cottonmather0

Yeah, I know it happens all over town, but this is our fifth New Year in this house and I have never heard it here in our neighborhood like it was last night, that was my only point. My wife kept saying, "that's a machine gun!" and after a while I quit disagreeing with her. Maybe it wasn't technically a machine gun, but there was certainly something fully automatic amid all the revelry last night.

Don't know about anywhere else in Houston, but right around midnight last night our neighborhood erupted like I had never heard before. At first I thought it was just a LOT of fireworks, but I didn't hear any of the whistling or extended popping like normal fireworks and it was loud enough and random enough that I'm pretty sure most of it was gunshots. We back up to the bayou and the apartments just south of 18th and it all seemed to be coming from that direction (and the bayou and Shady Acres beyond). The cops came a couple of times and it would stop but then it would start right back up again 20 minutes later. Went on until 2:00 or later. For crying out loud, what's wrong with people?

I love Frankfurt because it's Germany and that means it's clean and everything works smoothly and efficiently. The worst is Lubbock because it's small and the weather is terrible 70% percent of the time and the TSA contingent gets off on getting extra time to pick on each and every passenger since there are so few of them. If my family didn't live there I would never fly through that airport, but it's a 9 hour drive from Houston and I'm not doing that with a 2 year old!

Thank you for posting this. When I met my wife back in 2002 she was living in the apartment complex directly behind this building (was called the "Oakwood" then, now it's something else) and I always wondered what the story was. That neighborhood has changed and built up a lot even in the last 5 years since she moved out, I can only imagine what it might seem like to someone who knew it 10 or 20 years ago. One thing I do remember is that even with all of the apartments and townhouses there, property crime was still pretty bad. I spent the night at her apartment on my birthday in 2004 and woke up the next morning to a smashed rear window and my truck cleaned out... and I was parked in the complex parking garage behind an 8 foot fence. We also threw a new years eve party one year and people were out in the street below her windows celebrating and shooting their guns into the air. That was quite a neighborhood. With regards to the OP, Rice military has changed a lot too. I run with the Kenyan Way group every summer that meets at the park at the bottom of Jackson Hill and Scotland. When I started in 2000, it was a pretty shady place to park your car that early in the morning and didn't feel particularly safe. There was a rickety two story building called the "Jackson Hill Grocery" that sat on an overgrown lot and looked like a one stop shop for any and all kinds of drugs. Then they built the huge apartment complex across the street (that burned down once and was rebuilt before it opened) and things started to clean up. Garden in the Heights went not long after and pretty soon the bungalows and shacks were in the minority.

You are indeed being billed for the whole year, but any kind of adjustment for the time you didn't own the property should have already been made between the previous owner and you and is usually done as an adjustment to the sales price in one way or another (ie you agree to pay the full tax bill and the seller agrees to discount the property by an amount equal to his share of the bill, or vice versa). All HCAD cares about is who owns the property on 12/31 for the preceding 12 months and will likely tell you as much if you went there and asked someone about it. (somebody correct me if I'm wrong). If you are the first owner of your condo, then you might be able to go back to the developer and raise a stink to get some money out of them (although they will likely point to some fine print somewhere saying that it's your problem alone), but if you bought it from a private party then they will probably tell you to get lost and that it was your fault for not speaking up sooner - or they might also say that they had to "prepay" the taxes the same way when they bought the property themselves and now they're just getting their money back, which is what happens quite often, I think. I guess what I am saying is, there is nothing procedurally you can do at HCAD. They might feel sorry for you and cut you a break in one way or another, but the amount on the bill is the amount of the taxes that you as the owner owe to them, and since it's your name on the deed it's your responsibility to make sure its paid. I am surprised by your question, though, because this is the kind of thing that realtors are actually good for - to make sure that you don't miss stuff like this. Like I said, somebody else can feel free to correct me if I am missing something from the question.

Although I would rather sit on the real estate we already have and stay here, my wife has been working in Sugar Land for the past three months and has decided we need to move. I run my business from home these days, so I can't really argue with her and I would like to have a bigger house and a better home office. I just need to get my lingering hurricane damage repaired before we can sell this place. So. I was wondering if anyone could give me a rough estimate for how much it would cost to hire movers. I've always just moved myself from apartment to house to house, but now that I am married with a kid (and another on the way) I think it makes more sense to hire someone and save myself the work and maintain sanity in the household. Our house right now is a typically furnished 3/2 one story (~ 2000 sqft) roughly located at 18th and TC Jester. We will likely be moving sometime later this spring to the Sugar Creek/First Colony area, or maybe even Telfair. Any help for how much this might cost to hire someone? Any recommendations or referrals for that matter? Thanks.

