Planet Houston

I'm in Houston having a good time this week. Yes you read that right, a 'good time'. I'm tending to an amazing zoo of animals, so I've been unable to catch the Houston Metro downtown until yesterday. This was an amazing trip. The hardest part was finding a spot to park at the park and ride. I had to kick the 4 wheel drive in and parked on one of those concrete medians.

Now some of you might be reluctant to believe me. With keywords such as Houston, bus and summertime, how amazing could it be, right? Man, if I'd known it was this easy, I'd have been riding the bus to downtown for years. It's just too easy especially with the new Metro RAIL to which I walked a short two blocks to the station to complete the final leg of my trip.

The bus system here costs considerably more than in Austin. In Austin, I can get from one end of the city to the other on 50 cents. Here, it's three dollars to get downtown. I got to the bus stop and used my pass provided by my generous sponsor who asked me to do a compare/contrast exposé between the Austin and Houston Metros. The bus itself was one of those that have the accordion style trailer style long haul bus. The upholstery was luxurious and the AC was unnecessarily frigid but I must say was an almost guilty pleasure. If this bus had wi-fi or broadband wireless, you could just camp out all day and have one of the cheapest mobile offices in the world. You couldn't get office space anywhere for that cheap and you could get out, have lunch at any number of wonderful places. Get out at the park for a break and then back to work in super-air conditioned comfort. "Yeah, ALL of downtown is my office, and I have the best views."

The train took me about 3 miles to the museum district where I exited and had a short walk to the Houston Museum of Natural Science wherein I was able to engross myself in the da Vinci exhibit which displayed wooden models of his sketched concepts. I then took a refresher on oil exploration and refining in their amazing energy exhibit to remind me just how difficult it is to find this drug to which we are all addicted. I then stepped back in our past as I explored the dinosaur exhibits and never cease to be amazed at the fact that these things were real. These things walked the earth, just like us by the millions, just like humans today. And although the courts are still out on what exactly caused their demise, I can't help but think some future generation of humans may be exhibiting our fossilized remains some day. Let's just hope it's an asteroid and not our own stupidity and shortsightedness that does it.

After hours of educational enjoyment and deep thought, I walked out to Hermann Park and discovered a huge reflection pool I'd never seen before. I had a nice walk through the park before returning to the Metro RAIL. Payment for both the bus and the rail utilize a device called the Q Card which is like one of those non-magnetic strip credit card readers where you just wave the pass over a sensor plate. Before I got on the outbound bus, I tried to verify the balance on one of the kiosks at the bus station. It showed as invalid so I paid 3 bucks to get on the bus. When I got downtown I stopped in at the Q-card office at the transit station and it was deemed valid and they just said the kiosk must have been down. Clever! Lesson learned. The Q-card is more advanced than Austin's system of a flimsy card with a magnetic strip on it that expires every month and needs to be discarded for a new one whereas the Q-card can be recharged multiple times. Passengers on the train are audited randomly to ensure compliance and fined severely for non-compliance. I assume this will be the same with the Austin rail system.

I noticed there were no ads on the bus or in the bus (at least the one I took) like there are in Austin. It's a sanctuary of non-messaging which may, in the end, be worth the extra money to ride in solace without being bombarded with messaging. For example, there is this one ad that sticks out in my mind as completely asinine on the Austin Metro. It's a black and white picture of the mayor saying, "Thank you for reducing your carbon footprint," on a background of child like art of green stuff and a lively cityscape. That may be one of the furthest thoughts from the mind of your average bus rider. The folks that rely on it for their sustenance have to be thinking they'd like to put their footprint up someone's carbon output. Does the mayor take the bus? Probably not.

I think that actually might be another part of the reason riding the bus is, for me, less stressful than driving. When you're driving, you have to watch the road and all the peripheral items, signs and distractions surrounding it. Things like billboards and bumper stickers that incite rage. I majored in advertising, so it's a big step in me admitting this. It's just such a wonderful reduction in the bombardment of visual input. And take that stupid carbon footprint ad off the bus before I write a letter.