Kevin Ludlow is a 45-year-old accomplished software developer, business manager, writer, musician, photographer, world traveler, and serial entrepreneur from Austin, Texas. He is also a former candidate for the Texas House of Representatives.
Please take a moment to view his complete resume for more information.
Note: the entirety of this website was architected and developed from the ground up exclusively by Kevin Ludlow.
The project is finally moving along to the City of Austin. Our civil engineering firm, Nobel Surveying and Engineering Works, LLC, has submitted the first of several plans off to the City of Austin. The plans submitted include the current site-plan layout as seen to the right.
To those not familiar with this level of development planning, a site-plan is essentially an architectural view of the entire property layout from a birds-eye point of view. It includes the footprint of the building, driveways, parking lots, sidewalks, topographical information, ingress and egress, electrical hookups, and etc. It does not detail what the building or surroundings will look like in any way, but rather details how things will function on the property.
It is also, incidentally, a very expensive undertaking. Although there is SOME good in the process, I find the majority of it to be time-consuming bureaucracy-gone-wild. Just to give an idea, not a few thousand dollars, many tens of thousands of dollars are required to fulfill all of the city’s requirements. Since you know, most small businesses have that kind of cash on the side.
The official site plan submitted to the City of Austin
This probably doesn't sound that exciting to most people, but I'm happy to announce that we were approved for our water / wastewater extension today from the City of Austin. Basically this means that we'll be permitted to tap into the city's water and wastewater pipes for the property.
There is actually an 8" water main right in front of the property, so that was never really a concern. However, we have needed a sewer hookup. Of course, what's missing from these forms are the fact that we'll have to pay for most, if not all of this. It might sound simple, but that entails hiring a crew to dig up a city street, lay the pipes, tap into the existing city lines, put the street back together, pave the street, and make sure that everything is back how it should be.
In an effort to get an idea of just what the view from the top of the building might look like, Preston and I rented a cherry picker for the day (technically called a Boom Crane) and took some panorama pictures from the potential footprint of the building. In the winter time it’s usually pretty easy to see parts of downtown Austin through the trees, namely since the leaves die off. In the summer, however, it’s a bit more difficult as the foliage is much thicker.
The entire boom crane was designed to be a tow-able trailer, so it wasn’t particularly difficult getting it out there. Once you have it in the place you want it, it has to be disconnected from the trailer hitch and then set (this is really the only time-consuming piece of getting it going). To set it up, there is a controller that slowly lowers the hydraulic legs on all four corners. As they start to settle on the ground, a computer senses to ensure that the machine is properly balanced. From there, you just climb into the basket and start hoisting it up in the air - one part of the crane at a time. I’d estimate it takes a little over one minute to get all the way up.
Looking down from the basket 34? in the air
I rented the machine from my usual heavy equipment rental facility, Rent-Equip, up in North Austin. They’re always incredibly helpful and friendly and were even willing to refund my full-day rental when I only wound up using it for 4 hours (what they constitute a half-day). The four-hour rental was $100.00; the full day would (including overnight) would have cost $150.00.
Although I am not afraid of heights at all (I fly planes!), it turns out that I am terrified of being in a small metal basket 35 feet above the ground in heavy varying winds. This was exacerbated by the fact that the boom was setup on dirt, making me think it was that much less stable. Preston by stark contrast, was happy as all could be spinning around in it fully extended.
You can see from the pics on the right what the apparatus looks like fully extended. It may not look all that high, but I can assure you that once you’re up in the air, it feels pretty high.
The top of the building itself will only be used for mechanical purposes (air conditioning, additional solar hookups, water collection, and etc.), but it’s nice to see such a view nevertheless!
A panorama from the top of the crane. If you click on the image you can get a good feel for what it’s like up there looking towards the city!
We’re still working on dozens of facets with respect to the look and feel of the building, but this is an image depicting more or less the exterior facade of the warehouse space. It’s very simple and clean, but is actually a meshed type of metal surface. Not only is this material lightweight, but it will greatly help us to control light, particularly on the westerly face of the warehouse.
Again, not set in stone, but this is the type of thing that we are considering.
Between May of 2009 and May of 2011, I visited Orlando and ultimately Cape Canaveral 13 separate times in hopes of seeing the Space Shuttle lift off. With NASA's 30 year Space Shuttle program finally coming to an end, this was the last chance I would have to see the spectacle. The only thing I've ever really wanted to do was to become an astronaut and visit space; this was as close as I might get.
