mollusk

Now that is a toy train.

MLB is the designator for Melbourne International Airport, serving the eponymous small city on the Atlantic coast of Florida. Perhaps you meant MEL, the airport that serves the city in Australia?

He's now in Austin for the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act at the LBJ Library. I suspect that's been on the calendar for a while. A fund raising swing through here on the way to that sounds reasonable.

I had no idea there was that much demand between Los Angeles and Brevard County.

When Bush the Elder was VP, he would fly into Ellington and motorcade to The Houstonian. When he became President, he started using Marine One to the polo grounds by Memorial Park and let us use the Gulf Freeway again. Motorcading to and fro isn't necessarily that huge a hassle. Completely blocking off the most frequently used route from downtown to the Southwest Freeway was - even the north end of downtown was in gridlock until nearly seven (IMO because of the idjits who think they get to go into the intersection just because the light is green, regardless of whether they can make it all the way across). Deploying cops throughout downtown to direct the intersections would have helped immensely. Or parking the Prez at the Hilton Americas, Inn at the Ballpark, the Four Seasons, the Magnolia, the Sam Houston, or even (gasp) the Embassy Suites if they just had to sleep downtown.

Fiesta on Patton for day to day stuff, table wine, prepared chickens (oh, how I miss the one on Studewood). And Dickey's clothing. Spec's mother ship for wine, cheese, coffee (and hooch, of course) Phonecia downtown for its excellent halal meat counter, warm pita, prepared dips, good cheeses and imported sausages, and import odds and ends Farmers markets for produce in season Central Market for less pedestrian produce, meat, seafood, cheese, deli meats, and some etc. Canino's for produce El Bolillo for baked goods 99 Ranch for Asian produce, frozen dumplings, giant bags of rice, condiments found nowhere else, and seafood The giant enormous HEB on Katy @ Bunker Hill for when I want to consolidate some Out of respect to Subdude, I refer to "produce" rather than "veggies."

I'm not on the donor mailing lists, but I'll bet you a nickel that the fundraisers were already set up well before the Fort Hood shootings. A Presidential visit takes a lot more lead time than Aunt Tillie and Uncle Mickey dropping by. I've got to wonder about the genius advance person who decided that the downtown Crowne Plaza was the best option. It's not like we don't have a bunch of other hotels that can be secured without blocking major commute routes. Some additional cops to direct traffic in intersections would have helped, too - the number of people who don't get the concept of not pulling into the intersection if you can't clear it never ceases to amaze me.

Ohhhh, the tunnels are VERY important. Even with Chamber of Commerce weather like today, there were probably as many Mole People down there as people getting light exposure out on the sidewalks - and when it's raining, or cold, or (most frequently) blazing hot, the tunnels get lots and lots of use. It's going to be interesting to see just what happens with the tunnel level businesses in Chase when the Houston Club connector gets closed down in a few weeks. What's wrong with calling it that... made up name? (eye roll) "Up" in the absence of any adjacent "mid" or "down" is just silly and pretentious. Sorta like the Cadillac Cimarron - a low level Chevy with a different grille and a much bigger price tag. Finally, I forgot - we DO have an underground, downtown Subway. It's in the food court under 919 Milam.

Even the systems with subways are only below ground where it makes sense. BART has subway, at grade, and elevated elements; 40% of the New York subway is at or above grade (h/t Wikipedia), less than half of DC's Metrorail is subway. Downtown's existing infrastructure would pretty much require that a subway be built even deeper. My back of the envelope guess is that the roof of the tube could be no less than 25' below grade to clear the tunnel system, probably a bit more in places - which you'd have to do anyway in order to put the northern portal north of Buffalo Bayou. Sure, the trains on the street are a bit in the way (particularly when METRO gets overly aggressive with the traffic light overrides), but overall not that big a deal. I think where a subway would really make sense would be in a dense area that has a laughably inadequate surface street grid - something like Post Oak/Westheimer (in honor of another contributor, I'm not going to use the popular yet trademarked name stolen from the nearby shopping mall; in honor of my own refusal to bow to the silly I'm not going to use the Pretentious Alternate Name that makes no geographic sense, either).

I would if I could get them to turn out properly. Regardless, not a whole lot to see vs. a couple weeks ago. They seem to be working more on interiors right now (including much jackhammer work).

I will now un-view them, so please move my thanks forward to when they are released. Meanwhile, it will be good to have another project moving forward. All this activity is amazing - it's really more than what we had back in the late '70s - early '80s, when you add in all the activity in the Post Oak corridor, XOM up north, and the flurry of "little 20 story buildings" in the Energy Corridor.

I'll take Amsterdam as an analogue. From an engineering standpoint, the makeup of the soil is more important than ambient temperature - particularly for something that is going to be more or less constant temperature since it's well underground. Also, the North Sea can generate some pretty wicked storms.

I sure do miss Bubba The Neon Roach.

Yep, pretty much the same thing.

Ramen.

Giant cross, giant flag, giant billboard...shoot, even a giant Flying Spaghetti Monster (if such should happen, he boiled for our sins) - they're all advertising something or another in a giant, in your face way. I miss the "OWNER HAS BRAIN DAMAGE" car lot sign on 45 that I used to have to explain to out of town visitors coming in from the airport. At least it was fun.

No arms, no legs, and it's hanging up. Yep, it's Art.

We are overdue to be Touched By His Noodly Appendage.

I stumbled across this today: http://flightclub.jalopnik.com/would-you-take-a-10-hour-flight-on-a-737-1556254604

Let's not forget the Pappas Bros. BBQ to go in the middle.

Good. That's a very nice room, and now that there's a lot more activity in the immediate area it should have a better chance of making it.

IMO, Montrose started being over when the Texas Opry House closed up shop. In 1981 or 82 or thereabouts.

The next block north of the feeder one immediately gets into single family residential. That said, I'm pretty agnostic about it; if anything, it might act as a bit of a sound break

In the immortal words of Lili von Shtüpp, "it's twue, it's twue!" http://blogs.houstonpress.com/eating/2012/10/video_council_member_andrew_bu.php

Downtown has some awesome hole in the wall places...yummy no name delis, not so much (I wish). Re the "wasted subsidy" - I'm reminded of Oscar Wilde's definition of a cynic as someone who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.