Re: geez

cry me a river ;-) I was out of the country last week enjoying some glorious 70 degree weather, and when I returned to Dallas last friday afternoon it was 98! Since I hadn't check the weather while I was gone I was a bit surprised to say the least. All last weekend was in the mid to upper

90's.

Nothing better than late summer weather in mid-May. Damn those melting ice caps ;-)

Reply to
Cato
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Late summer weather in Mid May? It has been getting to the 40's at night, and we will have a high of lower sizties over the weekend. What summer weather???

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Reply to
P.Fritz

Enjoy it while it last, it must be a beating in the winter though. Down here in northern Mexico (or as some call it Texas) we just had our usual 2 weeks of spring and jump right into summer. We usually have about 6 months of summer, 5 months of winter, and fall and spring fight it out for the remaining scraps.

Reply to
Cato

Enjoy it????? What the hell is there to enjoy sitting on a boat in 50 degree weather????? The season is short enough as it is without this lingering cold.

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Reply to
P.Fritz

I think it's a case of the grass always being greener. When it's 98 here I'd kill for 50. Too much of a 'good' thing can be a problem.

What the hell is there to enjoy sitting on a boat in 50

Maybe about the same amount of enjoyment you get out of playing golf in

98 degrees. Everyone's gotta fight their battles for recreation ;-)

The season is short enough as it is without this

Reply to
Cato

So I guess you should take up boating, and I should take up golf :-)

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Reply to
P.Fritz

"Cato" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com:

The high here has been around 56, with rain... By the time I actually move to Houston (mid-June), I'll prob. go nito shock!

Right now, looks like the sun is tryign to break through - mayeb I'll actually be able to finish mowing the dang lawn (jeez I detest lawns...)

Reply to
Kris Krieger

aahhh, Houston in the summertime, a veritable paradise. That's is if paradise comes with high temperatures coupled with a wonderful amount of humidity thrown in to make you feel all warm and fuzzy(or maybe that's sticky, I always forget). Give me a root canal anyday ;-)

Reply to
Cato

I lived in Houston years ago and always called it the "armpit of America". I've lived in lots of cities the U.S. (and visited others) and Houston is the one place I would not want to go back to. There certainly are nice parts of Texas (San Ant., Dallas, Abilene, etc.) but you couldn't pay me enough to live in Houston!

Reply to
Michael (LS)

I wouldn't personally call it an armpit, but that doesn't mean I would want to live there either. I go all there time (I was just there a couple of weeks ago), and there are some nice parts to the city. I just can't take the weather. I don't like feeling I need to take a shower all the time due to the humidity. The same reason I would never want to live in Miami(well at least one of the many reasons). It must have an appeal to some people though, I read recently that it had surpassed Chicago as the third largest city in the US. I assume that must be including a lot of the suburbs because metropolitan Chicago seems much larger to me IMHO.

Reply to
Cato

Yeah, if you're stupid (or broke) enough to hang around outdoors all day long in July you're right.

But Houston has long been known as the most air-conditioned city in the US. Indoors, it's always nice and comfy. Has been since the 1950s. Something to think about before knocking this city.

Reply to
Adam Weiss

To my knowledge, Houston still has a long way to go before it surpasses Chicago as the third largest city in the US. Houston's population is around 2 million. Chicago has 2.8 million.

Also bear in mind that Houston has annexed most of its suburbs. Chicago hasn't. It means that while the city of Houston's population ranks 4th in the US (After New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago), the Houston metropolitan area ranks much lower - tenth in the US, after New York, LA, Chicago, DC, San Fransisco, Philadelphia, Boston, Detroit, and Dallas/Fort Worth.

If you judge a city by its looks and its maintenance, then yes, Houston is an armpit. Granted, that's not a complete way to look at a city (you also have to consider housing prices, jobs, cultural and recreational opportunities, etc.) And as far as armpits go, Houston's not bad. Have you ever seen the armpit of New York City - the South Bronx? I have. Or how about many mid-sized formerly industrial now shot-to-hell cities on the East Coast - New Britain Connecticut for example, or Lewiston Maine? Been there. Wouldn't want to go back...

Reply to
Adam Weiss

Perhaps. Southern Florida is perhaps the only place in the US that's hotter and more humid than Houston Texas in the summer.

The thing that people don't realize about Houston (and I'll bet southern Florida, too) is that the unpleasant heat and humidity is only during 2 or 3 months in the summer. The rest of the year it's -gasp- NICE! Temps in the 70s. Sunny alot of the time.

