Jump to content

sunsets

Full Member
  • Posts

    289
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    1

Everything posted by sunsets

  1. And frankly, the new construction on the inside look is what sells. Last year, three of the big houses on Bayland went up for sale within months of one another. If I recall correctly, they were priced within 50K of each other. They were all beautifully restored on the outside, and two of them looked like a Pottery Barn catalog on the inside. The other was a more "period restoration" look, with dark wood trim and reproduction arts and crafts floral wallpaper. It was furnished with Victorian antiques, too. The new interior homes sold very quickly, while the period restoration sat for a long time, with multiple price reductions and a new paint job inside before someone finally bought it.
  2. WOODLAND HEIGHTS Not leaving, can help with storm prep and check up on houses/people in the area. I also have a couple of extra bicycles if needed for transportation should the storm take down trees and render the streets impassable to cars.
  3. If you want cheap, decent, greasy, and fast - Andy's on 11th. I like their eggs + chorizo + tortilla. A true Tex-Mex hole in the wall.
  4. Yep. My hockey team needs a new sports/hangout bar to frequent after our league games. Mr. C's is done as of last weekend. Farewell, cheap drinks and awesome bar staff! I heard it was Metro National (they're the owners of memorial city, right?) who was doing the demo/rebuild of that little shopping center that currently houses the aforementioned Mr. C's, La Fiesta, and Kobe.
  5. What about KC's on TC Jester? That's not too bad of a sports bar. There's SRO at the Northwest Mall, but I guess that's technically outside the loop.
  6. As a lone female standing on on a downtown corner waiting for a bus, I would seem to be a good target for panhandlers. I do get approached (I would estimate 1 out of every 5 times), but a simple, "I'm sorry, sir, I don't have anything" works just fine to get them to go away. I think the added "sir" helps. I'm always a bit surprised at the number of grifters we have hanging around the Heights. There's the guy with the dog on Taylor, the team that works the Heights/Katy freeway intersection, and various shopping cart pushers on Center street. There's now a guy that offers to valet your recycling from your car to the dumpster at the center behind Star pizza. (I think he "works" Saturdays, only, though )
  7. I can add a few more places located on the north side of the TMC to the suggestions.... There's also sushi available in the TMC, at Azuma, just around the corner from Chipotle. They stay open until 7 or 8 at night, I think. The ground floor of Methodist's Smith tower has two places to eat - a deli and a Mexican/Cuban place. There's a Murphy's deli on the second floor of that building, too. The new Memorial Hermann professional building (the shiny one with the glowing roof) has an Au Bon Pain on the second floor. And, as has been previously mentioned, the McGovern commons building (the double water wall) in the heart of the TMC has a food court on the ground floor. That's only open for breakfast/lunch. However, the restaurant on the top floor of that building, Trevisio, has good Italian food and an excellent wine selection. They keep "regular" restaurant hours as well.
  8. My impression of the Med Center area is that it is fairly unique in terms of townhouse/condo pricing. People buy an approx. 100K townhouse, live in it for a few years, then sell it for about the same amount they paid for it. Why? Becuase the mortgage payments are as cheap or cheaper than rent. Most people living in those are students/postdocs/residents who are only living here for a few years as they complete their training. Thus, turnover is really high. So they're not buying as an investment, rather, it's a short term living arrangement. I would think that waiting another 6 months won't make a difference - but you probably won't see any appreciation in the property. If you're planning on being here for a while, you might do better to save up more, then go for a townhouse on the east side of downtown or somewhere up and coming like that.
  9. Unless you have a burning desire to take a vow of poverty and devote your existence for the next 4-5 years to doing research, I'd stick with the Master's. You'll probably come out ahead in the end, given student loans and career time lost to school. The Master's level hires I know are doing great. My husband didn't start his PhD with the idea of working for an oil company (in fact, he came from a hard rock mining background). But as I mentioned earlier, his program had close ties with two of the majors, and when they came recruiting it was too good an opportunity to pass up. Use the connections you have, get your resume out there, and see what shakes out.
  10. I don't want to burst your bubble, but I can tell you that new-hire PhD's with no previous oil experience are making 90K/year at the majors to start. I would guess that a Master's level hire would start lower. Unless you have some skills that are immediately applicable to exploration/production in the specific places that the majors are drilling I don't think you're that marketable yet. And even the PhD's are still taking classes and training pretty regularly - no university degree trains you as well as the companies want. Which might work to your advantage - they're going to train you anyhow, so if they can pick you up "relatively" cheaply you'd get your training, start moving up the pay ladder and become more valuable in the industry. Definitely get your resume out there through your contacts. Networking is your friend. Nothing is worse than having to get through the first level of paper-pushers in response to an ad on a job site.
  11. Our household has two residents geoscientists currently working for one of the major oil companies. One of them tells me the big corporations tend to hire two types of geologists: those with advanced degrees in geology/geophysics, and those who have a lot of previous experience in the oil industry. OP, I'm guessing you have a bachelor's degree? (please correct me if I'm wrong) The resident geoscientist says that if you're serious about getting in the door at one of the majors, look into going back to school and getting a Master's - preferably at a program that gets a lot of recruitment from oil companies. Mind you, this is the way they got into the biz (PhD in a program that sends more than half of its grads to Big Oil), so there very well might be other avenues to employment. As far as working for said Big Oil companies, it's treating them pretty well. The pay and benefits are great, but as with all jobs, working conditions are highly dependant upon the immediate supervisor and the group dynamics. The good thing is that in the big companies there are lots of groups from which to choose and lateral movement is not too difficult.
