ehbowen

I'm doing a revamp of the web site for my book Guardian Angel, which features a nighttime aerial romp with the titular angel and her human over downtown Houston. I'd like to find some drone video which I could license for commercial use as a background layer on my site. I'd like to exclude any recognizable trademarks, specifically the roof of the Toyota Center. I've owned (okay, driven...my Dad bought it and owned it) one Toyota in my life, a 1973 Corona station wagon with an 18RC engine. Never Again...if you see someone who looks like me purchasing a Toyota, please go up to him and ask, "Who are you and what have you done with Eric?"

My budget is very modest. I've tried the stock photo licensing companies where I have an account, but their videos are all "Editorial Use Only." So I figured I'd ask here. Thanks In Advance for any help.

On 4/13/2024 at 9:52 AM, Ross said:

Are you saying we don't need to pay any taxes? That crimes will magically solve themselves?

Houston is short of about 1,000 police. Adding that many would cost $100 million per year. Currently, the HPD and HFD budgets exceed property tax collections by over $200 million and firefighters are going to be entitled to over a billion dollars from the contract settlement. The City has a revenue cap that limits increases in property tax collections to the lower of 4% or the combination of population increase and inflation. Unless you think there is a few hundred million dollars the City can cut from the non-public safety portions of the budget, there will have to be a tax increase to increase the number of police and to pay for the HFD pay raises and back pay.

No, I'm not saying that. I'm saying that as long as we reward inefficiency and ineffectiveness with more tax funds, we'll get more inefficiency and more ineffectiveness. I'm saying that we need to revoke all civil service protections and make any pensions contingent upon results and performance. Return to the mindset of the 1950s, when the objective was to keep taxes down and give the citizens the maximum bang for their buck.

1 hour ago, trymahjong said:

I saw the Fox News report on Chief Finners news conference concerning the rapes this morning.

a reporter pointed out that =>we're not talking about vagrancy, BMV, or robbery..... there was DNA evidence....still got shelved......how does that happen?

Finner replied... We're all frustrated ......not enough police for a city this size

I got Deja vu

that response was so  similar to the the responses I received 2hen I began trying to raise awareness at COH 

Honestly, I had wrote to my District C, and all the at large .....when I did get a response- it was so mealy mouth everyone else? Crickets!

Honestly- no outrage - no brainstorming -no potential problem solving solutions.

Just how long will all the muckity-mucks keep shielding themselves behind =>not enough cops on the street? Geez I've been hearing that for 20 years now- surely there is solution.

 

Just keep in mind that if they ever solve the crime problem, they won't have grounds to go back and demand more tax money for more police.

Same with schools.

Same with highways.

Rinse and repeat as needed.

Here's an update: The hardcover edition of Guardian Angel is now available through most online booksellers, or it can be ordered through your local book dealer. I just found out this morning that I've had my first international sale, in Germany!

If anyone's curious, you can purchase the hardcover direct from my distributor at this link. I get a bigger cut (normally the bookstore takes more than half!) and you get 10% off! (If you prefer to wait, the softcover, e-Book, and Large Print editions will be available as of May 15th.)

I've had a very flattering editorial review from Reedsy Discovery, excerpted below:

Quote

 

Loved it! 😍

A fascinating, engrossing vision of spiritual warfare and what it might be like to meet your guardian angel in the flesh.

Dawn was a high-ranking officer in the angelic army and is a skilled warrior, but she gave that up to take a dream role as Mike's Guardian....

I enjoyed the depiction of angels as having different roles in Heaven. Some are warriors. Some are counselors. Some are guardian angels....

The battle scenes and the lengths the demons go to to deceive Mike and to take Dawn out of the fight were pretty intense and kept the pages turning. The interactions between Mike and Dawn were also well written and heartfelt. I mean, imagine finding out that yes, you really do have a guardian angel, and here they are in your living room!

If you're a fan of Christian speculative fiction, you'll enjoy Guardian Angel.

 

Review written for Reedsy Discovery by Lisa Henson. Rated four stars (of five).

 

(Inclusion of the direct purchase link has been authorized by @editor.)

18 hours ago, steve1363 said:

As far as the construction workers, why were they not removed from the bridge?  If the ship issued a Mayday with enough time for vehicles to be blocked from entering the bridge you would think there was enough time to get a message to those poor construction workers to get the heck out of dodge.

