ruining traffic conditions as it went. These shots are from a live feed of the move that I was half watching hehe. During the trip, something fell off the roof and hit one of the workers on the head, and one of the two trailers the house is sitting on blew three of its four tires, all of which delayed things further. Last I heard, it was expected to finally reach its destination this morning after stopping for the night. Something I hadn't mentioned is there is actually a second house still to be moved as part of this operation, identical to this one and immediately next door. It's destined for the same location (so the two houses will be neighbors again), but the moving company have said they're simply going to cut the second one in half and relocate it in two pieces. At least some lessons were learned I guess.

Wednesday, 5 October 2016 - More fail

 
 
I paid another visit to the stuck house after work, and found it had moved all of about 50 feet since Monday and was covered in tree debris hehe.
 
The whole side of the house has been sawn off and trimmed back so it could fit between the trees that originally ground the operation to a halt. So why is it still here?

 
This is why - it can't fit under these power lines hahaha! So even if they had been able to squeeze through the trees, they would have gotten stuck here anyway. While the power company was working on raising the lines, a city inspector on the scene told me this was pretty much the most incompetent move he's ever seen.
 
Meanwhile, the house has become famous among local residents. One guy was offering "haunted" tours of the house for $5, and someone else has started a Twitter account for the house here haha! People have too much free time on their hands. The movers are going to try again tonight to move this thing, so we'll see where it gets stuck next.

Monday, 3 October 2016 - Fail

 
 
I got a news alert on my phone early Saturday morning regarding a house stuck in the middle of a street. I didn't take a lot of notice until I got another alert today claiming it's still stuck there hehe, so I figured it was worth a look.
 
I would if I could.

 
 
This abandoned house was being moved from its original location in South Austin to new spot about 30 miles away when it became wedged between trees and a utility pole. Given the dilapidated state of it I'm not sure why anyone would bother moving it, but so it is.

 
 
This here is the now-vacant lot where the house was lifted from...
 
...and over there is how far they got - all of about 100 feet (30m) hahaha! Only 29.9 miles to go! There's nothing like a bit of competence is there.
 
One of several news reporters on the scene, dolling herself up for the 6pm live shot.

 
 

The moving company apparently has at least three lawsuits pending against them while they were operating under different names, so they're clearly a bit dodgy which isn't all that surprising given their old dunger of a truck looks older than the house it's moving.

 
At least the neighbors have something different to look at.

 
 
So after sitting here for three days now, the brains trust finally arrived while I was there with chainsaws in hand. The city has forbidden them from interfering with the trees, so their only option is to carve up the house. After thirty minutes of this, a city inspector arrived and demanded they cease work. They apparently require additional permits to a) block traffic, and b) cut up a house in the middle of the street hehe. If those permits don't get approved for whatever reason, I guess these jokers will be putting the house back where they found it. News article here. If I get time I'll go check on their progress tomorrow :)

Sunday, 2 October 2016 - End of the line

 
While enjoying the view from our back deck this morning I spotted this big fella, who definitely wasn't there a couple a days ago, and in the meatime has spun a massive web from the top of the deck fencing up to the roof hehe. But whatever - live and let live :)
 
During the course of our nine months in Austin, we've checked out various sections of the Barton Creek Greenbelt as it follows Barton Creek for seven miles and passes behind our apartment. Today we checked out the only major section we had left to see: the end of it.

 
 
After parking the car and starting the hike down to the creek, we found this clown doing push ups in the middle of the trail.
 
Then he starting lifting large rocks above his head, while his buddy caught his breath after performing several lunges. Fascinating.
 
The end of the trail is a lot more bike-friendly than the start of it, and several bikers were out tearing it up.

 
Barton Creek in a nutshell. Normally it would be starting to dry up for the winter, but the very wet spring and moderately wet summer has kept it flowing and the swimmers coming.

 
 
One of several waterfalls along the creek, and one of several cairns that people spend their time constructing hehe.
 
This is Sculpture Falls, one of the most popular spots along the creek, though it's quite a hike to reach which helps to keep the crowds down.

Panorama of the Sculpture Falls swimming hole - just one of many awesome outdoor spots in and around Austin, of which we have many left to explore.

Friday, 30 September 2016 - ACL

 
Central Austin is gearing up for two weekends of traffic chaos, tourist chaos, and thumping bass as the annual Austin City Limits Music Festival kicks off today just down the road in Zilker Park. Right now I can hear the cacophony of bass coming from the eight stages pretty clearly as I write this.
 
For my birthday five years ago Kristina bought me tickets to ACL for my upcoming visit to Texas, and it was a good old time! Five years later and we now own a house here.

 
 
After my first full Texas summer, the weather is finally starting to cool down now, but it's still bloody nice and will be for some time yet before our whole two months of winter eventually kick in hehe. In other news, and speaking of the house, Kristina and I have been busy meeting a few general contractors this week regarding some minor renovations. More on all that to come.
 
One of two walking and cycle trails along the Colorado River as it passes through downtown. I often ride along here after work during the week. It's hardly as fun as my after-work route in New York, but it'll do.

