Original Timmy Chan's
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Posts posted by Original Timmy Chan's
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I don't live in Sunnyside, so I can't speak directly to life there, but I'm about 10 blocks north (across the South Loop).
As far as recreation and safety, it's been a great place to live. As far as my home price...I've got 2500 sf (totally renovated 5 years ago) for a mortgage under $1000 per month. 5 minutes from Downtown, 5 minutes from our alma maters (UH and TSU), 5 minutes from Museum District, 5 minutes from Hermann Park, 5 minutes from Gulfgate, 5 minutes from Meyerland, 10 minutes from New Pearland.
It's as quiet and safe as any neighborhood I've ever lived.
If Sunnyside's not an option, you might check across the freeway.
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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!
Lucky dog...my wife and I spent 3 days in Big Bend after Christmas on the way out to Silver City, NM. I've been ready to go back for the last month...already trying to plan my next trip.
I've never floated the Rio Grande. A friend's dad went a couple months back and said that all his usual camping spots were washed out. I hope you find plenty of room to sleep out there.
My wife and I took the East River Road from Rio Grande Village to the Glenn Springs Road, and camped out at Glenn Springs. The River Road was mainly good, we were able to make at least 30 miles an hour much of the way. That being said, there were a couple of rough gullies to cross. I don't think it could be done in a car.
Our Element finally met its match trying to get up to the top of the hill at the Black Gap Road turnoff. I think we could have made it if we were going downhill, but to get enough speed going up I was going to tear my transmission off getting through the last 3' deep washout. I had to let the dream go about 10' from the Black Gap turnoff. Some Park Rangers earlier that day showed me the nice crease they got in the side of their pickup trying to get through there. I had a blast driving out there...Glenn Springs was a very cool place.
John Rich, whereabouts are you hiking?
Bastrop - I'm trying to imagine just what it must have been like to get out to Big Bend in 1973. Was there such a thing as a 24-hour gas station in those days or was it just impossible to travel at night? I know the area seems to have changed in the 15 years I've been going out there...I imagine it almost felt like the wild west back in the 70's.
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As far as Big Bend goes, there is a motel in the Chisos Basin, but I've always heard that rooms go quick, so reserve far in advance.
Not too far outside of Big Bend is Study Butte/Terlingua. I've never stayed in a motel there, but I know there are a good number of rooms around, making it a nice base for exploration of the area. There are also a handful of restaurants and bars. I'm partial to La Kiva...one reason being that they let you camp for free on the banks of Terlingua Creek. It's a pretty cool bar too. There's also the Starlight Theater for food in Terlingua Ghost Town, but it's a bit high for my wallet. Miss Kathy's Kozmic Kowgirl Kafe is a good place to sit and have some coffee and breakfast and meet some interesting folks.
There are also plenty of rooms in Alpine...I don't find much reason to stop there anymore since all of my friends there have left for cheaper pastures. Anytime I pass through there I stop at Alicia's Burrito Place on 118 just south of the tracks. I'm something like 10-for-10 there in randomly running into people I know there...not that it helps you, but it's been a good way to catch up on what's been going on out there, and their burritos are fantastic.
I highly recommend a drive up the River Road from Terlingua to Presidio. There were signs around New Years Eve warning that the River Road was open to local traffic only, but a guy I talked to in Terlingua said the road's open, you just have to drive on the shoulder in a few places where the pavement has been damaged.
Another Big Bend recommendation is to take the paved Ross Maxwell Scenic Drive down to Castolon and Santa Elena Canyon. The Santa Elena Canyon trail was wiped out by the floods last year, but it's still a great view. There are also plenty of things to stop and look at along the way if you're doing a car trip.
A soak in the Hot Springs on the Rio Grande (in BB Nat'l Park) is a very nice way to enjoy a few hours.
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.
It's tough to go wrong out in the Big Bend area in my mind. To really enjoy it though, you're going to have to get out of the car every once in a while, walk to the middle of nowhere and just enjoy the solitude and silence. That's my opinion, at least.
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Maybe it's just me and my spotty memory, but I seem to recall driving by signs for Waterlights District for years now: "Coming 2007", "Coming 2008", "Coming 2009".
I'm not saying it's not coming, but I think the developers were a little optimistic with their original timeline.
Does anyone know the real story? I know their property backs up to Clear Creek...maybe the problems have to do with either approvals to develop in floodplain/floodway or maybe some USACE permitting issues? Knowing where the project is, those would be my first two guesses. Either one of those issues could easily delay a project for a couple years.
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There are two Lynchburg Ferries, and I own them both. (Bob Eckels told me so.)
Tomorrow, I want all of you to get off my ferries!