I don't know. Maybe there was no vehicle handy to remove them; maybe they just didn't get the word passed to them in time. There's going to be an investigation; that's for certain, and until that report comes out any finger-pointing is premature.

This is premature, as well, but I saw a posting made by a Captain of a similar class vessel who believes that the initial power loss was due to contamination in the Diesel fuel from shifting fuel tanks at an inopportune time. Following that, the emergency generator started and the lights came back on. That would have given enough power for the rudder but NOT for the (very, very power hungry) bow thrusters. If the Captain reflexively grabbed the bow thruster control to attempt to dodge the bridge piling (highly likely, and if so it will be on the 'black box' event recorder), he would have tripped the emergency generator on overload, leaving the ship completely without power. Again, this is premature, but it looks like the most probable scenario I've seen.

I Am Not A Lawyer, but I believe that this allision (only one of the parties was moving) is under Admiralty law. Which means, as best I understand it, that the best which Baltimore and the families of the men killed on the bridge can hope for in the way of a settlement is for the ship owners to hand them the keys to the MV Dali as is, where is. Under Admiralty law people are never at fault, only ships, and the liability is limited to the value of the ship at fault, the ship's owner can't be touched.

It should go without saying that Admiralty law was created by shipowners, for shipowners...

47 minutes ago, editor said:

Here's my delusional optimism: A rail line from Bush airport to downtown to Hobby airport to the Port of Galveston.

Each year, hundreds of thousands of people spend millions of dollars on charter bus rides from Houston's airports to the cruise port.  Or, in my case, $130 each way in a Lyft.  

The fact that the cruise lines have had to bend over backwards to set up these bus services shows there is a demand, and then the locals can also benefit from the new routes.

You might want to see my comments in the "Train from Houston to Galveston" thread, starting here.

Talk about your basket case!

A special Valentine's Day event at Hyatt Regency Houston: For one night, Spindletop is being opened for a special Valentine's Day prix fixe meal. Yes, it's high...nosebleed high; $295 per couple. But for that you get a four-course steak and codfish meal with Spindletop's unique revolving view of Downtown. Contact the hotel for more information, or go to this Facebook link: https://fb.me/e/4RkFX2PKo

Disclaimer: I am employed by the hotel, but I'm not an official spokesman.

(Note: This post was authorized by @editor)

My Christian fiction/supernatural suspense novel Guardian Angel will be coming out in the next few months. I'm self-publishing it under my Celesta Press imprint, with wide distribution under terms favorable to local bookstores. Of course, it will be available from the online retailers as well.

I'm hardly impartial to this story, of course, but here's what an experienced book editor had to say in the way of a capsule description:

Quote

 

Railroad police officer Mike Wilson’s beat is ten feet by ten thousand miles. When he foils a major drug deal, he ticks off the wrong kingpins. And he discovers just how far outside his jurisdiction he’s strayed—into a nest of demons now targeting him for revenge.

When given the chance at her dream job, Dawn ditches her angelic general’s stars to become a Guardian. For the past thirty years, she’s watched over Mike as his faith has grown strong despite lasting scars on his soul. She’s poured her heart into writing him encouraging notes he may never see, and dreamed of the impossible—meeting him face to face. But when Mike’s life is threatened, Dawn’s warrior instincts drive her to crash the forbidden barrier between realms to save his life.

To say the least, her split-second decision stirs up a hornet’s nest of infernal proportions, driving a wedge of doubt between their hearts. And touching off an epic battle between Heaven and Hell—with Mike’s very soul as the prize.

Note: Guardian Angel is a Christian/supernatural suspense novel with a speculative twist which tells the story of what happens when one impulsive act of heroism sets two opposing realms on a collision course. Told in first person from the (sometimes unreliable) point of view of Dawn’s angel BFF, at its heart it’s a very special kind of love story. Names have been changed to protect the innocent—and the not-so-innocent!

 

The action and story of the book is set in the Houston area, which is why I asked to mention it here. I name-check a few well-known sites, including the long-lamented Astroworld, Sam Houston Park downtown, the former "Maywell House" (thank you, lawyers!) coffee plant, and more.

