marmer

I seem to remember some "scandals" when the tech was first introduced about the camera companies "recommending" shortened yellow time to "create" more revenue. If I have time I'll try to come up with some harder evidence than my admittedly Swiss-cheese-esque memory.

The East Pearland one on 518 did close a few months ago, but they opened a new one in Friendswood at the same time. I think it's on 528 just south of 518.

Their pizza is much, much, much better than Cici's. The buffet is twice the price, though.

I wish Sonic or Dairy Queen would build some locations closer to Downtown.

There's a Sonic on Calhoun and one on Durham by the North Loop. You should move to Pearland -- there are at least four Sonics on 518 between 288 and 528 in Friendswood. Plus one on 35. And two Dairy Queens.

Hungry's on Rice Blvd. in the Village useta be a DQ back in the day, maybe until about '81 or so.

I remember the Prince's on Main near Sears lasted a LONG time, maybe 'til '90 or so? I remember too the one where Taco Cabana is seemed like it was halfway to Victoria or something.

I do not remember one at Montrose and Westheimer, and I came to Houston in 1980. If there was one it was gone before then.

I'll give it a shot. If Mincberg wants my vote, the best way to do that is to prove to me that he's serious about preservation by restoring that house. Before I help put him in a position of power, I want to know that he can be trusted. And he's not scoring any points so far.

I got Lisa's point. I can imagine that preservation is really going to be a struggle in the Memorial area because every house was someone else's dream house and it's hard to spend that much money just for the house, plus repairs and restoration, just to live in someone else's fifty-year-old custom home. And every house is an architect-designed house, unlike, say, the cookie-cutter tract houses of suburbia. Not sure what the answer is; it's difficult to make arguments about scale when the houses are large, flat, and hidden back on heavily wooded land. And they already look different from each other. On top of that, even if someone saves a house, it's not such an obvious cultural win as say, Jason helping to preserve the Jenkins enclave in the Willowisp area, because it's not terribly visible from the street or publicly accessible. (Of course, I could be describing the Menil house on San Felipe )

She lost my interest.

I wonder if scientists reference houses in disrepair in their papers on global warming.

flipper

Fair enough.

She lost me at polar bears.

flipper

Made sense to me. Do you really not understand her point, or do you simply disagree?

Just my guess:

One of the W. Gray ones, probably on the B&N side

The Shepherd/Farnham curve one

One of the Pearland ones -- probably the newer one on the east side

All the grocery and Target ones.

Looks like the answer to a question no one asked. Leave well enough alone, I say.

Very true. The bottom line is all that matters.

Right on. If you're going to live in the suburbs you are going to live in a cheaply built house. At least most things will be cheap to fix.

That's subjective. When I lived in Austin (without a car) I walked (or skated) to the grocery store, record store, book store, school, bars, restaurants, etc. When I lived in Montrose I regularly walked to stores and restaurants, even though I had a car. When it rained, I carried an umbrella. I didn't buy groceries once a week. I never went to the dry cleaners. I walked more than I did at any other time. Walking for the sake of walking bores me. Walking to get somewhere doesn't bother me.

I would love to live someplace like that again, but not right now. Right now I want a pool, a yard, a bunch of different rooms, a quiet street and no one pissing in front of my house during street festivals.

Fair enough. I've been to Austin twice in the last three weeks and it is lovely. And pedestrian friendly. Still, if you buy clothes, bed linens, most electronics, any furniture, most hardware, more than a couple of books at a time, two gallons of milk, any bagged goods like pet food, even toilet paper, pretty much anything at a home supply store, or pretty much anything at an office supply store, you are going to have more than you can carry very far and probably less than you can have delivered. And when you lived there were you single? Did you have any kids? Toddlers make the walking thing a lot harder and even older children usually can't walk as far as adults.

You're right, I didn't do my homework. And yes the onus is on me. You are correct. And yet my house by typical suburb standards is quite nice. It's still a cheap piece of crap. That's just how the suburbs are.

I thought for all practical purposes that all new houses are cheap pieces of crap. The only differences are size, location, and finishes. The rare exceptions are those built by some custom builders for some fairly perceptive and demanding clients.

Take out traffic and you are left with distance as the only variable between urban and suburb/exurb sprawl. Galleria traffic and traffic on 518 are just as bad, I have driven both.

And Kirby, and Shepherd, and San Felipe, and Richmond, and Bissonnet, and Holcombe, and Westheimer, and Montrose are just as bad. I could go on and on. And forget about driving around that nice little residential grid all over Montrose, with its on-street parking, narrow streets, seemingly random sprinkling of 4-way and 2-way stop signs, and uncontrolled landscaping. Scares me to death.

