AUSTIN News Thread

[KevinFromTexas]

Newspapers

Austin American-Statesman
http://www.statesman.com/

Austin Chronicle
http://www.austinchronicle.com/

The Daily Texan
http://www.dailytexanonline.com/

Community Impact Newspaper
http://impactnews.com/

Austin Business Journal
http://www.bizjournals.com/austin/


Television Stations

KTBC-Fox7 Austin
http://www.myfoxaustin.com/

KVUE-Austin
http://www.kvue.com/

KXAN-TV
http://www.kxan.com/

KEYE-TV
http://www.weareaustin.com/

YNN Austin
http://austin.ynn.com/


Blogs

Downtown Austin Blog
http://downtownaustinblog.org/

AustinTowers
http://austintowers.net/

BuildingATX
http://buildingatx.com/

Austin Contrarian
http://www.austincontrarian.com/austincontrarian/

[KevinFromTexas]

I thought we could use a thread for general news type stuff.


http://www.bizjournals.com/austin/ne...recycling.html

City study to look at mandating construction site recycling

Austin Business Journal - by Jacob Dirr, Staff Writer
Date: Friday, March 18, 2011, 2:01pm CDT - Last Modified: Friday, March 18, 2011, 2:04pm CDT

Austin city staff plans to start a study in spring 2013 that could clear the way for a law requiring construction and demolition companies to recycle debris and matériel at job sites.

Staff would then report back to the City Council in fall 2013, according to city records.

[KevinFromTexas]

http://www.bizjournals.com/austin/bl...exas-soon.html

In-N-Out Burgers landing in Texas soon — blog

Austin Business Journal
Date: Tuesday, March 15, 2011, 10:36am CDT - Last Modified: Wednesday, March 16, 2011, 7:29am CDT

California-based fast food titan In-N-Out Burgers is steaming ahead with its first expansion to the Lone Star State, according to reports this week.

The Orange County Register reported the drive-up burger chain planning at least eight stores in Texas. The Austin Business Journal reported rumors of such an expansion after the International Council of Shopping Centers conference last November, but it seems executives are now really making moves.

[migol24]

Originally Posted by KevinFromTexas

http://www.bizjournals.com/austin/bl...exas-soon.html

Not to downplay In-n-out burgers, but there's a lot of good burger places here in Austin alone. I'm just wondering how well it would fare here in Austin being a chain restaurant. I'm sure though with the reputation that In-n-Out already has it would do good. I personally didn't think that much of the burgers and quite frankly Austin has about 3 or 4 burger joints that I think are much better than that chain restaurant. Sometimes I think that people make such a big deal about it just because it's in California. I mean, don't get me wrong, I love California and I'm moving there in about 2 or 3 weeks but sometimes people tend to overrate things a little. And for whatever reason people always described those burgers like it almost had some "majestic and heavenly" flavor. Give me Hutz burgers over In-n-Out anytime.... or even the downtown Jo's burgers!

[austlar1]

Yeah, and Fran or Dan can also outdo In and Out anyday. What In and Out offers is drive-thru. The burgers usually taste pretty good, but I always thought there was a fair amount of hype to the whole thing. That never stopped me from grabbing some In and Out somewhere during the long 2 or 3 hour drive from LA to Palm Springs back in the day.

[wwmiv]

Originally Posted by austlar1

Yeah, and Fran or Dan can also outdo In and Out anyday. What In and Out offers is drive-thru. The burgers usually taste pretty good, but I always thought there was a fair amount of hype to the whole thing. That never stopped me from grabbing some In and Out somewhere during the long 2 or 3 hour drive from LA to Palm Springs back in the day.

I'll take Short Stop any day over In and Out for drive-thru burgers.

[Armybrat]

Top Notch for me, but In&Out is ok.

Whataburger shakes kick butt.

In other news, for Bourbon enthusiasts, Garrison Brothers Distillery of Hye has released their Spring batch for sale in the Austin area for the first time:

http://blog.garrisonbros.com/

Very pricey stuff, but it is excellent...not to mention made in Texas.

[The ATX]

I think the most most hyped burger joint is White Castle. If they are so great where are they?

