IronTiger

I remember reading on this website (forgot where) where someone mentioned a flagship of Randalls (I believe they said it was on FM 1960) had an upper level seating area. I always assumed it was like in H-E-B (the big suburban locations, not really the older original locations) how they have the upper level of offices in a corner of the stores. Was it like that? Is it still there?

Actually, Target Greatlands are not the same thing as SuperTarget. These stores were just really big Target stores (before Target stores just got bigger in general) but were phased out. Now many Greatlands are regular Targets (including one in California and one in Aurora, CO) but some converted to SuperTarget. There are a few Target Greatlands spread out through the US that have not gotten rebranded. And Hypermart USA was not really the WM Supercenter we know and love today, it was more like French hypermarkets (Carrefour and Auchan, really) and featured a large footprint. From Wikipedia. "All stores used a floorplan that exceeded 220,000 sq. ft. (20,000 m²). They featured a mini-mall, food court, arcade, bank, and other kiosk operations." One of the early problems was that a lot of people just found them to be too big.

One of the reasons Meijer probably survives where it is (and bigg's, for that matter) is because they pioneered hypermarkets long before Target, Wal-Mart, and Kmart made their hypermarkets en masse, and can't really expand into Houston, because we already have WM Supercenter. On the other hand, McDonald's rolled into the Texas market when it was a Burger King stronghold, and there are least twice (if not three times) as many McD's as BKs in College Station...but Houston may be different.

With the exception of the CO2 inserter, most of those look pretty awful. I don't want pre-made packets, I want to actually boil real sugar and stuff so it tastes like something original, not some flat knock-off of existing products. I could buy this, available at the local Barnes & Noble for starters, though: http://www.topsecretrecipes.com/store/shopexd.asp?id=57# On a slightly related note, how far out does St. Arnold's distribute? I know I've seen it at the local Wal-Mart.

I was browsing around in a 1970s Texas almanac, and I found this for the "Astrodomain". I thought that it referred to Astroworld, Astrodome, and surrounding hotels, and I was right. I don't know what the weird characters are on the bottom, though. http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2511/3955787514_1655b2cc39_b.jpg

I've been tossing around the ideas of bottling my own soft drinks. Not exactly the next Dr Pepper, but something reasonably tasty and local. What exactly goes in a soft drink syrup? Some sort of sugar and flavorings? Is that all? On a related subject, are there such things as "microbottling plants"? (like "microbrewery")

And they can compete to knock prices down and get serious competition in town. After all, prior to 2003, Houston had FOUR hypermarkets (Auchan, Wal-Mart Supercenter, SuperTarget, and Kmart Super Center).

If Meijer was to test the Houston market, the South Loop building would make a fine place to build. And if that happened, it would warrant a trip down to Houston just to check it out.

Well, of course. I don't want to abandon railroad tracks and was merely noting that in a semi-idealistic world, we'd abandon that segment. That and lower the Houston temperature by about 15°, on average.

Be sure to put your Geotag as "HAIFer in Exile". So are you leaving the HAIF or just Houston? Hey, Editor live(d) in Chicago, I live in College Station, and there are a few others spread outside the Houston Metroplex.

Alternatively, we could abandon the whole stretch altogether, but that a host of problems on its own (increase travel times and fuel usage for trains, increase railroad traffic, etc.). Ignoring those problems, we'd have a great right-of-way for light rail and bikes.

The crossbeam appears to be going well. There are construction workers walking on it now. Jones-Butler has a better patch now (been there for a few days).

Nope. Not gonna work. Having seen the Villa Maria overpass...it was a mess. They had to move the tracks, cut off businesses from good access (how the Citgo on Finfeather continues to exist eludes me). They also had to move the road, which was convenient for Villa Maria (a kind of run-down golf course was on one side) but no so much for Westheimer (it would require major demolition of homes and businesses). The only other method is to close off the area all together, which will seriously inconvenience people for years to come (the overpass at Harvey Mitchell in C.S. is bad enough, I know inconvenience). Yeah, the aerial photo is about three years old. Oh, and citykid: for "dangerous railroad intersections" in College Station/Bryan, check out West 27th Street. Wow.

But crayfish is the scientific name for them. Now, what you should never, ever call them is "craydads". Even people in Louisiana will mock you for that.

Hmm...well, I live in College Station, and no one calls them mudbugs. Guess I still have a thing or two to learn about Houston. Maybe they're in certain neighborhoods that people call them that (inner 610).

You mean crayfish? I've never heard them referred to it that way (I've heard of crawdads, crawfish, and even "craydads") but not mudbugs. What part of the country were you raised in?

You mean this building? http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Foodtown+Beechnut&sll=29.69029,-95.55625&sspn=0.017038,0.032401&ie=UTF8&ll=29.688183,-95.558181&spn=0.004259,0.0081&t=h&z=17 Cool. I think I've seen it (in passing) last January.

I heard the HOV lane technically costs money to drive on, even if you have more than one person in a car! Is this true? (I also heard Houston wanted to convert all the HOV lanes to toll lanes anyway, so is this it? )

I'm glad we don't power our cars on milk.

Er...."Meow", matey?

I see. The product mix sounds suspiciously similar to the H-E-B Plus stores, which are scattered throughout Texas (including one in Waco, though I'm sure there are some in Houston). Side note: in 2003, H-E-B opened a store in Laredo with a small Payless ShoeSource inside. Haven't heard of anything like it yet. Ed: Have you ever been to a bigg's in the Ohio area? I know my brother lives in Michigan, where he has access to Meijer. Lucky.

Recently I was reading about Auchan and other French hypermarkets on Wikipedia. I know Carrefour had a few New Jersey locations, but not Auchan! Anyway, I'm a bit intrigued. How big were they? And what exactly did they sell (besides food?) And where were they located?

The wall of the Albertson's facing Wal-Mart is now ripped out. Cool!

See, this is what I mean...everyone on this board seems to indicate "Hey, I'm moderate, it's those radicals on the other side that's causing problems!" Guess what? Everyone is believing that, even me. It's just to decide now which side is telling the truth! (Everyone's answer: "I am!")

Well, somewhere in the Nixon-Kennedy line, things switched so that the Republicans were more conservative, and Democrats were more liberal. The radical divisions started sometime in the 1990s and only worsened with Bush and Obama. That said, what is "normal politics" now?