Between gyms, grocery stores, cleaners, gas stations, banks. . yadda yadda yadda . . . with good density and grided system; a greater amount of variety with choices and routes exists, with less distance when compared to a cul-de-sac infested sprawl. The road infrastructure in sprawls are less dense, retail is ALWAYS car-centric first, pedestrial friendly last, blocks are 2 to 4 time larger, sidewalks are an afterthought, if they are even placed.

Actually, one of my least favorite things about suburban living is the huge influx of gyms, grocery stores, cleaners, gas stations, banks...storage places and strip shopping centers. I'd be happier with pasture.

And, unfortunately, I'm about _this_ close to a rant about The Pedestrian Myth. Put simply, how often do you go to _any_ store of _any_ kind and come out with purchases you would be just as happy to carry for even _one_ block? And that assumes decent weather and a reasonably safe neighborhood. I'm trying to think -- grocery store, dry cleaners, shoe store... I can't think of any. We buy groceries a week at a time, for example, and usually don't go to the cleaners unless we have several things. Walking is fine for exercise or pleasure, provided you are reasonably healthy and have comfortable shoes and no injuries to your lower body. But it's not a good transportation solution for much of anything.

Gas in 1990 was a buck or less a gallon. Being efficient was a non issue in 1990, but I think the days of suburban sprawls being affordable has come to an end and will become a financial burden for people who still decide to choose that lifestyle from 2008 on.

People are avoiding SUV's now, who's to say this article is not predicting the same thing about people choosing to purchase a home in a suburban sprawl?

Well, the difference for us back then was simply that we would have had to pay twice as much for half as much space in a rougher neighborhood with poor schools. We actually did choose Pearland to minimize mine and my wife's commutes. The single biggest reason we moved was fear of crime. Break-ins were fairly frequent in our Montrose hood of the time.

And now, with a smallish house nearly paid off, mature trees, cars paid off, and a good school within walking(!) distance I'm more willing to sit tight and bet on automotive technological advances in the near-to-medium term than uproot my family and move closer at a tremendous up-front cost.

All I know is, I've lived literally all over Houston, and recently moved to Pearland because it's closer to work. I hate it. It's amazing how long it takes to do basic things down here. I live right in the middle of one of those endless interchangeable neighborhoods, and it still somehow takes nearly 15 minutes to get to Randalls-- the Randalls IN PEARLAND. It's ironic that a development designed around the car should be so inconvenient. 518 is a total disaster. The traffic is truly incredible. There are very few trees. Restaurants are nonexistent, unless you like Joe's Crab Shack. Anywhere you would want to go that isn't a grocery store or radio shack is 30 mins away. Camera store? 30 mins. Non-chain restaurant? 30 mins. Central market? 30 mins. It's an absolute mystery to me why on earth anyone would want to live in a place like this. It's all the inconvenience of living in the country, with none of the benefits. Guess I found out it's not for me. But if you like it, more power to you. Takes all kinds...

I'm not sure how to respond to your post without making it a total threadjack. But I lived in Montrose for ten years and have now lived in Pearland for eighteen years. I disagree with almost everything you have said, which makes me think that I could share some information which maybe, you, as a newcomer, might find useful. If you want to PM me, please do. I too hate 518 but can avoid driving on it pretty easily.

Agreed, but just like you, other people end up buying in the areas because they believe it is a great deal, only to later regret it after they truley see the lack of real ammenities and conveniences. Glad someone on here is honest about the outer burbs and how difficult it can be to do everyday errands.

I'm not sure that Pearland qualifies as the outer burbs anymore. Maybe it did in 1990. And it's not difficult to do everyday errands. I certainly don't find it easier to do errands inside the loop or in the Galleria area, for example.

I remember seeing the vacant slab and the Mel's BBQ sign when I would visit friends in the neighborhood in the early 80s. Story was that it had burned down.

Fred's Italian Corner is no farther by car (or bike) than some of the places we've been discussing, if it's quick 'n' cheap old-school Italian you're after.

Is your microwave or freezer broken?

Dude, I'll bet I've eaten more frozen dinners than you have! Even the worst restaurant food is better than most frozen dinners, IMHO. Besides, at a restaurant you don't have to wash dishes or clean up. (assuming you brought some money ) But I didn't mean to hijack, I only mentioned the Olive Garden as an example of a restaurant I like that gets bashed a lot. Sorta like Cafe Express.

Ewww. Cafe Express sells multiple configurations of overpriced, dry, flavorless chicken breasts. There's nothing "artsy" or "classsy" about that.

Whatever. I know some people don't like Cafe Express and I expected someone to say something. I have enjoyed every meal I've had there (mostly burgers, sandwiches, and salads, never a chicken breast.) Their condiment bar is spectacular and their _location and decor_ are classy and artsy, there in the basement/tunnel of the Beck Building. It's not cheap, but I have paid more for worse food, and nothing about MFAH is cheap except the free Thursdays.

