TexasVines

Beef and Bird

I miss this restaurant on Wilcrest. It was formal and had an east coast feel to it with great wild game especially the wild boar with plum sauce as well as the salmon pate with the bread as a starter. The more casual french place by the same chef isnt as good for my taste.. le Cep I believe it is called.

The Beef and Bird was great...I grew up about two stones throws from there

In my area Lakeside and Walnut Bend it seemed like things hit hard because there were literally 10 for sale signs on some blocks, but a lot of people in that area were higher up and or pretty valuable and many were conservative with their cash....many many of our neighbors still live there today and some even call our house the (my last name) house even though the people that bought it from us have lived there now longer than we did

there were also a lot of people in that area not in the oil business....some of our neighbors on our street went over seas one with Aramco and another with Cooper and rented their houses out....houses if they sold sold for 30,000 - 40,000 less than when times were better.....some were vacant, but all were maintained.......WestChase went from being developed and streets cut and landscaping done on the edges of the raw land to just vacant space with nice landscaping and streets of nothing....same with CityWest.....the HPD was busy back then solving real crimes so all those vacant places like CityWest pond, end of Richmond...the drinking age was 18 then and cops and society were a lot less strict back then....every so often especially at the end of Richmond the cops would roll up in a car or two and those "new to the game" would go running off into the field and the cops would just laugh and not even get out of their cars and get on the speaker and say they were getting complaints and to pick up all the trash or they would run us off for good....when Richmond finally got extended the cops came by one night and told us a new place to go that was a four lane road just north of the west side police station where they stopped construction because a ditch there was polluted and the company went under and it was going to be forever before it was all settled...I don't think the cops ever came there

all over Houston was basically abandoned developments many commercial....streets, landscaping, vacant land......out west near Dairy Ashford they went from building two streets of houses at a time to building none.....you could go out there during the boom and 25-30 houses were framed at a time....then they just finished them and that was that....many did not sell for a year or more....same in Alief, Sugarland and many other areas on the west side

the SNL deal was really a separate issue, but it was like a kick in the nuts after a punch in the face....Houston lost all their major banks....Texas went from single banks under a holding company to branch banking, Texas Commerce, Republic, Gibraltar SNL and tons of others were bought up....the real kicker was many of the bankers jerked the strings on people pretty quick because they all thought oil was going to be back pretty soon....when oil did not come back those banks found themselves sitting on assets decreasing further in value and costing in upkeep...Frost was the only major Texas bank to not go under....Mortgage lending went to hell too

Commercial construction fell off the map as well and a lot of buildings sat as empty shells....times were bad, but it never seemed like a total panic...a lot of the USA was still doing OK and many people had moved out of Texas to build homes and commercial property so while some companies were down others were able to ride it out by working out of state or in Hong Kong (money seemed to flow out of Houston to Hong Kong for commercial properties then back from Hong Kong early on in the recovery)

apartments were what REALLY went to hell.....places like gulfton NEVER recovered...oil is hard ass work for young people....young people that liked to work hard and party hard and spend cash....so they rented apartments....also the yankees that were flowing in crapping everything out from places like Michigan were also dead ass broke so renting an apartment was their only option at first....the apartments in some areas of Huston have never recovered and many probably will not until the D8 runs them under.....crap built in a fashion that absolutely prevents any type of renovation and torn to hell and never maintained for decades now

a lot of schools had T-shacks so when things went bad Houston did not have tosit on a ton of empty school...the T-shacks just went away.....there was a LONG time where Houston did not build a lot of high schools or even many middle schools....the elementaries seemed to come after the subdivision filled out so there were not even a ton of those vacant...I think Alief shut off part of Hastings and or Elsik and even then they were HUGE schools in population so class sizes shrunk...a lot of people I knew lost their ass, but many seemed to have connections and they got into something else...others had actually saved some money and just stopped pissing it all away....a few moved back to California and rode that boom up again....there was a long time when Texas was way down and most of the rest of the USA was doing pretty well...people that were young and single or young with young kids were the ones mostly up and moving....higher ups were doing a lot of commuting during the week and back home on the weekend....or some overseas

