A Monday Update…Moth, Jone’s Washateria, Timber Path Bridge

This is sort of weird, I guess. How do you feel about really huge moths?
We walked out the front door on Sunday to find this specimen sitting there, perched on a brick on our front patio. Moths aren’t like butterflies in my book. A butterfly, I have no problem with delicately grabbing by closed wings and inspecting. Moths like this, though extremely interesting to look at just give me the heebie-jeebies.

What are the heebie-jeebies anyway?

I usually have at least one lunch or dinner report over the weekend, but in spite of our desire to take a drive or try out a new place, I had work commitments on both Saturday and Sunday. How do you like that? I’m fine with it. My company never asks me to do any overtime and they treat me quite well, thanks. If I need to suck it up and help out, I’m cool with it. We’ll see how my wife feels about it during the next several weeks. Yikes!

I don’t know why I thought of this, but years ago, probably 12 or 13 years ago, I had a web page called “The Jones Washateria Home Page” or something like that. In our old hood, there was this self service coin-operated laundry mat and it was connected to a convenience store. There were a few abandoned buildings, a long ago defunct strip-bar, and I think a tattoo parlor.

The really cool thing about it was, the guy who owned the place had his mother working in there. You could take your laundry in there, and instead of sitting there doing it yourself, the mother would wash, dry, fold and iron as if it was a dry cleaning place, but for a lot less.
I don’t want to say this was in a particularly seedy part of San Antonio, but let’s just say, you can certainly see seedy from there. If you waited long enough, you were sure to see some sort of weird action taking place. Drunken people or people on drugs were a common site – not to say that I am above drinking a 40 while folding towels, who amongst us is? But I never associated doing laundry with seeing people lock themselves into the unisex restroom to bathe and sleep.

Anyway, at the time I was trying to teach myself to do HTML (the code that many web pages run on) so I created this Jones Washateria Home Page and posted all sorts of pictures and stories about the things I saw. In a way, I guess this blog was an offshoot of that little project. Taking pictures of goofy things and leaving comments about them.
That washateria closed down several years ago, but I couldn’t help driving by on my way home from work today to see if there was any action. In spite of how the place looks now, it didn’t look a whole lot better back then, but at least there were windows made of plexi-glass so you could look inside the place and decided if the situation looked too dicey to go in or if it was safe enough to do some laundry.

Good times.
I got a text message from regular reader Anon E. Mouse who reported that the bridge at Grissom and Timber Path was now open for business. I suspect the city had read my Friday post and quietly dismissed any further delays. Thank you.

And here is a little celebratory drive across the bridge.

My Drive on Culebra Today…

I was navigating through the construction up Culebra from Loop 410 this afternoon and two things caught my eye, both of which require reporting.

First up, I have let my little project of documenting all the stickers I see on the backs of vehicles go by the wayside for a while. Can someone explain why people feel the need to advertise their kid’s name on the vehicle? Have these people not seen Jonathon Lithgow as the Trinity Killer in Dexter where he spies the name of a kid off the back of the family SUV, then promptly approaches the kid and calls him by name? If that scene didn’t prompt you to bust out the razor blade and scrape little Henry’s name off the family truckster, I don’t know what else will.
But since you people continue to let us know your kid’s activities, I offer you just the forum to share. I love diversity in youth activities. Not satisfied to be like all the others with their boring baseball, football, soccer and cheer-leading, young Master Henry shows his spirit as an Irish Free – Irish Dancer. I don’t even know what that means, but if Henry’s other sport is any indication, I suspect it involves lots of heavy drinking. Own it, Henry. Own it.

At another stop light I was very much pleased to see a little construction action going on. I am glad to report that the stereotype of three construction workers standing around watching one guy work is not true here in San Antonio.
Instead we have three guys working and one guy doing the watching. And I know exactly what you are thinking; can’t teach a white guy to do anything but supervise.

Someday this construction’s gonna end…

Timber Path Construction Update: Connected…

We stopped in the parking lot of Bill Miller’s at Grissom and Timber Path to see the actual connection of the bridge from one side to the other. I suspect it won’t be long before people will be fishing off the side of the bridge for empty beer cans as cars whiz by eager to hit the traffic on Culebra at the other end.

