cottonmather0

I have often dreamed of mounting a paintball gun behind my truck's grill and then rigging a trigger back to the cab to send "messages" to people doing stupid swervey rude things on the road in front of me. Not that they would know it was me who put that pink splatter on their car door or why it even happened, but I'd sure feel better. Unfortunately, I'm sure that wouldn't fly with many judges, either.

Yeah, that rings pretty clearly with the familiar undertone of clever engineering students. Well done and realistic sounding on its face, but it doesn't quite hold up to the smell test.

Like I said, when it was clever and didn't seem to affect anyone else, I didn't have a problem with it, but that's not the case anymore so I'm not going to add to the problem. I'm like you, Meme, I can't stand rude drivers, which usually includes mindless speeders, weavers, and failures to yield. I've spoken many times on this forum and others about the red light near my house (SB TC Jester @ 11th) where the geography of the road has created a "special" left lane that is often empty and ends shortly after the intersection and lots of "smart" (as I am sure they would describe themselves) drivers routinely pop over into that lane to purposely jump in front of everyone else when the light turns green. The layout of the road upstream is such that a typical driver coming southbound on TC Jester would rarely end up in that lane by accident, so I've come to the conclusion that most people who do it do it on purpose, which can usually be verified by observing how quickly they accelerate and get back into the middle lane when the light turns green. (Those who don't know will either not accelerate at all or they'll merge at the last second when they're surprised by the lane ending) I drive a big truck with a hot engine and am familiar with the road. I could very easily do this myself but I purposely wait in line behind other traffic than ever succumb to the temptation of being a d*ck.

I used to do this but recently I was trying to exit westbound @ Eldridge one afternoon and had a hard time because the exit lane was full of cars entering from Dairy Ashford. So when the guy next to me wouldn't yield to let me exit (as the "entering" traffic is supposed to do), I slowed down to hop in the gap that would be naturally be coming up when the guy behind him entered the freeway behind me.... Uh, NO. Didn't happen. Seems that all of the cars were "entering to exit" (so to speak) and were parked bumper to bumper in the exit lane and not yielding to anyone else trying to exit the freeway. Most of them were then doing the same thing at the next entrance ramp (west of Eldridge) and the ones that weren't were causing the turn lanes at Eldridge to back up on to the exit ramp and thus they were all blocking other traffic trying to legitimately enter the freeway at the same ramp and causing a massive backup. So yeah, used to do it, but decided that I don't want to contribute to the problem anymore and resolved not to do it again. It was fine when it was just me (or, I guess 2-3 other cars at a time), but now, just like any other arbitrage situation EVERYONE is now doing it and it's causing a bigger problem than was there in the first place. I guess it would still work if people actually obeyed the rule that exiting traffic always has the right of way, but this is Houston most people have no idea what "right of way" even means!

They look very similar but they're both empty. The title of the thread says "Katy Freeway at Voss" and the Hwy 6 address was added later. Nice job hijacking someone else's thread and then telling posters what the OP actually meant. Well played.

I am particularly fond of how they put up a quarter mile of candlesticks to inhibit this and now there's just a quarter mile of candlestick bases.

This is same location where the old REI store used to be (it moved to Westheimer) and was torn down to make room for the widened freeway. I always assumed that this strip center would start filling up once the freeway opened, but I've noticed too lately that it's still empty. Kinda sad.

Well, the point is that you need to find your own comparable sales within the HCAD database that you think are closer in description (and value) to your own house and then go make your case. If your house is on a busy street or near a bar or restaurant, then the best thing you can do is find another house that was in a similar location and sold for less that HCAD says your house is worth. Once you start wandering into those types of subjective factors like that though, HCAD is less likely to accept your argument. EDIT: spellcheck!

http://blogs.houstonpress.com/hairballs/20...ayoff_names.php What strikes me is that they got rid of all of the local college sports beat writers.

