Does this meet the definition of double parking?

We have been fortunate that JR has managed the sewer system so well that we have had almost no problems this summer. However, today about noon we had a backup before the weekend guests arrived. Jerry got it open and flowing quickly. He said it had a big grease buildup. It's probably a good thing that it happened this afternoon rather than late tonight with a full house.

Steve's(702) son, Jordan caught this big bass at Lake LBJ during a high school tournament on Saturday.

JR installed all these rain water diverters over the entrance stairs. We had over three inches of rain on Monday and got to try them out. These should have been installed thirty years ago. They worked  really well.

 This is the corner of our property at HEB.  The tide is only slightly above normal. I can only imagine what would have happened to our property if we had not chosen to build the bulkhead pictured here. The water would have been eroding our property and we could not have reclaimed it. It will not be a long time before we have to extend this wall even further.

I think today was the lull before the storm of guests for Labor Day. At this time there was only one other vehicle on the property besides my own.

Our security folks find the hours after midnight to be pretty slow, but the nocturnal animals are always out looking for a handout. This raccoon comes out most every night and usually there are about three others. The possums, and foxes often come by too. Unfortunately, yesterday a guest was driving out way too fast early in the morning and hit a heron and killed it. Jerry dug a pretty big hole to bury it.

There are still some BIG fish around. Kolten(705) saw two of these big drum in the mitigation site and placed a shrimp in front of this one. I know it looks as if the camera angle is adding to the size of the fish, but I assure you it was huge. We didn't have a tape and wanted to get it back into the water. Kolten got into the water and helped it regain its strength and swim away.  In the shallow water we could see half of the fish out of the water as it swam to the middle of the mitigation site.
Welcome to new owners Bill and Melba Dorbandt of San Antonio. They closed on 209 last week. Their daughter, Cindy, was here with her family this weekend and got to see this drum catch. I hope they don't think we catch these things all the time.
Our board has selected local company, GSM, to handle our Umbrella Policy for Kontiki for the coming year. They tell us they will write the policy for contents insurance for any owner, if asked. They had always done that for us during all the previous years they had our coverage.  Contents insurance has been hard to find for some as companies are not wanting to take on the risk associated with coastal properties.
I did find out more about our pier electricity.  Joe Burkholder(603) called to tell me that after they closed on 603 this spring, he began to receive bills from Bounce Energy for the pier electricity. I have no idea how Bounce got in there.  We were with Cirro. Then he said CPL started sending him bills for the pier electricity. He has tried diligently to clear this up with them, but to no avail.

Note from Scott.

I was walking around the deck near the fish cleaning stand several weeks ago and pulled up an old rope and found it tied to an abandoned crab trap.  The frustration was that I found a small flounder trapped inside.  See the pic.  This prompted me to write this little piece to hopefully make others aware of the negative effects of "ghost fishing".  Had I not pulled the trap up the flounder would likely have starved as it was trapped in the abandoned crab trap and had no way to get out or get food.  As an avid outdoorsman I have an appreciation for preserving wildlife.  I take what my family and I can eat and I exercise conservation to help ensure there is a thriving wildlife for many generations to come.  I just wanted to make people aware of the negative effects on wildlife when traps and nets are abandoned.  they can continue to catch and kill for months or even years.  Simply put, it results in senseless waste of wildlife.  Below is a description I found on the internet to maybe explain it better than I can.

 

Ghost Fishing - Derelict fishing gear, sometimes referred to as “ghost gear” or “ghost nets” is any discarded, lost, or abandoned, fishing gear in the environment. This gear continues to fish and trap animals, entangle and potentially kill marine life, smother habitat, and act as a hazard to navigation. Derelict fishing gear, such as nets or traps and pots, is one of the main types of debris impacting the marine environment today.

Meredith and Amy(504) were the first to enjoy the newly refilled pool about 7pm this evening. I don't know that I have ever seen it drained and refilled. I believe it took about 15,000 gallons to fill. It sure looks nice.

It's always something. We get the pier lights back on and the pool chemistry gets so bad that it has to be drained, cleaned, and refilled.

Cousin Bob and I were bumpin' shrimp
boats about 30 miles out and got this pair of ling. We got to watch them both take the bait. 25 and 41 lbs.

