Welcome back to my series on the amazing tech
from Texas, where I am attempting to showcase
all of the companies that made significant
impacts to the world of technology.
In the last episode I visited a couple of
places in the Dallas area, including 3D Realms
and Dallas Semiconductor.
And don’t worry, I’m not even close to
being done with the Dallas area, but for this
episode I’m heading down to Houston to show
you a few things there, which is about a 4
hour drive.
But, we’re going to make a few stops along
the way.
The first stop is just an hour South of the
Dallas metroplex, in a little city called
Corsicana.
OK, so we’re taking just a little bit of
a detour.
Really, it’s not even a detour, it’s literally
right on the path of the direction that we’re
going.
I would say it’s mid way through the journey,
but it’s really not, it’s really about
a 3rd through the journey, but ha ha ha, big
pun there because the name of the company
that we’re going to go see was called Midway,
which you’ve probably heard of because they
made a lot of famous games and so, yeah, we’re
going to be there here in just a moment.
Of course Midway goes all the back to when
they manufactured arcade games like PacMan
and Space Invaders, but the actual development
for those games was done back in Japan.
However, eventually they started developing
their own arcade and home video games.
But before we get to that, there was this
little company called Tradewest here in Corsicana.
They were known for famous NES games like
Battletoads, or Double Dragon.
Actually the list goes on it’s quite a long
list.
But they were eventually bought up by Midway,
and went on to work on such games as Mortal
Kombat or Doom 64.
The office here in Corsicana was responsible
for testing, marketing, sales, and distribution.
And the first location I’m going to show
you was located at 1800 South Highway 75,
which is now abandoned and the building is
for sale.
OK, so we’re standing in front of the old
Midway building and I’ve got a former employee
here with me.
Unfortunately, there’s this kind of creep
here that ran us off the property, wouldn’t
let us film directly in front of the building.
So, we’re standing out here on the side
of the highway filming, which is so lovely.
But, anyway, so tell us your name, tell us
what you did, tell us when you worked here.
Well, my name is Guy Chapman.
I worked here in the Texas office from 1995
to to 1999.
I started initially as a game counselor, and
a gameplay tester, and eventually worked my
way up to a marketing coordinator here.
What were some of the games that were made
here or developed here?
Well, the biggest title that everybody would
recognize is Mortal Kombat.
Midway’s first home published title was
Mortal Kombat 3, up until that point, Aklaim
had done the other titles.
But Midway did Mortal Kombat 3, and they did
the preceding series up until Warner Brothers
bought them.
But, they also did Doom 64, arcade’s greatest
hits which were all retro arcade compilations
of things like Defender, Joust, Gauntlet,
Marble Madness, titles like that, San Francisco
Rush, NFL Blitz, all that was made here.
OK, but it was actually called Tradwest before
it was Midway?
It was originally called Tradewst.
Tradewest started in ’85, but in ’94 WMS
industries, which is Midway, they decided
they wanted to get into home publishing themselves
and they bought out Tradewest and in turn,
started publishing their own games.
But Tradewst was responsible for NES titles
like Double Dragon, Battle Toads, things like
that.
Now, were those developed here or, there was
another location you mentioned down the road
somewhere.
Yep.
There’s another location down the road,
that is the original Tradewest building.
All the games weren’t designed here.
What these offices were primarily responsible
for was customer support, like in my case,
marketing, sales.
Byron Cook, who was the CEO of Midway did
all of the main operations here.
All of the main operations of Tradewest, then
later Midway, all of those decisions were
made here.
So, we drove across town, which doesn’t
take very long for a small town like Corsicana.
And we had a look at the later location, which
was located at 800 North Main Street, in a
small strip mall.
Currently, the section that was occupied by
Midway now exists a probation office of some
kind.
So, it looks like this is a probation office
now.
Yeah, it’s an adult probation.
That’s certainly not where I expected this
building to be, but you know considering all
of the crazy stuff we made here, I mean all
those various Mortal Kombat games, but yeah,
this was, they finally combined all of the
buildings together, the sales and the marketing
and my group.
