august948

Best part of this weather pattern is no mosquitoes in my backyard. Sat in my backyard last night for an hour enjoying the evening breeze and didn't get bit once.

The best you're gonna get on that is a blue tarp and a brita pitcher. You're on your own for the a/c and bacon.

Street cleaners? LOL...in 10 years here in Houston the only time I've seen street cleaners is in one of the parades downtown.

Riding on sidewalks is not always illegal. This is from the city of Houston's website: "Can I ride my bike on the sidewalk? It is acceptable to ride on the sidewalk under certain conditions, except in a business zone. A business zone is the territory that includes the contiguous 600 ft. along the roadway where there are buildings in use for business or industrial purposes that occupy 300 feet collectively on both sides of the roadway. Remember that pedestrians have the right-of-way." That includes downtown and some commercial thoroughfares, but leaves a lot of sidewalks where biking is allowed. I ride (and see others riding) on sidewalks all the time up and down Westheimer, Richmond, Dairy Ashford, Memorial, Wilcrest, Kirkwood and other streets and have been passed many, many times by police cruisers without incident. They may ticket you in downtown, but further out I suspect the police have bigger fish to fry than bikes on sidewalks. I think if you do it resposibly (no wheelies down sidewalks crowded with pedestrians, please!) you won't have any problems. Has anyone out there ever been ticketed or warned by police not to ride on sidewalks? If so, where?

Just out of curiosity, are there sidewalks you can ride on in this area instead of using the bike lane? I know we should be able to use bike lanes without being hassled, but the reality is that there are a lot of jerks out there who believe the roads are just for them and everyone else should get out of their way. Living and biking in west Houston (mostly) outside the beltway I find it much safer to use sidewalks on main streets even though we've got bike lanes on several cross streets here. I'd much rather ride the sidewalk and deal with the occasional missing or broken section than tempt fate in traffic.

Can someone explain why the quickline only goes to Ranchester and not all the way out Bellaire?

Who said I have a 42 inch plasma? Seriously, though, I think you can create a decent mix of car/bus/bike/walk to fit the transportation needs of a lot of people in this city, even outside the loop. For a Southern city, we've got it pretty good. Sometimes all it takes is for you to get out of your car and walk/bike around the edges of your neighborhood to discover that a lot of places are within an easy walk or bike of home. Find some nearby places you can bike or walk to for some of your errands and use public transport and/or your car for the farther away spots or commutes or where you just need to haul that plasma back to the house.

Is there a map somewhere that shows voting patterns by polling place in Houston for the 2008 election? That would give you a pretty good barometer of the local political spectrum.

Much of the south voted democrat prior to the 80's. I think some of it could just be the post-civil war legacy where the Republican party was seen as 'northern'. Regardless, the Democrats had such a lock on the south that I recall my father saying he was a registered Democrat because otherwise he really couldn't vote in any elections, particularly local ones, since the Republicans weren't really a factor. In those days, elections in Texas and elsewhere in the south were mostly determined in the Democratic primaries.

It's entirely possible outside the loop or beltway, depending on where you live. I'm near Westheimer and Dairy Ashford and can bike to numerous big box and smaller stores, restaurants, coffee shops, grocery stores, a couple of cinemas, a hospital, etc. in 15-20 mins or less. I run errands this way as often as I can, 2 to 3 times a week. If you are on the west side you can access the Terry Hershey park trails which run from cinco ranch to the beltway. And, of course, Metro crisscrosses the area. Most of the west side from the loop to highway 6 and Westheimer to I-10 has a similar mix of residential and retail close enough for easy biking. I suspect similar situations exist in other parts of the city outside the loop.

Ahh...Atlanta. What a great city. Lived there for most of the 90's. If you want this to happen to Houston, though, you will need to tear up a lot of our roads and force commuters into narrow corridors with few options for alternate routes. That way development would have to concentrate in response to the hassle of getting around. As long as Houston can spread out in all directions, there isn't a much impetus to concentrate. Unless, of course, gas prices go through the roof again.