I like to look at it this way. New York has nice weather in the spring, summer, and fall. But they have a few months in the winter when it's torturously cold. By moving to Houston I just replaced the cold months in the dead of winter with hot months in the dead of summer. Here, fall, winter, and spring are the nice months.

Reply to
Adam Weiss

"Cato" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:

Heh. But I've lived in Columbia, SC and in Maryland, so hot'n'humid at least isn't anything new. Where I am now in MA, it's also incredibly humid

- plus the mosquitoes are like a plague, esp. since the property backs up onto a swamp. So, to cut the lawn or do other yard work, it has to be a cool (50's or maybe 60's) and cloudy day - since I'm highly allergic to both grass and bites/stings ((and I don't mean, 'oooh, I have a little itch' -- I mean, I get silver-dollar-sized hives that sometimes blister and can last for up to 2 weeks or more even when I *do* put bleach on the bites (to help neutralize the mosquito spit) and take allergy pills and use neosporin and so on =>:-p )), I have to cover myself pretty muich from head to toe, take 2 allergy pills, and then coat myself with DEET - but I'm hypersensitive to that also, so I have to dress in layers and only spray the outside layers. The onyl thing sticking out is the very front of my face, and the DEET I have to put thre is still enought to make me ill, so I can't work in the yard very long.

((Of course I am nevertheless compelled to dig and plant and arrange, and then go out to enjoy the flora and resulting fauna in my yard ;) I enjoy seeing the little toads living in the ornamental grasses; then we get some garter snakes and so on, and huge crows - IMO corvids are fascinating - as well as a whole slew of other types of birds, esp. songbirds =:-D, and the entire chain-of-life thing going on - so, although I *could* just hit the whole yard with poison and so on, I try to avoid using chemicals because then you don't get any wildlife, and IMO a yard without wildlife is sterile and depressing and ugly. So although it's an annoyance to be allergic to what you love, as the saying goes, love conquers all, so there ya go ;) ))

So at any rate, to me, the simple thing of not having plagues of mosquitoes does just about sound like paradise... Even it it was hot, *at least* if the mosquitoes aren't bad (and they do seem to be controlled where we'll be), I wouldn't have to go thorugh the crap of all the layers (because I wouldn't have to use DEET) and could get away with just the allergy pills.

Which is one reason why I so loved living in the semi-arid climate inland from Pasadena in CA. Well, I also think the desert is beautiful, and it smells good :) . Also, when it's really dry (under 10% humidity) my body seems to work like it's supposed to, so I'm comfortable up to about 90, and still operational between 90 and 100; tho' I was even able, in s. CA, to go for long walks when the thermometer registered 104, although I did have to stay in the shade, and always carried a large bottle of water or orange juice with a pinch of salt (for potassium and sodium). So, yeah, I do still yearn to return to the desert/semi-desert. And still daydream about my Desert House and trying to meld my ideas into a design/plan ;)

OTOH, I'm also determined to make the best I can of wherever we end up living. Even in southern California, people found a way to gripe and whine abotu the weather, and that just irritated and annoyed me - so I do try to not do things that I fond irritating in others (but there's still a lot fo rom for improvement =:-o ). I think it's simply that people are never happy, no matter what the situation is and even no matter how good they have it. So I'm determined to *try* to not be like that, and instead make the most of whatever situation in which I find myself.

Tho' the mosquitoes here do make that difficult !

MEANWHILE, I'm always trying to gather up tidbits re: what kinds of buildings do well in a given climate, so, if we end up staying there, I'm already filing some todbits into the "hot'n'humid climate" category.

Which of course includes garden accoutrements , such as arbors and so on, that would have a reasonable lifespan in the climate. I've *already* bought several books on landscaping in the Coastal Gulf States areas, and 2 specifically for Houston

Which is another thing. What I remember from South Carolina was that,

*because* of the humidity and the warmth, you could do some *spectacular* plantscaping! My biggest frustration, actually, about looking for places in the Houston area is that the yards are so *small*. Of course, if I had my way (and a heck of a lot fo $$...), I'd just go ahead and have my own botanical garden
Reply to
Kris Krieger

Adam Weiss wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@blockspam.org:

Housing is *much* lower than it is here in MA - and California, holy moly!, I dunno who can afford to live there anymore, at least southern CA...

