John Rich

I never said that it has to be someone famous for "the media" to "care." Those are your words, not mine. Sometimes suicides are news when the news value of the person or event outweighs the family's right to privacy. For example, if a state senator were to kill himself, that's certainly more newsworthy and will be broadcast, compared to some random emo kid offing himself in his bedroom.

Which reinforces what I said. It's not about respect. It's about how "newsworthy" it is. You imply that they don't publish the random emo kid suicides out of respect - when in fact, it's just not news in a big city like Houston. Nobody cares outside the immediate family. It doesn't sell papers. The famous person, on the other hand, oh yeah, Americans love to read that crap. You're reminded of that fact every time you stand in the checkout line at the supermarket. News about famous people sells. So it's not about respect for the little guys - nobody wants to read news about little people.

And it doesn't have to be a celebrity, as I noted before. An example of this is the nutjob who back in the late 90's climbed up the outside of the Williams Tower before doing himself in. In the process he screwed up the entire morning rush for half the city. That made it a newsworthy event.

Once again, you're reinforcing my point. The criteria for withholding the story has nothing to do with respect. It has to do with how sensational it is, and how many people are interested in it.

I'd like to know what it is that you do for a living so I can make up cynical theories and pretend to know what imaginary conspiracies motivate you and the people you work with and then splatter them all over the internet pretending I know what I'm talking about. So, how 'bout it? Is turnabout fair play?

I said nothing about any conspiracies, so you're making up a strawman argument there. I'm just talking about reality, and what I've observed over many decades of life between what happens in the real world, and what makes it into a news story. There are certain principles that apply. Like; the further from home the story is, the less people care. A hundred deaths in an apartment fire in Houston will make major news. A hundred deaths in an apartment fire in Bangladesh won't get a mention. There's truth to the old saying; "If it bleeds, it leads". That's the real world. By the same token, run of the mill suicides aren't reported in the big city because there are too many of them and nobody cares to read about it. Not because the news media intentionally withholds information out of respect for the families. In small towns, on the other hand, events are scarce enough that everything gets reported. The police blotter report, for example, is full of routine crimes, naming names. Do they withhold those out of respect for the families of errant criminals? Nope. Reality.

Likewise, if someone dies in a routine car crash, and on the same day a skydiver dies in a 13,000-foot plunge, which fatality is going to get the attention of the media? The skydiver, because it's sensational. Respect be damned.

And you won't. Unless it's a celebrity or caused a major inconvenience to others, suicides aren't usually reported in the media out of respect for a victim...

I disagree with the "respect" portion of your theory. The media has no respect for anyone. The simple truth of it is that run-of-the-mill suicides aren't "newsworthy". Like you said yourself, it's got be someone famous for them to "care". Or else it's got to be something unusual. They're interested in grabbing your attention, selling papers, and getting ratings. Respect for victims isn't part of that equation. (Call me cynical...)

...preferable to the alternative of military action.

Well, by gosh, we'll just send him a strongly worded resolution from the U.N. - that'll fix him!

There is a big Harris County Flood Control District project to widen the channels for Bear Creek and Southmayde Creek, so that they'll hold more water during heavy rainstorms. There is work with bulldozers and lots of dump trucks on that. I took a hike up Bear Creek a couple of days ago and ran into it. I don't know if that's what you're talking about, but that's all I know of in the area.

Photo 1: Bear Creek construction

http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b108/Joh...05Creek4dig.jpg

Photo 2: Bear Creek construction

http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b108/Joh...onstruction.jpg

Photo 3: Prickly flower with bugs. This is unrelated, I just like the photo.

http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b108/Joh...lower12bugs.jpg

Photo 4: One page of several blueprints posted on a construction billboard:

http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b108/JohnRich/HCFCD1.jpg

There are lots of beautiful spring flowers out, and a walk along the creek easements is a good way to see them.

Kim Jong-Il shed tears of regret during the country's controversial rocket launch because he could not use the launch funds to provide aid to his people

Actually, he WILL use those funds to feed his people, in an indirect way.

Here's the scam that worked on Bill Clinton: He threatens to build nuclear weapons, and Clinton promises him that if he abandons those efforts, that he'll provide billions in aid to N. Korea. Kim says; "Okay", and takes the money. Then he goes ahead and builds his nuclear weapons anyway, while Bill Clinton declares "Peace in our time".