looking back Houston really rode it out pretty well and with the exception of losing all the big banks and the clout that came with that it was probably pretty good for Houston it really diversified the economy over all and taught people about saving cash VS pissing it into the wind....for all the "high rolling" back then people were a lot more conservative in Houston then and even today....they were not house flipping every year they were paying houses off and buying things like nicer cars that were easier to toss the keys back on and cloths and other BS that did not totally kill them when they had to stop buying them....Texas also has the homestead exemption and back then it was unlimited amounts....so people that say it coming ditched a LOT of assets and went and bought a ranch or a big house and homesteaded it and that is what they were able to use to climb back out of the hole...Texas back then did not allow home equity loans so real estate had not totally blown out of proportion as well......the home equity and 2nd/3rd mortgages is what is killing the USA now

it was a pretty crazy time before the bust and pretty crazy after....Houston in the 70s - 90s was a wild time

Rusty Pelican was the restaurant

there was a halmark card shop just to the left as you walked west out of Target....the Target mall entrance was at an angle.....I believe there was a toy store (possibly a KB) a womens fashion store...the Pizza was Godfathers with an outside entrance....the game room probably was funway freeway......it started out across the mall from Godfathers inside the mall then moved across the mall next to Godfathers with plans to cut an outside entrance for later hours, but the expense of cutting the wall was too much them game rooms died......the Randals was a Weingartens to start and never had a mall entrance....the Randals was origionally across Westheimer from the mall at the corner of Lakside drive on the west side....It was Two Pesos (not dos pesos) before the big Taco Cabana Two pesos lawsuit

there was also a Bennigans just to the west of Two Pesos ....there was possilby a Gap in the mall and some other stores I can't recall....it was definately 100% what I would call a mall with stores on both sides of the interior ....some of the others were smaller womens stores like shoes for one and the one previously mentioned....I know there was one chain jewlery store if not two....there was some type of cookie store as well I think....hell for all the time I spent there I sure can't recall a lot of the stores, but like I say a lot were geared towards women...I am pretty sure besides the Target entrance there were only two other entrances into the mall....the floor tile was brown and there were planters just set on the tile, but they looked decent and were always well maintained as was the whole mall

one of the stranger aspects is that the mall kind of never "died"....it lost stores and then it was VERY quick after that it moved to the strip center format.....a few of the successful stores moved to the front and cut exterior entrances and one of the big stores to come was Larrys Shoes....the grocery store was actually vacant for a longer time until Randals opened the Flagship there and closed across the street

when we first moved to Lakside the mall was a cow pasture complete with stock ponds and the area where Randals origionally located was a dirt field with a bilboard for Lakside advertising it and a large hill of dirt about as high as the billboard that all the kids would ride bikes on....Westheimer was two lanes asphalt with bar ditches on the sides from at least where Beltway 8 was (long before Beltway 8 existed on anything more than a map and it was also two lanes on what was going to be one side of the access road and there were large hills of dirt all up and down between Westheimer and the Bayou that were in place to be the over passes for the freeway part)

Large tower crane just installed between 30 Sunset, the temple, and Rice Graduate apartments. It looks like a large structure will be in the backyards of the new homes.

that is probably to get the cars on the roof

I agree wholeheartedly.

In that last bazaar event, people were sitting and eating on top of markers and graves, truly appalling. Majority of parishoners are low income and either dont care to invest in time to clean or lack $$ like most in the city. Regardless, the clergy and grounds keepers have dropped the ball in a most horrific way. Oy vey & Santo cielo!

depending on the race of the people sitting on those graves it would either be appalling or no big deal at all.....one large culture now in Texas sees nothing wrong at all with sitting on graves, stones, or markers because they view their dead and their observance of the dead in a much different fashion than many others do

so while you might have seen it as disrespect to the graves or the dead they saw it as common ordinary behavior based on what they do as celebration in their own country and in no way viewed it as or intended it as disrespect to the graves or the dead in them

Yes, I have noticed that too whenever I go down there, no hobos. Its nice. I hope it stays like that. How are they keeping them out? Do the cops tell their panhandling asses to leave whenever they see one?

