Reefmonkey

Thanks @Blue Dogs for bringing this issue to my attention, I was unaware of it until seeing your thread. I've always thought Crime Stoppers seemed like a good organization, but I had no idea about the fee that people on probation have to pay to them. Requiring a convict to pay court fees, or pay restitution to his victims, or pay a fee to the local parole division for the administration of his probabtion, I'm good with all that. Requiring him to pay a flat fee to a private nongovernmental organization that had nothing to do with his case, that's ridiculous, I'm surprised it hasn't been challenged as an 8th Amendment violation. Again, thanks for bringing this issue to my attention.

Yeah, I'm mehh on Torchy's, found a lot of better places over the years. Jarro Cafe was great, and after they closed their brick-and-mortar on Gessner, they had a truck right across the street from my neighborhood until recently. Will have to try La Vibra.

I really don't know where the oversight happened. The head theatre director has been there since 1993, so you'd think she'd know this, but who knows how involved she really was allowed to be in approving plans, etc. I've heard the head of facilities for the district speak, and even asked him some questions (he has some outdated negative views of LEED), he seems like he might be the kind of guy who wouldn't be open to input on his domain from a "mere" teacher. On the other hand, though, that theatre department does make some questionable decisions. Their winter show (at HBU since the new auditorium wasn't ready yet) was Legally Blonde, which I think is a horrendous show, and they just did it a few years ago, so doing it again was wierd, but whatever. Apparently it's the younger drama teacher's favorite show, so a passion project for her. What was really questionable to me is they hired a professional animal trainer who has worked on Broadway and in Hollywood so they could have a live chihuahua and bulldog in the show. The two dogs had maybe a minute 45 seconds total stage time combined. Their "presense" could have been done with stuffed toy dogs, it was a total unnecessary gimmick, and word is, it cost $15,000. And it was only one reason they wend wildly over budget. They also hire professional musicians to fill out the orchestra for all their musicals, and for Peter Pan they hired two professional flys (system to make the actors appear to be flying) experts, a fight coordinator, and a choreographer. To me this blurs the line between an amateur educational vs professional production, and when they're in competition against other schools, many who can't afford these kinds of things, for awards like Tommy Tune, it makes one wonder how fair this is.

Try Japan House, right next to Seiwa, the Japanese grocery store (I think they are affiliated) on Dairy-Ashford just south of Briar Forest. https://www.usjapanhouse.com/

It refers to the types of tacos sold by street vendors in Mexico, soft tortillas, with the common filling types these street vendors serve. It's meant to differentiate them from the common American understanding of a taco as having a crispy shell, ground beef, and iceburg lettuce. The term is meant to connote authenticity to traditional Mexican food, rather than Taco Bell.

Stratford closed its first show in the new theater this weekend, Peter Pan. It really is pretty impressive, almost rivals a professional theatre venue. Some thoughts: There is no space for an orchestra pit. The orchestra performs in a separate room and the music is piped in via the sound system. Takes away the point of a live orchestra. The sound system is not optimized for live theatre. There is already talk about having to get extra speakers brought in. There is also talk of needing to add support structure for lighting. I'm not sure why these weren't specked in during the design phase. Not enough bathrooms. Lines were super long at intermission. Seems like designs for live performance theaters always just use standard toilet:occupancy ratios of every other building type, ignoring the fact that in live theatre everyone goes to the bathroom during the same 15 minute interval. But overall, great design, an amazing theater for an amazing (if quite a bit over-the-top) high school theatre program.

I found some corporation records for Bobby McGee's Conglomeration of Houston, which I assume was a franchisee that operated all the restaurants in Houston. Their office was downtown at 811 Dallas. They were in operation from August 1973 to February 1994.

Now that Landmark River Oaks is gone (and Landmark Greenway is long gone), and Sundance (which replaced the Angelika) is shuttered, are there any theaters around anymore that specialize in showing foreign films and independent/art films?

Good for you, wilcal, I understand that scooters may have become a nuisance in Discovery Green, but blocking off access to a public park for people in wheelchairs is simply not an acceptable solution.