So what will happen next is this: Kim will tell Obama that if America will send him a trillion in aid, that he'll abandon his long range missiles. Obama will fall for it, and Kim will get the money. Maybe a few percentage points will actually go to food for his people. Then Kim will go ahead and build his missiles anyway, and sell them to Iran, Syria and any other evil tyrant that wants one.

So you see, these rockets are just Kim's way of blackmailing the Western world. And our leaders keep falling for it, every time.

I hate cul-de-sacs..

Why?

If you live on one, it's very peaceful not having a lot of through traffic. No punks drag-racing. No short-cutters trying to find an alternate route to somewhere. No speeders to run over your children. There's no traffic except for those who live there. For the residents, that's a big benefit. I'm all in favor of cul-de-sacs.

i thought you might be interested in this thesis i discovered online:

"Bear Creek: A case Study in locating Historic site remains in southeast Texas" - by Andrea Stahman, TA&M, 2004

Good find! I'll be downloading that 20 Meg file soon to read it thoroughly. Thank you very much for sharing that.

I've also got another find on my end table awaiting my attention: a hardback book titled "The LH7 Ranch". That ranch was one of those in the Bear Creek area. The book was found by chance in a second-hand book store. Flipping through the photos, I believe that the concrete stairs I found in the woods were to the two story wood ranch house shown in this book.

Book: The LH7 Ranch

Today me and my girlfriend went to the Houston zoo for the first time. It was a nicely kept zoo but there seemed to be alot missing from other zoo experiences i had in other cities. The animals seemed to be very miniscule and small. What do they feed these animals? slimfast? Colorado Springs, my hometown has larger animals than Houston in their zoo? Houston needs to step up a litttle

Which ones do you believe to be "too small"?

Why is size so important to you?

Also in that area was the Gulf-Houston airport, which was closed about eight years ago, the runway and hangers torn up and removed, and housing subdivisions built on the land.

To me, HCAD is just another government agent and needs my permission or a warrant to search my property.

Good for you.

I've witnessed some kind of city tax inspector come into a work office, and start counting desks and computers. There's actually some kind of city business tax based upon such things...

To heck with 'em!

Prosecutors and area law enforcement... can gain expedited court warrants authorizing intoxication tests for suspects who decline voluntary breath or blood testing. "Impaired drivers are going to find out you can't 'beat' a DWI by refusing to be tested," explained prosecutor Brent Mayr

Um, what are they going to do if I refuse to test voluntarily; hold me down on the ground, stick a needle in my arm, and take blood BY FORCE?

http://www.brookings.edu/projects/archive/...pons/runit.aspx

Those little dots all over it -- those are people!

I don't know why you call that "scary", or comment on the tax cost. Rather than scary, it should be reassuring. And if the government had NOT done that, then we would all be complaining about it. So it was the right thing to do to eliminate that radioactive waste.

I've been to Trinity site in New Mexico, where the first bomb was tested. I'm not sure what they did with all that material - it was bulldozed up and taken somewhere. They open that site up to the public once per year, and you can walk the site and still find bits of green glass trinitite on the ground, where the sand was fused into glass from the heat. The remaining radioactivity from a visit is, they say, about equal to an x-ray.

As for dropping them on Japan, it was the Japanese themselves that made that necessary. Their refusal to surrender, and fight to the death tactics, were projected to cost one million U.S. casualties if we had invaded the home islands. Just look at how bad Okinawa was. It may be tragic that so many civilian lives were lost, but it actually saved a great many more that would have died in convenitional warfare.

I've been to Hiroshima and Nagasaki too. I didn't set out to visit the sites of the first three atomic blasts - life just worked out that way for me.

Image: Me at Trinity site

Image: Hiroshima blast epicenter

And that, my friends, is going to be the basis for my protest this year.

All THESE OTHER people are appraised at 82.4% of market value. Why am I at 100% of market value?? I want the discount too.

Yes, that's called an "unequal valuation", or something like that. Compare your price per square foot to that of similar homes in your neighborhood. If yours is unusually high, that's grounds for getting your home devalued for taxes.