I believe technically the park is 100% private property since it is in trust for 20 years and because of that cops can tell people of any type they need to leave private property and this is the same reason it can be rented and parts or all of it closed for private events

They're part of the Freemasons, a more than questionable secretive society whose supposed benevolence is a total sham?

go tell that to all the children they have treated fool.....do they ask for tax money like loser "community organizers" do for "projects" in the same failed ghetto slums over and over....NO

have they taken money from you.....if not then it is none of your business.....you can go right down and join one and it will all be clear to you what they do and who they are.....much more clear than any "community organizer" type of scams that we are all forced to pay for through tax breaks and government grants that then disappear with ZERO accountability

I would put their record against any "community organizer" types any day of the week

Houston already has the OTC (Off Shore Technology Conference) and there are dozens of other oil conferences already in existence so starting another is probably a non-starter

to have a decent conference you really need to have something to conference about and you really need to get it going when the industry is getting going not 100+ years later when the industry is extremely mature

A much better idea would be an expanded conference like the previous wind energy conference that went well beyond wind and LARGE wind and included small wind, large and small solar with both PV and heat concentration, geohydronic for large and small users, energy storage like flywheels, underground and above ground compressed air, pumped hydro, stored superchilled/heated liquids, batteries, green building and controls (that make sense besides the LEED BS), off peek usage strategies, and policy, research, development, and commercialization for these technologies

Ground has also broken on the Emerging Technologies and Economic Development Interdisciplinary Building:

Engineering and Applied Technologies Align

By REBECCA WATTS, AbouTown Press

...The building will house the Dwight Look College of Engineering, the Department of Biomedical Engineering and the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineers, and the research of interdisciplinary partnerships. International design firm Perkins + Will designed the three-story building to include ample display space, nine classrooms and two lecture halls equipped with state-of-the-art technology, two computer labs, dry and wet bench labs that will support bioscience experiments, underwater research labs, visualization rooms, workshop facilities, and offices.

The construction of the Emerging Technologies building will better accommodate the 100 additional faculty positions added to the Dwight Look College of Engineering through the faculty reinvestment plan. Initiated by former Texas A&M president and current U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates in 2006, the plan adds 447 faculty positions over five years to the university...

boy Gates was a real WIN for TAMU it is too bad he got away so soon.....I have met Murano in person and she is nice and has good experience but she will have big shoes to fill and I will withhold judgment on her until it is all done.....one thing I already do not like is she specifically told a LARGE NUMBER of people that the A in A&M would mean Ag again......then she came up with the totally stupid "agrilife" naming....and what was worse is it was only a short time after they had changed Ag Extension to Cooperative Extension to reflect all the damn food and welfare projects that are ruining extension agencies across the USA.....hell some trucks did not even have the Cooperative Extension stickers on them yet and they changed the stupid name again.....she had a lot of good will to get back after that poorly handled fiasco

I hope TAMU and UT have not bid out all these buildings already and can take advantage of the reduced materials prices and building trades demand....it would be great to see them budget in the high price times and then build in lower priced times and have cash left over

Here's a quick snapshot from Temple Emanu El:

I don't see any place for cars on the roof

I remember Monterey House well, but aren't there still some of those around? I thought they just changed names to Monterey's TexMex cafe. I guess though, that those could be closed too now.

Wasn't it Monterey House that had the chili con queso puff's, or am I thinking of Los Tios?

BTW- welcome to the board slmintx

I believe both had the puffs.....they were great

i dunno, if i were plunking down 150 grand for a car, i wouldn't want to look over and see some homeless guy peeing against the front window as i was signing the paperwork.

it might give you a satisfactory feeling of knowing why you have worked hard to earn what you are buying

no different than actually driving the car and having some squeegee loser try and "clean" your windshield

WOW....I can see this getting off the ground in about oh.....well never!

I never had any of those issues when dealing with TABC, either in applying for my permit, or once I had it. Yes, they have many arcane rules, but the TABC employees I dealt with knew it, and also were very helpful in suggesting ways to get around them without getting into trouble...exactly what I would hope a government officer to do.

