texas911

Yikes! I better get a proxy on my IP address!

And, yes, the claim can certainly be made that living in more house than one needs negates the gains in energy efficiency.

What does a person "need," really?

Red, cars are more expensive, but they are vastly superior to what they were before.

I think the same is true of houses today. People want big houses but the also don't pay a penalty for the utility, at least not the newer homes. Back in the 50-60's, they had low ceilings because they had to keep the volume low because they had such inefficient a/c back then, with no insulation! Its not a coincidence that McMansions with their high ceilings came about when technology made homes more efficient, energy wise. And I love that the City has some semi-tough codes for making new houses efficient. I think they should go even further.

I live in a 1930's 2000 SF bungalow and pay more for electricity than my parents do for their 4000 SF house in Sugar Land!

UH has a nursing program now at Sugar Land.

Also are you looking for an associates degree or a BSN? The community colleges only offer 2 year associates degrees. Some of the bigger hospitals now are only recruiting BSNs.

I think some of you guys are confused to what a McMansion is? To me its the McDonalds part of the name that is key. Its a big tract house out in the burbs with no sense of architecture. Just a bunch of cliche elements all jumbled up together with no meaning, and put up quickly and cheaply without respect to its site or neighbors. That's a pretty good burger for the money, but size alone doesn't make a McMansion. And I will object and say that there is absolutely no Architectural Complexity in any of them. Far from it.

The Menil is a a land mark building because of its roof. Piano is a genius, he saw that most works of art that Menil had were painted using natural light, so why display them in artificial light? The problem was that direct sunlight destroys the painting, so he devised those beautifully rendered louvers to diffuse the sunlight. Fantastic! The building itself is a work of art. On the other hand, the Twombly gallery experiment with the sail material as a sun diffuser isn't quite as elegant. Everyone should visit the Menil, its a treasure.

How about a tile roof? OK bare with me, at first I hated the tile roof, but in doing research for our new house, I found that the concrete version of the tile roof is actually an energy efficient roof for our climate, and its durable, after all it is concrete. Apparently the shape of the barrel tile keeps radiant heat away from your decking, and its open construction allows air to cool the tiles. The only negatives are the up front cost and the extra bracing you need to hold up all that weight, but even then, its only the weight of 3 layers of asphalt shingles, or a soaking wet wood shingle roof. And to top it all off, its wind resistant as well.

I was thinking more like this kind of closed attic....

Is it too hard to "condition" the attic? Meaning sealing it up from the outside? I head this is better for the attic than venting it.

They finally got to my house. I'm in 77005. It really did take all of 15 minutes to install.

A giant Chinese temple mall to welcome people to the new Chinatown, that Bellaire Blvd has become.

Wow, sorry about your bad luck. I don't think any car is safe anywhere in Houston. Smash and grab can happen anywhere. But you'd think a busy place like that Chili's in broad daylight would at least deter thieves.

Yup, unless you set out to use concrete floors, the contractors don't care about the evenness of the concrete. But then again, in the right situations, the rough concrete look might be OK, but I'm sure it more like in an old warehouse loft conversion, not a run of the mill home.

http://www.staintexas.com/STAINED_CONCRETE__HOUSTON_TEXAS_Home_Page.html

They probably won't be sending the C Class wagon over to the US, that niche has been taken over by the GLK, which is basically a C Class SUV.

I agree, why even bother making the 4Runner that way it is on the preview pictures? They already have a mid-sized mommy SUV, the Highlander. They should have made the 4Runner more of an off roader. More basic.

Just an update, they are not tearing it down, they are doing some mondo updates to it. When I drove by, they had stripped the brick of the bottom and put a fresh layer of Tyvek. At least its safe from the wrecking ball. We need more Darth Vader houses and less Spanish/Mediterranean/Italian/French crap in Houston.

Finally tried it out. It was packed. My verdict, moo. It was a step up from fast food, but not as good as Fudruckers. Fries are way over-rated, btw.

West U's Senior Little League team has made it to the championship game at the World Series. Not as famous as the 10 year old World series, but quite an accomplishment still. Its the 14 year old division. They are representing West U, the city of Houston, Texas and the Southwest Region.

Its on ESPNU at 2:00. They are battling a team from California.

Go West U!

Is it excess or just more technologically logical? I'm sure in the 40's, a central A/C would be excess.

Why would anyone live in a flood plain? Why would any of us live in a hurricane zone? We should all move to Dallas or San Antonio, if that were the case.

Strake Jesuit is in Sharpstown, Sharpstown gave them the land, and its doing fine. I was a Sharpstown mall rat in high school, and am saddened to see it go under. But can understand, today, First Colony Mall is what probably what Sharpstown was back in the 80's. I don't see how light rail will do anything for Sharpstown. In my opinion, it would be better to bulldoze the mall and start over, maybe make it an outdoor town center type place.

HEB opened today, its fantastic! Not as big as the Kroger but the design and layout is awesome. Reminds me of the Sugar land Whole Foods.

Drove by today and there was a giant moving van, loading boxes and furniture. Hmmmmm.

They are opening up one on Buffalo Speedway across from the new HEB. Sign looks cool.