Reefmonkey

I know that Houston falls into USDA Hardiness Zone 9a, which means our average annual low is between 30F and 20F. I was wondering, though - I imagine this low is for average lows through the whole area, but doesn't take into account microclimates, such as urban heat islands, etc. We all are familiar with local TV weathermen regularly telling us that a certain cold front or freeze advisory is only for those viewers living north of I-10, as well as Galveston generally being a little warmer in the winter than, say, out by Willowbrook Mall.

Does anyone know of any data compiled that shows that inner loop Houston and nearby areas, and Galveston Island may actually be 9b, or even 10a?

They opened one right by my office (Westheimer and Tollway, and I've been there a few times. My coworkers are gaga about this place (though they live in Friendswood, so I think their dining standards are low). Their frenchfries are really good, but I don't think their burgers or chicken sandwiches are really anything special. Beck's Prime is much better.

. Not having a driveshaft tunnel running down the middle of the car, also allowed a larger interior in an otherwise smaller overall car.

Oh, yeah, as the middle of three boys, I remember how much it sucked to have to straddle the huge hump under the middle seat of an 82 Lincoln Towncar.

Thanks guys, it looks like Googie is it exactly.

Is there a particular name for the architectural style that so many 1950's era motels, coffee shops (eg Dot Coffee Shop at Gulfgate here in Houston) were built in? I'm talking about the very "modern" style, all straight lines, flat roofs, often "Sputnik-Space-Age" elements, especially to the neon signage?

http://www.4-aces.com/01motelext.html

Does HCAD have a responsibility (legal or internal) to supply evidence of their findings? Or is the above (refusing to furnish findings of the remodel) an example of HCAD just being lazy/incompetent/a bully?

I know when you file a protest you have the right to obtain copies of the information the chief appraiser plans to submit to establish any matter at issue in your hearing. I think if Katiedidit submits internal and extrnal photos of her house showing the true condition, and the appraiser comes up with nothing, the ARB is probably going to find in her favor.

Katie, I'm sorry your informal hearing went badly. Trust me, I know how that feels. It's the way it has always been in the past for me too. I guess I got lucky and got a nice, fair guy this year.

I know this will probably sound racist, but for some reason I always had the worst luck with Vietnamese appraisers, and most of them were not the best at english. The first year I went, even in the ARB, the HCAD rep was Vietnamese, misunderstood what I said in the meeting, when I tried to explain that only superficial remodeling had been done, but no structural or mechanical updates. He also misrepresented my house. I showed that the vinyl siding needed repari, and he tried to claim I only have vinyl siding running on one 8-foot wall, instead of all of my house except the front, which is brick. The guy I got this year was not Vietnamese, he was black and articulate. (I'm white)

While I wouldn't call a subdivision where the overwhelming majority of the homes sell for under $300,000 affluent, I recognize that the homeowners fears that, being the suburbs, only other narrow minded individuals would purchase out there, and a project such as this may scare those prospective buyers away. However, my recognition of the thought process used by these homeowners does not require me then to agree with it. The fact is, these apartment complexes are indistinguishable from any other upper middle class complex. They're even likely to put that hideous hill country stone on them to make them look like homes you'd find in Windrose. The only way prospective homebuyers will even know it is there is because the current Windrose homeowners made such a big public televised stink about it.

Well said.

I don't either...just an informed home-owner who cares and who is going to speak her mind!! That's awesome for you!!!

Well, I guess StopGoslingOaks signed up on this website today thinking she'd post about her efforts to block this project and would get a wave of support. When that didn't happen, she got you to sign up for the website so that you could back her up. I'm not sure if she thought you were going to change people's minds, or she just wanted to see one post that supported her. You've spoken your mind alright, but it appears you have made most of us even less sympathic to StopGoslingOaks' cause.

You cannot compare HISTORIC downtown to the suburbs. When you purchase a home for $300,000 downtown you are paying for location...proximity to everything downtown has to offer. But I would bet that you don't wander around the streets past 10pm, even to go grocery shopping.

I'm not comparing them. I don't live downtown, I live outside Beltway 8, at Dairy-Ashford, in the suburbs. That also happen to have low-income apartments. We go out at night, to the grocery story, to the restaurants around us, for walks in our neighborhood. We don't live in paranoid histrionic fear.

Reef, the only difference is when they tear those Tully things down one day, they are going to build million dollar patio homes. 25 to an acre.

Now I AM worried. NOT IN MY BACKYARD!

Unless you live in this area, you have no right to comment about where would be a "fine place" for "low income" housing.

Actually, I grew up fairly near there, in Cypresswood.

Unless you live in this area, you have no right to comment about where would be a "fine place" for "low income" housing. This is not a "vacant" area. There are several communities with a 1-mile radius of the proposed site. One in particular is diagonal and homes start in the $300,000. This would drastically change the property values for this area as well as the marketability of the surrounding neighborhoods.

