In memory of the Waco Clarion

Sometime either earlier this year or late last year, I discovered another casualty of my past that went away: the Clarion in Waco, Texas, which I visited in 2008. I mean, the Comfort Inn from my 2008 trip was unceremoniously wrecked a few years back, but it was a one-story motel from the 1960s that had received a few facelifts and was probably due for a change anyway.

But the Clarion to me was special. It hadn't been updated in at least a decade, but it meant something and I wondered for a time afterward if it hadn't been a Holiday Inn given how much it resembles the Holidome, another Holiday Inn creation (scroll down mid-way, you'll see it). Of course, "enclosing the courtyard" of a motel wasn't an entirely new creation (a local Ramada did it in the 1980s), and I've confirmed it wasn't a Holiday Inn anyway (there were two Holiday Inns back in the 1980s in Waco, both of which were later torn down, the more modern one ended up becoming the Hotel Waco, which was torn down around 2012 for the McLane Stadium). I've written about this trip in my blog before in a more contemporary time (I went to the flea market that same trip, but note that aforementioned post is very, very old). Since I didn't have a camera at the time, I got these from TripAdvisor.





Funny story: I remember that this was when Rolling Acres Mall was in its throes of death, and a new owner (prospective) had proposed some wild and crazy renovation plan that would turn the old Target into some sort of "indoor beach area" (see Labelscar for that). I actually remember talking/thinking about that back then (I remember weird stuff like that).

The only reason -why- I'm adding this here was because I was cleaning up an old Brazos Buildings & Businesses post and didn't want to chunk what I had here. An update to Carbon-izer.com will be coming soon.

Where I've Been

Just wanted to give a quick update: there hasn't been any posts recently because I've been doing other things. I did want to give you an idea of what I've been doing, though:

- I'm reading 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by the late Stephen Covey. I've never been one for self-help books, and I was convinced into reading it by a friend, but it's true that he single-handedly created a bunch of meaningless buzzwords (i.e. "paradigm shift", or maybe "think win/win") which, according to one comment on his obituary, "started a wave of BS in the corporate world – all about clichés and posters and one liners". And that's true. I'm going to withhold my full judgement until I finish it though.

- The most recent movie I've watched is Brazil, which was a strange movie. It's almost as if someone got the rights to 1984, dropped the whole "Big Brother" aspect and rewrote it to be a black comedy, with still a totalitarian government and a rather grim ending. It's supposed to be a satire on capitalism and consumerism, but instead comes off as more of a scathing satire on big government, which makes it popular with conservatives. Fun for everyone, I guess. It has a rather upbeat theme, but it does have an R rating, though not for the reasons 1984 would have one.

- The longer time goes on, I'm more frustrating that Google hasn't updated its satellite imagery of Waco since fall 2012. There's tons going on, namely the expansion of Interstate 35 down in Temple, the dismantling of a long-abandoned railroad (I knew it was trouble around 2008 when they pulled the old rail cars out, and the line only seemed open to access a quarry, which no longer has rail access), shiny new gas stations (Valero, Stripes, 7-Eleven), construction around the new McLane Stadium. I'd love to explore what's new (and no, Bing maps is even more dated).

- And I'm starting a new job, which is fun. This job I don't think I'll be doing in the long run but also ensures that one of my blogs will remain on hiatus because of conflict-of-interest reasons (just to be on the safe side).

Now, the question everyone wants to know is when will Carbon-izer.com officially reopen? I don't know. I'm still redoing one last part (and there's a section in the Northwest Freeway page that will need to be rewritten because I found out new information). Most of the reason it has yet to get started is some complications in making sure the redirects work properly.