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We now interrupt your favorite scheduled program to have a chat about other Green topics…

I’ve been thinking about a lot about Green Machines lately. I want my next vehicle to be green friendly so that it sips gas instead of chugging it like a college student on dollar beer night. I have been keeping an eye out for a new vehicle but nothing seems just right for me. Hybrids seem to fall in two categories “cheap” but function like the Prius and expensive and fun like the Tesla. Neither of which are for me, I want something in between. So I drive my car 4.2 mile to work and wait for something to change. In the last few months things have started to change. The shark like auto industry has smelled the hybrid chum in the water and now has dollar signs in their eyes. This is good for me! I now have been looking for my future car replacement that does not exist just yet.

For a while I have been looking at the VentureOne from Venture Vehicles. It’s a cross between a car and a motorcycle and is known as a Trike. I first learned of Trikes from a game called Car Wars eons ago and they are popular in Europe’s small streets. Check out the videos on the site. They are pretty cool. The biggest downside of the machine for me is that it requires a motorcycles driver’s license and in Austin it could be a death machine with all the SUVs and trucks flying around. With Agave only being 8 miles to my job via 183 my daily commute might turn into Death Race 2000. Now if they had an optional light cycle attachment it would make me feel better.

Recent Toyota announced that they are changing up the next generation of Prius. While checking the info out I came across two useful bits of info: 1) One version of the Prius will be released under the Lexus Brand and 2) Toyota is working a Next Gen Hybrid called Hybrid-X. Both of these vehicles interest me. The Hybrid- X may look like something out of Logan’s run (much less so then the Aptera) but for some reason it makes me go Awwwwwwwwwww. Hopefully the Lexus Prius will fix most of the deficiencies of the Prius: such as a sun/moonroof, power seats, funky styling etc…

The last car that has caught my eye to from a traditional American company and it’s the Chevy Volt. That’s right a cool car from the peeps that killed the electric car. This thing seems to have it all, nice styling, Lith-Ion batteries, gadgets, two doors, Tazers, Turbo Boost, Autobot transformation mode and much more!

Lighting Strikes!

After delays for the foundation pour we finally got to see it! We found out that the delay was due to Agave changing electricians. Let’s just say we will let the pictures speak for themselves (with a few comments from the peanut gallery):

This is a picture of the pad from the street. To the left is the car port pad. If you squint your eyes you can see the walkway from the carport pad leading to the house. To the right of that is the front porch with the funky angle. All of the rebar with the orange tags is where the cinder blocks will go.


I took this picture from what will be the Kitchen. I’m looking at the dining room and car port. In the background you can see the drop from street which is going to make drainage interesting. My guess is that there will be a retaining wall to the left and a driveway to the right.

Here is Deborah looking at the oddity that is the stairs down. It's kinda hard to describe. The words pit or oubliette comes to mind. Next time we are out there I'll snap a pic to show you what I mean. The level difference from the front to the rear of the house is about five steps but it looks deeper when you see it.

The depression seen in this picture is of the beginnings of our deck. The Mositureshield decking will start from around here. We are guessing that some of the trees will have to be removed to make room for the deck.

Hopefully you noticed something in all these pics of the foundation. There is little to no aggregate in the foundation. This shocking revelation has us chagrined. Now there is a slim chance that the polishing will reveal some but we just don't know. If none turn up we will most likely go the stain route like others have done at Agave.

When it rains it does not pour

Well this last week in Austin has been pretty craptastic. For a good chunk of the time it has rained. Since they are trying to pour Mount Everest the rain has slow things down. Luckily it has turn into southern California on Friday and the weather is really nice. Hopefully this will allow them pour this week so we can do a HALO jump from the front porch. Now on to the pictures of dirt piles!

Yep, not much has changed. No wait. That snail has moved about an inch since last week. Maybe the builders should hire him.

This is a side view of the foundation. If you look closely you can tell that the front half of the foundation is higher then the rear half. The rear has a step down that leads in to living room and kitchen.

Since not much has changed I figured I would take a picture of our back yard in bloom.

This is a picture of the back of the house where the deck is going to be. By my man estimate the wood studs you see is about how far the deck will stick out back. I’m great with size estimates. We guys are born with an innate sense of direction and distance/size.

Mod Vase

I need to thank my good friend B.A. for the very modern and colorful cool vase she gave me for my birthday. It is currently sitting on a table in my office since it would not be happy in our current non-modern home. B.A. is a friend and our realtor and whe went above and beyond on a birthday gift for me this year. I failed to post this until now and she gave it to me in February. The lighting is not great but you can see how great the vase is! Thank you B.A.!

Pipe Dream

Well things seem to be craaaawwwling along in the home building front. First the builder says, “we have new cabinets, no more IKEA” because they charge a lot to install and take a long time. Then they say “we have new windows, no more aluminum”. Still I ask, what about the foundation? What about that cliff in front of our house? Will we be parachuting into the home?

This is what I find so funny this type of thing. Anyway we said yes to the new cabinets and crossed our fingers that we made the right choice. We said no to the vinyl windows. I just can’t imagine them in my mind, I like the windows I see in the neighborhood, even though the builder says they can leak.

As for the dive off point into our lot, the builder says he does not know what will be done about that so yet again I worry just bring a parachute!

We have new pictures but they are not much of a change.

David took a picture of me in front of the “Whoville house” (Sorry Alana and Alex). I was wearing the same colors and squinting in the sun so he thought we should capture that for posterity since Alana says the house colors will change. Their house looks so great though. The other house by us I like to refer to as the “White House” because of the off white main color and blue trim. So many of these homes are so fun to walk through (I did not call and tell Agave I was walking through them and I did not ask the neighbors so I hope you don’t mind).

So to close by September it would mean the framing would need to be complete by the end of March since they say it will be 6 months from the time the framing is finished. They are behind….maybe it is just a pipe dream...

Lots of dirt and round pipes.

Evidence of cliff to parachute from at left.

More pipes and cliffs, please realize this is the front yard.

Whoville house coincidence of color...