You know, we still did testing and phone support
here.
Actually, that door right there is where I’d
go in every morning with my crew.
And we’d go down the long hallway into the
left.
Right there was the break room.
OK, so correct me if I’m wrong, but there
was no manufacturing happed in this building
either, right?
It was just like development and like tech
support, that type of thing?
Yeah, it was the executive decisions, sales
marketing, tech support, testing, that was
done here.
Manufacturing was done elsewhere.
But, it was funny though, a lot of people
never knew what we did here.
And even now, it’s like I’ll talk about
Midway to people and it’s like “there
was a video game company here?
Mortal Kombat was made here?”
Yeah, made here for several years actually.
So, I’ve been trying to do things to raise
awareness and say “hey we had something
really cool here for a while.”
Now was there any kind of, you know Apogee
building of course they didn’t want anyone
to know they were there.
Was there anything on this building that suggested,
you know, video games were made here?
Oh no, we were loud and proud.
You know, we had the big red Midway bug and
the big black lettering on the front and we
had Midway logos everywhere.
Where would that have been?
It was right on the front, right where you
noticed that one spot where the old logo was.
Yeah, that was just straight up front, but
again, people didn’t know what a Mortal
Kombat was or even what a Midway was.
But, we were making one of the hottest games
in the ‘90s here.
Did you ever have any fans come by the building?
You know, we did.
Actually, not as many as you’d think.
I don’t think a lot of people come out to
Corsicana that often.
We’re kind of a side detour for sure.
Yeah, we had a couple of people come by You
know, we’d show them around the office and
give them a couple of little marketing chochkies,
things like that.
Maybe a few press releases.
You know we always had some little toy like
we had Gauntlet pewter figurines or posters.
You know, we’d give them something and they’d
go on their way and you know it was fun.
So these are a couple of the tradewest games.
These are where Corsicana got its first video
game milestone.
Battletoads was one of the biggest ones they
did.
Double Dragon, of course was their biggest.
Other games like Solar Jetman, Taboo the 6th
Sense, which is a weird game, all about 8-bit
tarot cards, who knew?
Mortal Kombat 3, this is the first game that
I ever worked on.
This is the original run copy back from ’95.
And shortly after that, we did a couple games,
Doom64, that was a Midway original, that was
not done by ID.
San Francisco Rush 2, or just Rush 2 because
it was all over the world.
This was an old press kit from Williams.
A little bit more authenticity.
That was the building we were at that we got
chased off from.
So, kind of an interesting pice, you know,
that whole super flashy ‘90s style and basically
just had pictures of Doom and Mortal Kombat
3, those were the first two big Super Nintendo
games.
Over the years and these were all done in
Corsicana.
Keri Hoskins who played Sonia Blade in Mortal
Kombat 3, she’s actually been a long time
friend of mine.
OK, well I appreciate you showing me the building.
It’s really unfortunate about the last building
that that guy wouldn’t let us film there.
I don’t know why, it was a big empty parking
lot and the building had for sale signs all
over it.
It seemed crazy that they ran us off.
But it was his building and it was dear to
him, so you know.
So, I left Corsicana and headed back out on
the long road to Houston.
But, I do like to break long road trips up
into smaller sections for my own sanity, and
I’m going to stop next in Madisonville.
That’s because I got dozens of emails from
people telling me that if I’m showing a
Texas road trip, then I definitely need to
show Buc-ee’s.
Well, so here it is.
There are 35 of these scattered around Texas
located on long stretches of highways.
They are essentially really, really big gas
stations.
Unfortunately, my car is electric and Buc-ee’s
does not yet offer chargers, although they
have publicly said they plan to add those
soon.
Besides gas they have almost every food item
imaginable inside, and they are also known
for their fancy restrooms, which I can’t
really show for obvious reasons, so you'll
just have to take my word for it.
I’m going to take this opportunity to talk
about something else.
You can see the Buc-ee beaver statue is wearing
a mask.