HCAD won't come to your house just because you've protested. They'll come at other times during the year and take pictures and measurements (if you let them) and then use that information and compare it to other houses that sold during the year in your neighborhood to justify their assessment of your house. It's up to you to provide your own evidence of how your house might compare, either to their comparables or to others that you think are more similar. The whole process is about comparing your house to houses that have sold in your neighborhood and then applying those sales prices to your own house based on the comparison. They won't usually raise your assessment in the current year, although technically they can. Permits don't have to be complete - they'll send someone out at some point to evaluate the percentage of the work that is/was complete Jan 1 and then they'll take that value times the cost of your improvements and add that to your assessment before the improvements. Then the next year, assuming your permit is closed, they'll add the rest. HCAD looks at the square footage of the house, the types and value of improvements that they know about, and the appearance of the exterior quality and uses that information to make its comparisons to other properties. The meat of the game is their knowledge of your improvements: many times they will guess high and make you prove that your house is not as nice as they say it is. Similarly, as someone else in this thread has mentioned, there are plenty of improvement that they don't know about, but that they know they don't know about, so they are rather aggressive at trying to get proof in order to raise assessments. This is why the HCAD guy showed up at my house earlier this month after my $2000 storm repair permit was closed - he didn't care about the storm work, he used that as an excuse to come over and look around to make sure I wasn't hiding more expensive improvements within that permit that would otherwise raise the tax assessment of my house.

Yeah, if you're going to remodel, it doesn't make any sense to replace it. I am pretty sure you could find the right parts somewhere and pretty sure it would be a fairly simple DIY (ie no soldering) if you can figure out how to get inside of it to the parts that are broken.

All ursine jokes aside, I think there is a worry that liquor stores attract a less desirable type of clientele - drunks and violent criminals - and thus they might want to keep those customers away from kids. Same thing for strip clubs. I am sure also, that many of these laws come from a time when lawmakers were worried about "corrupting" children as well, although I think that line of reason has diminished quite a bit over the years.

They assess property values every year, but my understanding is that it only "appraises" when either the property changes hands (sells) or HCAD/the ARB resets the value either through an independent appraisal or the result of a protest. HCAD does not appraise every single property every year, unless I am mistaken. EDIT: Here is a link to O'Connor: http://www.poconnor-associates.com/article.asp?id=55

I noticed the same thing too - we attempted to park at the rodeo the other night and when we learned that all of the cash parking was full we decided to drive to our church and park there and take the train. Traffic on main was backed up all the way from Holcombe hrough the fountains and past the museum. Binz and San Jacinto were also just as bad. The presence of the traffic cops made me think that maybe there was a VIP motorcade somewhere in the area that was holding up traffic. That it was going on all week is surprising. BTW - taking the train worked out to be a better decision than parking. We were on the freeway home in the amount of time that it would have taken us to just get out of the parking lot in previous years.

Saw this on the news tonight, too. What I don't understand is that if the application freely admits that the school is nearby, why would Specs be under any obligation to voluntarily give up its license just because the city has changed its mind?

I happened to be in the neighborhood this morning and drove by. I had no idea that most of the shopping center (sans Buffalo Grill) had been demolished on the corner. Wow that looks different.

Not only that, but it's written as 10% per year since the last protest. So, in other words, if it's been 3 years since you protested the cap is actually 30% (3 years x 10% still equals "10% per year") above whatever value was set at that particular protest. Year on year they might raise it less than 10%, but so long as there is still room under the "10% x ____ years" cap, the next year they can raise it by however much up to that cap. You're basically obliged to protest every year, otherwise they can get "caught up" really fast. Most people don't realize this and get a big surprise when they do find out. Man, I hate HCAD. Not the taxes, they are necessary, but just the system and the arrogance really gets under my skin.

Where the old Luby's used to be?

A little off topic, but you're talking about Elizabeth Smart and she was gone for several MONTHS!

