skwatra

check out houston transtar to get an idea. it's a real time traffic map that's very accurate. you can get online and check it out during rush hour. you can use the route builder or speed reports to estimate times. or you can also go to historical data and look at the averages for 2003. though 45N has been expanded since then. i'm sure there's someone here that actually does the commute, i personally don't. clear lake is closer to downtown by several miles (30 minutes or so, 45 during rush hour depending on where you are), and closer to most of the places i go like medical center, rice area, galleria, etc. i would just check out both places, they're pretty different. don't know about flood plains, never had any problems in clear lake. roads flood every once and a while, but it recedes rather quickly. let me know if you have any questions about clear lake. don't know much about the woodlands except its newer and nicer. though there are some new neighborhoods in south shore harbour that are incredible (across the lake from clear lake, even farther out). har.com for housing if you haven't been there already.

i think they do pretty good here. i am basing this on 4 years in st. louis, where they drive 55 in the left lane even when there isn't traffic. it was horrible, so slow. i think people here drive pretty fast in general, and get out of they way. of course there are always the idiots, but i find it much better in houston then stl where i drove a lot, and even better overall then austin and dallas where i drive on the weekends.

aren't they doing something like that with the katy freeway? several ez-tag lanes that are free for HOV during rush hour? rapid commuter rail in the center of 10, 45, and 59 south would be so nice...

i usually make my schedule so i don't have to do that, but when i use to have class in the late afternoon i would take the 5:24 bus from eastwoood transit (just south of downtown on 45 walkable from UH) to the Bay Area park and ride (right in the middle of clear lake) which gets there at 5:56. so 32 minutes, but more like 40-45 if i drive because i can't take the HOV lane. but between not needing a parking permit, gas, and traffic the bus worked out much better that semester. i'm tempted to move to midtown just to be able to actually live in the city, my commute would always be against traffic. but its still quite a commute, and so much more expensive to live there. i pay $580 for an 800 sq ft apartment on the lake with a hot tub/pool, dock, and courtyard with bbq. don't think i could find that downtown...

it actually is suppose to merge back with NASA 1 east of Egret Bay, so someplace in between El Camino and Saturn (close to the JSC entrance). The major bottleneck is at El Camino westbound, so i hope this remains the plan. I live on NASA 1, and if I need to go downtown between 5-7 i just take Space Center all the way to Genoa-Red Bluff (newly extended), to Beltway 8 to 45N. There's basically no traffic this way, though the speed limits are lower. And I work on that end of Space Center, from there i can get to UH Main in 20 minutes, maybe 25 at 5pm.

i always wondered what sea-arama was, my dad had a bumper sticker on his '80 mustang...

i always thought johnson did two voices, and walton did one fake and himself. that's impressive. the show can get a bit too right for me sometimes, but overall it's hilarious and really unique. i'm not gay or black or a red-neck, but i know many and i was convinced (not that they all sound like that or anything, but they have the stereotype down).

i never jump in to these dallas/houston wars. my brother lives there (and i was born there) and i visit at least once every few months. i have no big problems with dallas, and it has its positives/negatives compared to houston. i had friends there from boston/memphis/st. louis for a comedy show, and we had a great weekend except for that incident, which i hope was isolated. i just needed to vent...

this is definitely a true story. it was right outside of eight lounge saturday (3/12) night in lower greenville (across from the taco cabana). they don't want big crowds forming because so many fights break out, but usually they just yell and try to get people to leave. there were maybe 6 cops there, 2 with paintball guns. without warning, one shot maybe 4-5 times at the wall above us. i was in the front of the crowd closest to the cops, and something hit me in the head (it wasn't very painful so i'm guessing i got grazed or it was ricochet, but they were firing right over our heads). there was a white substance in my hair, i never saw it since my girlfriend wiped it off. then my left eye started burning really bad, and everyone around us started feeling burning in their mouth/nose. i don't know what it was, not paintballs for sure. and there was something in the air, i'm guessing some type of irritant. i can have several people corroborate what happend. i don't have the time or money to hire a lawyer. especially considering (i'm not turning this into a race issue, i hope no one takes this the wrong way, it just doesn't help my situation) it would be an indian club patron vs the dallas police. i'm hoping if this is a regular occurrence (which it has not been, cause my brother goes out there all the time and was shocked to hear about it) in the future they will be stopped.

