Original Timmy Chan's

Bottom line, I'm not convinced that wealthier people are necessarily all that much happier. And I think that that gets to be especially true if you start adjusting for factors like age, intelligence, and household composition.

I definitely agree that money does not equal happiness.

That said, I don't think there's any doubt that raising a family of 3 is easier done on an annual income of $200k than it is on an annual income of $20k...even when you account for the fact that the wealthier family has to give up around $40k in income taxes.

And I am sick of the argument that its the elites who reap all the advantages....I dont think a family of 3 with 2 working parents making $200,000 by any way qualifies a person as an elite...

I don't know what your definition of "elite" is, but a family of 3 making $200k/year is pretty damn well off. They have more than enough to cover all the necessities of life and lots and lots of their desires. If all they have to complain about is taxes, then they're in waaay better shape than most of the rest of the US and the world.

Again, I don't know where the cutoff for "elite" status is, but only 4.2% of US households bring in more than $200k/year. They're better off than 96% of their fellow Americans. If that's not "elite", then it's definitely well into the "upper class".

US Census Data on Household Income

Maybe these upper class families should quit their whining and realize how good they have it.

I'm not too mad because I know these people who aren't paying taxes own the corporations that generate jobs for us working folk.

Do all the forms have space for nine people in the HH, or is that just for the habla espanol zip codes?

We had the same spaces in our census form...but of course that's for all the welfare moms in our neighborhood who only have kids for the increased welfare checks.

[/sarcasm]

Would it be west of 45? I got the sense from the article that it'd be closer to the Trinity River, which is a far ways east of I-45.

I looked at the Master Plan a few months back, so I'm going from memory here, but...

The dam would be west of Hwy 75. Water would be backed up all the way west of Texas Hwy 90 (near Jozye) and almost all the way to Hwy 39 (near North Zulch).

Water would be piped from the Bedias Creek reservoir into a tributary of Lake Conroe...in other words, out of the Trinity River basin and into the San Jacinto River basin.

If I remember correctly, something like 1/2 of all water from our reservoirs is used for lawn watering. And that's in addition to the 48" of rain we get per year.

We could save a lot of money and a huge amount of land from going under water if we just learned to more wisely use the water we already have. Conservation is much cheaper and less intrusive than continuing what we're doing today.

On the other hand, my parents would own waterfront property on Lake Bedias if Bedias Creek were impounded west of I-45, as planned. On the other other hand, a lot of families would lose property they've farmed and ranched for more than a century.

All so that we can have nice green St Augustine grass to look at in the middle of the summer. I guess people gotta have something to mow.

Mojo.

Over the last couple of days I've seen references in the paper to a proposed "South Loop TIRZ" in the vicinity of the Astrodome. I've seen a couple of references to the proposed South Loop TIRZ as being "huge" or "sprawling."

Does anyone know what the rough boundaries of this proposed TIRZ are?

Huge can mean different things to different people...is this "huge" TIRZ comprised of 2 acres, 200 acres, or 20,000 acres?

As a South Loop resident, I'm interested in what could be coming, and just how close the improvements might get to my neighborhood.

Yay Northern Iowa!!! F--- Northern Iowa!

BYU seems to be playing all white, errr, all right so far!

Could be that the bus driver got caught looking at the signals on all the blocks beyond Main St.

You see 20 green lights on the 20 blocks ahead of you, failing to realize that there is a red light on the street immediately in front of you. I've been guilty of it before (only catching myself at the last minute, slamming on my brakes before I hit a pedestrian) and my wife caused a wreck downtown a few years back by doing the same thing. It's not difficult to do, especially if you're otherwise mentally distracted (on your way to an important final exam at UH-D, or a stressful deposition at an attorney's office downtown, etc.)

I don't know the solution, other than "pay better attention." I will say, the embedded flashing red lights in the street are a great improvement.

Bottom line, it was the bus driver's fault...and short of adding crossing arms, I don't know how else this could have been prevented.

10-4

If he's going to count Waco.. then he needs to be counting Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati and countless other cities in other states ....

Except that Waco isn't a Cleveland/Columbus/Cincinnati...it's not even near the class of a Toledo. More like a Parma.

But in Texas, we not only have Houston, but San Antonio, Dallas-Fort Worth, and Austin. And when you throw in the other interstate cities (Waco, for example) and other cities not terribly away from the perimeter of the triangle (College Station-Bryan) you have a full house.

Houston, DFW, San Antonio, Austin, Waco and Bryan. Yup, that's about right.

Let's go Winthorpe!!!

Such a great game. Just when I thought the Coogs weren't going to be able to turn it around, they do just that. Great day(and year) for UH, and Houston. Yates, UH, and Rockets all won yesterday. Too bad for TSU, but I didn't really care for them anyhow.

