House of the Rising Sun Very Drunken Version After somewhere between 7 and 9 martinis I decided it would be a good idea to try and sing the classic Animals song House of the Rising Sun Since singing is one of the two things I have just had to concede failure to this was doomed before it started I do however like the little drunken piano solo at 3 23 I was days from moving and so the house looks especially bare iframe width 521 height 391 src www youtube com embed H8RU97LZTxU frameborder 0 allowfullscreen iframe

The Milk Bath photo 311999 740 200 right photo In the fall of 2010 I was working on a large contract project in southern Oregon I loved the company I loved my coworkers and I most especially loved traveling to southern Oregon As is common with these types of contracts the contracting firm provided me with a daily stipend It was high I think they gave me 75 00 per day This might not seem like a ton of money but when breakfast is provided at your hotel and an average lunch costs maybe 12 finding a way to spend 63 00 every night in a small town becomes an interesting adventure Many of the other contracting companies made their employees a deal whereby they could get paid in cash albeit a lesser amount I asked my firm if they would allow this Instead of providing me with a reimbursable per Diem of 75 I asked if they could just pay me 45 in cash If they had I d have been motivated to spend less money they would have spent less money on me and both of us would have financially benefited They turned this down I had recently read about how a href http en wikipedia org wiki Milk_bath Cleopatra use to enjoy milk baths a The idea of this intrigued me There is lactic acid in milk and evidently soaking one s skin in this acid provides a very strong exfoliation I began stopping at the grocery store after work and would pick up a few gallons of milk I had a large refrigerator in my hotel suite After several days of this I had an entire refrigerator full of creamy whole milk After I d accumulated between 12 15 gallons of it I drew some piping hot water into the base of the bathtub and proceeded to fill it with all of the milk I had accumulated The hot water was just to make the bath comfortable since the milk was so cold It turns out that taking a milk bath is incredibly relaxing The milk leaves a thin coat on your skin each time you lift a part of your body out of the tub I have no idea how the exfoliation process actually works but I do know that my skin felt silky smooth after the bath I haven t appended the Wikipedia article yet but it is a fact that in addition to Cleopatra and Elizabeth I of England Kevin Ludlow has also indulged in a milk bath I would highly recommend it

Landscape Architecture photo 311727 311912 0 right Proposed front landscape layout photo One of the MANY things that the City of Austin requires for full site plan compliance is some type of landscape architecture plan In my case this was handled by my civil engineer s team but I ve been perfectly behind it Fortunately the city does not require that every square foot of the property be accounted for but rather areas that are more commonly visible and or accessible In my case this meant anything along the front of the property line the parking lot and into the water retention pond I am required to build photo 311718 311912 0 right The Gulf Muhly photo Preliminarily speaking anyways we will be planting trees and plants that have a low impact on the environment that are easy to maintain robust throughout the seasons and meant for our type of climate I think the front of the property will actually come out looking exceptionally colorful and diverse and create a wonderful transition layer around our parking lot I have included the proposed architecture plan but have also included images of all of the potential trees and shrubbery to be included I think the Gulf Muhly might actually be my favorite

Geotechnical Engineer Reports Great News photo 311708 311912 0 right photo photo 311725 311912 0 right photo The Geotechnical Report was one of the reports that I was very nervous about We hired Holt Engineering to carry out the work and they definitely provided us with a quick turn around Basically what these guys do are setup a giant pile driver in select locations on the subject tract namely where the building will be and bore into the ground Depending on what they find they ll go anywhere from 10 30 feet down It might not sound like a big deal but they collect this tube of soil its length is equal to the depth they bore and then they analyze it in a lab Basically they re looking to see what kind of material the ground is comprised of Because this property is situated in east Austin there was a fear that it might be softer clay instead of solid bedrock Thankfully that was not at all the case and as it turns out Axel has a very solid and shallow bedrock formation below it This is FANTASTIC news because the ground composition could significantly impact the cost of the foundation The softer the ground is the more money that has to be invested into the foundation to keep it from shifting Not only that but because the warehouse will have the weight spread out with steel beams a softer ground would mean that deep pilings could be necessary at all major load points These two factors alone could change the foundation costs from say 4 00 sq ft to 10 00 sq ft That s a pretty significant price difference when you re talking about having a foundation of 5 000 sq ft Included below are the soil reports we were provided