Many people complained in the last video that
I was out in the middle of a pandemic.
So, I just wanted you to know that me and
anyone I was with were wearing masks when
not on camera and following every safety precaution.
In fact, I spent the vast majority of this
trip in my car or outside in the open.
So, having said that, it was time to head
back out on the road, this time for just about
20 minutes, until I arrived in Huntsville.
There were actually a couple of reasons I
wanted to stop in Huntsville.
And the first reason was to use the Tesla
supercharger here, since I was not able to
refuel at Buc-ee’s.
This also gives me a perfect opportunity to
show people something I’ve tried to explain
time and again.
As you can see, I had 140 miles of range left,
which was probably enough to make it all the
way to my hotel in Houston.
You can also see it was saying 45 minutes
for a full charge.
But, let’s see how that really works out.
I took this opportunity to wash the 180 miles
worth of bugs off of my windshield.
And by the time I did that and ate the snack
I bought at Buc-ee’s, 10 minutes had passed.
After which, you can see we were up to 212
miles, which was way more than I really needed
to make it to my hotel.
And the last thing I wanted to show here in
Huntsville is the giant statue of Sam Houston.
He was a very important figure in the history
of Texas, more than I have time to explain
here.
The statue is visible from miles away as you
approach Huntsville on the freeway.
But, if you want to have a closer look, you
can drive around behind and park at the visitor
center.
Then you can walk down a little trail.
On your way you’ll pass a giant head of
Sam Houston.
I’ve never quite figured out why there is
just a head here.
I don’t know if it is like a spare head,
or a practice run, or what.
For some reason, standing next to this, reminds
me of the Face of Bo from Doctor Who.
Anyway, if you keep walking the trail, eventually
you come to the back of the statue.
And so just to give you an idea of how big
this thing is, take a look.
REMEMBER ME.
Anyway, time to get back on the road for the
final leg of this journey to Houston.
Much like Dallas, Houston is also very big.
It also has multiple downtown areas, including
the main city center here, medical city, which
is here, and then Uptown over here.
Granted, these are all closer together than
in the Dallas area.
Let’s have a look at some of it.
This is downtown Houston.
The entire Houston metro area is home to some
7 million people, similar in size to the Dallas/Ft.Worth
metroplex.
This is a view of Uptown, sometimes called
the Galleria by locals.
It has quite an impressive skyline all of
its own.
And this area here is called Medical City.
You can see downtown off in the distance.
This is basically an entire city of hospitals
and medical services.
People come from all over the world to receive
medical treatment here.
Some of the places we’ll be exploring is
the Delorean Motor Company in the city of
Humble, then we’re going to find the original
Compaq factory, and then we’re going to
have a look at the NASA space center down
near Webster.
And when I say we, that’s because I’m
going to be meeting up with a special guest
for this trip.
I’m meeting up with Johnny Hemberger, who
runs a local radio show called Geek Therapy.
I’ve participated in his show on several
occasions.
We’ve agreed to meet at the top of the parking
garage for iHeart Radio.
He’s also brought a special car that we’re
going to cruise around in for the rest of
the trip.
All right, so this is what you’re going
to chauffeur me around in?
What year is it first of all?
1983!
Hey David.
Except I don’t know how that car from the
future got here.
Yeah, I took off the flux capacitor a long
time ago because it guzzled too much plutonium.
Well, you need to get the, what it is?
Mr Fusion.
Put all the friggin soda cans and banana peels
in it.
Yeah, it seems kind of crazy that Doc Brown
was able to make Mr.Fusion, you know the amount
of energy that must produce, and yet he couldn’t
have it drive the wheels.
Right!
Still had to have gasoline!
If you want to play the loophole game with
Back to the Future, we could be here all day
discussing it.
Johnny took me into the iHeart Radio building
for a brief tour of where he works.
This is my station, this is the station that
I am on.
And so this is where Geek Therapy Radio is
produced.
After that, it was time to hop into the DeLorean
and start our trip around town.
All right.
cool.
I got a little strap here to pull it in.