There's a catch-22 here though. Privacy laws prevent you from seeing that data for other homes, unless you file a protest. So you have to launch a protest in order to find out if you really have valid grounds or not. But not to worry, because if it turns out you have no basis to protest, you can just drop it, without penalty. So go ahead and turn in that protest sheet when it comes, and just pull a number out of thin air for what you think your value should be. Then when they open up the data to you, you can actually firm that number up with something justified by statistics.

I have a how-to protest manual I wrote a few years ago (.doc file), with accompanying Excel spreadsheets. Several megabytes in size. If anyone would like a copy of that, just holler with your e-mail address, and I'll send it to you. Contact me at JohnRich3@sbcglobal.net

I've protested every year for about the last 10 years, and won every time.

HCAD has made the process easier now, to avoid the rigors of a presentation in front of a board. When they receive your protest, they'll do a re-evaluation on their own, and send a counter-offer. If you like that, you can accept it and you're done. Or you can reject it, and go before the board. I've been happy with their counter-offers the last couple of years.

Note: this can become a perpetual cycle because of the way their system works. Let's say in year one HCAD tries to increase my value by 8%, and I protest it down to 3%. They next year they want another 8%, but they also get to try and recoup what they lost the previous year, or in other words, 5% plus 8% = 13%. But they're capped at 10%. So effectively, every year after a winning protest, they just about always come back at you with yet another 10% increase. So you have to keep doing it every year to keep your gains.

- John Rich

John Rich, whereabouts are you hiking?

I'm back...

We spent 6 days on the Rio Grande by canoe, from St. Elena canyon to Rio Grande Village - about 75 miles. It was a perfect trip, until the last day, when we paddled into 40 mph headwinds, gusting to 60, along with a dust storm that made your eyes irritate so bad you could barely see. Ugh!

For land hiking, I did the following:

- Apache Canyon

- Cattail Falls

- The old Valenzuela ranch and cemetery

- East out of Castolon looking for an old ruins site - couldn't get there.

- The Comptons

- San Vicente Crossing

Nights were a bit cold, as low as in the 20's. Brrrr. Days were perfect, from 60's to 80's. Good time of year for Big Bend. Got it done before the Spring Break mob arrives.

Photo: Rio Grande River through Mariscal Canyon

http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b108/Joh...h/P2260911s.jpg

I kinda figured that, so we will just see what we can passing through. And if we feel the need, we can take a hike (or two) as a part of the return trip.

There's a museum in White City that has lots of fascinating stuff, from neat rock specimens, Indian arrowheads and pottery, and early pioneer goods.

BTW, I noticed that if you continue past Sitting Bull Falls on 137, the road dead ends at the State line at what looks to be above Guadalupe. I noticed that road before, and I wondered if there was anything to see from there? It's not that far past the falls, so we will probably check it out.

I seem to recall that there is a campground there at the dead end for Guadalupe Mtn Park. There is a backpacking trail from the south end of the park through the mountains to that north end. They run a shuttle that will pick you up at one end when you finish a multi-day hike, to return you back to your starting point on the other end.

If you do the McKittrick Canyon hike, go up to at least the Pratt cabin before you turn around. Gorgeous place. And the deer are very abundant and don't run away from you. Look for fish in the intermittent stream pools.

One quick and easy place to visit and hike is the Frijole Ranch museum, and behind it is the Smith Spring trail. Very pretty place, with water gushing out from under a rock in a wooded hillside.

Continue up the hillside behind Smith Spring, off trail, about 100', and you'll find a mountain lion "trap". The rangers hang something shiny like a pie plate from a tree limb to attract a lion's attention, and then they put a piece of carpet on the bottom of the tree trunk, with hooked barbs sticking out of the carpet. The idea is that the lion rubs up against the barbs, leaving tufts of hair behind. The rangers then collect the hair and have it analyzed for DNA. With this data, they can keep track of how many different lions there are in the area, and their movements.

I'm off myself tomorrow morning for two weeks in Big Bend. Four days of hiking, a week by canoe on the Rio Grande (St. Elena to Boquillos), then another two days of hiking. Spring camping season is here! Woohoo!

I'm sure you'll enjoy your trip - it sounds like a good one.

While you're giving praise to Pct 3, I'll add one of my own.

