ssullivan

Several US and Canadian transit systems use two-level commuter rail cars. I've seen them in San Francisco (Caltrain), Boston (MBTA commuter lines), and Toronto.

Not more expensive to maintain, but more expensive to initially purchase the buses. I can't say for sure, but my guess would be that the purchase price of a double decker is probably more than an articulated bus of similar passenger capacity, simply because they are produced in much more limited numbers. I'd still love to see them here. There are some routes, like the 2 Bellaire, 82 Westheimer, 53 Westheimer Limited, and 25 Richmond that could definitely use a larger bus much of the day. Metro would just have to have very specific routings for these buses (not only the revenue routes but routes to/from the garages) due to their vertical clearance requirements.

I think double decker buses would be a problem in many US cities, because of things like traffic signals hung above the streets being too low. They're probably also more expensive to obtain than articulated buses as well.

I have no problem with the increase. I grew up going to the Houston Zoo (and the Museum of Natural Science when it was free and called the Museum of Natural History) and remember how average, if not below average, those facilities were back then. My boyfriend and I had a date to the Zoo a few months back, and despite the admission fees, it was packed with visitors from all income levels. The difference between what our zoo is now, compared to what it was just 15 years ago, is amazing. Very little of it looks like the dumpy place it was when I was a kid, with sad, depressed looking animals sitting in small cages. I can't wait to go back after they've finished the current African forest project that's under construction. Yes St. Louis has a great zoo, and it's free. But that's the exception, not the norm. Like most things in life, you get what you pay for. I'd rather pay to get in and get to enjoy a great experience, than go to something that's free but third rate. The same thing applies to the Museum of Natural Science, which has grown from a below average, but free, museum, to one of the very best of its type in the nation over the last 20 years, thanks in large part to the admission fees. Both of these facilities offer numerous discount options, as well as free days several times a year.

The TV Guide channel was never completely going away; it was just going away for basic cable subscribers. Most, if not all, of the digital packages were always shown to include it. Of course, it seems like that channel would be more relevant to basic cable, since it doesn't have the digital program guide. Since I've been on digital cable I don't think I've sat there and watched the slow TV Guide channel scroll through hundreds of channels when I could just pull up the digital program guide (or even better, the guide on my DVR) and scroll through that myself.

I'd go for a hotel if you do San Francisco.

Well, within the Houston city limits, it is against a city ordinance to even enter an intersection unless you can safely proceed all the way through the intersection before the light changes. I used to live in Westchase and dealt with the horrible traffic there, so I feel your pain. But if you don't enter the intersection when the light is green and you can't get across it, there's no risk of you getting caught by the red light camera after the light changes. It also keeps you from blocking the cross street, which results in less traffic congestion overall.

I don't have a lot of sympathy for daily commuters who chose to live way out in the suburbs and work downtown (or anywhere else in the center of the city). It was your choice to live 25-30 miles from where you work, and nobody promised you gas would be cheap, that there would be no traffic, and that tolls would never go up. There are tradeoffs for everything, and while I realize that housing in the suburbs is cheaper and schools are often better, the tradeoff is a longer, more expensive commute. You can't have it both ways, unless you're willing to do something like carpool and get in the HOV lane, or take a Metro Park and Ride. Of course, for the people in Ft. Bend County, Metro isn't much help since most of that area has repeatedly opted to not be part of Metro's service area.

Yeah, Garmin's stuff is not cheap, but their equipment works really well. I have a Garmin GPS I got for Christmas last year, and have been very pleased. Not only is it super easy to use, but I've found it to be more accurate than many of the online mapping engines (especially Mapquest) and it's pre-loaded with tons of restaurants, hotels, schools (great for me since I work with different college campuses), tourist attractions, airports, and other points of interest. My only complaint is that it's sometimes a little slow to initially connect to the GPS satellite. However, once the initial connection is made, it works great. And the system is fairly compact and light, which makes it easy to travel with.

Wherever you go, you'll have a good time. All of those are good choices (although I can only stand about two or three days max in Vegas, not a whole week).

Not necessarily. If a flight is running full, the lower fare classes may already be sold out. I'd buy tickets as soon as you've made a decision where you're going. Also, because of rising fuel costs, airlines have been trying to put through $5 and $10 across the board fare increases a couple of times a month lately. Not trying to hijack, but I can't wait for my vacations this summer. Only two more weeks of work before the boyfriend and I jet off to Portland, Seattle, Victoria, and Vancouver. And then the first week of August I'm off to New Zealand for a few days thanks to United Airlines loading a mistake business class fare to Auckland from LA that was cheaper than the coach fare. I love it when airlines do that and I get to take advantage.

I totally agree and have heard many similar comments about other W hotels. The concept is very much a marketing ploy, combined with a lot of hype. When you get down to it, there are many other hotels that are just as nice, with far better service. We already have several in Houston. Yeah the points are very important to a lot of us in making hotel choices. Although I'd argue against Starwood being by far the best, but to each his own.

Yeah I'm not thrilled with some of the changes either. And they have really screwed up my Internet service, which has worked for years without a single problem under Time Warner. Instead of the blazing fast, always on service I was used to, now I have periods where it's nice and fast (but not as fast as it was) and periods like last Sunday night when it's worse than dial-up. I'm going to give them a little longer, but if this persists, I'm going to look at switching. The problem is that my experiences with DSL have always been pretty craptastic.

