Outside The Galleria in Houston

Macy's and west end of The Galleria in Houston

My business trip to Houston last weekend was a lot of fun, and a chance to visit my parents, sisters, and other family members for the first time in many months. But alas, it was still a business trip, so business was conducted. Monday night, our business partners took me and three colleagues to a wonderful Mexican cantina on Richmond Avenue, called El Tiempo. What a fantastic place. There were a variety of meats on a hot grill brought to the table, including steak, chicken, pork, shrimp, lobster, ribs, and quail; accompanied by freshly made tortillas. Even though it is winter, it is also Houston, so we sat outside on the patio and enjoyed a pleasant Houston winter evening. El Tiempo is owned and operated by the Laurenzo family, whose mother used to run the famous Ninfa's Mexican restaurants in Houston years ago.

The next day (Tuesday) we went to the company's office in the Galleria area of Uptown Houston. We met in a conference room on the 10th floor of a building looking out over the Galleria to our east. The photo above is the view from the conference room, and since it was taken with the camera phone, it isn't as clear as a dedicated camera would take. Still, it gives you an idea of the view. A full panorama, which this doesn't show, would have been nice. Of course you can see The Galleria's west entrance and the ever present Williams Tower (formerly Transco Tower, which I have written about before). You could also see the skylines of Greenway Plaza, Downtown Houston, and in the distance, the Texas Medical Center. Spectacular!

Leaving our meeting and heading to Bush Intercontinental Airport for the return trip to Denver, I also used the camera phone to grab the shot below. It is taken through curved window glass of our rental van, so the Galleria II tower looks a bit wavy! This is one of the north entrances to The Galleria, and of course Williams Tower. This is one of my favorite areas of Houston.


North entrance to The Galleria, with Williams Tower standing tall

Fill 'Er Up?

An old service station in Hempstead, Texas

One thing that has always held a fascination to me is service stations. My dad tells me that when I could barely talk, I could recognize and name the various brands. Over the years, the architecture of stations has evolved, including some very nice art deco style stations in the pre-World War II era. Even though the "service" is long gone from what are today self-serve pumps, the basic idea of an refueling island has remained a constant.

The photo above is a vintage service station that is situated on old US 290 in Hempstead, Texas. As new 290 (Houston's Northwest Freeway) has finally bypassed the town, it is having an impact on businesses on the old route. I don't know how long it has been since gasoline has been dispensed from here, but the pumps are long gone. It appears to be a tire business, but has no sign; and the post that once held a sign proclaiming a brand of gasoline, now holds a tall stack of old, painted tires. The ubiquitous Halsey Taylor water cooler is plugged in, but as this was taken on Sunday afternoon, it is hard to tell if there is still a business operating at this location.

Regardless of its current status, I hope this example of roadside American architecture ends up being restored rather than falling to demolition. A coat of white paint and a bit of TLC could make this a great home for some small business.

Tea Anyone?

Martha's Bloomers big teapot

Just outside of Navasota, Texas, is an interesting place. Martha's Bloomers is a unique shop, with flowers, antiques, garden and decorative items, and a tea shop where you can go inside and have a light meal and some tea. Martha's Bloomers is one of Southern Living Magazine's Top 50 Shops, and if you are traveling on Texas Highway 6 through Navasota, you cannot miss it. The location has a large teapot sitting on the grounds, making it easy to find.

One thing I enjoy is the variety of advertising used by businesses to draw the attention of travelers passing by, and this teapot is a great example of roadside Americana that increasingly is going by the wayside as homogeneity and chain stores take over the landscape. I only wish that I was hungry when we got to Martha's Bloomers, as I would have enjoyed sampling their fare. I suppose that will have to wait for another day, but if you make it down to Navasota, stop in and give it a try. I have a suspicion that you won't be disappointed.

Moo!

A white Texas Longhorn wonders what is going on.

On Sunday, I took a drive from Houston, Texas to Bryan, Texas for a lunch with about 14 other family members. Along the way there, I noticed this beautiful animal standing in a pasture beside Texas Highway 6 just north of the town of Hempstead. As we had a rendezvous time with the others, I made a mental note of where he was so that I could return on the way back to Houston to get his picture.