Sunday, 25 September 2016 - Let there be light

 
What did you do this weekend? We visited lighting shops, to look at lights. Very grown up ;) We're researching the possibility of having some minor renovations done to the house before we finally move in later next month. As nice as it is, certain aspects of it could do with some immediate modernizing, not least of all the lighting.
 

Wednesday, 21 September 2016 - Another wanton night in 'Murica

 
 
Another night spent in front of the news watching an initially peaceful protest devolve into wanton violence and lawlessness in response to the fatal shooting of a black man by police. This time it's in Charlotte, North Carolina, and this time the black man in question was armed (previous mass riots of this nature were more focused on the victim being unarmed, though frankly the use of deadly force by police was no less justified).
 
Dedication to the cause.

 
Just a couple seconds after I snapped this shot, this reporter was shoved to ground live on air by a protester (rioter), and other reporters and cameramen have been attacked throughout the night as well. In fairness, the person who knocked this guy to the ground later returned to apologize.
 
New York had a few large protests like this (though less violent) while Kristina and I were living there, and as I do, I was in the middle of it all with my camera. I wouldn't be going into this one though - the local police appear to be completely outnumbered by scumbags and unable to establish control (the NYPD seemed to have a much better handle on things).

Tuesday, 20 September 2016 - Bump in the day

 
 
At about 3pm this afternoon, this truck got jammed under this bridge in the middle of downtown Austin hehe. How embarrassing. I'm guessing it was a little higher than 14ft, 2in.
 
I didn't notice the alert on my phone until more than an hour later, but it was as good an excuse as any to get out on the bike and go play in the traffic. By the time I got down there they'd already yanked the truck away and were inspecting the bridge. Oh well. If you're interested in seeing trucks collide with a bridge, I suggest you take a look at this site, and get ready to giggle :)

Sunday, 18 September 2016 - Bump in the night

 
A little over a week ago I mentioned I was seriously considering buying a gun for home defense in this gun-mad country now that Kristina and I have bought a house. Well after some more thinking I decided bugger it, why not. So I did hehe. This is a Glock 19, a 9mm semi-automatic pistol, and evidently a very popular choice considering how many local gun shops had a waiting list for one before I eventually found a shop with a couple in stock. I also bought a flashlight and laser pointer for it (that thing in front of the trigger), to help in the dark if something goes bump in the night.
 
Kristina and I broke it in with a visit to Red's shooting range today, the only 100-yard indoor range in the city hehe - great. We were in good company too. The dude in the lane beside us was firing an extremely loud and menacing-looking rifle, the chick next to him was firing something resembling a machine gun, and then there was us with our cute little handgun ;)

 
 
I popped off some rounds, Kristina popped off some rounds, and between the two of us I think we killed him :) Video here. The gun will be securely stashed away for the 0.01% chance that something with malicious intent was to go bump in the night. Like I said a week ago, I'm not paranoid or even concerned that such an event might ever happen, but until such time our gun laws are severely tightened, this is the unfortunate reality of the situation.

Friday, 16 September 2016 - Sold!

 
 
This afternoon Kristina, her dad (acting as our real estate agent, which is handy), and I went down to the real estate title company, signed our lives away, and left with an inch-thick pile of paperwork declaring us the proud new owners of our first home! :) However, we won't be moving in until possibly the end of October. The sellers are having major issues with the property they're trying to buy, and given the lease on our apartment doesn't expire until early November, we told them they're welcome to remain in the house until then in exchange for paying us rent. As keen as we are to get in there, their problems are our good fortune since we'll avoid the additional cost of paying both our apartment rent and our home mortgage between now and then. In the meantime, additional information and photos of the house can be found here. Of the many houses we looked at and investigated over the spring and summer, this was really the only one in our price range that ticked the most important boxes, and some. It's a lot more house than we need right now, but a) we'll fill it with little Aaron's in due course, and b) I'm not interested in moving again for at least the next 20 years - total pain in the ass! It also needs some work here and there to update it a little and make it our own, but again, all in due course.

Friday, 9 September 2016 - Vehicular gymnastics

 
 
Late this afternoon I got a bunch of push notifications on my phone about some carnage in the city which piqued my interest, so I jumped on the bike and headed in. This wasn't it, but it happened right beside me at a red light and I saw it coming. Over here you're allowed to turn right on a red light (keep in mind we drive on the right) - a road rule I utterly despise because it does nothing but cause accidents. In fact, even when turning I'll often just wait for the green. People behind me occasionally honk, but fuck 'em. I've lost count of the number of times people have pulled out right in front of me while they were turning on a red. Anyway, the tow truck started to make his turn against the red, but hurriedly stopped due to traffic approaching from the left. The SUV driver meanwhile turned his attention to the same traffic, completely unaware that the tow truck had stopped, and rammed right into the truck's towing ram hehe. The good thing about hitting a tow truck is at least you don't have to wait for a tow truck, and within a few minutes he was hooked up and they were off hahaha!
 
