Ross

If you live more north of 290 then I suggest finding a way to get on TC Jester. You are flying going down that way . Hempstead Hwy is actually surprisingly quick at least in the morning commute. The evening though.....forget it. 

Until you get to 610 and the awesomeness there.Northbound TC Jester at 610 is 3 cars per light, and two lights minimum to turn left. I have dreams of forcing a TxDOT manager to drive that area over and over for a month.

That's hilarious the guy is drinking a beer at the wheel.  Can you imagine nowadays?  

 

 

Looks like a 1953 Cadillac with the plastic AC ducts. 

The Texas open container law went into effect in 2001. I remember seeing folks driving with beer in hand from the time I started driving in 1974 until the law was passed. After the law, it took a few years for people to fully comply.

I actually typed out "to possibly redirect into a reservoir", but deleted it, after thinking how expensive it might be, where it would be, and how long the tunnels would have to be to either go to designated reservoir or all the way down to the turning basin.

 

The Concrete banks start around the Westwood P&R, to just a few feet east of Calhoun Street (+/- 15.3 miles).

 

I have no idea about the amount of water from Braes Bayou (combined with Buffalo Bayou), is needed to keep the Ship Channel level high enough. I was running this drainage scenario for flood waters. I guess I could look all this up. 

 

Anyways, sorry to derail the topic, I just really think if we could get rid of the concrete and have a shaded bayou with greenery it would not only improve the image, provide shade for the trails, but also add much needed natural beauty. The river walk idea is cool too.

The level of the Ship Channel is more controlled by tides and sea level than by outflows from rivers and bayous.

How would this be different from Buffalo Bayou as it currently is? Straightening was done on it too.

Buffalo Bayou wasn't subjected to the radical straightening and channelization of the other bayous, and is semi-natural for much of its length. It also has two dams upstream to limit flows, something that's missing from Brays and White Oak.

I think something as simple as removing the concrete and planting natural local trees would do wonders. Imagine if Braes Bayou had this greenery instead of concrete.

That would result in massive erosion in the outsides of all curves during high flow events. The concrete would be gone already if that were feasible, as it is pretty expensive to maintain. Absent the concrete, the bayous would be moving  all over the place, since flow velocities are pretty high after the straightening work the Corps of Engineers did 60+ years ago.

The normal flow of the bayous is not anywhere near enough to support any sort of power generation, and making them giant box culverts would be pretty ugly. With the construction of detention ponds, there's no real reason to mess with the bayous shape, or increase flow capacity. Silt is seldom a problem in the bayous, given that the runoff water that makes up most of the volume in high flow events doesn't come from natural sources to any great extent, but from the storm sewer system. The current shape of the bayous seems to work just fine for trails and such.

Where is the parking? Where is the storage space for fishing/hunting/camping equipment, bicycles, seasonal decorations, etc? I don't see any coat closets or pantry space either, although there is a difference between the floor plans and the pictures, with the plans showing a closet under the stairs.

The plans aren't awful, but there's no way we could live in one. We are constrained now with a 1400 sq ft 2-1 with a garage.

There are quite a few that have closed or been repurposed. Stevenson Elementary was closed, sold, and is now being developed by Weekley Homes as townhouses, which is probably my fault, as I argued for doing just that at a public meeting instead of closing Love Elementary.. Wikipedia has a list of defunct schools here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Houston_Independent_School_District_schools#Defunct_schools that should help.

Gasoline was rationed during WWII. Cars were given an allocation based on what they were used for, with the majority limited to 4 gallons a week, the A ration. B rations were 8 gallons a week. The big issue was tires, which were simply unavailable for most drivers.

How would we handle it? Depends on which part of town. It could range from laughter and derision to  violence to apathy.

