cottonmather0

If someone were to get in there and be able to displace all of the residents and eliminate the apartment complexes, the land itself would seem to be pretty valuable given the location between Bellaire and the Galleria.

The activity center is highlighted in yellow, in the blueprint...

Here is another description from the mag...

"Here again. the ACTIVITY CENTER is in the most convenient place, the hub. Living room has been opened to an enclosed garden next to the carport. No need to hide behind drawn draperies here---privacy is built right in."

I also saw the basement stairway, and thought in Houston that it would probably be a closet. The plan is very flexible, so it says, to meet different or changing needs.

I like the idea of having the bedrooms away from the kitchen & living area, in my house the master bedroom is next to the family room. Not good.

Ahh, I missed that.

Well, tell me if I'm reading the plan wrong, but it does look like there's still a basement, no? That's extremely unusual for southeast Texas.

Is the "activity center" actually a basement?

I haven't been there in years, but love that place. Great bar.

It does make sense that it would be dozer fodder in that location.

Don't put words in my mouth, hoss. Read my post. It clearly said 'minors'.

I'll ignore the rest, as it is symptomatic of Grumpy Old Man Syndrome, and really not worth adding to.

You're right, I didn't read it closely enough. I apologize.

Although I figured the whole point of this thread was grumpy old man (or family on a budget) syndrome.

That said, you said you tip for service and I'll stand by my point that I do too.

Worst. Justification. Ever.

Whether it is the conglomerate Aramark, or my tiny little restaurant with a beer license, ensuring that the license is not lost by unthinking employees is paramount. I am quite sure that Aramark would say the same thing I did when my ID policies were questioned...'When your investment is on the line, you can make the rules.' And, for you to think that anyone might even care if you got carded is downright comical. The solution is simple. Do not buy alcohol at the ballpark.

What? Worst justification for what? You said that the employee would get frog-marched and thrown in jail for not asking for ID, I said that wasn't true and TABC only cares about whether or not minors are actually served. Since I'm not a minor, they would not go to jail for serving me, regardless of whether they ask me for ID (link here):

State Law

Texas state law does not require that a person over 21 provide any identification to purchase alcohol in Texas. There is nothing in the law that declares specific forms of ID as “valid” for an alcohol purchase.

However, the law does provide a statutory defense to the charge of selling an alcoholic beverage to a minor when the seller has asked for and examined an apparently valid DPS issued Texas DL or ID card which contains a physical description consistent with the presenter's appearance and shows the presenter to be 21 years of age of older.

For that reason, since store clerks, wait staff, and bartenders can be held criminally liable for selling alcohol to a minor, they often require a Texas Driver's License or Texas Identification Card issued by the Department of Public Safety, to prove that the person really is 21.

A store, bar or restaurant might or might not sell alcohol to a person with an out-of-state driver's license, military ID, or passport. What's acceptable in any establishment is a matter of that establishment's private business policies.

If the patron is obviously over 21, the establishment may not require any ID at all.

Of course, under the Company Policy section there is also this:

Company Policies

Some retailers in Texas have policies requiring that customers provide proof of age for all alcoholic beverage purchases, regardless of the age of the customer.

There are some other retailers in Texas that will only accept a Texas Driver's License or Texas Identification Card as “valid identification” to purchase alcoholic beverages.

Some retailers will insist that everyone in a group show proof that they are 21 or over when anyone in the group is attempting to purchase alcoholic beverages. This is an attempt to prevent adults from illegally providing alcohol to minors.

These are internal company policies and are more strict that what state law requires. However, these establishments have the legal right to insist on proof of age for alcohol purchases.

I'm not saying that Aramark doesn't have the right to set their own policies, or whether or not it's justified (since it's a monopoly, it's certainly smart to protect it at all costs) - I'm just saying that I think it's poor service and I don't like it, ESPECIALLY when I have to flash it twice within 10 feet to the person serving and the person selling (who just saw me show the person in front of him anyway) when all three of us already know that it's legal for me to buy it and they're just going through the kabuki dance of asking so that their employer can avoid any and all mistakes and keep their license and continue to overcharge me for the product in the future.

