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mollusk

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Everything posted by mollusk

  1. mollusk
    Oh, when people are flogging "clean coal" (an oxymoron if I ever heard one), why not? Are you familiar with the term "greenwashing?" For an more direct example, check this out on BP's site.
  2. mollusk
    I'm not going to advocate for a race to the bottom. There is nearby property, however, that does not require scraping off several very nice older houses and sticking a fork into the Asia House views, and which would still be nicely accessible for the purposes of this project.
  3. mollusk
    You're talking about the store, right?
  4. mollusk
    The design isn't offensive so much as the precise location.
  5. mollusk
    What I had in mind was the area between Northwest Highway and LBJ.
  6. mollusk
    That's how you get from one garage helix to the other.
  7. mollusk
    The polo field and its associated horsery are separate from Memorial Park.
  8. mollusk
    Tige, I'd imagine it was more a matter of preventing the joyous mayhem that would have ensued if there were shopping carts rolling wildly towards the western end of the store.
  9. mollusk
    One thing that a lot of people forget is just how much Houston grew and how quickly. The examples given pretty much pre date the mid sixties, right about the time the Dome opened - out in the middle of nowhere (see The Thief Who Came To Dinner). At the time, there was no Galleria (much less whatever the flacks want to call the rest of the area) and no Greenway Plaza - both were all houses if not vacant land. The Katy Freeway stretched all the way from Post Oak to Bunker Hill, and 610 and the Beltway simply did not exist except on planning maps. While Memorial, Kirby, et al were thoroughfares, they were also thoroughfares on the way to additional homes (and far fewer of those than now), not to other business centers. This isn't really unique to Houston, either. Just off the top of my head, I'm coming up with Druid Hills and Buckhead in metro Atlanta, the grid of six lane boulevards in North Dallas (and in particular the Park Cities), the Arlington (and similar streets) in Berkeley and El Cerrito... shoot, Sunset Boulevard through Beverly HIlls. Practically everything on This Old House looks like it's either on or very close to some sort of Post Road with plenty of traffic. I'll bet you a doughnut we can come up with lots of other examples.
  10. mollusk
    My mistake. That's what I get for repeating an urban legend that I probably first heard when I was well under ten years old, and that until now I would have sworn that I verified sometime or another within the last fifty years. Can we agree that he was well connected, and that such connections may have facilitated his living in the (I still believe publicly funded) Harris County Domed Stadium?
  11. mollusk
    b: from culturemap: http://www.houhobby.com/plans/ I've seen some more recent stuff here and there, but it all seems consistent.
  12. mollusk
    (*sniff...*) oh Gawd I do miss the over the top stereotypical Houston of the sixties. Every now and then. To feel better, I go out and get me some nice 'Nese or tandoor or a big azz CFS or whatever. And I then remember that Hunter S. Thompson came up with "when the going gets weird, the weird turn pro" at the downtown Hyatt, and realize that all that crazy is still here. FWIW, he was County Judge when it was built - Ed Emmett's job. He freakin' resurrected ​the idea of publicly built sports palaces (from the Romans, of course).
  13. mollusk
    My neighborhood (not Montrose) has a number of sidewalks that have been heaved by oak roots. There have been a variety of different work arounds - metal grating, curving the concrete around the tree, a new yet more gentle hill o' concrete, gravel, and diamond plate. Regardless, even though it's on city right of way, we as homeowners have the duty to maintain the sidewalks by ordinance; if we don't and someone gets hurt because of the foreseeable problem, it will be time for a chat with the insurance agent. Likewise, the trees in the ROW are also ours to maintain, but can only be removed via a permitting process (though I believe the city will come out and cut down a dead one).
  14. mollusk
    I haven't bothered to go through and plot the itineraries, but Orlando would be the most direct intermediate stop (not that Southwest wouldn't be above having you change planes at MDW just for giggles). Last time I went there, that's where Continental had you change onto a turboprop on all flights save the one daily nonstop, which was itself on a regional jet. I don't see going HOU - Nassau nonstop on Southwest for the foreseeable future. As far as whether five gates would be enough - perhaps we could change the name from Hobby to Field of Dreams (build it and they will come). I agree that it will also be really good for IAH to get underway with its massive rebuild of the Leland terminal; however, not to be a broken record or anything, it's nice to have some alternatives. Personally, I prefer going in and out of Hobby when I can because it's more convenient for me. YMMV.
  15. mollusk
    (in an attempt to get back on topic...) According to its website, Southwest will start service from HOU to Aruba, Montego Bay, and Nassau on August 5. I suspect that is facilitated by the fact that you clear US Customs at the airport in Nassau before you board your return flight. It's going to be nice to have some alternatives.
  16. mollusk
    Nice, Urbannizer. We know it's Real Architecture when we see all the Audis in Triton's shot.
  17. mollusk
    (*snort...*) Reminds me of this: "Promotional advertising in 1909 explained that Bellaire was named for the area's Gulf breezes..." But take heart. Houston was once famously described as "a wretched little town composed of about twenty shops, and a hundred huts, dispersed here and there, among trunks of felled trees. It is infested with Methodists and ants." FWIW, I am completely agnostic about the idea of a theme park on the way to Shreveport.
  18. mollusk
    Goofy connection or no, these particular segments will help out with evacuating the vulnerable area around the bay.
  19. mollusk
    IDK, but that sounds like a fair supposition. After all, they have their own quasi police force.
  20. mollusk
    OK, here's a link to the Starwood/Aloft website I referred to in my earlier post. Scroll about halfway down to the locations in Texas. For more detail, click on the "detail view" button, scroll down, and you'll see this: I don't prepare the downtown development map, so I can't speak to why it would be there on one version and not on another, later one. Perhaps the person updating the map started from an earlier version that didn't have it on there, and didn't catch omission of that one, relatively small project. Other equally innocent possibilities exist.
  21. mollusk
    ^ The biggest difference between this location and Strake is the highway it's next to. It causes an irresistible urge to sweat and swat and scratch just thinking about it.
  22. mollusk
    It's still showing up on the Starwood/Aloft website as opening June 2016.
  23. mollusk
    I've always thought of that as the Kung Fu exit - WAAAAAAAAUGH!!!!!!
  24. mollusk
    Well, during the era that's GoT's setting we also had things like heads on pikes and rulers with names like Vlad the Impaler. Perhaps media are becoming more graphic... but when the starting point was Lucy and Ricky Ricardo sleeping in twin beds and nobody flushing a toilet before Archie Bunker, there really wasn't any other direction.
  25. mollusk
    No perhaps about it. All around my neighborhood, immediately after the noobs tear down the real bungalow to build a fake bungalow four times bigger, the very next thing installed is a full perimeter fence with an electric gate. I suspect they'd like to turn the sidewalks into moats while they're at it.
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