Rearranging Deck Chairs on the Titanic

I had a moment of confusion this morning at the Harris County Criminal Justice Center, when I hopped on one of the building's infamous elevators. The normal, dark wood paneling with the flimsy metal borders and carved graffiti interior had been replaced with shiny metal. The dark gray flooring had been replaced with a pinkish tile. It looked space-aged compared to the previous bucket of bolts that had been the trademark of the inefficient transport system that we have all come to know and hate at the CJC. The little floor monitor thingy that (on days when it was working) told elevator occupants what floor we were stopping on no longer utilized the glowing red, digital numerals found on 1990's-era alarm clocks (and timers for bomb countdowns in spy movies). It had been replaced by a cool new video monitor that showed the floor we were on, superimposed over an image of the CJC! It was all very exciting. In the two years and five months since Hurricane Har