Interestingly enough, the Granada/Monarch/Versailles were originally designed as replacements for the Ford Maverick/Mercury Comet.  They were upgraded to semi-luxury compacts relatively late in development.  The original Granada advertising pitched it as a sort of Mercedes-Benz alternative.  Check out this ad, which is basically repeating "Granada..Mercedes..Granada..Mercedes."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owYcpe6vxc0

Those were some of the most unintentionally funny ads of the time. "Hey, it looks just like a Mercedes, but pay no attention to the underpinnings". I laughed every time I saw one of those ads on TV, or one of the print ads. Here's a page with a few of them http://www.classiccarstodayonline.com/2012/06/13/the-1975-1980-ford-granada-had-a-simple-and-effective-ad-campaign-copying-the-cars-you-really-want/

I don't think anyone ever thought he Katy project would reduce congestion significantly. It did however, provide additional capacity to handle growth on the West side. That's all rail does as well, provide additional capacity. I've never been in a large city that had trains that did not also have significant traffic problems.

Inwood is also  in Aldine ISD, with Eisenhower as the HS. I am not sure that's where I would want my kids going.

^ I bet Puddles wouldn't do that to the REAL Shasta. 

Not for very long, anyway.

This should probably say first LEGAL whiskey distillery in recent times. I am sure there were any number of illegal distilleries over the years. In any case, good luck!

Looks like it was made in 1955, not 1956. At least the copyright notice is 1955. I love how the police manage to shoot out the tire of a moving car from another moving car, from behind. Yeah, right, like that's going to happen. Barbara Hale lights up the screen, though.

This should be fun, since the alternates aren't under utilized, and there's no way to get over Buffalo Bayou between Shepherd and the Loop. All of the Heights area kids who go to Lanier Middle School may have a tougher time getting to school this Fall

I was under the impression the front plate was optional now?

It is not optional, but lots of folks refuse to put one on their car, erroneously thinking it hurts the looks or are too cheap to buy a bracket. There was a period where the legislature actually deleted the penalty for not having two plates (it was against the law, but the penalty was zero), but that was fixed.

Yeah, I've never liked having those two stickers there.  Never understood, either, why they don't just give you a sticker for your plate instead of making you put one on the windshield.

 

The windshield sticker is less likely to be stolen, and has more information on it. I am just glad we don't have to carry a separate registration form like most other states have. I would love to see the inspection requirement go away, sinc eit doesn't do much to prevent safety issues. I think something like 30 states, including California, do not require an annual inspection.

Why would they do that? Is the station moving there? I thought that part of town was "up-and-coming"?

The bus station isn't moving, just the place where Greyhound parks the buses that will be used later in the day. This is far better than the days when they parked them on the street.

The reception was pretty chilly during the bush years

I never noticed any of that, and I did a fair amount of traveling those years. Bush wasn't the most popular guy in the world, but I never felt any animosity against Texans in general, just specific ones who were jerks and deserved the scorn.

If you want an actual survey, you will probably have to pay a surveyor to do one. The county records do not generally contain surveys of each lot, in my experience. It's worth having hte surveyor do the jobin  any case, since he will mark the corners and boundaries, which will let you see whether or not there are any encroachments from neighboring properties.

If you dig further, you will find that the principals listed for that llc were married, and that the wife was the daughter of the previous owner. There's additional information if you dig further in Wysk, HCAD, and search on the names of the principals.

Try searching for the current owner (available from hcad) on google, adding the search term wysk as well. The property address is 1144 Yale. Wysk provides information on corporations.

I don't think anyone is saying that America as a whole was better in 1939. But there are certain things that some time periods do better than other time periods. So perhaps 1939 wasn't a great time when it came to racism, but did better than we do at other things.

Does our enthusiasm for this film threaten something you love about the world of 2014?

Nope, I'm not threatened at all. I just wanted to point out that romanticizing the past is usually a mistake. Sure, some of the stuff looks great through the mists of time, but there's not really anything that was better in 1939 than now. Heck, there's nothing I can think of that was better in the 60's, when I was a kid, than now,other than not having high fructose corn syrup in every type of food. Everything just works better today. Cars work better, roads are better built, toys are better, etc. And let's not forget that in 1939, everything likely smelled like tobacco smoke.