So when the person who serves me beer treats me with a little respect and common sense, which I consider to be good SERVICE, I tip for it.

I thought the whole point of this thread was to complain about Aramark and the Astros' concession policies, no? That's all I'm doing.

EDIT: ps - TJ I know it's their policy to ask anyone and everyone. My point is that I think it's inconvenient and a little disrespectful to paying customers who obviously are way over 21, and thus bad service. But rather than give their employees a little bit of leeway and judgment, Aramark just has them card anyway, and since they have a monopoly (which is the point of the original article), it's doesn't really matter what the customers think since they can't go anywhere else.

Aramark may get a piddly fine from the TABC for serving minors. The clerk who sold the beer however, gets arrested, frog walked to the jail, and faces the possibility of a year in jail and a $4000 fine. And, you withhold their tip for not wanting to go to jail?

I prefer to tip on service, not one's willingness to flirt with arrest. But hey, it's your money.

Red, not asking a stupid redundant question that we both already know the answer to IS service to me, and good service at that. Texas law does not require ID to be shown to purchase alcohol, it's on the TABC website and easily accessible from Google (can't post a link from my iPhone, at least not til next week )

Asking everyone for ID is an Aramark policy in an attempt to protect their monopoly at all costs, even at the cost of poor service to customers, who, after all, aren't that important anyway when you have a monopoly.

Yeah, waiters can be severely penalized if they serve to a minor, so it's in their best interest to card when there is doubt that the customer is of age, but surely even the flunkiest of all Aramark employees doesn't have a serious doubt about Grandpa (or even me). They ask because Aramark makes them.

I hate Aramark. Mafia is a good word for them because they have a racket going and they don't want to risk losing that racket for anything.

"I'll take an overpriced $7.50 Bud Light please."

"Can I see some ID?"

"How old do I look?"

"Ummm, 35?"

"How old do I have to be to buy beer?"

"21."

"So... Why in the world do you want to see ID? I'm fat and balding and I'm wearing a nice watch and a suit and you think I'm under 21?"

"No, but they'll fire me if I don't ask."

Those that don't ask always get a tip from me for using their brains, although I don't doubt one second that they would get fired if they got caught because Aramark wants to keep the monopoly. I saw them card a white haired man with a cane once and it made me mad as hell.

And not only that, they ask twice usually - once with the person who hands it to you and again with the person who takes your money.

BTW - this isn't a discourse on underaged drinking. People under 21 should not be served alcohol at baseball games. I'm only commenting on Aramark's lousy service and monopoly at the ballpark that they're trying to protect from TABC. I get it.

(I do think the legal age should be 18, but that's not germane to this story)

I saw that yesterday, too. It is cool.

One question: Do they change out the seat cushions or whole seats themselves for Aeros games? They look to be a different color when the ice is out.

Not sure where you get "sneering" from my post, but my point is that responding to a public health crisis, and distributing this kind of medication is one of the things our tax dollars pay for. So every time people whine about taxes, they conveniently forget all the services they expect from their government. Like this one.

If anyone was sneering, it was Rick Perry, sneering at our own country & federal government. Not me.

Nonetheless, it's clear from both of your posts that you really need to learn more about what Rick Perry and the others are upset about.

You don't seem to get it all because it's not taxes or federal health services, nor is it "our own country and federal government."

LOL. Should we ask anyone who wants to receive the medication what their position on taxation is?

What does taxation have to do with it?

I'm pretty sure that most of the people you're sneering at have various opinions on taxation but would agree that disease control and public health are legitimate governmental responsibilities.

Out of control federal entitlement spending and unfunded mandates to state governments for even more of the same, probably not so much.

It would be nice if the people who make fun of the tea party movement - and politicians like Rick Perry and Mark Sanford - would actually try and understand it rather than make strained jokes about at all being about income taxes.

If it's that close to my house, then I guess I have no choice.

It sure beats driving down to South Main to get rid of old fertilizer like I did this time last year.

