I highly appreciate the level of detail here. Breakdowns of the distribution of long-term impressions of Austin weather are great—a lot more of an update than a single person’s take.
I do have to worry that there’s a selection effect! People aren’t randomly assigned to Austin and aren’t forced to stay, so the people who stay (or who are even willing to consider Austin as an option) will skew toward being heat-tolerant.
“Better grocery stores than other places I’ve lived”—Where have you lived, if you don’t mind my asking?
“If you’re looking for places near Austin, but out of the city”—If we moved to Austin, I predict the optimal set-up will have some of MIRI in the city and some outside the city, with one of those groups commuting. But it may be hard to achieve that mostly-optimal-for-us set-up.
“Better grocery stores than other places I’ve lived”—Where have you lived, if you don’t mind my asking?
Austin is the home of Whole Foods, and the typical mainstream grocery store is HEB, which was prepping for COVID in January 2020; Central Market is also pretty good?
I think people who really like Berkeley Bowl might not find something exactly similar, but I think they will find things that are adequate replacements.
Yeah, I mostly had HEB + Central Market in mind. I’ve always found HEB to be more likely to have things I want, and I think they have generally responded well to storms and the pandemic.
I do have to worry that there’s a selection effect!
I imagine there is! I’m not sure how strong it is. A lot of people I know were students, so they had some choice about where to live, but only so much and leaving wasn’t as easy as it could be. Others were there for tech jobs and were very much there by choice.
Where have you lived, if you don’t mind my asking?
I’m mostly comparing to Los Alamos, NM and SF/Berkeley. I also lived in some other towns for college, and they seemed similarly mediocre to Los Alamos. I’m kind of meh about Whole Foods, and I think Berkeley Bowl is good, but not worth getting excited about, if that helps.
If we moved to Austin, I predict the optimal set-up will have some of MIRI in the city and some outside the city, with one of those groups commuting. But it may be hard to achieve that mostly-optimal-for-us set-up.
My guess is that living in the city and commuting out of it is less of a bummer than the other way around, but either way, commuting in Austin isn’t great. It would, of course, depend on where you are in the city, and you can probably avoid the worst of it by not trying to get to downtown at 9am or whatever. As I recall, driving out of the city in the morning usually wasn’t too bad.
I highly appreciate the level of detail here. Breakdowns of the distribution of long-term impressions of Austin weather are great—a lot more of an update than a single person’s take.
I do have to worry that there’s a selection effect! People aren’t randomly assigned to Austin and aren’t forced to stay, so the people who stay (or who are even willing to consider Austin as an option) will skew toward being heat-tolerant.
“Better grocery stores than other places I’ve lived”—Where have you lived, if you don’t mind my asking?
“If you’re looking for places near Austin, but out of the city”—If we moved to Austin, I predict the optimal set-up will have some of MIRI in the city and some outside the city, with one of those groups commuting. But it may be hard to achieve that mostly-optimal-for-us set-up.
Austin is the home of Whole Foods, and the typical mainstream grocery store is HEB, which was prepping for COVID in January 2020; Central Market is also pretty good?
I think people who really like Berkeley Bowl might not find something exactly similar, but I think they will find things that are adequate replacements.
Yeah, I mostly had HEB + Central Market in mind. I’ve always found HEB to be more likely to have things I want, and I think they have generally responded well to storms and the pandemic.
I imagine there is! I’m not sure how strong it is. A lot of people I know were students, so they had some choice about where to live, but only so much and leaving wasn’t as easy as it could be. Others were there for tech jobs and were very much there by choice.
I’m mostly comparing to Los Alamos, NM and SF/Berkeley. I also lived in some other towns for college, and they seemed similarly mediocre to Los Alamos. I’m kind of meh about Whole Foods, and I think Berkeley Bowl is good, but not worth getting excited about, if that helps.
My guess is that living in the city and commuting out of it is less of a bummer than the other way around, but either way, commuting in Austin isn’t great. It would, of course, depend on where you are in the city, and you can probably avoid the worst of it by not trying to get to downtown at 9am or whatever. As I recall, driving out of the city in the morning usually wasn’t too bad.