Pretty damn good day for basketball in the 3rd Ward. Jack Yates wins state, Coogs are Dancing, TSU didn't win but they were in their conference championship game...and of course, our 3rd Ward Rockets! (Of course you all know that Toyota Center is within the historic boundaries of ol' 3rd Ward.)

I'm thrilled for my Coogs...the Dead Men Walking became the Dead Men Dancing yesterday!

If they're still charging the stadium tax, what is the money being used for?

The tax revenue is being used to pay back the bond debt that was used to pay for Enron Field, Reliant Stadium and Toyota Center. We'll be paying that for quite a while.

If I understand correctly, we're still paying for the debt incurred for Astrodome seating "improvements" that Bud Adams demanded back in the late 80's.

Just like most consumers, governments don't save up cash for big ticket items...it's credit cards/bonds, baby!

As skwatra implied earlier, Pita Pit probably is much better at 3 AM than it is at noon, sober.

Hmmm...maybe I should stop going around sober at noon?

But I like fish AND seafood!

Hmmm...Maybe Pita Pit suffered from poor brand linguistics? Maybe if they were the Pita Palace (or Shawarma King...)

I ate at that Pita Pit on Westheimer and Fountainview once...I thought it was pretty miserable, especially for the price they charged. There are many, many more options around that part of town for better food at a better price. It seemed to be an Anglicized version of shawarma...kinda like eating a burrito from McDonald's.

Anti-Semantics.

I recently bought 2 lots in the acres home area, total 30,000 sq ft. I have plans to build 1 2500 sq ft home there. Because it is on a lot larger than 15k sq feet I must put in a water retention pond. Now if I were to build 3 houses, one on each lot, each house being 5000 plus feet and a driveway of concrete for a total of 7,000 sq feet I would be free and clear and not have to build a retention pond, Does anyone have any experience with this ruling and how to quickly resolve this issue. I don't hav ethe extra money to build a pond, I don't want a pond, I don't want to pay to replat the land. But, I have to do something as I really want to build there.

thanks

john

Are you building across the lot lines, or on one lot only? If it's just one lot, then just conveniently ignore the other lot. Am I correct in thinking that you can't build across lot lines without re-platting, or is that just my imagination?

Here's another possible approach: the City does not require detention if you do not increase the overall impervious cover of the site. Was there any existing impervious cover on the lots in the past? If you can document this (photographs, survey, HCAD, old aerial photos), the City should let you off.

Only other way to get out would be to pay a licensed Engineer to do a study...and I can tell you, it would be cheaper to dig a small hole on your lot.

If detention is required, consider this: if you're putting about 2500 sf of impervious cover on the lots, you need about 500 cu.ft. of volume on-site. That's a hole 22.5' by 22.5' square, one foot deep...or reduce it to 16' by 16' if you dig it 2 feet deep. That's small enough to dig with a shovel and a wheelbarrow. Make a rain garden.

If you want to reduce the detention required, you can also look at various "low impact" techniques like permeable pavement/pavers or even a green roof.

Might you consider not using the name "WestFest"? "Westheimer Street Festival" at least has some meaning to people, while "WestFest" just sounds like some generic "hip" name concocted by marketing consultants, like EaDo.

I'll second that emotion.

Plus, with "WestFest", you can no longer call it the "Westheimer Freak Festival"!

I'd love to bring it back...but it might just be a bunch of half-naked 40-somethings with snakes! (Instead of the 20-somethings with snakes back in the day...)

For me the decision is easy, right now, I am the only one living in the house, but at some point my fiance is going to be moving in, the last thing I would want is for a 5' tall woman to be in the house when someone decides to break in. If a security system helps to reduce that chance, I'm all in.

A security system won't do anything to reduce the chance of break-in...it'll just make a bunch of noise AFTER a break-in.

A bogus security system sign will do more good at PREVENTING a break-in than having a real alarm system, in my opinion.

A barking dog, on the other hand, does a much better job of scaring off would-be intruders.

Forgive me for coming off like 'the Niche' but 'Define suburb!' Seriously, there is a huge range of areas that could be considered suburbs. To me suburbs like Sharpstown are quite different from large master planned communities in Pearland or Katy.

The only difference is time, really.

Sharpstown was the "large master planned community" of its day.

The inner-loop neighborhood I live in would have been "the burbs" when it was built in the 40's; it was surrounded by cow pastures. (Hell, some folks still keep horses today.)

River Oaks was considered "out in the country" when it was developed in the early part of the 20th century. Many couldn't understand why anyone would ever want to live so far from Houston.

A funny, but true, statement is that many suburban developers are building "tomorrow's slums today". It's all a cycle. Sometime in the future we'll hear complaints about the gentrification of Kingwood or the Woodlands, I'm sure.