Water and Sewer Hookups One of the many issues I ve long since known we d have to deal with is with respect to water and sewage taps Unfortunately the City of Austin does not permit commercial sites to utilize septic systems so that is already ruled out We had Rick Selin from the City of Austin run the specs on the property just to get an idea of where the hookups are and how difficult they would be to access He was pretty nice and promptly wrote us back with the following blockquote There is an 8 DI water main infront of the property however there does not appear to be an existing water service to the property There is no wastewater main infront of the property The nearest service points appear to be roughly 185 north of the north property line near the intersection of Axel Jackie Robinson or roughly 252 south of the south property line near the intersection of Axel and Wilcab To get water service an engineered tap plan will need to be submitted for review and approval by AWU To get wastewater service an engineered plan to extend the wastewater main to the property will need to be submitted for review and approval by AWU You can speak with Seyed Miri 972 0202 to explore the option of an SER for the wastewater portion blockquote He also provided us with this image of the water lines for the area photo 311720 311912 0 center The water lines from the city s GIS data photo

Grandparent Teaching Photos photo 314660 740 0 right Catherine Ludlow presiding over her class Side observation high schoolers used to look incredibly old photo photo 314659 740 0 right Howard Ludlow Sr presiding over his class or at least I assume there exists a class out of frame photo My dad recently came across a few photos he had tucked away of my grandparents his respective parents teaching in their fields I found this a little surprising seeing on how I have archived thousands upon thousands of our family photos and albums and em thought em that I had all of them Nevertheless I m always happy to come across more photos for the catalog My grandmother was a high school Spanish teacher amongst other fields I m sure and my grandfather was a professor and dean of the economics school at Seton Hall University in New Jersey They were both in academics for the entirety of their lives and incidentally died within just a few months of one another

State Representative District 46 Filing photo 315901 740 300 right Caption Here photo I m running for the Texas House of Representatives in District 46 Here is what I have to say about it strong A Little Background strong As most all of my friends know I have been highly engaged in politics since my early 20s This escalated around the age of 23 when I began traveling the world more freely and exposed myself to different cultures and ideals It continued into my later 20s as I became more and more frustrated with our destructive 2 party system and sought after 3rd party candidates and dissidents within the major parties Nader Paul Kucinich amongst others At 33 I published my first political science book a href http www amazon com American Healthcare Moderate Kevin Ludlow dp 1480069442 American Healthcare A Moderate Approach a ALMOST a NY Times Best Seller and also began a political science podcast with a friend of mine called the a href http www jkpod com JKPodcast a Sadly it s been on hiatus since the summer due to a new baby but we ll fire it up again soon And so it stands to reason that at the ripe young age of 34 u a href http www lptexas org texas house representatives I have officially filed for candidacy in the State of Texas a u I am running for the Texas House of Representatives District 46 where I live strong Qualify what this means strong Unless I am able to find momentum in my local community to back my candidacy I have no intention of attempting to run an actual campaign This is not because I am uninterested in it but rather that politics heavily favors the two party system heavily favors incumbents and my opponent is part of both I am historically much more of a political activist than a politician But having said that and since I am eligible to run for office it sounds like an amazing opportunity and I will take it very seriously State district 46 a href http www fyi legis state tx us fyiwebdocs PDF house dist46 m1 pdf essentially east and northeast Austin a has been represented by a href http www house state tx us members member page district 46 Dawnna Dukes a for as long as I can remember Personally speaking she seems like an absolutely lovely woman I have been in her company in numerous events over the years and been introduced at least twice But this coming year I will have my name along side hers on the ballot Though I loathe both the Democrats and Republicans she is a Democrat her legislative efforts in the House have appeared mostly humanitarian in nature Granted this is really more of a surface analysis If you dig deeper you ll likely uncover that she s not been particularly helpful to the LGBT community of Austin she supports drug penalties despite such laws heavily weighing against most of her district and I even found that she would support a state income tax There s also an occasional weird one that I come across in Dawnna s case is was the support of corporal punishment in school I find myself asking what year is this strong How did this all come about strong Several months back the a href http www lptexas org Libertarian Party of Texas a reached out to political activists and asked if any would consider a run for office I responded that I would About two months ago I received a call asking if I was serious about running I maintained that I was Finally about four weeks ago I received a call asking if I was em REALLY em serious about running I took a small step back I explained how I had no proven ability to run a campaign namely as I do not have proper funding for such a thing I also explained that my personal political interests have tended towards Austin and National politics I have been interested in making a run for a Congressional seat Unfortunately the party explained to me that given the number of people seeking a national seat I should start with the state level and they would be willing to back me I welcomed the new idea strong What is the goal strong The Libertarian Party is attempting to fill Texas ballots with people who are well versed in the goals and ideals of libertarianism as a philosophy For the most part this appeals to me greatly and I am happy to get involved I should note here that I am NOT a Tea Party activist and for the most part do NOT agree with the policies of the Tea Party This extends into general women s rights LGBT rights abortion positions I m very pro choice though do understand and respect the views of anti abortionists and immigration policies I inherently support open borders I am also an agnostic atheist and this carries with me dearly into my political views I fully support God just not with respect to legislation of the masses Representative Dukes is a well regarded state politician and it would be foolish to think I could just strut into the ring and unseat her she is good at being a politician That said if I am able to find supporters in the local area I will gladly run as best a campaign I possibly can And should that result in a victory somewhere down the road I will happily take her seat in the House Chambers Beyond that and with all things in my life I intend to have a great deal of fun with the process I m sure I will learn a thing or two about the process of a state campaign from more of the inside out In the next few days I will put together a short document that outlines my political views on major issues If nothing else I am very consistent in my views and am happy to have them documented publicly most already are Having now gotten all of the reality check out of the way strong a href http www ludlow2014 com vote Ludlow 2014 a strong

