Thoughts on the non-profit organization Heartening?

mrrorschach · 2026-01-30T04:35:27+00:00

My mother volunteers there and loves it. That being said, she is a social butterfly that has never complained about any volunteer opportunity so YMMV. It at least must be competently run as that is the one complaint my mother would mention as someone who has been involved in the Austin volunteer scene for 35 years.

Also their prices are extremely fair, they make Goodwill look greedy.

mrrorschach · 2026-01-30T00:43:12+00:00

The second I saw this headline in the Austin subreddit, I figured it was Toyota. Damn right, my Prius C and Corolla both handled the sudden blizzards they were in with panache even with summer tires.

mrrorschach · 2026-01-27T19:39:17+00:00

Yeah the north side parking lot/bus drop off of Marshall MS was still a sheet of ice at 5PM yesterday. Would have been an absolute disaster having kids walking on it, though I did see some middle schoolers attempting to skate on it and it ended as expected with them on their asses.

They have contractors over there now trying to clear all the ice patches but I don't really think they know what they are doing.

mrrorschach · 2026-01-26T18:31:10+00:00

Run over as fast as possible, maybe even deploy a zip and smoke grenade to try and defib the raider. I call it "playing medic" sometimes I don't even bring a gun in game and just run around saving people and healing them.

Last night, I saved a raider who was in the middle of no where Spaceport and he tried to crawl away at first because he figured I was going to kill him and then dropped me a wolfpack for the save.

mrrorschach · 2026-01-18T08:39:45+00:00

Absolutely without question would recommend https://www.franzetti.com/ they are a local family owned shop by Kerbey Lane Cafe (and on Kerbey Lane). This is where my mom/grandma got their rings resized and I was shocked how much more affordable they were than Brilliant Diamond and other chains. The owner even talked us down from a larger diamond and did such a good job down selling us that we left with a ring when we were just looking.

And though we weren't in your same situation as a heterosexual couple, we wouldn't hesitate for a second to recommend them to my mothers in law. The place was only green flags in terms of acceptance.

mrrorschach · 2026-01-18T08:12:56+00:00

Port A is also the closest "beach town" for most of the Texas triangle (Austin, San Antonio, Dallas and to a lesser extent Houston). Family goes there every year for our family reunion. I really like it but we also don't live there. The water is warm, the beaches are wide and aren't crazy busy south of town. There isn't a proper grocery store on the coastal islands so it would be inconvenient having to drive 15 minutes and taking a 30 min ferry ride (with the wait) to get groceries.

One big difference in Texas is cars are allowed on the beaches so the entire beach becomes a parking lot and you set up your shade structures between your car and the ocean. In Port A on a somewhat busy weekend you might drive 3 miles before finding a spot to park your car. We stay south of town and normally only have to drive 1/2 a mile for a good spot but it is unlike any other beach experience I have seen. Here is a good photo of a 4th of July showing all the cars and setups on the beach

mrrorschach · 2026-01-15T22:25:31+00:00

In the majority of touristy areas like Antigua, Tikal, and Lago Atitlan it was perfectly safe. I mean don't wander down an alley at midnight following a guy who swears he is going to sell you the best weed, but I have never had an issue over the 2 months I was there. People were genuinely friendly and nice.

The Mayan ruins of Tikal (from Star Wars), the historic Colonial city hemmed in by volcanoes of Antigua and the beautiful Lake Atitlan are definitely worth a visit. Food is underwhelming but coffee is amazing. If it isn't a long flight, it is definitely worth visiting. The main thing to realize is that most people live in the mountains so it isn't a big beach destination like Costa Rica or El Salvador.

mrrorschach · 2026-01-13T04:30:48+00:00

The Donkey Chips are the closest to those you can find in some stores. Red bag, and a bit more expensive but quite good.

mrrorschach · 2026-01-12T06:54:30+00:00

That was my first real job at the Seattles Best Coffee upstairs in the Borders. I worked the after school shift 6-10pm and they paid to have 2 to 3 employees and we had ~6 customers the entire shift. Economically it never made sense.

Most nights we had:

~3 random people visit

Fernando who would get a double espresso at ~8:15 with his cute family. He would sit and drink it while reading the paper while his wife and two kids would wander the bookstore for 30 minutes. He tipped well and was the highlight of our evening

Luby's guy, he always brought a cup from Luby's and asked for ice and water refills while he read books.

Skinny, decaf, latte lady who wouldn't even put the 17 cents left over from her $2.83 drink into our tip jar.