You can tell there is a lot of finish work that needs to be done, but clearly, they have made progress.
I think it will be interesting to see how long it takes before someone gets liquored-up at Stacy’s or Speedway on Grissom, then drives across the bridge and finds the pretty privacy fence on the other side of it. You know Albatross is just waiting for the WOAI reportage.

Timber Path Construction Update: Close…

A week later, lots of rain to make it tougher on the construction guys, but there is progress in the construction of the bridge on Timber Path at Grissom.

You can look at the pictures and see for yourself.

Timber Path Bridge Construction Update

The worst part about school starting this week is that the construction project along the stretch of Culebra from Loop 410 north to where Culebra splits personality and names (Tezel, FM 471, Grissom if you like), is not complete.

One part of that construction effort is the bridge that takes Timber Path out to Culebra. It sure would have been nice if it was finished in time for school. Oh well.
But, as these pictures show, progress is being made and who knows, by the Fall Festival or Winter Celebration (Thanksgiving or Christmas to you and I), maybe we will be driving over the top.

Timber Path Construction Update: Actual Bridge…

Well, actual bridge if you can take really long steps. But the important thing is, the new bridge over the low water crossing on Timber Path at Grissom is coming right along.Of course, I risked leaving the cool air conditioning of my vehicle to step out into the fireball to take these pictures. Just imagine how those guys on top of the bridge feel.

Timber Path Construction Update…

It isn’t that I have forgotten about the Timber Path construction taking place – I have to drive by it each day, it’s just that I have been too lazy to pull over and take some pictures. But since I’m a glutton for 102 degree heat in the middle of the afternoon, I figured I’d leave the comfort of my air conditioned vehicle and take a few pictures. I think I may need some sunscreen and a cool drink.If you weren’t aware, this construction is taking place over the dry creek bed back behind the Bill Miller’s and What-a-Burger located on Grissom Road at Timber Path. The idea is, because the creek floods when it rains (obviously not a problem during the drought) and blocks the flow of traffic, they are building a bridge that will allow drivers to drive right over the water. It has been a long time coming.You can see here that they have been building up all sorts of pylons (I guess that’s what you call them) so the bridge can sit atop them. For such a relatively short bridge, it sure seems like a lot. But then again, since I’ll be driving over it, I think the more support the better!

River Walk Construction Update: I’m Done…

Between February 2008 and June of 2009, I would stop along the McCullough Avenue bridge near the intersection of North St. Mary’s in downtown San Antonio to see the progress on either side of the bridge. I generally took three to four pictures of each side of the bridge, starting with facing north east toward Alamo Heights. The next bridge up the river is Brooklyn Avenue where the lock system is built. The other side of the McCullough bridge faces the south west toward downtown and the next bridge down is Lexington Avenue.

As the work progressed, sometimes very slowly, I posted updates between one every several weeks and a month or so. My time line was dictated by how often I was downtown, and since I only hit my downtown office randomly, there was no set schedule. So in the end, I think this might have been a spiffier project if I had one of those mounted skycams like the news stations use so I could take pictures from the exact spot each time and at a certain time on a particular day each week, but I just don’t have the budget or the viewership of KENS-5 or KSAT.

Roughly 16 months compressed into less than 12 minutes.

http://www.youtube.com/get_player

My River Walk Construction video with music from Strunz & Farah…

UPDATED: Added proper music credits and explained what it was you are looking at.

River Walk Construction Update: Water…

Thursday, I had need to hit the downtown office and decided to take a few pictures of the water, green as it is, now flowing through the section of new river walk I’ve been following for a while. The location of my interest is at the McCullough Street Bridge near North St. Marys.

This is a little video of the water in action.

And to see all the pictures from start to finish, be sure to check out the set available on the Flickr Page.

River Walk Construction Update…

Getting close. They say we are only a week or two away from the grand opening of the river walk extension. So since I had to run to my downtown office the other day, I thought I’d snap a picture or two.These are pictures taken from the usual location, the bridge at McCullough Ave near North St. Mary’s Street. Here. we are looking north of the downtown area. Notice the ground cover coming in a little more.Looking toward downtown, you can see the palm trees are still taking root and the light poles are firmly in place. Off in the distance is the Lexington Street bridge and there is a river barge turning around (since the water pretty much stops there).

Oh, and if it is hard to follow what is where, I have a special little treat I made just for you; a movie.