What, the Shell station in THE WOODLANDS needs to be remodeled?

Yeah, that doesn't work. I keep trying of and they keep testing the structural integrity of the paper. I think it's just a hobgobblin for me at this point.

I can't link from my phone, but there is a pic on the Chron website right now of the right side. It is very burned and looks much worse. Wow.

It's not that I want to look down my nose at the homeless people, but late at night the north side of that store can feel really isolated and damgerous when there is a dude just sitting there watching people come and go. That was my only point in saying that. Nonetheless that store is really going downhill on the inside, too. Maybe I sound like an old crank, but the bagging situation is what's about to put me over the edge.

On the exterior you can see that they've also made some key changes by bringing in brand new homeless guys to sit on the benches at the side of the store and look creepy as you walk back to the car at night. You can also see that they're saving up for the big expansion by cutting out all training for the baggers and adopting the tried and true "cram it into a paper bag just like you do plastic bags" method. Eventually they'll save money on buying paper bags because customers won't ask for them anymore. BRILLIANT! If Kroger invests in that store anymore I might start going to the new HEB on I-10 now for EVERYTHING and not just for big weekly trips. EDIT: how did I manage to quote myself? Fixed now.

Yeah, that's why we're pulling out all of our money. They also played runaround with my wife on a car insurance claim earlier this year - the lady who hit her admitted in writing that it was her fault but since she was also a USAA customer they decided to split to baby and call it "equal responsibility." Again: The hurricane damage was the icing on the cake, and then trying to pin the blame on FEMA and tell us not to be mad at USAA did not help. Well that's great that they say to take it up with FEMA, but we write the check to USAA every July and all three guys who came to my house had USAA ID tags on, so who else am I going to blame? Gene Norman? Of course, we didn't hear from the "member advocate" until we told them we were leaving, so I know they got the message. The only problem is that I think the member advocate is less an advocate and more a sweet voice in an attempt to placate. Well, too bad. My house was hit by a FREAKING HURRICANE... it had never flooded before until it was hit by a FREAKING HURRICANE... and instead of being there and living up to their obligations the insurance company made up some excuse and said, "Na Na, we already got your money!" Well, bite me, USAA. I can earn the same amount of piddling interest at some other bank and still get my insurance denied by State Farm just as easily for a lot less money. Cheers.

Well, we have been through the entire appeals process with USAA - three different adjusters have come to the house, each time a little less polite and a lot more to the point. About three weeks ago we finally got a letter in the mail that our damages aren't covered and that the next appeal is with FEMA. Apparently the applicable phrase is "wind driven rain." Well, YEAH, it was a freaking HURRICANE!!! We wrote a letter telling USAA that they've just lost our car insurance, our flood insurance, homeowners insurance, and our savings account. A nice "member advocate" lady called to chat and said she would get back to us. She called 24 hours later and said to take it up with FEMA. I told her, too, that USAA is losing all of our business and she said, "I'm so sorry to hear that. Let me know if there is anything I can do further to help." If our damages were for more we would probably fight it out with them but it's not worth the cost of an attorney, to be honest. It's less that $10,000 worth of damage, but I am mad almost on principal at this point. Anyway, if you have USAA right now and you are pleased, then good for you. We thought we were paying extra for good service and we were wrong. What's the point of having insurance if all they want to do is weasel out of living up to their obligations?

Mike Bates at Harvard Plumbing (281-351-9224) did our tankless WH when we did our remodel two years ago. He was very good and reasonable and easy to work with. He is based on Tomball and he came to work for us in Timbergrove so I am pretty sure he'll go to Katy, too. (Pasadena or Clear Lake, maybe not ) After using the tankless for a couple of years now, I recommend everyone look into it but it will cost around $1000 or more and the tone of your post tells me that you might not be looking for something that extensive or costly. But I'm sure Mike does old-style normal tank heaters, too. Good luck.

They still would have to compensate Clear Channel. It's kind of an important part of the Constitution.

I saw that story just now, too. Had no idea there was such a thing as a "visibility easement" but it makes sense of you are leasing space for a billboard. And if there is some sort of deed restriction (or whatever it would be called) included with the title to the property, then it's up to the purchaser of the property to deal with it. Reading the story, it sounds to me that somewhere along the way the designers and the engineers just weren't aware of the restriction else it could have easily been taken into account. Stupidity on the part of TxDOT and Harris County, but I think Clear Channel was right to complain about it and is owed some sort of damages. Stuff happens.