I'm planning to make a hardback library edition available on shelves come March 29th, with e-book and softcover formats to follow on May 15th. A Large Print edition and a Spanish language translation are also in the works. Pre-sales should be available in mid-February.

I'm happy to make review copies, either electronic or physical Advance Reading Copies, available to reviewers with an established portfolio and stable media presence. You may contact me by message here.

This project represents a big personal investment of both time and money, but it's something I've wanted to do for many years. I hope you enjoy it.

15 hours ago, hindesky said:

How about, "Be careful what you wish for; you may get it!"

6 hours ago, hindesky said:

This was probably already mentioned but there was a passenger train that ran along Hwy 3 that took passengers to Galveston. If I recall it was in the early to mid '80's but didn't do very well so it was shut down.

It was known as the Texas Limited. It was popular as a novelty at first, but a few things combined to kill it.

• Amtrak didn't want it. The Texas Limited originally used the Amtrak station on Washington Avenue in downtown Houston, and at that time there was still a direct connector track which let traffic flow through to the Galveston main lines (it was demolished to make way for the present I-10 ramps terminating northeast of Minute Maid park). Amtrak, who I understand at that time was paying a rent of $100 per year to the railroad to use the station, squeezed the Texas Limited operators for every dime they could. Basically they were charging them based on the property value, plus all utility costs, plus maintenance, plus the cost of the Amtrak personnel staffing the station, plus a markup on top of all that. That's why the Texas Limited operation eventually left Downtown and built their own station in The Heights. But this added a couple more miles, plus delays sitting at switching towers, to a journey which already was too long for most day trippers.
• Union Pacific really didn't want it. First, they downgraded the line to Galveston to Class 2 track, which limited passenger operations to 35 mph. Then they removed the block signal system on the Galveston line to keep the speed limits low. Finally, they bought out the old Missouri-Kansas-Texas (the Katy) railroad, and demolished the Katy main line from Katy to Downtown in order to sell the right of way to the highway department for the I-10 expansion. This ensured that the Texas Limited could never come back in anything like its former form.
• The Texas Limited operators were essentially married to the GH&H (Galveston, Houston & Henderson, original name of the railroad running from Downtown through South Houston, League City, and Dickinson) route. I understand that they had real estate interests in League City and would not even consider any other possible routing. As was mentioned up-thread, the line down Mykawa through Alvin, although a few miles longer, is capable of much higher operating speeds even today and its ownership (in those days AT&SF, present day BNSF) was in general much friendlier to the idea of operating passenger services. Which isn't necessarily saying much, but the difference is noticed even by foreigners. I've corresponded with Mark Smith, The Man In Seat 61, and he said that from his (European/British) perspective he thought that the Amtrak trains operated over Union Pacific were poorly handled and dispatched, but that even he was positively impressed by the AT&SF/BNSF operated trains.

If I were putting together this kind of service for-real, as practical transportation and not as some kind of grift or skim, here's where I'd put stations:

• Galveston Island, 25th and Strand. The former "Colored Waiting Room" of the Santa Fe station is NOT part of the Galveston Railroad Museum; I'd acquire rights to it and to the small parking area in the rear where I'd restore a platform and a couple of tracks.
• Virginia Point (Park & Ride). The train has to slow down here anyhow for the bridge; a passenger stop would add less than three minutes to the time altogether and would draw in commuters from Tiki Island, Texas City, La Marque and Hitchcock. Plenty of land (okay, swamp!) for a park & ride here.
• Alvin. I might consider relocating from the historic downtown depot to a new Park & Ride near Avenue I or thereabouts.
• Pearland South (Note: The railroad considers the container terminal outside Hobby Airport as "Pearland" these days). New Park & Ride located just off Magnolia Parkway. Alternate location off McHard Road.
• Clear Creek Station (new Park & Ride off Beltway 8). Plenty of room for parking and I'd leave facilities for interchange with bus routes.
• Mykawa Station (at Airport Boulevard) serving Hobby Airport via dedicated circulator bus.
• Dixie Drive. Good-sized industrial park located here; this could be a commute destination as well as pickup point for neighborhoods in vicinity.
• Old Spanish Trail. Serving University of Houston as well as a short walk to the MacGregor Park/MLK Purple Line station.
• Milby Street. Again, much commercial/industrial activity within walking distance, not to mention burgeoning residential redevelopment and nearby connections to bus and light rail.
• Downtown/Minute Maid Park (between Commerce and Runnels). Station for downtown, the stadiums, and EaDo.
• Near North Side (either Quitman or Collingsworth, possibly Cavalcade).
• Crosstimbers. As far north as you can go and put a station without ridiculous construction costs (rail line starts running in the median of the Hardy Toll Road).
• North Belt Park & Ride (at West Hardy and Aldine-Bender).
• IAH/Airtex. I'd put a Park & Ride in what looks like the big sand pits near there and extend the IAH Peoplemover (or similar) to serve it. Could be room enough for yards and maintenance facilities for the trains here, as well.
• Spring. End of the line...for now. For future expansion we could look at going either north to The Woodlands and Conroe or west to Magnolia and Tomball. Or both!

