Corona Cafe will be opening in mid-January just three doors down from Nomad at 1215-B Corona Dr. We'll be open early mornings (7am-7pm). Looking forward to it!
The following was supposed to be a post on the Yahoo Windsor Park groups page but it was deemed to not follow the guidelines so here it is.
OK, I've had enough. As the owner of Nomad Bar, I have seen everyone's complaints and gripes about it on here, and have been OK with it, as it is their opinion and I respect that. But when someone flat out lies and makes false accusations that can hurt my business, I have to step in. I am at Nomad everyday, am very proud of my business, care for it and for the neighborhood very much, and I can guarantee you that the police have been there only twice in relation to Nomad. They showed up because I called them. For problems I was trying to fix, problems that were there BEFORE I went into business. Everyone who has griped seems to have forgotten that there was a DAY LABOR office and an unofficial HOMELESS CAMP there before I opened. And you complain that The Best Neighborhood Bar as voted by the readers of the Austin Chronicle, is there, instead of that? Really?
The list of violations that Hector Jimenez lists under NOMAD BAR LLC is completely misleading and is a blatant attempt at hurting a place he himself has said he has not been in at night. These things did not happen there and I find it a bit disturbing that this person can post such obvious lies that people are believing on this board, and not get so much as a slap on the wrist, but when someone states the obvious about this disturbed man, the guidelines immediately pop up. And I know I will probably get the guidelines popping up after this e-mail, but maybe the guidelines should be changed to protect against blatant libel.
I have seen this guy's posts go from completely ignorant to downright insulting and I tell you, enough is enough.
Nomad Bar is going on record to say that Hector Jimenez is not welcome in Nomad bar. And should this man show up, you can guarantee, I will take care of it by asking him to leave and if he doesn't, I will be contacting the authorities to keep our neighborhood, my staff, and the Nomad, SAFE, as I always have.
I would also like to point out that Los Tequileros is zoned incorrectly and thus illegally, so it has no business being there. It is insulting and unfair to equate a business that legally was given the WPNA go-ahead and was zoned properly, with Los Tequileros.
- MJ
For the eight months that we’ve lived in Portland, Maine, casual conversations have leaned a lot on the preposition “from.” As in, “Where are you from?”We’re from Texas, my wife and I reply.
“Where’d you move from?”
From Austin, we say—though on the mental maps of Mainers, it sometimes seems there are only two places, Maine and not-Maine. Texans, New Jerseyeans, Samoans: We’re practically the same, because we’re not from Maine.
“Oh, you’re from away,” people say, offering that newcomers may bear the stigma of that condition for at least two generations. “Wait for summer,” they say. “You’ll love the summers.” We did, and we do.
Along these same lines, “because” has become a frequently employed conjunction, as it introduces a lot of jokey answers to the question, “Why did you move to Maine?” Because I wanted more fleece in my life. Because I look great in long johns. Because I wanted to pay state income tax.
The real answer requires pulling more rope off the spool...
Austin is home. Austin is still home. It’s always been an island of possibility in the middle of a forbiddingly foreclosed sea. That’s why people go there, and that’s probably why it’s so difficult to leave. But I’m discovering an underappreciated fact about islands, and about Austin: They’re great places to be from.The full piece, in its glory, is here.
"Where did the taxes go that I am already paying for parkland? They should go towards using parks however I'd like, whether it's for flying kites or walking dogs or doing push-ups," said Michelle Persica, a personal trainer with 20 years of experience who sometimes holds classes in Pease Park.Well, Michelle Persica, if I can come join your class in Pease Park whenever I like, and for no charge, then I guess I'd be happy to let you count your taxes toward a private use fee. Oh...I can't? I have to sign up ahead of time...and pay? Then I guess you're exploiting the commons, aren't you? I guess you're using my contributions to the parklands for your own personal gain.