The parts I saw of Houston (the west and northwest) looked just fine to me. There are a lot fo new-looking buildings towards the city center, there are a lot fo trees, the roads (unlike her in MA) were overall well-maintained, and mostly fairly straight; the place overall looked quite clean (i.e. not a lot of litter or junk lying around), and so on.

It's not as dense as NYC (which I grew up fairly close to) and it wasn't as polluted as, say, northern NJ. The neighborhoods I saw seemed fairly quiet and peaceful. Just about anything will grow there. And, if summer is bad, at least the other seasons aer nice. And no damn snow to shovel. Also, my arthrtis didn't bother me as much there - int hat regard, warmer is always better ;) .

I have heard that eastern Houston, where the refineries and so on are located, is rougher, but I grew up living near refineries so I tend to avoid those areas.

So, I'm trying to accentuate the positive and *not* go into the situation (i.e. moving there) with the predetermintion that it'll just totally suck...

Reply to
Kris Krieger

It is cheap to live here. Rent is cheap. Houses to buy are cheap. Not only does it make it much easier on young people starting their careers, it also means that peoples homes don't stand to fall very far in value when the housing bubble bursts (the prices aren't nearly as inflated as they are elsewhere). It's much smarter to buy a $180,000 house in Houston at this point than to buy a comparable house for $500,000 in the New York metro area.

Southwest Houston is even nicer than West and Northwest. I live in Braeswood near the Texas Medical Center, and I love it.

The roads depend on where you are and who maintains them. I don't know how it works in MA, but here in Houston there are no fewer than five bureaucracies maintaining roads and transit in the city. (Don, don't flip, it wasn't my idea). TX DOT does a reasonable job at keeping our highways well maintained and clean (not free of traffic mind you, I meant free of potholes) But the city offices that maintain surface streets had their funding cut by former mayor Lee Brown, and they're falling further and further behind every day.

Downtown Houston, with its density, is slowly coming back, too. There are more and more bars and older office buildings are being renovated into condos one after the other.

East Houston is less wealthy than west Houston. I'd compare alot of it, at least the area around the University of Houston on the southeast side, to Southie in Boston.

Houston isn't a bad place to live. If you could see the positive in visiting, you'll love living here. I hated this place when I first visited it. It's grown on me in the 7 years that I've lived here, and at this point I don't see myself moving any time soon.

Reply to
Adam Weiss

Adam Weiss wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@blockspam.org:

Yup. I've seen a couple of bubbles fall when I was living where the fall occurred. It isn't pretty.

I remain convinced that a burst will happen in CA as well - I don't know how people can afford to live there if they're not making six figures.

What I hate most is when people let a place fall to guano, and then *still* expect a king's ransom for what has become a total dump.

I thought that was Central, not that I really know tho' , just going by the real estate maps. Looks like we might end up in the near NW tho', at least for now; there are 2 very nice rental houses under consideration. The offer to buy the one place fell through because each new inspection turned up yet another area where lazy neglect bacame a case of "penny wise, pound foolish", exceot that the pounds were going to fall to the buyer. So we said, Forget That.

Hopefully, the owners of which-ever rental house will let me do some gardening ;) ! The advantage tor enting is that you have a place to live but can look around an area at your leisure. Also whether the job will work out. If that ends up being a long-term residence, who knows, maybe a nice bit of land will turn up

Just barely!

Just going by what I saw (and didn't feel!), the roads there are still much better.

I also did some online research and there are resources where I can get native and exotic hardwoods, also a few that evidently offer classes in stained glass, glassblowing, metalworking, and so on and so forth.

Bars/clubs aren't at all my 'thing', but I'm excited that there seem to be a number of art/craft supply places because that's what I love to do, try my hand at all sorts of ways to make things. I've been running through graph papaer diagraming the various projects I want to build (or to be accurate, *try* to build !), so that's what I'm excited about. Well, of course, also my oft-beaten-dead-horse (i.e. landscaping/gardening).

I enjoyed my visit. Of course it didn't go over the mid-70's then But I've been to the Cape Canaveral area during the Winter and it seems Houston will be similar, so I'll certainly like that, especially if tehre are some nature preserves and botanical gardens around and I can get back into Photography now that my eye seems to have settled down.

There do seem to be several arts/crafts venues there, so I'm *hoping* that I can settle down and maybe start getting into a show here and there. Main problem is focusing on a few particular media/techniques, also getting away from concentrating on house-related things, but all in all, I'm hoping to have enough space in a place there to actualy build some of my designs for various items and from various materials.