Editing To Add: This may seem like a lot of stations, but really it's not. Yes, freight trains really drag and take a lot of time to get up to speed, but passenger trains really get up and move! I have an Internet acquaintance who's a civil engineer specializing in high speed rail passenger service, and he says that each additional station stop adds possibly three minutes, plus the actual dwell time you spend standing in the station. The commuters would spend (lots!) more than that in traffic.

At the risk of being nicknamed, "Zombieman"...

Reading through this old thread for the first time, what I keep coming back to is, "20/35 mph." There is no real reason whatsoever why this line couldn't be run at 79 or even 90 mph for passenger traffic, if the signaling system was reinstalled (it was taken out in the mid '90s...I used to live alongside that track, where it crossed Howard Drive). It's flat, it's straight; basically, it's been treated as a red-headed stepchild by Union Pacific since they bought it out via merger in the 1980s.

This gentleman had the right idea:

On 12/11/2017 at 11:27 AM, cspwal said:

I was curious if you could do a north south rail line, so I tried to map one out

 

Here's the overview: 

 

 

There's 3 stops in the Woodlands-Spring area, stop at IAH, stop downtown, stop at Hobby, and then 3 stops south of Houston.  Along the line that made the most sense to pick up Hobby, there's not much south of Pearland until you hit Galveston.

 

Getting to either airport via a commuter rail is more challenging than I first thought; going to IAH I had to cross undeveloped fields and hug the airport property line until I could get to JFK blvd - and even that I'm not sure you could stick heavy rail down.  (Dashed lines mean greenfield train tracks)

 

At Hobby, I got a little luckier that there's a train yard just west of the airport, and a disused ROW that I reused for my train line.

 

 

Downtown, instead of trying to squeze a station in at Burnett transit center or UH-D, I chose a spot that should be relatively easy - the pocket on the purple line in east downtown.  There's a train yard right there, so you could make a nice hub station there for commuter rail and the purple line.

 

For completeness, here is the path down to Galveston.  I put a p&r station at Alvin, and maybe one would make sense near 45, but there really isn't much between Pearland and Galveston on this line

 

 

Overall, a lot of work would have to be done to make this a viable commuter route (not including the fresh tracks to get to IAH and Hobby)

 - North of BWY 8 and south of 610, there's still plenty of single track lines that would have to be upgraded to double track to support commuter rail.

- To get fast service for the passenger trains, you'd have to convince Union Pacific to prioritize these trains.  Otherwise, you're stuck at 35 mph

- Countless grade crossings.

- Causeway is still single tracked?

A decent proposal, although I'd say that there's no reason to go through the expense of contorting your Right Of Way in order to provide door-to-door rail service to the airport. Much simpler and cheaper to have a dedicated circulator shuttle bus which makes regular stops at the rail depot and the airport terminal (as well as parking lots, Fixed Based Operators ['truck stops' for private planes], and the like). Or, as another commenter proposed, extend the IAH People Mover for the connection. And if you're talking spending this kind of money, no need to go all the way around Runways 14/32 at IAH; tunnelling under an airport runway is hardly an unprecedented construction project.