Yep, strap or handle or whatever you want
to use.
Alright, I’ve never done this before.
Don’t be dainty.
Perfect.
That was absolutely perfect.
I’m definitely not accustomed to doors like
that.
Gull wing doors.
But the model-X has gull wing doors.
Yeah, but it’s all automatic.
yeah.
It’s all electronically controlled.
Let’s put the key in here that’s not blank.
There we go.
So, Johnny and I set off on our 2 day long
mission to explore some tech history of Houston.
Yeah, so I figure, traffic.
Famous Houston traffic.
We’re going nowhere fast right now.
So, we might as well talk about the car a
little bit.
I bought this car when I was 17 years old
in the year 2000, so July 2000.
I bought it for less than what a used Honda
Civic cost, which surprised a lot of people.
Back then, that era, 2000s, internet wasn’t
like it was today.
Nobody cared about the DeLorean outside of
Back to the Future.
It wasn’t really a classic car at that time,
it was maybe 18 years old, 17 years old, it
was exactly my age, actually.
This car is an ’83, I was born in ’83.
So yeah, I picked it up, bought it real cheap.
They thought it didn’t run.
I changed a 50 cent engine control fuse, charged
the battery, drove it away.
I didn’t rip them off or anything.
It was a classic car dealership.
They said part of the price is you’ll diagnose
whatever is going on with it.
And I did and I drove it home.
Delivered pizza with it, for two years.
This doesn’t seem like a pizza delivery
vehicle.
No.
But it is a testament, and I’m trying to
knock on wood.
Actually the back parcel shelf is made out
of wood, like a lot of old cars.
I’ve actually never ridden in a Delorean
before.
I’ve sat in one.
Back in, I think you might have seen the video
at the Florida, it was the Maker Faire.
And they had one that was all decked out like
the Back to the Future car.
They let me sit in it, but I’ve never actually
ridden in one before.
So, I’m sorry that I don’t have any Freon
in the A/C. And that’s one of the things,
and it does.
I haven’t converted it to R134 so it is
still on old Freon.
There is some stuff you can get called Redtech
that fills in the gap, but anyway doesn’t
matter because there’s none in it right
now, obviously.
Yeah, and this Texas heat is starting to.
I’m starting to sweat a little bit.
A stainless steal convection oven.
But, it would probably be a lot better once
we get moving down the highway and we get
a little bit of air.
But you told me earlier that you’ve never
ridden in an electric car before.
I haven’t.
I’ve never driven one, I’ve never even
sat inside of one when it was off.
I’ve never been in an electric car.
I’ve been in hybrids.
But I’ve never been in a Tesla.
Or even a plug-in hybrid.
I’ve never been in a Volt.
OK, well we’ll have to fix that later.
We’ll fix it later.
So, tell us a little bit about where we are
going.
Alright, we, funny you should ask.
We are on the way to the Delorean Motor in
Humble, Texas.
It is the world headquarters for DeLorean
parts and restoration.
Somethings got to be clarified there.
Humble, Texas.
A lot of people are going to look at the map
and and it starts with an H. So they are going
to think it is Humble, Texas.
That’s how it is supposed to be pronounced
in English.
But, it is one of those colloquialisms.
It’s easy to tell if you’re not, you know,
from out of town.
Are we going to Humble?
Nope, we’re going to Humble.
Still drives my wife from Virginia crazy.
Everything seemed to be going along really
well.
But then, disaster struck.
The Delorean started to sound like a tea kettle,
and steam started pouring out the rear.
The engine had overheated.
We assumed it was from being stuck in a traffic
jam in the hot Texas sun.
After letting it cool down, we managed to
make it to a gas station where Johnny bought
some coolant.
It seemed to be very low, which was concerning.
After starting up the car again, we noticed
the problem.
A rubber coolant hose had burst and coolant
was just spewing out of it.
So, we had to use a different car for the
rest of the trip.
So, in a different car now, we are entering
the somewhat rural neighborhood where DeLorean
is located.
And here it is.