The Snopes hate the Hoover thing – hate the idea of paying for something when they have figured out how to get it free. And of course they hate the Roosevelt thing of tolerance and enlightenment and blacks moving in next door and marrying their kids. But what they hate most is the idea that the progressives they are conning don't understand what is happening. The progressive harping on the ignorance or bad consciousness or brainwashing of the Snopes class has to stop. Far from being ignorant or unaware of their self advantage, they have had a free ride that has given them the luxury of being able to indulge in reactionary hate while being bankrolled by progressive legislation and opened up to the world through Civil Rights. Everything they hate has supported everything they love: credit cards, big trucks, big motor boats leaking oil over various federally funded dammed lakes, etc., etc. It is no wonder they feel like God's remnant on earth. They have the satisfaction of knowing who is conning who in the great progressive deal, and what they really can't stand is that the liberals that are being suckered don't know who is suckering them.No free riding, Michelle Persica Snopes.
I have noticed an increase in people going around the neighborhoodBandits! Bandits! Stealing what probably amounts to a dollar or two in aluminum. Granted, I don't know how many aluminum cans Ed leaves behind, but let's be generous and say it's not many. But my god, to treat a couple aluminum cans as some sort of loss, as some sort of affront to his property -- all I can say is, I hope Ed gives heartily at church, not because I think the church allocates his money any better, but because I'm sure he's taken to heart his pastor's big fat sermons about charity and the love for your fellow man.
removing aluminum cans from people's recycling bins. Today someone came
and took mine as well!
I understand these are difficult times we live in, and people are
trying to make ends meet, but I feel like they are stealing from me.
These cans I recycle are not only to do a small part for the
environment, but I think also help subsidise the costs associated with
the trash and recycling pickup. I would imagine the recycling company
makes a small profit from the items they recycle, helping offset the
pickup costs. Surely they take this into consideration when they bid
the contracts.
I know I could collect them and other metals and turn them into the
recycling people myself and make some money, but I don't own a pickup
or large area of land to store metals until I have enough to pay for
gas dropping it off. I don't think my immediate neighbors would approve
either.
Perhaps when the new bins come everything will not be as accessable to
these bandits.
When I see people taking the aluminum cans, I pray.
"...The city doesn't appear to have the infrastructure or processes in place to handle the number of simultaneous events that are happening downtown," she said.
Check out this column, the likes of which I don't think has ever been printed in a daily Texas newspaper:
You might not know him by name, but you've probably heard his story.
Hiroo Onoda was a second lieutenant in the Japanese Army. Rather than face reality and surrender when Allied forces overtook his garrison on Lubang Island in the Philippines in early 1945, he headed for the hills.
And there Onoda stayed for 29 years. Convinced that World War II was still being fought, he dismissed overwhelming evidence to the contrary as clever enemy propaganda.
Which brings us to, of all people, Michael Heath.
The executive director of the Christian Civic League of Maine announced last week that he's spearheading yet another referendum drive in his never-ending war on homosexuality. But this time, even Heath sounds a little like, well, Hiroo Onoda.
The rest of the column (which accuracy demands I note did not generate all positive comments) is here.
This article, about group behavior in a stumbling stock market, seems relevant even to the question about why one might decide to leave an awesomely wicked cool city:
...One model that researchers have used to study contrarian behavior is called the minority game. The game is based on a now-classic problem posed in 1994 by the economist W. Brian Arthur set in a bar called El Farol. Everyone likes El Farol but also knows that the place is not much fun when it’s crowded. What, then, is the best strategy to maximize the fun. Avoid weekends? Try Thursdays and Sundays? Won’t everyone else be doing the same?
Experiments testing various versions of this game have shown that many players flip strategies in the middle of playing, apparently simply because they have set some private threshold for changing, like trying one strategy three times, “and if it doesn’t work, switch to the other one,” said Willemien Kets, a postdoctoral fellow at the Santa Fe Institute.
Dr. Kets contends that this switching strategy can be successful precisely because others decide to stick to a congested road. “You see this ‘grass is always greener’ kind of behavior emerging,” Dr. Kets said in an interview, “which suggests that a variety of contrarian strategies will evolve naturally in the course of any such game because there are people who are more conservative in their strategies.”
Once people start thinking in this way, they subconsciously recruit evidence that supports their view, and not only from other investors. Simply bumping into an acquaintance who shares a contrary opinion — at the gym or in line at the grocery store — can seem like an affirmation.