After that appetizer, I arrived at the main course - an SUV dangling from the top floor of a nine-story parking garage above an alley in the middle of the city. The 23-year-old driver claims he was pulling into a parking spot "at a slow rate of speed" when his brakes failed. I call bullshit to that, because he slammed into the high-tension cable barricade fast enough to do a 270-degree front flip over them and end up here. At a slow rate of speed, those cables would have held him back just fine, so I think the more likely story is he hit the gas instead of the brakes. Through an incredible stroke of luck, or maybe just good karma, one of those cables got tangled around his front wheel and was the only thing that kept him from plummeting to a likely death. A passerby in the garage helped him to clamber out of the vehicle to safety.

 
 
This all happened shortly before rush hour, so traffic and pedestrian chaos ensued.
 
This guy was thinking this could happen to him if his brakes fail (or he hits the gas instead).

 
 
The parking garage was subsequently locked down, but I cycled to the top of a neighboring garage instead to see what I could see. Over there is where the SUV went over, now littered with fire crews trying to figure out what the hell to do about it. Notice the five cables he managed to plough through; slow rate of speed my ass.
 
I think everyone was waiting for this thing to finally give and come crashing down, which would have been very exciting but it didn't happen.
 
I wonder what he'll think of your choice of wardrobe.

 
 
The fire department managed to harness the car and gradually lower it down over the course of about an hour.
 
More info on the whole event here. Remember kids, the brake is the big one on the left. Unless you drive a manual, like a real man (which I don't ;)

Thursday, 8 September 2016 - Packing

 
Just another unfortunate day in the American life today as yet another school shooting dominated the headlines. This time it was a high school in a small west Texas town completely in the middle of nowhere. A 14-year-old girl took a gun to school, shot another 14-year-old girl, and then shot herself dead in the bathrooms. Lovely. The girl she shot is expected to survive and no motive has been established, but I would guess bullying was a factor. It's a firm reminder of how relaxed the gun laws are in this country; too relaxed. Every Tom, Dick, and Harry has access to a gun - it's sort of ingrained in America's short history, not to mention its constitution. It has also got me thinking about protecting our soon-to-be house and ourselves while we're in it, since a large house on the ground is more of a sitting duck than our smaller third-floor apartment in a gated complex. In fact, our house was robbed just a couple years ago, not that anyone was home at the time. Albeit a rare occurrence, I'll be installing a monitored security system to deal with anything like that (which the house didn't have), but the risk of an armed home invasion (emphasis on the "armed"), although even more unlikely, feels a little more real here than elsewhere I've ever lived. With that being case, I'm seriously considering the purchase of a small gun to keep stashed away in the sock drawer, heaven forbid something were to ever happen. Texas state law explicitly permits the use of 'deadly force' to protect yourself, your property and possessions, and other people (I've been researching :). I'm not paranoid or even concerned that such an event might ever happen, but until such time our gun laws are severely tightened, this is the unfortunate reality of the situation. It also means I can go down to the local shooting range and pop off a few rounds when I'm bored, like a real Texas man ;)

Saturday, 3 September 2016 - Shake it off

 
After a big earthquake in Italy a week ago and an even bigger one off the coast of New Zealand's North Island a couple days ago, a large area of the US had a good shake at 7am (my time) this morning too. The quake measured 5.6, was just 4.5 miles (7km) deep, and was centered about 450 miles (700km) north of Austin (green 'X') in the state of Oklahoma (at the red 'X'). Austin apparently felt it along with several surrounding states, but at 7am I'm dead to the world in bed. Due to a lack of major fault lines in the area, this part of the country doesn't really get earthquakes, and indeed experts don't believe this was a natural earthquake. Oklahoma is a major energy producer, and their underground disposal of wastewater from oil and natural gas production has been linked to an increase of strong quakes in the area. The shallow depth of this quake certainly suggests this was the cause. Localized damage was apparently minor however, unlike the huge quake my home province of Canterbury in New Zealand experienced exactly six years ago today which made of a complete mess of everything.

Wednesday, 31 August 2016 - Hobbies...

 
...we all have them ;) UT is the University of Texas, located immediately north of downtown Austin.
 

Monday, 29 August 2016 - Still renting

 
I mentioned a month ago that Kristina and I had our offer accepted on our first house which is all rather exciting, and were due to close at the end of August. Well our mortgage was (conditionally) approved today, but the sellers have had to delay due to issues with the house they're buying. Suits us - the longer the better since we're stuck in our apartment lease until November. At this stage we're now looking to close on the 15th of September.
 

Friday, 26 August 2016 - What world?

 
It's no wonder Americans generally know very little about the world outside of their own country. Earlier this week there was a large earthquake in central Italy that was a similar magnitude and depth to that which devastated my own home city in New Zealand a few years back. But as far as I can tell, it got virtually no coverage over here at all on our national news stations. BBC to the rescue however.
 
All we get to hear about, and all we've been hearing about for months now, is bloody Donald Trump and his on-going antics in the lead up to the general election in November. It was funny at first but it's all got a bit old now. Time for some real news me thinks.

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What an awesome house Og...it's huge! So proud of you & Kristina. Wishing you a lifetime of happiness together XOXOX
- Kim Morgan