So on the way back, I found him still grazing, and pulled over to the side of the highway. My sister got out and started calling loudly to him, "Hey! Hey bully!", so when he looked up to see what all the commotion was, I got a few pictures. Given that a longhorn steer this size could be dangerous, we didn't stray too far from the car.

One thing I noticed is that his head seems disproportionately small when compared to his massive body. Perhaps he is still young, but those are a fine set of horns on this big boy!

Get On Board, Or Get Left Behind

And we're on a fast roll here. As expected, Paramount and Universal Pictures have now stated they are jumping off HD DVD and onto the Blu-Ray Express! Finally, HD consumers will not have to sit by until this sorts itself out!

CLICK HERE for the story

An Interesting Day

MSNBC.com's home page this afternoon

In my last post, I talked about the apparently-coming demise of Toshiba's HD DVD video format. Indeed, the writing was on the wall, and today Toshiba pulled the plug on its competitor to Sony's Blu-Ray technology. So it's now official, and I expect we will soon see the holdouts (Universal, Dreamworks, Paramount, & Microsoft) shift over to the Blu-Ray camp.

With so much going on today, I thought it prudent to capture the MSNBC home page for posterity. Not only do we have the HD DVD demise, but also:

• The start of the hostile proxy takeover of Yahoo! by Microsoft
• The resignation of the ailing Cuban dictator, Fidel Castro, who has been in charge of that island nation since the Eisenhower administration (10 U.S. Presidents)
• The showdown in Wisconsin between the first two viable woman and African-American candidates for President of the United States

All in all, an interesting news day.

Second Chance Victory a Bit Too Late

The folks at Sony have to be loving this. Decades after their technically-superior BetaMax VCR format lost the marketing battle with VHS (Video Home System), the advent of high definition television has given them a second chance. Their Blu-Ray format for high definition DVD disks is gaining lots of momentum against the competing Toshiba HD DVD standard. WalMart has just joined the list of companies that will only support Blu-Ray, a list that includes Netflix, Best Buy, and Warner Brothers. I now believe it is only a matter of a few weeks before the plug is pulled on HD DVD, and its supporters switch over to Blu-Ray.

Until their was a clear winner, there was never going to be mass acceptance of either. The studios and consumer electronics companies choose a side, leaving the consumer caught in the middle, and unable to watch programs from providers using the platform they didn't select. There is no doubt that the broad penetration into the market of the next generation of DVD has been hampered by these incompatible, competing systems.

I actually despise market-driven "standards" wars. I believe the reason AM Stereo broadcasting never took off was the fact that the FCC declined to set the standard, leaving four different and incompatible systems, to be deployed. As consumers didn't know what system would win, they stayed away, and AM Stereo is a non-starter. The FCC used to step up and do its job, as when they mandated radios over a certain price point include FM tuners; or when they mandated TV manufacturers to include UHF tuners. These decisions allowed broadcasters to expand services with the expectation that their programming could actually be delivered.

So now, it appears that like VHS before it, Blu-Ray will come out the champ, giving Sony a win in the next generation of home entertainment. However, it could also be a hollow victory. With broadband, satellite, and cable delivery of programming; coupled with "on-demand" programs; will we continue to be interested in getting programs on physical plastic disks? When you can plug an external hard drive into a DVR, building a virtually limitless library of programming, why do you want to store boxes of disks? It could be that the Blu-Ray win will ultimately be the last victory in the battle for dominance in the physical delivery of entertainment.

A Sad End

Last weekend, I posted on this blog about finding some of my old classmates from years ago had died. I also mentioned that the class bully was one of them, and how I hoped he had found some peace from whatever issues he was dealing with. Today, I did a little research on the web, and sadly, this was not the case.

This particular person was always looking for trouble, threatening those around him, and generally just a horrible person. As it turns out, about 20 years ago, he was murdered by multiple gunshots after having threatened others with a gun. I won't go into the details, but there was an estranged common-law wife, her new boyfriend, another guy, and alcohol involved in all this.

In our early teen years back in junior and senior high school, he was always looking for trouble. Sad to say, it appears he never changed, and finally found more trouble than he counted on.

Atlanta Signs

What does this place sell?

Monday night I landed at Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson airport for a series of business meetings the following day. While it was a very short and busy trip in and out of town (just over 24 hours), I am always on the lookout for interesting things. Knowing the brevity of the journey, I didn't bring my good cameras, but as always, I had my trusty Moto-Q smart phone with me, and managed to pick up a few photos with its camera.

