Whipped Cream Difficulties

Which void is that?

The project’s leaders, who closed on the land this summer, have previously said the new park could fill the void that AstroWorld left behind.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Back up here. What project is this?

Grand Texas.

What is Grand Texas? According to the HouChron‘s real estate blog:

…an elaborate and Texas history-themed amusement and water park on the more than 600 acres of piney woods in East Montgomery County.

Click2Houston has more details:

The newly named “Grand Texas Sports and Entertainment District” will be nestled in the woods off Highway 59 and FM 242. The complex will include a Texas history themed amusement park larger than Astroworld, a 40-acre water park and even a 6,000 seat minor league baseball stadium.

A minor league baseball stadium? Do they have a team that’s going to play in it? Or is this…if you build it, they will come? (Sorry.)

The sheer scope of this has me a little skeptical. Where is the money coming from? Who is behind this? Can they build all this out in roughly 15 months? (The Grand Texas website says “Spring 2015”. The HouChron has the water park in April 2015 and the theme park in December 2015. This makes me a bit more suspicious.)

But I blog this here for two reasons:

1. The somewhat unfortunate artist’s conceptions included in the HouChron article. Quote from the comments: “am I to understand that the entire theme park will look like a drawing my kid did with his crayolas?”
2. You may have noticed the HouChron‘s mention of something called the “East Montgomery County Improvement District”. Where have we heard of the “East Montgomery County Improvement District” before? Oh, yes: EarthQuest!

Can EMCID really sustain two theme parks? Did I just say that with a straight face?

(This reminds me: I haven’t heard from Soapboxmom since March. If she’s out there, I hope you’re doing okay, and just haven’t had anything to say. Feel free to send me an email.)

Well, not a real massacre, except maybe of firewood.

Front page of the WP:

Chris Cox took the state of the Mall personally during the shutdown. In return, he gets a $1,200 chain saw.

My first reaction: “A $1,200 chain saw?! That had better be a Stihl!”

(click through to the article)

Yes. Yes, it is.

“It’s an honor to be able to present Chris with this chain saw,” said Belmont Power Equipment’s Robert Hill of the Stihl MS 660, which retails for approximately $1,200.

Nice picture, too. Second thought: damn, that’s a long bar, even for tree cutting.

“I do bears, sea captains, cigar store Indians, tiki heads,” Cox explained in a pre-ceremony interview. He is, in fact, a Northern Virginia chain saw artist and makes wooden sculptures under the name Cox Creations. He’s working on a football display case, carving the Redskins mascot out of reclaimed wood, and positioning him as if he is cradling the ball. Cox was commissioned to make it by a local real estate developer.

Third thought: what’s he going to do when the team name changes?

Fourth thought:

Then, before a small crowd of onlookers, he hoisted the 5.2-kilowatt engine-powered saw into the chilly November air, though he did not turn it on. In the middle distance, a police officer appeared to be monitoring the situation.

5.2 kilowatts? That’s an odd way of stating power. Though, as it turns, out, it is:

• correct
• and apparently pulled directly from the spec sheet on the Stihl website

Fifth thought: even for a Stihl, $1,200 seems high. But I can’t find prices for new ones online; Amazon has chainsaws, but not the Stihls. It looks like you might be able to get one off eBay for half that amount, but would it have the same bar length? MSRP looks to be just a little under $1,200, so maybe so; it has been a long time since I had any reason to look at pricing for Stihl chainsaws.

(I’ve written about this elsewhere, but my father loved cutting firewood. What we didn’t burn in our fireplace got sold. He intended to get a Stihl chainsaw, but never got around to it.)