ssullivan

Houston's zoo has actually improved a lot since they started charging admission. I'll agree with you that it's not as nice as Brownsville's, or some of the other zoos in major cities, but it has improved greatly from what it was and continues to get better. Part of the problem was that for many years the zoo was not only free, but it was also not receiving adequate financial support from the city. The relatively small amount of land the zoo has to work with also hasn't helped.

Glad to see this moving forward! I'm looking forward to staying in one of these before long.

Six cracked jets in the air isn't a safety issue? Well, I guess if Southwest says so. Spin, spin, spin.

FWIW, I've only flown Southwest twice. I had once good experience, and one bad experience. 50% is still better than United in my book.

Well technically not considering that the cracks that were found were not yet to a degree where they would have been a problem.

The truth of the matter is that fatigue cracks are a natural occurrence that happens with time on older aircraft. The point of the inspections is to find them early on so they can be repaired long before they would be a serious threat. Granted the inspections were missed in this case. But just because cracks were found on six aircraft once the inspections were completed does not mean that any of those six aircraft were in imminent danger of having an accident. Those cracks would have been found had the planes been inspected on time, so either way, those six planes would have been flying at some point with the cracks. It's just that they flew longer than they would have had the inspections been done on time.

Like it or not, odds are anyone who has flown much has probably been on a plane with at least one fatigue crack.

Almost anything is better than United.

That is quite true. And I just bought another ticket on them for later this month.

I really think this thing has been blown out of proportion. Did Southwest mess up and miss inspections on some planes? Yes. Did they promptly notify the FAA of the oversight and take measures to get the inspections done and fix any problems found? Yes. Mistakes happen -- and every airline has them from time to time. Would this make me not fly Southwest? No way. The fact is that those planes were still undergoing regular maintenance and inspection -- what was missed as a federal inspection that's required on a certain schedule. This is very similar to me maintaining my car very well, but forgetting to go get the state's safety inspection done until after the sticker on my windshield has expired. It doesn't mean my car is unsafe, but it does mean that it's not legal to drive until I get the inspection done.

If anything, after this, Southwest is probably a safer airline to fly. You can be assured after this thing has hit the media like it has (almost a year after the missed inspections were discovered and dealt with), and with the pending government fines, Southwest will take action to ensure this doesn't happen again.

By the way, here's the e-mail that went out to Southwest's frequent fliers last night in response to the news reports.

Southwest Airlines: We take Safety Seriously

You may have heard that Southwest Airlines was fined by the FAA regarding recent aircraft inspections. First and foremost, we want to assure you this was never and is not a safety of flight issue.

From our inception, Southwest Airlines has maintained a rigorous Culture of Safety

I've never called it Bush Intercontinental, never will.

It was quite a nice hotel in its day. My family stayed there a lot when I was a kid and we were in Houston visiting relatives. The buildings were still there until sometime in 2000 or very early 2001, when it was all torn down. It became a Ramada (I think) in the early/mid-1990s, and in the end, had some generic name like the "Braeswood Hotel."

Wow, just catching up on HAIF and saw this. My mother and grandmother both worked in that store years ago when Sharpstown Mall was the "nice" mall in Houston and that store was Foley's. I'm not surprised. Sharpstown Mall has been dying a slow death for about 20 years now. Last time I was there was about 1988 or 1989 and it was already showing signs of decay. Maybe I'll venture down to Macy's one day before they close just to check it out one last time.

Do Continental and Luthansa have a codeshare agreement?

No.

I just had it for the first time about two weeks ago flying out of IAH... was good. :-)

Yeah it's pretty good stuff, for fast food Chinese.

Thanks for all the pics. I haven't been able to spend much time in Houston the last couple of months, as I'm averaging 5-6 nights/week away from home right now. As a result, I haven't been able to venture downtown much, and when I have, it's usually at night when it's hard to see. I think I may have to head downtown Friday for lunch so I can check out the progress on Houston Pavilions and Discovery Green myself.

Nude, single-sex, supervised swimming was the norm at YMCAs as well during that time period. And a lot of it was due to the type of natural fibers available for making swim suits back then (as opposed to the more modern synthetics available today) and the problems they caused with filter and pump systems.

The US is rather hyper these days about any form of nudity, automatically equating it with sex or abuse. That was not always the case, and in general, I think the US was less uptight about same sex nudity in non-sexual situations (such as locker rooms, swimming pools, public restrooms) a few decades ago than it is now.

W is highly overrated, and not any better than some of the hotels we already have in Houston.

This is really great news! I missed the article in the Chronicle this morning but heard about the project from a friend at a party earlier this evening. This, plus the already announced Omni, should help Houston compete for large conventions. I think the La Quinta near Minute Maid Park is a great idea too, as Downtown is in need of more hotel rooms that fall in that price category.

Now if only someone would resurrect the proposal to turn the old Texaco building into a hotel. I'd still like to see Marriott dust off their plans for a Renaissance Hotel in that location.

CO is hq'ed here, yet we get shafted. AA in DFW flies a lot of flights out of their airport.

American is also a much bigger airline.