I know multiple people in all three levels of the alcohol industry; manufacture, wholesale, and retail that have had a number of issues with them over and over and I also know someone who contacted them twice in regards to how to follow the rules for a college kid party only to be set up and then mocked after arrest for not contacting them about how to follow the rules......he did twice

I wondered how the whole "dry" thing came about.....I thought Houston never had any of that stupidity when I was a kid and they reserved that for dallas which has some of the dumbest wet dry areas around

I thought all of Houston was wet, but the annexed part explains why the Heights was not

usually wet dry goes by county precinct or city borders or county borders or a precinct in a county/city borders and it is either all that precinct, all that county, all that city, or none, but since I am not sure if the Heights is all one precinct then I am not sure how that would work for them since it it might not be its own precinct and is no longer a city of its own

if you have memberships it can really be the same as wet (plus or minus package sales) and since there are no rules on membership charges they can be handed out for free or sold for a penny ect and since 100% of any revenue from membership sales goes to the fools at TABC there is no incentive to charge for them to the club owner....the only thing is since the TABC is a pack or worthless idiots they will check memberships even if given for free because idiots need to find a reason to keep their idiot job....but that usually only cuts down on the "pack them in bars" where a waitress will be so busy she will forget to check, get tired of checking, or give some "hipster" a break only to find she has been set up and the bar is getting fined

if you have membership now and the heights is not its own precinct then it will probably be extremely difficult to change since in 90% of the cases dealing with anything other than sales to minors TABC can't even really tell you what their laws and rules are because they are all morons and their laws and rules are so poorly written that different areas will interpret the same rules and laws differently

I know people that have sat in TABC meetings with wholesalers and the wholesalers (who are part of the reason TABC stays around and stays so stupid) would ask them about specific rules and the answer was (multiple times) "you don't want me to answer that because if I answer it then I will have set the precedent and it is much easier for you to just do what you need to and it will not be looked at and if it is then you can fight it based on not knowing the interpretation and then the rules can be set in the courts

when dealing with TABC it is best to go with "if it is not broke and you can work around it then don't ask" because if you ask and they have to set a rule or make a change usually it will come out on the side of lack of common sense and stupidity....because that is what the do best!!!

An Otis elevator was the one that decapitated the doctor several years ago at St. Joseph's. His head rolled into the elevator compartment as the elevator continued upward. The woman in the elevator was horrified.

http://www.houstonpress.com/2003-10-09/new...hing-elevators/

I don't remember anything like that.

Edit: Oh, looks like you were right after all.

well OTIS and I are friends so he would not do that to me and I usually do not lead with my head into the elevator or use my head as the appendage to try and keep the elevator door from shutting

I think he probably meant it has the same relation to UH that UT and UT-San Antonio, Dallas, Arlington, El Paso, etc. have. They are part of the same system.

well in his case he is one of those that is very against the name change because he believes there is no difference between UHD and UH and they should not try and differentiate one from the other when there is a big difference.....they are not the same university and they have vastly different admissions and degree plans

just like the UT system schools...it is a lot less hard to confuse the UT schools since none are in the same city and since many have their own sports teams.....and they all have vastly different admissions requirements and degree plans

Same thing.

only to those that have no clue....if different admission requirements, different degree requirements, and courses that do not count at one school or the other is the "same thing" then every university in the world is the same because they all are a university

Is it not going to be part of UH anymore or something? I like University of houston downtown. It sounds good.

it is not a part of UH now it is its own university....but it is currently and will remain a part of the UH System

I believe from the UHD standpoint there is something to gain.....most on this forum are educated well above the average first time college student and many were probably not first generation college students....and yet many on here have expressed that THEY were confused and others they interact with were confused by the association

if a first generation college student applies to UH and barely misses being accepted I feel there is a good chance they will assume like many on this forum and elsewhere that UHD is exactly the same as UH and therefor they will assume they will not be able to go to UHD as well when UHD is exactly where they belong

by making a distinction it will allow people (especially first gen students) to understand they need to apply to BOTH because they WILL be accepted to UHD even if declined at UH.....anyone that does not feel it is important to let first gen students know there are multiple opportunities out there for them (especially when many on here have told of their confusion) is crazy

they all suck Houston Metro was the one, but I vote for

Gulf Coast State University

Houston is not in South Texas and bidirectional is just like 20th said.....small time

That's a lot of words for such a non-issue.

wait until you see the reply in the UH tier 1 thread

I understood they were "separate" but not fully. That was a very helpful explanation. Thanks for taking the time.

Next question...this is a change in name only, correct? They will retain their same status as part of the UH System, right?

yes

happy ltawacs

I'm still confused. I guess because I don't understand how they're not a branch of UH-Main Campus, yet they're still associated??? How does that work?