Jonas and Muck You Bastards I ve been trying to get my 21 month old nephew to learn my name for the past several months Try as I might he does not seem interested in making this a verbal reality My sister sent me an email the other day while I happened to be attending the Baylor UT and the last game ever at Floyd Casey stadium in Waco It read em Jonas learned to say an uncle s name but which one em Included was a video attachment Given the crowd density and perhaps because TMobile occasionally sucks it took about 30 minutes to download it My sister is cold iframe width 521 height 391 src www youtube com embed 9Ybu7DXdDig frameborder 0 allowfullscreen iframe Muck is NOT my name

Oscar and Vinnie Colaiuta As part of my wonderful experience of getting to see Carly s band T Bird and the Breaks open for Sting at the Moody Theater we also had the pleasure of meeting Sting s band backstage Vinnie Colaiuta is one of those guys that you ve probably never heard of unless you re a drummer Needless to say T Bird s drummer Oscar is a huge fan of the guy I had the pleasure of filming the two of them meeting and thought it would be nice to put a little video together for Oscar I released it just the other day and thought it would make some good website content too iframe width 521 height 293 src www youtube com embed KaL0Wc9YSY4 frameborder 0 allowfullscreen iframe

Campaign Issues Gun Rights strong Ludlow supports the 2nd amendment and does not favor legislation that restricts limits or bans the sale or purchase of firearms strong While Ludlow ultimately believes that firearm possession is rooted in preventing tyranny this philosophical position has been so widely misconstrued in the past decade that attempting to discuss it seems almost entirely fruitless Instead Ludlow is more interested in examining the causes and effects of gun violence in the United States and working to address those issues Stated plainly Ludlow recognizes that gun violence em is em an enormous issue facing the United States However there is simply no evidence to support the idea that banning firearms within smaller governmental bodies eg states counties cities has any effect on curbing this violence One commonly cited illustration of this data is that of Chicago whereby handguns have been banned since 1982 without any particular success in curbing violence Instead the issues needing to be addressed have very little to do with guns and very much to do with a lack of education massive disparities in wealth societal upbringing broken family structures and numerous other forms of desperation primarily stemming from a desolate population In the same way that the United States has done nothing to curb drug usage by vilifying drugs ironically increasing gun violence in the process no less we should certainly not expect to see gun violence reduced simply because a legislative body invents a frivolous punitive measure for their possession This effort does however prey upon the emotions of many Americans while conveniently allowing politicians to ignore the numerous poverty based issues that are turning people towards violence in the first place