[KevinFromTexas]

Originally Posted by migol24

Not to downplay In-n-out burgers, but there's a lot of good burger places here in Austin alone. I'm just wondering how well it would fare here in Austin being a chain restaurant. I'm sure though with the reputation that In-n-Out already has it would do good. I personally didn't think that much of the burgers and quite frankly Austin has about 3 or 4 burger joints that I think are much better than that chain restaurant. Sometimes I think that people make such a big deal about it just because it's in California. I mean, don't get me wrong, I love California and I'm moving there in about 2 or 3 weeks but sometimes people tend to overrate things a little. And for whatever reason people always described those burgers like it almost had some "majestic and heavenly" flavor. Give me Hutz burgers over In-n-Out anytime.... or even the downtown Jo's burgers!

Absolutely. I'm a fan of P-terry's. We would always go to the one on Lamar, but now there's one in South Austin. They have really good shakes. And Sandy's on Barton Springs has long been one of our favorite spots. They have the best soft serve ice cream in town. And yes, Huts on West 6th Street. There's also Mighty Fine Hamburgers, but they're not in the central part of Austin. And yeah, we're lucky to have Dan's Hamburgers pretty close by. I haven't been there in years, though.

If In-&-out opens up a location in the central part of the city, they would do fine. They'd have a lot of competition, but I think their name is fairly well known, especially with all the California transplants we have here.

And I just had some Carl's Jr. last weekend. It was very good.

[paulsjv]

Originally Posted by migol24

Not to downplay In-n-out burgers, but there's a lot of good burger places here in Austin alone. I'm just wondering how well it would fare here in Austin being a chain restaurant. I'm sure though with the reputation that In-n-Out already has it would do good. I personally didn't think that much of the burgers and quite frankly Austin has about 3 or 4 burger joints that I think are much better than that chain restaurant. Sometimes I think that people make such a big deal about it just because it's in California. I mean, don't get me wrong, I love California and I'm moving there in about 2 or 3 weeks but sometimes people tend to overrate things a little. And for whatever reason people always described those burgers like it almost had some "majestic and heavenly" flavor. Give me Hutz burgers over In-n-Out anytime.... or even the downtown Jo's burgers!

I'm curious to know what other places you like?

I think we could have a full blown thread about burger joints on the forum.

[BevoLJ]

Originally Posted by paulsjv

I'm curious to know what other places you like?

I think we could have a full blown thread about burger joints on the forum.

Agree. Although I doubt this is what Kevin was thinking when he made this thread.

Somewhere else on one of the main board census threads I think someone mentioned in and out coming to Texas and someone else made a good point that they better hurry. Burger joints in Austin have been doing very very well, and there are plans for a crapload more to open this year by lots of different burger places. Austin has a ton of great options.

My personal favorite is probably Huts but that is likely just because I can remember back in the 80's my parents taking me there and talking about back when they were eating there when they were younger and going to UT and with all the stuff on the walls being the same as stuff from the 60's to now, having never changed, it just reminds me of then. They would point at all the Sports Illustrated's and tell me how when UT won such and such championship they were at the game or tell me about Earl Campbell and so on with all the other old stuff on the walls that is still there today.

I took my mother there a couple months ago. It was her first time to go there in 2 years. She asked for her pizza burger and when they brought it out the cook came brought it out for her and said that it hadn't been on the menu for 30 years and he always likes to meet people that order things that hasn't been on the menu for that long. lol.

The place I probably eat at the most would be Hilbert's by the downtown Seton on 35th, and a close second would be Dan's on Ben White.

When I was going to UCLA I used to eat at In 'n Outs and Carl's Jr's all the time. I loved them. I would love to have an In and Out in Austin just for sentimental reasons. I went to the Carl's Jr they opened near my home in Westlake on Bee Caves and it was horrible. I remember them being great, but I also was smoking a lot of pot back in LA so maybe it wasn't so much that they were any good but that they were big.

Also, ditto on the Whataburger shakes! Oh, and the Sandy's mentioned on Barton Springs I dig too! To many options damn it! You were so right about the whole thread on burgers thing.

[KevinFromTexas]

http://www.statesman.com/blogs/conte..._growth_c.html

Report: Austin-area job growth continued in February

By American-Statesman Staff | Friday, March 25, 2011, 11:55 AM

The Austin-area job market continued its growth trend in February, the Texas Workforce Commission reported today.

Central Texas employers added 11,400 jobs between February 2010 and last month, a 1.5 percent annual gain, according to the commission. That comes on the heels of the January jobs report, which found the area was 10,500 jobs ahead in that same time period, a 1.4 percent annual gain.

The biggest gains were in the education and health services sector, which added 3,700 jobs between February 2010 and February 2011, an increase of 4.3 percent.