I called the Bear Creek Park manager about the Hillendahl "Blue Light" cemetery being overgrown with weeds and small trees. About two weeks later he had sent a work crew in there to clean it all up, and return it to the respect it deserves as the resting place of some of Houston's early settlers. You can now visit the headstones without having to push your way through a jungle.

Thanks!

it's not downtown, its at the museum of natural science near Hermann Park.

I consider that "downtown".

The Science Museum, downtown, used to have a party night on Friday evenings, with a live band, snacks, drinks and dancing around the dinosaur. Now that's different! It was a singles mixer type event. I don't know if they still do that.

If you have a vehicle with good clearance and 4x4, I'd recommend getting off the pavement and onto the miles of "primitive" roads. Many don't actually require 4x4, just good clearance, but it doesn't hurt to be safe.

The dirt river road running along the south side of Big Bend (not the paved river road to Presidio) was improved last year by the National Guard to assist the Border Patrol. That's the east half, and it's in good shape, and can be driven without 4WD. The west end is supposed to still be pretty rough.

There are numerous ruins of old Mexican villages and other homesteads along the Rio Grande that are quite interesting to explore. The park bulldozed most of the buildings in the 40's when the land was bought for the park, to return it to its natural state.

There are also a number of short hikes that can be done, without any gear, like Burro Mesa pouroff (the bottom end).

My plan is to stay 3 nights near Big Bend, 2 nights in Fort Davis, and one night in Carlsbad. The trip getting there and coming back we will play by ear. We'll have a laptop, and with Internet access, we should be able to make last minute reservations somewhere along the way.

You're talking about some very remote places. I wouldn't count on wireless internet access. Cell phones won't work in most of Big Bend, for example. I would check in advance and see if they have it there near the park HQ or something.

I was just planning to drive through Guadalupe on the way to Carlsbad. I don't know how much there is to see from a car without taking some of the hiking trails. I may give more thought into spending more time there if there is a lot to see. Then we could hit the caverns the next day on our way out.

By car, there are only a few places to see at Guadalupe. And you're at the bottom looking up at the magnificent mountains. To do the trails, you need to allow many hours for hiking. McKittrick Canyon is beautiful, and fairly easy, if you don't have the legs for the hike to the top of Guadalupe Mtn. If you have 4WD, you can get the keys to a gate for a rough drive to a remote old ranch house at the base of Guadalupe Peak.

Also near Carlsbad is a place called Sitting Bull Falls, which is a beautiful desert waterfall, with some water holes topside that you can take a dip in.

We are planning a trip to Big Bend, Fort Davis, Guadalupe and Carlsbad in the near future. Aside from the obvious, are there any hidden gems we should stop and see...

Those places ARE the hidden gems.

I did alot of the surveying there during construction around 2000 or so... Across Little York at the other subdivision we found several chrystal meth lab camp sites in the woods while cutting lines for topo surveys.

Uh oh. I've been hiking in those woods recently, and ran across a camp site deep in the thicket, where no sane man would go. I just figured it was someplace where kids were playing Davy Crockett. The roof poles were lashed together with duct tape, and the shelf or bed platform was lashed together with vines. It never occurred to me it might be someplace where illegal operations were taking place. I've seen the movies of what happens to hikers who stumble upon drug labs in the woods... So now you're scaring me.

Do these photos look familiar to you?

http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b108/JohnRich/Tent1s.jpg

http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b108/JohnRich/Tent2s.jpg

Nearby was this odd structure, looking recently erected:

http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b108/Joh...h/TreeForts.jpg

Any idea what that is supposed to be?

I've seen wolves on a number of occassions in the Addicks reservoir, and I know the difference between a wolf, and a coyote.

Where? Specifically.

Me: Wolves have been eliminated from Texas for 40 years... A few trickle in from Mexico, just like mountain lions and bears, but those are in south Texas.

Well beileve it or not, Mountain lions are moving back north int Texas and SW states from Mexico.

You seem to be trying to disagree with me, but in fact you are just repeating exactly what I said.

It's the downtown Hilton.

This one?

http://www1.hilton.com/en_US/hi/hotel/HOUC...-Texas/index.do

I am highly skeptical that they've seen a wolf...

Wolves have been eliminated from Texas for 40 years. And even before then, their range was in south and west Texas, not the Houston area.

A few trickle in from Mexico, just like mountain lions and bears, but those are in south Texas.