The building is painted to look like stainless
steel, just like the cars.
OK, so we have arrived at the Delorean Motor
Company.
Unfortunately, we didn’t make it in the
actual DeLorean, but we did make it here.
I would mention that we’re not allowed to
go inside because of the whole virus situation
we’ve got right now, but that’s fine,
I just wanted to give a big thanks out to
Carfection, they did us to use some of their
footage, so we can show you what it does look
like on the inside.
So, what do they do here?
This is the world headquarters for restoring
and servicing DeLorean motor cars, there’s
more than you might think.
They produced about 9,000 of them, and this
is the world headquarters.
So, right here in Humble, Texas, just outside
of Houston, they have a few other satellite
facilities one in Las Angeles, up in the midwest,
east coast, and then a couple in Europe.
And this is where they service all of the
DeLoreans.
This is the world headquarters right here.
So, Back to the Future, all of the history
of the DeLorean motor company going defunct,
and it all ends up right here with the Delorean
Motor Company in Humble, Texas.
Pretty cool.
Do they still make new ones here?
Yes.
Yes and no.
They do make new ones out of new old-stock
parts.
So, they basically have an inventory.
They have enough.
When DeLorean when into receivership, they
still had enough parts left over to to build
something on the order of over 10,000 new
cars.
They never got to that, they built 9,000 and
the rest was history.
But all of the remaining parts, most of them
are here.
It’s kind of a long story.
But all of the parts wound up here at the
DeLorean Motor company and the various satellite
facilities.
So you can still buy new DeLoreans using new
old-stock, zero-mile motors, but there are
some improvements to the parts, like the coolant
system!
So, there are updated parts in that category.
You can get new exhaust and new suspension,
bring it up to more power, more speed, and
more reliability.
Which is something I should probably think
about in the near future.
But it’s all based here at the Delorean
Motor Company in Humble, TX.
Alright, so we’ve had a look at DeLorean.
Not much we can do here.
So, now I think we’re going to go try to
hunt down the original Compaq factory.
Wouldn’t that be something?
That would be something.
Let’s go see if we can find it!
Compaq, being one of the largest computer
manufacturers in the world, was based right
here in Houston.
I have had numerous Compaq’s over the years.
My favorites being my 486 laptop, but my absolute
favorite is my original Compaq Portable 1.
This is the first computer they ever built,
and the first successful IBM clone in the
market.
Finding their most recent facilities is pretty
easy, everyone knows where that is.
But it was a huge challenge to find the original
location.
I got most of my clues by watching this documentary
on YouTube called the Compaq Story.
It’s an old video that has been captured
from VHS tape, and it’s a pretty cool story
to watch if you can tolerate the poor audio
and video quality.
It features several interviews from Jim Harris,
Bill Murto, and Rod Canion, the original founders
of the company.
But I’ll show you some of the clues we are
given.
In this section, Murto talks about sketching
out the first design at the House of Pies,
and a photo is shown of the location.
So, we went to a place called The House of
Pies, which is just a short distance from
there.
And then we started to discuss how we might
build a computer.
We actually started to draw this up on the
back of a placemat.
So, Johnny and I set out to see if we could
find it.
And actually, it wasn’t that hard because
the location still exists today, and is still
called the House of Pies.
I didn’t expect it to be open under the
current situation, but I walked up to the
door and saw that it was in fact open at 25%
occupancy.
So, Johnny and I decided to go in and have
some pie.
OK, so we actually decided to come in to the
House of Pies.
I don’t know if we’re at the exact same
table where Bill Murto and Rod Canion scribbled
out the first Compaq design or not.
Somewhere.
But these pies sure are big aren’t they?
Just look, that’s like 3 slices of pie.
That’s probably my daily allotment of calories
right here.
I didn’t need to get an extra for my wife,
I could have just saved this.
Yeah, what do you think this is? 1,000 calories?
1,500?
Probably 2,000 right here.
It’s brain food, its what you conceive of
computers.
Yeah, well, these are what Compaq computers
were conceived of.
The next clue was when they talked about their
first office.