The low-income apartments within walking distance of my 2200 sq ft 1-story house built in 1965 didn't stop it from selling for over $300K.

MY MAJOR PROBLEM WITH THIS DEVELOPMENT IS THAT WE ARE USING TAX DOLLARS TO MOVE LOW INCOME FAMILIES INTO OUR SUBURBS. We moved out of downtown to get away from "low income" housing and now they are proposing to use my tax dollars to move them right in; not to mention the impact this would have on our schools. Klein ISD is having to build elementary school just about every year to keep up with the development in this area. FM2920 and Spring Stuebner are parking lots at 5pm and we should be using our tax dollars to expand these roads rather than bringing in more people.

The city is growing, it's expanding, the land out there is some of the cheaper land in the Houston area. Would you rather they used more of your tax dollars so they could buy more expensive land closer into the city?

That area was farmland before you moved out there. you moved out there because someone started a process of suburbanizing the area, and more and more development was the inevitable outcome of that process that you helped along by buying a home out there, then wanting a closeby supermarket and drycleaner. You don't get to freeze time, to stop progress. Mostly you don't get to dictate what gets built on land you don't own. Accept it and go on with your life.

I don't want people walking their shopping carts down 2920 to get to the low income housing project from their shopping trip to the local Wal-Mart or grocery store.

Wow, that's lovely. I'm wondering, are you a churchgoing Christian? Just curious.

If you think it's a "fine" project, move them in next to your neighborhood. Oh yeah--NIMBY!!

They are in my backyard, and I accept the reality that I live in a large, sprawling, diverse city, so not everyone near me is going to be white and middle class like me.

I am certain that is the "spirit" (aka "theory") of the program, but we all know there is a difference between theory and reality, between best hopes and actual results.

I think it revealing that the developers behind this project have never proposed that an affordable-housing for teachers, fire-fighters and police officers apartment complex be built with tax credits near their own homes.

We appreciate all the suggestions and feedback... even the attempted liberal guilt-trip about "NIMBY"

BTW, reporters from ABC 13 and FOX 26 have already been out today to interview residents, and may be present to cover our initial community meeting at 8 pm at the Windrose meeting house tonight.

Stay tuned.

And yet you still haven't told us why you oppose the project. What bad things do you think will happen once this project opens? You came here asking us for our support, yet you give us no reason to support you, and all but one of us just don't see what you're up in arms about. Convince us. If you can't even do that, can't even articulate your concerns to us, how do you expect to convince TDHCA?

You can talk about "attempted liberal guilt trips" all you want, but right now you are coming across as a reactionary alarmist. If you articulate your concerns to the reporters as badly as you did here in writing, you and your fellow residents are going to come across really badly on 13 and 26 tonight. You're going to look like racists, even if you aren't That's going to be the best way to slant the story, because there will be no other way for them to sell it if you don't express valid concerns.

I was just thinking it would be great if we had a subforum in here for Hollywood filming locations in Houston. Then each thread could discuss a particular movie and where one could go in town to see the location. The collected threads would serve as an easily searchable catalogue of Houston filming locations. For some movies, like "Reality Bites", which takes place in Houston, but some scenes were filmed in Houston and others were filmed in LA, the discussion might help dispel confusion (for instance, keep people from looking in vain for the cool 50s diner the characters eat in). Other movies aren't supposed to take place in Houston, but Houston served as a stand-in for places that are more expensive to fim in. For instance, "The Chase" with Charlie Sheen supposedly takes place in Southern California, but was mostly filmed in and around Houston.

But doesn't he ask legitimate scientific questions, not necessarily related to creationism? If evolution is a gradual change process... how can some evolutionary tracks be vertical in nature, as he claims? Why are there "spontaneous" fossil records that cannot be traced back to other records, as he claims? If we indeed did evolve from monkeys... then why are there still monkeys? (said unknown stand-up comedian). It would be interesting to hear the scientific rebuttal to his arguments vs. just dismissing him as a religious crazy person that believes in nothing but creationism.

On the idea of evolution being a gradual process - it is and it isn't. It can occur gradually in some instances, and it can occur abruptly. Most researchers in evolution believe that it is a mixture of gradual and abrupt changes over time. Look up "punctuated equillibrium" and "quantum evolution" to get an idea for just a few of the models for evolution. Classic Darwinian gradualism has been left behind long ago.

On the idea of some evolutionary tracks being vertical in nature, as McLeroy claims, "evolutionary track" is an astronomical term, not a biological term, so that should clue you into McLeroy's level of understanding. Secondly, assuming that when McLeroy is talking about speciation when he talks about "vertical evolution"; the various mechanisms of speciation are well-understood: eg: allopatric, parapatric, peripatric (which have all been observed), sympatric.