This one was mid-late 80s, into the 90s, Babbage's computer software store. My younger brother and I frequented the one in Willowbrook Mall in the late 80s-early 90s. I remember wanting to get Leisure Suit Larry there, and my mom read the back of the box and said "uh, no, you're not buying this, not even with your own money." We bought some of the first LucasArts (back then LucasFilm) games there, including Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and The Secret of Monkey Island. If you remember Babbage's and are asking yourself "I wonder what happened to them?" the answer is they merged with another software retailer you might remember, Software Etc., in 1994, and became Babbage's Etc,. then launched the GameStop brand in 1999, which took off, with all the Babbage's Etc. stores being rebranded as GameStop in the next few years after that. I'm sure everyone is familiar with GameStop, you probably have a recently shuttered one just down the street from you. This picture is not of the Willowbrook location, I just pulled it off the internet.

Okay, by googling about a hospital for Southern Pacific employees in Houston, I found this, which indicates it was under construction in 1910: http://www.houstontimeportal.net/southern-pacific-hospital.html

All I've found so far is that it was once a former hospital for Southern Pacific Railroad employees. PS: I tried editing my OP to add that info, but this forum is acting wonky in both Chrome and Edge. Initially when I wrote the OP, Chrome wouldn't let me do anything other than post a poll, and now it won't let me edit. It also initially gave me trouble replying to the thread.

For reference, it is that large Italianate red-tile-roofed building that looks almost like it's on a hill, on your right as you're heading north on I-45 or west on I-10 coming from downtown. I've attached both a nice picture of the front of the building, and a picture of what the building looks like as seen from I-45. It is currently owed by Harris Health System, which says: Anyone know the full history of this building?

What was SW's reason for leaving IAH in the first place? I remember going to SMU in the 90s, it was really handy having SW flying between IAH and LUV since my parents lived in the Champions area. It would have been hell to have to schlep out to DFW or HOU when I was just coming home for a weekend.

Yea, its usually placed over a draining stone aggregate base with a French drain at the bottom

My take is that removal of the Pierce Elevated would do far more good, by creating a more seamless transition between Midtown and Downtown, than a High Line-like conversion would. Granted, I was living in Midtown back in the very early 2000s, when the space under I-45 was still a homeless tent city, but even though I lived right at Bagby and Gray, and could (and did) walk into Downtown at times, the overpass created a very strong visual and psychological barrier between Midtown and Downtown. Even though the land underneath is now gated parking, I'd still feel spooky walking under the Pierce at night in anything more than a large group of people. Getting rid of the overpass would do a lot to make the Midtown/Downtown area more walkable.

In general I tend to agree, the only time I'm okay with artificial turf in a park is when it's in a small area that's going to get a lot of traffic that would wear down real grass and you'd end up with packed dirt (which becomes mud after rain). But even then it's iffy, depending on the context. An example I can think of that does kinda make sense is in City Centre, where they have a patch of artificial turf in the main plaza that fronts Town and Country Boulevard. The patch of green is a nice break from all the buildings and concrete, but real grass wouldn't have worked there, both because of the amount of foot traffic that patch would get, and because of all the buildings preventing it from getting enough direct sunlight. And am I misremembering, or doesn't Discovery Green have some artificial turf on one of the smaller lawns over next to the Grove? But yeah, in a neighborhood park like this, I'm not a fan of artificial turf.

When I heard the board wasn't giving her the job, and was resuming its search for outside candidates, but that she was "welcome to apply for the position," I took that to mean her chances of getting the job were slim to none. Telling someone who has already done the job, so you know how they perform in it, that you are going to look for other candidates but they are "welcome to apply for the position" is kind of like your committed girlfriend telling you she wants to be able to see other people. It's not because she's pretty sure she wants to marry you, but wants to date a few other guys before she decides for sure that you're the one. And I think going outside the district is the right thing to do. HISD has some pretty long-standing cultural problems, and bringing in fresh blood is really the only way to change that culture.

In the former Galvez GM's defense, this is houstonarchitecture.com, it is targeted to a pretty specific local audience, ie mostly Houston residents. Even transplants usually learn about the 80s oil crunch and its effects on the city from neighbors, friends, coworkers, etc. after having lived here a while. So it wasn't unreasonable of him to assume that visitors to this page would know what he was talking about.