Which is of course heavily influenced by the cost of living. What you get there for $300K is *much* different than what you get here for the price. Same with rent - one of the places under consideration is something like

3700 or 3800 sq ft, 10 yrs old, with a private pool, an actual workshop, and room (if permitted) for a fair amount of gardening, for $2200/month; whereas here, from what we saw for that price, you get, like, a 2-BR apartment (or maybe 3-BR, if the place is cheesy) that doesn't even have a balcony. Well, OK, it's true you might be able to find cheaper places around here, but we wouldn't necessarily want to live in them - what's livable when you're 22 is not always tolerable when you're 50.

The other thing is that Houston center (if you can say that - there seem to be several sub-centers, from what I saw) seems to be a whole heck of a huge lot more accessible than Boston, and ther are several newer buildings that would be interesting to see, prob. some older ones as well ;) . I also have to check the distance to the Grand Canyon. Also to places like Chaco Canyon and some of the other ancient sites, such as those Cliff Dwellings - all of those are also structures (well, remenants thereof...) that I want very much to see, photograph, and maybe even do some measurements if permitted (because I think they'd be great fun to model in 3D) (OK, I know, no big secret, they're buildings and I enjoy modeling buildings, nothing new there ). So there are some structures in the general geographical area that I'm also interestedin seeing, especially pueblos and the like. So that also a possibility that IMO is exciting.

So I guess the moral to the story is "one man's armpit is another man's..." um well actually, OTOH maybe I don't really want to go there.....

Let's just leave it at the buildings ;)

Reply to
Kris Krieger

"Don" wrote in news:Yh5me.9610$ snipped-for-privacy@newsread1.news.atl.earthlink.net:

For sure; there are several beneficial insects, I can;t remeber all teh atractors but that's why I buy so many books ;) .

Plus I like trying to photograph them - I like the challenge of it because they don't sit still a whole lot, but, if you can get the light just right, you can get a pretty photo. Esp. if you can get some of the bigger, brighter types.

I try to avoid using insecticides, because they are indescriminate and kill everything. I only use them occasionally, like, if I get an aphid infestation, but even there, a bit of dish detergent and some other ingredients will take care of them without poisoning your entire garden (and whtever other critters might be living in it).

I'll try to remember to look. One thing, tho'. is water with some plants, such as rushes. They lay their eggs right into the water, for which they need an open surface, but they look for palces that also offer cover for the nymphs. The nymphs are intense predators, and if I remember correctly, will even go after small fish and tadpoles. Now, i know that a bit of oil on the surface of water will kill mosquitoe larvae (they smother), but I don't know whether/how it might affect damselfly and dragonfly nymphs.

I read that they use a substance derived from a strain of good old Bacillus thuringensis , which is specific for mosquitoes :)

I've heard those work great, is that true? I've also seen the "mosquito lamps" - not citronella, something that's supposed to be stronger, but I've no idea how they work. I never got any because moving has been in the works for a while, so I didn't invest in anything like that. I did get soem success using a setup with a lamp chimney, candles, a holder, and soem really ripe Romano cheese (tho' Limburger is suppsoed to be the king at attracting the bugs), so taht the rising sir would pull up the, er, "aroma" of the cheese into the dispersing CO2.

(("Stinky Cheese" supposedly contains a chemical also found is sweat that attracts mosquitoes even more strongly than CO2 - at least, I saw that on a Sceince Program channel, so i'm assuming they did a study or two on it - the show was a long special just about mosquitoes.))

That's really nice! I mean that. That's something I bet they'll always remember :) I think it's those "simple" (yet not really simple, in a way) things that are the most important.

Enjoy!

Reply to
Kris Krieger

Most of the sites I went and looked at confirmed that Houston is still no 4. I just remember hearing it on TV in the last year and being surprised because it didn't sound right. I did find some sites that said it is third as a population center (for whatever that's worth).

Reply to
Cato

Better get my air-conditioned body suit next time I go down there. I wouldn't want to be silly enough to actually step outside.

Maybe you should get that factoid to the Houston Visitors Center, It would make a great selling point to potential new residents.

BTW, I didn't knock the city just the weather, which does suck. I've been many times in different times of the year and I've never found the weather great or particularly comfortable. Many of my friends who live there say the same thing, including people who were born and raised there.

Reply to
Cato

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