End of Silence

The grand re-opening of our neighborhood park on Saturday was well-attended. The majority of the city council, the mayor, the city manager, the parks department director and the solid waste services director all showed up along with neighbors and eager skaters from around town and around Texas. The city powers that be hammered on the long overdue delivery of both a clean park and a skatepark as a “promise delivered”. Nevermind that it took 5-10 years to deliver on both of them.

Most of the speeches were stock and stuck to the same theme. Too many cooks spoil the stew and too many speakers begin to get repetitive. Chuck Lesniak, who dealt with the remediation for the watershed protection arm of the city and also ran most of the neighborhood information sessions, got a little teary-eyed during his speech. The ribbon-cutting prominently featured one of Will Wynn’s daughters and some other kid. Would it’ve killed them to get some kids from the neighborhood? I’m sure Ms. Wynn’s park wasn’t built on a landfill.

The new skatepark drew skaters ranging from age 4 or 5 to age 40 or 50, a testament to the staying power of the sport. There’s talk of opening 1 or 2 more to meet demand. If Saturday was any indication, they’re needed. I brief talk with Jared Ficklin, neighbor and skater activist, let me know that there’s a bond meeting on Thursday that could impact future parks. Jared also pointed out some of the nuances of the design of the park. They purposely created the area above the bowl to form multiple lanes of traffic and it seemed to be working. Without prompting, the skaters self-organized into 4 lanes of traffic, each taking a turn for their run.

The new playground equipment is mediocre, installed two years ago and sitting unused since installation. For such a long wait, they might’ve done a little more. It looks like it’ll be a while before all of the grass grows in. They’ve planted lots of wildflowers in addition to the grass, so the spring is supposed to be spectacular. Chuck informed me that the paved trail that now dead-ends past the footbridge by the pond will eventually be continued and then looped around the park. This is supposed to be completed in the near-term and was a pleasant surprise. Those in the neigborhood should keep tabs to ensure that this happens.

Ok, so this is kind of a stretch, but since Mark Russinovich lives in Austin and was the one to sound the alarm about the rootkit that Sony’s installing on your computer under the guise of protecting their copyrights if you play one of their CDs , I thought I’d post it here. Clicking the image will take you to Mark’s blog.

If you haven’t heard about this, BoingBoing has a pretty good roundup about it. Since Sony’s been so very naughty this year, it makes sense not to buy any of their crap as gifts. The EFF has a nice guide to help let you know which CDs are affected in case you already have one.

Just last week Metroblogging added Islamabad and Vancouver. This week? Dubai and Miami. Could there be any more of a juxtaposition in city cultures? I think not.

And it’s not from early holiday pigging out…

Metroblogging just added Vancouver and Islamabad to our little global family. Go check them out and say hello.

Riffing off of Charlie’s last post, does anyone else notice changes in traffic around here that seem to be seasonal?

My commute home always seems to get worse in the winter, specifically right after we turn the clocks back. Is this because people have a harder time driving in the dark? Tonight was frickin’ horrible. I-35 southbound is consistently backed up onto 183 eastbound now and tonight, even 183 was a parking lot at the same point. There was also an accident on Ben White, so my trick of going down the service road to Airport and then going Montopolis to Riverside to Pleasant Valley to Oltorf wasn’t as effective as usual.

Traffic is definitely lighter in the summer, mostly due to the absence of UT-related traffic, I assume. It used to be even more pronounced when I moved here in the late ’80s. I’ve also noticed that the traffic gets progressively worse as the week goes on in the summer. On Mondays, I can frequently zoom down I-35 without much of a slowdown, but by Friday, it’s stop and go most of the way. None of the days during the summer can touch what I’ve been going through for the last couple of weeks. Perhaps I can telecommute a few days a week? Please?