No, we did not evolve from monkeys. We and monkeys both evolved from a common ancestor. However, it is possible for one species to evolve from another species and both species to remain extant. If McLeroy is asserting that this can't happen, then this exposes his ignorance at a basic level of the body of evolutionary theory he is attacking. A particular population of a species can remain genetically stable if its environment remains stable. Genetic changes which differ from the traits that have already adapted it to that environment provide no advantage, even provide a disadvantage, so are not passed on, and that population of that species remains the same. Now if a group migrates from that population, it may find itself in a different environment that favors different traits, and disfavors original traits. This could cause that migrated population to change so much it becomes a new species.

Science has a far better understanding of the mechanisms of evolution than it does the mechanisms of gravity, yet we don't teach high school physics students the "alternative theory" that the Hand of God pushes us down and keeps us from flying off the earth.

There is a story of Gallileo being called before the Inquisition, who demanded he recant his theory that the earth revolves around the sun - or else. Gallileo did recant his theory, but then supposedly looked down at the earth and muttered "yet it moves." No amount of denial by backward people like McLeroy is going to change the FACT that evolution is real, has been observed, and is quite well understood compared to other natural phenomena. It's just sad that in a state that already has one of the worst educational performance records in the country, the chairman of our board of education is actively trying to further weaken the quality of the education our students get.

Ah, NIMBY rears its ugly head.

These people have to live somewhere, offering them affordable housing helps get them out of the cycle of poverty. Lower poverty means lower crime, it also means less people straining the social welfare programs' coffers, all of which benefits every one of us.

Unless this is going to put some strain on the local infrastructure such as overcrowding the schools, I don't think you will have any success getting this stopped.

And yes, I do have low-income apartments near my subdivision. It's not the end of the world.

I bought my house at the height of the boom in 2006, I was a first time homebuyer, was under duress to find a home that I could move into at least a month before the school year started, and made the cardinal mistake of falling in love with a home, so really I paid too much - $308K. Of course in 2007 HCAD put the appraised value at a little that, but I was able to get it down to $299,550 in the ARB hearing. Then last year it was raised to $329,500 - miraculously 10% (the maximum the homestead cap will allow). I got it down to $309 in the ARB hearing.

This year I got my notice, and even in the midst of housing slump and global recession, again, miraculously my house went up in value by exactly 10% according to HCAD - $339K. I filed my protest, and then got online to look at HCAD's sales data that they used to determine the value of my house. They had a small list of "comparables" that they used to determine the value of my house, and then a longer list of all recent sales in my area. Interestingly, every house they used as a comparable was on a lot at least 1,000 square feet more than mine, and most were two-story houses, even though I have a one-story house. There were plenty of recent sales of houses that were actually closer to me, built at the same time as me, had the same lot size, were one-story with almost same square footage, but it seems HCAD ignored those, and rather than going with a mean value of all nearby home sale prices, cherry-picked the ones they could use to justify their maximum 10% increase.

So yesterday I went to HCAD for my informal HCAD meeting, which was scheduled for a different day than the ARB hearing. The place was packed. It was hard to find a vacant seat in the waiting area. I sat there thinking "why did I take off from work for this meeting? I know that the first meeting with HCAD is fruitless and I always have to go to ARB to get a reduction. Next year I'm skipping this."

Then my name was called. I went in, sat down with the appraiser, presented my evidence. The recent mean sale price of all homes in my area about the same size as mine on the same size lot as mine is $285K, according to my calculations. I also showed evidence that my house was not "extensively" remodeled, as HCAD had it recorded, more like "moderately" (the kitchen and front hallway, for instance, were completely redone, but the bathrooms still have the 1965 countertops, cabinets, and some fixtures). The guy actually listened to me, really looked through my evidence, and then gave me the exact value I asked for - $285K. I was amazed.

There is Froberg's in Manvel/Alvin. It's the only one I've ever been to so I don't know how it rates. But they have virtually all vegetables. You get a discount for picking your purchase directly from the farm. The BBQ is simply good. The address is 11875 County Road 190 Alvin, Texas. Hope you're willing to drive that far.

A little bit of a drive, out in the country, fresh local produce, and good barbecue? Sounds like the makings of an ideal Saturday excursion!

The name of the place on 36 is Pavlok's. Phone number is 281-633-2459, so you can call for directions and to find out what they have harvested.

Cool, thanks!

Froberg's outside of Alvin is operated by the Froberg family at their farm. It's easy to get to with plenty of parking. It's on the old highway next to the BNSF tracks between Manvel and Alvin.

There is also a small farm outside of Dickinson were you can pick your own vegetables. This place is just off of SH 146 north of the Dickson Bayou bridge.

Thanks, I'll give it a try! Now that you mention it, I think I may have passed it when I got lost looking for Twin Lakes Scuba Park for my rescue certification last year.