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US: Greatest Love Of All - Whitney Houston
I'm pretty certain I've never heard any of the songs.
I'm pretty certain that the Bushmen in the Kalahari have heard "Greatest Love of All". I think it was the theme to our prom...
Anyhow, I couldn't find a Whitney Houston version, but here's a take on it by Randy Watson (and his band, Sexual Chocolate)...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoS8j9eNMZU
(song starts at 1:00)
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I actually have that album around here, somewhere. Yes, it does feature Hudson & Harrigan. My dad had quite a variety in his collection of albums: soundtracks (Henry Mancini, James Bond theme), 50's thru 70's rock, country, R&B, etc. One album was some kind of Jazzy Fifties music called Exotica, used to scare me looking at it, had a shrunken head on the cover, really freaky. But the music is nice, I like jazz & R&B. I still call cd's "albums" sometimes and miss the artwork on them.
I have to thank my dad for giving me much of my musical taste. I think I first started listening to his albums after all the "devil music" stories I heard at Easthaven Baptist. You know, the stories about AC/DC ("After Christ, Devil Comes") and how you could hear satanic messages if you played Beatles and Led Zeppelin records backwards. Of course, having had no previous interest in the Beatles or Led Zeppelin, I immediately went home and spent hours playing my dad's albums backwards, listening for satanic messages. Having failed to hear any satanic messages, I started playing the records forwards and realized there was some pretty good stuff there...at least on the White Album and Sgt. Pepper's.
After my aunt told me how my dad got kicked out of the house for playing Jimi Hendrix's "Star Spangled Banner" from Woodstock, I had to hear for myself what that was about too!
Speaking of album art, my favorite of my dad's collection was the Cheech and Chong "Los Cochinos" album...funny stuff (and the comedy was pretty good too!)
Outside Cover:
Inside (dust jacket):
Of course, as kid the Woodstock album was kinda cool with the butt-nekkid people all over it!
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I think the gods knew a little something about me...
"Touch Me In The Morning" by Diana Ross
I deny any connection to the UK #1...a song by Gary Glitter.
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I remember when KILT was rock...my dad had a white fold-out album with info. on the disc jockeys in it. I believe it was top 40's of the time, 1960's, I guess. Green Tamborine was one song listed.
I think my dad's got the same album you're talking about...does it feature Hudson and Harrigan inside?
Of all my dad's albums, I don't recall that one being one of my favorites. I never got into his Bloodrock album, either...
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There were a good many vehicles around town with that particular sticker on them -- mostly pickup trucks with gun racks.
aka "KiKK'UP TRUCKS"
Slightly off topic, but something I've thought about a number of times recently...when's the last time you saw a truck with a gun rack? Maybe it's my redneck family, maybe it's the fact that I spent much of my childhood in Pasadena, but it sure seems that 95% of all pickup trucks in the 70's and 80's had a gun rack, and 95% of those had at least one rifle or shotgun on the gun rack.
When did that go out of style?
When will it come back?
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I was definitely a KiKKer as a kid...while all my panty-waist schoolmates were blasting the Q-Zoo on their boom boxes.
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And I see no evidence to suggest that South Union or Sunnyside is gentrifying.
I am your evidence! I gentrified South Union all by myself. We don't need any more honkies, thank you very much.
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I guess when they get run down in the street they can put the law on their tombstone and show everyone how right they were.
...and put the driver of the car in jail to show how wrong they were.
OR those in cars could just drive safely, share the road with bikes, and everybody get along just fine.
I understand that you're saying the bikes being on the road makes for a less safe drive...but one could also argue that putting cars on the road makes the road less safe as well. If NOBODY was on the road, there'd be no accidents!
Bikes have the right to be on the road, just like slow drivers do, just like the elderly, teenagers, Chinese immigrants, and other drivers that irritate and annoy you, so the best thing to do is learn to share the road, drive defensively, and everyone goes home alive.
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America's Most Hated: the damn bike riders on Katy-Gaston Rd!!!
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Hey vine, could you do a 1 or 2 line synopsis? Thanks.
I didn't have the patience to read all of it either, but I think his point is that UT-Austin "only" gets an extra $161.5 million per year over and above the enrollment formula funding, and that's not really a lot of money.
Paraphrasing and embellishing a little, but I think that was the point.
TV may consider it small potatoes, but UH sure could have done a lot of good things with a sum of extra cash like that EVERY YEAR for the LAST 100+ YEARS!!!
As I recall, UH fought, scratched and clawed for years to get a one-time excellence boost of $13 million from the State Legislature. It was finally approved by the Lege, but Gov. Perry vetoed it.
But I'm not bitter...nah.
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Would this include parking on the strip of grass between the pavement and roadside ditch? If that's considered parking on the lawn, our neighborhood will have issues.