The first office that we had was composed
of a small office in a bank building on Jones
road.
Allied cypress bank building.
So, we headed out to Jones road and started
looking for a building that looks like that,
fortunately, it was a distinctive looking
building and we found it right away.
It’s located at 12339 Jones road.
Only now it is a Wells-Fargo building.
So this was the office where the Compaq Portable
1 was designed for nearly a year before they
were ready to manufacture it.
At this time, the company was actually called
Gateway Technology, but would later change
the name to Compaq.
And now it was time for the next clue.
The next move we made was when we moved over
to Perry road.
To again, just the most spacious offices you
can imagine.
We had cows in the back, along with a donkey
and things like that.
So, we headed out to Perry Road, and admittedly
this was more of a challenge to find.
But we eventually identified the location
at 12330 Perry Road.
The front two buildings look almost exactly
the same, but everything else has changed.
Alright, and so here we are, I’m walking
in front of one of the original offices for
the Compaq factory.
Now there’s these two buildings here, which
I presume they used for offices, and there’s
the actual factory.
So as you can see, it doesn’t look much
like a factory any more.
They’ve converted it into a church.
It’s now Crossover Bible Fellowship.
But I think maybe we could call it the Church
of Compaq?
That’s right!
That sounds good!
These two square buildings were both the original
offices.
The one on the right is now a daycare center.
These front offices is most likely where this
photo was taken of the original three guys
and the Compaq Portable 1.
These photos here would have been taken in
the larger building in back.
I made many attempts to contact both the church
and the daycare center weeks prior to my trip,
but neither one would return my calls or emails.
It’s possible they are just shut down due
to the current situation with the virus.
Or maybe they just aren’t interested in
computer history.
Who knows.
Of course, there have been quite a few changes
to the landscape of this area, let’s talk
about a few of them.
OK, so I’ve been trying to figure out where
the Compaq sign is that I see in the old photo
that used to be right here on a brick stand.
And it took me a little while to figure out
because it doesn’t even look like there
would be room for such a thing here, and what
I eventually figured out is that this used
to be a two-lane road with no median there,
and as they’ve expanded the road out they’ve
encroached into the original area, so this
grassy area here used to extend much further
out and that’s where the sign was.
Let’s take a look at some views from Google
Earth.
This is what the property looks like today.
And I’m going to go back to 2002 in a moment,
and what you’ll notice is that this body
of water was not there before, this road was
much more narrow, and these houses were not
built yet.
So, let’s have a look.
So yeah, 18 years ago, things looked quite
different.
But keep in mind Compaq was still long gone
from this building even in 2002.
So we’re going to go back again to 1989.
And almost everything you see here will be
gone except for the three Compaq buildings.
But I want you to pay special attention to
this section of the building.
OK.
Here we go.
So, as you can see, that part of the building
was added on well after Compaq moved out of
the facility.
In fact, it’s very likely they were already
gone by the time this photo was taken in 1989.
But this definitely fits with the description
in the video that they were surrounded by
cow pastures.
Oh, and you can just barely make out the brick
sign here in front.
If only I had taken my Compaq portable one
with me on the trip, it could have revisited
its own birthplace.
One little quick diversion.
We wanted to drive by Howard Hughes home,
which I think is now a museum.
It’s this red brick house here.
There’s actually a small sign out in front
that says this is the house of Howard Hughes,
but you can’t see it because of these cars
that are parked in front.
Maybe someday I’ll explore this in more
detail.
So now we were off to NASA to have a look
at the space center there.
NASA has always been based out of Houston,
Texas.
This is where the astronauts lived and worked,
where technology was developed, and of course
where mission control was located.
Of course, it’s still located here today
and the facility is open to the public for
tours.
There are a lot of things you can see here.
I’ve actually been here several times but
never thought to take a picture of myself.
But good friend of the channel Perifractic
did take some photos.
And one thing you may notice is that there
are two mission control rooms, the new one,
and the old one that you can see here.
There he is at the controls like he knows
what he’s doing.
