mrfootball

-Abc13

Zip lines, ropes courses. Sounds good to me. There are a ton of families with young kids looking for things to do. I welcome more entertainment options.

Yes, Galveston is supposedly aligned with the Giza plateau between 29 and 30 degrees latitude.

Yes, the Moody's (and many other well-known 'elite' families) were/are into Masonry and the so-called mystery religions.

Here's a stained glass mural inside the Moody Mansion, filled with masonic symbology such as "Jachin & Boaz".

Here's an interesting documentary on the subject of symbols embedded in our nation's architectural monuments. The backstory, meanings and significance of many of the symbols you take for granted. Hidden in plain sight. Quite fascinating.

"Riddles in Stone"

The Moody's were a prominent family with strong Masonic ties, so the "Illuminati" speculation is not as far off as you might think. There's quite a bit of local lore about this pertaining to the Moody family.

What's the 30% design?

IMO this thing will get funded quickly if they correctly position this as part of Houston Hurricane Evac route. Seems only fair.

They need to get to work on this now.

Culberson asks fed to pay for U.S. 290 expansion, commuter rail

By AUDREY M. MARKS

Updated: 05.17.09

Citing the exploding growth rate in the greater Houston area and an increase in the number of motorists, U.S. Rep. John Culberson, R-Houston, requested $267 million for two local projects from the federal government Thursday to improve mobility in the region.

Alicia's is high quality, Tex-Mex. Excellent beef fajitas.

Food is great. Comparable to Lupe Tortillas, IMO.

The NW Harris county suburbs fared well in the latest Houston Chronicle school rankings with 7 area high schools placing Tier 1 on the rankings.

Klein

Cy-Fair

Cy-Creek

Tomball

Langham Creek

Klein Collins

Cy-Falls

(Cy-Woods and Cy-Ranch too new to rank)

I'm pretty sure our H20 bill here in Longwood effectively doubled last month.

SHAME ON YOU for trying to get referral kickbacks! The original link he posted had an Affiliate ID in it.

Morons. I wish I was getting a kickback or at least some sort of freebie. I'd be a pretty good paid spokesman.

Unfortunately, not though. That's just the link I found with the coupon code that gives you the unpublished 11.3 cent rate.

I'll try not to share helpful info on this board in the future. Hate to upset the assclowns.

Here's my PSA for those of you in Deregulated utility markets, FYI - this is the cheapest time of year to lock in your electricity rate. They'll start going back up in about a week or so.

I lucked out last year and got a 10.9 cent rate (ambit) for a one year fixed rate which saved me about $1433 off Reliant's usual rate. I recall some REPs were charging 22-25 cents per kwhr last summer!

Current Best price in Houston that I found was with Champion Energy at 11.3 cents per kwhr (+$4.95 recurring fee) for a 12-month fixed rate contract. Promo code "SAVERPLUS"

Get it while you can...

Champion Energy

If anyone knows of any better rates right now in Houston, post'em!

Could I chime in?

I have a group of friends who grew up in the subdivisions of Olde Oaks, Oak Creek, Ponderosa, Westador. They always talk about what a wonderful experience it was growing up in these areas of FM 1960. And the schools were great schools, back then.

This would have been about 20 years ago my friends were kids growing up there.

I have heard the stories (and seen the statistics on schooldigger and others) about the DRAMATIC decline of the schools these subdivisions are zoned to. However the subdivisions themselves are still nice (from what their parents who still live there say).

So was it overdevelopment of apartments nearby that caused the dramatic decline? Or something else?

And how does Spring ISD claim the schools are diverse, when it's obvious from looking at stats (like Westfield High) it is mostly one minority racial group in the majority?

Honestly after hearing these stories, it makes me completely paranoid about where to buy a home. The subdivision can look really great, even having mansions (like Olde Oaks and Northgate Forest) where you would NEVER think the schools within the subdivision (like Oak Creek/Reynolds Elem and Wells Middle) would rank so low. Generally when you see a bunch of estate-type homes that's supposed to be a good sign for the area? I'm just really confused.

Can a longtime resident of the area or a real estate expert on the area explain all this to me?

I grew up in Greenwood Forest and Ponderosa Forest (graduated HS in 1991). People used to move into these neighborhoods for the great schools, beautiful homes, low crime, big trees, greenery and overall nice quality of life. These neighborhoods (and Olde Oaks, Northgate, etc.) still look great and still have many of the original owners. There are quite a few millionaires living in those $150,000 homes that never appreciated. Unfortunately, due to the way these school zones are drawn, they have large geographic areas on the Southside of FM 1960. Originally, development in the area consisted of nice single-family custom homes in the aforementioned charming, wooded neighborhoods along FM 1960. In those days, there really weren't that many apartments. The entire area on both sides of FM 1960 was white, middle and upper middle class.