Steve(702)

The topic of the weekend was, "What happened to the pier lights". They were turned off on Thursday. After investigating, I finally have most of the story solved. The energy companies are difficult to deal with and it took me hours to get some information. Here's the story.
Three years ago the board used an aggregator to lock in the contract with Cirro Electric. They even included security lights that were not our own. Later we worked hard with Cirro to get us to get just the lights on our property without a big penalty for early shutoff from the contract. In April of this year, the aggregator, eager to get his cut again, hounded us relentlessly to let him lock us in again as he recently had done with Phase II. Cirro even gave him my personal cell number. In late May, to get the best rate, our board voted to switch all meters to Green Mountain Electric except the pier meter. We did not know how the pier problem would be resolved and did not want to deal with Cirro again on dropping a meter out of a long term contract. We left the pier meter with Cirro on a month to month basis and Green Mountain said they would allow us to add the pier meter at the contracted rate if and when the pier issue were resolved.
On June 5th someone notified Cirro to change the billing address and the pier meter into their name. Cirro will not tell us who did that. I'm guessing the bill was never paid, by whomever got it. On Thursday, the account was closed by the AEP. The AEP  rep told me we were "forced out in error". I'm not sure what that means other than someone else got our meter. I  contacted Green Mountain and they sent an enrollment form that I signed and emailed back. At the earliest, we may have lights by Monday. Normally, it takes 5 to 7 business days, but they put an emergency designation on this and maybe that will help. It is uncertain if we will ever have to pay for the two months that we used the lights under someone else's name. My chief suspect is the aggregator since he was so unhappy that we bypassed his services and profit. Other than that, I have no idea who the mystery person might be.

Jerry has almost completed the tennis court fence repair. When the fence was put up last year, the pipes were cut too long and the fence did not reach to the ground and allowed tennis balls to escape under it. Jerry took off all the fence ties and forced the fence down. Of course, that left the fence lower than the top rail. He took off the caps and top rail to cut the pipe to the proper length and reinstalled the rail and caps. The caps were a real problem because the pipes had been pounded down during construction and the tops flared a bit and the caps were then forced on. He did get all but one off without breaking them.

 JR, Carlos, and Jerry had to spend their Saturday morning digging in the sewer sludge. Someone had pulled on the shock pipe, seen in the bottom picture, and broken it at the 'T' joint. Every time the lift station pump turned on, the effluent surged up from the broken pipe. It took most of the morning and a few trips for parts to finally seal it up and turn the pumps back on. Quite a mess.

On a recent family fishing trip to St. Charles Bay, the action was hot and heavy right out of the gate.  Not only did Debbie and the kids land numerous keeper specks and drum but the day was capped-off with Deb's 25-1/2" trout. Great day on the bay!

Ray
(601)

Cheaper by the dozen. Steve(702,703) had one of his AC units go out. I told him L&B were the best around and that Jim(210) had written a testimonial about them for my blog. He checked with one of the larger companies in Rockport and found that L&B was about $1,800 less. He decided to have both of AC units changed out at that price and that included changing out all the copper lines.   John(402) reported the same thing to me a few weeks ago.
Talking about costs, my electrical bill was a new all time high last month, $338. I checked and my contract for 10 cents per KWH had ended with YEP and they were charging me 13.5 cents. I went to powertochoose.org and found they had redesigned their webpage. It is much easier to use. After a few hours of research, you have to read the fine print, I found Infinite Energy was the best price for an 18 month contract. I had never heard of them, but the powertochoose site shows company complaints and they were highly rated, unlike many others. I had the choice to pay $11 and switch on Monday or pay nothing and change at the end of the cycle. I paid the $11. It doesn't take long at 13.5 cents to make up $11. The YEP site advertises 10.1 cents for a two year contract, but that is only when you go over 2000 KWH. They don't disclose that unless you ask specifically. Fortunately, I did.

The new owner parking decals were sent out a couple of weeks ago. The security people tell me they are much more visible, especially at night, and appreciate our purchasing them. The first run from Rockport Printing was done incorrectly. They printed them on clear background and when put on the windshield, they became almost transparent. They had no problem in taking them back for a reprint.
This appears to be the last totally booked weekend. Security has reported few problems as people have started to know the expectations and locals who used to try to use our pier have been turned away and found places to fish elsewhere.
Coastal Rental Management has added two more condos to their rental pool recently. They now manage half the condos under management in both the 700 building and the 300 buildings.

The tide this last week was very low for a summer week. I have to think some of these exposed oysters cooked in the noonday sun. I did see a guest go out and pick up some to eat. I would not do that.
The tide did come in some on Friday night. I saw a guest walk by with two nice trout that he picked up on the north HEB beach at sunset. I thought maybe last night might show improved fishing. I took my best jigs out and tried all over the place and caught one small trout in the channel next to 308.