I was originally scheduled to see the 3rd to final shuttle launch. My friend Dave G. and I drove across the country for the opportunity. After the launch was scrubbed several times, we had to drive back home. Dave wasn't interested in trying again, but I decided I was going to see the launch regardless of the effort involved. I missed the 3rd to last launch due to obligations and the situation grew more dire; there were only two launches left. After two years of routine trips between Austin and Orlando and after many, many thousands of dollars spent (and some 60 hours in the air) I finally saw Space Shuttle Endeavour lift off on May 16th, 2011 at 8:56am EST as part of STS-134.
The story of how it happened is even more amazing.
My dear friend Tim had a connection with the NASA visitors team at Cape Canaveral. As a hotel executive with the Gaylord Palms, he ensured that families and friends of astronauts and other important people connected to NASA had the opportunity to see launches from the 3-mile VIP center.
My visitors badge
The incredible F5 engines on the Saturn-V rocket
Experiencing a scrubbed launch was both frustrating and exhausting. The launch process basically consisted of me driving 90 minutes from Orlando towards the outskirts of Cape Canaveral. I'd then have to board a private NASA bus that would take me from the bus terminal to the visitor's area 3 miles from the launch site. I would often sit with families of the astronauts and extremely gifted scientists from around the world. That part was wonderful. The weather was a different story. It was consistently hot and very humid. I would be on-site for six to eight hours at a time. I passed the time by strolling around the NASA museum gazing at the old Saturn rocket series. Those spacecraft are absolutely amazing marvels of engineering. The launches would usually be scrubbed after about 8 hours of waiting when the clock was down to the last hour. It was gut-wrenching every time and I'd have to spend another 2-3 hours fighting traffic to get back to Orlando.
I had just flown back to Austin after yet another scrubbed launch and was extremely disappointed. This was the 12th launch that I had seen scrubbed. I had become pretty well known to many of the officials at Cape Canaveral as "Tim's friend from Austin". Despite being a bad omen at that point, they were very welcoming. I hadn't been in Austin but a day when Tim called me up and told me that the launch had just been rescheduled and that he had a seat for me (he always got the relaunch dates and times before they were made public). I really did not want to make the trip because I was so exhausted of the process, but he had a good feeling about it and so I did. The catch was that he would be in Jacksonville going on a date with a girl named Courtney - she was a friend of a friend. I wound up getting to meet her that weekend and attended their wedding the following year. I bought a last minute ticket to Jacksonville; Tim told me he would take care of everything else. He did.
When I arrived in Jacksonville I had a text message from Tim instructing me to visit the valet in front of the airport. I was to show them my ID. I did. They presented me the keys to a car. I got in the car and inside was a post-it note on the GPS telling me to follow the directions to the pre-programmed destination. There was a note instructing me to use a false name when I got to the gate and that I was there to see the Daltons. There was also a ticket to the Jacksonville PGA tour.
Without talking to Tim I drove about an hour to the GPS destination as instructed. When I got to the private community gate I told the guard I was Brian Dalton (as instructed). He welcomed me and directed me to their home. When I finally arrived at their home (complete strangers to me mind you), there was a guy waiting for me on a golf cart with a beer. He asked me if I was Kevin and upon confirmation told me to get in and to bring my ticket. The beer was for me. He drove me on the golf cart to the front of the PGA security gate and walked me in with my ticket. He walked me over to Tim hanging out with the girl he had just met and I got to watch all of the famous golfers do their thing. I'm not much for golfing, but it was an enjoyable time getting drunk.
The official clock with about 1hr 20m to go
We left around 8pm with a bunch of people (including Courtney), had an incredibly drunken sushi dinner, and proceeded to drive to Tim's house in Kissimmee, Florida. By the time we got there it was around midnight. We went to bed, woke up at 4:15 in the morning, and drove our way to Cape Canaveral with the top down in his car jamming out to Lonely Island. We were on our way to see the final NASA shuttle launch of all time.
Two hours later I saw one of the most spectacular sites of my life. It's impossible to describe what a shuttle launch is like in person. There is no film I have ever seen that truly captures the power of it. I was delighted to check off another bucket list item.
Tim is a really great friend. Even sweeter is that NASA wound up adding one last flight; Courtney was there for that one.
There's really only one thing that I can draw, and it's Stewie Griffin. When I was visiting Rymo and Tim in Florida for yet another shuttle launch attempt, I drew this on Tim's office whiteboard with a black dry-erase marker. I took a picture of it with my cell phone, emailed it to myself, and then colored it in with Photoshop.
