editor

You can use the space to store you meal capsules.

In the last few weeks at least three fairly Chicago hotels have filed for bankruptcy, and several more are on the edge. No one ever thought people would stop going to conventions, but it's like a secondary bubble that burst after real estate.

My father built ten-foot-wide balcony onto the second story of our home all by himself. I bet a commercial contractor that knows what he's doing could do it pretty cheaply, especially if the building is already under renovation. (Subsequent owners removed the balcony because the local bears developed a habit of climbing up the cherry tree and sitting on the balcony to feast.)

When I was a kid growing up in Brooklyn you would occasionally see small-scale auto elevators. Like someone would have a double-height garage and one car could park underneath the other. It wasn't so much an elevator, though, as a kind of fancy cantilever device. LTAWACS brings up a good point about fire codes, though. After 9/11 some cities are requiring diesel storage tanks to be kept on the lower levels, and gasoline is far more flammable than diesel.

http://dallas.bizjournals.com/dallas/stories/2009/08/17/daily18.html?ed=2009-08-18&ana=e_du_pub

METRO LAUNCHES EXPRESS SERVICE / IMPLEMENTS SERVICE CHANGES METRO is rolling out another fast, premium service, the TMC SwiftLine, on Monday, August 24. The express service will provide a swift connection between two of the agency’s busiest transit centers – the Southeast and TMC Transit Centers. The demonstration line - a precursor to Quickline service – travels on an existing route, (the 26 Outer Loop / 27 Inner Loop) but with limited stops during peak periods, only. M The SwiftLine runs along Holcombe and O.S.T. between the Southeast and TMC Transit Centers and operates every 15 minutes between 6 a.m. to 9 a.m., and 3 p.m. to 6 p.m., Monday through Friday. With only five stops, patrons will enjoy a short trip - approximately less than 20 minutes – aboard a state-of-the-art hybrid bus. Swiftline patrons will be able to connect to multiple routes from both transit centers, and have an easy link to METRORail from the TMC Transit Center. In addition to the launch of the 426 SwiftLine, METRO will also be implementing several service and schedule adjustments to provide more efficient service. This includes adding trips to the 50 Harrisburg/Heights and 77 Liberty/M.L.K., and increasing frequency (time between buses) on the 65 Bissonnet and 50 Harrisburg/Heights. The 26 Outer Loop / 27 Inner Loop will now be recognized as two separate routes. This will not affect bus stops or signs, only the trip planner. The 26 Outer Loop travels counterclockwise and the 27 Inner Loop travels clockwise. For a complete list of METRO’s service changes, please visit our Web site at www.ridemetro.org and click on the Take One icon.

I've upgraded the forum software to the latest version. As you can probably tell already, a few new bugs cropped up. I'm working on them and will post progress reports here and on the Twitter feed.

HAIF does not have the ability to freeze your cursor. Your operating system controls the cursor, not the web page.

The search function in the new HAIF is slower then the old one. The old one was farmed out to Google. But since Google isn't as friendly with the new HAIF as the old, search has been taken in-house. There is a chance of implementing a new type of search software for HAIF that's supposed to be speedier and better, but there are some more fundamental flaws I have to deal with first. So... yeah, search is slower than old HAIF. But everything else should be pretty much the same speed.

There were no changes made to HAIF in the time frame you describe.

Sorry I'm getting to this late. I didn't notice the thread until now. If things are slow when you're typing, it's your computer, not HAIF. When you type a message it is entirely contained on your computer until you click the "Reply" button. The letters you type do not individually go to HAIF and then back to your web browser. I have no speed issues with HAIF on my MacBook Pro, on my wife's MacBook, on two mobile phones, or a Linux netbook.

DA Gains Mexico Arrest of Fugitive in Harris County Double Murders Houston, Tx - The Harris County District Attorney's Office, working with federal and Mexican authorities, has secured the arrest of a double-murder defendant who fled into Mexico, District Attorney Patricia Lykos announced Friday. Librado Medina Jimenez, 35, will remain jailed in Mexico while formal extradition action is prepared against him. He was captured Wednesday in Matehuala, in the state of San Luis Potosi. Jimenez is the third Harris County murder fugitive to be taken into custody in Mexico in recent weeks. Captures have come through the combined efforts of the District Attorney's Office and DA's Extradition Administrator Kim Bryant, the FBI, U.S. Department of Justice and Mexican federal and local government agencies. District Attorney Lykos praised the close cooperation among agencies in these arrests. "Violent criminals are finding out that there is no longer a safe haven for them, either in Harris County or in our neighboring nation to the south," she said. "They can expect to be apprehended and returned to face justice, especially when Kim Bryant of our office is on their case." Jimenez was charged in June 2008 with killing Israel Guevara, 50, and his son Israel Alvarado, 17, on March 8 of last year. He allegedly chased them in his truck after an argument and fight, and then shot them both as they attempted to flee in their vehicle. Late last year, the Houston-based FBI Task Force relayed information on Jimenez's location to Extradition Administrator Bryant. She coordinated the case with U.S. and Mexican agencies, leading to issuance of a Mexican arrest warrant on August 5. Jimenez is charged with capital murder, although the death penalty is not being sought in the case. A U.S.-Mexican treaty only allows for the extradition of defendants where the prosecuting agency agrees not to seek the death penalty. Earlier this month, the District Attorney's Office and law enforcement agencies gained the Mexico arrests of Harris County murder fugitives Esequiel Rios Villareal, 42, and Timoteo Rios, 24. Extradition is pending against them.