this seems like a good enough place to b*tch about dallas... we were out last weekend in greenville (dallas), and at 2am our drinks were stripped away with no warning and we were kicked out. this happens in houston as well at some places (what are the chances of TX ever changing last call???). then with a packed club full of people right in front, without even asking us to disperse the cops started shooting tear gas pellets at us (at least i think that's what they were). i actually got hit in the head and everyone's eyes/nose started burning. this was at 2:05am.

they have several of these "diagonal crosswalks" in old towne pasadena, ca. they work really well when you have a lot of people. haven't seen them in nyc... here's a story on them

here's an article on a website like that, but it has an annual fee of $20 to use. the shell on beltway and genoa-red bluff, and the one on beltway and telephone always seem the cheapest around me, but i'm comparing to clear lake so that's probably not saying much.

we also have one of the best life flight systems according to a friend of mine who it a resident here. many cities model theirs after ours.

too much work clutter to show the actual desktop but thats the background...

efficient of mass transit? do they count freeways as mass transit? 23rd in hospitals? riiight...

i'm actually more excited about schlitterbahn galveston. but it would be nice to see six flags get a new coaster and do some renovation. haven't made it out to cedar point yet, maybe this summer (i've been saying that for years)

my parents came here from india in '72, and i was born here. all of my friends who are in the same situation, call themselves indian-americans. we can't call ourselves american indians for obvious reasons, and though we see ourselves american first, the indian part is still pretty important to us. we are actually are referred as ABCD's, American Born Confused Desi's (desi means indian in hindi) by the older generation that came here, its a joke but probably true, considering the combination of the culture and generation gap between us and our parents.

anyone try looking hispanic up? the usage note is actually interesting, and shows a lot of people on this forum are right depending on how you look at it- adj. Of or relating to Spain or Spanish-speaking Latin America. Of or relating to a Spanish-speaking people or culture. n. A Spanish-speaking person. A U.S. citizen or resident of Latin-American or Spanish descent. USAGE NOTE Though often used interchangeably in American English, Hispanic and Latino are not identical terms, and in certain contexts the choice between them can be significant. Hispanic, from the Latin word for

have you guys been to orlando? i spend a lot of time in cocoa beach (60 miles from orlando) and the weather there (and orlando) is always comparable to here. pretty much every day in the summer, it storms in the afternoon, and it's just as humid. and in the winter it can be pretty bleak, or just as beautiful. though their winters are a bit more mild. but if you look at galveston, the averages are exactly the same. if you don't beleive me check this out: orlando houston galveston i'm not saying we could be as big of a tourist destination as orlando (and i wouldn't want that), but the weather here isn't as bad as everyone makes it out to be.

any word on when the official groundbreaking will be, if it hasn't happened already? wonder if they're on schedule...

that's what it was! thanks, saved me from watching it again... i knew it was UH and something towards the south.

do you really expect people who have been driving on the same roads for years, using the exact same routes to just figure out how a new train that you have to share a lane with works overnight? the accidents in downtown/midtown i agree are inexcusable, many caused by drunks, but the medical center area is really confusing. i think we should replace the HOV lanes on the freeways with ground level tracks for commuter, and have nothing but elevated or subway in the city for future routes. i've lived in/driven in many cities, and houston drivers are relatively not bad. you're going to have stupid drivers no matter where you go.

this site may be a good reference in the future: http://texas.southwestmovies.com/Armageddon/ if you click on harris county it says coming soon. the scene in armageddon when they show them first getting to JSC definitely was not JSC. but other scenes were shot here. and in independence day, if i remember correctly the billboard they showed just before nuking houston does not exist (it said university of houston and galveston or something). also, don't forget space cowboys, i tried to be an extra for that and much of it was filmed at JSC.

that's what they said in dallas before the stars, and that team has done a lot for the city. we have a bigger hockey following down here then what you would guess, and houston is big enough to make a market for anything. c'mon, nashville has a team...

are they open on the weekends/late? i'd love to try them before (if) they close, but i'm never downtown except the weekends...