  12. The TMC Transit Center is at Pressler and Fannin. I think it's the only one with escalators - they get you from the bus stops to the walkway to the train platform. No one uses them, we all dodge the cars on Fannin instead, it's faster.
  13. A timely thread because if there's karmic justice for bikers riding on the sidewalks, I got it this morning. I USUALLY take the loop road through Rice on my way to the Med Center in the morning, but lately I've gotten lazy and have been cutting across campus on the sidewalks. The sidewalks composed of small cobblestone-like pebble composites. That get very slippery when they're wet. Like they were this morning. I bit it, in front of about 15 pedestrians. And had to arrive at work with a nicely bloodied leg and a dirty T shirt. I will stick to the roads from now on!
  14. The AWD on my Subaru saved my butt once last summer, on 45 during a torrential downpour. I was doing 55 or so, and hit a patch of highway that was pretty much submerged in a couple of inches of water. I felt the back end of the car get loose, I started to skid, and I felt the AWD kick in (transferred more power to the wheels with traction) and was able to maintain control. That said, the car came with me from the snowy north (Montana, where you have a Subaru or a pickup) and it's probably not something I'd purchase again if I was planning on staying in Houston.
  15. OK, sorry about the off topic - but what is so horrible about a bike commuter cleaning up in the sink? Presumably he's doing this before work officially begins, and it's not like he's not taking a shower in the fountain outside of your building, right? Speaking as a sweaty bike commuter who knows she looks ridiculous before her shower at work every morning....
  16. Looks like this one was also a fire in a building under construction. It's a new high rise for MD Anderson, and according to news reports, some construction material ignited somehow. woolie, that's an interesting rumor about the contractor arson in the UT-HSC building. Why would someone do that? Disgruntled contractor? I always wondered if it was set by PETA or ALF, since the fire conveniently destroyed the site of the new animal housing rooms, but didn't hurt any animals. But those freaks usually take credit for their destruction.
  17. But what if it turns out to be a Super Walmart? Like with a grocery?
  18. I can confirm that there is an Au Bon Pain going in on the second floor of the building. It's accessible by Skywalk, or you can take the elevator up from the ground floor. I think the Starbucks and the Walgreens are going to be at ground level. Also, Jax, if you're looking for more lunch options, I can recommend Rising Roll Gourmet in the older Health Professionals Building (just to the south of the new tower). It's accessible from Fannin street, and even has a few tables outside. It's pricey, but the sandwiches are very, very good and the service is fast. From Rice, you can cross Main at the new stoplight between MacGregor and University, walk up the alley and make a right on Fannin.
  19. I tried the deep fried twinkie. It wasn't an earth-shattering culinary experience, but I guess it was OK. Next time I'll just go for the old fashioned funnel cake. I happen to enjoy the rodeo more than the concerts- they move things along really quickly and there are some awesome cowboys out there competing. The concerts are so abbreviated anyway.
  20. I see all the little pig statues are gone from the windows. It's true, it wasn't the cheapest place to eat, but it had a certain atmosphere. (when you wanted to slum it a little and harden your arteries at the same time) And the chicken fried steak was really good. Hopefully some other kind of diner operation will take over the building, but I fear we're in for more condos.
  21. They seem to be cycling between solid colors and that ugly-ass rainbow. I hate the rainbow. The sold colors are cool, and they change every 15 seconds or so, which is quite distracting when you're seeing that effect for the first time.
  22. You'd be surprised. Not the same market, I know, but when I lived in Ann Arbor a local chain (Bill Knapp's) went under. They had two locations, each in a stand-alone Chili's-sized building at the edge of a strip mall. One was off the main highway on the east side of town, and one on the west. The west side location became Zingerman's Roadhouse, a restaurant spun off of a locally popular deli. They have the most awesome retro red neon sign out front. They charge $14 for a mac and cheese plate, and people actually pay it. (Thus is the hold the Magic of Zingerman's has over the Ann Arbor populace). The east side location was renovated and re-opened as a La Shish, which is a pretty decent middle eastern chain that got its start in Detroit. I think it's pretty easy for local chains or indepedents to re-purpose restaurants, since the kitchen is there already.
  23. The "lantern" feature is indeed very cool. If you ride the rail north, sit in the last seat facing backwards and you can watch the light play on the building as you move away from it. It looks like they're pretty much done with the exterior of the building (the cranes came down last week) but I imagine it will be quite a while before the interior is complete. The first 8 or 10 floors are parking, I believe.
  24. I work in the medical center, and know plenty of people who live in that area. I'm not sure about appreciation, I suspect it's not great, but that's just my gut feeling. I see fliers of condos listed FSBO at the end of every school year, and most of them seem to be asking 98K-$150K, depending on the age of the place. Friends of mine bought a condo around there, and they seem happy enough with it. As far as safety, I think it's pretty safe. There are plenty of shuttle buses to and from the medical center, so getting around isn't a problem. The only incident I know of happened to a co-worker a couple of years ago. She was walking through an empty lot near the Kroger, about 8 PM, when a guy attacked her from behind. He got her purse, but she got his shirt. (pretty impressive for a 5'3" Japanese lady). She was otherwise unharmed.
  25. The Memorial City Target attracts quite a diverse mix of people as well, and that's located in a pretty "upscale" mall. I agree that the clientele of the new Sawyer Heights Target is reflective of the neighborhood as a whole. I'd be surprised if it looked like it was in the middle of River Oaks or something. And the last thing we need in that shopping center is a Whole Foods. What is really necessary is a Trader Joe's. A girl can dream, can't she?
×
×
  • Create New...