I was hearing today that supposedly there was no felony committed yet (unless there is some sort of complicated conspiracy charge), so there's not really anything that can happen to him aside from getting run out of office in disgrace. If you want to get into the conspiracy muck, the other story running around is that the Chicago machine was going to get Obama (of which he is no doubt a part, if maybe a cleaner one) to throw out the US attorney Fitzgerald after the inauguration because they didn't like him constantly looking over their shoulder. The story goes that Fitzgerald knew this was coming and in the interest of saving more serious incriminating evidence and future investigations, leaked the current story a little early so as to protect his job and those future investigations. Obama can't fire him now, the reasoning goes, because then that makes Obama look like he's just covering for the governor. Makes sense to me. Does anyone know what Blagojevich means in Serbian? "Cabbage Patch" (actually, I speak Russian/slavic and "Blag" is a root that means "thank" or "gratitude" but the joke is still quite good, I thought )

If I have time, I will drive to the new HEB and go past the Kroger at 11th & Shepherd just to get there. That is how much I like it. The Villages Kroger is a bit better than most other Krogers in town, but it doesn't compare at all to the new HEB. I would not be surprised to see it gone soon. It also doesn't hurt that it's directly across the street from Costco and I can do everything in one trip if I move fast enough.

For those of you who have never tried it before, if you've had banana bread or raisin bread, it's very much like that consistency, only a little bit spicier and with a ginger and clove flavor and lots of pecans. The glazed fruity candy stuff is pretty good too, kind of like raisins or cherries in a pie. I was never a fan until I tried the version I linked to above - there really is a difference. A small slice eaten slowly with a cup of strong coffee is DELICIOUS. Here is more on the DeLuxe: http://collinstreet.com/pages/testimonials http://www.americanprofile.com/article/19914.html

Then neither of you have had the Collin Street Bakery version. It's very rich and hard to eat a lot of, but not because it's bad. It is actually very very tasty. http://www.collinstreet.com/pages/deluxe_fruitcake

I like that place because they will custom cut stuff for you that other places won't. You want 6 inch thick pork chops? They'll do it. They will also process deer and pigs for you. It is ALWAYS crowded in there, particularly late in the day in the Spring and Summer. I am not sure why. The clientele tends to be mostly black, perhaps because of the neighborhood more than anything, so they have a lot of different cuts of pork and pork products available. They also have good beef, but chicken and seafood and anything else is an afterthought. I don't think the quality is great, but it's not horrible and the prices can't be beat, especially considering the service. Central Market will do the same sort of service for free but charge you 2-3 times as much for the underlying meat, which is better but isn't necessarily 2-3 times better. Same with Pete's (on Richmond), although I don't live near there so I am not as familiar with Pete's. Yes, for steaks and ribs and briskets, Costco is the way to go, but unless I am wrong, Costco will not custom cut anything. If it's not wrapped in the bin, it's not for sale. (someone correct me if I am wrong) Costco doesn't sell pork butts, either, like B&W will. I used to think Sam's was good, but Costco is slightly better, both for selection and price. You can't go wrong with either, though, compared to the grocery store.

I'm not watching it if it's not in HD.

http://www.howstuffworks.com/question205.htm The short answer is that you can't in your home freezer.

Thanks for all of the replies. I actually found this guy via a google search. Came out and fixed the gate today in about 2 hours for $250, and painted everything to match, too, which I wasn't expecting. I was very pleased and would certainly recommend him to anyone else who needs similar work done. http://www.jwcgeneralservices.com/

I am looking for someone to repair some broken pickets on my driveway gate. I hit it the operator arm with my car over the weekend and broke and bent some pickets. So I called fence company that built it for us 4 years ago - Houston Fence - and after taking a look at my photos said they would take it off the hinges and back to the shop and replace the broken pieces for the tidy little sum of $950. They refused to consider repairing just the broken part and claimed that it needs to be "resquared". The funny part is that they sold me the gate and operator four years ago for $1500 and the retail price of the Miracle 1 operator is $1000. What the hell? Anyone have any recommendations? All that needs to be done is for the 4 bent and broken pickets and the bent metal plate to either be replaced or reattached. The frame and structure of the gate are just fine. Thanks