Like I said, our appraisal is already capped and home sales prices in this neighborhood just keep going higher and higher, regardless of what is happening nationally, so I seriously doubt that there is much that they could do to us. And in any case, we're selling the house and HCAD will just have to accept the sales price next year for the new owner. After the railroading that we endured during our appeal over the summer it was quite cathartic to run the guy off - the look on the dude's face was classic when I told him I wasn't going to help him and for him to "just go away" and then shut the door in his face. Seriously, a $2000 repair permit for hurricane damage and they want to come inspect my property and remeasure everything? The COH is lucky I even pulled the permit in the first place. Jeez.

EXCELLENT. Thanks.

That would be the 4th Amendment to US Constitution. They CAN take measurements that are publicly visible from the street or that would otherwise not be trespassing, but they cannot enter your home or climb a fence or otherwise violate your privacy. If, after I shut the door on him, the guy had walked around the front yard and taken measurements it would have been perfectly legal, but he just got in the car and left (I guess because he was pretty much in shock at how rude I was). Although he didn't get that far, I am pretty sure he was going to ask for permission to go into the backyard and was planning to use that measuring tape to measure the perimeter of the house and update their records at the District. He didn't care whether the repairs were finished (what effect would they have on the value of the house except to get back to where it was?), he was there so that they could have more information the next time someone protested the property assessment of this house. The permit is just an excuse and a signal to them to make sure they're getting as much money as they can. Bryan, the 2 differences with your scenario is that 1.) the the utility companies own the easements and grant you the use of them when you buy the property (that's why they can come cut down your trees if they interfere with power lines) and 2.) they are NOT THE GOVERNMENT. In the original post I wrote a couple a years ago, what REALLY made me mad was that the lady didn't even ring the doorbell or call or otherwise get permission. The house was under construction and she just walked in to take a look to check on the pace of construction (and jam as much into the current year's assessment as possible) and to see just how nice our countertops and fixtures were. Most people don't seem to mind, but to me that us a huge infringement of my property rights. EDIT: Does anyone know why I am viewing all posts this morning in the "collapsed" view? I don't like it and can't figure out how to change it back - no options on my controls as near as I can tell.

Don't tell my wife but I ran another one of these flunkies off this morning. Trying to be the law-abiding city resident that I am, I followed the rules last November and pulled a permit for $2000 of storm damage repair to replace all of the soffit and fascia around the perimeter of the house. Silly me, I guess I accidentally checked the box on the application that said "secret bedroom addition included." Around 7:45 this morning I noticed an HCAD vehicle in front of my house and at straight up 8:00 in the middle of my son's bath the doorbell rang and there was a guy standing there with a clipboard and a measuring tape!!!. He asked if he could walk around the house and take some measurements and I dropped a few choice (grownup) words on him and told him to get lost. MAYBE if they hadn't monkeyed with our property value so much last year and then if the "independent" board hadn't just ignored my presentation and just conjured up some magic numbers during our hearing last year, I might have been a bit more accommodating. I realize that this guy was just doing his job, but they have a lot of nerve and hubris to come and check up on rinky dink repair permits like ours. And before anyone asks, our appraisal was already at the yearly cap, regardless of the "market value," not to mention that the house is for sale and the new owner will just get reset at whatever purchase price he pays, so I'm not really worried about any repercussions from this incident. In fact, it actually felt pretty good after the way we were treated back in August at our hearing.

I used to work at Reliant and I have to say that I love this story. It's not being reported anywhere, but in 2004 Reliant declined to spend $1.2 billion buy the Texas Genco assets from Centerpoint that NRG eventually bought (from an intermediate owner) for around $5.5 billion a year later. So with today's news, NRG has spent another $300 or so and has in total paid 5 times as much to create the same company that Reliant could have had back in 2004 and everyone in the news is saying that it's a great move for NRG to make. I am so glad not to be working for those idiots anymore, I just wish someone in the news would point out the rest of the story.