Actually, the chances that you tasted well water in New York City are pretty low. The groundwater system in NYC consists of 69 wells in Queens. When they were in operation, they serviced fewer than 100,000 people mostly in Queens and Brooklyn. The wells have not been in service since 2007. New York water comes from a system of reservoirs in upstate New York and in New Jersey. You can see a map and status of the ones in New York state here: http://nyc.gov/html/dep/html/drinking_water/maplevels_wide.shtml They look to be between 88% and 95% full right now. When I was a teen-ager I used to roam around the protected wilderness around some of the New York City reservoirs. My friends showed me a crashed fighter jet, and the stone shell of an old burned-out mansion that looked like a castle. Most of the reservoir land used to be massive private estates that were mostly undeveloped, and thus perfect for forming a watershed.

After thinking about it a little, I'd like to clarify my post above. There are occasions when an anchor wrote stories, too. But only in certain circumstances. They only did one per show. It was a weekend or holiday show, so there wasn't a full staff. The anchor was also a reporter on a normal day. At certain stations where I worked, anchors (and sometimes even producers) couldn't write stories because it would infringe on the writers union contract. I got grieved by the union at one station because I wrote a story for my own show. Obviously, that didn't happen in Texas because the laws are different, but in some places the unions were so entrenched that certain people in the newsroom (sometimes myself included) spent hours a day just sitting around with nothing to do. It's a complicated topic and I'd rather not further derail this thread.

The Water Wall, originally uploaded by pinemikey. Everyone's favorite Houston waterfall (unless you like one of the other ones). Can't go wrong with a little Water Wall action.

What made you think that? The smallest market I worked in was 76. The largest was 3. In none of those markets did anchors write scripts. Sometimes they'll come in and review them and make tweaks so they fit the anchor's style better (though a good producer will already have done that). But actually writing a story? Maybe once a year. Maybe. By market ranking: In New York WNBC has a 24-hour subchannel. Everyone else comes on a 5:00am. In Los Angeles, KNBC starts at 4:00am. KABC and KTLA start at 4:30am. KCBS and KTTV start at 5:00am. In Chicago, WMAQ starts at 4:30am. WLS, WGN, WBBM, WFLD start at 5:00am. In San Francisco, KRON starts at 4:00am, KGO and KNTV start at 4:30am, KTVU and KPIX start at 5:00am. In Philadelpia, KYW, WPVI, and WCAU all start at 5:00am.

Maybe yes, maybe no. It's hard to tell who came up with the idea first. The order in which they begin airing their shows is indicative of nothing. Just because KTRK is starting first doesn't mean it thought of the idea first. That's not how it usually works.

I read online last week that it's still there. It's not on the menu, but they'll make it if you ask for it. Though that policy may vary from restaurant to restaurant.

As points of comparison, the Chicago Tribune has its archives back to 1849 available online and searchable for free. I use it all the time. The Chicago Sun-Times has 1986 to the present. The Chicago Defender only has 1910 to 1975 so far. But the Defender is a far smaller paper than the Chronicle, with staff stretched much thinner. If the Defender can be online, the Chronicle can, too.

Who cares about the anchors? They get to sleep until 3:00am for a 4:30am show. It's the writers and producers who have to come in at midnight or earlier you should feel bad for. For a 5am newscast in Houston, the producer should be at work no later than 11:00pm. When I was on the 6:00am news in Cincinnati, I was at work at 10:00pm the night before. Anchors? Please... There's a reason the quotation on my Facebook page is, "Shut up and read, meat puppet! I don't pay you to think!"

No one's supposed to, but there are people who do. Morning newscasts are intended to be watched for about 30-45 minutes. Most people watch around 20 minutes. I worked at a station in another city at the time it launched its 4:30am news (I was on the 6am news). The station did research and found out when the major factories in the area did their morning shift changes. The research people then figured out the average commute time for the workers and determined that a 4:30am newscast would fit into the morning schedule of many of the market's factory workers quite nicely. It worked out very well and got very good ratings. I don't know how many factories or factory workers there are in Houston, but when I'm up at 4:30am to catch a 6:00am flight, I'm always happy to have local news to turn on.

To give the sales department more local commercial inventory to sell. KHOU announced a couple of weeks ago that it's starting a 4:30am September 7th. Sherry Williams will anchor. KPRC's starts August 24th.

It's south-facing and looking over a surface parking lot, so yeah -- great container garden possibility.

I've seen lots of warehouses and factories converted to lofts. I even lived in one in Houston (Dakota Lofts, a former paint warehouse). Walking around, though, I came across this -- an interesting idea. What the designers have done is taken the space between two windows, and put down a metal floor, and then closed the whole thing in with glass. I think it's a pretty cool idea, and the first time I've seen it.

Houston water is fine. Not exceptional, but not bad. When I moved to Chicago I noticed that the Chicago water isn't as good as the Houston water. It's over treated enough that I got a Brita filter so I could drink it regularly. When I was in Houston I drank the tap water all the time and didn't think a thing of it. My wife, on the other hand, had to carry around the "right" brand of bottled water at work, or she would be ridiculed by her co-workers. The best water I've tasted in the world is in Rome. Amazing. It naturally has a low level of certain minerals in it so that it's like drinking water with a trace of Alka Seltzer. The taste is noticeably smoother than regular water. More important, since you're ingesting a little bit of Alka Seltzer all the time, you can eat more and still feel good. No wonder the Romans were known for bingeing on food. The water is so pure in Rome that there are tiny ancient fountains on just about every other street and people just slurp from them, or fill up their water bottles as they walk. Some of these fountains are from BC days, but are still in continuous use by the locals. Back on topic -- Houston water is fine. I'd call it normal, or baseline. My only complaint is that there is no "cold" water from the tap in Houston, but that's just geography.