I'm writing this blog from my Marriot Courtyard hotel room in Austin, TX. I'm here to attend the conference
2008 PowerPlant Simulation Conference (PowerPlantSim '08) sponsored by
The Society for Modeling and Simulation International. I don't want to bore you with the details of the conference, but I'm sure you'll be interested in learning about the city of Austin, TX.
This is my 1st time to Austin, and knowing it to be the state capital of Texas, and some stories of it being a high-tech startup incubator due to its proximity to excellent, and highly-skilled workers from the Univesity of Texas - Austin (which undoubtedly is one of the top engineering school in US), I was expecting a lot of software, semiconductor companies to make its presence here.
Maybe i haven't ventured far enough out of the downtown core area, which really isn't that big to begin with - 1st to 11st (north to south) and maybe 5 blocks East to West, with the center at 6th street and Congress Avenue, I've really only seen some financial institution buildings taking their presence in downtown and no where are any high-tech developments. I think I am just not looking in the right place.
I took a self-guided tour following some visitor's brochure from the Austin Visitor Center on 6th Street (FYI: Almost every US city has a visitor center that is free of charge to provide relevant tourism info about the city) Even though Austin is a relatively young city that was started in the late 1800's, the city has preserved quite well some significant arthitectures from the past and built the new facade of downtown around them. In the middle of it of course is the Congress Avenue - State Capitol building.
The capitol buliding is modeled after the national's capitol in Washington, DC and was completed in 1888. It rises 302 foot into the sky and is said to be 14.64 feet taller than the US capitol. It sits on 26 acres of lawn, garden that tourists and locals alike go to relax, picnic and bring their whole family to enjoy.
Looking north from the capitol is another remarkable monument that reaches into the sky - the University of Texas Austin Clock Tower. One can not ignore the significant economic and physical influence the university has on Austin. Occupying 40 acres of land just a few miles north from downtown is the University of Texas Austin campus. Founded in 1883, the university, with 26,000 employees, is Austin's largest employer and injects a boost of $837 Million into the local economy. The 307 foot tall clock tower has become an icon of the school, serving to house the university's central library and book stacks. In addition, I was suprised to observe the university's various football, basketball stadiums dominate the Austin skyline; it appears the stadiums are the highest structure outside downtown.
The local traffic/highway system is a bit strange but I immediately get used to it. Highway I-35 runs North-south going through downtown and the university. What fouled me up when I arrived are the "local highways" that run parallel to the I-35 highway. It was not until several unintentional drive on the I-35 highway and which took me much farther than I'd like (becuase I can't get off the highway !!) before I realized if I need to make local stops, I need to be off I-35 and onto the side parallel streets.
Finally , just a few observations I've made on my short stay:
1. The traffic light here are really long - unlike the cities I"ve been to, Vancouver, or even as small as Wilmington, NC, they have sensors on the road that detect oncoming cars and will change the timing of lights if there's really no traffic. In Austin, the light timing is completely "dumb," so be patient if you 're trying to cross an empty street.
2. The birds here spook me up, especially the crows. For some reason the crows in Austin travel in packs, maybe they do elsewhere, but I don't think anywhere have I seen them in this large crowd. Very often you'd see them perch atop powerlines, or tree tops, not in troop of 10s, but in thousands.. Can you imagine thousands of them standing on a powerline? And of course you do'nt want to park under these things. The sight of so many of them just completely gross me out.
