patrick schneider

I recently bought a Maravilla Home. For the money, I don’t think that there’s a better-built home in Austin. Listed below are some of the more salient features.

• 8′ solid-wood, stained, arch-top doors throughout. These are the most eye-popping doors I have ever seen in my life.
• 3-layer, hand-troweled stucco exterior. This is the real stuff, folks! Not sprayed on.
• 2″x6″ exterior wall construction
• 50 year, concrete barrel-tile roofs. The roof looks like the original clay-tile roofs, but, being concrete is much nicer and sturdier. Also, they installed a radiant barrier in the decking underneath the tiles to help keep down energy costs.
• blown-in fiberglass insulation in walls and attic
• Cutler-Hammer electrical service box
• Sharp Community Propane, provides gas for the Jenn Air cook top
• natural stone, vessel sinks in bathrooms
• red onyx tile counter tops in kitchen. It’s probably the most amazing stone I’ve ever seen.
• 20″x20″ tile in all common areas and 16″x16″ tile in the bathrooms
• private, gated courtyard with wall fountain
• high-efficiency (14 SEER) HVAC units
• minimum 10′ ceilings throughout, with common areas higher

The list of features could go on… many of these things can be selected and customized as you see fit.

Construction took about a year, but going into it with that knowledge beforehand, I was able to plan everything out accordingly. The house was certainly worth the wait.

So, the gist is that my Maravilla home is incredible: the robust construction is unparalleled by anything I have seen elsewhere in Austin, the finish-out is immaculate, and the 4-star energy rating provides continual benefits. The list of standard features beats any builder out there, and the vast choices in upgrades allows fine-grained personalization. For the price, I am positive that my home easily contends for the highest quality in Austin.

Finally, I’ve begun work on the slideshow of my IKEA kitchen installation project. There are a couple of hundred images in total, and I’ve only gone through 45 of them so far. Slowly but surely, though, I am making progress.

The slideshow is meant to be a chronological, visual ccount of the kitchen remodel project I undertook at the beginning of 2004. Hopefully people contemplating a do-it-yourself IKEA kitchen can use this site as a little boost of confidence that it can be done.

Check out the slideshow here.

Also, feel free to email me from my contact page if you have any questions or comments.

http://www.slate.com/id/2133754/?GT1=7641

Who else saw this on national TV? Hey Matt, what did you think about that game?

I still think we’re a better football team, they just made the plays in the end.

— Classy Matt Leinart

Oh come on, you can be more candid than that.

Regardless, the 2005/2006 National Championship game was the most amazing thing I’ve ever witnessed.

http://www.wired.com/news/planet/0,2782,69805,00.html

What on earth is America thinking?!? I would personally like to apologize to the rest of the world for this outrageous negligence on the part of the Bush administration.

What kind of message are we sending by not attending these talks? That we, as a nation, don’t care? It would seem that way.

What an abhorrence.

Bush rejected Kyoto outright in 2001 because “its mandatory energy cuts would harm the U.S. economy”. I would suggest that its mandatory energy cuts would stimulate U.S. energy entrepreneurialism in new, exciting, and environmentally-friendly ways.

Oh… haven’t you heard? Global warming may cause the next ice age (and a lot sooner than you think).

Everyone in America needs to read this:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/wartech/nature.html

Then read Blink by Malcom Gladwell.

So recently, the Austin Chronicle ranked Vespaio as the best restaurant in Austin. I went there last night, and it was definitely not the best restaurant I’ve been to.

When we first walked in, the hostess sauntered towards us with turtle-like speed. Although we did get the obligatory “I’ll be with you in a moment”, the moment took quite some time because she was walking so incredibly slowly. This was not a huge deal in and of itself. However…

…as we were putting our name in (for the 30 - 45 minute wait), another patron approached and inquired about when her table would be ready. It turns out that she was skipped! Marked off of the list and everything! And then, nothing more than an “Ooops… you’re table will be next”.

Luckily, we found a first-come, first-serve table near the bar and ordered a bottle of wine immediately.

The food and the bread came out at exactly the same time. The bread fails miserably. It was cold. Not cold like “not warm”. Cold like “chilled”. The refrigerated bread was served with some kind of butter-ish-looking substance that was covered in a GREEN liquid. It was the most bland spread I’ve ever tasted. Oh, it was cold too.

Hm. The entrees were both good. And dessert was tasty as well. I guess those are plusses. But the dining experience in total was not worth the cover charge.

My recommendation? If you want Italian, go to the Tree House Italian Grill. I’ve been at least 3 times and been increasingly impressed each time.

I’ve updated the wobble board section of my website, which resides in the area dedicated to ProBodX.

There is now expanded information on how to make a wobble board yourself. Previously, I had just a snippet and some pictures. The pictures are still there
and haven’t changed, and hopefully the new explanation will help in understanding them.

The ProBodX system was written by Marv Marinovich and Edythe Heus. The basic, generalized idea of the exercise system is to combine lightly-to-moderately strenuous motions with an unstable base. The unstable surfaces are achieved through wobble boards, balance disks, slant boards, large PVC pipes, and exercise balls. This off-balance type of exercise, they contend, allow the nervous system to become integrated with the movements of the muscles and provide for a much more functional and usable type of stregth. Compared to conventional weight trainig which entirely isolates a specific muscle group, ProBodX is quite a novel and radical idea to fitness.

I’ve been using ProBodX for around a year and a half now, quite inconsistently. During the few consecutive week stretches that I have stuck with the program, the results have been fairly impressive, mainly in the realm of increased balance.

Shortly after I arrived at work this morning, I got news of an Austin-area tragedy — The Oasis on Lake Travis caught fire early this morning.

A wave of thunderstorms moved through the area around the time that the fire started, says the Austin American Statesman. The storms were loud and bright enough to wake me up, which is a fairly rare occurance.

The owner of The Oasis, Beau Theriot, says he will undoubtedly rebuild his 24 year old creation. I for one am very happy at this news and hope they can get everything straightened out swiftly.

We’ll keep you in our thoughts, Oasis. Good luck and speedy recovery.

The AWOL Machine made the local Austin news last night. The device has not been sold to any bars in the area yet, but Fox decided it was worty enough to comment on. And apparently me too. I suppose I’m mainly interested because last night was the first time I had seen this contraption.

A spokesperson for TABC (Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission) said a bunch of stuff like (I’m paraphrasing) “this might lead to greater than average alcohol consumption” and a doctor said something to the effect of “inhaling anything should be done with caution”.

Blah, blah, blah. Talking heads. This is the stupidest gimmick I’ve ever seen. Don’t inhale alcohol. Or anything else, for that matter. Except air. That’s my advice.