Happy Guy Fawkes Day

Now where did I put that C4...

wish the b****r was around these days!!. going off topic Bill have you ever been in the Astrodome? Place I've always wanted to visit (my trips to the states have all been to reservations)

Wow- drifting off topic on the first reply.

Yes, I have been to the dome. I have attended baseball and football games, the rodeo (Houston has the world's largest livestock show and rodeo), trade shows (at the Offshore Technology Conference once a vendor set up an oil drilling rig in the dome), and a Billy Graham revival. It is (was) a remarkable place. Now it is mostly unused, since the new Reliant Stadium was built adjacent to the Astrodome.


The photo shows the Astrodome in front and Reliant Stadium in the rear.

We have gotten into this thing here in America where local governments will build new sports facitilties with taxpayer dollars and "lease" them to a professional team as an enticement to remain in or move to a city. It the span of a few years, Houston built a new football stadium, a new baseball park, and a new arena for basketball & hockey. Well over a billion dollars spent and now the revenues are down and the county taxpayers are probably going to get stuck with higher taxes (again). This has happened in many cities - even NYC recently tore down Yankee Stadium for a newer one. I thought about this a lot while I was sitting it the arena in Nimes - built in Roman times and still in use. In this context, how can a 35 year old stadium be obsolete?

The new Reliant Stadium was built after the county that owned the Astrodome spent some $50 million remodeling it to satisfy the demands of the football team's owner. The team left for a new city the next year. The county still owes money on the Astrodome, so they are looking for something to do with it. There is even talk of demolishing it. The last worthwhile use for it was to shelter refugees from New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. It is basically being allowed to decay while they decide what to do with it.

They used to give guided tours of the Astrodome - it was quite a tourist attraction; I don't think they do anymore. If you want to see it, sooner than later would be my advice. Nobody knows what its future is.

BTW, we used to refer to beer served at games in the Astrodome as "Dome Foam".

Sorry for the drift everybody but I knew the astrodome was more interesting!!

Mikey