How do you catch them, then? Doesn't sound like I can get them commercially. Am I limited to cast nets?

That's how I've always caught them.

Most saltwater fishermen I know throw the sheephead back because they are a bit of a pain to clean, not because of the taste. It's a very good meat.

I think a lot of that has to do with many fishermen, being guys, are limited in their culinary techniques. If it's hard to filet with an electric knife, they won't bother with it. I have fileted sheepshead before, but mostly I find it easier to cut little strips, what the French call goujons, from the flesh. you can cut around the bones that way. But if you do want to cook it another way, I have found that using a hacksaw to cut the head off saves you a lot of work. That's one technique they won't teach you at the Cordon Bleu.

I've heard that drum is about the wormiest fish there is. True or no?

Worminess is generally a function of the age of a particular fish, not its species. If you catch one of those monster black drum in the surf, yeah, it's going to have a good chance of being wormy. Catch a smaller one in the bay, and it is probably going to be just fine. Same with redfish. I have never had a problem with slot reds caught in the bay. The big bull reds on the gulf side, that's a different story, but you can only keep one of those a season, so I think its a moot point. Red snapper are the same way, by the way. The really big trophy ones often have worms and overall make poor eating.

OK, next question: I recently ate a fillet of speckled trout that had been caught just hours before and then fried but that was large enough that it didn't cook all the way through. It was an extremely fishy taste, unlike most traditional sashimi that I've ever had in restaurants, but then I like fishy tastes and smells. And I really liked this.

Aside from drum and sheepshead, are there any other fish in our waters that you wouldn't recommend eating without fully cooking them?

You must love mackerel, then. I think that the spec with the fishy taste was likely a result of the water it was in and what it had been eating. That has an affect on the flavor of any fish. Since the fish was still flopping just hours before, I doubt you were in any danger. I've never tried spec raw. I can't think of any fish really to avoid, except gar roe and least puffer meat. I would recommend cooking all fish thoroughly before eating them, especially during months when our bays and gulf water temps get bathtub warm.

In all my years of fishing, I've never hooked one.

That's because they are detritus eaters, don't eat crustaceans or small fishes.

I used to eat mullet I caught in West Bay (Galveston) a bit as a kid. Fried right after they are caught, they are very tasty. It's just a local prejudice that keeps people from eating them around here. People who have never tried mullet have heard for so long that it is bad to eat that they never bother to try it, and go on believing it sucks. Texas saltwater anglers are pretty finicky in what they will or won't eat. Really, most won't eat anything they catch except redfish, flounder, and speckled trout. Most throw back sheepshead, which has one of the sweetest, best-tasting meats you'll ever eat, and even sand trout are great, taste similar to specks when fresh.

I have never tried mullet roe, never heard of eating it. That's one thing I would look into further before trying to get from any fish I caught myself. I know for a fact that gar roe is poisonous. While it is a slim possibility, it is still a possibility that "mullet roe" comes from another fish besides Mugil cephalus. The mullet which is popular in the mediterranean is not remotely related to our mullet, it is actually related to goatfishes.

Have you gone to the open air markets behind Canino's? It has grown much larger and goes deeply back on the lot, not just the part attached to the Canino's building and it is all produce.

Yes, I go there all the time. I am also especially fond of a particular taco truck there which sells tacos de mollejas (sweetbread tacos) which are out of this world. Caninos and the area behind it are great, but not quite what I am looking for in this situation. It's not quite the rural setting I am looking for, and most of the people selling produce there, including the independent merchants in the stalls behind Caninos and in the back parking lot, did not grow it themselves - often it was grown in California or Mexico and they bought it in bulk to sell there. I really am looking for a family farm that sells produce right on the land where it was grown.

There's a place off highway 36 just a little north of 90 in Richmond/Rosenberg. Family farm who open their stand in summer. My folks buy stuff there-- peas, okra, eggplant, squashes, greens. I can't remember if they have fruit or not. Will re-post if I can dig up the name.

Wow, thanks, even without the name, it gives me a lot to go on, might be fun searching for it on a sunny Saturday afternoon.

I know all about Caninos, and even about Bayou City Farmers' Market and all the other places where yuppies can choice from limited selections and small quantities of organic vegetables, but large collections of handmade soaps (I'm not dogging those places, I'm glad we have them), but I grew up in the Klein area in the 80s, and fondly remember going to places like Theiss Farms and Strack Farms - open air sheds on the edge of a farmer's property where he sold the produce he had grown in the field just behind the shed. I know the Strack family stopped farming and focuses just on the restaurant these days, but I believe that Theiss Farms is still open. I'm looking for a place like these, but hopefully closer to the west side of town, as I live in the Memorial area just outside of the beltway. I'm even up to driving as far west as some place like Fulshear. Anyone know of any places like this?