I’d probably be more interested in seeing
the old one myself.
So here we are at the NASA Johnson space center.
Of course, this is the official premises where
actual work happens.
The public portion of the facility is the
next road down by these two jet planes.
This is where you’d want to be anyway as
they have all of the cool things to look at,
including a full sized space shuttle atop
of the special 747 that was used to carry
it between launch and landing locations.
This building here actually contains a full
Saturn V rocket, just like was used to launch
astronauts to the moon.
It used to be out in the open like this.
I actually took this photo myself many years
ago.
But now it is inside this building to protect
it from the elements.
They also have a mockup of the international
space station that you can look at, as well
as original capsules on display from Mercury
and Apollo missions.
But this is all closed right now due to the
virus.
We were actually told we could get a private
tour for the channel, but we’d have to come
back later after the pandemic was over.
So if that’s something you’d like to see,
let me know and I’ll consider returning
here later.
But for the moment, let me show you some other
fun things that aren’t necessarily at the
space center.
For example, there is this McDonalds right
near the entrance with an astronaut on the
roof and a space-themed interior.
OK, so we’re leaving the NASA center now
and Johnny thought it might be an interesting
thought to go by and see where some of the
astronauts lived.
Because they actually live just, or lived
just right down the road from here.
Yeah, 3.2 miles according to the Tesla navigation
system.
So, we were talking about the short commute
to work.
Until you have to go to the moon and it gets
a little bit.
I guess technically speaking Niel Armstrong,
one of his workplaces was on the surface of
the moon.
So, he had to commute a long way to get there.
But that’s a pretty cool commute.
I wouldn’t mind taking that commute one
day in my life.
But yeah, so all of the astronauts, Gemeni,
Apollo, all of those missions from the ‘60s
and onward, they lived nearby.
This is just a normal town, it’s in a town
called Webster and we’re going to a neighborhood
called El Laugo.
And some people call it moonwalkers village
or whatever because.
We’re only going to two houses.
Niel Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, because it
would literally take hours if not all day
to visit every single astronaut’s house
from the time period.
They all lived in this neighborhood, so it
should be pretty fascinating, I think.
Since your baby had some problems yesterday
with overheating, we’re driving the Tesla
today.
So, how do you compare the two?
Well, it’s very nice when you don’t have
coolant hoses to explode.
And I will say those hoses were 40 year old
rubber.
So, cut it some slack.
I’m very happy that we could isolate the
problem.
That helps when troubleshooting.
Like a burst artery, found it.
Yeah, and not only that, but that’s a fairly
standard part, it’s not like it’s a DeLorean
specific part.
You can get a rubber hose anywhere.
Right.
Engine is fine, drive train is fine, brakes,
everything is fine.
Yeah, so going from the DeLorean to the Tesla
a car that was designed for the future, to
a car that was, that is in the current future.
It is quite the trip.
I would love to have a Tesla one day.
This is my first time in any EV period.
I went from the DeLorean into the Tesla.
It is quite an experience, I should say.
People, the first thing they notice in an
EV is obviously the silence, the engine’s
not running.
But one thing, David, I did notice is once
you’re rolling, it sounds like.
The sound in the cabin is like most luxury
cars, it’s very quiet in here, versus kind
of a cheaper car like an old 1989 Toyota Corolla
or something like that, you’d hear all of
the road noise and everything.
Actually, what I hear mostly, is the sound
of other car’s engines around me, like that
truck that just passed.
I heard its engine and it’s not even my
car.
Yeah, this is nice, going from retro-future
to actual future.
Yeah, I know there are still detractors out
there that don’t think that EVs are the
future.
But, I’m willing to bet most of them have
never actually ridden in or driven one.
And I know so many people who, that’s what
changed their minds.
Its like, you can read all about it, you can
watch YouTube videos, but until you actually
experience it.
A lot of people think its about environmentalism,
or they think it’s about you know the economics
of saving money at the gas pump or whatever,
but you have to actually get in and drive
one before you really realize, it just immediately
feels like the future to me.