Are UH-Downtown, UH-Clearlake etc fundamentally the same in that they're not a branch but still associated, or are they in two different states(situations)?

I mean, if the above is true, why is the UH-Main Campus having to approve anything? If they're so separate and distinctive, why is she included in the process at all?

Maybe this is the answer to my question?...

I totally understand that if you enrolled with the Main campus, you won't be having any classes downtown, and vice versa.

UHCL, UHD, and UHV are freestanding universities within the UH system, UH Sugarland, and UH Cinco Ranch are system centers within the UH system

UHCL, UHD, and UHV all have their own president of the university and all have their own distinct degree requirements for degrees sometimes even the same degree in the same subject will have different requirements at the different schools.....UH Sugarland and UH Cinco Ranch offer degree programs through the various universities of the UH system and only upper level courses......so if you go to UH Sugarland and get a degree from there in Biology then that degree will meet the same requirements as the biology degree from UHV because that is who it is offered through...if you get a B.A. in English then it will meet the exact requirements of the main campus of UH because that is who it is offered through

Dr. Renu Khator is the president of the main UH campus and also the Chancellor of the UH system which means she is over all the presidents of the free standing universities and she is over the system centers that do not have their own presidents and do not have the authority from the state of Texas to offer or create their own degrees or degree plans

The main campus of UH does not have to approve anything to do with the name change, but Dr. Khator as the Chancellor does approve it after the president of UHD does

the UH System functions as the representative to the State of Texas when it comes time for all the universities to lobby for funding which means the individual presidents of the university don't go before the legislators as individual representatives of their school to lobby the state and the system as a whole coordinates the universities to try and avoid duplication and take advantage of synergies when possible

There is a possibility that you could take a course at UHD while going to UH main campus, but it would be rare, but there is a good chance you might take a course at UH Sugarland and have a telecourse from UHV or any of the other schools especially related to the university that the degree is offered through or even take a course at that free standing campus as well

UH is what is called a "strong system" which means the above....the chancellor lobbies on behalf of the universities in the system and tries to coordinate degree offerings.....TAMU, UT, and Texas Tech are also strong systems.......the Texas State System with Lamar, Texas State San Marcos, Sam Houston, and Sul Ross is a "weak system" which means the presidents of the universities lobby for their own funding and they are more independent in their choices about what degrees and types of degrees to offer.....there is really not a huge difference between the two per say other than a "weak system" does not have a flagship campus as well which is the one that is usually the oldest, largest, and the one that offers the broadest number of masters and PhDs....this is not always the case like Berkeley is "Cal" and considered the "flagship" of the UC system, but UCLA is larger and does more research and probably offers and graduates the same or more graduate degrees

in the end both strong and weak systems have their own Board of Regents as well that represent all the universities and agencies in that system

at this time the Texas State System is moving towards becoming a strong system and that is part of the reason Angelo State left that system and joined the Texas Tech system

Gulf Coast State University

South Texas State University

South Texas University

Southeast Texas State University

University of South Texas

University of Southeast Texas

Seguin State University

Southeastern Texas University

Texas Gulf Coast State University

Texas Southeast University

every one of those names is just stupid....I never met anyone in my life or living in Houston that ever considered Houston to be south Texas......most in San Antonio think it is only on the cusp of South Texas and that is only because it is to the direct north of what IS south Texas.....most people I ever met considered Houston to be Houston, but if they gave it a directional location it was more EAST than anything though Houston is not really in what people consider east Texas as well especially those behind the pine curtain IN east Texas

Seguin State.....what total idiot came up with that especially since there is a TOWN CALLED SEGUIN that is nowhere near Houston and Seguin has a university in it.....talk about STUPID....and it has been studied time and again that bidirectional named schools are less respected which makes a number of those other names worthless.....then you add in the CLEAR confusion with South Texas College of law and again MANY of those names are stupid and if I was STCL I would be considering cranking up some of those lawyers to prevent the false association and I hope they do...which leaves the Gulf Coast choices and the inclusion of State in them makes them wordy and stupid as well

Houston Metro was the best too bad some ignorant fool with a complete lack of understanding of the total LACK of "gravitas" that UHD holds stood in the way of that

Otis is the only elevator for me!