Edwards and Koch DO share the garage, but AFAIK there isn't a separate side thing. The elavators for the Edwards and for the Koch are on opposite sides, though. AFAIK the workers park in that garage during the day, while the theater patrons use it during the night.

Thanks. Like I said, this person must be arguing some kind of technicality.

You are correct that there are no "sides" - all I was trying to say was that there are doors to Edwards on the west side and doors to Koch on the east side and patrons of both buildings park there.

When a garage is constructed between two buildings with entrances on each side, that's "sharing" the garage according to my definition.

no it doesnt share a garage with Edwards

OK, I give up on whatever technicality you're arguing here, but Edwards ("Regal" now I think) uses the west side of the structure and people who work in the Koch building on the other end of the block park on the east side of the exact same garage that is directly connected to their building via walkways. I have visited there before and I know people who work there today. I'm not going to go anymore off topic than this. Cheers.

No it doesnt share a parking garage with Edwards.

Unless you're talking about a different Koch Building it certainly does.

This is the picture from the KS&T website:

Which seems to be pretty clearly visible in the overhead (NW corner of Cummins and Norfolk):

Google Maps

Is the parking garage in between the two some kid of Google mirage?

Where is the Koch building?

In Greenway. It's the red and black stair-stepped looking building that shares the parking garage with the Edwards theater.

LOL, I see how that's confusing. I guess the answer is both? Maybe they could have built a larger second floor (or a third floor) on a smaller footprint and added a few more parking spaces?

I recognize that there were a lot of constraints - money, lot size - and that they did a very good job with what they had. Just making an observation.

It's a great facility but that place is ALWAYS crowded and seems to have been built a little too small.

I've wondered if the LEED process had anything to do with the relative size of the building versus the parking lot. They could have built up a little bit higher and saved some of the footprint for a few extra parking places.

Yeah, that rings pretty clearly with the familiar undertone of clever engineering students.

Well done and realistic sounding on its face, but it doesn't quite hold up to the smell test.

I noticed the same thing too - we attempted to park at the rodeo the other night and when we learned that all of the cash parking was full we decided to drive to our church and park there and take the train. Traffic on main was backed up all the way from Holcombe hrough the fountains and past the museum. Binz and San Jacinto were also just as bad. The presence of the traffic cops made me think that maybe there was a VIP motorcade somewhere in the area that was holding up traffic. That it was going on all week is surprising.

BTW - taking the train worked out to be a better decision than parking. We were on the freeway home in the amount of time that it would have taken us to just get out of the parking lot in previous years.

They are indeed building a new bridge to connect the jogging trail to the south side of the park. There are going to be new parking lots (which is sorely needed), new trails, and a "running center" built over there to try and alleviate some of the awful congestion around the jogging loop and tennis courts. I can't wait for it to be finished, personally.

Does anyone know if the food court in the tunnel between the McKinney and Milam areas is ever going to be opened or has it just been put off? How long has it been sitting there? Every time I pass by there I think it would be a gold mine with the right stores. If it was me I would put in a Taco Bell, Sonic, and a nice Chinese buffet.

McKinney and Milam intersect, so I am confused just what building you're talking about. Do you mean the area between Bank One and the McKinney Garage? I'm thinking that's what you're talking about... Been awhile since I have been down since I quit working downtown, but essentially between Becks Prime and Chicken Kitchen. Is that the area?

No. Trump is only 1,362 feet tall. The Sears Tower is 1,450 to the roof and 1,729 to the tip of its west spire.

If you're the sort of person who includes antennae in building heights, the John Hancock Center is also taller than Trump at 1,506 feet.

I think the question is how tall is the crane on top of the building itself?

I worked in that building for a few months 10 years ago when I was employed by a contractor to El Paso. The 1960's Skidmore vibe was kind of cool right at first, but at that point it was almost 40 years old and really worn out. The building certainly needed the upgrade and I'm glad to see it's finally on the way. One can only take so much wood paneling and low ceilings.

It's always like that, especially on Thursday and Saturday nights. It's one of the nicer places to go in town, I think. Lots of options.

The problem is that it's hard to get in and out and that the parking lot is way too small.