What I really like about this post is the south end: He has his route using the BNSF (former AT&SF/GC&SF) line past University of Houston (campus depot, anyone), Hobby Airport, and Alvin. This is not widely known, but this line still hosted passenger service up through April of 1967. And it was a fast line, too...after I wrote about the line some years back, a correspondent emailed me with his memory of racing that train up highway 35 in the early 1960s. He was doing 90 mph, and the train passed him! It's still signaled and maintained for 55 mph, and I can prove it, too:

That's a screenshot of my cell phone's GPS while riding as a passenger on that line for one of the Galveston Railroad Museum's excursions, this one from 2015 (I was a volunteer there). Smooth track, too; better than average for the Amtrak system as a whole (I've ridden more than half of that, as well).

This service could be done. It depends upon the will to do it. Would it be profitable? Well, is the Gulf Freeway profitable, standing on its own? If you could keep the grifters from bleeding it dry (greed isn't found exclusively in the private sector), I think it would be a worthwhile venture.

It was definitely there and open during 1999, which was my last visit...to the restaurant. The "Nashville Room" had perhaps the best 24-hour dining available inside the 610 Loop. I was (very briefly) part of a workout group during '97, and we met there for breakfast after a 5 am workout. Hard to remember exactly, but I believe my last meal there was their Prime Rib...very tasty!

They also hosted some smaller meetings and conferences. I remember attending training sponsored by one of the local air conditioning distributors which was held there, and they served lunch. Also a pleasant memory.

12 hours ago, Highrise Tower said:

Interurban Depot At South Houston.

There should be a race track (horses?) somewhere near the South Houston Depot.  I was reading an article in The Houston Post. dated in the early 1900s and the race track featured said:  Follow the Interurban line to South Houston. Would this mean near City of South Houston? Or Third Ward? Near South Main & Holmes Road?

Well, the card mentions "College Avenue", which is still the name of the main drag running east-west through the City of South Houston. The railroad name of South Houston (the GH&H line, original Galveston-Houston RR line) was/is "Dumont", but my information indicates that the interurban stop was "South Houston" from the beginning.

On 4/22/2023 at 10:13 PM, IWantTransit555 said:

I used the map (second image) to locate the Galveston car barn and station, but relied on Landmark Hunter historic quadrangles for most of the route, as well as the line's own magazine for the list of stops. (linked in the original post) The map above that you posted did not have enough detail for my use, especially in the Houston inset.

Partially, I already found it yesterday and will use it as a list of stations. (I am in the beginning stages of a Google map for the 4 DFW area interurbans) A map like the 2nd one @Highrise Tower shared would be useful, but what I really want are the old quadrangles of the area. Unfortunately I can not get them now as Bridgehunter / Landmarkhunter went down a few weeks after I finished the Galveston map and has not gone up since.

By the way, should upcoming the North Texas interurbans Google map go in its own post?

Perhaps these would be of help? (USGS Historical Topo Maps):

https://prd-tnm.s3.amazonaws.com/StagedProducts/Maps/HistoricalTopo/PDF/TX/31680/TX_Park%20Place_116244_1922_31680_geo.pdf

https://prd-tnm.s3.amazonaws.com/StagedProducts/Maps/HistoricalTopo/PDF/TX/31680/TX_Deepwater_123912_1919_31680_geo.pdf

https://prd-tnm.s3.amazonaws.com/StagedProducts/Maps/HistoricalTopo/PDF/TX/31680/TX_Genoa_128290_1920_31680_geo.pdf

George himself has gone on to his reward, but his family still runs George's Italian Pizzeria at 7430 Park Place near Telephone. Highly recommended for their pizza, but they have a full Italian menu as well. Sit down or take out. Closed Sundays.

Here's one looking to the east and the ship channel, again from the 14th level of Building 22:

Looking towards refinery row, over the top of the (fairly) new cooling towers:

Here's one looking to the west, towards University of Houston:

Looking southeast down Harrisburg Boulevard and the Galveston, Houston & Henderson tracks as the sun just begins to peek over the horizon:

I was employed as a temporary at the former Maxwell House facility on Harrisburg Drive until the day it closed out production for good. On that last day I had no specific assignments and I had a charged camera phone (BlackBerry Priv), and so...

These photos were taken from the top of Building 22, the open tower which houses the coffee bean storage silos and weighing facilities.

First, downtown as dawn is breaking on 2018-11-02:

Second, a little more to the west towards the Medical Center/Greenway Plaza area:

More to come...