Yes, you should be able to do it on that budget, although you'll have to go fairly basic on the hotel accomodations, and limit the number of expensive meals. If you decide to go to San Francisco, air fares tend to be higher to SFO than OAK, but SFO is more convenient to the city and has better links to the transportation system. However if you're purchasing far enough in advance you can probably find fares from Houston for around $300 or maybe a little less.

I totally disagree! Parking in Downtown San Francisco and in the tourist areas is expensive and can be a real pain to find. With a car you may waste quite a bit of time driving around looking for a place to park, rather than actually doing something fun. The city is quite compact, and the multiple transit options (streetcars, light rail, buses, and cable cars on Muni and the BART rail out to the airport and suburbs) make it very easy to navigate without a car. I've never rented a car in San Francisco and never had any problem getting around by walking, using public transit, or taking a cab. A car might make sense if you're staying way out in the suburbs, but if you're staying downtown, I think it's more of a hindrance than a help. And if you decide you want to head out of the city for a day trip, you can always pick up a rental car for the day. Cars tend to be cheaper at the downtown locations than they are at the airport, and all of the major rental agencies have locations in Downtown SF near the major hotels and tourist areas. I voted for San Francisco. It's a great destination, and the kind of place you can go multiple times and not really get tired of it. Yes it's expensive, but none of your choices are really cheap (except for maybe Vegas, and even then the nice places aren't cheap). I was most recently there in late April with my boyfriend and a hetero couple we're good friends with visiting some friends that live there, and we had a great time. We stayed at the Hilton San Francisco (the one on O'Farrell St. near Union Square) on my Hilton points, and were very pleased with a great upgrade to a corner suite on the executive floor that had incredible views of the city and bay. But there are lots of great places there; I second the suggestion about looking at some of the smaller boutique hotels as they are more unique and often less expensive than some of the big chain business traveler hotels.

They had told the residents in the main buildings along Allen Parkway that they would have to be out by June, so I'm not surprised it looked empty. The buildings along West Dallas will still be Allen House Apartments for another year or two, until they reach a later phase of the redevelopment.

I make more than my father or mother ever has, but they also live in a very small town with an extremely low cost of living. The house I grew up in would sell for probably $500,000 in some neighborhoods in Houston; I recently saw a document from the savings and loan when they purchased the house in 1972 and assumed the existing mortgage from the previous owner, which had an outstanding balance of around $28,000. They also paid a $6,000 down payment. That four bedroom, three bath house on a lot that is nearly 1 acre in size, in the nicest neighborhood in town, is long since paid for, but when they were making payments, they were less than $200.00 per month! Even today their cost of living is very low compared to Houston. So in terms of buying power, I'm still probably better off, but not to the extent that the raw salary numbers might indicate. I also don't have children, and they had three, and for many years the family lived off just my Dad's salary. I know that if I lived in Houston and had a spouse and three young children, we'd definitely not be living in the neighborhood I currently live in, and while my kids would be comfortable, they'd be far from spoiled. So while I make more than Dad ever did, even adjusted for inflation, the higher cost of living in the city offsets a lot of that. It's only because I don't have kids that I can do a lot of the things I'm able to.

Most of the time: Some of the time: Every once in a while: The rest of the time I'm working from home and my commute is walking about 20 feet.

I have a very similar recipe that doesn't have the cream of onion soup or evaporated milk, but instead has chopped onions and jalepenos. Other than that it's pretty much the same, including the can of cream of celery soup. It is delicious. I'll have to try your recipe also. Kinkaid, that does sound good! I'm trying to figure out what to make the boyfriend for dinner tomorrow night... might just have to try this shrimp!

Thanks for posting! Those are really great and bring back a lot of memories from TV in my childhood.

A Jersey Barrier refers to the specific shape of the concrete barriers and guardrails TxDOT uses on most highways built since the late 1970s in Texas. You can see them on most Houston freeways in the center median, and as the guardrails on bridges. It's called a Jersey Barrier because the design was developed in New Jersey.

While I don't own that particular model, I've owned several Canons over the years, both digital and film, and been extremely pleased with their products.

My Internet has been hit and miss lately. I've had a few days lately when it had horrible latency; the same kind of crap that made me dump my DSL four years ago. It seems to be better now, but is still running slightly slower than it has the last few years. Hopefully that will improve. The promise of more bandwidth is appealing, and I hope they extend that to us Earthlink cable customers. As for the TV, I've had a few cases recently where I was getting only audio and no video on some digital channels, which has never happened before. I also don't like the cuts they've made in some of the HBO channels.

Mmmm good place! I ate there several years ago when working in that part of California. Good luck to both of you as you enter the next phase of your lives. Hope you'll both remain active on HAIF!

About halfway through last night's episode I had figured out that the scenes with Jack back home were in the future, and not flashbacks. And I half expected it to be Kate that drove up when he called someone and asked that person to meet him outside the airport. I wasn't expecting him to say they should have never left. I don't see them being rescued in the premiere of the next season either. That would be far too easy and would kill interest in the series. There are still far too many mysteries on the island to be revealed, and part of me does believe that Ben and Locke are correct that they shouldn't have made that call. It's going to be very interesting to see where the show goes from here. I just wish we didn't have to wait until February to find out what happens next.