"People are running away from unaffordable housing, from the economic slowdown," said Karl Eschbach, a state demographer in Texas. "I would expect Texas to stay at the top of a slowing game."I bet that people are actually coming because Texas promises the escape from two inevitabilities: death and taxes. I'd like to know how many migrants are baby boom retirees who are being pulled to the Sunbelt, rather than pushed by poor economies. The other big attraction of Texas, of course, is that there's no state income tax, so all your investment income won't be taxed. All the other states containing the top ten metro areas have state income taxes, but no other states had more than one metro area. Jake Bernstein at the Texas Observer has clued in to the demographic changes on the way in Texas, mainly increases in young Hispanics who need to be educated and provided health care, and how services are woefully underfunded.
They're about the lived experience of a place. That experience may be news, or it may simply be about that part of our lives that isn't news but creates the texture of our daily lives: our commute, where we eat, conversations with our neighbors, the irritations and delights of living in a particular place among particular people.I've written more here (and at our move blog) than at my home blog, and that this writing has been more satisfying, because it's been about a certain lived experience of a particular place. A lot of blogs are like this: an assertion of the inside of the lived experience of the ordinary. (Two lovely blogs I read share this quality: Little and Big, and Iron Steph Cooks.) And you thought I was vituperative and contumacious by nature.
I am offended every time I see one of your missives, and would really prefer not to see another one.Cue a rant from Steve Speir about how this rank, crass attempt to censor the Windsor Park neighborhood listserv offends the Big D Democratic and little d democratic spirit of the holy progressive ground of the city of Austin on which John Henry Faulk once trod.
SXSW exists only because more entities choose to pursue a symbiotic relationship with us rather than a parasitic one. However, every year more marketing groups representing huge multinational corporations and their local proxies choose to feed off of us.Mr. Swenson, thank you for the handy biological metaphors, because SXSW has ALWAYS been parasitic upon the city of Austin itself -- all in the guise of symbiosis. Your attendees swamp the city. Traffic swells; the restaurants are jammed. You receive city largesse. The SXSW promotion machine sucks the air out of coverage of anything else locally for weeks. And yet, as SXSW made clear last year, the festival isn't for the locals, who might get a hold of wristbands but complain that they can't get into venues for all the badgeholders. No, it's an industry conference (you said), it's not for anyone who might want to catch some of the overflow vibe or, heaven forbid, some music.
A big problem is SXSW’s reputation for strong-arming competitors and sponsors rather than engaging them in discussions that might bear something mutually beneficial for everyone. They have an almost universally bad rep among local musicians regardless of whether their particular bands play the fest. How can they repair that image? How about re-investing in the local music community upon which it depends? Earmark a percentage of their profits to SIMS (every year,) lend their name to some charity events, and hold something during the summertime when clubs are hurting, and advertise these efforts so everyone remembers them when festival time comes around. A little responsible corporate citizenship goes a long way for whole lot of our local businesses. Such behavior might help SXSW garner the local support it obviously needs to help it survive.Paraphrased: how about some symbiosis, Swenson?
the KARL ROVE look-alike gets: *VOLUNTEERS to work his festival *priority access to every venue in town *huge corporate sponsors PAYING to be involved *a monopoly on all downtown hotels at a DISCOUNTED rate for headlining acts only. *bands PAY THEM to play the festival in exchange for a wristband that doesn’t guarantee anything *free press and media coverage which increases corporate sponsorship money as the festival grows in popularity year after year.
Besides the good feeling I got from the conference, the charm of Portland Maine was the icing on the cake. Coming from Indianapolis, I am used to the standard set of strip malls, mega discount superstores, and chain restaurants. In fact, a visitor who was dropped in the middle of Indianapolis would be hard pressed to figure out where they were because, frankly, it looks like every other metropolitan city. Same billboards, same neon signs, same putrid grease smells, same everything. Not Portland. Granted, they had a few Starbucks but the real charm of this city comes from the small business owners who take great pride in their history and connection to the people. Walking downtown, I didn't see Office Max, instead I saw "Wigon's Office Supply" - a quaint supply outlet in the heart of downtown Portland. I did not see homeless people, I saw everyday people enjoying the sun and relaxing in the public areas with their well-groomed dogs.