That’s why I was hooked.
And it’s a good.
So, what Elon Musk did was made EVs attractive
and sexy and a product that’s just good
and that people would want to buy.
So, that somebody who doesn’t care about
environmentalism, so to speak, is just going
to think a Tesla is cool either way.
And be interested in the Tesla.
It just so happens that it’s electric and
it’s zero emission and I think he’s onto
something with that.
Well, exactly, and Tesla, because they only
sell electric cars, they have very much incentive
to make the cars as desirable as possible,
where the other manufacturers, they’re like
“well, we don’t want to make our EVs too
attractive because they’ll compete with
our more profitable gas cars.”
And that’s always been this dichotomy that
just changes the whole landscape of how the
cars are designed.
right.
So, we’re driving around the neighborhood
here where all of the astronauts lived.
Johnny over here is filming out the window
so you can see some of the footage.
Now, these homes, they’re nice looking homes.
They’re definitely.
They have that 1960s kind of look to them.
But they’re not like run-down or anything
like that.
They’re.
It’s modest.
yeah.
Yeah, they’re in really good shape.
It’s a neighborhood I wouldn’t mind living
in.
And we’re just, it says 1 minute away from
Neil Armstrong’s home, which looks like
it’s going to be on the left side.
So, all of this B-Roll I’m filming right
now.
We are most definitely passing by other astronauts
houses.
It’s easier just to isolate a couple than
to tell you about every single one.
Just assume that half the houses we’re going
by have been lived in by an astronaut or at
least NASA personnel.
yeah.
So imagine living here and just seeing Neil
Armstrong mowing his yard one Saturday morning.
That’s what it was.
yeah.
We’re looking for 1003, that’s 907.
Is it that fancy one there.
No it’s this one.
We’ll turn around and get it.
We just passed Neil Armstrong’s home.
We’ll get a better shot of it.
We’re going to turn around, we’ll get
a better shot.
Can you imagine living, like in Neil Armstrong’s
home?
Just, every day to know that this is your
house that you live in!
If I was a billionaire, I wouldn’t be trying
to build a mansion, I’d be putting bids
on the astronaut’s houses.
That’s where I’d want to live!
Here’s Neil.
There it is. and whoever lives there.
Awesome.
Neil Armstrong’s house.
In just a normal, quaint neighborhood of Houston.
Now let’s go to Buzz Aldrin’s.
So, we just passed Neil Armstrong’s home,
now we’re headed to Buzz Aldrin’s home
and he literally lives within walking distance.
It’s just like a couple of blocks away.
So, we’ll be there in just a minute.
So, to be clear, Buzz Aldrin at least of the
time of making this video, is actually still
alive.
I know Neil passed away a few years ago.
But I don’t think he still lives in this
house.
This is just where he lived at the time he
was working for NASA.
Alright, we’re almost there, it’s going
to be on the left.
It think we actually passed this one on the
way in.
So, it’s going to be one of these houses
right here.
There’s 204.
So wow, that’s a really unassuming looking
house there, if that’s 206, which is probably
is.
This is where Buzz Aldrin lived.
What’s that say on the door?
It says 206.
Does it?
Ok, it’s a little faded.
Buzz Aldrin’s house, when he worked for
NASA.
He’s got a squirrel living there.
There’s one of his squirrels.
He bud, going to space any time soon?
Have any space nuts?
And so that about wraps up everything I wanted
to show from Houston, so it was time for me
to head back to Dallas.
I want to give out a big thanks to Guy Chapman
in Corsicana and Johnny Hemberger here in
Houston for all of their help.
Johnny took some of this amazing drone footage,
which I think definitely helped make this
episode more interesting.
I would also like to mention his show again.
It’s called Geek Therapy Radio and I have
been a regular guest on the show for quite
a while, along with Clint from LGR and numerous
other technology geeks.
If you liked this episode, just wait for the
trip to Austin.
We had 3 topics here in Houston, I have like
12 planned for Austin.
So, stick around for that one, and thanks
for watching!