Over the years however, with the lure of cheap, available land and great schools, low-income housing began to sprout up on the South side of FM 1960 while nicer developments continued to grow on the North side of FM 1960. This along with the fact that Spring ISD made a decision in the late 80's to annex a portion of land from Aldine ISD in order to get what they thought at the time was valuable (taxable) commercial property along I-45. The trade off was an overnight change in demographics that snowballed, creating lots of problems in Spring ISD which resulted in decreased demand for this area by the middle and upper middle class families that had dominated it for decades. Same story for Klein Forest, except it's downfall was the fact that Klein ISD has a weird shape due to the fact that they gerrymandered in more 'diverse' neighborhoods stretching towards Houston, back in the 1970's in order to obtain more federal dollars. So instead of moving into these school zones, the white Middle / Upper Middle class demographic opted for newer communities nearby, north of FM 1960 - which has been one of the biggest growth areas in the nation for the past 20 years.

Some areas along FM 1960 have faired better than others, and it is directly attributed to the schools and their drawing zones. Klein, Klein Oak, Cy-Fair and Cy-Creek draw mainly from areas of north of FM 1960 (which is nearly built out from FM 1960 going North all the way past Spring-Cypress and from I-45 all the way West to 529) and have remained more desirable along with the new high schools created to absorb the new growth (Klein Collins, Cy-Woods, Cy-Ranch).

Hope that helps.

FWIW, Bridgeland won the National Association of Homebuilders, National Community of the Year for 2009.

Bridgeland was named Master-Planned Community of the Year during The Nationals 2009 Gold Awards, topping both national and international entrants.

Presented by the National Sales and Marketing Council of the National Home Builders Association, The Nationals pay tribute to superior new-home sales and marketing achievements. Gold Award winners were announced Jan. 20 during NAHB

I'm guessing reading comprehension isn't one of your strong points, Pumapayam.

Epic fail? Really?

Sales have gone well in Bridgeland. It's a beautiful new community surrounded by other really nice communities in the $200K+ to $1M+ range. GGP has taken a hit nationally and is trying to reduce its debt load.

Holy moly.

Oh, one thing to note: There is a minimum purchase that is higher than the value of the gift certificate. For the higher values it is double the size of the gift certificate. Furthermore, on the higher value gift certificates they impose a mandatory 18% gratuity on the full retail of the dinner. Still a good deal, but caveat emptor.

My neighbor gave the place pretty good reviews. I'm going to have to try this place.

I think rail to Dallas, San Antonio, and Austin would get 100 times the traffic as to N.O (<sarcasm>oooh, take us from there to Meridian or Birmingham!!!</sarcasm>). I can't believe someone would let this get too far without figuring that out. I would go to Austin and SA easily 5 times as much if there was a fun high speed train involved.

note: I have been to SA once in 30 years, Austin 3 times. Which is dumb because I've been to Gillette Wyoming 5 times.

I recall Southwest Airlines and their lobbyist had a big part in nuking the last legit High Speed Rail effort.

I saw this magazine previewed on some TV show. Maybe it was the news. I wanted to get a copy of it.

You can pick one up by the door (next to the real estate magazines) at your local Kroger (and I believe Academy stores as well).

My best friend lives directly across the street from this house. I call it the Illuminati-house.

If they made a Ron Paul statue, I'd buy one.

Saw this in "VYPE", the new High School Sports magazine being distributed around town. Great magazine btw.

57 beers on tap is a good thing...

Yes, yes indeed it is.

That's my opinion of him as well. I remember seeing him all the time at Kim Son in the Moody Towers.

He looks likey your typical fat cat State of Texas employee.

UH at HP would have been a perfect fit. Maybe they should have tried the UHCL route. It would have been a nice with the the community college down the street (for transfers).

Agreed, it would've been a good fit and a huge success for them as well as another nice asset to the area.

So back to the question.

Who's going in there now?

what happened is PVAMU got their panties in a bunch because they claim that is their turf!

That's the absurdity of it all.

Looks like they're making room for some large developments across the street as well in that area of the Vintage development close to the lake and proposed park.

Wow, is that across from the BJ Services corporate campus?