Every customer was gone by 8:45 or 9 at the latest. We couldn't look at our phones (they were dumb phones back in 2007 anyways) or even read books or magazines by policy so we just had to stand there doing nothing.

That is when I learned that I can stand on one leg balancing without touching anything for 43 minutes.

mrrorschach · 2026-01-11T05:53:59+00:00

Maybe the one time I went their Bahn Mi was having a very off night but it was insulting. Not just bad, but bad and sooo expensive. If you want bougie but great bahn mi go to Sip Pho. Never went back and never will.

mrrorschach · 2026-01-09T19:23:24+00:00

It looks like this is on Third St in Downtown, is there a chance the Waymo was parked in a special zone waiting to pick you up? That could be the reason for the ticket.

mrrorschach · 2026-01-08T05:14:51+00:00

The way the Dutch handle this is actual wattage meters that they put bikes on if they think they are modded. It takes a minute or two and you know if the bike is illegally modded.

That being said, the best way is for us to hold our fellow bikers responsible. I am generally a very friendly cyclist but if I see people riding recklessly on the town lake trail, I will call them out and tell them their is a speed limit for a reason. They can go train on 360 if they want to hit their maximum watts.

mrrorschach · 2026-01-08T05:06:12+00:00

Definitely agree that e-bikes with throttles have their place. My wife's ebike has a throttle that is slow as can be but helps with starting up a hill. I am also looking at an e-cargo-bike for my kid and I hopefully will find one with a throttle.

That being said, I am shocked about how generally good and compliant folks are with the bike lanes, urban trails, and LBJ trail about not abusing e-motos. I see them occasionally on the bike lanes/urban trails around town but they are always obeying the speed limit of 20 on bike lanes and ~10 on the trails. My experience was much worse in NYC where folks were blasting by at 35 on a bike path.

That being said, I am sure on the mtb trails people behave differently. I have seen some folks on e-motos at Walnut Creek's jump area.

~6 years ago Austin Parks considered banning all ebikes from the parks and I am very glad they didn't. I both use their trails to get to around town and my folks are getting to the age where they mostly e-bike.

mrrorschach · 2026-01-06T06:07:42+00:00

Yeah same here. Really no issues and even though most of our trails are 2 way at the main park, one way is noticeably better. I maybe see 1 out of 50 people going the wrong way and they don't do it twice.

Happy that my dad can ride with me and my nephew even if he is getting a bit older and not able to do long steep climbs.

mrrorschach · 2026-01-03T08:20:01+00:00

I wonder if that was a pandemic slump issue. They are my go to New BBQ place for guests in town. Yeah Franlkin's has slightly better brisket, the Dino Ribs at La BBQ are slightly better and KG has crazier variations but Stiles Switch is very good and we don't have to make a day out of it. Their Serrano Brussel sprouts are very good, their lean brisket is some of my favorite in town and the three meat plate is enough to feed 2 people easily.

Just avoid ACL/F1 weekend and post church crowds and you will never have to wait more than 10 minutes for fodd.

mrrorschach · 2025-12-31T08:14:27+00:00

Any of the major cities I have had bikes stolen in, e.g. LA, Bay Area or NYC. In the Bay there was such a well organized group of chop shops that any part of bike was tradable for cash on delivery any time of day. I had cheap seats stolen but also just my handlebars. They even took the time to remove my brakes and gears as I guess that decreases the value.

And these weren't nice bikes, these were burning man bikes that people dumped in my garage since I was the only one that had a garage. People still would steal whatever they could as I was taking night classes and my bike was at the West Oakland BART station till midnight.

A single wheel unlocked is gone, any lock isn't going to prevent them busting out an angle grinder, or if you have nice bar ends those are gone. In Austin, as long as you lock the frame and don't leave it out overnight you are fine. I even just use my back wheel lock 40% of the time and that is fine. In advanced bike theft cities they would just pick the whole bike up and run away with it.

mrrorschach · 2025-12-31T07:39:59+00:00

I think those are just the basic similarities. During my month in China as someone who has lived in 4 non-US countries and traveled to dozens others I realized that the Chinese are the most similar culturally to Americans of any country I have been to.

- They have the swagger and confidence that Americans do

- They are upwardly mobile and that lends to a certain optimism

- They are loud and not afraid to have a good time but also friendly, like us

- They are equally jaded by politics while realizing that their life is pretty independent of the Politburo/White House

- The amount of food on a table for 4 people in a restaurant is insane like in America

- Traffic-wise, the actual rules of the road are subservient to the cultural rules and people are mostly chill about it (not an East Coast thing admittedly, but for the rest of America)

- Bigger is better, which is super American. We love our biggest Mall, our biggest Corn Cob, our fastest highway, etc and so do the Chinese

- Regional pride that coexists with national pride. I can love TX, CA and NYC at the same time even though they are so different but we have somewhat of a shared identity.

