Houston ER.org meeting 9/26/10

[ronocnikral]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Texas Proud We have enough people around here that wear flip flops that you see them all the time... I remember a long time ago there was someone who posted a pic with them wearing them with socks...

growing up in minnesota, it was acceptable in my small junior high to wear socks with sandals. when i moved to arizona, i found out this was regarded as an unforgiveable fashion faux pas, along with wearing shorts all year round.

it's also acceptable to wear flip flops to the white house, i remember a softball team sporting flip flops in 1600.

i wear what i like to restaurants around here...

[HFWR]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nords ..."t-shirt, shorts, & slippers"...

My wardrobe much of the time...

[Rustic23]

No shoes, No service! That's about the extent of the foot ware police.

[Purron]

Ahhh....slippers=flip flops. Thanks. DH and I wear flips pretty much year round. Do slip on some boots when the snow's over 12" though.

[LOL!]

flops are what kids call them nowadays, as in "I wore my flops in the car, then changed into my cleats at practice."

[Purron]

Quote:

Originally Posted by LOL! flops are what kids call them nowadays, as in "I wore my flops in the car, then changed into my cleats at practice."

Anyone remember calling flip-flops zories? That was the term we used back when I was a kid about a gillion years ago

[SarahW]

I thought I'd post to let the attendees know that I won't be at the meet. I'm leaving this evening for Austin to visit my daughters at UT. I'm not sure what time I'll be back in town on Sunday evening, so I'll send my regrets. Hope you all have a blast!

[haha]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Purron Anyone remember calling flip-flops zories? That was the term we used back when I was a kid about a gillion years ago

That is the Japanese term, the Japanese even have socks with the big toe separate from the rest of the sock to allow wearing with zoris.

When I was young we called them whore boots, as my town had a big prostitution and gambling industry. None of us had ever seen this footwear except on prostitutes, going out in their mumus of a morning to buy their milk and eggs.

Some time later in LA I saw that everyone wore them to the beach, and that they were called zoris.

Ha

[Nords]

Our kid seems to be doing great, although she won't have her four-week exam grades until next week. I'm gonna predict that we launched this one and she's not coming back.

She likes civil engineering, she likes NROTC, and she's putting up with the "big three" of chemistry, physics, and calculus. Chemistry & physics labs have been tacked on to that schedule. (The Kumon math program and the high-school AP classes are beginning to pay off.) 16 credit hours with 12 hours/week mandatory study (courtesy of NROTC) and another 10 or so with various TAs & study groups. She's made a good group of friends (who actually want to be in school!) and the NROTC unit seems to be doing a fine job.

The rest of the visit is going well. We attended a hilarious physics class on Friday. (College is lots of fun when you're auditing. The other students shared substantially less of my enjoyment.) We got the usual campus tour and dorm-room redesign seminars. We survived a life-threatening torrential downpour that came out of nowhere yesterday around noon, thoroughly soaked us during a five-minute hike to the Jones servery, and then cleared up as soon as we'd gotten under shelter. No, I didn't pack an umbrella, I never get rained on like that in Hawaii.

Houston traffic is, to put it politely, insane.

We'll be at Saturday's 11 AM powderpuff football game followed by the 4:30 PM tailgater BBQ for the Rice-Baylor game. I've been informed that we won't be at the evening game due to urgent shopping-related dorm-room deficiencies. (My gosh does Hawaii need an IKEA.) Apparently these same shopping issues will require most of Sunday to resolve, and of course I'll see the ER chapter group that afternoon!

[Leonidas]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nords Houston traffic is, to put it politely, insane.

You would not have enjoyed it in the late 70's and early 80's. It's much mo' betta now. Still insane, of course, but it actually flows now.

[RonBoyd]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nords Houston traffic is, to put it politely, insane.

Insane? How would you describe Honolulu's traffic then? You are lucky, then, not be driving in the worst of them all; DFW. Minneapolis, BTW, is also at the top of my list of worst traffic areas. Houston is (IMO) one of the easiest cities to get around in... even during Rush "Hour."

[Nords]

I'll cheerfully admit that I do my driving among the nation's worst. Hawaii driver behavior is worthy of an entire separate thread.

To be fair, I manage to avoid driving in NYC, LA, and Chicago. Haven't been to Boston since the 1980s. So Houston may compare favorably to its larger Mainland brethren.

The Houston differences that I see are:
- Speed limits-- a couple short stretches of Oahu highways are 60 MPH, and most highway drivers keep it below 65 MPH. Houston drivers seem to regard 65 MPH as the minimum starting point for subsequent negotiations. Maybe that's a Mainland thing.
- People seem to honk their horns a lot. I'm doing 60 MPH in the slow lane and the other driver presumably knows how to change lanes. So why the horn? But horn-honking in Hawaii is an egregious etiquette sin and maybe in Houston it's a compliment.
- 610 seems to have a lot of curves with limited sight distance, especially the ones where you whip around at high speed to encounter a multi-lane parking lot.
- Hawaii has a lot fewer jaywalkers than a couple years ago. In Houston they still seem to be breeding faster than they're getting run down by Darwin. But this research is based mainly on Rice Villages.
- Oahu uses a lot of cloverleafs, so the exiting cars leave the road before the merging cars get on. But Oahu also has some merging onramps combined with exit offramps, and these contribute to a lot of lane-changing accidents. Houston seems to have almost exclusively combined ramps... unusually exciting after cloverleafs.

I like the way the route numbers are painted on the road surface.

[LOL!]

Interesting about the horn honking. I've never heard a horn honked on the freeway. And the slow lane is usually 70 mph, not 60 mph.

Oh. here's a tip: Don't use your turn signal or you will throw off the timing of the guy behind you.