The photo above is the storefront for a newsstand on Concourse D in Atlanta. It seems that it probably is called "News Exchange", but with the "S" being a little larger, along with undefined spacing on the sign, and it looks like it could be "New Sex Change". Not sure if I want to go in there or not! Yikes!

The next picture was taken from the middle row of seats in a minivan that our entourage had rented, so it is not as good as I would have liked, but these signs called out to my inner road geek. The font is unusual. It doesn't look like either standard Highway Gothic or Clearview. It looks like a bold and tall version of Highway Gothic, and I have to say, I found it easier to read than either of the other two normal fonts found on Big Green Signs. Very legible!


Big Green Signs on northbound stretch of duplexed I-75 & I-85 in downtown Atlanta

While not an official sign of any type, this next one made me laugh. It was posted above the urinal in the men's room at the company we were visiting. It looks like it originally admonished you to "respect your peers", but some strategically applied white-out had changed the message.


Respect your pee and it will respect you!

Finally, there was the sign I saw on a building in Buckhead that had been similarly changed. We went by too fast for me to get a photo, but you can imagine what the Buckhead sign said!

Year of the Rat

Head of a dragon

Thursday was the Chinese New Year, marking the beginning of the Year of the Rat. Today, we went to a cultural celebration of the event, featuring a talented group of dancers and musicians. There were firecrackers, dragons, drums and more. The dragons stomping and the noise of the firecrackers exploding were used in ancient Chinese culture to frighten evil spirits away and to ring in a happy and prosperous new year. Here are some pictures I took of this colorful and joyous celebration. As always, click on the photos for a larger version.


Dragon on the move


What's a Chinese New Year without a gong?


Drummers worked hard keeping the pace


A cymbal player


A dancer with a dragon head


A purple dragon makes his rounds


A young fellow shows me his dragon puppet


Boys doing what boys do with sparklers

A Surprising Discovery on the Web

While surfing around the web, I came upon a site put up by some people who had a class reunion last year. The reunion was a bit interesting to me, because it was from the high school where I attended 9th and half of the 10th grade. I actually knew my classmates there from the 7th grade, since we also attended junior high school together. If my dad hadn't been transferred, I would have graduated with these kids.

The thing that surprised me, but probably should not have, is that there was a page dedicated to those who have died over the years. There were 13 out of this small class that have died, and the pictures and names gave me a moment of surprise. You see, I have not kept up with anyone from either high school I attended, although I remember many of them from those years in the late 1960s and early 1970s. But somehow, in the back of my mind, I always think of them all as living their lives out somewhere, wondering what type of people they became.

So beyond the shock of finding out that these 13 kids died somewhere over the passing years, was who they were. As I didn't grow up with them from early childhood, I didn't have many close friends there, but I did have a few, and all of them on this list of the deceased were people I knew. One was the class bully. Another was a girl who lived a few houses down from me who was a pretty good friend in those days. It makes you wonder. Did the bully ever resolve his issues and become a nice person before meeting his demise? How did all of these people die, and how young or old were they at the time? Were they the victims of a disease, accident, or did some die at the hands of a murderer, or perhaps in Vietnam?

In any case, I am sorry to learn that these former classmates are gone.

The GOP Eating Its Own

It is interesting to see the wheels starting to come off of the religious nutcase political machine. Could this be the end of the love affair between the evangelical right and the GOP? Yesterday, James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, a political group masquerading as a Christian ministry, said he will not vote in the November general election if John McCain is the Republican nominee. Hopefully his blind sheep will follow his example in staying away from the polls, giving a progressive candidate an even better shot at winning.

Dobson endorsed Mike Huckabee, who has about as much chance of winning his party's nomination as Hillary Clinton has of switching back to the Republican Party.

Then we have the other bigoted media whores, Rush Limbaugh and Ann "the man" Coulter saying they won't vote for McCain either. Seems that for all these folks, McCain is a dreaded "liberal". I usually ignore what this bunch has to say, but this time I am hoping they keep it up. Maybe with a little luck, the Dobsonites, Dittoheads, and general right-wing loonies will stay home in November! Despite the calls for unity, the GOP is fractured, and the crack is growing wider.