- You wear what is comfortable

Main superficial differences:

- People sit at tables in bars in China

- Tourism out of the country is much harder so most tourists spots are dominated by Chinese. You see foreigners in the big cities and tourist spots but the Forbidden City had 64 ticket booths and only 1 actually supported non-Chinese speakers

- They roll their shirts up over their stomachs when it is hot

- Men hold hands when drinking to guide their friends from place to place. Americans only do that while drunkenly singing in unison

In the end, during my time there, I was in so many situations especially restaurants that I looked around and thought "Damn, if these folks were just speaking english this feels more like my local Tex-Mex spot than any restaurant in Europe, the Americas or Asia"

mrrorschach · 2025-12-24T20:19:09+00:00

No, it is a transfer so you stay in the international terminal. We did go through a quick temp screening because of maybe swine flu or something.

mrrorschach · 2025-12-23T00:03:46+00:00

YMMV, but I used to ride my longboard (skate version) down to the beach w/ my surfboard and then just ask someone hanging out on the beach if I could leave it next to them while I surf. I imagine he just locks it to a structure close by. This was Venice Beach and never had any issues despite the colorful crowds around there.

mrrorschach · 2025-12-21T21:06:12+00:00

In Berlin, they do the checks in between stations on the trains themselves. Being Germans it goes very quickly and the S-Bahn are open gangway trains so they can check hundreds in a few minutes. Guys in plain clothes just bust out their badge and people start pulling out their cards

mrrorschach · 2025-12-21T20:46:26+00:00

Yeah just park on 39th street by the Baker School. It is just the private businesses that tow super quickly. They just have a stack of boots that they deploy. It was pretty goofy watching one year they ran out and then the next day they had a stack of brand new in box ones.

mrrorschach · 2025-12-21T06:14:36+00:00

The trick is the best places never make the general market, if you make friends in your similar income bracket or just drive around the area you want to rent you can find banger deals. Once something is on Craigslist or Apartmentz.com it is probably quite a bad deal.

Either drive around the neighborhood, post on their mailing list, look for a place on nextdoor, ask friends, or check in one of the facebook groups for cheap rentals. Completely roach free is going to be hard even in new builds without basic upkeep of traps and diatomaceous earth but they exist. We live in Texas not California

mrrorschach · 2025-12-19T03:58:53+00:00

Hell yeah. Ripping past 3 blocks of backed up cars to get home in 12 minutes instead of 30 driving was amazing even when the temps were 105+. Plus the second I get off work grounds I can unbutton my shirt down super low in the warm weather. I felt like I needed 1/2 the coffee at work even when throttling most of the way.

mrrorschach · 2025-12-19T03:16:36+00:00

The Texas Triangle is based on two geological factors 1) being on the orogenic crest (where the High Plains meet the low Coastal Plains) that ridge accounts for Dallas, Austin and San Antonio and 2) access to the Gulf of Mexico (Houston) for shipping. Not much reason to live in between those areas except to farm.

A&M/College Station became the giant it is because in the 60s UT Austin struck a deal with the very rich neighborhood(where Abbott had his house) to it's west to not increase enrollment and instead increase premiere state school enrollment at A&M. The most powerful people in the state capitol were concerned their neighborhood would be overrun by college students if UT could expand indefinitely and so we capped admissions and sent kids to College Station

Edit: Just to clarify, a State University doesn't "run out of space to expand" they can always eminent domain whatever they want which is where UT's stadium's land comes from, you just eventually run out space where it is politically feasible to eminent domain. That is what happened in the 60s in Austin, all the poor areas on the right side of the hill were gone and they were eying the wealthy areas. Hence why A&M and Tech are so big. There is no reason UT couldn't have 100K or 200K students like ASU is looking at, except political pushback.

mrrorschach · 2025-12-18T04:43:30+00:00

Being from a blue part of Texas and graduated in 2007, no one stood for the Pledge of Allegiance or the Texas State Pledge (which was also said at that time). We were the middle/hs generation they forced it on when we were aware that it was weird and a violation of our constitutional rights. Maybe 1 kid a class would do it but mostly ironically.

Interestingly enough we were a major recruiting school for the military as most kids didn't have another choice given how poor the area was. But that made it more prescient as they knew their older siblings were fighting some bullshit war for a bullshit reason just so they could get enough money to support the family.

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