Only two areas experienced job cuts in that time period —the mining, logging and construction sector lost 500 jobs, a 1.3 percent decline, and the financial activities sector lost 300 jobs, a 0.7 percent dip.

[KevinFromTexas]

http://www.statesman.com/blogs/conte...hquakedam.html

Freescale closes earthquake-damaged plant in Japan

By Kirk Ladendorf | Wednesday, April 6, 2011, 09:56 AM

Freescale Semiconductor has decided not to reopen its aging chip factory in northeastern Japan that was closed following the area’s recent earthquake and tidal wave.

The 24-year-old factory in Sendai, which employed about 600 people, already had been scheduled to be closed this December. Freescale had been in the process of transferring much of the production to other plants in the United States, including its plants in Austin and Chandler, Ariz.

Freescale said it would take a $102 million charge for the closing in the first quarter.

[migol24]

Originally Posted by paulsjv

I'm curious to know what other places you like?

I think we could have a full blown thread about burger joints on the forum.

6th St. to start off has quite a variety of burger places. Casino el Camino, Chupacabra, Jackelope, Hutz.... Hutz is more family oriented, I guess. Jo's Downtown also has great burgers. I recommend visiting that place if you're in downtown. Great hawaiian burger buns.

But anyways, onto more current topics. What is Freescale Semiconductor? I've heard it was a Fortune 500 company but then eventually fell off. Does it have any affiliations to Spansion? My father works at Spansion. It's located on E. Oltorf near Montopolis. The place used to be owned by AMD but half of the property was sold to Spansion. My father says that they have been getting more business now that situation is bad in Japan. I'm wondering if Freescale is related to that in any way.

[BevoLJ]

Originally Posted by migol24

What is Freescale Semiconductor?

Freescale used the be a part of Motorola's operations here in Austin. Motorola spun them off in the early 2000's. They also applied for an IPO for this year and it is supposed to be a huge one. Something like $1-2 Billion. Anyway it is one of the bigger companies based here in Austin with something close to $5 billion in revenue last year I think and around 6,000 employees here in Austin. Their biggest thing is suppling stuff for cars. I think they are the top semiconductor auto supplier. They also sell a lot of stuff to Apple and Intel.

Spansion is a different company. They make memory cards I think. They used to be a part of AMD but where spun off from them. It is a lot smaller and I don't think it is based here in Austin. They just make all their stuff here in Austin near AMD but are HQed in Silicon Valley.

[migol24]

Originally Posted by BevoLJ

Freescale used the be a part of Motorola's operations here in Austin. Motorola spun them off in the early 2000's. They also applied for an IPO for this year and it is supposed to be a huge one. Something like $1-2 Billion. Anyway it is one of the bigger companies based here in Austin with something close to $5 billion in revenue last year I think and around 6,000 employees here in Austin. Their biggest thing is suppling stuff for cars. I think they are the top semiconductor auto supplier. They also sell a lot of stuff to Apple and Intel.

Is Freescale a Fortune 500 company? Wikipedia has it listed as one but I'm not able to find it on CNNMoney.com.

[BevoLJ]

I know they used to be up until last year but I think they dropped out. The company was public but got bought out a few years ago and the debt used to buy it hurt them. Also they got out of the cell phone business I think and that hurt them.

[the Genral]

Actually, Motorola backed out of a large chip order from Freescale and coupled with the issues the car companies were having and also cutting back on chip orders from Freescale, they lost close to $8 billion in revenue just a few years ago. Being a spin off from Motorola, they were depending on revenue from the continuation of supplying a large number of memory chips for Motorola's cell phone business. Too many eggs in one basket. They are currently hoping to raise $1 Billion + in public stock offerings and are currently not even listed as a Fortune 1000 member. Not to mention the loss of their facility due to the earthquake in Japan, tough times for them...

[Somnio]

Originally Posted by the Genral

They are currently hoping to raise $1 Billion + in public stock offerings and are currently not even listed as a Fortune 1000 member

Only publicly-traded companies are listed in the F500 or F1000. Freescale is a privately held company. After it's IPO it will again be a publicly-traded company, and will certainly be added to the Fortune 500 since it's gross revenue was nearly 4.5 billion dollars in 2010.

[KevinFromTexas]

There's a brush fire today near Oak Hill. You can see the smoke from all over South Austin and even from East Austin where I was earlier today.