You obviously weren't living in Texas in the 80s. The recession the GM of Galvez was referring to was the oil bust of the mid-80s that really hit the Houston-area economy hard. Nobody who lived in Houston in the mid 80s, no matter how young, would forget what it was like. I was just a kid, but lost a lot of friends as their dads lost their jobs and had to move elsewhere for work. The price of oil bottomed out at $12.51/bbl in 1986. That, along with the savings and loan crisis of the mid-late 80s, which was worse in Texas than anywhere else. At least half of the failed S&Ls were based in Texas. Real estate prices plummeted. Our state fell into a deep recession. Downtown Houston was a ghost town at this time, office occupancy rates plummeted. We were just starting to come out of it around the time we hosted the economic summit in 1990. 1986 proved to be a watershed year for Houston, cleaving Old Houston from the Modern Houston we live in today. So many venerable old Houston institutions, especially those that catered to affluent oil-rich Texans, were casualties of the oil bust, that much of Houston’s unique culture and heritage died and was replaced by a more generic Large American City culture.

We had reservations to go this June, ended up being canceled. We've stayed at Indian Lodge three times now and love it, though the last time was 2016, so definitely overdue. The only complaint I have is the Black Bear Restaurant. Bad ambiance and appalling food. Same complaint I have about the dining room at the Chisos Mountain Lodge in Big Bend. I compare them to Mather Lodge in Petit Jean State Park in Arkansas, the dining room has great ambiance, and though they don't strive for haute cuisine, they do simple country cooking very well.

The HCC Campus Trail in Westchase makes good use of the utility corridor between Westheimer and Richmond. But then if you want to keep going south on a trail, you have to cut through a parking lot and then cross Wilcrest, and go east (crossing Walnut Bend), before heading south again along a creek, following it all the way into Arthur Storey Park. I've gotta hand it to the Westchase District, they did a really good job of developing these trails, nice wide paved trails running through wide, level stable right of ways that allow bikes and pedestrians to coexist, good signage, emergency phone boxes spaced at good intervals. https://www.westchasedistrict.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/October-2017-parks-and-trails-map.pdf

Ugh, letting TEA take over HISD would be like letting an arsonist write the national fire code. TEA's fingerprints are all over so many of the problems HISD and districts across the state are having. HISD was already having its struggles back in 2013 when HISD made it annex North Forest ISD. Merging a failed district with a struggling one - what a fantastic idea! And the debacle over special ed both in HISD and across the state - it was TEA that told districts to cap the number of students identified as special ed, but then when the DoEd came in and cracked down on schools, TEA threw them under the bus instead of accepting its responsibility. And then the feds give a billion in a grant to help rectify the situation, the schools are like "oh, finally," but TEA says "no, we're keeping that money, that's for us to 'enforce' you." And then this year the TEA has restricted schools' options for making their own decisions on how to reopen safely, while providing them no useful guidance on how to do so.

In the environmental industry we have a name for business models that oversell their environmental benefits: "greenwashing." And it seems that is just what is going on with the dockless scooter industry. When a life-cycle analysis is done, it turns out a dockless scooter share emits a little over 200 grams of CO2 per mile traveled. A car emits just over 400. "That's great, it's just half the emissions of a car!" you might say, but considering how carbon-intensive passenger cars are, something like a scooter should be considerably lower. Even a city bus has lower CO2 emission per passenger mile than a dockless e-scooter does. The main reasons for this are: Shared scooters don't last very long. They get very heavy use, far heavier than a privately owned electric scooter would get, and unlike a privately owned scooter, get left out in the elements. They get used and abused, and also stolen, trashed, and unfortunately even thrown in rivers. That means shared scooters have a service life no higher than about 24 months on the high end, and as low as 6 months on the low end. That means new ones have to be manufactured to replace them, and the manufacturing process is very carbon-intensive. Having "juicers" (and whatever Bird calls its freelancers) driving all around the city in conventional cars searching for scooters to charge is very carbon-intensive. It's also really inefficiently done. Chargers are paid by the number of scooters they pick up, and can collect any scooters in any location in their city once the scooters become available for pickup, without specified location routes, areas for pickup, or specified scooters, and even without any regard for the scooters' batteries' state of charge, meaning they get paid for picking up fully-charged scooters. All this might not be that much of a problem if dockless scooter rentals were significantly replacing miles traveled by more CO2-intensive forms of transportation, like passenger cars, but that does not seem to be the case. When researchers surveyed e-scooter riders, only 34% said they would have otherwise used their own car or Uber/Lyft for the trip. 11% would have taken the bus (lower CO2 than a scooter), nearly half would have biked or walked (much lower CO2 than a scooter), and 7% would have just skipped the trip. That means that two thirds of the time people use scooters, they are contributing MORE CO2 emissions than they would have if scooter share was not an option. https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab2da8#erlab2da8f3