I'm the same way about Olive Garden. I've never had a bad meal or bad service there.

YI just did a search of HPL's card catalog of 12 randomly chosen books from the Modern Library list of 100 Best Novels and HPL had all 12 of them... 100%. That rather strongly suggests that, rather than a "small portion" as you assumed, they have a huge portion, if not all of them. And so what if they are "scattered all around the branch libraries? That is the way library systems are supposed to work... make the books available to the largest number and widest variety of people.

Coming late to this discussion, I know. But I would be very surprised if 100% of both lists are not widely available at numerous branches throughout the system. Same with the Brazoria County Library System.

Today I noticed a bunch of glass and a hubcap in the middle of one of the monitored intersections. That camera's doing a lot of good

Prolly from a rear-ender caused by someone slamming on their brakes when the light turned yellow.

Cafe Express in the Beck Building of MFAH. Good, cheap, classy, artsy setting. (Note: there are other places which are better and places which are cheaper. There are places which are classier and places which are artsier.) But I REALLY enjoy Cafe Express when I'm at the MFAH and it's the only real choice if you're actually in the Museum District (as opposed to the Med Center) and have a "normal" definition of "walking distance."

There's a Mickey D's in the HMNS.

There's a Burger King on Holcombe at Main. (or at least there used to be...)

There's 13th Street on the Rice campus, which has little to recommend it unless you're on or near campus anyway. But they have cheap sandwiches and snacks, and the new Brochstein Pavilion (which serves only drinks and small pastries) is a very pleasant place.

Axe and you shall receive.

http://www.houstonarchitecture.info/haif/i...st&p=166621 (Post #17)

There are several more posts from me and others about roach experiences, but this one is the initial posting of the phone story.

Whether Kaplan started this discussion or not, my point is that as an adult who is no doubt in his 50s, it's long past time for him to get over the things that embarrassed him when he was a kid.

Earth to Kaplan: It was NO BIG DEAL.

I thought the thrust of the article was mostly that it was a historical footnote which seemed both quaint and surprisingly forgotten. And how normal it seemed at the time and how strange it seems today. The whole embarrassment about nudity issue is pretty much a given in junior high for almost everyone, it doesn't require swimming. I wonder how many junior high schools/middle schools even have a swimming pool. I've never seen one.

There were lots of mortifying things that happened to me in junior high. I don't know anyone who remembers that time fondly. Being well and truly over it and apparently being a functional adult doesn't mean that I can't remember plenty of that stuff even now. I don't see how DK is any different.

I suspect David Kaplan is the same guy who started this whole conversation a long time back. Countless kids who went to Houston schools in the 40s, 50s and early 60s had no problem with swimming in the nude at junior high school, and if they did have a problem with it they kept it to themselves, and they don't sit around whining about it now the way this guy Kaplan is doing.

I'm sorry he was embarrassed, but he needs to get over it. Good grief.

David Kaplan is a good guy. Very architecture-savvy, and IIRC, the owner of a small and contextually appropriate new house in the East End. I don't know about him starting the discussion but I'll bet he was aware of it. I am frequently amused by how often it happens that stuff discussed on HAIF turns up later in the Chron.

Yeah, I've never gotten it. My wife and daughter get all incapacitated with fear (in other words, freaked out) when they see one. My readers will remember the story I told about disassembling my office phone and being swarmed by little German cockroaches.

It's not that big a deal. Brush 'em off, step on them, wash your hands, take a shower if you want. Why spray when you can squish?

And yes, I take the male mosquitoes outside, too. Can't bring myself to kill anything that looks that pathetic.

David Lindsey's earlier Stuart Haydon novels, such as A Cold Mind and Spiral. Warning: graphic and gruesome violence.

Robert Leleux's Memoirs of a Beautiful Boy. A humane and funny memoir of growing up gay in the Houston area.

Larry McMurtry's early works like Moving On, All My Friends Are Going To Be Strangers, and Terms of Endearment. Rice University and Montrose of the '60s

There's a fiberglass statue of a black cow, probably at least five feet high, by a dirt road off Cullen just south of the Clear Creek bridge. The cow is held in place by a square iron frame, and is looking somewhat the worse for wear. I seem to remember that it was maybe marking some kind of restaurant or events venue, but now there's no sign and the road is gated. It goes back into dense woods.

OK, Pearland long-termers. What is or used to be back in those woods?

I know of at least two in Pearland: Green Tee and Corrigan. In both cases there are vacant lots standing next to houses on either side. One, in Corrigan, is a little surprising: the original two tract houses flooded badly and repeatedly. Finally they were demolished and the lot maintained as a vacant lot. In about the last two years, there was a major flood control and drainage project for the whole area, and now someone is building a log-cabin style two story house on that land. It's the only one like that in the area. I thought you couldn't build on land that had been bought out by FEMA or the county? But someone is.