We continued our flight generally flying over the 290 freeway. In addition to 2 nearby hospitals, there are dozens of “medical facilities” and doctors offices, including some at the front of my neighborhood. Sadly, it looks like they have cleared even more land & construction has stared on new buildings. I’m a sucker for convenience & the dozens of stores & restaurants in our area make life super-convenient, except for that whole horrific traffic thing.
You can see the new medical construction, but I still have no idea what the final product is going to be. The utility right-of-way sandwiched between my regular jogging trail at the park & an apartment complex is the fastest & easiest place to take the dogs out for a run if they need to get out. They keep it mowed fairly regularly during the summer & there’s never anybody else out there so they dogs can run around like crazy and occasionally jump in the bayou against my strict orders NOT to do so.
It’s an interesting mix around here- swanky new homes on a fancy blue lake, lots of older subdivisions with smaller homes & quite a few apartment complexes in this area mean there is a very high population density around here.
This is my office- a whopping 2 miles from my house & I am SOO spoiled by not having to fight the Houston traffic. I turn into a big baby if I have to anywhere that involves driving less than 50 mph. Funny back story: the building was a car dealership in the early 1990′s when this area was still waaaay out (outside the brand new beltway) & it was surrounded by nothing but grassy fields and birds for many years. My dad did the construction job to convert the buildings to office space & I actually helped him on my future office when I was 15 years old. I have distinct memories (which I have very few of!) hauling garbage, working on the roofs, hanging doors & trying to learn how to drive a stick shift (I failed at that one!) during the summer of 1995. In fact, my dad is the one who encouraged me to apply for a summer intern (filing & secretary) job there the summer after I graduated high school & I’ve been working there for 13 years now.
I really like our office- it’s a great place to work & I love having a wall for a window outside so I can occasionally be distracted by the traffic or weather or birds. That field off to the left is another one that the pups get to run around like banshees in if they come to work with me on the weekends.
My office is adjacent to a regional headquarters for DPS (Department of Public Safety – the troopers!) and they are also expanding and constructing a more buildings. They are pretty quiet most of the time, but they have a few helicopters they fly in and out of that office. I can’t tell you how long the piece of property near us on the corner has been abandoned once they put in utilities for a residential area, but I never knew there was a small lake in the middle of of that property. Along the free way in front of my house, there is about 2 miles of every imaginable car dealership in the world. Several of them, including the Jeep & Saturn dealerships, have closed in the last few years- leaving behind massive parking lots and huge, vacant buildings. The most prominent parking lot in the photo is the Park & Ride lot where people can get in a bus downtown or hop onto the HOV lane if they have passengers.
There is a small incorporated city, Jersey Village, just in town from us. My official address for my office even recently changed from Houston to Jersey Village for no apparent reason. My office is technically in their city limits & they have this main shopping area long the freeway with a few places we frequent- from the reliably good Tex-Mex as Los Cocos to the wholesale liquor store Specs, this is a very popular and busy corner.
GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: Went out to see the Forbidden Gardens in Houston before they close next month.