I wouldn't say IAH gets shafted by Continental. Continental flies to MANY more international destinations than American, and IAH has a much larger number of international destinations served nonstop by Continental than DFW has served by American. Even within the state of Texas American has scaled back service to a number of smaller cities, while Continental has increased service and gained market share in those cities.

Continental has also overseen the construction of an entirely new terminal (E) at IAH, major renovations to Terminal C in the last few years, and has committed to renovating and expanding Terminal B to support the Continental Express operation there. They also opened a new Presidents Club in Terminal A at IAH earlier this year. These are all major investments in the facilities at IAH, which is the airline's largest hub. The only reason American has more flights and serves more passengers at DFW is because it's just a bigger airline. But when it comes to the strength of the route map and schedule, Continental really offers a lot more than American.

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I'm glad to see this coming to Houston, but Starwood needs to branch out with their Houston locations some. They already have four hotels in Uptown (two Westins, Sheraton Suites, St. Regis) and not a single location in Downtown Houston or the Texas Medical Center. They're obviously not doing this in the Dallas area, where they are building five of these, all in key business areas, including Downtown Dallas.

My biggest gripe about Starwood, as a frequent business traveler, has always been their lack of coverage in many locations.

Wow, this is very nice looking! Where is it located?

HPL seems to be doing very well with their new facilities. This is a great addition to the system, as was the branch on Stella Link a few years ago. And I really like the old church conversion on Montrose. I look forward to the completion of the central library renovations downtown.

The reason why there were two Dillard's stores in Parkdale Mall in Beaumont had nothing to do with Foley's. It was because Dillard's bought the Joske's chain several months after they opened the Dillard's store in Beaumont. After closing the Joske's store, which had a much more visible location on the front end of the mall, Dillard's renovated the first floor, closed the second floor, and moved the men's and children's departments to that store, keeping the rest at the other store. That situation continued until Rita damaged the original Dillard's store, at which point they reopened the second floor of the old Joske's and moved everything in there. They're now expanding that store's footprint, since it really was too small to house all of the departments.

There were quite a few malls with two Dillard's in this type of setup after they bought Joske's, including a few in the Houston area. I don't know of any that are left at this point.

The stores that I know of that used to be 24 hours are no longer 24 hours.

The store at Holcombe and Buffalo Speedway is open 24 hours.

I drove by the River Oaks Center Friday night and it was really sad to see that section dark and fenced off. I'm in New Zealand right now, and hate to think that by the time I get back to Houston that building will be lost forever, but I know that's probably what is going to happen.

Randall's has 24 hour stores as well.

It seems odd to me that for people living in Midtown, where $300k+ townhomes are the norm, the primary concern when grocery shopping is saving a couple cents on cans of vegetables. I've never found Randalls to be more expensive than Kroger if you use a free Randalls card, but maybe there are some unusual items I don't buy.

I like the Midtown Randalls for the sake of convenience. The amount of money spent on fuel would outweigh any savings, at least for me.

I totally agree. From where I live, there's a Randall's Flagship and a Kroger nearby, as well as Super Target. All three are roughly the same distance, although the Randall's is slightly farther. Of the three, the Randall's store provides by far the nicest shopping experience. The store was recently renovated and is quite nice. On the other hand, the Kroger, a former Albertson's location, is very outdated and disorganized. As for prices, I've never really noticed much difference on the things I buy, but I also don't drive all over town comparing prices either. To me that's just a waste of time and gas. I hate to see Randall's doing poorly, and I do think that they were a much better grocery store when the Onstead family was in charge. I would really hate to see the Midtown store fail. I shopped in there quite a few times and it's always seemed busy, even though the selection is more limited due to the store's smaller size.

I have no problem with the increase. I grew up going to the Houston Zoo (and the Museum of Natural Science when it was free and called the Museum of Natural History) and remember how average, if not below average, those facilities were back then. My boyfriend and I had a date to the Zoo a few months back, and despite the admission fees, it was packed with visitors from all income levels. The difference between what our zoo is now, compared to what it was just 15 years ago, is amazing. Very little of it looks like the dumpy place it was when I was a kid, with sad, depressed looking animals sitting in small cages. I can't wait to go back after they've finished the current African forest project that's under construction.

Yes St. Louis has a great zoo, and it's free. But that's the exception, not the norm. Like most things in life, you get what you pay for. I'd rather pay to get in and get to enjoy a great experience, than go to something that's free but third rate. The same thing applies to the Museum of Natural Science, which has grown from a below average, but free, museum, to one of the very best of its type in the nation over the last 20 years, thanks in large part to the admission fees. Both of these facilities offer numerous discount options, as well as free days several times a year.

They had told the residents in the main buildings along Allen Parkway that they would have to be out by June, so I'm not surprised it looked empty.

The buildings along West Dallas will still be Allen House Apartments for another year or two, until they reach a later phase of the redevelopment.

it was my understanding that the capacity of the finished central concourse will handle the same plane load as the 3 concourses. further expansion eastward (where southwests concourse was) is still possible if warranted.

Actually the East Concourse is supposed to be built. It's the West Concourse (where the current concourse American and Delta use is located) that will only be built if air traffic justifies it. Also, the Central Concourse isn't fully opened yet. The east end of it is nearing completion and should be opening soon.