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Actually owning and managing rental property is a brainer. Flipping houses successfully just means watching your dollars to make sure you aren't just being someone's free general contractor for six months. Rentals involve The Human Factor, dealing with professional deadbeats, liars, slobs, animal breeders, absconders, substance abusers, cheats, hostage-takers, free-spirits, and other assorted flotsam and jetsam of society. Yes stay at or above the Lower Middle Class if possible, that helps reduce the hassle factor, and you can do a lot of background checking, but in the end you will learn a lot about human nature that they don't teach in school or portray in the media. Dallas has an online eviction index available, but not here. Texas is pretty landlord friendly. You can get a constable to show up and move them out relatively easily. That doesn't happen in "progressive" cities like SF and NY and Boston. You just have to hope that they haven't trashed the place too badly. If you can factor in your time, and the aggravation of dealing with the occasional a##hole, then knock yourself out. Doing the numbers like mortgage, insurance, and taxes, is the easy part. Leigh Robinson's book Landlording is still in print and was updated in 2010 (the cover art though hasn't change in 33 years). He was in the rental trenches in Berkeley where a Nice Free Place To Stay is a Human Right, and he made it work there, so it is possible. He offers this one great tip: go see where they are living now. That will tell you what they are going to do to your place. And meet the gentle Pit Bulls and the couch-surfing brother they forgot to mention. To be fair there are lots of fantastic renters out there who keep places tidy and pay on time. Its a puzzlement why they have not bought, but its a fact, they exist. Happy hunting.

I think alot of this is just the street grid being in alignment with the view.

Poor kitty!

Aug 10, 2011 ISO: 100 Exposure: 30.0 sec Aperture: 18.0 Focal Length: 18mm This is an example of one of my first attempts at full manual, adjusting the armature, white balance, and focus. There is the "starring" we talked about previously, but I was also using the 17-50mm kit lens. This was me using my new (to me) 28mm 2.8 lens. Note: No starring. ISO: 100 Exposure: 2.0 sec Aperture: 3.5 Focal Length: 28mm The trick I found with not finding someplace to focus on is to simply aim to a viable object to focus, move to your object and shoot. the other is to simply learn how to focus manually, or set the lens to Infinity and you should be able to get decent results. I took an opportunity to sneak a camera into a concert and was able to take good pictures, problem was that I had to really push up the ISO. ISO: 800 Exposure: 1/100 sec Aperture: 2.8 Focal Length: 28mm I am by no means an expert at it, but practice and tips always help. Edit: Just realized I essentially did a double post and already covered this. Good god, how will I be when I get old(er)?

Once again, s3mh/Leonard simply ignore things when it doesn't fit their narrative. The TIA includes the Koehler extension because the city had already approached the developer about financing upgrades. The extension would not be required absent the agreement by the city to pay for it through the 380. Again, where is the ordinance or study requiring the repaving of Bass and Bonner? There isn't one because the city asked Ainbinder to do it, and offered to reimburse them for it.

TIA is required by the design manual to show that traffic at each intersection has not been degraded below certain standards depending on existing conditions. The traffic engineer does his modeling based on the traffic design proposed by the developer in the TIA. Once that TIA is submitted and approved by the City, the developer is bound to follow the design and cannot go back and change the design without a revised TIA because the traffic modeling in the TIA is based on the design that is submitted to the City. Thus, the Koehler extension, widening yale for left turn lanes, the connection of Bass to the feeder and left turn lanes at Heights are all required because they are on the TIA. Likewise, the drainage/sewage plan that is submitted to the City must show sufficient drainage and wastewater capacity to get water off the development and into the sewers without contributing to the existing flooding on the roadways and to handle the sewage. Once the plan is submitted to the City and approved, the developer is bound to make the improvements. So, if you are looking for an ordinance that says "if you build a strip mall, you must do x, y, z", you won't find any express requirements for drainage or traffic. The City relies on the judgment of private PEs hired by the developers to devise plans that will properly mitigate traffic and drainage/wastewater. Once those plans are submitted and approved, the developer must build according to those plans.

My head hurts

Didn't see these renderings anywhere on here: http://www.baylorbears.com/view.gal?id=115301 Just a quick fact check: No doubt Baylor's current stadium is too large for present needs. It's been there for 50 years, and you probably count on one or two hands the number of times that it's been at capacity. Here are the numbers for the old and new stadiums: Baylor's current stadium (Floyd Casey Stadium) seats 50,000. The 2011 average home game attendance was 41,368. The new proposed Baylor Stadium will seat 45,000. It is designed to accommodate future expansion up to 55,000, if that's ever warranted. Having sat through many, many games at the old stadium, the new Baylor Stadium should be just about the perfect size.

They've moved some of the rails over to where they are going in.

more construction pics: http://goo.gl/gNx8Q

This is a building designed by William Ward Watkin, which makes it quite important to preserve.