We have single-car width driveways that are deep enough to park two cars. If you have a 3-car household, or if you have company, they park on the street in our neighborhood. Of course when I say park on the street, I don't mean actually parking on the street, you park halfway in the grass and half on the street.
With two cars parked across the street from each other this way, there's just enough room for a car to pass between. If one of the cars parks completely on the pavement, it blocks the street.
I know this isn't just a problem in our neighborhood, but also in the "West End" area.
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mom used to drag me to weiners. i hated going there. fortunately, the conroe location closed during my teen years.
Seems all my clothes came from Weiners, the Sears Surplus near Almeda Mall (same shopping center as Millers Outpost, incidentally), KMart and Target. When we left town in the 80's and dad got a better paying job, we actually shopped at JCPenney's sometimes!!!
I recall being embarassed about this in junior high, but by high school I could care less. Mom and Dad buying me some jeans at Sears beat the hell out of me buying my own clothes!
After I became responsible for myself, I realized that even Sears is out of their minds on price! Most of my clothes come from Sam's Club now. I can appreciate $15 slacks, $12 jeans and $15 shirts.
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Check these out. Maybe this is what the west side of the island needs.
First, you'd have to have a dune. I don't think there are any left on Galveston, Bolivar or Surfside anymore. (Not that there were big ones to begin with).
Second, it's pretty, but...BAD IDEA!!! When Ike was taking out homes that were elevated 15 feet off the ground, I don't think one built in a dune stands much of a chance.
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How 'bout the "Live like People, not like Bees!" billboard? That seems to have been there ever since I can remember.
I also seem to recall a "Houston Spotlight" billboard somewhere along the east side of I-45 around the Scott St area.
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A little closer to the original topic...anyone here know anything about the Texas Wendish? I found out recently (1-2 years back) that my family is part Wendish (also known as "Sorbians".) For reasons unknown, my grandfather never talked about his family, but he's been opening up over the last year or two. As he did, my Mom's been doing some genealogical research. Come to find out, my grandfather is 1/4 Wendish.
The Wends were actually immigrants to Texas from Prussia in the 1850's. They lived in Germany but did not share the same culture, language or religion. Due to religious and cultural oppression, many Wends left Germany and settled in Central Texas (another group of Wends settled in Australia). Over time, the Wends intermarried with Germans in Central Texas and the culture and language were lost.
I haven't been, but the Texas Wendish Heritage Society Museum is in Serbin, Texas: http://wendish.concordia.edu/
There is an effort to save the Wendish language as well.
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It's been years since I've been out to a bar, but in my hey-day, I considered Warren's to have the best jukebox of all times.
Lots of great old honky-tonk and blues music.
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I hear the junked cars were washed right out of the front yards of San Leon and all the way into League City!
(Hey folks, you gotta laugh to keep from crying!)
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Especially British white people!
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Since I've been outed...it's not the Catholic priests that bothered me, it's the fact that they're white. I HATE WHITE PEOPLE!!!
Neighborhood recommendations
in Off Topic
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I was ready to type up another diatribe in defense of my neighborhood and similar neighborhoods (Sunnyside and South Park)...but I'll avoid being a pompous ass today.
In response to VicMan's questions: in my experience the probability of random crime in our neighborhood is less than in other neighborhoods I've lived (including the Heights). Quality of life is what you make it, in my opinion. There are miserable people on my street and then there are some of the happiest people you'll ever meet on my street. Some of the most miserable people you'll meet in your life live in River Oaks. Drugs do exist in our neighborhood...just like every other neighborhood in Houston. Ours is more in the open, with deals occuring at certain corners at certain hours. Of course, I think I just read about a bunch of students in Katy getting busted, and I recall something happening in Sugar Land recently as well. It happens everywhere...in our neighborhood I don't bother the dealers and they don't bother anyone else, for better or worse.
In response to the original post from sevfiv, looking for ideas on places to live: I lived in Old Pearland in younger days, right close to the Pearland/Friendswood boundary...and from what I recalled, it's a 15-20 minute drive to get to any freeway from there. That's something to keep in mind if you consider Old Pearland or Friendswood. On the other hand, you'd be pretty close to Alvin.
You might consider a rental in the Med Center area, like the condo city around Almeda and Holly Hall. I had to head to Alvin recently for a morning meeting, and it was about a 30-minute drive from my house (288/610) to get just south of Alvin. I had expected a slow drive down Hwy 6 with all the lights, but I think it was about 15 minutes from SH 288 to SH 35. Add in 15 minutes from 610 down to Hwy 6, and it was a pretty reasonable 27-mile commute, averaging a mile a minute the whole way.
Reverse commutes are nice.