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jgriff

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Everything posted by jgriff

  1. jgriff
    I worked for a client once from Saudi Arabia that was obsessed with showing his structure in cities around the world to compare it’s height to landmarks. He had me place it next to the Eiffel Tower, Empire State Building, etc... wasted thousands of dollars of his company’s money. The running joke around the office of course was that he was obsessed with it for anatomical inadequacies. He was a smart man and very nice but had such a childish attitude about height of buildings.
  2. jgriff
    You CANNOT get accurate height data or compare heights with a reasonable degree of accuracy from a rendering. Perspective matters too much. With the right perspective you could make a 2 story house look taller than Chase Tower.
  3. jgriff
    What’s happening there?
  4. jgriff
    I’m not sure that just because the dog park floods that it is in the wrong location. The entire park is where it is because it’s a huge area of land that’s not developed and is not privately owned. Think about the reasons for that. Could we have a park this size in another location? How about we move it 1/4 mile South into an area that floods much less often and buy 124 acres there? Kick all the people out of their houses and pay several million per acre. I think cleaning up the flood debris will be cheaper in the long run. The flooding is not a suprise. The park was designed to flood. The dog park was redesigned this time to be more resilient.
  5. jgriff
    The fire destroyed my wife’s nail shop. She’s not happy. It also damaged the Steinway store.
  6. jgriff
    I wouldn’t think so. The fire was not near this construction site. It was across the street and a block West.
  7. jgriff
    Looks like the appraised value is about $4 million. I bet it will go for more. If we want to see how much people really care about this building someone should start a fund raiser to buy it. That’s the perfect mechanism for finding out if people really care or if they just like to b**ch.
  8. jgriff
    The Kirbys took in a cousin of mine that was abandoned by her mother and raised her as their own. If I owned this place and could make more money by pushing it down and building a high rise or selling it to someone else to do the same thing I would. Keeping this building is going to cause someone to lose a lot of money. I wouldn't sacrifice a few million for other people to be able to drive by and say "Neat... an old house." You'd have to pay me for that luxury.
  9. jgriff
    Those predictions came true in the 80s. Many lives were ruined. If you happened to be the wrong age it would have seemed to you like Houston crashed and never recovered. My grandparents bought in the wrong neighborhood and lost a lot of money. It could definitely happen again, in fact I'd say it's almost certainly going to happen again. Choose where you buy carefully, think about how the neighborhood would look if Houston had 15% unemployment. The company I'm working for is currently in the process of sending all our work to India and China. We are literally training our replacements and handing over our technology to them. Another company just down the street is so desperate for work they are designing a facility for a Chinese engineering company who will then take the design and compete against them with it. Their choice was "take this project or shutdown the company". They'll do this last project and then shutdown. Other countries we work with have protections in place to keep this from happening. Saudi Arabia absolutely does not allow this. When we do work for them we have to buy into a local company, use local staff and train them. We are so fascinated with "free trade" that we don't even make an attempt to get a fair deal. The rest of the world just screws us over again and again.
  10. jgriff
    You are correct. We're already losing much of the petrochemical industry to India, China and South Korea thanks to people in our government who believe in the free market so much that they don't even want to negotiate on trade, they just give it all away. Electric cars will ruin the rest. Fortunately this will happen after I'm retired or dead. If I was in my 20s I'm not sure I'd invest too much of my life in Houston. I might rent instead of buying. If there really is a switch to renewable energy Houston will stagnate, house prices will drop and crime will rise. I love the city and it's been very good to me but I'm not sure about it's long term future. It could easily go down the same path as Detroit.
  11. jgriff
    Maybe because we don’t need them anymore. People can be gay in any bar now and not get punched in the face, for the most part anyway.
  12. jgriff
    You can get a 12kw generator that runs off natural gas for around $3k. Figure another $3k at least for installation. It will run the central a/c in your house as long as you still have gas service. When a hurricane comes and you’re without power for even one night all you will care about is a/c.
  13. jgriff
    I can see the need for a grocery store downtown. I don’t see a need for Target. Target is the store I would go to if I went to a big box store. I’m not going to Wal-Mart or Costco. I now only go to a store like this about half a dozen times a year. I get almost everything that’s not perishable from Amazon. I don’t care if it’s more expensive, it’s more convenient. I’m not sure how stores like Target are going to survive much less expand. I have 1-4 packages from Amazon delivered everyday and almost never have to visit a store.
  14. jgriff
    I have to stop coming to HAIF so much. Complaining about 2 high rises being too close together and implying that zoning would fix this “problem”? That post made the world a dumber place. Sorry to be rude but sometimes you just have to call stupid out.
  15. jgriff
    Sounds expensive. To tell you the truth I'm more inclined to make the drugs legal and give them all the money that we'd spend on these programs. Then the problem will solve itself.
  16. jgriff
    How do you make people who sell drugs and/or beg for a living and live on the streets go away? The cops don't care about this area. I've seen drugs being sold with cops sitting in a car just a few yards away. The cops will care when the people in the neighborhood care. That might happen if more people who have standards and don't believe standing on a corner and drinking from a brown bag are valid lifestyle choices move to the area.
  17. jgriff
    You're just an elevator ride from the illicit drug bazaar that surrounds the bus station too.
  18. jgriff
    That doesn’t look like highland village. Looks like you’re on Post Oak near Whole Foods.
  19. jgriff
    There is a fence around the site and demolition of the building is underway.
  20. jgriff
    I’ve just decided to stop getting out of their way. I’m also not walking single file to make space for them anymore. They have brakes, not my problem if they go over the handle bars. If they insist on riding at top speed on the crowded sidewalks in BBP they can just run right into to all 210 pounds of me. We’ll both get hurt but so be it.
  21. jgriff
    Bike riders are so obnoxious, pompous and self un-aware. I used to ride a bike. I wouldn’t get near one now because I don’t want to be associated with those kind of people. I genuinely think many of them are bad people and their attitude is bad for society.
  22. jgriff
    I’ve been almost run down, had bells rung at me and heard “on your left” so many times now from bike riders who refuse to slow down when they are around people that I now have an unreasonable hatred of bike riders. I’m lumping them all together and making a blanket statement. If you ride a bike you suck, every one of you are guilty.
  23. jgriff
    He’s right. I’m rich and live near downtown. I sure appreciate all the tax money making my property worth more. All those incentives go to rich developers who build luxury apartments for the non-poor people. If we can get more rich people living downtown the property values will go up more. It’s a win-win for rich people. Rich people pay almost all the tax though so we deserve to reap more benefits.
  24. jgriff
    I’ll be the politically incorrect person who tells the truth. There’s a low income housing complex called Allen Parkway Village holding this area back. No one wants to live near it. I think the area still has a good future but it would be a lot better if the low income housing was torn down. I’m not saying that should be done, just stating the truth. The brick street political battle is an obstacle too. Who wants to get involved in a neighborhood with an issue like that? You could have protesters and TV news crews in your front yard. You also might get blamed for “gentrifying” the neighborhood if you are white.
  25. jgriff
    Well, there goes 5 minutes of my life wasted reading about palm trees. Thanks.
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