[ronocnikral]

my observation of houston traffic is everyone falls into two categories when it comes to interstate speed. 1) is going at least 10 mph over the speed limit. 2) is going at least 10 mph under the speed limit. This, to me, is the most dangerous of situations. i usually stick around 10 over, avoid the far left lane and let it roll. cops with radar guns seem to find this behavior acceptable.

using a turn signal will only assure the space you want to merge into will quickly disappear.

i only noticed the horn honking when i started riding my bike. people are annoyed by me riding my bike on the road. as if honking a horn will change my actions. i enjoy being able to point out the "share the road" signs if possible. there is only one way to experience houston traffic, and that's on a bike.

i use to complain about houston traffic until i started visiting Luanda. They have about as many people as the houston metro area (5-6 million) all shoved into something the size of the loop. it's better to measure your speed in traffic by hours per mile. i have never complained about the houston traffic since then.

glad to hear the daughter is doing well and enjoying school.

[Nords]

Quote:

Originally Posted by LOL! Oh. here's a tip: Don't use your turn signal or you will throw off the timing of the guy behind you.

Oops, that explains a lot. Using a lane-changing turn signal in Hawaii can inspire the guy in the other lane to slam on his brakes to let you in.

You wouldn't think that there'd be much of a difference in decision-making between 55 MPH and 65 MPH, but in a new environment it can get pretty exciting.

[Orchidflower]

THE capital of horn honking HAS to be innercity Chicago. The second--and I do mean the second--the light turns to green there is bound to be someone behind you honking the horn as if you didn't see it turn green. That's just typical innercity Chicago over-aggressiveness. I found Houston alot better than Chicago when it came to honking, frankly.

But I'm laughing at two things Nords noticed in Houston: yep, the rain comes down torrentially in Houston. You get used to the tropical nature of it all eventually and don't even notice after a few years there. Cools things off and sometimes is really welcome in that humid environ.
And driving 65? Houstonians consider driving that slow just a "suggestion."

When I moved to Houston a realtor I met told me that Houston was the only city in America that you could drive down the main street in town (Westheimer St.), go 55 and not get a ticket. I think she was right.

Did you notice there are no Police cars hardly around, too? Too much land, not enough Police to cover it all. Houston was the biggest city in America landwise last time I looked and something like 50 miles across either way you go (N-S, W-E).

Sometimes I actually miss the quirks of 'ole Houston...

[RonBoyd]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nords You wouldn't think that there'd be much of a difference in decision-making between 55 MPH and 65 MPH, but in a new environment it can get pretty exciting.

I quite agree. I cannot imagine trying to drive in a large unfamiliar city without one of the upper echelon GPS units.

Garmin-1.JPG Garmin-2.JPG

[W2R]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nords Houston traffic is, to put it politely, insane.

I don't like driving on the freeways in Houston either, Nords.

I used to be sent to conferences and meetings there every two months (or sometimes more often) by my work. I'd usually arrive there at dusk and would find myself hurtling down a strange freeway in downtown Houston in the dark, trying to dodge the crazies and simultaneously figure out where in the )(*&%$ I was with a map that I couldn't see in the fading daylight. This, while driving a tiny, rattling ultra-cheap "government rate" rental car with cryptic controls.

Eventually I wised up and started requesting a motel located right by the Westheimer exit from the Sam Houston Tollway, which I could access right near Hobby Field. That was MUCH better, when the meetings were in that part of town. When they were downtown, I started using an airport shuttle instead of driving.

Leonidas is right - - Houston traffic was much worse in the 80's, believe it or not.

One of the advantages of retirement is that I haven't had any reason to drive in Houston.

[Htown Harry]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nords - People seem to honk their horns a lot. I'm doing 60 MPH in the slow lane and the other driver presumably knows how to change lanes. So why the horn? But horn-honking in Hawaii is an egregious etiquette sin and maybe in Houston it's a compliment.

One other cultural difference to watch for - I suspect the Hawaiian driver occasionally sticks a hand out the window and waves appreciation with the Hang Loose sign.

There's an excellent chance of Honkin' Bubba not appreciating the subtle differences in digit placement.

[Nords]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Htown Harry One other cultural difference to watch for - I suspect the Hawaiian driver occasionally sticks a hand out the window and waves appreciation with the Hang Loose sign. There's an excellent chance of Honkin' Bubba not appreciating the subtle differences in digit placement.

Hoo boy, I'm a marked man now.

I just hope they don't follow me into the restaurant...

Quote:

Originally Posted by RonBoyd I quite agree. I cannot imagine trying to drive in a large unfamiliar city without one of the upper echelon GPS units.

I'm a bit conflicted on this, having experienced two navigators in the last few days.

Old school: spouse reading a road map while I call off the intersections. She DRs our position, estimates number of blocks to the next turn, and generally ensures we're heading in the right direction while staying clear of shoal water.

New school: teenager who's never had to read a real map follows the bouncing blue ball on her iPhone with Google Maps. Calls out the street signs to me as I'm passing them but can't zoom/shift the map fast enough to look ahead. Says "Turn left, NOW!!" just as I finish crossing the intersection. Offers helpful advice like "I can't tell where we are, but we're not heading in the right direction", and "I'm not sure, but from the blue dot we're either on the highway or on the frontage road". Then the pressure really started to mount when we were informed that battery power was 20% and the charger was back at the dorm. Any naval vessel would have run aground while looking for a power supply or a new set of batteries.

The good new is that we saw many interesting Houston neighborhoods along La Branch street. Saw a lot of Houston PD vehicles, too.

I appreciate the potential in new school, but I'm still a big fan of the old...