Canyon Lake Gorge Private Tour There is a geological formation in Central Texas unlike any other place in the world or so I m told Thanks to some wonderful connections I was able to go on a private tour of this geological wonderland over the weekend Over the July 4th weekend of 2002 two massive storms collided over Central Texas and dumped rain for days The results were cataclysmic New Braunfels and Canyon Lake were two of the greater causalities in the state with Canyon Lake filling to one and a half times its capacity When the pressure built up enough and the spillway didn t hold a massive rush of water began to flow destroying everything in its path including the Earth itself The very fact that this is possible fascinates me but a new canyon was carved into the Earth in a long weekend Think of a very small version of the Grand Canyon This is what is known as the Canyon Lake Gorge My friend Mark knows one of the caretakers and naturists and was able to get us on a private tour of the canyon It was only about a 1 80 mile hike but we experienced an elevation decline of about 220 feet and traveled back through time about 1 5 million years between the beginning and end of the hike The canyon is full of fault lines fossils and incredibly well preserved dinosaur tracks photo 311230 311520 0 center A view of the canyon The water has that milky blue look due to the limestone deposits in it photo photo 311208 311520 0 center Pretty incredible fossils photo photo 311169 311520 0 center Evidently one of the most visible fault lines in the entire world photo photo 311540 311520 0 center Posing inside one of the caves along the way photo

Summer Drought Pano I stopped by the property yesterday just to see how the drought was preventing growth on the property I was really curious this summer to see what grew where given how we cleared and flattened the property over the winter time Unfortunately that s just not a possibility this summer with the ongoing drought photo 311738 311912 0 center photo

New Floorplans After meeting with Matt and Mary from Cotera Reed just yesterday I was able to see the new floor plans that they have been working on They are more or less the same as what we had been working on previously although the storage room has been more properly refined as have the external staircases The most interesting new addition to the plan is the crow s nest a mechanical access point found on what is essentially the 3rd story staircase Although it s designed specifically for mechanical and rooftop access it should provide a pretty nice view to the west We are still working on spacing the kitchenette and meeting room out a bit as well as adding some internal storage spaces and addressing the space requirements of the ADA compliant bathrooms Once we get these things worked out we will quickly start addressing finer points of each room including architectural style windows lighting doors and etc photo 311707 311912 0 center Section view including the crow s nest photo photo 311739 311912 0 center Floor 1 Layout photo photo 311726 311912 0 center Floor 2 Layout photo

Grading Plan Phase I A grading plan is basically a look at how the topographical contours of the property will need to be shaped This process will happen before and during development and is required for commercial design standards There is definitely some general good that comes from re shaping the land as it would be undesirable to have water collect around the sides of the building Unfortunately due to the nature of commercial design standards in Austin you can also see that the entire NW corner of the property top right in the picture will be graded roughly a 2 feet below the rest of the property to serve as a water retention pond in heavy rains Also per city requirements should we exceed 20 of the total land cover with impervious cover we would also be required to create a water quality pond This process can be considerably expensive given the engineering costs involved perhaps an additional 20 000 Fortunately we have avoided this process thus far photo 311724 311912 0 center photo

Civil Engineering Plans Submitted The project is finally moving along to the City of Austin Our civil engineering firm Nobel Surveying and Engineering Works LLC has submitted the first of several plans off to the City of Austin The plans submitted include the current site plan layout as seen to the right To those not familiar with this level of development planning a site plan is essentially an architectural view of the entire property layout from a birds eye point of view It includes the footprint of the building driveways parking lots sidewalks topographical information ingress and egress electrical hookups and etc It does not detail what the building or surroundings will look like in any way but rather details how things will function on the property It is also incidentally a very expensive undertaking Although there is SOME good in the process I find the majority of it to be time consuming bureaucracy gone wild Just to give an idea not a few thousand dollars many tens of thousands of dollars are required to fulfill all of the city s requirements Since you know most small businesses have that kind of cash on the side photo 311730 311912 0 center The official site plan submitted to the City of Austin photo

Potential Exterior Look of Building We re still working on dozens of facets with respect to the look and feel of the building but this is an image depicting more or less the exterior facade of the warehouse space It s very simple and clean but is actually a meshed type of metal surface Not only is this material lightweight but it will greatly help us to control light particularly on the westerly face of the warehouse Again not set in stone but this is the type of thing that we are considering photo 311698 311912 0 center photo

Commercial Architect Selected So I ve talked to a bunch of different people about various design ideas and was fortunate enough to have a friend who works at Cotera Reed in Austin As of today we re going to be using them as the architectural firm in charge of designing and overseeing the construction of the Axel Warehouse They are a fantastic firm with a super impressive resume Most people in Austin will recognize their work as they designed Austin City Hall in addition to a number of other local landmarks You can see some of their projects on their website http www coterareed com

Grass on the Field Less than two months after the property was professionally leveled and cleared we are already starting to see a layer of grass come in In the evening sun it really makes the property look warm and inviting In my opinion it looks much more like a public park than an industrial compound I still have no idea just how we ll be landscaping the property I m not particularly in love with the traditional grasses that are so common to the south and central Texas regions On the other hand it may prove to be far too expensive to cover the property in any type of greenery regardless of how nice it is photo 311736 311912 0 center photo br style clear both To put it into some perspective an average suburban home sits about 1 4 acre piece of land 1 4 acre of land is equivalent to a little less than 11 000 sq ft If you figure that the footprint of the suburban home is roughly 1 500 sq ft another 2 000 sq ft for a garage and driveway and finally another 1 000 sq ft for exterior walkways paved patios and so on you re really only left to cover about 6 500 sq ft of property and that doesn t even account for mulching tree beds and other similar landscaping amenities By contrast the Axel Project sits on roughly 62 000 sq ft of land The footprint will take up about 5 000 sq ft and the remaining paved areas taking up about 7 000 still leaving about 40 000 sq ft of land needing to be landscaped That s the equivalent of about SIX suburban lots photo 311699 311912 0 center photo photo 311710 311912 0 center photo

The most amazing server uptime I ve been running a reasonably sized farm of servers for almost a decade now They were meticulously designed to meet the needs of my infrastructure and custom secured to prevent intrusions Given how long the boxes were up for I would have to say that they were pretty successful at their job photo 372451 740 0 center The longest uptime I had at 5 97 years photo photo 372453 740 0 center Slightly less at 4 35 years photo photo 372452 740 0 center I had to install some software about 2 years ago and hence the mere 1 8 years of uptime photo photo 372454 740 0 center The fourth server in my cabinet was reset with some regularity photo

Preparing to be a pin cushion So as it turns out there are quite a few vaccinations that I need to get to embark upon the world tour that I am preparing for I m sure I can post a picture of my swollen arms and likely buttocks once I get these taken care of but here s a non exhaustive list of them Typhoid Hepatitis A Hepatitis B Cholera Rabies Japanese Encephalitis I m currently setting up an appointment with a local travel clinic to ensure that I get all of these in time for my travels but that s a lot of bad stuff they re going to have to pump into me all at once