By the way, the street address of the Ben Milam as given in the title of this thread is incorrect. The actual street and mailing address of the Ben Milam was 1521 Texas Avenue (at Crawford). Reference: This image of a Ben Milam hotel billing statement from the arch-ive.org web site:

1 hour ago, editor said:

@ehbowen— Since you seem to know a lot about this sort of thing, can you explain this for me:

On a Sunset Limited trip to New Orleans recently, the train picked us up at the downtown Houston station, but instead of leaving by going through downtown past Dakota Lofts, it backed up for what felt like several miles into the Heights area, and went north, then east. 

Is this usual?

While unusual it's far from being unique. Reference this map (which is a few years out of date). What the dispatcher was doing was ordering your train to back up on the "passenger main" where the Amtrak station is to west of Chaney Junction, where the freight main line (which, incidentally, is the one with the graffiti-covered bridge over I-45 and I-10 north of downtown) diverges. Once on the freight main, it's a direct shot to Tower 26 and thence to Belt Junction which is where the ex-MoPac line to Beaumont and New Orleans (main line #4 on the map) leaves the terminal area.

Why do they do that? Can't say. It could be that there was heavy freight train traffic at and around Tower 26 blocking the spur lines, or perhaps track work was in progress. While the directional running I mentioned above is standard operating procedure now that can change at the drop of a hat; if major track work is underway on either main track to Beaumont all traffic in both directions will likely be diverted to the other one.

1 hour ago, mattyt36 said:

Wow!  Thanks for all the detail!

This I definitely did not know and I find fascinating--there are some office suites to the east of the AA bag service office down the corridor with restrooms, maybe that was where they are?

Hmm. Thinking about it, if I was building a hotel room I'd want to give it a window, and aside from the public space windows for the lobby and concourses the only windows I see (in the original building...gates 13-19 were a later addition) are on the ramp side of where the Pan American desk is, as you can see in this publicity shot from 1980 which I just unearthed after 40+ years in the filing cabinet. (Hmm. I've only had that filing cabinet since the '90s!):

As you can see, at the time the apron area between (old) concourses A & B was still being used for parking, and a flight school (Fletcher Aviation, later moved to the South Ramp) was in operation at the end of Concourse A.

Other little tidbits of trivia from an Intrepid Amateur Industrial Archaeologist:

The Dobbs House restaurant in the circular area was also, during the '50s-'60s, the airline catering kitchen. (It may have been supplanted in the later years before the move to IAH.) The kitchen was on the ground level, the dining area was on the ticketing level, and on the mezzanine level was the "Cloud Room" with a scenic balcony walkway which you can see on the photo above. Stairs led up from the cloud room to the actual airport roof, and in fact there were also stairs which you can just barely make out from the ticketing lobby to the roofs of the gate concourses. I'm old enough to remember going up on those roofs to watch my Dad's flight arrive; there were even boxes where you could put in headphones and drop in a nickel to hear the radio chatter. Thank you ever so much, TSA....

The Cloud Room was served by a dumbwaiter which connected it and the dining room with the kitchen. This dumbwaiter was out of service when I started exploring in the late '70s and was never returned to operation. The restaurant was in fact closed until after the terminal fully reopened in the late 1980s; when it did reopen the hot food was carried up to the ticket lobby level in a small passenger elevator which was installed in the ticket lobby adjacent to Concourse B. The Cloud Room was never again used as a restaurant to the best of my knowledge but it did continue to serve as an executive board room until the present Southwest Airlines concourse was constructed in the 2000s.

Concourses A and B had underground service tunnels which ran the length of each concourse, with a transverse tunnel which connected them. It could get mighty dark and drippy in there. Concourse C, which was added later, did not have this feature.

The Customs & Immigration area which was built in the 1960s and which served for a brief time as Braniff's gate in the early 1970s is the one-story rectangular addition just west of the main terminal building in the photo above.

The two (wheelchair? Naah, no one was handicapped in the 1950s...) ramps from the parking area to the ticket level are just barely visible in the photo above; the small bridge which connects them to the ticket lobby casts that black shadow in the center. You can see that the east ramp has been cut for a sump pump or similar, but the west ramp was still intact.

More later....