crunchtastic

Not quite so dramatic, but more or less. If you want realy good stories, find an old timer and ask them about the 'hospitality suites' at OTC back in the 80s before the bust. I had to giggle at La Strada--the walk of shame brunch for clubbers who refused both shame and sleep.

ditto everything on Sev's list, plus: the 80s punk scene the original Westheimer street fest Phi Slamma Jamma back-to-back world champion Rockets and the massive impromptu street party on Richmond Ave (Sams Boat/Place and Richmond Arms block) when they won all the defunct venues/clubs but especially Axiom and Power Tools back-roads cruising out in Katy-Fort Bend, skinny-dipping in the rice wells on the Katy prairie, also all the motorcycle trails to ride on back when there were only 3 subdivision on S Mason road crabbing underneath the old Kemah drawbridge catching crawdads in ditches and betting my lunch money on crawdad races Luv Ya Blue 2 and 3 for 1 happy hours with massive buffets ladies night! JR Richard and Jose Cruz era Astros not Houston, but ...Sea-Arama Busch Gardens next to the old Bud plant on the loop, where my little brother got massively pooped on by birds in the aviary and cried like a baby Leos for tex-mex working nights downtown at One Shell and doing office food runs at Pappas BBQ and Yit Ing Ho because nothing else was open. Urban Animals Dark Side of the Moon at Burke Baker Planetarium, pre-IMAX. Hey, it was the best we had! Late--night happy hour at BirraPorettis on W Gray (for me anyway) growing up in the small town suburbs in the late 70s was exactly as depicted in Dazed and Confused. There was always a a cool kid with absentee parents and a pool, summer baseball and softball league, the Dairy Queen, roller rink, lots of ditch weed Wortham Center downtown opening during the dark days of the oil bust, and going to an opera for the first time The pre-PC, less litigious olden days when office holiday parties at any big company were totally debauched, booze and coke in the bathrooms, etc. At UH campus-provided booze was everywhere in large quantity. When I started UH in 83, there was an old outdoor pool between the quad and Moody towers which was the sight of a pool keg party for dorm move-in weekend. Also the Pimp n Ho kegger at Itza Pizza in the MNoody Towers basement, and the infamous Tequila To Kill Ya party hosted and catered by the School of Hotel Restaurant Management graduating class. God i'm an old.

What do you mean precisely by abandonment--of the city street? I have a friend who lives on that block with no plans to sell/move, but to me it seems it sure will be painful to stay.

My point was simply that a google map representing the by-product of mostly western wealth, e.g. photographs of landmarks, has got little to do with 'historic preservation'. Landmarks become such because humans want to be closer to god, money and power. I'm well aware many special places are not by-products of religion, and I am likewise not 'butthurt' because many are. A few landmarks get lost along the way due to war, neglect, etc. But I do believe that humans get the outcomes they deserve, and will ultimately organize themselves to preserve what matters most, and not because an arbitrary clause in a municipal statute declares so. If vanity and crazy drive the next despot or architect to create something magical, go for it! But history will decide if that thing is worth keeping, for better or worse, and not because historic preservation or social media. Look, I really like great old things. I've sat there with my mouth open looking up at gothic cathedrals, greek and roman ruins, pre-Columbian temples, modern architectural marvels. I like talking about the olden days. I like my old and ill-preserved house. It's just that as presented, the conclusion drawn in the original post was a little too precious. And this mindset that we need more/better special buildings so we can feel more special does nothing to forward responsible and sustainable growth.

So, to sum up why historic preservation is important: westerners with money have cameras, go around, and use the cameras. How very Google. Looking at the map, based on the competition from Christendom and token other ancient religions, I'll go out on a limb here and guess that the Astrodome is never going to be considered a contributing structure in the global preservation popularity contest. Glad we settled that.

Ah, the olden days, when the beer sampling prize was a guy called Nobby from Manchester and his friend staying temporarily in your apt while they picked up drywall jobs and part-time "worked the door" at the pub.

At the Richmond Arms, we drank 20! And didn't get no stinkin shirt! Yarrrrrr! Gurgle. Cool shirt. I wish I had kept more mementos of my oh- I- just-stopped -in-for-a-couple pub years.

Does anyone know where I could get a couple more of the old green recycle boxes? I discovered they are the perfect container for growing carrots and leeks: rigid and UV- stable, lots of drain holes, deep. I've noticed in some other cities that have the large recycle bins have moved to smaller size garbage bins. This would work for us--a 2-person household and we generally have 1-2 tall kitchen garbage bags of trash per week, but lots of recycling and compost scraps.

Nay to Trader Joe's, Yay to another full-service grocer with meat and seafod counter, full range of produce. Would love to have a dept store again, but preferably Nordstrom. Macys sucks. A sporting goods store. Also, I don't believe there is a dry cleaner in the entire freaking east end. Please, a good dry cleaner and tailor, not the $1.99 War on Cloth that calls itself a dry cleaner. On street level open until 7/8 pm, preferably by the Y.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_eye/2014/05/19/rural_studio_builds_brand_new_20_000_houses_in_alabama.html I like how they approach the economics of the community, contractors, workers etc in this project, not just the house plans. Pretty nifty designs which if scaled up, with slightly more luxurious finishing, would be good structures for the retirement co-op/compound I want to build.

All this talk about HAIF story-arcs make me miss TexasVines. Either that dude was truly unhinged, or very, very good method actor. BTW....Red still reads the forums on occasion, just doesn't post. I'm sure one day something will draw him out of semi-retirement.

Niche and RedScare occasionally post at Swamplot. It's a shame that discourse devolved, but it does after a while in a closed loop. Whether we admit it, HAIF is. That, and men and their egos. Myself, I got bored with the same conversation over and over again. Let some time pass and now HAIF is interesting again. Don't know how many of you remember the name but Memebag has appeared on swamplot recently. Godzilla redux ; HAIF dinosaurs back to the internet again? U B the Judge!

As I remember there was some bad blood here on the forums surrounding Niche's departure from HAIF, which is why this is in Way Off Topic. Not sure how many of you stay in touch with him, but I know many of us knew him personally. Anyhoo, he's still in Vietnam, and is settling in DaNang with his wife Yen. He was married earlier this month in what sounds like an epic village-wide, week-long party in the countryside where his wife's family lives; his parents made it over for the event. And.....a baby on the way due in early November! I've got his email if anyone's interested.

If Ed Emmett wants to start this charade all over again, that's his prerogative. But like Subdude said up-thread, nothing's going to happen that doesn't align with either Rodeo's or Texans' interests. So, either they pay every dime associated with re-purposing the dome, or not. Voters made it clear they don't want any more public money spend on it. Perhaps the impending shame-fest will convince the two interested parties they need to work together and open their wallets.

Not exactly hard hitting tv news, but I didn't realize spending was down so dramatically on road repairs. Sure would like to see the numbers on Rebuild Houston and where the drainage fees collected since 2010 have been spent. Why do people vote in these thinly-veiled special interest handouts with no accountability measures??? http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=news/in_focus&id=9522429 Have to admit I like the laundry basket full of pots. Pure cheez but effective.