Take a guess at which person I feel like today…

(and thank you Mikey for the best pic evar!)

A Zillion Dollars of Asphalt

Today, the Austin City Council approved a proposal for primary and secondary providers of “hot mix asphalt concrete” for the city’s roads. I scanned over today’s agenda and what stood out to me were the ginormous dollar amounts attached to the approval- the City approved $20,422,334 for asphalt… ASPHALT! It seems so exorbitant and while I’m sure Austin (not Texas, we’re just talking about Austin) will use all of this asphalt, it feels like the city just went to dad and said, “hey dad, I know that Diesel jeans are like waaay expensive and I *could* wear Old Navy, but I really need them to fit in, pleeeeeease?” knowing full well he’d say yes if I did the pouty eyes. Hey Austin, can I have $20mill [insert pouty lips here]? I could use it too, you know!

Wynn Won’t Be In A Jam Again

The other agenda note that stuck out to me happens to also be concrete related. Remember when a construction truck at the Monarch site blocked the road, stopped traffic during the morning rush hour and Mayor Will Wynn hopped out of his car, used some of my favorite cuss words and told them to get their butts out of the street for at least an hour? I think he’s got a GREAT solution cooked up in a recommendation for city council he’s co-sponsored… in the future, concrete may be poured by permit from 7pm to 6am in the Central Business District and I would assume the main goal is traffic congestion since so many new high rises are sprouting in that area.

With so many moving parts in our city, it’s always good to keep an eye on what’s up with the City’s agenda. What do YOU think about the millions being spent on asphalt and the possibility of permitted overnight concrete pouring?

photo credit

Why I Care

Yeah, I’m sick of the “go green” crap too, but guess what- it worked on me. Fifteen years ago, my Whole Foods eatin’ Grandma bought me a canvas bag for groceries. Later, she asked why a college student wouldn’t carry a canvas bag for groceries, rather use wasteful plastic. The answer is that I was lazy- too lazy to remember to carry it and too lazy to even find it. I carry it now because I drive a car I can keep them in and because I can carry all my groceries in 4 bags instead of 20.

When I was a child, my father groomed much of the acreage we lived on. He left the live oaks and chopped down the scraggly cedars that grow like weeds and stifle ground foliage, we braided smaller saplings into arches, we climbed the big trees and we loved the nature surrounding us from an early age. My stepmother insisted in the 90s that we crush cans and recycle them, and would ask us to save our paper so she could take it to work to recycle it into note sheets. I didn’t start recycling until a year ago, and I’ve lived in new homes for almost 5 years where the entire landscape was reduced to dirt piles, only to add new saplings.

Although I always have loved nature, I haven’t nurtured it until it became convenient for me. I’ll admit this.

Austin’s Regulations

I don’t know what the regulations are in your city, but here in Austin most new land developments whether commercial or residential are required to have an exorbitant amount of “green space” which annoys developers to no end. It’s expensive for them to not be able to build on 100% of the land they’ve put money into. Water treatment systems are required on all new developments and building standards almost always have to comply with the Energy Star ratings.

So how then is Austin cheating the system? By saying they require 20-30% of all approved developments to be “green space,” but not requiring the “green space” to be the original trees and green space that previously existed. Instead, developers are allowed to excavate and turn the dirt on the entire plot of land- be it 1 or 1,000 acres. They rape the ecosystem, plant a few little stick trees, leave a scraggly spot as a “pocket park” and call it eco-friendly. Aww, good job, let’s give city council a big ol’ pat on the back for this fake-appease-the-hippies-law, why dont we?

Biggest Sham Ever

This is the biggest sham I’ve ever heard of and when we speak out against it, people are amazed that the “green space” required doesn’t have to be the existing land, rather ends up being clumps of monkey grass, a few lantana and tiny aspen saplings from another state which may or may not end up living in Texas soil.

Austin, we’re tired of just talking about it. We don’t want to go all hippie on you, but we’re pretty close to doing so- picket signs and all. I may have voted for Bush (twice) but I love my freakin’ trees. I know California doesn’t understand why developments that carve into our precious 2222 mountain won’t ever sell (because you’ve demolished a natural landmark we adore), but it’s not California who needs to understand- it’s our elected officials.

CHANGE THE CODE, AUSTIN… NOW! The 20-30% should be EXISTING green space, not puny plants post-excavation!