The rotunda/gazebo across from the museum of natural history at hermann park is popular with wedding photographers here.

I think I would just laugh and make a rude comment to him about the size of his equipment.

I just hope all the characters don't have the exaggerated accents that the Hollywood types think all Texans have.

Just curious...are you planning to take the money in US dollars or Mexican pesos? Seems like a native would be carrying pesos, but USD might also be common.

Fantastic! I recognize some of the places in the pictures but am having a hard time figuring out the exact route you took. Can you elaborate on the bus/rail/walking route you took?

I know what you mean. We were in midtown this past Saturday, looking for some Vietnamese food. We only saw a few Vietnamese stores and restaurants. When we moved here in '99 there were at least twice as many, plus a small indoor center with a food store and some shops. Fu Kim is gone also. We rode over to the old chinatown and it is now only a few stores. We ended up at Kim Son off the 59 feeder, where we got to see some of the art cars up close as they were parked around and in the Kim Son parking lot.

It's actually as close as you'll find to Vietnam around here. Not sure why, but the Chinese stores tend to be east of the beltway and the Vietnamese tend to be west of the beltway. Of course, there are some exceptions to that. My hunch is that the Chinese got established first with Diho market and Dynasty market/mall (not much of a mall, really) back when Bellaire still fairly empty that far out and the Vietnamese came in later and started building in the next section of open land, which was west of the beltway. I recall visiting Houston with my wife (then girlfriend) and her parents in the mid-late 80's and we went to Diho market and to some stores in the midtown Vietnamese area and the old downtown Chinatown. Don't remember much west of the beltway on Bellaire at that time.

They have cheap beer in the food court (used to be $1.50 a bottle/can). I've been in that toy store many times with my children and we've never been harrassed. Maybe the guy was just having a bad day. There's a place just off the food court called Vi's that makes pretty good sandwiches. Also, further down there are a couple of bakeries and a place that sells all kinds of fresh jerky. One of the anchor restaurants, Ocean Palace, at the other end of the mall from the food court serves dim sum. In between there are a lot of little clothing, music and gift shops that sell a variety of stuff and a large asian grocery store. Across Bellaire from HKCM is Lee's sandwiches, which is open late and has a variety of Vietnamese sandiches, drinks and some unusual ice cream's (ever have Durian flavored ice cream?). If you like HKCM, you can also try Viet Hoa at Beechnut and the Beltway. Similar assortment of stores, but it in strip center format. Used to be a Kmart before it was renovated and expanded. They have a dim sum to-go shop there and a small outpost of Lee's. At the far end, in the newer section of the strip, there is a small food court with a Filipino restaurant (notable to me at least because I've seen very few Filipino restaurants here even though we have a large asian population from seemingly everwhere in east and south asia).

I saw a few movies there before they shut down ('99-00?). After that I started going to the one on synott and westheimer. It's been a while, but I recall seeing the same people behind the counter at the windchime on synott that were at the dollar 8 so I assume they bought the windchime. It's a bit more visable from the road than the dollar 8 was (and maybe larger, too).

You could also plant some nice prickly bushes along one side near the street (or maybe some closely spaced azaleas, if you want it to be prettier) so it would be inconvenient for anyone to cut the corner while still leaving the front walkway accessible.

I recall visiting the airtex location as a garden ridge sometime in the 2000 - 2001 time range. It had a similar feel to the garden ridge in katy, which appears to be in a building that was repurposed from some sort of multiple vendor setup. Does anyone know if the orignal garden ridges in houston took over older buildings that were flea markets or some sort of indoor shopping centers?

This sort of thing goes on all the time and has for years, regardless of who is the president. My father spent his career in the Navy and told me about all the cat and mouse games that went on from the 60's through the 80's between the US Navy and the Russians and Chinese. We would probe their defenses and reactions and they would probe ours. It's just standard military practice.

LOL...the Vietnamese hairdressers aren't badtalking you in Vietnamese unless you really did something to piss them off. They're just yaking about the weather or what they ate for lunch etc.