We’ve featured Adam’s comedic genius before, but I think he’s outdone himself this time! Please take a second to watch this HILARIOUS Mac spoof and rate it (you do this just below the video by clicking the fifth star, giving it five stars).

photo credit

There are several ways that marketing is getting greener like this and this (how clever!).

For example, at Single Pointe, we use business card sizes over full page any chance we get and we limit printing altogether (although it can be a cheaper, easier solution over the more creative ways of going green).

How are YOU going green?

For some time, I’ve heard rumors of Austin City Council passing some insanely ridiculous mandates that require home sellers to retrofit their homes for energy efficiency to obtain a certificate of compliance that could cost homeowners any profit margin they could ever expect in the sale of their home!!! (for full story, click here)

Apparently these proposals are soon becoming a reality in Austin and tomorrow, Single Pointe will be attending a REALTOR-sponsored luncheon that will have Q&A time for the City Council members. My first question would be “are you out of your ever loving mind?” Single Pointe will be printing out all comments to this story (click here to leave your comment) and taking them to the meeting.

I could write pages and pages on this about how I smell something fishy and I sense that someone’s pockets are about to get really full while Austin home sellers feel the excrutiating pain of this INSANE proposal. Instead, I’ll request that anyone reading this, go comment and tell the City Council what you think, even if you’re out of state (what would you do if this were YOUR city? have you seen this happen before? wth?)!

I’ve closed comments here so they are all in one place (here).

Dear Texas REALTOR Magazine,

I want to publicly thank you for your current issue’s article entitled “Want to waste some time?” by Michael Parker (principal at the Blackwater Consulting Group who takes people’s money for advising REALTORS about online marketing and SEO secrets) published on the second to last page, almost as an afterthought.

The final paragraph made me smile bigger than the last time I ate at Luby’s:

“I respectfully suggest that if you want to be a successful Internet real estate agent, put all this talk about social networking, Web 2.0, and the rest of it aside for another day. Concentrate on the basics right now. If you do, Internet buyers will beat a path to your door.”

Thank you so much for (1) reinforcing the belief that social networking and blogging is a “waste of time,” (2) implying that social networking is exclusively for “teens [and] young singles,” and (3) stating as fact (not as opinion) that social media usage is “not overwhelmingly successful for a high percentage of people who use them.”

The reason I thank you is because the more you perpetuate these beliefs and the more you sell your static webpages as superior to blogs and interlinking social networks, the more us stupid social networkers will flourish by building content and unparalleled interactivity while the ones who blindly follow advice given in your article will pump thousands of dollars into companies that promise them success online the easy way (by them not doing anything other than paying for a landing page).

Thank you for guiding people away from blogging and social networking- this makes our competitive edge ridiculously better. You’re right- having a virtual happy hour where clients come to YOU and you don’t have to hard sale them (since they don’t want that anyway) is really oh so terrible.

Clients who want to find us dumb social networkers online will have no problem because we’ve left a huge imprint (Google us and find THOUSANDS of pages proving our credibility and expertise) while those who buy “the basics” as a philosophy to getting “buyers [to] beat a path to [their] door” will find their wallets quickly shriveling (as Google only produces ONE page for them which comes up on the 23th or 24th search page). Thanks, Texas REALTOR Magazine, you’ve thinned out the competition FOR us!

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As a sidenote, I am aware that I’ve gone on a tirade with my post, but for the most part, Texas REALTOR Magazine is typically an extremely resourceful, insightful, useful read, which is what makes THIS article stand out as a terribly sore thumb.

Email in my inbox this morning from Jeff Brown:

“Why did this make me think of you immediately?”

Response from Benn Rosales:

“Because… it’s totally you!”

The new, shiny version of WordPress has been released and I’m still on the fence.  This is the best review I’ve read so far, what do you think?

(h/t to my twitterfriend @CoolB)

What you should learn from the following video:

(1) Never move to Germany. Apparently their packaged food is the most disgusting thing you’ll ever experience next to being force-fed your own vomit.

(2) Don’t over-enhance your photography for your ads. Realtors- you don’t want to end up on the Bad MLS photos shame list, but you also don’t want someone to want to hunt you down because on a tour they saw this ugly chick when online they saw this hot chick.

(3) McDonald’s ain’t so bad after all.